Update on 2008

Rob Morrow happily sent along this Dick Morris campaign update - Hillary blunders.

On the GOP side, the leading contenders are the least conservative ones, Rudy gaining while McCain is fading, and the base is restless - looking for "Mr Right". Third in most polling is former Gov Mitt Romney, with Ron Paul, Mike Huckabee, Duncan Hunter, Tom Tancredo, and Sam Brownback in the fray but getting less traction. Meanwhile, Newt Gingrich plays Hamlet and may possibly jump in later. Giving new meaning to the term "Law and Order" Conservative, it may well be former Senator Fred Thompson who jumps in to shake up the race.

Seton Motley at "News of the Day" makes the conservative case for Rudy, but I'm not buying the many excuses for Rudy's deviations from conservative views. We have other options. For example, a conservative case for Romney can be made, based on his positions and business and executive leadership experience. Romney is wooing the conservative base, as his announcement speech shows. Rudy is selling himself via celebrity - no debates, no negotiation, and McCain has been arguing with the base for so long, both he and his act are getting too old.

The bottom line: The Republican Presidential nomination race is wide open; no candidate has really 'made the sale', nor can they until we've gone through the rigors of debates and more campaigning. The widest race will also be the earliest, as big state primaries have moved up to February 2008.

KSM - Terrorist Tells All

Experts: Mohammed Arrest Slowed al-Qaida:

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's capture four years ago didn't shut down al-Qaida or bring the Americans to Osama bin Laden. But if his mega-confession is to be believed, his arrest was a crushing blow to bin Laden's plans for even more deadly attacks in the wake of 9/11.

His expertise was never replaced and his absence has contributed to the group's transition from a fear-inspiring attack force to a hate-filled voice on the Internet, urging others to wage terror against the West.

"In terms of competence for managing, planning and executing terrorist attacks, KSM was the best in al-Qaida," said Rohan Gunaratna, a terrorism expert and author of a book on al-Qaida. "That's why Osama bin Laden and other important al-Qaida leaders entrusted him with so many operations."

... Experts agree the arrest was a major setback for bin Laden's terror network, and one from which the group has never quite recovered.

Khalid Sheik Mohammed has admitted involvement in most of the major Al Qaeda attacks on Western soil. Khalid Sheik Mohammed's testimony(PDF, his admissions starting on page 17) of his terrorist actions, includes "organizing, planning, followup and execution of the 9/11 Operation" and also "Cell for the production of Biological Weapons" (Anthrax) and "Dirty Bomb Operations on American Soil." The danger posed by KSM was huge when you consider multiple plots KSM was involved in after 2001, many that fortunately did not succeed, some that unfortunately did: Scoping out the NYSE stock exchange, Sears tower, and other U.S. cities; multiple plane attack attempts, including the Richard Reid shoe bombing; attacks in Bali, Thailand, Phillipines; supporting and financing attacks in Turkey, Britain, and elsewhere.

KSM is the man who murdered journalist Daniel Pearl by cutting off his head. We know why and how Danny Pearl was kidnapped and murdered in Pakistan in 2002:

It was at this meeting that an idea cropped up in Omar Sheikh’s twisted mind. He would kidnap Pearl to pressure the US Government to change its policies on Guantanamo Bay.

... Then in May 2002 we arrested someone named Fazal Karim, a militant activist. When we interrogated him we discovered that he was involved in Pearl’s slaughter. He also told us that he knew where Pearl was buried.

He was asked how he knew. Chillingly, he said he knew because he had actually participated in the slaughter by holding one of Pearl’s legs. But he didn’t know the name of the person who had actually slit Pearl’s throat. All he could say is that this person was “Arab-looking”.

He led us to the small house in a neighbourhood in Karachi where Daniel Pearl had been held captive. He then took us to a plot of land near by and told us where he was buried. We exhumed the body and found it in ten badly decomposed pieces. Our doctors stitched the pieces back together as best as they could.

The man who may have actually killed Pearl or at least participated in his butchery, we eventually discovered, was none other than Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, al-Qaeda’s No 3. When we later arrested and interrogated him, he admitted his participation.

Yet strangely, many of the media reports are not focussed on the details of his confessions and what they tell us about Al Qaeda operations. Rather than focus on this, idiots like Rosie are offended by the label 'terrorist', and there are calls to investigate KSM's claims of mistreatment. To add to their other hyper-partisan and useless anti-admistration hearings,
Senators Urge Inquiry After Mohammed Alleges Abuse.

Why is the media and Democrats going out of their way to discount Khalid Sheik Mohammed's terrorist confessions? Maybe it's the Iraq connection: "Of particular interest is the revelation about Mohammed's involvement in the '93 bombing. It shows a linkage not only between the '93 WTC attack and 9/11, but also between Iraq and al-Qaida." It wasn't always this way - Gore in 1992 said the Bush administration was ignoring Saddam's terrorist ties.

Jihadists Against the Troop Surge

From The People's Cube comes...

How To Solve Global Warming

Two words: Nuclear Energy.

The more complete answer: The global warming hypothesis is that man-made CO2, mostly created by burning fossil fuels, is increasing atmospheric concentrations of CO2 and those increases are impacting the climate. Before the industrial age, CO2 was at 270ppm (parts-per-million) and is now at 380ppm and rising by about 1.5 ppm per year. The scarmongering scenarios in the media assume this trend will not only continue, but accelerate to the point where CO2 concentrations double. There are many assumptions in climate change models (some of which may be questionable), but they all are driven by a main assumption that man-made CO2 generation leads to a warmer climate, with IPCC estimates of 2 degress C increase expected by 2100 under a 'baseline' scenario.

Since fossil fuel burning is the main 'culprit' in this drama, the clear and obvious solution is to find substitutes for fossil fuels that do not add CO2 to the air. There are two options: Less energy use total or non-fossil-fuel energy. The environmentalists tout renewables and energy conservation, but all such solution run into a wall of economic reality - their solutions are not more widely used because they are not economical; it take subsidies and massive Government programs, regulations and interference to force the economy to use these solution. Even modest reductions (a la Kyoto Treaty) would be hugely expensive and ruinous to the economy.

None of that is strictly required to solve global warming, because the most cost-effective non-fossil-fuel alternative is avaialable: Nuclear power. Nuclear energy today is the most used and most cost-effective non-fossil-fuel source of electricity in the world - 20% of the US and 16% of the world electricity generation is based on nuclear power. Nuclear energy accounted for about 73 percent of U.S. emission-free generation in 2005. Nuclear power's operating costs are below every other alternative, including coal.

As
Marvin Fertel, NEI's vice president noted: "Nuclear energy has been the dominant factor in avoiding greenhouse gases for more than 20 years. It is responsible for 89 percent of all CO2 emission reductions realized in the electric utility sector since 1973."

So why aren't we simply agreeing to go nuclear and calming down from the global warming hysteria?
Because even with the 'threat' of gobal warming uppermost in their minds, many of the same environmentalists who act like global warming means the end of the planet continue to
spurn nuclear power:

Two implicit but flawed assumptions underlie most claims about the significance of nuclear energy for the climate-change issue. The first is that climate change can be tackled without confronting and changing Western, especially American, patterns of energy consumption – the primary causes and continuing drivers for unsustainable increases in carbon emissions and global warming. This is plain impossible; there is simply no way global warming can be stopped without significant reductions in the current energy consumption levels of Western/developed countries.

Plainly speaking, to say something is "plain impossible" when it has already happened is not convincing. Is it impossible to have Western-style energy consumption without massive CO2 generation? Definitely. In France today over 70% of electricity generation is nuclear-based. As a result, France has one of the lowest CO2 generation/Kwh and CO2 generation/GDP ratios of any country. If the US followed suit, our current 5 billion tons of CO2 generation would be reduced by 50%. If the world followed suit, and raised the world's generation of electricity from 16% to over 70%, the world's generation of CO2 would be cut in half. The result? The lower rate of CO2 generation would avert most worst-case situations touted as a reason for panic.

The environmentalist assertion is that somehow nuclear energy translates into other use of energy:

The best case study is Japan, a strongly pro-nuclear energy country. As Japanese nuclear chemist and winner of the 1997 Right Livelihood Award, Jinzaburo Takagi pointed out, from 1965 to 1995 Japan’s nuclear plant capacity went from zero to over 40,000 MW. During the same period, carbon dioxide emissions went up from about 400 million tonnes to about 1200 million tonnes.

The illogic of this is manifest. Japan was the fastest growing OECD economy for much of that 30 year period from 1965 to 1995. As this chart shows, Japan used nuclear energy for about 12% of its total energy supply and 35% of Japan's electric power. Japan is third in the world following the United States and France in nuclear power generation. As Japan's economy grew, the other parts of Japan's energy mix grew as well. The real question to be asked is how much CO2 was reduced due to the current contribution of nuclear energy, and also how much CO2 could be further reduced if nuclear power was applied more extensively. The answer is significant on both - Japan needs Nuclear Power to Reduce CO2 Emissions.

The anti-nuclear environmentalists point out that nuclear energy addresses only electricity generation and not the massive CO2 generation from transportation: "Other sectors of the economy where carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are emitted, such as transportation, cannot be operated using electricity from nuclear reactors. This situation is unlikely to change anytime in the near future."

That assumption misses opportunities for change. First, cars could be migrated to 'plug-in' hybrids that get their electricity from nuclear generation, using new battery technology. Second, many industrial processes, including biofuels production, require the kind of heat that nuclear power plants produce as a byproduct of electrical generation. If transport energy inputs are shifted to nuclear-based electricity and biofuels, then the 'carbon footprint' of transportation would be dramatically reduced, by at least 75% over the long term.

What would the nuclear solution look like? In the United States, about 40% of anthropogenic CO2 emissions can be attributed to the combustion of fossil fuels for the generation of electricity (source EIA). Replace 80% of that with nuclear energy and we can reduced CO2 emissions in this esctor commensurately. Transportation (in particular, oil in gasoline and jet fuel) accounts for another 40% of CO2 emissions. This can be further reduced (i.e., by 75%) by moving to plug-in hybrids, use of electric for trains, and replacing crude oil-based gasoline with biofuels and alternatives such as natural gas. The rest is heat generation, and if much of that was migrated to nuclear or non-fossil alternatives (e.g. biomass) the net result is commensurate CO2 reduction. Over all sectors, this reduction adds up to a 2/3rds reduction in total U.S. CO2 emissions. We would require 1000GW in capacity, 10 times our current nuclear rated capacity; this would cost about $1.2 trillion in capital costs over 40 years, or $30 billion per year. This very manageable cost would be borne mostly by the private utilities, with the only Government cost being sufficient subsidies and support to get plants built, which could be nothing more than tax breaks to ensure that nuclear maintain cost-leader status. This could be done for much less than our current ethanol subsidy costs, for example.

With a phased build-out of added capacity, this solution would require no draconian impositions on the economy while dramatically reducing CO2 emissions long-term. US CO2 emissions were 7,074 million metric tons in 2004, and the 98GWe rate capacity nuclear reduced emissions by 700 million metric tons. This added capacity would reduce emissions equivalent to our full current level of CO2 emissions of 7 Gigatonnes. Intead of seeing emissions increase to over 10 Giga-tonnes, they would be reduced by 2/3rds to around 3 Gigatonnes by 2050.

This solution, if applied globally in the U.S. and the other large CO2 emissions countries, would completely and dramatically make obsolete CO2 emissions scenarios that lead to drastic climate change. It would become a non-threat and it can be done without CO2 trading credits or dramatic changes in energy consumption. You don't even need to ride your bicycle to work.

Game Over. Go nuclear.

pro-Castro propaganda in the Statesman

A March 11 Statesman article by Mike Williams titled "Venezuelan oil helps fuel Cuba's eye care program" is a pro-communist puff piece in the propagandistic style of William Duranty (the now disgraced Pulitzer Prize winner who misled people in the 1930s about Stalin and the USSR). Williams, writing from Havana, gives us a story of the Cuban Government teaming with Chavez, the leftist oil despot, to provide an eye care program for kids called the "Miracle Mission", an example of "showcasing Cuban medical expertise".

Cuba is a land where human rights dissidents get 25 year jail sentences. As UN's Human Rights Watch says:

"Over the past forty years, Cuba has developed a highly effective machinery of repression. The denial of basic civil and political rights is written into Cuban law. In the name of legality, armed security forces, aided by state-controlled mass organizations, silence dissent with heavy prison terms, threats of prosecution, harassment, or exile. Cuba uses these tools to restrict severely the exercise of fundamental human rights of expression, association, and assembly. The conditions in Cuba's prisons are inhuman, and political prisoners suffer additional degrading treatment and torture. In recent years, Cuba has added new repressive laws and continued prosecuting nonviolent dissidents while shrugging off international appeals for reform and placating visiting dignitaries with occasional releases of political prisoners.

Repression is increasing in Cuba as Raoul Castro takes over from Fidel Castro.

Cuba has a failed socialist economic model that has moved their standard of living from the top in Latin America to the bottom after 40 years of Castro. Before Castro, Cuba fed itself; today it imports food like rice that it once was self-sufficient in; Sugar production is below levels of 40 years ago. Cuba in 2002 was mired in economic despair. Cuba's economy is living in the past and not even living up to it - by 2004, the Cuban economy remained 12 to 15 percent below 1989 GDP levels.

What keeps Cuba afloat? For a long-time the USSR subidized Castro's failed Communist experiment. Now, it's Hugo Chavez, whose support of the Cuban Government is keeping afloat an otherwise failed system. Notes the Cuba commission: "The economic lifelines of the Castro regime are tourism; access to subsidized Venezuelan oil; commodities; and revenues and other support generated by those with family on the island." Felix Antonio Bonne Carcasses, one of the Cuban dissidents organizing the Assembly to Promote Civil Society, said in 2005:

"If it weren't for the 53,000 barrels of oil that Hugo Chávez sends every day to Cuba, it would be over." (Reported by Oscar Corral,Miami Herald.)

Yet the journalists continue to let themselves become channels of propaganda, and trumpet bogus PR campaign like this one as something 'newsworthy'. Castro's accomplishments are a hoax; his statistics have been fudged or fabricated:

Anecdotes abound of the government cooking the books to prove the glories of the Revolution to the world, with many academics distrusting the official government figures. A demographer from the National Academies of Sciences found that the Cuban government's own data was at odds with official overall statistics for child mortality: If anything, it indicated a growing, not a falling, infant mortality rate, a suspicion supported by other statistics from the Cuban Ministry of Health which showed high rates of several childhood diseases that generally correlate with high infant mortality. Other scientists doubt the claims made over HIV, noting the many Cubans who had served in African wars, the many African students in Cuba, the rampant sex trade in Cuba, and the high rate of HIV among Cubans who escaped from the island. A secret 1987 Cuban Communist Party survey of 10,756 respondents showed 88% of the public in one province to be disappointed with their health-care system. When the Cuban suicide rate skyrocketed -- it's now twice the typical rate in Latin American countries -- the Cuban government stopped reporting suicide statistics in a way that allowed international comparisons.

To the extent that the Cuban government's health claims are credible, the results often came at a price no civilized society could countenance. Patients with AIDS were forcibly removed from society and isolated in sanitaria. Expectant mothers with AIDS were coerced into aborting their babies. Abortions were similarly used to improve infant mortality statistics in general -- Cuba has twice the abortion rate of most countries -- by terminating high-risk pregnancies. To obtain co-operation from doctors, their compensation was tied to their patients' infant mortality rate. Many Cuban mothers claim that their doctors killed their baby at childbirth -- babies who die at birth do not show up in Cuba's infant mortality data.

At the same time that some of Castro's admirers deny claims that the medical system is failing Cubans, other admirers admit to the disastrous health outcomes, but blame them on food, drug and other shortages caused by the Cuban embargo. One such study, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, lamented "several public health catastrophes [including] more than 50,000 cases of optic and peripheral neuropathy ... A 1994 outbreak of the Guillain-Barré syndrome in Havana was caused by water that had been contaminated with Campylobacter species because chlorination chemicals were not available for purification."

We are left with one true accomplishment of the Castro-led Communist Government of Cuba - propaganda:

Castro has claimed many achievements. Perhaps his greatest is convincing world leaders and journalists the claims are true.
Lawrence Solomon, National Post, February 01, 2003

Journalists who tell the truth are told to leave by the repressive Castro Government:

The Chicago Tribune said correspondent Gary Marx, based in the country since 2002, was told Wednesday that his stories were too negative. His press credentials were not renewed during an annual process, and he and his family were given 90 days to leave Cuba, the newspaper said.

The Mexican newspaper El Universal said Cesar Gonzalez Calero, its Havana reporter since 2003, was told this week his credentials would not be renewed. Authorities told him his reporting was "not the most convenient for the Cuban government," the reporter said, adding he would be allowed to remain in Cuba as the husband of a Spanish journalist.

Mike Williams is one journalist the Castro Government let stay. And why not, his article had no mention of Cuba's repression, abuse of journalists and statistics, and no mention that the facade of Cuban health care is phony. Is he a dupe or a willing accomplice to propaganda? Does he not notice the "Miracle Mission" story about eyecare (for kids!) is a tailor-made and timed for propaganda effect, about as 'newsworthy' and balanced as a corporate ad campaign? In either case, he needs better eyesight and better insight into the reality of Cuba. Someone please get him some spectacles.

Local Democrats say no to Jessica's Law

Representatives Howard, Dukes, and Naishtat vote against Jessica's Law, a bill that gets tough on child sexual predators. The bill passed overwhelmingly, but 25 Representatives, all Democrats, voted against it.

In 2005, 9-year-old Jessica Lunsford was abducted from her Florida home, sexually assaulted, and murdered by a convicted sex offender. States across the nation have been enacting stricter penalties for sex crimes against children. House Bill 8 authored by Debbie Riddle (R-Houston) and supported in a bipartisan manner would enact very strict penalties when dealing with persons who are convicted of sexually violent offenses against children. (Source: NFRW.)

Perspectives on School Choice

Perspectives on School Choice (Submitted to Austin American Statesman but not published)

There as been an ongoing debate over school choice for decades. Proponents argue that vouchers help students who are shackled to poor schools escape into better ones and, at the same time, provide competition that forces betterment of the public school system. Opponents claim this would take money away from the education system where it is needed to improve low-performing schools.

However, both sides agree that our public schools are in need of substantial improvement.

Examples of a variety of approaches exist from which the education establishment could profit to help it thoroughly change the “system.” However, over the decades, it stayed the course with minor tweaks producing insignificent changes in performance and drop-out rates, sadly short-changing our children.

Our positions reflect our experiences. Mine have led me to support school choice.

First of all, my experience with other education approaches includes the Swiss education system, into which I was immersed when my father was transferred to Switzerland.

This system is multi-track. Two tracks lead to trade schools or apprenticeships. The third track is academically oriented and lasts through 12^th grade. I was admitted to the latter.

This college preparatory track is very demanding. There were a full 36 hours of classroom and laboratory instruction per week, and college type midterms and final exams. The teachers had doctorates in the subjects they taught.

When I returned to this country and entered college, I found this preparatory education to be much broader than ours, equivalent in several subjects to Junior College and many more subjects taught.

This experience led me to two conclusions: First, it is impossible to compare student performance of our single track system with this complex European system. Secondly, while I do not advocate duplicating the European systems for several reasons, we should expect our education establishment to benefit from them by creatively incorporating modifications to our own system for a seamless transition from high school to college or trade schools.

Then there is the interesting home schooling paradigm.

I did not understand how children can be educated without trained teachers until our son embarked on this approach with his five children.

It is really very simple. They first had to learn to read and subsequently got their learning from the excellent home school textbooks. At the earliest age they were taught to develop the discipline for daily study of a chapter in each book of several subjects, as well as doing the problems. No teacher was needed, only an adult for supervision and encouragement.

In my example, our grandchildren never sat on a school bench before going to college, where they excelled as “A” students. A high school age grandchild recently achieved 98 percentile in the PSAT.

These children are not geniuses but are advantaged by the discipline of independent study, a proficiency which carries over into life-long learning. It is by far the lowest cost and demonstrably the most effective education paradigm.

I conclude that this paradigm contains elements that ought to be creatively applied to public schools.

In my experience, our education bureaucracy strenuously resists any incisive solutions for genuine improvement, while teachers tended to be helpful and open-minded. I encountered this problem when I was on the Mayor Todd’s task force on Apprenticeships and Career Pathways some years ago.

Specifically, we addressed the fact that a large number of careers do not require college and that many high school students are not willing or equipped to go to college. Statistics showed us that only one in eight beginning high school students eventually graduated from college. Sadly, many high school students are thus short-changed and either drop out or graduate without marketable skills.

A Swiss expert in career development was hired to help out. We developed a pilot apprenticeship program with Koblenz, Austin’s sister city in Germany. The program enjoyed great success. Some seven high school students participated. However, the education establishment was unresponsive and the Swiss expert left after two years, admitting that changes to our entrenched education system could only occur when forced upon it by legislation.

In summary, legislation and public pressure are needed in order to free up education from the shackles of a flawed, yet unresponsive system. Mindlessly pouring in money does not help. Public education needs to be fundamentally improved, drawing on other laboratories of progress which need to be part of our educational landscape. To accomplish this, I firmly believe that education money must follow the child and the family needs to be given the informed freedom of choice.

REFERENCES:

FOR SCHOOL CHOICE

- Texas Policy Foundation:

http://www.texaspolicy.com/commentaries_single.php?report_id=1271

- CONFíA National Hispanic Organization supporting school choice: http://www.confianow.com/news.php?id=19&PHPSESSID=f4af505231fd6231b3444f8674bae298

- CREO Hispanic Council for Reform and Educational Options;

http://www.hcreo.org/content/article/detail/838/

- Milton and Rose Friedman Foundation

http://www.friedmanfoundation.org/schoolchoice/index.html#2

AGAINST SCHOOL CHOICE

- Texas Freedom Network

http://www.statesman.com/opinion/content/editorial/stories/02/6/miller_edit_vouchers.html

MORE MONEY, STAGNANT PERFORMANCE

- Fordham Foundation studies:

http://www.fordhamfoundation.org/foundation/publication/publication.cfm?id=363&pubsubid=1452#1452

- Government statistics:

http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/search.asp?searchcat=subjectindex&L1=116&L2=0

20% OF TEACHERS SEND THEIR CHILDREN TO PRIVATE SCHOOLS

- Washington Times article:

http://www.washtimes.com/national/20040922-122847-5968r.htm

Support for my conclusion: FAULTY COMPARISON WITH EUROPE

- http://www.toddseal.com/rodin/2006/02/faulty-comparison-american-public-schools-versus-the-world/

LET'S BE SPECIFIC

Austin seems like just the place to hang this letter out for consumption.
-Tim Bradberry
****************************************************************

LET'S BE SPECIFIC

Due to the thunderous applause that I received from the far-left over the "I Am Tired" letter written by one of our troops in Iraq, I thought it prudent to follow up with one last attempt to be very specific about what I have observed and actually personally encountered during my 36 years of service to this Great Country. This will be a one time attempt to reach some of those who are confused by the far-left and their ilk's unethical rantings and give some insight through my personal experience as a professional military officer over the years. These examples are but a few. In real life there were many more which space and time will not allow.

As a young fighter pilot, flying F-4s in Vietnam, I was stopped in my tracks by the decisions made by Lyndon Johnson and Robert McNamara. I was young and naive, but even then I knew their daily interference was wrong and would not allow us to win this thing and go home. Decisions like not allowing us to strike enemy aircraft while still on the ground, keeping real targets off the target list, and allowing us to strike only rusted-out trucks made us basically a toothpick factory. However, the big one for me came the day I saw the President Lyndon Johnson on television, forcefully lying to the American people. I'll never forget the language, "I want to assure the American people that the United States of America has never, and will never, bomb or use force inside the borders of Cambodia". On and on he disavowed the reports that this was happening. I was amazed. Guess where I had put several F-4 loads of 750 pound general purpose bombs every day for the past five days. You guessed it, Cambodia!!! So much for Mr. Johnson. The only question in my mind was simply, "Was it just Johnson or was it the methodology of a particular political party?" I decided to delay answering that question until more experience was gained.

Years passed, and I ignored politics as much as possible, as a good military man should. Then came Jimmy Carter. Our young people don't remember 18% interest rates and 18% inflation, but I'll bet someone in your family does. That is one really bad thing Carter did for our country, but it is not the worst. During this period, I was an F-15 Squadron Commander, located at Langley AFB, VA. Jimmy Carter and his democratic party stopped spare parts procurement for almost every weapon system in our military, and diverted the funds to social programs. The F-15 was brand new at the time with leading edge technology designed to provide air superiority anywhere in the world on a moments notice. That was my job. I loved it, but guess what? In a two year period from 1979 to 1981, there was not one day when more that one-third of my assigned aircraft were flyable. It is amazing the lengths we went to in those days, cannibalizing parts, expending twice the time and energy to fix every little item, and still two-thirds of the birds were always broken because of no spare parts. Had this country faced a really serious military threat during that time frame, only Montana Hunters could have saved us. The military had some equipment, but it was all broken. Do you want to know the really bad part for me and the young fighter pilots working for me? Our flying sortie rate was so low that pilot proficiency dropped to dangerous levels. The accident rate tripled. That obviously was totally unacceptable, as we were losing expensive airplanes and highly trained young pilots at a rate comparable to losses seen in actual combat. All of a sudden, even a Texas Aggie like me began to see a trend.

Forward a few years to 1986. I am an F-16 Wing Commander at MacDill AFB, Florida, and Ronald Reagan is president. His change in attitude and policy toward the military had time to fix the spare parts problem. We were flying 26,000 flying sorties per year out of MacDill AFB, my aircraft fully mission capable rate (FMC) was above 90%, the aircraft accident rate was below 1.75 per hundred thousand flying hours, fighter pilots were flying and proficiency levels were at an all time high. The United States Air Force was ready to defend this Wonderful Country. Proof of the pudding is simple. Look what the USAF, and the military in general, accomplished in Iraq during Desert Storm. And, they did it in less than 100 hours. Yeah, at this point I was starting to realize there was a difference in mentality between Democrats and Republicans, or should I say, the Right and the Left.

Then, came everyone's favorite---Bill Clinton. If there ever was an individual 180 degrees out of sync with the ideals and the values of the US military, it was Clinton. He was a known draft dodger, military hating, self absorbed, unspeakingly shameless and immoral individual, who the Left managed to elect President of the United States of America. Clinton's antics in the White House would have brought court martial, conviction, and Dishonorable Discharge had he been a military member. We still suffer oral sex on school buses, because the President told the world it wasn't real sex, and some of our children believed him. It took a lot of years, but now I became certain. There is a big difference in the right and the left on all fronts, and for the first time I started feeling angry and shamed that the majority of the American people were actually willing to vote for such an individual.

Sometimes, an abstract such as the following tells the story in very simple terms: Jane Fonda, Tom Hayden, Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, George Soros, Ted Kennedy, Howard Dean, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Michael Moore, Tim Robbins, Susan Sarandon, Sean Penn, Nancy Pelosi, Barbra Boxer, John Kerry, Benedict Arnold, and the list goes on. America, wake up. In my opinion, giving in to the likes of these people could allow Abraham Lincoln's prediction of destruction from within to come true. There is not a country in the world that can be considered a conventional military threat to the United States today. However, this country faces a new kind of threat---one that will not go away. It is a threat even more serious that WWII, because money, industry and technology will not defeat it. It is a threat of defeat from within. It is a threat of a faltering economy because of a lack of resources, or the even the simple threat of such a loss brought on by terrorism. It is a threat created by the American people trusting the inept. It is a threat created by the people wanting change, and perilously believing that the left can successfully deliver that change. Have you seen anything from the left that remotely resembles an answer to the Iraq situation? Have you seen anything more than continued Bush-Bashing? Is that an answer? If there was ever a need for a strong, well trained military, it is now. THE LEFT HAS HISTORICALLY DISMANTLED OUR MILITARY IN THE NAME OF REDISTRUBITION OF WEALTH FAVORING SOCIAL PROGRAMS. We just cannot afford to let that happen now. If we do, the entire country may be bowing to the east several times a day within the next 50 years, maybe sooner.

Now a final thought meant to upset as many as possible on the far-left. As you might guess, I don't believe in political correctness. So, let's look at the facts, not far-left rhetoric attempting to empower the democratic party. Initially, I was not a George Bush fan. I am not even a Republican. I normally vote Republican, because of my total despise of Communism, Socialism and the far-left in this country. I am a Conservative. However, during his watch, I feel President Bush just happened to stumble upon the leading edge of the greatest threat this country has ever faced. Mistakes have been made, because of the newness of the threat. Overall, the President has done a superb job dealing the threat, and at the same time held off the constant ranting, raving, deceitful and malicious escapades of the far-left attempting to regain political power. IF THERE WAS EVER A TIME THE COUNTRY NEEDS TO COME TOGETHER AND BACK OUR PRESIDENT, IT IS RIGHT NOW. WITHOUT CONCENSUS WE ARE EMPOWERING THE TERRORIST!!!! I feel the far-left is totally absorbed with a power struggle and regaining control of congress. They could care less about defeating the threat. It literally disgusts me to hear the constant disagreement with everything the President tries to do, all in the name of trying to make him look bad to the voters. Unfortunately, by the time the American people really appreciate how bad the far-left really is, it may too late.

What are the real facts? On the home front this country's economy is the strongest that it has been in my lifetime. Interest rates are as low as they were when I was in high school forty years ago. Inflation does not exist for all practical purposes. For you youngster's, please remember the Jimmy Carter comments? The Dow is approaching 13,000. Unemployment is nonexistent. Wages are at an all time high. Home ownership is at an all time high. Taxes have been lowered to an almost acceptable level. Because of the surging economy the deficient is under control and projected to go away far ahead of schedule. The far-left is rich beyond its wildest dreams, so Mr. President when are you going to "fix" all these domestic problems? Give me a break!!!!

On the war front this country has not been touched since 2001. I remember being part of a seminar at the USAF War College in 1983 discussing the terrorist threat. There were some good minds at that table and a lot of disagreement. However, one common thought was that the US would be hit within the next five years. Answers to the terrorist threat were just as hard to come by then as they are now. Well, it took a little longer than the projection, but the attack occurred. For an old military guy like me, the main point here is that it has not happened again. We have suckered the bad guys into entering the fight somewhere other than in our country. To hell with political correctness. The President can't say this, but I sure can. I smile every morning when I get up and realize that one of our great cities has not been blown away. And, there is zero doubt in my mind that if we pull out of Iraq prematurely, that will happen within a short period of time after our departure. I don't care what you might think of President Bush personally. He has done the best he can with what he has, and this country is not smoking because of it. So, the anti-American, Bush hating far-left should back off. They honestly don't have a clue about what they are talking about, and they are doing irreparable damage to our country.

I realize there are different points of view on war, and I do not believe the meek will inherit the earth, at least not in the next few hundred years. To those of the far-left, who will undoubtedly respond to this letter, let me say, "This is a strong country!!!" It has survived the uneducated thinking of the far-left before, and I'll just bet it will again. Regardless of who is President, the people will not tolerate mass explosions on a daily basis, as our good friends in Israel have been forced to do. To protect that position of power, even Hillary will be forced to become a true hawk. To guarantee a few more votes Ted Kennedy may be forced to begin supporting a strong military. One more attack on America might even wipe the giddy, 'I-am-finally-somebody' grin from Nancy Pelosi's face, and make her realize that is not about votes and personal power. IT IS ABOUT PROTECTING THIS GREAT COUNTRY FROM ALL ENEMIES, BOTH FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC.

Jimmy L. Cash, Brig. Gen., USAF, Ret.

Reasons for Republicans to smile

Bill Kristol on
Why Republicans are smiling. He missed out the "Nowhere to go but up" factor.

Obamination

Obama visits Austin and begs for support: "I don't want to have to raise money in Hollywood all the time," he said. Must be thinking of his media mogul supporter David Geffen, who stirred a political scuffle when he spoke about Hillary, saying: "Everybody in politics lies, but they [the Clintons] do it with such ease, it's troubling." The truth hurts.

Obamination takes on Obama's black separatist 'church'.

Barack at the rally said New Orleans "still looks like a war has been fought. You see buildings and neighborhoods and entire stretches that are completely abandoned."

Let's see. Billions spent and wasted with nothing to show for it. Still a danger zone racked by violence. Government can't and won't do it right. Clearly, there's only one answer - TIME TO PULL THE U.S. OUT OF NEW ORLEANS!

Aussies Welcome Cheney

"Cheney a good mate to us"

Who should be our next President?

The 2008 horserace is starting earlier than ever, as the media spins up support for the top Democrats (while ignoring conservatives).

What kind of person should we support for President? We ought to vote for candidates based on their character, their competence, and their vision and solutions. The candidate should be of good character and capable of leading and managing the vast behemoth that is the Federal executive branch, with a conservative vision that embraces the three legs of the Republican coalition:
1. A pro-free-market pro-freedom, small-Government, fiscal conservative who is for lower taxes, limited spending and less Government regulation.
2. A strong defender of American sovereignty (including our borders) and our national security who will win the war on terror (and understands it as a necessary war against violent radical Islamic extremism); someone who will stymie the anti-Americans both at home and abroad.
3. A pro-life, pro-family defender of traditional values, e.g., for school choice, for traditional definition of marriage, and opposed to the social re-engineering of the cultural left.

While we are at it, we need a candidate who can engineer solutions to: energy dependency, global warming, Federal budget deficit, US trade deficit, failures in American education, illegal immigration, Medicare and Social Security going bust, cultural degeneration and breakup of families, and global terrorism.

The candidate needs to espouse not just the right ideas, but be an articulate and inspiring leader. This leader should both win the election and win Americans - and the world - to pro-freedom conservative values and beliefs.

Against that tall order, in the words of U2's Bono - "I still haven't found what I'm looking for." We know it won't be any Democrat, all of whom are promoting different brands of socialism-lite, putting old, wrong, ideas in new wine skins. If you find the right candidate, let me know.

Politically Incorrect News

Armed store owner foils robbery.

More Americans killed by illegal aliens than Iraq war, study says.

Texas Insider Feb 16 quote of the day, from Jonas Chartock, President & CEO, Charter School Policy Institute:

"Texas charter schools receive between $1,600 and $2,100 less funding per pupil than do traditional public schools, while serving significantly more at-risk and disadvantaged students. Until this disparity is addressed, charters may never reach their full potential.”

Spoils of victory alert: Democrat Governor of Massachusetts caught spending thousands on luxury items for his office and wife.

Mexico sends troops to U.S. border. It's okay, they are fighting the drug cartels.

Another brilliant Thomas Sowell op-ed: Barack Obama, control freak

Washington's Birthday

Tom Pauken notes:

In the “politically correct” world of modern America, we no longer celebrate the birthday of the Father of our country, George Washington, on February 22nd each year. Instead we celebrate some amorphous holiday known as “President’s Day.”

He asks: "Shouldn't we call it George Washington's birthday again?"

I say yes. President's Day has diluted down the honor of our greatest President, George Washington, to include mediocrities from Buchanan to Carter. George Washington's vital importance in our history is not properly expressed in schools, nor is the amorphous day given any respect.

I asked my son this Monday, Presidents Day, what they were taught about our Presidents on this special day. "Oh, nothing," was his reply. I am disappointed our schools are disinterested in our greatest President.

George Washington's birthday is February 22nd. Enjoy it - and remember what he told us.

Letter to the Editor by Bob Ward

1. Bob Ward Letter to Editor as submitted:

Aiding and abetting
The City Council is considering opening a second day-labor site on the south side. The purpose is to make it more convenient for illegal aliens seeking illegal employment.
There are neighborhoods in our city where drug dealers hang out, selling illegal drugs. Neighborhood residents object to this. There is a fear of violence, they don't want their kids exposed to this and property values are adversely affected.
The city should open up a conveniently located center where drug dealers can gather away from other citizens, and their customers would know where to go to make their connections. This would get the drug dealers out of the neighborhoods.

"With a little creative thinking the council can probably find other ways to make life more convenient for those who break our laws.
BOB WARD Austin

2. Bob Ward Letter to Editor as published Monday, January 29, 2007

Aiding and abetting :
The City Council is considering opening a second day-labor site on the south side. The purpose is to make it more convenient for illegal immigrants seeking illegal employment.
There are neighborhoods in our city where drug dealers hang out, selling illegal drugs. Neighborhood residents object to this. There is a fear of violence, they don't want their kids exposed to this and property values are adversely affected.
The city should open up a conveniently located center where drug dealers can gather away from other citizens, and their customers would know where to go to make their connections. This would get the drug dealers out of the neighborhoods.
BOB WARD Austin

Last paragraph of "as submitted" cut out in "as published" and "alien" changed to "immigrant"

The TAKS Test

My son Jack is in 4th grade (in public school) and took the TAKS test this week. Last week, they ran through exercise tests to get students prepped for the test. This is in addition to weekly quizzes this year on the math problem types they will encounter. To me, it's good news: At least they are testing on reading comprehension, writing skills and basic math. Complaints that teachers "teach to the test" are in my mind misplaced. The prep quizzes are the kind of assignments we would want 4th graders to be doing anyway; they are given more rigorous writing assignments in preparation for TAKS than they otherwise would get; they are learning through the process of preparation. Schools need to have more of these 'basic' education elements, and less non-essential activities.

In contrast, tomorrow our 6th grader will 'miss' Language Arts due to a science fair. What will she miss? Watching a movie! Keep TAKS, we need it; what we don't need is the inessential fluff that displaces real learning.

If we are going to have TAKS however, we need to do one obvious and essential thing: Keep it in English! Did you know TEA has created and gives out Spanish TAKS tests?

About one in six of the state's 4.5 million students is classified as "limited English proficient." The Spanish TAKS is offered to some of these students in the third through sixth grades.

Spanish TAKS in my mind defeats the purpose of TAKS and undermines its essential goal. Students who are not English proficient fall behind in education, so testing them in Spanish does nobody good and will inherently be a different standard/test. Bilingual education is a failure that disserves students and this is merely an enabler of that bad idea. Far better to have one-year immersion in English, end long-term bilingual programs, and keep TAKS in English only.

When Chris Bell was running for Governor, he complained about TAKS as too rigid. He had it backwards; our most important problem in education is lack of rigor and accountability. We need good, solid, rigorous standards. TAKS is like the multi-vitamin for the education system. It doesn't ensure a complete educational diet, but it ensures that essentials are getting provided to a given sufficient level. Based on what I see of my son's tests, TAKS is doing its job. We need to keep it.

Quick Takes

Take the Obama Test.

The REAL audacity of hope: GOP can take the House in 2008

What's at stake: Grassroots Freedom.

Job #1 for more jobs and better economy: Make Bush tax cuts permanent.

Politics & The Internet...Are you Ready?

Original Post: TexasEntrepreneur.net

Once upon a time, well...last campaign season to be exact, I had the opportunity to visit a government class lecturing on the various theories behind technology & politics, and their impact on political campaigns. On this day, a local candidate, who was running for office and shall remain nameless, came to speak on this topic.

Long story short...the candidate summarized with the following thoughts by the end of the speech, "The internet is not useful in campaigns, and I believe it to be a waste of time, energy, and money". Immediately, I knew this candidate would lose...no matter how much money they spent. Sure enough, election day rolled around, and not only did they financially out raise and out spend their opponent 5-1, they ended up losing in a very big way.

Is this political newbie saying that their loss was entirely due to the ineffective use of internet and technology? Absolutely not. In fact, I believe it has more to do with the old school mentality behind politics and campaigning. There's this overriding attitude that alot of current politico's have, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Old school political campaigning has worked in the past, why shouldn't it work today."

Well, I'm here to tell ya...Politics is about to change in a very big way. So you better be ready, cause it's already beginning to happen...

Let me share with you a few things...you might be amazed as to what's already going on.

Unity 2008

Unity08 is creating the first-ever online convention, and it will happen in June of 2008. Unity08 will nominate a Unity Ticket of with one Republican and one Democrat for President and Vice-President, or an Independent with a Unity Team drawn from both parties. This ticket will be on the ballot in all 50 states.

Imagine what this kind of technology can and will do to the political process. We've already seen the explosion of Web 2.0 and social networking software. Just look at the popular uses of things like MySpace, Facebook, YouTube, and ect. Will Unity08 actually achieve its goals? Who knows...I will tell you, I'm very interested in watching the process...

Check it out, and learn about how technology is being used to their advantage.

Google Boss Warns Politicians About Internet Power

This is an article I saved about Google Inc., written in October of 2006. One of the things you gotta love about Google is their ability to really think outside the cubicle. They spend an enormous amount of time brainstorming ways in which they can tear down those blue felt walls we've all become accustomed to. Google is probably the company I admire most.

LONDON (Reuters) - Imagine being able to check instantly whether or not statements made by politicians were correct. That is the sort of service Google Inc. boss Eric Schmidt believes the Internet will offer within five years.

Politicians have yet to appreciate the impact of the online world, which will also affect the outcome of elections, Schmidt said in an interview with the Financial Times published on Wednesday.

He predicted that "truth predictor" software would, within five years, "hold politicians to account." People would be able to use programmes to check seemingly factual statements against historical data to see to see if they were correct.

"One of my messages to them (politicians) is to think about having every one of your voters online all the time, then inputting 'is this true or false.' We (at Google) are not in charge of truth but we might be able to give a probability," he told the newspaper.

The chairman and chief executive of the world's most popular Internet search engine was speaking during a visit to Britain this week, where he met Prime Minister Tony Blair and spoke at the Conservative Party's annual conference.

"Many of the politicians don't actually understand the phenomenon of the Internet very well," Schmidt told the Financial Times. "It's partly because of their age ... often what they learn about the Internet they learn from their staffs and their children."

The advent of television taught political leaders the art of the sound bite. The Internet will also force them to adapt. "The Internet has largely filled a role of funding for politicians ... but it has not yet affected elections. It clearly will," Schmidt said.

Writing in the Sun tabloid, the Google boss said the online world has empowered ordinary people with the ability to challenge governments, the media and business.

"It has broken down the barriers that exist between people and information, effectively democratising access to human knowledge," Schmidt wrote.

"This has made us much more powerful as individuals."

Barack Obama

Barack Obama, one of the Democrat Presidential Contenders, has embraced new technology for his campaign, and is currently utilizing Web technology to build a base for continued momentum. As my friend James always says, "It's all about the big MO". If you visit his site, MyBrarackObama.Com you can actually sign up for his campaign version of MySpace and Facebook.

Will this help Obama defeat Hillary, the establishment's candidate, during the heated primary race? Who knows...but I bet his use of alternative campaign methods gives her a run for her money.

Just as a side note: We saw Howard Dean use some of these same tactics when running for president, and subsequently raising over $20 million dollars online. Interestingly enough, at this point in time online social networking was in its infancy. This strategy, along with Obama's ability to be less eccentric than Mr. Dean, will make this an exciting primary season.

In The End...

It'll be interesting to see which Republican Candidate latches on to technology. If I had to place a bet on it...my money would be on the McCain Campaign...Their primary consultant is incredibly savvy with technology, and I've actually had the great pleasure of meeting and learning from this man. I guess we'll just have to wait and see...

I'll have more thoughts on this subject towards the end of 2007, as campaign season heats up again...Primary Elections are starting up earlier than normal, and I'm guessing that the winners and losers will be mostly decided by Feb of 08.

-Tom Serres
(A Texas Entrepreneur)

Pushing back on Perry's HPV vaccine plan

Today House committee on HPV took testimony on a bill that would overturn Gov. Rick Perry's executive order mandating that sixth-grade girls be vaccinated against the human papillomavirus, H.B. 1098 (R-Bonnen). Free Market Foundation supports this bill for these reasons:

“The injection of virus-like particles into girls as young as 9-years-old for a sexually transmitted disease is a serious decision, best left to parents and their family doctor,” said Free Market Foundation Director of Legislative Affairs Jonathan Saenz. “Subverting the legislative process and mandating by unilateral order is not good for Texas and not good for our young girls,” said Saenz.

OverturnRP65 blog says: "The bill, HB 1098, now has 90 co-sponsors. This is almost the 100 votes needed to make the measure veto-proof."

The travesty of Perry's executive order is that the clinical basis for mandated use is not established. As the
American College of Pediatricians says:

Because the average time between initial HPV infection and death from cervical cancer is 20 years, definitive conclusions about HPV vaccine efficacy will take years to establish. ... Until further research is completed, HPV vaccine recipients should be fully informed as to the current limits of knowledge regarding the vaccine’s potency and duration of protection.

Because of these and other concerns, the American College of Pediatricians states they are "opposed to any legislation which would require HPV vaccination for school attendance."

Governor Perry has succeeded in creating a bipartisan consensus - opposing his unwise and unprecedented HPV vaccine executive order!

The Democrats' defeatist irresolution

In Iraq, they are saying: "Tell the American people we need the U.S. Army here." But in Congress, the answer comes "No."

By signalling opposition to the renewed "surge" effort to win in Iraq, the Democrat-controlled House and their defeatist irresolution undercut our military from the commander-in-chief to the troops in the field. President Bush was the intended target, but the military men and women in Iraq, as well as the people of Iraq, are collateral damage. Absolutely no good came of Congress' act, which has no real effect and merely signals our weakening will to fight. However, much mischief will result as the Democrats in Congress undercut war efforts. Democrats already have withheld $4 billion in funds to re-equip forces in the latest budget, and Rep Murtha is finding other ways to hamstring our military via military appropriations.

Congressional meddling indicates an unwillingness to comprehend Constitutional responsibilities and boundaries of their branch of Government, but worse a perverse eagerness to put partisan considerations above the patriotic unity required for victory in foreign intervention. Whatever one's view on the President's strategy in Iraq, once he and his generals choose a course of action, the military should be given the tools and support to pursue it to victory; the only other option is a unified and purposeful decision to leave. But today, most Americans want to win in Iraq and are hopeful we will succeed.

We have seen this defeatist playbook before - the Congressional Democrats of the early 1970s used it to great effect to undermine policy in Vietnam, ultimately costing us South Vietnam to Communist North Vietnam. James Phillips says:

If the Democratic-controlled Congress does succeed in choking off the troop reinforcements and resources needed to implement the Bush Administration’s Iraq strategy, then it must assume responsibility for the resulting disaster.

The only thing that can defeat us is defeatism itself. As leaders choose defeatism over perseverence, the war in Iraq is being lost not in the streets of Baghdad but in the halls of Congress.

P.S. Other takes:

• Cal Thomas: "Indian Givers"
  
• Jed Babbin: Banish the ghosts of 1970
  
• Poll shows voters think Democrats are going too far in opposing Bush
  
• GOP surrenderists who joined the Democrats
  
• DadManly: Support the troops. Let them win.
  

Democrat leaders stifle patriotic dissent

Democrat leaders break their word, stifle dissent and undermine our war effort - a hat-trick of malfeasance, all in one day! From GOPUSA:

On Tuesday, the House of Representatives will begin debate on the Democrats' anti-troop resolution and that's all. Pelosi's deputy has flip-flopped and told the GOP they can't bring up their own resolution that supports our troops and the President.

The anti-war crowd like to say that "dissent is patriotic". Au contraire. Patriotic dissent against the defeatist mood is apparently what these Democrats most dislike. Townhall.com says Tell Congress not to surrender.

For The Last Time,This Isn't Soviet Russia

One of the staples of the economy of Communist Russia (or any Communist nation, for that matter) was price fixing, a process by which a group of bureaucrats would decide that, this week, bread was worth 10 ruble, milk was worth 15, and meat was worth 50. Since they set the prices, they had to set the wages as well, because while the Soviets were no strangers to making their people starve, they couldn't be obvious about it and price necessary commodities higher than what the average prole needed to eek by. So, this group decided, being a doctor got you 100 rubles a week, and being a farmer got you 60. That a planned economy can work is a fiction no longer held even by the Chinese, whose government is inseparably attached to the political framework of Stalinist Communism.

You might then wonder why it is that there are factions of our government that wish to impose a smaller, but no less insidious, form of price and wage fixing upon the American market. It may be because the electorate is, unfortunately, not all that bright and only sees the promise of something for free while completely overlooking the consequences of those unending free lunches. Or it could be white guilt. Or it could be because too many somber college feminists get to go to the polls full of feelings of righteous anger that their Poems of Post-colonial Wymyn professor told them to feel, and have to get back at daddy for having all that money unfairly. I don't know, I don't care. Understanding the why would involve understanding the psyche of a public that has, in almost every important area of life, shown itself incapable of making a rational decision about anything.

The why aside, the central planning that has manifested itself in the forms of the minimum wage and "universal health care" will be no less harmful to our economy than the failed experiment of Communism was to the Soviets, and the threat to our freedoms is perhaps greater.

The minimum wage hits the low end, establishing a basement value for a commodity. The commodity in this case is labor, but that doesn't make a difference. Everything is expressible in terms of labor: how many man-hours did it take to make a car/house/hammer/cat carrier is no different a question than to ask how much steel it took to make those things. According to Congressional central planners and their 3rd Communist International supporters, there is no act of labor that is worth less than $7.25 an hour. 60 minutes of the least skilled, least valuable person in this country's time is worth at least $7.25.

If you're a Leftist, right now you're thinking, "But $7.25 isn't that much, and people need to earn a living wage", or some other nonsense, and if you're not a simpering college student, you're thinking "Man, that's going to jack up the economy". Either way, set that aside. I don't care about the pragmatic arguments for or against the minimum wage.

We're a nation built on laws which codify our rights and freedoms, as well as the powers our government has, and our evaluation of any policy should begin there. The minimum wage represents an egregious overstepping by the federal government. That it's happened before is no reason to let it go by without a whisper of complaint now. That's the road to pure apathy, because if there's a single freedom that you possess that the government hasn't brutalized, I haven't heard of it.

Who gave the government the power to decide for private businessmen what the cost of labor should be? Is the government comprised of magic fairies with special dust that give it super duper awesome insight into the inner workings of our economy? Were they reading a big book labeled "THE UNITED STATES ECONOMY", and noticed that there was some extra elasticity when it came to the cost of low end labor? No, they simply asserted that no business could pay less than an arbitrary amount for an hour of JoJo the Circus Boy swinging around a mop.

It is private businesses, and only private businesses, who have the right to determine the cost of labor. After all, they're the ones that pay it, not the government (of course, the government pays people with our money anyway). They're the ones who have the responsibility to their employees, customers, and families to turn a profit, not the State. And they've done pretty well on their own without Uncle Sam sticking his nose in it. The amount you're paid now is probably pretty close to what you're worth. But, in a desire to show that they mean business in the war between the peasants and the evil, top-hat wearing capitalists, the government is taking yet a little more of our freedom away from us, the freedom to run our businesses as our needs require.

So that's Nancy and Harry and Fat, Drunk Ted and all the rest hitting us from the bottom, instituting wage fixing. But they're not happy wreaking havoc on just one part of the economy, no. To jam us all from the top, the brilliant Socialists in Washington have decided that, you know what, it'd just be keen if the government (by which, of course, is meant the people of the United States) would just pay for everyone's health insurance. Again, the why is unimportant. Maybe some people just get their jollies from wasting billions of other people's dollars.

What matters is that "universal health care" is just another word for "price fixing". Under any "universal", tax-payer funded health care system, the government will necessarily set the price for medical care. How can it do that? Well, if everyone pays for their medical care through the government, that means that, essentially, the government has the buying power of 300 million individuals rolled into one giant customer. When you've only got one customer, you can't dicker on price too much if you want to work.

This, of course, means that the government will be setting arbitrary values on the labor of doctors, nurses, and other medical practitioners, the use of hospital facilities, the development of new medical technology, and a host of other things it simply cannot rationally succeed at. That decision will no longer be left to the people who, you know, practice medicine, or develop new drugs, or own hospitals, the people whom those things directly affect. Your rights as a consumer of medical goods and services will be limited by the desire of the state to impose its will upon you, as though your own concern for your health can be trumped by the abstract will of the progressive wave in Washington.

And yet, through all this, we stand there and do nothing. Nobody says a word when Sen. Obama, the first black candidate for President that the Left doesn't secretly cringe over, declares that there will be universal health care by 2012. Nobody says a word when the unworking, but often-protesting, mob of the Left storms state capitols and demands a "living wage". Every time the state engages in this kind of central planning, they're ripping your freedom to make your own value decisions away from you, and making you foot the bill. It's like paying someone to stun-gun you every time you reach for a piece of chocolate cake. Yeah, you might drop the pounds eventually, but only because you've been turned into cattle.

Eanes ISD Spending

Eanes ISD parent Susan Bushart started asking questions about where Eanes money was going, and found financial hijinks in Eanes ISD fundraising, refusals to open records, and possible law violations for no-bid contracts. Thousands of dollars were 'raised' but little got to students; they are cutting nurses, but can spend money on lawyers fighting to not disclose basic information that should be public. Read the whole sordid tale and ask youself: Do you know how your school district is spending its money?

School Choice Supporters Rally in Austin

The pro-voucher School Choice Rally Wednesday attracted an estiamted 3500 to 5000 people, and ABC's John Stossel was on hand to speak to the crowd. Peyton Walcott has pictures.

School choice is common sense accountability in education. It is a travesty that school choice isn't given a chance in Texas for even the poorest families in the worst schools. However, common sense leaves the room once the vested interests of education monopolists takes over - they think education should be about feeding a public education bureaucracy (with as little accountability as possible) rather than about creating the best education for the child. The Educrats oppose even allowing children in failing schools (which is 15% of schools) to participate in school choice. This denies a lifeline to children suffering from educational malpractice. To be anti-school-choice is to be anti-school-children.

"10 Principles of School Choice" (PDF) is a great booklet that lays out the common sense idea of school choice and how it should work:

1. Allow parents to choose
2. Funding should follow the child
3. Schools should compete
4. Empower school leaders
5. Empower teachers
6. Give parents adequate funding with incentives
7. Allow schools to succeed or fail
8. Preserve the autonomy of private schools
9. Teach democratic values
10. All parents should be free to choose

Education funding costs $100,000 per child over the 13 years it take to go from K to 12. Who's watching out for that investment? Parental involvement is a major predictor of child progress in education. With school choice, parents can correct bad educational outcomes by 'voting with their feet' and taking kids out of failing schools (or even 'good' schools that are failing to educate their particular kids). What could possibly be wrong with parental involvement, more accountability and more choice? Why, if school vouchers are such a horrible idea, does every anti-voucher big Government liberal support the same 'voucher' concept at the College level via the Pell Grant? Or the same concept as applied to food - Food Stamps? Or the same concept applied to housing (Section 8)? Oh, and did I mention vouchers would probably cut costs for taxpayers over time as well, as efficiency in schooling improves.

More school choice and education reform resources:

• Dr James Leininger on his $50 million philanthropic scholarship program and why he supports school choice - "I have never made a secret about what motivates me politically: the need to improve the lives of poor children in Texas."
  
• Parents in Charge Foundation
  
• Alliance for School Choice
  
• School choice NH research
  
• School choice works
  
• LEAD action - education reform news
  
• Manhattan Institute study on Florida A+ program
  

Bush calls for tax relief and a balanced budget

President Bush is proposing a five-year plan that will balance the federal budget without raising taxes, including making tax cuts permanent and cutting earmarks:

Over half a million jobs (513,000) have been added in the past three months alone. Our economy has now added jobs for 41 straight months, paychecks are growing, and the unemployment rate remains low at 4.6 percent. The President asks Congress to help keep our economy growing by making his tax relief permanent. ...

The Budget Restrains Spending Elsewhere By Focusing Resources On More Effective Programs, Reducing Wasteful Spending, And Addressing The Long-Term Challenge Of The Unsustainable Growth In Spending For Entitlement Programs. ... In 2005, We Had More Than 13,000 Earmarks. To help eliminate wasteful or unnecessary earmarks, the President will work with Democrats and Republicans in Congress to: Continue reforming the budget process; Expose every earmark to the light of day and a vote in Congress; Reduce the number and cost of earmarks by at least half by the end of this session.

This old-time fiscal conservative religion is wonderful stuff, but it certainly highlights the missed opportunity of Republican control of the Federal Government in 2005 and 2006. Why didn't Bush and the Republican Congress make tax cuts permanent when they had a chance?
A few squishy moderates in the Senate stalled the most important element of the Bush domestic agenda, and the leaders rolled over for it.

The reality is that almost every Republican voted for the Bush tax cuts but the Democrats voted 3 to 1 against tax cuts. President Bush is asking Congress to make permanent tax cuts on everyone who pays income taxes; double the child tax credit; reduce the marriage penalty; cut taxes on small businesses; cut taxes on dividends and capital gains; and phase out the death tax. Democrats won't do it. The first action the Democrats in the House did this month was to pass a "paygo" rule that made tax cuts harder to enact, while embracing higher energy taxes in their "100 hours" plan. The Liberal chairmen of House committees, like Rep. Charlie Rangel, are openly advocating higher taxes and think nothing of the enormous economic dislocation that will occur when they let the tax cuts expire. A Republican Congress in 2009 might have a different view, but will that happen? If it doesn't many of these provisions will expire in 2009, 2010 or 2011.

Bush also asks for the line-item veto. The President needs to use the sledgehammer of the full-bore veto on spending bills to make the point for the Congress. Another missed opportunity - earmarks proliferated and Bush signed the bills instead of holding the line on it. He can complain about wasteful spending, but until he actually vetoes it a few times, Congress will send it to his desk.

More Hot Air

Junk science blows the cover off the latest highly-publicized IPCC report - "What kind of "science" distributes a summary and then withholds the underlying report for a further three months editing to make it concur with the already distributed summary?"

George Will shares Inconvenient Kyoto truths with a robust skewering of Kyoto and global warming hysteria.

Media Bias

German-style.

Smoking-blowing on Texas Power Plants

There is no issue that is more mis-stated and demagogued than energy. Sometimes it is due to the economic illiteracy of advocates of a particular utopian claim. Sometimes it is simply a hidden agenda, such as this case of anti-coal ads funded by gas power plant builders:

Natural gas companies, calling themselves the Texas Clean Sky Coalition, have been fighting coal plant proposals with full-page advertisements in the state's major daily newspapers. ... A Web site, www.cleanskycoalition .com, includes these rhetorical questions: "Would you bathe your child in coal? Sprinkle arsenic, mercury and lead on your husband's cereal? Treat your friends to a big dose of radiation?" ...

The coal plant proposals jeopardize some natural gas plans, said Greg Platt, an executive at Cobisa, a small Houston company that develops natural gas plants.

"From our perspective, it's difficult to justify a gas plant if all of these coal plants get built," Platt said. "It's difficult for (financiers) to take the leap to open spigots on the money if they see these coal plants hanging out there."

With natural gas prices high, the operator of the state's electrical grid will run cheaper fuels such as nuclear and coal power before gas, Platt said.

The Clean Sky Coalition Web site includes newspaper stories about coal-fired power plants, informs readers about a rally against the coal plants on Sunday at the Capitol and points readers in the direction of Environmental Defense and the Sierra Club.
Neither group said it receives money from the Clean Sky Coalition or even knew what it is.

"Whether the money is coming from environmentalists, businessmen or competitors, we're glad they're fighting," said Tom "Smitty" Smith of the watchdog group Public Citizen. "Without help from everyone in the state, we won't be able to stop the coal plants."

The ad campaign is a travesty. It lies about the real impact of the coal technology to be used (no arsenic flakes for breakfast) and it hides the real agenda of these opposing companies. Coal is cheaper than gas, and the builders of more expensive alternatives are afraid to see successful new coal plants. The reality is that
these new plants by TXU will reduce coal power plant emissions as a whole:

For TXU, the key emissions cap will be 20 percent lower than 2005 levels, despite adding needed generating capacity to meet consumer needs. TXU says its new plants will add no new key emissions since they will be more than offset by the company’s reductions. TXU’s coal fleet emission rates per MW/hr would fall nearly 70 percent.

Quite a contrast to the rhetoric.

Skaggs and Zimmerman were right to ask for more facts and less hyperventilating on coal plant impact on air quality, and to suggest that TCEQ might not be falling on the job:

It appears to us the much criticized Texas Commission on Environmental Quality may be simply doing its job — evaluating the total, integrated implications of the additional energy Central Texas needs to maintain and improve its economic competitiveness and provide citizens an improving quality of life.

If we want to have power generation technology that is cost-effective, safe, environmentally-friendy, and emissions-free (including CO2), there is one answer: Nuclear power.
TXU is planning nuclear power plants, and rightly so. Nuclear power in the U.S. has had a very safe track record, and each year it's operational performance improves and shows more consistency on safety and cost. The answer sure isn't solar - solar and other non-nuclear renewables are too expensive to be practical, with costs running 2 times to 30 times coal or nuclear. And it's not gas, which is more expensive than coal or nuclear and not emissions-free.

Nuclear power is the elephant in the room for the anti-fossil fuel environmentalists; their irrationally anti-nuclear policies lock us into coal and other fossil fuels for power generation. A sensible counterpoint is found here. One can be both pro-environment and pro-energy - by being pro-nuclear power. It's time to recognize nuclear power as a renewable power source that can drastically reduce our CO2 emissions.

Unless and until we decide to build more nuclear power plants in Texas, the proposed coal plants are the next best answer for meeting Texas' power needs.

1,000 riders a day for $90 million

That's what the Cap Metro light-rail commuter line from Leander to downtown Austin will deliver, according to Ben Wear in today' Statesman. More riders would mean more expense of more rail cars and more tied up traffic on the road crossings for the system. This $90,000 per rider cost was supposed to be 'cheap' light-rail ... I'd hate to think about what a real light rail system would cost!

Texas Margins Tax and Small Business

Texas' new margins tax replaced the old franchise tax with a lower rate that hits a broader base of businesses.
I am looking into a real estate investment and trying to figure out if I will get hit. In looking at it I realized that the margins tax hits business at $300,000 gross revenue or above. That means that practically every small business with a decent revenue stream has the headache of another tax.

Given the surplus, there is an obvious thing that sticks out as a great idea for a tax cut: Why not raise that exemption so Texas small businesses don't get hit with the complexity of a tax? An exemption of $3 million or more could save many small businesses from having to be concerned about this new tax, making compliance less onerous, without giving up too much in tax revenue. I don't know what the impact to revenue would be, but even if it reduced tax reveue by a billion or two, Texas has a surplus to afford it and it would greatly help Texas small businesses.