Free kibbles

House to investigate whether telecoms violated customer privacy by complying with Bush's warrantless wiretaps. This is nuts. The president is exercising his constitutional power and responsibility to wage war, and the Congress wants to punish American companies for aiding the war effort. How stupid and self-destructive are we?

The same people who misusing customer privacy don't want the telecoms to help save lives in the war on terror will probably love having telecoms tap their phone calls to so they can tailor ads to the conversation. Bad priorities. As soon as we allow telecoms to tap our conversations for any purpose, we've surrendered any claim to privacy over those conversations.

US missile defense system is up and running. So much for all the nay sayers who said it couldn't be done and we shouldn't even try. Of course it could be done. It was just another technological problem to be solved. I guess they were satisfied with mutually assured destruction. I prefer to live.

Another casualty of the war on Americans, purposely misnamed the war on drugs.

Because of the weak dollar, foreign companies are buying US companies at a record pace. This means that money used to stay in the US is now flowing to other countries. Company with ties to China, Saddam Hussein, and the Taliban to merge with 3Com, getting access to leading edge computer networking equipment. This is nuts. Adopt the FairTax to keep American companies in America, to keep jobs in America, and to keep our critical technology in America.

Bush vetoes bill that would allow the government to take money from taxpayers by force to provide health insurance for children of families who are plenty well off to buy insurance themselves. This is only Bush's forth veto. I wonder if somebody had to show him how to do that. Democrats are going to make hay out of this sound bite issue by claiming Bush denied insurance to poor children, but that's a sad misrepresentation of the actual bill they passed.

North Korea agrees to do the same thing it already agreed to do six months ago, but didn't actually do - shut down it's nuclear reactor. North Korea never lives up to its agreements, and this will be no different. I wonder what we gave them for their repeated non-compliance. In the mean time they're transferring their materials and technology to Syria and Iran while playing us for fools.

Illegal immigrants are counted in the census, so they could trigger congressional seat changes in 2010.

British schools, required to show An Inconvenient Truth, will also be required to give a warning about political bias. This is an improvement. I don't think the government should force schools to show this film, but if I was a science or civics or government or social studies teacher, I would show An Inconvenient Truth one day and The Great Global Warming Swindle the next, and have the students write an essay on the politics and the science.

Report claims Burma junta killing monks at night in large numbers.

Author claims Boris Yeltsin never created the institutions of democracy in Russia. And Clinton did nothing. Then Bush did nothing. We're paying a price now, and it will only get worse over the next decade.

I feel sorry for the weathermen this year. How many times have they shown us storms that might turn into tropical depressions. These poor weathermen are starved for actual hurricanes. They predicted 4 large hurricanes, and we only got 2, and they both hit largely unpopulated areas of Mexico. They're trying to hard to scare people with these storms that might become tropical depressions. It's funny and sad all at once.

Reason on the quest for the perfect execution method.

Reason on patent reform.

Blackwater defends fire first policy. Duh. If you don't fire first, you get killed. These hearings are nothing more than political gamesmanship. On the other hand, I don't understand all this hand-wringing about what laws apply to Blackwater. They're in Iraq, so Iraqi law applies. If Iraq gives them diplomatic immunity, that's still Iraqi law. What's the confusion?

I find myself agreeing with James Carville again. That's twice. I feel kind of sick. He said that Democrats' prospects are so good only because of the complete implosion of the Republican party. If Republicans figure that out, they'll win again 2008. And while Bush and Boehner have started paying lip service to limited government, neither as figured out that both have zero credibility. For Republicans to win, they have to oust their leadership of the last 8 years, and they show no signs of doing that.

In a related story, Ron Paul matches John McCain by raising over $5 million this quarter. Ron Paul is the only Republican who stands for significant reform instead of minor tweaks on the status quo.

IBM patents a checking a checkbox. Haven't people been doing this since we first developed writing?

New spacecraft leak detection mechanism. Soap bubbles didn't work?

Boortz claims that single women vote overwhelmingly Democrat to fulfill their need for security. Why do they think that driving the country into bankruptcy and appeasing our enemies instead of killing them brings them security?

Federal law should not mandate lower loans to military personnel any more than it should mandate anything else in the free market. Plenty of businesses respect military personnel and provide lower rates and flexibility. That's the free market at work. If military workers can't fulfill short term loans, the military should change their pay structure so they can.

Britain's NHS socialized medicine program ranks 17th out of 29 European nations, ahead of only the most poor countries in Europe. It's no surprise to any reasoned and informed person that countries that have free market systems rank at the top in Europe in health care service. It's time for the socialists to give up their religion and do what's best for Americans - support free markets. No economic system is superior.

Let's see if Senators can cut $5.2 billion in farm subsidies. I doubt this panel is serious, but just playing politics.

Jonah Goldberg explains that we are nation of immigrants who became Americans. You can't leave out that last part.

Brownsville, Texas has denied the federal government access to city property to build a border fence. This is one of those very few instances when the federal government is acting under its Constitutional authority. They should roll over Brownsville and protect out citizenship from the southern invasion.

Obese Americans outnumber obese Europeans 2 to 1. Duh. Free market reform in our health care system will naturally encourage Americans to be healthier. It's a win for everybody but the bureaucracies of government, health insurance companies, and health care providers. It's time to end the government perversion of our health care system.

Ann Coulter blasts the left for phony war heroism claims.

Thomas Sowell on intelligence.

Hillary Clinton takes credit for starting Media Matters. Apparently it's funded by Soros too. How can this group claim to be non-partisan?