Health Care: Do You Prefer Single-Payer Bureaucracy or Profligate Greed?

What's worse, having a government bureaucrat between you and proper health care, or having a corporate bureaucrat? When health insurance companies' allegiances shift away from people who need health care and toward pleasing their investors, you get the kinds of runaway health care costs that we have in the United States today. In a day of rampant greed and immorality, I don't hold out much hope that a government directed, single-payer health care plan will be any better than what we currently have, but I'm starting to think that it couldn't be worse, either.


Have your costs for health care seemed to outpace your standard of living over the last decade or more? There are several contributing reasons, but one of the greatest is that greed for profit has seeped into the health insurance industry until it has become a flood.

Medical loss ratios measure how much insurance companies lose to administrative costs. In the 1990's 95% of costs paid for actutal health care in early 1990's, so the medical loss ratio was only about 5%. These ratios have risen until now nearly 20% of insurance premiums go to cover administrative costs. With some individual companies, the administrative excess is nearing 25%. In contrast, according to Wendell Potter, who was an executive at CIGNA insurance for 15 years, medicare has only 3% administrative overhead costs. Mr. Potter, who spoke with Bill Moyers recently, left CIGNA after his guilt got the best of him.

In days gone by, Potter told Moyers, health insurers cared most about those they insured. Now, they care most about their bottom line. Trimming true insurance in order to appease shareholders and to pay out gigantic bonuses to executives has begun to ruin not only these companies but also health care in America. Investors in health insurance stocks have primarily become large institutions, to include major, demanding hedge funds. Insurers often feel intense heat from such investors, who think they have not denied enough claims. It is becoming standard fare for insurers, bowing to these investors, to raise premiums so high that employers can no longer afford to insure their employees, or the insurers simply drop large groups of policy holders outright. The cancer that is destroying Wall Street is bringing the health industry down with it.

The main problem, however, is not that health insurers are greedy. The main problem is that so are most politicians. The solution, therefore, can not be simply to turn the reins of health care over to government. The solution has to be for Americans to stop being dictated to by their elite overlords, but rather to demand fairness and integrity. We should demand insurance only from companies that care about people instead of profits. And in order to get the health care regulation that we need, we should sweep the floor of congress clean with the broom of any angry vote.

Neither single-payer health insurance, nor any other form of social direction of health care dollars will work any better than the debauchery that exists in the America's private health insurance industry. Honesty and integrity are our only hope.

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Should We Investigate the BCS or the Theft of the Goldman Sachs "Doomsday Machine"?

While Orrin Hatch is busy being worried about the unfairness of college football's Bowl Championship Series, Wall Street poster child Goldman Sachs has admitted that special "program trading" software that allowed it to manipulate the financial markets has been stolen, which is ironically proof that Goldman Sachs has been engaging in highly criminal behavior.

Bernard Madoff needs someone to keep him company in his prison cell, and Goldman Sachs would be a good place to start the search to find a whole bunch of those someones.


When the whistle was blown on Bernie Madoff several months ago, the Securities and Exchange Commission and everyone else who knew what was going on turned the other way and ignored the problem. Now, when the ability to bring world financial markets to their knees has been released through theft to the world--the United States Senate is debating whether the Bowl Championship Series is fair or not.

According to the July 8th, 2009 edition of the radio program "What Really Happened", Goldman Sachs has, since the Clinton administration, been part of the Plunge Protection Team. Whenever the stock market is on the ropes, the Plunge Protection Team magically--behind the scenes, and usually near the end of the day--props up those falling markets. According to DailyKos, Goldman is currently the only participant in this "Supplemental Liquidity Provider" program.

Bloomberg reported today that:

[Sergey] Aleynikov, 39, is the former Goldman computer programmer who was arrested on theft charges July 3 as he stepped off a flight at Liberty International Airport in Newark, New Jersey. That was two days after Goldman told the government he had stolen its secret, rapid-fire, stock- and commodities-trading software in early June during his last week as a Goldman employee. Prosecutors say Aleynikov uploaded the program code to an unidentified Web site server in Germany.

It also reports Goldman's dire fear of what could happen if the software falls into the wrong hands:

The bank has raised the possibility that there is a danger that somebody who knew how to use this program could use it to manipulate markets in unfair ways.

It already has been used to manipulate the markets in unfair ways, Goldman Sachs. You were using it.

Goldman's primary concern seems to be that someone besides them can now "use it to manipulate the markets in unfair ways." Under normal circumstances, Goldman executives would be worrying about prison time. Remarkably, they don't indicate any of that sort of worry whatsoever.

Bernie Madoff is lonely.

But Orrin Hatch and the rest of the U.S. Senate are worried that USC made more money at their college bowl game last year than Brigham Young University did.

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A Fourth of July Travel Tour of Bonfires and Illuminations

How was your 4th of July? I'm sure you regularly attend some sort of patriotic service on the 4th of July. I do, too. This time, though, I celebrated with my family in a different way. While traveling home from Canada, it was gratifying to make it back to the American homeland in time for a plethora of fireworks shows in the night sky to light our road home. The united devotions along our path reminded me of the "bonfires and illuminations" of which John Adams prophesied 233 years ago. Our fireworks celebrations still show that, although America may be a bit tattered and torn of late, her genius lives on.


Not long after we dropped through the Canadian border at

Last night, as we drove down Highway 93, a panoramic pattern of American devotion unfolded before our eyes. No matter in which which nook or cranny of the country you find yourself, it's easy to observe the love of liberty that is the common thread among Americans of every stripe.

Roosville on Highway 93, we were treated to a nearly non-stop fireworks display as we wended our way south. From the small to the great, fireworks illuminated our path from Whitefish, Montana all the way to our midnight stopover point in Misoula. Particularly well put together were the fireworks shows at Flathead Lake. Families and friends congregated along the roadways, on the bridges, and in the harbors from miles around to pay tribute to their indomitable country with hot-dog roasting fires and the bombs of fireworks bursting in air.

As we drove along it occurred to me that this must have been exactly what John Adams had envisioned when he prophesied that the coming forth of the Declaration of Independence would be

...celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be celebrated by pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations from one end of this continent to the other...

It's thrilling enough to be anchored in one place as one group of Americans pay their tribute to liberty and the freedom to choose. But last night, as we drove along Highway 93, a panoramic pattern of American devotion unfolded before our eyes. No matter in which which nook or cranny of the country you find yourself, it's easy to observe the love of liberty that is the common thread among Americans of every stripe.

America may at present be an economic tinderbox, but the roots of our heritage planted by our American forbears will eventually provide the nourishment of a renewed flowering of the American landscape with the greatnesses of our past--humility, liberty, and prosperity.

America's government may have gotten fat on playing the imperialistic overlord, but her people

No matter how defiantly the forces of calumny may combine against the greatest country on earth, two hundred and thirty three years of liberty will yet prove an impossible habit to break.

are gradually coming to terms with the understanding that the real essence of American genius can be found only in setting the example of liberty and not in the force of arms.

We may have become confused and lost our way in a morass of soul-destroying government social programs, but the continuing bursts that illuminate our twenty-first century silhouette our lost and distant path just enough that I am confident we can find it once again.

America's image is tattered and torn, for sure. But at least once a year Americans all across the fruited plain remind themselves that America was once--and has the ability once again to be--the beacon of liberty.

"Independence now, and independence forever." Those words were also uttered by John Adams. Despite a foreign policy ironically destructive of freedom, the unfounded fears of man-made global warming, mountains of man-made debt, and the pitting by government of class against class, I am confident that "independence forever" is what we and our posterity will enjoy.

No matter how defiantly the forces of calumny may combine against the greatest country on earth, two hundred and thirty three years of liberty will yet prove an impossible habit to break.

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"Animal Spirits" or Government Failure: Which Causes Economic Panic?

Those who subscribe to the economic theories of John Maynard Keynes believe that it is the "animal spirits" that reside in people that cause economic manias and panics. They're partly right. Classical economists believe that government mismanagement causes them. They're right, too. It's not hard to figure out which one is the most right, though. Too bad the Keynesians still cling to their disproven theories and ignore the inconvenient facts that have disproved them.


In their book Animal Spirits: Why Human Psychology Drives the Economy and Why It Matters for Global Capitalism, authors George Akerlof and Robert Shiller resurrect an interesting concept that was first observed by John Maynard Keynes--that people have "animal spirits" that cause them to act in abnormal, non-economic ways.

The concept of animal spirits is a valuable contribution to the understanding of economics, because people sometimes do not act rationally. Although they may often act in ways that

Akerlof and Shiller's Animal Spirits makes an important contribution to the economic debate. Unfortunately, they spend the entirety of the book's 176 pages avoiding the fact that central banks have consistently been the fuel that have turned the flames of mass mania and panic into bonfires of destruction.

resemble "an invisible hand" that works toward the mutual benefit of society, as Adam Smith observed, sometimes they do not. Classical economists don't seem to take these episodes of irrational behavior into account as often as they should.

"People are not always rational in pursuit of their economic interests," say Akerlof and Shiller. That is a true statement.

"In Keynes' view," the authors say, "these animal spirits are the main cause why the economy fluctuates as it does." Oops! That is, inconveniently to Akerlof, Shiller, and all other Keynesians, a demonstrably false statement.

In his book, Meltdown, Thomas Woods, Jr. points out that manias and panics don't just happen on their own.

...describing something as a "mania" is no explanation at all, and that only expansionary monetary policy by the central bank can account for these phenomena:

If you investigate individually the manias that the market has so dubbed over the years, in every case, it was expansive monetary policy that generated the boom in an asset. The particular asset varied from one boom to another. But the basic underlying propagator was too-easy monetary policy and too-low interest rates that induced ordinary people to say, well, it's so cheap to acquire whatever is the object of desire in an asset boom, and go ahead and acquire that object. And then of course if monetary policy tightens, the boom collapses.

In order for a mania-driven boom to persist, there would have to be an increasing supply of credit to fund it.

Akerlof and Shiller's Animal Spirits makes an important contribution to the economic debate. Unfortunately, they spend the entirety of the book's 176 pages avoiding the fact that central banks have consistently been the fuel that have turned the flames of mass mania and panic into bonfires of economic destruction.

Yes, people do have animal spirits. But only government can give license to the collective animal spirit to such an extent that manias can turn into economic bubbles and subsequent full-fledged panics. The economic meltdown of 2008-09 is only the latest evidence of that.

Keynesian economics is not a complete waste of time. But it's important to understand that his theories have their certain limits.

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America Continues to Build Up Its Supply of Enemies

If you thought that America's foreign policy outlook would improve with the election of Barack Obama, you thought wrong. Part of the problem, being residual blowback from previous American sins, is, admittedly, not Obama's fault. But a great deal of it is.

When Establishment candidates are elected one right after the other, you should expect that U.S. foreign policy will continue to be inane. And you should expect that more and more of the world will have reason to hate us.


At exactly the time American troops are pulling back from the cities in Iraq, new revelations of old torture are giving Iraqis another perfectly good reason to hate everything that is American. As if their enmity were not enough, deaths of scores of civilians in Pakistan at the hands of remote-piloted U.S. airplanes are ensuring another bumper crop of American enemies.

With the advent of high technology, virtually every person in the world knows about yet additional episodes of American perfidy on President Barack Obama's watch.

Is someone choreographing this? We can't be this stupid.

Iraqi Crucifixion. At a press conference day before yesterday, it was noted in an off-hand sort of manner that at least one Iraqi prisoner in abu Ghraib prison was crucified. The one crucifixion that we know about, and just now coming to light, happened in November of 2003.

Among the more startling revelations during the press conference today was an article describing how a detainee in Iraq had been "essentially crucified" during CIA interrogation.

According to a June 22 article in The New Yorker magazine, cited during the press conference today, an Iraqi prisoner in US custody was crucified - dying from asphyxiation while hanging from his arms during a CIA interrogation.

"An Iraqi prisoner named Manadel al-Jamadi died on November 4, 2003, while being interrogated by the C.I.A. at Abu Ghraib prison, outside Baghdad," the New Yorker's Jane Meyer wrote. "A forensic examiner found that he had essentially been crucified; he died from asphyxiation after having been hung by his arms, in a hood, and suffering broken ribs. Military pathologists classified the case a homicide."

What's even worse:

No charges have been sought against the interrogators from the CIA who participated in the death of al-Jamadi or CIA officers involved in other cases.

Pakistan Condemns U.S. Attacks. It is "conventional wisdom" that the American military is not operating in Pakistan. Oh, but it is. So far it's (allegedly) only from the sky, but Pakistanis are quite clear as to the concept of American air superiority. When an aerial bomb kills dozens of civilians at a Pakistani funeral, everyone knows whodunnit. Pakistanis are incensed.

Pakistan, on Thursday strongly condemned American drone attacks...

The protest comes two a days after 80 people were killed and a large number of them sustained multiple injuries in the US drone attack in South Waziristan Agency.

What appeared to be the deadliest U.S. missile attack ever on Pakistani soil brought an unusual reaction since the fresh drone attack on Tuesday in a country that has previously denounced such strikes as an affront to its sovereignty.

The drone attacks have sparked anger among the masses and it took the people to streets in big cities like Lahore and Karachi where they condemned such attacks asking government to get stop such attacks that were proving to be lethal for innocent people of Pakistan.

America was never meant to be the world's ogre. Instead we should be the world's example.

Why don't we start electing people that understand that fundamental premise?

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The United States Should Apologize to Iran

America's foreign policy toward Iran should be to apologize. Had the United States not meddled in Iranian domestic policy, Iran would hardly be the boiling cauldron that it is today, where secret police and military thugs kill hundreds and arrest thousands of their protesting countrymen. The Iranian people have been more than once within a hair's breadth of enjoying liberty--only to be thwarted with the help of the United States.

If someone did to America what we've done to Iran, you'd want an apology, too.


I'm not talking about apologizing to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or his bearded overlord. Those men are criminals. What I'm advocating, rather, is an apology directly to the Iranian people for stealing their liberty--for the things the United States did to their country decades ago which, if we hadn't done them, Mr.

I'm not talking about apologizing to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or his bearded overlord. Those men are criminals. What I'm advocating, rather, is an apology directly to the Iranian people for stealing their liberty.

Ahmadinejad would likely today at best be a lower-level executive for the Tehran Department of Transportation.

In 1920, with Iran being on the verge of democratic government, western allied powers helped to install Reza Shah on the throne in Iran in order to ensure another reliable supply of petroleum to the West. Reza ultimately proved too strong-willed for their liking, so they replaced him with his much more pliant son Mohammad Reza in 1941. In 1951, the highly popular Mohammad Mossadegh, who had been elected to Iranian parliament, was appointed Iran's prime minister. In 1953, thinking that Mossadegh was getting too big for his britches, the United States commissioned its Central Intelligence Agency, which successfully engineered a coup that resulted in Mossadegh being deposed and placed under house arrest. The much less popular Mohammed Reza was returned to the throne. For the second time, the United States had helped to thwart democracy in Iran.

During the Iranian revolution that began in the late 1970's, the Shah fled Iran. Rather than return the Shah to Iran for trial for crimes against the Iranian people, the United States gave him asylum. Fearing another coup was in the making, Iranian students took American diplomats hostage for 444 days. (Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was somewhat prominent among the student hostage takers. )

Seeing the government of the Ayatollah Khomeini as their only alternative to the repressive rule of the Shah, the Iranians supported Khomeini, only later to discover that the bearded cleric's brand of government was no better than that of the monster he replaced.

It is impossible to know where Iran would be today had the United States not meddled in Iranian political business. But one thing is for sure. Historical facts being what they are, the United States is squarely to blame for the predicament that Iran is in today.

For this, we should apologize.

Only then will we finally have achieved the moral standing that we need in order to get on with helping them achieve the liberty that they should have been enjoying already now for nearly one hundred years.

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Have We Reached the Boiling Point?: Presidential Election Deja Vu

Sometimes I wish that fewer people would vote in elections. (Actually, I just wish they would become a little bit more informed before they cast their votes.) We have had some great choices in recent elections. Unfortunately, though, it's nothing new that most Americans are content to be arm-twisted into voting for the lesser of two not-so-great choices.


In his book Boiling Point: Republicans, Democrats, and the Decline of Middle-Class Prosperity, Kevin Phillips writes this about the recent presidential election:

By condemning the Bush administration for favoritism to the rich and neglect of the middle class, Obama tapped a historic Republican vulnerability and took a strong lead over John McCain from July onward. True, many voters still doubted the Illinois senator's trustworthiness. McCain's last rival for the Republican nomination, Texas congressman Ron Paul, had insisted the Obama couldn't be believed, because he was financed by the same elites he purported to deplore. Many voters, however, felt they had no choice.

If I told you that I changed the names, and that this was actually a story of a complaint by Democrat candidate Jerry Brown against Bill Clinton and George Bush Sr., would you be surprised? Replace, Ron Paul with Jerry Brown, John McCain with George H.W. Bush, and Barack Obama with Bill Clinton, and they are the words that Kevin Phillips wrote--clear back in 1992. (See Boiling Point, page xviii.)

Bummer. That was almost 20 years ago, but it strikes the cultivated mind with a lightning bolt of 2008 deja vu. Are we ever going to learn our lesson and stop voting for only the candidates whom the Establishment has anointed? We're no better than Iran.

We deserve much better.

Have we reached the boiling point yet? Nope. Not even close. The same elite lunatics are running the asylum in Washington D.C.

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Glenn Beck Blows a Cork Over Obama Press Conference

I had to listen to Glenn Beck's monologue a couple of times today about the discussion between President Obama and Nico Pitney of The Huffington post. And I still didn't get what Beck was so inflamed about. Perhaps Beck ought to be paying more attention to what's going on in Iran rather than wondering if Pitney was just another media person being nice to Barack Obama. (Press conference Here, Pitney's subsequent visit with CNN, here.)


Here's part of Beck's critique of the President's supposed tactics:

He's contacting a media source ahead of time to plan a question for a live press conference. Who thought the media was in the tank for him? Who, booboo? He's contacted a liberal blog site to do it. He reveals that he follows the liberal blog site closely. And to top it off, he calls them second in the press conference. By the way, ADD moment. Which one of these things just doesn't belong? Associated Press, Reuters, the Huffington Post? It was a trick question. They all suck.

Guys, you are watching a puppet show.

Beck then got to what it seems was his point. He doesn't like the Huffington Post.

At least it was the liberal hack site, you know, the Huffington Post, you know. Not so bad that we have, you know, so called credible journalism outlets like ABC doing infomercials promoting the White House or anything.

I've actually been reading Nico Pitney's live blogging on Huffington Post, and it's some of the best stuff out there (here's the latest).

Alvaro Vargas Llosa today pitied the political posturing that is going on in the United States while Tehran burns.

It has been painful to see so many political leaders in the United States devalue the Iranian uprising — potentially the most important event since the fall of the Berlin Wall — by using it to score cheap points off each other, disrespecting the people who are risking everything in the name of freedom.

Beck's outburst today is one of the worse instances of cheap politcal pointery.

President Obama's stance vis a vis the Iranian oligarchy is the best one we can at this point hope to take. Nico Pitney, among others, tirelessly keeps the magnificent Iranian rebellion before our eyes and ears. If Glenn Beck had a bit more integrity, he'd praise Pitney for his tireless coverage, as well as the President for asking a most important question.

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Neda, The "Voice" of The New Iranian Revolution, Teaches "Natazhsid." Do Not Be Afraid.

In Farsi, Neda means "voice". The accidental "voice" of the New Iranian Revolution has also become its first martyr. The murder of Neda Agha Soltan has become the nourishment needed for the blossoming of freedom in Iran. Millions of Iranians, now honoring her innocent memory, will not be stopped, even if for many of them, it also means death. The days of the backward rule of the Ayatollah and the Iranian Supreme Council are numbered.

As Neda lay dying, her father counseled her "Natazhsid!", which means "Do not be afraid!" This has become the rallying cry of millions of freedom-loving Iranians. Please pray for their success. Please pray that Neda's death has not been in vain.


One of the greatest chapters in human history is playing out before our very eyes, yet most of us choose to watch mindless entertaining drivel on television instead. Iranians are suddenly on the verge of a freedom that has been centuries in the making. Do you care?

The genie is out of the bottle. The Supreme Leader is no longer supreme;
the Iranian people are. Millions of Iranians have taken to the streets, protesting in support of the candidate who clearly won the June 12th presidential election, Mir Hossein Mousavi. You can find it all on YouTube and Twitter. Technology and the memory of Neda Agha Soltan will help to ensure that liberty, this time, will not be stopped.

Being frustrated by the snarled traffic caused by thousands of protesters in the streets, Neda, along with her family and friends decided to get out of their car to get some air. Seconds later, Neda lay on the pavement, her life bleeding from her in torrents. The 40-second video of her death carefully made its way past Iranian censors, around the world, and into the history books.

Appearing on CNN, Melody Moezzi, many of whose family members still live in Iran, talked of the senseless death of the beautiful Neda, who has taken her place beside Hossein and Ali in the Shia hall of martyrs. Moezzi said of Neda:

Now, one of the chants is Natazhsid!! Natazhsid!! 'Do not be afraid', is one word in Farsi, and that word has become so powerful. When Neda was killed...she became a martyr. [In the wake of her death, the protesters] said "Do not be afraid!" How do you do that? How do you say to a woman who is dying, "Do not be afraid?" Because she is a martyr. God is on her side. We are on her side.

When we [perform any] physical exertion, Iranians say "Ya Ali", which means "Give me the power of Ali." And now we're saying "Ya Neda."

The numbers of Iranian civilian dead are claimed by various protesters to be far in excess of the official reports coming from the now forever discredited Supreme Leader and his Supreme Band of Thieves. Despite stern warnings of even sterner punishments by the Ayatollah, the protests continue.

The Basij police have resorted to preying on dissenters throughout the streets, finding where they live, and then going into their homes at night and killing and beating them. Iranians thwart the Basij by harboring each other in the safe havens of their homes.

If the days belong to the anti-government protesters, the nights belong to the Basij. At nightfall, thousands of them flood into the streets seeking out government opponents.

"The Basij can do whatever they want," said Reza, a shop owner from Tehran. "They think they are enforcing God's law, so they think they can't be wrong."

Whose side are you on? Do you dare to stand up for the truth, no matter what the cost? Do you dare to be a "Neda"? If so, I have two things to say to you.

Natazhsid.

Ya Neda.

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Tehran, We Love You

For many years I have admired the passion of the Iranian people. Regardless of having lived for decades beneath the damning hand of dictatorship, they still have not lost their innate yearning for freedom. If only Americans could be as passionate about liberty as the Iranians are.


Americans are content to simply have a Tea Party and then go home. Iranians, harking to a bygone American era, are deadly serious about liberty--just as Americans

Americans can't just have a tea party every now and then and feel like we've made any kind of a difference.

once were. While Iranians risk their lives and forsake their livelihoods for days on end in an effort to retain some vestige of representative government, Americans are too busy-- spectating at their favorite sporting events or figuring out where their next mortgage payment will come from--to care very much.

It has become clear over the past eight days that Mir Hossein Mousavi, challenger to the not-well-liked Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, should be the next president of Iran. Yet amid protests of massive election fraud concocted by the Supreme Leader and his Supreme Band of Thieves, the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei holds Mousavi personally responsible for the protests for which the Ayatollah and his consorts are squarely to blame:

Mousavi's dilemma was painfully clear. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei put the opposition leader on notice on Friday that the responsibility would be his if "illegal gatherings" continued. But by then, millions of fired-up Iranians were looking to him to show a lead in confronting not just alleged electoral fraud but the Islamic establishment itself.

Despite not having enjoyed much of it, Iranians have long been passionate about freedom. When the United States welcomed former Iranian Shah Reza Pahlavi into the country in 1979, it was more than the Iranian masses could take. At the time fearing that the U.S. was preparing the Shah for yet another takeover of power (as happened in 1953), they stormed the United States embassy and Tehran and held dozens of American diplomats hostage for nearly a year and a half. It was unfortunate that American citizens were pawns in the power play, but the clamoring of Iranians for self-determination compels our respect and admiration.

It didn't take long for the Iranians to discover that they had been duped by the replacement government of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, and for 30 years

Iranians understand the essence of liberty, and they're not about to let it fall from their grasp. Iranians revere liberty far more than the average lazy American does.

they have been attempting to come out from under that mistake, an oppression which has been every bit as stifling as that of the Shah. During that period, while their self-anointed leaders regularly exclaim death to the "Great [American] Satan", the Iranian populace has cultivated a general affinity for the freedom-loving American people.

Except that most Americans have now fallen asleep.

Americans can't just have a tea party every now and then and feel like we've made a difference. If we really want to understand how precious freedom is, as well as how easy it would be to lose here in the United States, we should keep our eye on Iran. The Iranian people prize freedom like perhaps no other people on earth, and they're not about to let it fall from their grasp. Iranians revere liberty far more than the average lazy American does.

Tehran: for your shining example, we love you. And we hope to God that we can become like you--like we were once before--lovers of liberty.

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Now Global Warming is Like Driving Off a Cliff!!

At the recent convention of the Western Governors' Association, Nick Bridge, British counselor for global issues, stated that the earnestness of global warming is like "driving towards a cliff at high speed and [you] have a 30 percent chance of brake failure. Would you get in the car? Nobody would get in the car."

Well, no, actually, I'd do a computer model simulation to ensure that the 30% chance of failure is a correct estimate.

;-)



Mr. Bridge's verbal faux pas indicates the inanity of the claims of those involved in crying global warming wolf. He can't even think through the process of evaluating risk. If I had a car whose brakes had a 30% chance of failure, I would test them thoroughly--under actual conditions--to find out what percentage of the time they actually did fail. If they actually failed at all, I'd get them fixed.

Global warming criers, however, think that delving in theory, simulating risk, and crying wolf is all that is needed in order to make a determination to mortgage the comforts of life of everyone on earth. I'd rather be 70 percentage points surer about something like that than 30%.

At least, with Jon Huntsman moving off to "greener" pastures, not as many at the WGA are on the wolf-crying bandwagon. I am pleased with Lieutenant Governor Gary Herbert's response to the WGA convention's discussion about global warming.

Lt. Gov. Gary Herbert challenged the reality of climate change during a Western Governors' Association panel discussion Monday on combatting global warming.

Herbert, who sat quietly through most of the discussions during the past two days, spoke up after presentations that included the statement that the debate on climate change was over.

"I've heard people argue on both sides of the issue, people I have a high regard for," Herbert said. "People say man's impact is minimal, if at all, so it appears to me the science is not necessarily conclusive."

This is a much more intelligent approach than that of Utah's former governor, Jon Huntsman, whose ability to think for himself on such issues seems to have been affected by his affinity for various elite friends he has in various high places, who stand to benefit from participating in the top-down control that will accrue if we believe in computer model simulations that refuse to take the historical reality of climate variability into account.

Bon voyage, Mr. Huntsman, the environmental cosmopolite. Welcome, Governor Herbert. We finally have found ourselves with a governor who has some environmental common sense.

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Of Holocaust Museum Murders and Lame-Brained Definitions of "Right-Wing Extremists"

The man who committed murder at the Holocaust Museum yesterday is being deadpanned by hordes as a "right-wing extremist". The murderer was certainly an extremist, as, blessedly, these things are the exception rather than the rule. But the murderer was far from being "right-wing". Defining "Left" vs. "Right" with regard to what side of the aisle of parliament you sit on is meaningless. The worthwhile definition of left vs. right has nothing to do with political parties. Rather, it all depends on how you feel about freedom.



"Stalin is left-wing, Hitler is right-wing."

"Stalin is left-wing, Hitler is right-wing."

"Stalin is left-wing, Hitler is right-wing."

If you say it enough...it still won't be true. Yet somehow, if you search for "holocaust right-wing" on Google News, you'll find a plethora of "news" articles calling the Holocaust Museum murderer a right-wing extremist. Like this one, from Paul Krugman, that says that right-wing extremist radio talk show hosts incited the right-wing extremist Holocaust Museum murderer to commit murder.

For another example, the Washington Post quotes the Southern Poverty Law Center regarding the recent murder at the Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C.:

"This is a longtime white supremacist and anti-Semite approaching the end of his life who may have decided to go out shooting," said Mark Potok, director of the Southern Poverty Law Center, a nonprofit group in Alabama that tracks right-wing extremists.

Ah, so that's what a right-wing extremist is: a white supremacist who hates Jews. Based on the murderous incident, The Post also claims that the Homeland Security report on right-wing extremism was probably right after all.

The Museum murderer, James W. Von Brunn, idolizes Hitler.

It's just like when progressives call conservatives fascists. If you say it enough...you still look stupid when you don't know the real definition of a word.

He hates Fox News. He threatened to blow up the Weekly Standard. He hates neo-cons. Uh...not so fast, you right-wing extremists. Media Matters knows what you're thinking. Rest assured, however, that Hitler hated communism and liberalism, so had to have been a right-wing extremist!!

It's just like when progressives call conservatives fascists. If you say it enough...you still look stupid when you don't know the real definition of a word.

The meaningless, and oft-perpetuated "definition" of right wing is based on where the members of various parties sat in European parliaments.

The terms originated in the French parliament, where those who sat on the right generally supported authoritarian government control in the form of a king. Interestingly, those on the left generally supported authoritarian government control, too, albeit through a self-anointed oligarchy.

In other parliaments, communists sat to the left side of the hall, while fascists sat to the right. What

The terms "left" and "right" originated in the French parliament, where those who sat on the right generally supported authoritarian government control in the form of a king. Interestingly, those on the left generally supported authoritarian government control, too, albeit through a self-anointed oligarchy.

further confuses the issue among minds already muddled (like Media Matters) is that communists and fascists hated each other.

Importantly, the left and the right didn't hate each other based on where they sat in parliament. They hated each other because they saw each other as death-grip adversaries in the quest for universal power. It's unfortunate that "left" vs. "right" has come to mean in so many minds simply the difference between political parties.

When it comes to sides of the hall, French rightists and leftists, as well as-- elsewhere--communists and fascists, were opposites. When it comes to their abhorrence of liberty, they are blood brothers.

America's founders recognized early on that the two extremes worth

The left and the right didn't hate each other based on where they sat in parliament. They hated each other because they saw each other as death-grip adversaries in the quest for universal power.

contrasting are anarchy on one (right) side, and tyranny on the other (left) side. They saw the need for a balance between the two.

Stalin was on the left of the Founders' yardstick because he lusted for power. Hitler was also on the left for the very same reason. James W. von Brunn idolized the power that Hitler wielded. As a white supremacist, he wanted that same power over other people's lives.

In the end, using his weapon of choice, von Brunn wielded the ultimate control by taking away the freedom to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness from a Holocaust Museum security guard.

That's as far from the right side of the continuum as you can get.

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