This should not surprise, but it is in fact a misdirection:

Gay-rights activists could score victory at the ballot box in Maine on Tuesday, as voters head to the polls to decide whether to repeal a law that would allow same-sex marriage.

The law was passed by the Legislature and signed by Democratic Gov. John Baldacci last May, but has never taken effect. If voters uphold the law, Maine will become the first state to endorse same-sex marriage by popular referendum, energizing activists nationwide and deflating a long-standing conservative argument that gay marriage lacks popular support.

Why do we keep having the wrong debate on this issue in America?

Oh, wait a second: we can't have an honest debate of the real issues when it comes to virtually anything related to the essential enslavement of the population, lest they pick up pitchforks and torches!

And let's be straight with everyone - that's exactly what should have happened years ago with regard to "marriage laws."

"Marriage" according to Websters, is:

Main Entry: mar·riage

Pronunciation: \ˈmer-ij, ˈma-rij\

Function: noun

Etymology: Middle English mariage, from Anglo-French, from marier to marry

Date: 14th century

1 a (1) : the state of being united to a person of the opposite sex as husband or wife in a consensual and contractual relationship recognized by law (2) : the state of being united to a person of the same sex in a relationship like that of a traditional marriage <same-sex marriage> b : the mutual relation of married persons : wedlock c : the institution whereby individuals are joined in a marriage
2 : an act of marrying or the rite by which the married status is effected; especially : the wedding ceremony and attendant festivities or formalities
3 : an intimate or close union <the marriage of painting and poetry — J. T. Shawcross>

Note that the 1(a)2 definition covers by incorporating the first definition for same-sex couples.

Ok.

But wait: 1(a)1 is fraudulent.

The very essence of a contract embodies:

• Offer
• Acceptance
• Performance

With all three being defined.

Now consider two people who married in 1945, right after WWII.  They took vows that almost undoubtedly included the premise of "until death do us part" (and not by the other partner's hand!), along with a declaration of union of resource that could only be broken apart by fault, with that fault being fully assessable against the party who committed the wrong.

But over the next 30 years that premise was changed without the consent of the parties.  Government stood up and modified the bargain, not because the two parties both wanted to, but because either one of them did or worse, because some other pressure group wanted it.

Even today if you walk into a Catholic (and most other Christian) churches during a wedding you will hear a variation of the old vows, in which "until death do us part" is an inherent element.  Yet you will then hear the celebrant say:

".... by the authority vested in my by God and the state of XXXX, I pronounce you man and wife."

Huh?

The State of XXXX has in fact rendered that vow you took a legal nullity, and what's worse, you not only swore a false oath before God but the celebrant knowingly participated in the fraud!

I often write about frauds upon the public in my Ticker columns, but this is, in my opinion, far more serious.  Fraud upon the public is punishable by the government under the law, at least if you're a "little person" - the big guys, of course, get away with it daily, as we have repeatedly seen.

But fraud upon God is a different matter.  He doesn't have a definition of "little people", at least not that I know of (while I may be on a first-name basis with him, I've yet to hear a booming voice from Heaven!)  Indeed, most religious beliefs would make the claim that we're all "little people" in this regard, and that The Devil is perfectly happy to burn people like Paulson just as he'll take me, and irrespective of where you stood in life, in death we're all naked with our bodies eaten by snakes, with whatever is left either ascending or descending, as our acts on Earth deserve.

I find it disconcerting (to put it mildly) that those who bang the bible (or any other holy book of choice) loudest are the biggest defenders of a statist system that is an utter fraud - and a fraud upon the very God that is claimed to guide both words and deeds.

Yes, we need reform in this regard, but it is not to commit an even bigger fraud upon the public and God.  Specifically, if we are to have a recognition of "marriage" at all by state actors we must bring it into alignment with what is promised and stated before God.

That is:

• Marriage is a contract between two people, and must be honored and enforced as entered into before whatever view of divinity, including none if desired (e.g. a Justice of the Peace) is being called upon.
  
  
• Government, if it wishes to reserve the right to disallow certain combinations or promises, must review and pass or reject those combinations and promises BEFORE issuing a "marriage license."  I propose that a couple who presents requesting such a license should file their vows (including whatever terms they may accede for dissolution in the future, including property and custody rights, along with determination of fault, if any) with the license.  Both the state and the respective religious institution thus would have the right to accept or reject those terms prospectively.
  
  
• Having accepted those terms (if the government does) such would be indelibly filed and only enforced but never modified in the future by that very same government.

This both resolves the matter of government making ex-post facto changes to agreements and laws (which happens to be blatantly unconstitutional) and also reserves the right of both government and houses of worship to refuse to endorse combinations or agreements that they find contrary to public policy for whatever reason they so choose.

If gay people wish to be married in a house of worship that permits such, that's none of my damn business. 

Using this issue as a lever to promote further blatantly-unconstitutional ex-post-facto revisions to agreements long since made by force of the state is an outrage, and one that no individual, straight or gay, should sit still for.

Btw, for those who have sent nasty comments (that I have refused to publish) claiming that this is some sort of "gay-bashing" campaign, stuff it.  Here's a PDF copy of a letter I sent to the Pensacola Archdiocese bearing (in part) on this matter - in January of 2002.  My views on this matter have been consistent for well over a decade, have absolutely nothing to do with whether one is gay or straight, and are not going to change any time soon.  Oh, and due to the Archdiocese's refusal to even discuss this matter, I am no longer a practicing Catholic.  Stick that in your respective pipes and smoke it!

I'm stunned.

Washington DC and many of the so-called "drive by" media are trying to play off the "Tea Parties" as some sort of right-wing partisan thing.

They're wrong. 

I was one of the first to call for mailing Tea Bags to legislators.  Here's the proof:

Therefore, on February 1st, which is more than enough time for Barack Obama to be seated in his chair in the West Wing, I am recommending an act of peaceful, lawful and yet unmistakable protest.

That is, to mail President Obama one teabag.  Nothing dangerous, nothing illegal - just one teabag.

Send one to your Congressman and one to each Senator.

Posted on January 20th.

And by the way, I stole it from Tickerforum, where it was suggested.

To those who wish to call me some sort of "right-wing hack" I will simply reply that you have not been reading The Ticker.  I have been an equal-opportunity rabid dog with my mighty Internet Pen, calling on the carpet both Democrats and Republicans in their mishandling and outright complicity in this economic mess.

Washington is known for not listening to The States or The People.  Proof?  300:1 dissent from The People on TARP's passage - they passed it anyway.  That 300:1 dissent partially was the reason for President Obama's victory.  He didn't give a damn, and not only has continued the bailouts he has refused to prosecute the thieves.

Several states have passed "non-binding" resolutions asserting their 10th Amendment rights.  A "non-binding" resolution is just a feel-good thing to placate the populace.

But one state - Montana - has gone further.

Montana has asserted both Second and Tenth Amendment rights, and the state did so not with a "non-binding resolution" but with an actual law that has the force of law and enforcement by the State's right to use force, including, presumptively, The State National Guard!

What was that law?

Read the summary:

AN ACT EXEMPTING FROM FEDERAL REGULATION UNDER THE COMMERCE CLAUSE OF THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES A FIREARM, A FIREARM ACCESSORY, OR AMMUNITION MANUFACTURED AND RETAINED IN MONTANA; AND PROVIDING AN APPLICABILITY DATE.

How long will it take before every firearms and ammunition manufacturer locates in Montana?  15, maybe 20 minutes?

Washington DC is not the Seat of Power in our nation.  If you think it is, go read The Declaration of Independence again - you know, that pesky document that a handful of men were willing to die in order to write and disseminate a couple hundred years ago, and without which America would not exist?

The Federal Government has specific enumerated powers, among them the duty to provide for the common defense of the several states.  But Social Security, Medicare, Education and intrastate commerce in all its forms are not within its purview.  Neither is the right or ability to abrogate The Constitution except through the lawful process of amendment as directly provided therein.

There are many, including some who I used to consider "friends", that have asserted that there is absolutely no chance that The States or The People would take back their rights from The Federal Government absent a violent revolution, and some of them, sadly, seem to want to see that day come.

I disagree, have in fact severed contact with former friends over this disagreement, and submit as my evidence The State of Montana.

A peaceful declaration of both Second and Tenth Amendment Rights occurred yesterday.  Not one shot was fired, not one person was murdered. 

Instead, the soapbox and ballot box prevailed, exactly as it should.

I call upon the several states - all of them - to similarly assert their 10th and 2nd Amendment rights.  To follow in Montana's footsteps.  To withdraw their consent to unlawful interference in intrastate affairs as a means of forcing Washington DC to come to its senses and prosecute the outrageous fraud and theft that has been committed against The States and The People by a small group of monied interests that have literally stolen several trillion dollars from those States and The People.

If you live in a State that has passed or introduced a "10th Amendment Resolution" (including Texas, Michigan, Wisconsin, North Dakota, Illinois, West Virginia, Ohio, Nevada, Oregon, Alabama, Mississippi, Idaho, New Mexico, South Dakota, Virginia, Kentucky, Alaska, Indiana, Tennessee, Arkansas, Minnesota, South Carolina, Georgia, Kansas, New Hampshire, Missouri, Iowa, Arizona, Washington or Okalhoma) get on the phone to your state reps and senators and demand that this "resolution" (whether it succeeded or failed) be upgraded to a BILL and passed as a LAW.

If you live in state that has not introduced same, start pestering your representative and senator to introduce one - again, as a bill and then LAW, not as a toothless "resolution."

We live in a Constitutional Republic folks.  Federal Government power is not unlimited - it is, in fact, limited specifically to the enumerated powers set forth in The Constitution, with the remainder reserved to The States and The People.

Congress has routinely ignored this fact with the EESA/TARP being the most outrageous example of The Will of The People being ignored in a generation's time.

It is time to take our nation back through lawful and Constitutionally-protected political process.

It begins with you.

This sort of thing makes me ill:

CASSELBERRY, Fla. - A central Florida woman who fatally shot her son then killed herself at a shooting range wrote in suicide notes to her boyfriend that she was trying to save her son.

"I'm so sorry," Marie Moore wrote several times. "I had to send my son to heaven and myself to Hell."

The mother in question who did this was ineligible to own a firearm:

Mitchell's father, Charles Moore, told police that Marie Moore had a history of mental illness and had previously attempted suicide and been involuntarily committed to a mental hospital in 2002 under the state's Baker Act.

One of the questions on form 4473 deals specifically with mental incompetence, specifically, whether you have ever been adjudicated mentally incompetent. 

Florida's "Baker Act" is the statute under which someone can be involuntarily committed as a risk to themself or others due to mental instability.

It appears that the firearms that were being used had been rented at the range, which is legal (as it should be); this allows one to go to a gun range, rent a few firearms and fire them to test their "fit" to you before you purchase one.

Needless to say random acts of mass-murder are rather tough to commit at a gun range, as everyone there is armed (duh!)

However, this also points out that random acts of single-murder followed by a suicide are impossible to prevent, even if you are in the company of a group of people who are all armed and able to defend themselves.

I would not be surprised to see the NICS (instant background check) system proposed to be extended to ranges as a result of this event if one wants to rent a firearm.  Perhaps this is appropriate given that it is not hard to argue that a rental, even within the confines of the range property, is a temporary "transfer" of the firearm to the person involved, and that this "transfer" is occurring in commerce (that is, you typically pay a fee for rental of the firearm to the range, as one would expect given that it has to be purchased and, once you've used it, it must be cleaned and maintained.)  That's the definition under which the NICS ("Brady Law") was conceived, even though I personally believe the Brady Law is fatally flawed as every criminal shooting that takes place proves that crooks don't care about and don't adhere to firearms laws just like they don't pay attention to laws against murder, rape, robbery, drug running and carjacking. 

I believe the statistics on this point are clear - the more restrictive the firearms laws, on balance, the more crime.  This is just plain common sense; the "bad guys" would much rather their victims not be armed, as it increases their odds of getting away with their crime.  In those states that have gone from restrictive firearms policies to permissive ones, violent crimes (with and without firearms) have dropped, in many cases precipitously so (normed to the rest of the nation), and yet those states that have imposed more restrictive firearms policies have either not seen materially better statistics (normed to the rest of the nation) or have seen their statistics worsen.

The poster child for this is of course Washington DC which (until Heller) had the most restrictive gun laws in the nation.  This, of course, hasn't prevented the bad guys from both obtaining handguns and using them with disastrous results for the (unarmed, law-abiding) citizens.

20/20 did a "hit piece" on personal firearms ownership the other day, and it was a doozy.  Their claim that "packing heat" is worse than worthless belies a few outright lies: first, their "assailant" in the exercises was a trained police officer while the "citizens" were not and second he was told who was armed before he came into the room. 

If you tell an assailant in advance about the one person in the room who is armed, you now are devolving the use of defensive force into a debate about quality of training and practice, and little else.

In the real world it doesn't work that way.  In the real world the assailant has no clue who is and who is not armed until he barrels into the room and starts firing.  If he selects the wrong initial target, he eats a round or two himself and if he winds up with multiple defensively-armed people that are at disparate angles from his location he must take his eyes off at least one of them to attempt to shoot the other; leaving the first defender with an "uncovered" shot to stop him.

But even under these contrived, intentionally-designed-to-fail scenarios, one of the "armed citizens" won, although 20/20 didn't present it that way.  That "armed citizen" scored a groin shot.  This was considered a "loss" by 20/20 as it was a "miss" (the intent was to shoot at center-of-mass) but since the essential purpose of a defensive shooting is to stop the assault - that is, disable the attacker - does anyone here believe that a shot to the groin would not have succeeded in that goal? If you're a man and have been kicked in the balls, you tell me how much fight you had left in you.

20/20 also apparently couldn't manage to find even one successful defensive use of a firearm.  This had to be due to willful blindness as I found one with a glance at the local paper:

Rick Crider, 52, killed Reba Crider, 49, on Jan. 25 inside the home in the 10300 block of Aileron Avenue, off West U.S. 98.

"My wife just took a shot at me," Crider told a 911 dispatcher. "I killed her."

In a report released Thursday, Assistant State Attorney David Rimmer concluded that Reba Crider, who was outside, fired a single shot through a kitchen window in her husband's direction.

He returned five shots in self-defense, using a gun he kept atop his refrigerator, according to Rimmer. She was struck in her chest, right hand and right arm.

The rest of the article makes clear that this wasn't exactly a "friendly marriage", but when you shoot into someone's home from the outside it is rather clear what your intent is; the DA has investigated and found wanting any cause for prosecution.  Of course without a firearm, the husband would have been defending against his wife's bullets with his bare hands.

Nor do we have to look far to find non-firearms killings.  How about "beer and cars"?

Joseph Stewart said he drank three beers as he played a round of golf at Tiger Point Golf Club, an investigator testified Wednesday at a Santa Rosa County detention hearing.

Within 20 minutes after he left the course on April 1 to go home, Stewart had two crashes.

The second crash left 25-year-old Bartholomew Cole of Gulf Breeze dead and two passengers injured. Stewart is charged with DUI manslaughter, DUI with serious bodily injury, DUI with property damage and vehicular manslaughter.

If you look in your local rag you can likely find several similar incidents, none of which involve firearms.

Yet nobody is (seriously) calling for banning either beer or cars.

There have been a number of recent shootings, and one must wonder if the incidence is related to the current set of economic conditions, in that stress levels have, in general, been high and rising across the board.

But when I sadly count the rounds and the dead, I am left with the same inescapable conclusions that I have every other time I've looked at this issue over the years:

• The majority of the shootings are committed by people who are ineligible to own firearms due to some (legitimate) legal disability.  We simply refuse to enforce existing law, although this has improved.  NICS checks in many places now take place "online" via the encoding on a purchaser's driver license, and I've heard reports of NICS inquiries being routed to the mobile data terminals in squad cars if the intended purchaser has outstanding wants or warrants.  That's what I call "a good thing."
• There are some 14,000 homicides (and a similar number of suicides) committed with firearms a year in the United States.  However, there are somewhere between 800,000 and 2.5 million defensive uses of firearms annually. These aren't the numbers from either a "gun banning" or "gun advocacy" group (e.g. The Brady folks or the NRA) - they are an estimate from the Department of Justice.
• Even the most critical "study", one which focused only on actual victims of crimes (that is, resulting in a police report) and which would trap someone into admitting to possession of a firearm where it might not be lawful (e.g. in the City of Chicago) came up with an estimate of over 100,000 annual defensive uses.  Yet most defensive uses of firearms result in no police report as no shots are fired, the intended felony is not completed, and in the majority of these cases either no or nearly no property damage takes place (e.g. a single broken window); ergo, these criminal attempts often go unreported.

There is also the Second Amendment issue.  Heller was the first direct ruling on the Second Amendment by the United States Supreme Court in a very, very long time; the previous ruling is the famous US .v. Miller (1939) which is often MIS-cited.

See, Miller in fact held two things:

1. It was lawful for the government to prohibit the ownership of a shotgun with a barrel of less than 18 inches.
2. That the term "militia", in historical context, meant all males physically capable of acting in concert for the common defense, and further that when called for service these men were expected to appear bearing arms supplied by themselves and of the kind in common use at the time.

It is obviously impossible for Miller to thus be interpreted as somehow conferring only a "collective" right to bear arms (e.g. as part of The National Guard or similar), since the second point above could not be true in such a circumstance.

What those who wish to write about firearms and their regulation conveniently forget is that The Second Amendment is not about defensive use of firearms to prevent crimes, or even about hunting.

Those two uses are both convenient side effects that benefit society tremendously.  The prevention or cessation of over 1 million felonies a year is certainly a tremendous benefit to society, and the management of game populations by lawful hunting activity is necessary to promote and protect the health of various animals that otherwise lack sufficient natural predatory pressure (that lack, by the way, is also mostly of our doing!)

No, The Second Amendment, if one bothers to read The Federalist and The Antifederalist, is clear in intention.

The Second Amendment exists as the final check and balance on government against the usurpation of the other nine Amendments in The Bill of Rights, along with the text of the Constitution itself.

In fact, it is the precise existence of The Second Amendment, standing as originally written, that is our best guarantee that it will never need to be used.

Each time we permit The Second Amendment to be diluted, chipped away at or otherwise tampered with we come closer to the day in which we will need it and not have it.

History is replete with examples; Hitler's Third Reich began with the mandatory registration of all firearms, which was readily agreed to by the citizens "for the common protection."  That was shortly followed by confiscation, literally door-to-door, with a few resisters being publicly shot.  Having secured essentially all of the civilian firearms Hitler was then of course free to commit the rest of his evil deeds with little chance of the people rising up against him (they tried anyway, many times, all of which were failures and most of which led to death by summary execution of the protagonists.)

Nor is it always The State that takes advantage when firearms are confiscated; a more recent example is in Australia, where a lunatic in 1995 shot 35 people.  The uproar resulted in a complete ban of all semi-automatic weapons, leading to their confiscation and destruction.

Unfortunately violent crime increased; within 12 months of enactment of that law armed robberies were up a whopping 44 percent, and there was a 300% increase in homicides in one Australian State (Victoria.)  Two years later, in 1998, South Australia had recorded a 60% increase in robberies with a firearm.

So much for gun bans actually managing to decrease the number of bad guys with guns!

The logic here folks should be obvious:

If I am willing to commit a violent felony, whether it be rape, robbery or murder, I have already decided to ignore the law prohibiting this conduct and inflict intentional harm on other people.  As such we are now reduced to one simple question: do the intended victims of these crimes have a right to fight back with the only device known to man that equalizes the strength of assailant and defending citizen, or are the intended victims of such a criminal expected to simply "lie down and take it"?

If it is your wife, daughter, grandmother or niece that is the intended victim of a 250lb drug-crazed rapist are you willing to tell her that she is prohibited by the law from defending herself with the only device known to man that will render her 120lb mind and body the precise equal of that assailant?

Note that this decision - one that would be hers and hers alone - does not mean she will win in such a confrontation.  Rather, it is a question of basic human rights - do you, or do you not, have a personal right of self-defense against a felonious thug who intends you great bodily harm (or worse.)

Yet this question - one that should be at the forefront of your cognitive process in this debate - is a secondary beneficial side effect to the very reason we have a Second Amendment.

The primary reason The Second Amendment exists is to prevent Auschwitz, and all that came with it, from happening here, and the unfortunate truth is that the annals of recorded history prove that it is only a right of personal arms possession that prevents it.  If you doubt this see Switzerland - both in terms of it's violent crime rate and history through two World Wars.

I rest my case.

Gee, you folks who thought Obama was the be-all and end-all to "solve" violations of The Constitution under President Bush:

A pair of bills introduced in the U.S. Senate would grant the White House sweeping new powers to access private online data, regulate the cybersecurity industry and even shut down Internet traffic during a declared "cyber emergency."

Senate bills No. 773 and 778, introduced by Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.V., are both part of what's being called the Cybersecurity Act of 2009, which would create a new Office of the National Cybersecurity Advisor, reportable directly to the president and charged with defending the country from cyber attack.

This sounds reasonable, at first blush.

But I've read the actual draft bill that allegedly was proffered, and while most of the time what is published on WND is about as diametrically opposed politically to my views, this isn't one of those times.

On page 21 and 22 it is established not only certification of "security professionals" in the computer field but mandatory licensing for anyone performing compute security services not only to the government but also to any "critical infrastructure system or network."

This would immediately make part of what I do - selling spam-interdiction software to state and local public safety organizations such as police departments - unlawful unless I went through whatever "process" the government sets forth.

Got that?  As a guy who has been writing spam filtering software for more than a decade, as the guy who first offered it to his ISP customers back in the 1990s as part of our service to every user, what I did in the 1990s would be made illegal (since we had literally thousands of accounts billed to a government agency of one form or another) and my provision and support of that software ("Spamblock-Sys") would be unlawful going forward unless I submitted to whatever licensing criteria the government set forth in the future.

Might I be willing to submit to that?  Maybe.  Will it dramatically increase the cost of that software?  Absolutely.  Who's going to pay for it?  You are, in higher taxes.

Second, page 40 has some truly frightening implications, among them granting The Department of Commerce plenary authority to invade networks and access the data therein irrespective of Constitutional or legal restrictions against that action.

Finally, there is a provision within this draft allowing The President to order disconnection of any "critically important" infrastructure - but it does not define what that is, once again, granting effective plenary authority to The President to silence communications irrespective of Constitutional protections regarding Free Speech.

First Amendment?

What First Amendment?

Gee, I wonder if the Second Amendment means anything these days, and whether we'll defend that if we won't defend The First!

Ok, I've about had it.

Within hours of John McCain announcing that his VP choice was Sarah Palin, Governor or Alaska, the rumor mill got going trying to destroy her.

First was the claim that her last child, Trig, who has Downs, was actually her daughter's - that she had fraudulently concealed her daughter giving birth.

That was quite-quickly disproven with a photo that showed an obviously-pregnant Sarah Palin.  Oops.

Next up they went after Mrs. Palin's daughter with the (true) claim that she is in fact pregnant now, and every possible means of attack was launched.

On my forum the attacks included innuendos that this was caused by an "abstinence only" belief by her parents all the way to the possibility that she was raped!

Folks, this sort of crap is blatantly out-of-bounds and both candidates have now said so, including Obama himself in the national media.

I am outraged at this blatant exploitation of candidate's children in this regard, and let me remind the "liberal left" that Obama was born when his mother was 18 - and there is question as to whether she was married at the time of conception!

This has exactly nothing to do with legitimate political debate. It does, however, have everything to do with forcing the indoctrination of our children against the expressed wishes of the parents of said kids.

And there I draw the line.

My daughter has a good friend who's parents are strictly religious.  He is forbidden to see certain movies that I personally think are great fantasy, such as Harry Potter, on religious grounds, among other restrictions.

I have no right to demand that this child be given access to material that his parents find offensive in their particular religious milieu; indeed, our First Amendment says quite the opposite, in bold, black print.

Now either you believe in our Constitution or you do not.  If you do then a parent's decision on what to teach their children about religion and all matters related to it, including human sexuality, is none of your damn business.

It is my considered position that "sex education" in our schools is absolutely out of bounds in all forms just as is demand that someone attend a Bible Class.  BOTH are exactly equal.  You do not need to teach abstinence (or birth control methods) to teach the biology of sexual reproduction, nor the biology of disease progression.  Both can be taught without any sort of religious or socio-political overtone, and should be.

But the indoctrination of our children in matters religious is explicitly barred in government schools by the United States Constitution in the First Amendment's establishment clause. 

Period.

The fact of the matter is that The Hard Left is absolutely apeshit over Sarah Palin.  There is no way to know how this pans out over time, but the idea that McCain would nominate a religious conservative woman who willingly bore a Down's child with full knowledge of the consequences utterly trashes entire realms of attack on the Republican campaign and leaves the Democrats exposed to extreme negative public reaction should they attempt it anyway.

The result was an outpouring of scurrilous nonsense and Obama was wise to say "stop it!" - although that it took him three days was curious.  I suspect he was spending those three days taking polls and sticking his finger in the air, and only when it dawned on him and his advisers that trying to attack a 17 year old who got pregnant might end up blowing up in his face as his own birth is dangerously close to that very scenario did he step up.

But whatever prompted him to put a stop to it, I'm glad he did. 

Now let's have a debate on the underlying issues - whether our government schools have any business teaching this sort of thing - in any way, shape or form.

If you answer "Yes", then I hope you're prepared to launch an immediate amendment to the Constitution to allow it, because as The Constitution stands today such instruction, no matter which form it takes, is explicitly barred by law.

Period.

Amusing; Robert Reich who has never been known to manage anything close to the truth in his speech, wrote quite a screed on "McCainonomics .vs. Obamanomics"

If only he had a brain.  Pull up Sir Robert's idiocy and follow along; his claim is that McCain's program devolves down into:

1. Tax breaks to "the rich."

2. Tax breaks and fewer regulations for corporations.

3. Drill drill drill.

4. Insure Wall Street against losses (with taxpayer money)

Ok, let's rip this apart piece by piece.

First, 1 and 2 are non-events.  McCain won't have a majority of either House of Congress, therefore we will get tax increases irrespective of what anyone wants.  There simply aren't the votes to prevent the Bush Tax Cuts from expiring.  Deal with it.

#3 sounds interesting but in fact there's more to this.  See, it is the Democrats and specifically the left-wing ideologues who have prevented any sort of sustainable energy program in the United States for the last 30 years.  Bob Reich is one of those people.  An inconvenient fact.

As just one example, for several years Diesel engines in passenger cars were banned in California.  Why?  It was technologically impossible at the time for them to meet one state's emission standards.  So as a consequence you couldn't buy them, never mind that they get 30% more miles from a gallon of fuel than gasoline vehicles do.

Conservation?  Mandate compression-ignition engines and you go a long way toward making that happen.  But no!  We can't have actual solutions that work.

Drill drill drill?  How about "nuke nuke nuke"?  None in the last 30 years.  Why?  Lawsuits and blockage from Democrats.  Oooohhhhhh its so SSSSCCCAAAARRRRYYYYY.

Does Nuclear Power come with risk?  Yes.  Now show me a technology that does not.  Good luck.

You want to grow GDP, you must grow energy output.  Period.  This is a fact and no amount of whining changes it.

As for the Credit Markets, I've yet to hear McCain or Obama say anything about actually fixing that problem.  Fixing it means locking up the people who did the evil things, which just happens to include a lot of powerful people and a whole bunch of common Americans too.  Mortgage fraud was pervasive up and down the line, but this problem wasn't confined to mortgages, it was literally everywhere.  We can start with Congresspeople who got $70,000 worth of "benefit" from below-market mortgage rates from Countrywide.  What say you Bob?

Ok, now let's look at Obamanomics, which Reich identifies as:

1. Productivity of workers.

2. Education, health and infrastructure (paid for by government)

3. 1 + 2 makes capital come here

4. Non-oil and non-carbon energy, plus conservation, are the answer.

5. "Improve financial security of average Americans."

Ok.  Let's take 'em on.

1 and 2.  Pay for it by government.  Uh, how?  Government doesn't make anything.  To pay for this therefore, the people must pony up.  Now we can either extract this by force and give it from one person to another, or we can effort to make the fruits of that expenditure available more to individuals and thereby incent them to spend and invest in themselves.

Which works better?  Open question, but this much is for certain - welfare in all its forms has done damn little to benefit anyone except the government agencies that run the programs.

#3 - see #1 and #2.  Oh, and how do you deal with the fact that we allow the Chinese to build DVD players for export to our shores; they're much "more productive" per unit of cost, but that has a lot to do with being paid 25 cents/hour along with being threatened in various forms if they won't work hard, fast or long enough.  Does Obamanomics address this "wage arbitrage" that is founded upon abuse of people?  Apparently not, because I've heard nothing of it.

#4; energy.  Conservation can't fix this.  Neither can non-carbon-based anything.  Like it or not, thermodynamics get in the way.  We can move to a sustainable non-petroleum infrastructure for transportation fuels, and we can move rail to electrified service, but to do both we need nukes, and lots of them.  Hundreds.  This means totally gutting the ability of environmentalist whack jobs like The Sierra Club to slow down or outright obstruct these plants.

#5; improving financial security.  Well that one's easy Bob.  Stop trying to give people a free lunch and stop telling them they can have one.

Really.  See, it wasn't long ago that a middle-class house for a family of four was 1100 square feet with three small bedrooms, a living room, an eat-in-kitchen and a 20x15 living room, plus one bathroom containing a tub, two sinks and a toilet.

How do I know?  I grew up in one.  My father was a CPA.

Today such a home would be considered "ghetto".  Its not big enough.  It didn't have Air Conditioning.  It had a black-and-white TV - one - and one telephone, wired to the wall, with basic phone service that cost a few dollars a month.  We had two cars, but only one was "nice"; the other, for my mother, who didn't work, was pretty much an older piece of junk.  It started and ran, but too had no air conditioning or fancy stereo - just an AM radio.

Today, nobody is willing to live like that and yet this is why we're in such trouble.  Everyone in the so-called "middle class" needs two European or Japanese cars; an old beater is not good enough.  Our houses have $500 monthly air conditioning bills, partly because we have (and use it) and partly because a 1100 square foot home isn't big enough for a family of four - we need twice or even three times as much space to be "middle class."  We don't cut our own lawns, we have a lawn boy.  Telephone?  Cellular please, one for each family member - $150/month.  TV?  $80 cable bill (instead of the 4 stations over-the-air we used to get with an antenna we lashed to our chimney)

The truth, Robert, is that nobody wants to hear the truth.

40 years ago when I was young (but sentient) my parents wrote a check when I needed to go to the doctor.  We didn't have fancy machines or fancy drugs. Life went on.  Sure, some people died sooner, but we didn't spend 25% of our federal budget on trying to get you one more year of life, nor did we spend anything from the public budget on your lung cancer if you were silly enough to smoke.  Yeah, I know, they didn't say it was bad for you - but everyone knew it was.  Same with booze.

You want to show me a candidate that will address any of this please?  It certainly isn't either Obama or McCain.

Obama wants to spend money we don't have, and McCain wants to look the other way while people rob us of money we don't have.  The difference?  Semantics.

Obama tries to claim he's "not in the pocket of Wall Street."  Opensecrets.org says otherwise.  McCain doesn't even bother running that line of claptrap.

Reality, Robert, is this:

1. We cannot give everyone health care on the government (that is, our) backs to the limit of their desire to ask for it.  The money doesn't exist, so says the CBO.  Remember David Walker?  He's the former Comptroller General, knows the numbers better than anyone, and agrees with me.
2. We can't have $30 DVD players made in China and a strong, high-quality and high-paid labor force in America.  So long as we offshore our manufacturing to places that allow people to literally be enslaved for pennies an hour sewing our jeans, along with permitting illegal immigrants to come into this country and pick strawberries so we pay 25 cents/quart less, global wage arbitrage insures that we sink our boat while theirs rises.  Governments where the people cannot strike, cannot speak out, cannot even demonstrate during The Olympics are not presiding over a free people and their economic systems are no more free than their right to speak.  We must choose as Americans between those $30 DVD players and quality jobs here at home.
3. We can't solve our energy problems, either in quantity or cost, with conservation.  Further, if we want to grow our economy, we must grow energy output.  Period.  The options are few for short-time relief, and drilling is one of the most immediate and sensible.  Intermediate term we need nukes, and lots of them.  Longer-term we need to focus on a viable hydrocarbon fuel that doesn't come out of a straw.  We can get there - blue-green algae aquaculture is one of the better potential solutions, but doing so requires that we prepare for a future in which vehicles are compression-ignition based and flex-fuel capable.  This will mean giving up some of our "clear air" demands, in the short term.  Life is about trade-offs; we get rid of coal as a generating fuel for electricity and trade nuclear for it, but we increase emissions somewhat from vehicles.  Its worth it, and we should go that direction.
4. Our Capital Markets will not be the place to attract anything until we clean out the corruption and fraud.  It starts with Congress.  Those Congresspeople who got benefits from mortgage lenders all must go - out of office, and into jail.  All lenders, bankers, hedge fund managers and others in the Wall Street business who committed fraud, without exception, need to go to Federal "pound me in the butt" prison.  No exceptions.  If we want a capital market system that attracts and hold foreign capital, we need a clean system that is beyond reproach.  Are you up to calling for REAL reform Robert, or just slinging mud?
5. Taxes must shift to consumption and away from income.  You want to encourage investment?  Then stop taxing it.  The Fair Tax is the only plan I've seen on the board in detail that does the job, gets the poor off the tax roles and removes the IRS from everyone's life.  The rich pay more if they choose to live rich; if not, they have lots of capital to invest, and that returns its value all on its own.  Taxing income is idiotic and counter-productive, not to mention leading to an entire industry on "K" street that exists only to game the system for their benefit and everyone else's loss.

Its time stop lying to America Robert, and you're one of the liars.

If you're serious about Change We Can Believe In, then how come you're not pounding Obama over the head with these facts?

What is your real agenda Bob?  Are you truly interested in bettering America, or are you interested in buttering the age-old political hacksterism for which both Democrat and Republican have become famous?

Let's find out.

So now we get the truth about China.

Its ALL a fake.

"The little girl who starred at the Olympic opening ceremony was miming and only put on stage because the real singer was not considered attractive enough, the show's musical director has revealed.

Pigtailed Lin Miaoke was selected to appear because of her cute appearance and did not sing a note, Chen Qigang, the general music designer of the ceremony, said in an interview with a state broadcaster aired Tuesday.

Photographs of Lin in a bright red party dress were published in newspapers and websites all over the world and the official China Daily hailed her as a rising star on Tuesday.

But Chen said the girl whose voice was actually heard by the 91,000 capacity crowd at the Olympic stadium during the spectacular ceremony was in fact seven-year-old Yang Peiyi, who has a chubby face and uneven teeth.

"The reason why little Yang was not chosen to appear was because we wanted to project the right image, we were thinking about what was best for the nation," Chen said in an interview that appeared briefly on the news website Sina.com before it was apparently wiped from the Internet in China."

Let me make myself clear:

YOU EVIL, ANIMAL BASTARDS.

You think you can call a 7-year old girl TOO UGLY to represent your nation by singing at the opening ceremonies, and then instead of choosing someone else, you stole her voice and associated it with someone who it did not belong to.

Fuck you China.

The world needs to put a stop to this shit.  It is evil enough that you got people to register for your "protest zones" and then refused to issue the permits, so now (as soon as the Olympics are over) you can round them all up and either imprison (or more likely, shoot) them.

But when you stoop to child abuse, and that's exactly what you did here, you have gone too fucking far.

As for the IOC, fuck you too.

And as for the sponsors of the Olympics? 

You can all eat horsecrap.  I will buy exactly NOTHING that any of you make, and I believe that the world should boycott ALL of you.

Got it?

Good.

I think Yang Peiyi is both gorgeous and has a beautiful voice, while the government of China sucks hairy monkey balls and deserves to be stabbed to death with chopsticks for this stunt.  I'd even go so far, were I a Senator or Representative, to introduce a bill to declare all of the Treasury and MBS debt that China holds worth zero.

Oh, and I volunteer to wield the chopsticks.

So now we learn that the "dramatic" fireworks - showing more than a dozen simultaneous launch points - during the Olympic Opening Ceremonies - were in fact a expansive - and expensive - digital gimmick.

China, of course, has exactly one "news source" for the Olympics - them.  Their cameras, their feeds.  As such all of our "western media" had only their feeds to use, and we did.

Of course nobody told us at the time that this was all an elaborate digital ruse.

So now The Olympics join the rest of China in being a fraud.

They steal our software, our cellphone designs, and our machinery.  They copy it all without regard to the owner of that intellectual property or bothering to pay for it.

We allow this all in the name of "free trade", when in fact the only thing "free" is their theft of everything we produce with our mental power and acuity here in The United States.

They then have the gall to create an elaborate digital ruse for the Olympics, after banning any sort of free speech (their "protest zones" are amazingly quiet - they created them, then refused to issue any permits to actually use them) and in fact violating a promise that for reporters, the Internet would remain open and uncensored.

The IOC?  It does nothing.  The US?  President Bush shows up and allows our athletes to "compete."  The Chinese field a team of "women" gymnasts, who under the rules must all by at least 16 on the year of the competition, who have no breasts and I bet not one piece of pubic hair under their spandex - my money is on none of those girls being older than 14, with most being 12.

Advantage?  Oh sure, being lighter works.  Never mind the permanent damage that an injury can do to a 12 year old who has a bad fall.

But its all in the name of "face", you see, and we Americans tolerate it.

Fuck that.  My TV is remaining solidly tuned elsewhere for the next two weeks.

Thanks China for now pointing out what we all knew - its all a facade behind the smoggy, polluted and poisonous atmosphere in Beijing, irrespective of whether you're talking about the air or your government.

HELD: The Second Amendment confers an INDIVIDUAL right to keep and bear arms

(a) The Amendment’s prefatory clause announces a purpose, but does not limit or expand the scope of the second part, the operative clause. The operative clause’s text and history demonstrate that it connotes an individual right to keep and bear arms.

(b) The prefatory clause comports with the Court’s interpretation 2 DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA v. HELLER Syllabus of the operative clause. The “militia” comprised all males physically capable of acting in concert for the common defense. The Antifederalists feared that the Federal Government would disarm the people in order to disable this citizens’ militia, enabling a politicized standing army or a select militia to rule. The response was to deny Congress power to abridge the ancient right of individuals to keep and bear arms, so that the ideal of a citizens’ militia would be preserved.

To the Gun Banners such as "The Brady" crowd: YOU ARE WRONG.

To those who lost loved ones at VTech, at Columbine, and elsewhere due to nutjobs showing up with guns and opening up on innocents - you have the right to defend yourselves, and if the government had not interfered with that right prior to these events, and someone had been armed, your loved ones might still be alive.

To those who think that "violence is not the answer" - when someone else is hellbent on killing you, it is the ONLY answer short of your death.

To the cities of Chicago and Morton Grove, along with many others: fuck you.  You were wrong then and now your unconstitutional bans on firearm ownership are void.  Oh, and God Bless Bessie Jones.

To those who think that the Second Amendment is about hunting or self-defense, in the main: FUCK YOU.  The Supreme Court just told you in blunt fucking english what I and others have said all along - The Second Amendment exists for the express purpose of insuring that should GOVERNMENT ever become so oppressive that armed revolution is necessary, the people will have the means to prosecute it.

Those of you who have refused to understand that the writings of our Founders found in The Federalist and The Antifederalist made this very point over 200 years ago have now had it explained to you by the Men and Women in Robes on the US Supreme Court.

The very presence of this right is the reason why we do not today need to use it for its original intended purpose, and why, so long as the Second Amendment stands, we are unlikely as Americans to ever suffer a government so oppressive as to require its use.

We have four boxes that guard our freedom in this nation:

1. The Soapbox
2. The Ballot Box
3. The Jury Box
4. And finally, if and only if the other three fail, the ammunition box.

In short, it is GOOD that a government fear its people's right and ability to overthrow it, as that is one of the prime reasons that the sort of outrageous conduct that would give rise to such an event will not happen so long as the right and ability do enforce that capacity exist.

Congratulations Anton Scalia and others in the majority.

You got this one right.

When it comes to energy, that is.

We hear lots of complaining about high gas prices, but is anyone really interested in addressing the problem?

More than two years ago I put forward a roadmap right here in Musings that would address, to a large degree, our energy problems.

No, that roadmap won't solve all the problems.  But it sure will do a lot more to address the high price of energy than will blustering about gas tax holidays or threatening to "go after speculators."

It is a fact that if we want to grow GDP, we must grow energy supplies.  This is reality.  To produce 10 LCD TVs instead of 1 LCD TV you must expend more energy.  To produce 1,000 tires instead of 500 tires, you must expend more energy.  To build 10 houses, you must expend energy.

In fact, there is no way to grow GDP without growing energy supplies and consumption.  This is axiomatic, and no amount of bleating will change it.

If we want a vibrant, growing economy, we must solve our energy supply problem.  If we refuse to do so then we will be saddled with moribund growth at best or a deep and long recession at worst.

Those are our choices folks, and campaign rhetoric will not get the job done.  We need concrete, actual proposals that can be implemented, not bluster and BS.

Your appearance on CNBC this morning was outrageous.

You claim that we "can't drill off Florida" because it might endanger our tourism industry, and that we're being "snookered" by Charlie Crist's endorsement of drilling.

Ms. Sink, BITE ME.

I live here in Florida.  In fact, I live on Choctahatchee Bay, right near Destin, and right where one of the most promising places to drill happens to be.

I want the rigs here, and I want them here NOW.

Screw the fatcats with their $5 million condo penthouses who don't want to see lights at night from their 40th floor enclaves.  That is who you are "protecting".

The rest of us, including people with ordinary waterfront property like me, have a different view.

We see a huge decline in tourism right here and now. Traffic levels this summer are way down.  I can drive on US-98 at 5:00 PM, which for the last eight years has been impossible during the summer months.  I can walk into a restaurant at 6:00 PM and get seated immediately - last year there was an hour wait.  I see the boards going up on business windows, and its not due to an approaching hurricane.  I see the "available" signs all over the commercial property landscape.  And I see the short sale and foreclosure signs all over our residential real estate.

You cannot have tourism here without reasonable energy prices.  Period!

Whether you like to admit it or not, Ms. Greenie-who-needs-a-public-spanking, the people who come here to spend money all must burn dead dinosaurs to do it in some form or fashion. 

Your position - that we should drill somewhere else, like out West, is the same sort of NIMBY crap that Demoncrats have run for the last 30 years and it is time for you and your rhetoric to leave the goddamn stage!

Further, it is an absolute lie that tourism doesn't have a balance on this.  Rigs are excellent fish habitat.  I like to fish.  So do a lot of people who come here on vacation and spend a lot of money doing so.  Rigs in Florida waters will increase our fishing opportunities and thus those who do that for a living (I'm not one of them; I fish for fun) will both cut their fuel bills and increase tourist interest in spending money on fishing.

The claim of "environmental harm" is horsecrap.  During Katrina hundreds of rigs in the Gulf off Lousiana were severely damaged or destroyed. 

Not one drop of oil spilled from a deepwater rig.

There is no such thing as a free lunch.  We are an oil-based economy, like it or not.  You can look back through Musings for my plans to fix this problem in the intermediate (20-30 years) term, but for right now stabilizing the energy markets and reducing our dependence on unstable foreign supplies means drilling here and now.

We have $4/gallon gasoline in no small part due directly to the failed policies of obstruction over the last thirty years that Democrats - people just like you - have run all whining about development of our own home-grown energy resources in America.  

The results of these policies are now on display and we, the people,  most certainly "get it."  You're prepared to sacrifice our economy on both a state and national basis to "protect" the right of fat cats to not see a few lights off on the horizon at night from their 40th floor Penthouses while the rest of us can't afford to fill up our cars!

The claims of "conservation now!" ring hollow with people like me while Kerry and Gore jet around in their private aircraft and cruise in their yachts, burning 60, 100 or more gallons per hour. 

They don't care what it costs but we, the ordinary people of this country, do!

Yes, you were elected by Florida residents (although I didn't vote for 'ya.) 

Guess what?  As the tourism industry (along with the rest of our economy) crashes you are very likely to be shown the door.

Hopefully, sooner rather than later.

Time to comment on this, because there are apparently a whole host of people who have their heads firmly planted in their asses in applauding this ruling from the United States Supreme Court.

The premise is that "we should apply Habeas Corpus to everyone we capture, everywhere, irrespective of the circumstances."  That's the bottom line of the ruling.

Now here's why its stupid.

The United States Constitution only applies to United States Citizens while in the United States.

I am free to drink here in the US.  If I go to Saudi Arabia, I am not free to drink.  In fact, I can be jailed for drinking.

Their land, their laws.  Follow them or go to jail.

Now - on the subject matter.

It is a long-standing principle of International Law and The Rules of War that if you are shooting at troops "out of uniform" you are not entitled to Geneva Convention protections.  In fact, you are subject to being shot on sight.

The reason for this is really quite simple - when you do that sort of thing you are taking human shields in the form of the civilian population where you are.

This is seen as a seriously undesirable thing because it causes innocent civilians to die, and to deter it, The Geneva Conventions explicitly exempt people performing acts like this from its protections.

We caught these people outside of the United States.  They are being fed and clothed.  They are not being given the right to Habeas Corpus, nor should they - they are not US Citizens and were not apprehended in the United States.  They further were engaged in hostile acts against our troops but were not wearing a uniform of an opposing force, and were explicitly seeking to blend in with the civilian population - effectively taking them as human shields. 

Under longstanding International Law they were subject to being summarily shot.  I would say we are treating them considerably better than what International Law says is both appropriate and lawful conduct on our part.

You want these people to be treated in accordance with US law?  Ok, then tell me why we should not be subject to Sharia Law from a Muslim country while we are in the United States.

Oh, the shoe sucks when its on the other foot, does it?

Well gee, funny how that works.  The "peacenik" folks would have a CAT if the women among them were forced to wear burkas under penalty of being caned!

So just what sort of hypocrites do we have in the USSC? Further, its obvious that these dishonorable men in robes can't read the damn Constitution or, more likely, they just don't give a good damn what it says - they wanted to come to a given result, so they did - and whether that was supportable by the black letter on the printed page didn't matter a bit to them.

This ruling places our nation and our people, here and abroad, in more jeopardy than they were before. 

It also opens up other nations to being able to claim that OUR citizens, inside OUR border, should be subject to their laws.

Those of you who think this was a "victory for America" are smoking crack and need to put down the pipe.

And George Bush needs to grow a set of balls and tell the USSC that they have their ruling - now let's see them enforce it.

Back in 2005 I penned an entry here called "The Coming Fiscal Meltdown of America"

You might want to go back and read it.

Why do I bring it up here again today?

Because the situation has gotten much worse.

Back then the total tab was around $43 trillion.

Today it is nearly $100 trillion, or more than a doubling in the last three years.

How?

Simple - we have done nothing to address the geometric growth of the problem, and in fact have made it worse.

Read this from Dallas Fed President Mr. Fisher:

"Add together the unfunded liabilities from Medicare and Social Security, and it comes to $99.2 trillion over the infinite horizon. Traditional Medicare composes about 69 percent, the new drug benefit roughly 17 percent and Social Security the remaining 14 percent."

Nice eh?

Well, this all ties in with something that has been a "back of the envelope" thing for a while, which is investable capital.

What is that?

It is the total sum (either net in or out) that is available to invest into the economy in the form of stocks, bonds and other similar instruments by individuals net-on-net.

This has been a positive number ever since WWII.

However, when the boomers really start to retire en-masse, this figure will shift towards and eventually cross into negative territory.  My original estimate for when that would happen was 2030, plus or minus five years.

Unfortunately, the housing bubble (which I did not manage to properly account for back in 2005) was far more pernicious than any could have imagined.  We have "pulled forward" demand through this, and in addition have left behind debt.  As such there is double trouble coming directly ahead from the impact on investable capital from the bubble and its popping, and my new estimate is that we now face the rate going negative in 2020 - plus or minus five years.

Note that this means that we could reach the "knee" in as little as seven years from now.

Why is this important?

Because when that "knee" is reached outflows from all forms of investments will exceed inflows, and a secular top in all capital markets will have been reached.  This is not a short-term "Bear .vs. Bull" thing - it is the defining element that has led to the stock market returning over 1,000% in the last 40 years.

Now certainly I do not expect the S&P 500 to go back to 100 or any such thing.  But the sort of "bull market" we have had since 1992 simply cannot be sustained without a positive investable capital flow.

We as a nation must address our medical cost issues.  We as a nation do not want to, but we must.  It is not an option.  The choices are to deal with this or it will explode in our faces. 

As you can see, the explosion has already begun.

The "bad debt meter" has doubled in three years.

Now on the forum there was a rather lively discussion that devolved down into one of the participants trotting out the old tired "but if you cut off free medical care and your kid gets run over by a car, he might diiiiieeeeeee" chestnut.

Yes, he might.

Guess what?  Life isn't fair.

Let's look at the Canadian system.  They have a set amount budgeted for medical care every year.  They add up all the diseases and their costs, and put them on a list.  When the cumulative cost of the treatments reaches the budget level, a line is drawn.  If your disease is below the line, you don't get treatment.  Period.

If you are in one of the "ok" categories, you still are rationed, because there is a waiting list.  Money can only be spent at $X/month on said disease, because that was the budget.  Your place in queue is established and you wait your turn.

For many people this means they die first. 

And in Canada, you can't buy the treatment even if you have the money and are too far down the list (or below the line) at all!  As a consequence Canadians who do have money frequently come to the US (or go somewhere else) to get their maladies attended to.

How is that different than "but your kid might diiiiiieeeeee?"

Its not.

Guess what - unlimited demand and limited resources can't work.  Ever.  Period.

So now we have crazy credit overhangs, an investable capital rate that is about to go negative in the near future, and entitlement promises that can't possibly be met.

Folks, we had better get off our collective asses right here and now.  We are simply running out of time in this regard; the fact that investable capital will go negative cannot be avoided.

We are therefore stuck with the fact that we must have an honest discussion and debate between and among The American People about this problem and what it means. 

We must repudiate this entitlement spending now so that those people who can do something about it - the folks who are currently working - have time to make some sort of plan. 

We must stop promising that which is mathematically impossible, and hold the politicians feet to the fire.

We must deal honestly with our children and grandchildren, and stop holding them up at gunpoint for what amounts to our own desire to live longer and more pleasant lives while forcing them to pay for it.

My daughter deserves a future.  So does your son or daughter.

Whether they have that future depends on us, and if "we the people" refuse to deal with this in an honest and forthright manner, some of us - myself included - might resort to taking out full-page ads in national newspapers with the math displayed for all to see.

Why?

Because if this is not dealt with the system will collapse, and when it does, you will inevitably come banging on your kid's (now as adults) door asking for help.

Their proper response, after you have screwed them out of their future, is to slam the door in your face.

I think its critical that they know what you did to them - and why.

Something to think about......

Ok, so let's see here, which choice would you like?

MSNBC says:

"Obama promised to cut taxes for the middle class, raise taxes on the wealthy, pour money into "green energy," and require employers to set up retirement savings plans for their workers as he campaigned Saturday in Pennsylvania, a key battleground in the November election."

That's nice.  How are you going to pay for all that?

Speaking of paying, how do you think McCain would do handling our economy?  Better than he does handling his own debt?

"The bulk of the McCains’ obligations stemmed from a pair of American Express credit cards that are held in Cindy McCain’s name. According to the disclosure reports, which present information on debts in a range rather than providing a precise figure, Mrs. McCain owed $100,000 to $250,000 on each card.

Another charge card, held by what was described as a “dependent child,” had also accumulated debts of $15,000 to $50,000. In addition, a credit card held jointly by the couple was carrying $10,000 to $15,000 in debt, the filing indicated, at a stiff 25.99 percent interest rate. "

Why do I feel like I'm gonna get fucked from an economic perspective no matter who I vote for?

Talk about a Hobson's Choice.....

Well, no. There are actually FOUR, although the second two I didn't catch right up front.

I want to lead today with a message of hope instead of one of doom and gloom.

Two words: Mike Huckabee. Two more: Tom Tancredo.

Mike Huckabee was a candidate that I had basically written off as a "no way in hell" odds guy for the Presidency. But his showing in Iowa was amazingly strong, and frankly, he's right about just about everything.

From an investors' perspective, he has the message you want to hear. Its spelled "Fair Tax".

I know there will be people who want to attack that, but please be informed before you do. The Fair Tax, should it be enacted, would lead to a boom in American competitiveness, business, and the markets that would outpace all other nations and perhaps even surpass what America saw in the early 1900s.

Believe this - if we end up with a Democrat in the White House - who would almost certainly be Obama or Hillary - you're going to see major tax increases in a raw attempt to push towards the magical 50.1% of voters paying no federal tax. The purpose of such a push is transparent and obvious on its face - nobody ever votes for a tax increase on themselves! So by reaching that magical nirvana, the Democrats believe they can cement a permanent position in power - and they may be right.

Of the Republicans, there is only one choice I can find who will actually accomplish improving American Competitiveness and fix our tax system - and that's Mike.

I rarely make political contributions. To anyone. I believe most politicians are snakes and interested in only one thing - getting re-elected - no matter who they have to screw to get there, especially if the screwee is you.

Mike may have this flaw. But if he does, I'll take it if it means that we wind up with an economy that prevents the implosion of America.

Tancredo is even better on the issues. His biggest problem? He's WAY, WAY behind, without material support. And that's a damn shame, because guys, out of everything he says, I can find exactly one problem with his platform - he uses the word "Democracy" to describe our system of government in one place. We live in a Constitutional Republic. He does, however, appear to know that, from what I can see in the rest of the platform, so I'll give him a pass on that.

It just goes to show you that being outspoken is a HUGE fucking liability in American Politics. Now you know why I could never run or be elected - even to DOGCATCHER!

Anyway, as they say, "do your own Due Diligence."