A Brilliant Idea

It is not often that something is published in a blog that is as brilliant as the following essay:

A Modest Proposal for Middle East Peace
The U.N. need only take five simple steps.

By Victor Davis Hanson

It can be read here.

Call Al Gore

Three weeks of crippling snow storms across China have inflicted $7.5 billion in damages, the government said Friday, as it announced a $700 million relief fund for farmers.

The freakish weather -- the country's worst in five decades -- has paralyzed China's densely populated central and eastern regions just as tens of millions of travelers were seeking to board trains and buses to return home for this month's Lunar New Year.

The storms have killed at least 60 people, closed roads, disabled the rail system, destroyed crops and exacerbated a coal shortage, forcing power plants to shut down and factories to cut production.

At a news conference to discuss the government's response to the storms, Zou Ming, deputy director of the Ministry of Civil Affairs, said the storms had caused $7.5 billion in damages.

The kiss of death

The biggest worry Obama has right now is that Al Gore will endorse him.

Proposition

I got this from Lucianne.com. There are a lot of witty people out there with Photo Shop, it seems.

More on vouchers for students

This is a pretty comprehensive essay on vouchers as employed in public schools. The whole thing is worth reading, but it depressed me to learn as reported in the following paragraph that we are not seeing the expected improvement in public schools that competition is supposed to provide. Liberals, of course, will take this conclusion and argue that rather than expand vouchers to broaden the positive, we should abandon them, take the money, expand funding for failed programs and teachers, and sink all students equally.

Fifteen years into the most expansive school choice program tried in any urban school district in the country, Milwaukee’s public schools still suffer from low achievement and miserable graduation rates, with test scores flattening in recent years. Violence and disorder throughout the system seem as serious as ever. Most voucher students are still benefiting, true; but no “Milwaukee miracle,” no transformation of the public schools, has taken place. One of the Milwaukee voucher program’s founders, African-American educator Howard Fuller, recently told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, “I think that any honest assessment would have to say that there hasn’t been the deep, wholesale improvement in MPS [Milwaukee Public Schools] that we would have thought.” And the lead author of one of the Milwaukee voucher studies, Harvard political scientist Paul Peterson, told me: “The research on school choice programs clearly shows that low-income students benefit academically. It’s less clear that the presence of choice in a community motivates public schools to improve.”

Kenya

The folks in Kenya don't seem to be getting along and playing nice lately. I guess I need to look into what is going on there. I suspect it is a tribal thing similar to what we have been facing in Iraq. More later.

Waterboarding

I have never really understood exactly what waterboarding was and how it was conducted, but I had decided that it is not torture if it is merely psychological and not painful or long-lasting (since the recipient gives up almost immediately). There is a very good article in today's Wall Street Journal which describes the technique in detail. It makes a good read.

I remain convinced it is not torture and I want no part of it.

"Universal" Health Care Rationing

In London doctors are barring some patients from operations they need. This includes the smokers, heavy drinkers, the obese and the elderly. So, for Britons, health care rationing is a reality. The logic is that persons who made bad choices should be the ones who do not get scarce resources. The situation should be instrumental for us as we listen to the liberals who cry at full throat for universal health care. It can never be universal if by that we expect anything for everyone. At some point, the gatekeepers will impose rationing since there is not enough money to treat everyone for everything always. So, those inclined to follow the Hillary universal plan can look forward to bureaucrats rationing care and the providers will be civil servants who will remind you of the employees at the Department of Motor Vehicles.

Pell Grants for kids

There is nothing the liberals like more than giving away money. Pell grants are very popular when given to poor students so they can take the money to any college---public or private --to help pay college expenses. It will be fun to watch the hypocrits in Congress jump through their rear denouncing a Bush proposal to give Pell grants to poor students to attend school in K-12. The education establishment will not let them disturb their failed system. This, of course, is vouchers by another name and will be rejected.

If there were Republicans worth their salt, they would insist that the next appropriation for Pell grant money be expanded to all students or cut out entirely.

Why not the Sandy Berger Sentence?

Joseph Romito spotted an original, four-page letter earlier this month from antebellum Vice President John Calhoun being offered on eBay by seller "Idd1863," did a quick check in a specialty reference text, and discovered that it was supposed to be part of the official New York State Library collection.

"When I saw that the document was being sold by someone who listed his address as Rensselaer and then I saw that was right near Albany, I believed something was amiss here," Romito told The Post.

"I called the library the next morning, told them of my suspicions, and they said they'd look into it," added Romito, a 59-year-old litigation and estate-planning specialist from Richmond.

The next thing Romito knew, investigators from Attorney General Andrew Cuomo's office were handling the case, bidding on eBay until they eventually "bought" the purloined document for $1,802.77.

The sticky-fingered state archivist and eBay merchandiser, identified by Cuomo's office as Daniel Lorello, 54 - a 30-year employee paid $72,000 annually - was arrested late last week on multiple felony charges, including grand larceny, criminal possession of stolen property, and first-degree scheme to defraud.

He faces up to seven years in prison.

As Betsy asks, why is this so much more harsh than the one Sandy Berger got for stealing and destroying documents.

Whither now, Bill

The chattering out of the liberal press holds to the view that Bill cost Hillary in South Carolina and he needs to be diverted to other, less polarizing activities. One line of speculation holds that he will now get sick and have to get off the campaign trail for a while. This will allow Hillary to soldier on despite this heavy burden and even cry a few times at the thought of poor Bill's declining health. Seems plausible to me.

Out of it

I am way over the hill, I guess. Heath Ledger's death seems to have captivated the news on TV and even in the print media. I am sure it is a stunning news event, but I had never heard of him and even after endless recounts of his career, the only movie I knew of was "Brokeback Mountain". I gotta get out more.

Obama rediscovers the wheel

The following quote from Senator Obama is kinda funny. He seems to have just discovered that a convicted perjurer doesn't tell the truth.

Bill 'has taken his advocacy on behalf of his wife to a level that I think is pretty troubling. He continues to make statements that are not supported by the facts. Whether it's about my record of opposition to the war in Iraq or our approach to organizing in Las Vegas. This has become a habit and one of the things that we're gonnna have to do is to directly confront Bill Clinton when he's making statements that are not factually accurate'..

It is Bush's fault

Read in the paper this morning that Israel test fired a long range missle that could probably be used to carry nuclear warheads. Iran is not happy and Ahmadinejad said Bush just came to the mid-east and incited confrontation. Makes sense to me. There wasn't any before Bush's time.

George Will's characterization of John McCain

This is great summary of why John McCain should not be elected---and why BestView has come to view Romney as the best alternative to the dangerous dems if Thompson can't be nominated. At one time I flirted with the idea that we could live with McCain, but I finally became completely disabused of that notion. I think it was a form of mental illness.

When McCain and Joe Lieberman introduced legislation empowering Congress to comprehensively regulate U.S. industries' emissions of greenhouse gases in order to "prevent catastrophic global warming," they co-authored an op-ed column that radiated McCainian intolerance of disagreement. It said that a U.N. panel's report "puts the final nail in denial's coffin about the problem of global warming." Concerning the question of whether human activity is causing catastrophic warming, they said, "the debate has ended."

Interesting, is it not, that no one considers it necessary to insist that "the debate has ended" about whether the Earth is round. People only insist that a debate stop when they are afraid of what might be learned if it continues.

Mortgage Problems

This is probably too arcane for most people, but if you are reading and hearing about the problems in the home mortgage market, most of what you read is about the sub-prime mortgages. In these, the bankers lent money to people who did not have the income or credit scores which should have been required before the mortgage was approved. On the other end there are prime mortgages which were taken out by borrowers with good credit and good income so they have been judged to be great credit risks. Most people do not realize that there are problems there as well. Here is what has happened in markets where home values have dropped (Florida and California, for example): Some of these great credit risks have taken out lines of credit with their homes as collateral. These are called home equity loans and many people use them to live beyond their means. Now some of these home owners are falling behind on these loans because they have interest rates which go up to levels which crimp the ability to pay. When this happens, the bank has a problem. Do they foreclose or not. In many cases, the bank owns the 2nd mortgage and someone else owns the first mortgage. So, if the homeowner does not make payments on the home equity loan, the lender in many cases decides to just let it go rather than try to take your house because if they did, the holder of the original mortgage would come first and the house in many cases could not be sold for the amount owed. If you are an investor in the bank, you should realize that they are carrying the value of this home equity loan on their books as an asset and it is in fact worthless unless some time in the far future the house happens to sell for enough for the loan to be paid. I would not consider that an asset and you should not either when considering whether to own shares in a bank.

Thompson supports BestView on energy

Appearing on CNN, Thompson was asked whether, as president, he would turn to Saudi Arabia for help as Bush did.

Thompson, a former Tennessee senator, said the problem was a "little bigger" than Saudi Arabia.

"It's not in the United States' long-term interest to go hat in hand begging people to do things that in the end we know they're not going to do," Thompson said.

"What we need to concentrate on is diversifying our own energy sources here in this country and opening up what oil reserves that we have here ... using nuclear more, using clean coal technology more and all the other things that we can do," Thompson said.

Energy Depression

Actually, the problem isn't energy depression, but BestView depression because of the sorry situation we find ourselves in with respect to our energy policy. It is depressing to see our President in Saudi Arabia begging the sheiks to increase the supply of their oil instead of fighting to increase our exploration for oil here at home. The American people bitch about paying $3.00 for a gallon of gas and yet won't let our elected official drill for oil off our coasts or in ANWAR. At the same time, we are allowing 20% of our corn crop to be diverted to ethanol production which increases the cost of food. This diversion makes up only 4% of the fuel our cars burn, but the government continues to place a $0.54/gallon import tax on Brazilian ethanol so it is not economical to use their ethanol instead of subsidizing our corporate farmers to the tune of billions per year. Don't look for the pitiful politicians currently running for President to change the situation, either.

Congressional Progress

Newly ascendant Democrats may have hit roadblocks on Iraq and fiscal issues, but they have revamped congressional menus, replacing fatty, pre-made foods with healthier, gourmet alternatives. The once dreary congressional cafeterias now abound with haute cuisine.

The menu transformation is part of Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s “Greening the Capitol” plan to make the House campus more environmentally friendly and socially progressive.

Gay Sex

As confirmed by this article, gay sex is not healthy.

Political Stalemate

The democrats in the U.S. Congress say the surge in Iraq has not worked because the Baghdad legislative body has not accomplished anything in the past year which would bring the Sunni and Shiites together. BestView can't think of a group more qualified to recognize legislative incompetence.

More on light bulbs

In a previous offering, BestView commented on the governmental decision to make us change light bulbs from the carbon filament to the fluorescent bulbs which don't actually put out much light, but they make up for it by costing a lot more and contain mercury. This is the same government that made us give up thermometers which contain mercury and mandated that our toilets use so much less water that we now have to flush twice and use more water. This is the idiocy you get when we elect idiots and send them to Washington.

Eye-opening data

A friend sent me a Congressional Research Service report as of April this past year which contained some interesting information on military deaths of all causes since 1980. Here is the link to the report.

If you only read the newspapers, you would certainly expect that the war in Iraq since 2003 and the earlier invasion of Iraq in 1990-1991 would have lead to higher than normal military deaths among those on active duty. The data belie that conclusion. Table 4 on page 10 of the congressional report show that there were more military deaths in 1980, the last year of the Carter administration than any year of Bush's. Further analysis of the data shows that there were more deaths during the Clinton administration than Bush's---some 14,000.

Of course, there have been more deaths from hostile action in past 6 years, but accidental deaths and deaths due to homicide and illness are way less than in previous years. Any loss of our service men and women is too high, but a balanced reporting of the issue has not been presented.

Health Care Mandates

If you want to know what Hillary has in mind for you with regard to health care, consider the situation in her state. New York spent $48 billion on Medicaid last year and this is about $2,100 for every man, woman and child in the state. Despite this, 13.5% of the state's population still lacks health insurance. In neighboring Pennsylvania, $1,300 was spent on each resident and the uninsured rate was 10.5%. One reason for this disparity is the mandates which New York imposes on insurance companies that raises rates to levels which are unaffordable. For a policy not purchased through an employer, New Yorkers have to pay about $1,400 per month for a family policy. This is about twice the national average because of mandates. Here are some examples of New York style health care.

1. Insurers have to sell a policy to anyone who will pay for it regardless of health status. The result is the really sick wait until they need it to buy and this elevates the cost to levels which prevent the healthy from buying policies. Why pay when you are healthy when you can simply wait until you are sick.

2. Every state requires policies to cover basic care, but New York requires insurers to cover such things a chiropractic , fertility, and mental health services which, of course, drives up the cost of a "basic" policy. There are a total of 52 such services mandated by the home state of the smartest woman in America who is also it's Senator and wants to devise a plan for you.

3. If you are a young, healthy adult in good health, there are policies in other states which can meet your needs for about $100-$200/month depending on age and gender. In New York, the young people are too smart to participate in the liberal concoction of health care being advanced by their Senator Clinton. The problem faced by the young people in the U.S. is any effort to provide health care for everyone will require young healthy people to subsidize the older, sicker part of our population. No other way.

McCain's failing memory

McCain maintains that anyone who says he supported amnesty is "lying." From National Review.

"'There are jobs that American workers simply won't do,' McCain said. 'As long as there's a demand for workers, workers are going to come across.' An amnesty program is vital to any immigration legislation that includes a guest-worker program, he said. 'Amnesty has to be an important part because there are people who have lived in this country for 20, 30 or 40 years, who have raised children here and pay taxes here and are not citizens. That has to be a component of it,' he said. 'How can we have a temporary worker program if we're not allowing people who have been here for 30 years to hold jobs here?'" (C. T. Revere, "McCain Pushes Amnesty, Guest-Worker Program," Tucson Citizen, 5/29/03)

Depression

This field of Republican candidates is really just depressing. All are so flawed from a conservative point of view that the only hope for a decent candidate is a brokered convention. McCain lost me for good last night during the debates when he said there was enough evidence for him to conclude that man was contributing materially to global warming. This is just so idiotic that even the liberal dems aren't mentioning it. Thompson says all the right things, but he reminds me of myself at the end of my career as a lecturer....I was tired of hearing myself talk and knew the audience felt that same lack of enthusiasm. Romney is almost as phony as Edwards, Huckabee is evolving but not there yet and might even be a bigger risk in foreign policy than Obama. Giuliani is New York liberal and would act as one if elected. His ethical baggage is elephantine. Woe is me.

Iowa Results

Evidently Iowans really don't like Hillary. Not all that surprising.

Revenue Lost?

When the liberals consider any effort to reduce taxes, they commonly argue that the act would result in a condition whereby there would revenue lost. Fred Thompson had the best response to that. He said the revenue would not be lost. It would be in his pocket. Amen.

A revolt in liberalville??

It is hard to know what to make of this article in the New York Times which seems to have taken a hard look at Hillary's actual involvement in Bill's administration and just how much actual "experience" she has. Her detractors have long scoffed at her claim of preparedness based on living in the same house as President Clinton. If the Times is now moving to disparage her claims, this sorry excuse of a paper may be laying the ground to move away from her and support Obama. It gets curiouser and curiouser.

Merry Christmas to All

The Candidates

For the benefit of almost nobody, here is the BestView on the leading candidates for the presidency. I wish I was sufficiently gifted with the written word to convey my lack of enthusiasm for this election.

1. Hillary is maybe the one dem which might not be as bad as one fears, but that is only because she is one who is rightly feared so widely. There is just no way to stomach her on the TV every day. I am praying, but would it help if I begged?

2. Obama is a liberal and would be a liberal if elected, but of all the dems, he would probably be the preferred one. A dangerous blank slate on foreign matters.

3. Edwards would be a disaster. This ambitious phony makes Hillary look moderate and must be defeated. Again I beg.

4. Giuliani is almost a prototypical New York politician. He is basically a liberal and ethically challenged.

5. Romney is a little too shifty for my taste. Again, here is a northeast liberal who will flop back on some of his flips if elected, I think. Better than Giuliani, but mainly because of higher morals and character.

6. McCain is maddening if you consider his absolutely absurd positions on taxes, campaign finance, and tendency to crawl in bed with liberals in the Senate. I would hold nose to vote for him if nominated. It is also reported that he is basically a jerk.

7. Huckabee might be as liberal as Hillary. There is no way to evaluate him on foreign policy since he probably hasn't even thought about the subject yet. I am also inclined to think if someone is smart, honest, religious, etc, one need not mention it....repeatedly.

8. Ron Paul is the most interesting candidate of them all. He is absolutely solid on some of his domestic philosophy, but none of what he believes would ever come to be....such as scrapping the income tax without offsetting it except by budget cuts. No Department of Education, Energy, Housing, etc. ? O.K. with me, but not gonna happen. His foreign policy is even more radical. This will supposedly be a "change election", but not that great a change.

All the pundits say this is going to be a dem year and that is the most favorable factor for the republicans. If the experts are all correct, however, an Obama/McCain contest is about as good as it is likely to get. The veep pick of both will be crucial. Obama needs someone like McCain on the ticket with him (say Senator Sam Nunn of Georgia) and McCain needs a running mate who is clearly qualified to be President and also appealing to the conservative base (say another Georgian who was once Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich).

Amazing Football Season

This has been a fun college football season--primarily because of the many upsets. It started early when little Appalachian State beat number 5 rated Michigan. This was the first time a Division II team beat a nationally ranked opponent.

One of my favorite upsets was the win by Louisiana-Monroe over Alabama. The coach at Alabama, Nick Saban, had just come from the Miami Dolphins with a pay package which paid him $4 million a year. He makes as much in 2 weeks as the Louisiana-Monroe coach makes in a year. You gotta love it.

You gotta read the fine print

When Congress passed the energy bill a few days ago (that Bush gushed over and quickly signed) most of the emphasis was on how delighted everyone was that the CAFE standards were increased. These dictate how many miles per gallon cars are to deliver at some time in the future. These glad tidings are suspect since it has been shown that the last such increase put us in a situation where we simply drove more miles in cars which are less safe. The same thing can be expected from this latest increase.

Another little problem has to do with Congress deciding that we need to do away with the incandescent light bulb which Edison invented and has served us well. Now we have politicians which have decided that the bulb uses too much electricity. Ergo, we need to do away with them and go to the compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs). These cost about $5.00 compared to maybe $0.75 on a comparable bulb. This added cost is not really the problem, however, since each CFL contains about 5 milligrams of mercury. The same loopy liberals who are worried about some specious threat from global warming seem willing to expose consumers to mercury hazards when a bulb breaks in someone's home.

Brandy Bridges in Prospect, Maine broke one and called the state Poison Control hotline to see how she should clean it up. The short version of the story is that the Department of Environmental Protection said it would cost at least $2,000 to clean it up in her daughter's bedroom. Doesn't that sound like a typical government solution to a dubious problem?

AMT and Pay-Go

Leave it to George Will to explain the loopy dems position on the Alternative Minimum Tax.

In January, with much preening, House Democrats embraced "paygo," the pay-as-you-go rule that any tax cut must be "paid for" by compensatory tax increases or revenue cuts. In December, Democrats abandoned it because of the alternative minimum tax.

The AMT was enacted in 1969 as an indignation gesture aimed at fewer than 200 rich people who managed, legally, to owe no taxes. But the enactors neglected to index the AMT against inflation, so this year it would have been a $50 billion bite out of 23 million taxpayers. The House voted to repeal it and pay for repeal with a $50 billion tax increase. Senate Republicans argued that no Congress ever intended the AMT to collect, or ever will allow it to collect, such large sums from such a large number of Americans. Therefore, paygo would siphon $50 billion to compensate for a fictitious $50 billion. The Senate voted 88-5 to not collect the AMT this year, the House acquiesced and paygo evaporated.

Senator Reid evaluates democrat performance

RAY SUAREZ: Well, at the beginning of this year, the Democrats returned to the majority after 12 years in the minority. You and Speaker Pelosi announced a very ambitious agenda. Now that one year has passed and you look back, how has it gone?

SEN. HARRY REID: Well, we’ve been able to accomplish quite a bit, but not very much, certainly not as much as I wanted to. I’m kind of frustrated, like the American people.

And the loony libs say Bush doesn't make sense.

Person of Year

It is interesting to read and hear TV comment on Time's selection of who they thought should be accorded this recognition. Even though the criteria are their own and well described, many fail to understand what is behind or meant by the selection. None of this seems to me to deserve all the scrutiny and if someone like Fox News is not happy with Time's POY, they are certainly free to name their own. Same with the various newspapers who have commented negatively on Putin and his selection.

Election Advice

If Obama can get Hillary to cackle a few more times, the nomination is his.

Bad day?

A sad situation

I was talking to someone this weekend who made a comment that was entirely consistent with his lifetime of political positioning, but it disappointed me none the less. My concern is not so much that his opinion differed from mine, but it was obvious that he had not studied the subject and had no basis for his conclusion other than political knee-jerkiness. That got me to thinking about how dismal our future is in this country. The basic problem as I have so often said is the education system which guarantees that our young people will not be equipped to discern solutions to problems which arise. To take two examples, we can start with global warming. Few of the citizens in this country have the understanding of science that is required to separate out the drivel in the press from the scientific layers which must be examined to evaluate the phenomenon correctly. This leaves our citizens open to the manipulation of the liberals who will take advantage of this sad fact.

Another example is the so-called Fair Tax. If you want to really understand this proposal, you need to seriously consider a number of factors and the implications of each on the whole. It is not easy to do. After considerable reading on the subject, I have concluded that it has several problems which our politicians will never address, but the system on the whole would be better than the income tax fiasco we have now. The very first and most basic problem our voters and politicians would have to come to grips with is the concept of imbedded taxes. As a nation, we are simply not smart enough to comprehend this simple economic fact. So, the demagogues (established politicians) will prevail.

I know one is supposed to accept the collective wisdom of the American electorate and the concept that we should encourage everyone to vote, but I don't. The average voter is not wise and the more people who vote the less likely we are to elect people who deserve election. That is called an elitist opinion and I plead guilty.

Vulgar abortion pictures

This article in American Thinker reports on an incident in Atlanta where a pro-life group with a truck having pictures of aborted babies on 3 sides was arrested and charged with "the display of obscene and vulgar images to persons under age 14". As a Georgian, I am opposed to such a law in the abstract since I don't want our policemen making a decision like this based on their own interpretation of what is "obscene and vulgar". As to the specifics of the case, I am completely unable to see how anyone can see an aborted fetus as anything other the tragedy it is. It is not the picture that is obscene and the victim of the crime will never see the pictures or age 14.

Fortunately, an explanation of the First Amendment resulted in a rapid dismissal of the charges in this case.

Senatorial Malaise

Senate Democrats yesterday bowed to Republicans and stripped a proposed tax increase for oil companies from a broad energy bill, clearing the way for passage of the measure that includes the first increase in vehicle gas-mileage standards in 32 years. When they are not able to raise taxes on someone, these loony liberals are truly morose. BestView is equally as sad that this sham of a bill does nothing to increase our supply of non-imported oil.

A religion of peace?

Muhammad Parvez, a 57 year old father in Toronto, has been charged with attacking and killing his 16 year old daughter. The beating seems to have been prompted by ongoing clothing/culture disputes. Aqsa Parvez, a 11th grader at Applewood Heights Secondary School in Mississauga, wanted to dress "Western" and resented having to wear her hijab. Apparently having her hair exposed warranted her brutal death...

Prediction

Read this article and then file away my brilliant prediction. If they find anything amiss, it will be attributed to racism.

It is Bush's fault

Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said Bush “is impossible — and has been for seven years — to deal with.”
Reid sought to portray senior White House adviser Ed Gillespie as an incarnation of Karl Rove and a mastermind of intransigence.

What has the Senate Majority Leader so frustrated? Well, the main problem seems to be that Bush is responsible for the House and Senate dems not being able to agree on a way to pass legislation that funds the government. The House wants to raise taxes and the Senate won't let them. Some dems want to just reduce spending by cutting off earmarks and none of the phony politicians (from either party) want to do that. Too draconian. The far left wants to insist on PAYGO which was passed when the dems took over Congress to be sure that the Bush tax cuts could never be allowed to stand beyond their designated life. More moderate dems are not so rigid. Blue dog dems elected in 2004 are feeling the heat of coming re-election and want to be viewed as financially responsible, so they have to cling to PAYGO since this sounds like it is sensible.

Bottom line the inability of the dems to come to some sort of agreement is Bush's fault except this article seems to highlight internal conflict more openly.

My favorite Senator again

A man of principles is standing up in Washington. Story here.

Umami

There is a recent article in the Wall Street Journal describing a culinary art-form which is based on a taste receptor which responds to glutamate. This was long recognized by Asians and explains their wide-spread use of MSG in cooking. This is a somewhat discredited substance which many feel gives them headaches and allergies. Umami (pronounced oo-MA-me) seeks to take advantage of foods which have an ability to satisfy the glutamate taste receptors, without using MSG. Examples given in the article help explain my own food preferences, so I am a big fan of umami. One of the best sources of foods which ramp up foods via umami is parmesan cheese. Others are mushrooms, wine, soy sauce, ketchup and other forms of tomatos, and grilling. This must be why I buy a lot of Worchestershire sauce and chefs around the country continually experiment with combinations which taste better through glutamate.

A test

Here is a test question that should not present too much of a challenge, but my days of active testing are way behind me. I am undoubtedly rusty. Read this article describing corruption involving the wife of the governor of Illinois. Now for the question, the answer to which is not given in the article. To which political party does the governor belong?

Free money ???

T. Boone Pickens offered a cool $1,000,000.00 to anyone who could offer proof that anything the Swift Boat Vets said about John Kerry during the 2004 campaign was not true. This included journalists or Kerry himself. As indicted here, nobody seems to want the money.

The congressional squeeze

It is really getting to be humorous watching the pathetic dems trying to navigate the tricky waters in Congress. First, they have overtaxed constituents in New York and other big liberal states who will be hit with large extra taxes if the AMT is not modified. They could do this, but they want to raise taxes on the wealthy hedge fund operators and these people are big contributors to Senator Schumer and other fat-cats in the dem party. As a result they are frozen in limbo at a time when if something isn't done, the IRS can't even print forms for reporting and this would delay the tax refunds for the middle class who depend on them as if Christmas presents. In fact, they often need them to pay for Christmas. Hard to keep everyone happy and bash Bush at the same time.

Prediction

When it comes to going out on a cold night to caucus for someone in Iowa, it takes at least one of three things. First, organization by the candidate, "street money" and busing in of participants, and finally fervor for the candidate. We will see all of the above on January 3, 2008, but I predict the fervor factor for Ron Paul will surprise folks.

Funny or Pathetic?

Read all of this in the Opinion Journal.

This is from a press release Hillary put out:

At an event in Boston this evening, Senator Obama claimed for the second time today that he is "not running to fulfill some long held plans" to be elected President, contradicting statements his friends, family, staff and teachers have all made about him. . . .

In third grade, Senator Obama wrote an essay titled 'I Want To Be a President.' His third grade teacher: Fermina Katarina Sinaga "asked her class to write an essay titled 'My dream: What I want to be in the future.' Senator Obama wrote 'I want to be a President,' she said." [The Los Angeles Times, 3/15/07]

In kindergarten, Senator Obama wrote an essay titled 'I Want to Become President.' "Iis Darmawan, 63, Senator Obama's kindergarten teacher, remembers him as an exceptionally tall and curly haired child who quickly picked up the local language and had sharp math skills. He wrote an essay titled, 'I Want To Become President,' the teacher said." [AP, 1/25/07]

Mrs. Clinton is attacking Obama for something he wrote in kindergarten.

Are liberals turning on Hillary?

Even her old buddy Robert Reich is unhappy with Hillary.

A Review

If there is some sensible way to decrease the amount of oil we have to import---like drilling wells in the U.S.---------great

If there are proposals to reduce pollution like mercury in the water or sulfur compounds in the air--------great

If you think you can reduce your "carbon footprint" (a euphemism for CO2) and have any effect on the earth's temperature decades from now----------you are an idiot.

Perks for Geeks

The poor slaves working at Google in Mountain View, California have to get by on top rank salaries, but in addition, they have 17 food venues on site at which they can eat any or all of three meals a day at no cost. They can even take guests and none of them can pay either. They can even go in for snacks any time day or night. Other perks include free dry cleaning, free birthday massages, special parking places for the pregnant and so on. Must be pretty easy to recruit there.

Credit fraud

BestView finally got around to freezing our credit. It was a pain to contact the three credit rating companies to do this, but it really eliminates one worry. Regardless if someone hacks into some data base and steals your credit card information or social security number, they can't establish new credit in your name. So identity theft is not possible so long as the freeze remains in place. If you want to temporarily lift the freeze to open some new account, there is a pin number which allows this. I recommend it.

Victims of Global Warming

This is a wonderful collection of reports in the idiotic press which attribute various things to global warming. This has been successful, of course, because the majority of the people in the U.S. are victims of our education system and completely incapable of thinking for themselves. It is instructive to look some of these over if for no other reason to finally conclude that the whole thing is a gigantic hoax. For example, there are separate reports that global warming is causing the oceans to become more salty and another less salty. Bad science is rampant.

The mid-east "problem"

Since President Bush is hosting the required summit dealing with the Israel/Palestinian "problem" this week, it is probably worthwhile to keep in mind what the problem is. If the situation was simply one of borders, it would be possible to deal with this by either negotiation or by some external imposition of a solution. That is not, however, the case. The problem is one based on the insistence of one side that the other side cease to exist. As long as that is the Arab position, there will be no solution negotiated.

Want to lose weight?

There is a new business being formed which is offering binding contracts to assist individuals in reaching goals. For example, if you want to lose weight, you could set a goal and agree to pay some predetermined amount in case you don't reach that goal. The word is it works for weight and other things. Makes sense to me. Read about it here.

Thomas Jefferson

BestView is always suspicious of history presentations since my scientific background demands more rigor in relating "facts" than I find in many historical representations. Despite that, this is a very interesting essay on Thomas Jefferson's Monticello, which is an amazing edifice. Read it here.

Thanksgiving Procamation

Here is the start of the original Thanksgiving Proclamation by George Washington. Can you imagine the response if Bush made this today?

WHEREAS it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favour; and Whereas both Houfes of Congress have, by their joint committee, requefted me "to recommend to the people of the United States a DAY OF PUBLICK THANSGIVING and PRAYER, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to eftablifh a form of government for their safety and happiness..."

Thanks to Tammy Bruce.

The Ott take on the U.N.

The U.N. had to admit that it made a drastic overestimation of the number of aids cases worldwide. In an attempt to resurrect its faulty prediction record, Scott Ott suggests that the U.N. is now predicting that those who did not die of Aids will now drown in the rising tide of man-made global climate change.

Makes sense to BestView.

A losing proposition

Just ran across a story of interest. First, a fisherman ensnares a giant (1,125 lb) shark in his nets and once he takes it on his ship, the shark all but destroys his boat. Then when he gets it to market, it fetches less than the damages to his boat. Read the story here.

Iraq situation must be improving

When the weekly magazines which are at least as liberal as the major media in general say Iraq is improving, it is getting so obvious that the dems in Congress may be the only ones left in denial. The following is from Newsweek:

Al Qaeda in Iraq is starting to look like a spent force, especially in Baghdad. The civil war is in the midst of a huge, though nervous, pause. Most Shiite militias are honoring a truce. Iran appears to have stopped shipping deadly arms to Iraqi militants. The indigenous Sunni insurgency has declared for the Americans across broad swaths of the country, especially in the capital.

Gotta be careful in public

Media Bias

First the findings of a recent study.

1. 1,742 presidential campaign stories were examined in 48 print, online, network TV, cable and radio news outlets. Democrats got more coverage than Republicans -----49% of stories compared to 31%. Of these, the coverage was favorable in 35% for democrats and 26% for Republicans.

2. On TV, evening news gave 49% of the campaign coverage to dems and 28% to Republican candidates. As for tone, 39.5% of the coverage of dems was positive vs. 17.1% negative. Republican coverage was positive in 18.6% of the segments and negative in 37.2%.

The source of this study was the Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics, and Public Policy at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard.

BestView assumes that if there is a liberal media bias recognizable even at Harvard, it must be a fact.

Just wondering

Federal Department of Housing and Urban Development officials have announced a ban on any decorations in HUD housing complexes that mention Jesus or represent religion for the Christmas season.

Other examples are given in this article. When George Bush was elected, would you have predicted this would happen 7 years later?

Double jeopardy

For years the education establishment in Washington, D.C. has cheated the students through an inept school system, but now they have been caught stealing money from them as well. Read about it in the Washington Post.

Of course, if you criticize any of this you would be called a racist.

Missle Defense

The U.S. Missle Defense Agency based on Lake Erie recently shot down two short range missles fired from Hawaii. They were on alert but had no advance notice of the launch. Pretty impressive to all but the liberals in the Dem party. They just cut $85 million wanted to build an interceptor site in Poland. Given the instability of the situation in Pakistan and elsewhere you have to ask whether the Bush-hating libs are afraid the system won't work (as they claim against all evidence) or that it will. Once again, evidence that Dems are on our side is lacking.

Beware tax credits

There is a proposal in South Carolina to allow parents who home school to obtain a tax credit to offset expenses. My daughters both home school and I am sure a tax credit would be welcomed, but I am dubious. Once the government gets you hooked with taxes they then gain more control over your education efforts and that is the problem with traditional schools.

Not that important

The following is the lead sentence in a story the New York Times felt was so important that it put it on page 19.

BAGHDAD, Nov. 7 — American forces have routed Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, the Iraqi militant network, from every neighborhood of Baghdad, a top American general said today, allowing American troops involved in the “surge” to depart as planned.

Michael Savage on Islam

""I'm not gonna put my wife in a hijab. And I'm not gonna put my daughter in a burqa. And I'm not gettin on my all-fours and braying to Mecca. And you could drop dead if you don't like it. You can shove it up your pipe. I don't wanna hear anymore about Islam. I don't wanna hear one more word about Islam. Take your religion and shove it up your behind. I'm sick of you."

"What kind of religion is this? What kind of world are you living in when you let them in here with that throwback document in their hand, which is a book of hate. Don't tell me I need reeducation. They need deportation. I don't need reeducation. Deportation, not reeducation. You can take C-A-I-R and throw 'em out of my country. I'd raise the American flag and I'd get out my trumpet if you did it. Without due process. You can take your due process and shove it."

"What sane nation that worships the U.S. constitution, which is the greatest document of freedom ever written, would bring in people who worship a book that tells them the exact opposite. Make no mistake about it, the Quran is not a document of freedom. The Quran is a document of slavery and chattel. It teaches you that you are a slave."

As I understand it, certain Islamists are upset by his opinion.

Random Thoughts

1. Have we fixed all the bridges in the U.S. since the one collapsed in Minnesota? One doesn't hear much about our bridges from the politicians who were so concerned about the situation when the cars were in the water.

2. This economy is in real trouble and will be until the credit obligations issued by mortgage companies gets sorted out. If the Federal Reserve has to lower interest rates to cover for these mortgage problems with our financial institutions, the dollar will go even lower and if this keeps up, countries like China which have a lot of our dollars will move to another currency and then we will have real recession problems. Think about how damaging it will be when we have to buy oil at some elevated price with something other than dollars which are losing their pizzazz.

3. Rosie O'Donnell is rumored to be in line to host a program on MSNBC at 9:00pm against Larry King and Hannity and Colmes. It will be fun to read about how desperate she gets to boost ratings. I won't be watching.

4. I am constantly surprised how much interest there seems to be in who manages the New York Yankees and where A-Rod plays once he leaves them.

Rationed Medical Care

Giuliani is being criticized by the loony leftists like Paul Krugman of New York Times fame for stating that his prostate cancer cure was more likely in the U.S. than it would have been in England. The statistics he cited are complicated as all statistical comparisons are, but if you dig into it, you will find that Rudy was right and cancer survival is better here than in England. Any country with socialized medicine limits health care resources and that is why you have long waiting lists in Canada and England. In addition, you have fewer patients being screened in these countries with fewer PET scanners available, for example.

You don't really need to do any fancy statistical analysis to evaluate the truth of Rudy's statement, however. All you have to do is look at how many Americans go to Canada or England for cancer treatment compared to the number who come here. Don't look for Krugman to address that matter.

Pork Report

Here is a list of some of the votes against proposals by conservatives to eliminate pork earmarks from appropriations bills in the U.S. Senate. Liberals from both parties killed them all by the margins indicated.

• $100 million for the 2008 Republican and Democratic nominating conventions. Amendment failed 45-51.
• Adding sand to San Diego’s beaches. Amendment failed 12-77.
• Millions of dollars for bicycle paths instead of using the funds to improve bridge safety. Amendment failed 18-80.
• A visitors' center in Louisiana instead of providing shelter for victims of Hurricane Katrina. Amendment failed 11-79.
• Funds for a baseball field in Montana, the International Peace Garden in North Dakota, and a wetlands center in Louisiana. Amendment failed 32-63.
• $2 million for the Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service at City College of New York, requested by Charles B. Rangel. Amendment failed 34-61.

Liberals doing it to us in energy policy

The loony left is adept at demonizing "Big Oil" and threatens to tax it back to the stone age. Hillary wants those profits to fund some of her boondoggle give-aways. In the mean time, Beijing's PetroChina which is 90% owned by the Chinese government just became the first company to be valued at one trillion dollars. It is 4x as expensive as the Exxon Mobile Corporation the leftists in Congress decry as too large. Furthermore, of the dozen largest oil companies in the world, most are owned by governments that are either hostile to the U.S. or could be very rapidly. Think Saudi Arabia and Iran and Venezuela and Russia here. U.S. oil firms are using their profits to drill for oil. More than 4500 oil wells were completed in the 3rd quarter of 2007 which is twice the level of drilling in the 90s. Since liberals always seem to take actions contrary to the best economic interest of the U.S., it is only logical to expect them to try to tax them out of existence while other countries pursue energy sources aggressively.

BestView out of the loop

BestView is on the road and evidently has missed out on the latest brush fire not in California. The word is the L.A. Times is sitting on a hot political story and since it hasn't been published yet, it must be dem related. Most of the blogosphere has concluded it relates to Hillary's lesbianism and we even have her significant other identified. We don't have time to give exhaustive links to the story, but here is a good place to start. It is hard to know how much it would help Hillary with her base if the story gets out completely.

My French protest is over

French President Nicolas Sarkozy walked out of an interview with US CBS television news show 60 minutes, according to a clip of the show released Sunday in advance of the interview's airing. A clearly disturbed Sarkozy stood up muttering in French about the question, which was not heard, in a short publicity clip put on the Internet ahead of the 60 Minutes broadcast Sunday night.

Obama is catching on

From the New York Times:

Senator Barack Obama said he would start confronting Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton more forcefully, declaring Friday that she had not been candid in describing her views on critical issues, as he tries to address mounting alarm among supporters that his lack of assertiveness has allowed her to dominate the presidential race.

Hey, Barack, not being candid is called lying in her case.

Committing the Truth and Regretting it

You just have to love Joe Biden, the senator from Delaware who is running for President. For years he has let his mouth get him in trouble and it is always precious when this happens. The latest came when he met with the editorial board of the Washington Post and was asked about the failure of the Washington, D.C. schools. We all know the reason, but leave it to Joe to admit it. Here is the account in the Washington Post. As you read it, imagine the reaction if he was a Republican instead of a known democrat bloviator.

After a lengthy critique of Bush administration education policies, Biden attempted to explain why some schools perform better than others -- in Iowa, for instance, compared with the District. "There's less than 1 percent of the population of Iowa that is African American. There is probably less than 4 or 5 percent that are minorities. What is in Washington? So look, it goes back to what you start off with, what you're dealing with," Biden said. He went on to discuss the importance of parental involvement in reading to children and how "half this education gap exists before the kid steps foot in the classroom."

Harry Reid explains fires in California

"One reason why we have the fires in California is global warming,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) told reporters Tuesday, stressing the need to pass the Democrats’ comprehensive energy package.

What about these Senator?

The Great Fire of 1889 (40,000 acres)
The Rattlesnake Fire of 1953 (1,300 acres & 15 firefighters killed)
The Laguna Fire of 1970 (175,425 acres, 320 homes and 8 people killed)
The Oakland Hills firestorm of 1991 (1,520 acres, 3469 homes & 25 people killed)
The McNally Fire of 2002 (150,700 acres)
The Old Fire of 2003 (91,281 acres, 993 homes & 6 deaths)

Dem Convention

I am not sure how they got this schedule ahead of time, but congrats to Dr. Tony


Democratic National Convention Opening Schedule:

Schedule of Events:

7:00 pm ~ Opening flag burning

7:15 pm ~ Pledge of Allegiance to the U. N.

7:20 pm ~ Ted Kennedy proposes a toast

7:25 pm ~ Nonreligious prayer and worship with Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton

7:45 pm ~ Ceremonial tree hugging

7:55 pm ~ Ted Kennedy proposes a toast

8:00 pm ~ How I Invented the Internet - Al Gore

8:15 pm ~ Gay Wedding Planning - Barney Frank presiding

8:35 pm ~ Ted Kennedy proposes a toast

8:40 pm ~ Our Troops are War Criminals - John Kerry

9.00 pm ~ Memorial service for Saddam and his sons - Cindy Sheehan and Susan Sarandon

10:00 pm ~ "Answering Machine Etiquette" - Alec Baldwin

11:00 pm ~ Ted Kennedy proposes a toast

11:05 pm ~ Collection for the Osama Bin Laden kidney transplant fund - Barbra Streisand

11:15 pm ~ Free the Freedom Fighters from Guantanamo Bay -- Sean Penn

11:30 pm ~ Oval Office Affairs - William Jefferson Clinton

11:45 pm ~ Ted Kennedy proposes a toast

11:50 pm ~ How George Bush Brought Down the World Trade Towers - Howard Dean

12:15 am ~ "Truth in Broadcasting Award" - Presented to Dan Rather by Michael Moore

12:25 am ~ Ted Kennedy proposes a toast

12:30 am ~ Satellite address by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

12:45 am ~ Nomination of Hillary Rodham Clinton by Nancy Pelosi

1:00 am ~ Ted Kennedy proposes a toast

1:05 am ~ Coronation of Hillary Rodham Clinton

1:30 am ~ Ted Kennedy proposes a toast

1:35 am ~ Bill Clinton asks Ted Kennedy to drive Hillary home

This is good news

PHILADELPHIA -- Thousands of black men turned out Sunday to support a volunteer effort aimed at reducing violence in this crime-plagued city, lining up for several blocks to register.

Volunteers who join street patrols as part of the "Call to Action: 10,000 Men, It's a New Day" campaign will not carry weapons or make arrests but will instead be trained in conflict resolution, organizers said.

"Nobody else is going to magically come into this community and get it done," said real estate developer Abdur-Rahim Islam, a lead organizer.

A bigger Australian Navy?

Australia's opposition Labor Party has questioned the need for female sailors to be given breast enlargements paid for with public money.

An armed forces spokesman defended the operations, saying they were carried out for psychological reasons, not to make sailors "look sexy".

Brigadier Andrew Nikolic said the "holistic needs" of service personnel were considered under defence policy.

But he said breast augmentations were not routinely funded by the military.

"We do consider the broader needs of our people, both physical and psychological," Brig Nikolic said.

"But that is a long way from saying that if someone doesn't like their appearance, Defence will fund things like breast augmentation as a matter of routine - that is just not correct."

He was speaking after one plastic surgeon said he had carried out breast enlargements on two sailors, aged 25 and 32, for A$10,000 (£4,200) each.

Brig Nikolic said such operations were only recommended after a medical evaluation.

But the opposition Labor Party said it wanted details on the cases.

I want it to snow---hard

My current fantasy is that it will start snowing in Cleveland, Boston and Denver this weekend and not melt until April. This would be welcomed retribution for the greedy buffoons who have extended baseball into November. Except for the federal government, very little in America has deteriorated so completely as baseball in my lifetime. This is abated, of course, by the TV networks and they can starve too as far as I am concerned.

More on the Watson Comments

This is a very good essay on the reaction to James Watson's statement that Africans as a whole are less intelligent than some other races. Here is a sample:

What is "racism"?

..... Well, it cannot be discovered by analyzing what has been said about Dr. Watson but, rather, by what is usually left unsaid. As was the case with the reception given to The Bell Curve, critics tend to take the position that the issue should not be raised, much less debated.

....

All intellectual inquiry, be it scientific or philosophical, should be a search for Truth. This search must be sincere and remain unfettered by agendas or dogmas, and we do otherwise at our own peril.

.....This is why the politically correct thought police are so destructive. When they criticize a man like Watson, not only do they rarely say his statements are untrue, but the Truth of the matter doesn't even seem to enter their minds. No, it doesn't because they are blinded by their agenda.

The Truth is that the outrage here isn't Dr. Watson's remarks; they're either true or not. What's outrageous is that we're suffering under the yolk of those to whom Truth means nothing -- the practitioners of a dark faith. They don't care if a statement is correct, only whether it's politically correct. They hate the Truth when it contradicts their agenda, and they'll stop at nothing to still the tongues of those who would dare voice it.

Read it all.

Looks like the botox is wearing off

More on Dr. Watson

The suggestion by James Watson of Watson and Crick fame that blacks are not as intelligent as whites has now come full circle in that he has been threatened and forced to retract his statement. Here is the threat:
Anti-racism campaigners called for Dr Watson's remarks to be looked at in the context of racial hatred laws. A spokesman for the 1990 Trust, a black human rights group, said: "It is astonishing that a man of such distinction should make comments that seem to perpetuate racism in this way. It amounts to fuelling bigotry and we would like it to be looked at for grounds of legal complaint."
And the apology:
The DNA pioneer James Watson today apologised "unreservedly" for his apparent claim that black people are less intelligent than whites.

"I am mortified about what has happened," he told a group of scientists and journalists at the launch of his new book, Avoid Boring People, at the Royal Society in London.

"I can certainly understand why people, reading those words, have reacted in the ways they have."

"To all those who have drawn the inference from my words that Africa, as a continent, is somehow genetically inferior, I can only apologise unreservedly.

Here is the situation for this and related racial distinctions that one might make. First, science is supposed to work by someone posing a question like whether or not there are differences in intelligence among races and then conducting well-designed experiments to answer the question. Well, the research has not been done to date because researchers are not allowed by society to do the research. As a result, you can't even ask the question. The main objection of the opponents is what do you do with the information---if the theory that there is a racial difference is substantiated? So, even though there is a lot of research conducted which is not "practical", racial differences fall into a special category. I think it is regretable, but it is what it is.

I called this one and it ain't over

London's Science Museum canceled a Friday talk by Nobel Prize-winning geneticist James Watson after the co-discoverer of DNA's structure told a newspaper that Africans and Europeans had different levels of intelligence.

James Watson provoked widespread outrage with his comments to The Sunday Times, which quoted the 79-year-old American as saying he was "inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa" because "all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours — whereas all the testing says not really."

He told the paper he hoped that everyone was equal, but added: "people who have to deal with black employees find this not true."

The comments drew condemnation from British lawmakers, scientists, and civil rights campaigners. On Wednesday The Independent newspaper put Watson on its front page, against the words: "Africans are less intelligent than Westerners, says DNA pioneer."

A really fun backyard BBQ

Watch out below

Here comes another storm by the politically correct crowd. They must rally mightily to counter an observation offered by someone with credentials sufficient for the public to consider it valid. There are some ideas which simply can't be allowed to be debated or even studied scientifically because the liberals have already made up their minds and evidence to the contrary is not even thinkable. A teaser is given below, but read it all here.

One of the world's most eminent scientists was embroiled in an extraordinary row last night after he claimed that black people were less intelligent than white people and the idea that "equal powers of reason" were shared across racial groups was a delusion.

James Watson, a Nobel Prize winner for his part in the unravelling of DNA who now runs one of America's leading scientific research institutions, drew widespread condemnation for comments he made ahead of his arrival in Britain today for a speaking tour at venues including the Science Museum in London.

Sabotage

From Thomas Sowell.
Read it all.

People of Armenian ancestry in the United States and around the world are justifiably outraged at what happened in the Ottoman Empire -- and at subsequent governments in Turkey which have refused to acknowledge or accept historical responsibility for the mass atrocities that took place on their soil.

But the sudden interest of Congressional Democrats in this issue goes beyond trying to pick up some votes.

They want a resolution to condemn what happened as "genocide" -- a word that provokes instant anger among today's Turks, since genocide means a deliberate government policy aimed at exterminating a whole people, as distinguished from horrors growing out of a widespread breakdown of law and order in the Ottoman Empire during the First World War.

These are issues of historical facts and semantics best left to scholars rather than politicians.

If Congress has gone nearly a century without passing a resolution accusing the Turks of genocide, why now, in the midst of the Iraq war?

It is hard to avoid the conclusion that this resolution is just the latest in a series of Congressional efforts to sabotage the conduct of that war.

Congressional Ethics

There is an interesting article today in the Washington Post. All this blather from the dems about how they were going to clean up the ethical mess left by the Republicans in Congress has resulted in a new set of laws regarding lobbyists and free meals and such, but as one might expect, there are "loopholes". For example, lobbyists can't take Congressmen to fancy dinners and ply them with liquor anymore. At a recent gala, however, over 100 congressional types attended a dinner at a cost of over $2500 per. How did this happen? Well, a charity sells the tickets to the lobbyists at a rate of say $25,000 per table and the corporation which buys the tickets with a wink and a nod tells the charity who they would like to have sit at their table. The charity makes the decision, of course, so it is perfectly legal for the exact Congressman to be assigned at the table where the request was made. Nobody is against charity, are they?

Read it all here if your stomach is strong.

A non-endorsement

"...Saying Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani"doesn't deserve to live," Palestinian terror leaders are threatening to harm the former New York mayor for his hawkish stance toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and for his previous treatment of late-PLO leader Yasser Arafat.

"If I had the occasion to meet him (Giuliani), I would hurt him," said Ramadan Adassi, chief of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades terrorist group in the West Bank's Anskar refugee camp. "For the sake of the American people, Giuliani shouldn't be elected. He is a disgusting guy and I think Americans must think very hard about their future and their soldiers who will be killed when they come to elect their leaders."

Now we need him to endorse Hillary.

Peace Anyone

It would be impossible to discredit the Nobel Peace prize anymore than to give it to Al Gore and the U.N.

Political Intrigue

BestView doesn't usually concern itself with juicy gossip, but there is a story being ignored by the liberal media which begs for comment. It seems as if one Roger Altman, a close Clinton friend and a possible member of any new Clinton cabinet, is also a large owner of the National Enquirer which deals mostly in back alley gossip stories. The latest suggests that John Edwards had an affair with some public relations woman associated with his campaign.
This story is making the rounds of liberal blogs. It is the opinion of BestView that the story is probably not true for two reasons. If Edwards was a real threat to the Clintons and deserved their attention, he would simply have an accident or commit suicide like others who got in their way. Sex is not an activity which they feel is necessarily ignoble. The other reason we doubt the story is that Edwards is not man enough and his inclinations may well run the other way.

The Matthews Debate

For some reason the Republican candidates agreed to let Chris Matthews, the very liberal host of MSNBC's Hardball program to be the moderator in tonight's so called debate. This in spite of his obviously hostile and insulting performance in a previous debate. He asked, for example, for each candidate to give what they "disliked most about America". He recently announced that Bush had finally been caught in his "criminality". I don't usually watch these cattle-call appearances since they aren't real, but I will watch tonight to see which lets Jimmy Carter's former speech writer get by with idiotic and partisan questions. Any of them who don't seem able or inclined to take him on will not get my support.

Free Money

In typical liberal fashion at election time, some politician will offer free money to everyone. In 1972, George McGovern, arguably the most far-left candidate ever nominated, proposed giving $1,000 to every man, woman and child. Adjusted for inflation, that comes to almost $5,000 today. $5,000? Where have we heard that before? Well old Hillary wants to give that to every single baby born so they will have money to go to college. Lets look at this like Thomas Sowell did in "Inside American Education.

"The specific terms under which the government provides student financial aid virtually guarantees tuition escalation to unaffordable levels. . . . The federal formula . . . first determines the 'expected family contribution,' based upon family income, assets, number of children, and other measures of ability to pay.

"Federal aid begins where tuition and other charges exceed this 'expected family contribution.' A private college or university which kept its tuition affordable — that is, no greater than the 'expected family contribution' — could forfeit millions of dollars annually in federal money.

For example, if college X can provide a good education at $8,000 a year, while its average student's family can afford $9,000, then it loses opportunities to receive federal money. By raising its tuition to $12,000, it not only gets an additional $1,000 per student from their families but also an additional $3,000 per student from the government. In short, there is no incentive to keep tuition affordable and every incentive to make it unaffordable."

The cost? Clinton doesn't know. Will U.S.-born children of illegal aliens be eligible? No word on that yet. Who pays? Don't know. All we really know is it will not achieve its stated objective but it probably will appeal to Hillary's target audience which is mostly uneducated and doomed to superficial appraisal of her proposal.

Kill your golden goose

The loony left never fails. This time they want to expand a welfare program called SCHIPS (which provides health care for poor kids) to adults making as much as $83,000. That is not idiotic enough, however. In order to pay for the additional entitlement expenses they propose to raise the tax on cigarettes by an extra $0.61/pack. This makes some sense in that those who still smoke are not very smart, are also mostly poor and vote democrat. This is then a very regressive tax and the libs justify the tax by claiming that the tax will cause those affected to quit smoking, which if true would kill off the funding for the socialistic program they loudly promote. When this happens, you will find the money comes not from smokers, but from you.

Wow. Ann Coulter strikes again

On women:

If we took away women's right to vote, we'd never have to worry about another Democrat president. It's kind of a pipe dream, it's a personal fantasy of mine, but I don't think it's going to happen. And it is a good way of making the point that women are voting so stupidly, at least single women.

It also makes the point, it is kind of embarrassing, the Democratic Party ought to be hanging its head in shame, that it has so much difficulty getting men to vote for it. I mean, you do see it’s the party of women and 'We’ll pay for health care and tuition and day care -- and here, what else can we give you, soccer moms?'

On why global warming is religion on the left:

Because we can't prove them wrong for a thousand years, and I think the other thing about it is, it goes back to Chesterton’s statement: that when people stop believing in God, the problem isn't that they believe in nothing, it's that they'll believe anything. And that's what you constantly see with people who don't believe in God: They're always imitating the most ridiculous, primitive religions. And it is like a primitive religion, thinking if we just change these lightbulbs, we can change the temperature of the ocean. It's the craziest thing! Even primitive people wouldn't believe something that silly.

A Predictable Solution

There for a while it looked like the state of Michigan would have to shut down a large part of their government due to a budget impasse. At the last moment, however, they came to a solution which could have been predicted. They raised the income and sales taxes. Now that should help the economy.