Free kibbles

The success of the US counterinsurgency mission in Iraq is unprecedented, but al Qaeda fighters attack 2 villages in Iraq. Al Qaeda in Iraq is not dead yet, and we have stay on the offensive. Declaring victory too soon would be yet another huge mistake.

Report claims Afghanistan is in serious danger of falling back into Taliban hands.

Pakistani President Musharraf's hand-picked Supreme Court dismisses last complaint against his election, clearing the way for him to become president and resign from the army.

China first blocks Kitty Hawk battle group from docking in Hong Kong for Thanksgiving, then changes position for "humanitarian" reasons. Congressional report declares US is vulnerable to China's high tech warfare systems. Duh. And they intend to use them if we don't wake up and address their new Cold War of Terror against us.

Putin accuses opponents of plotting with the west to divide Russia. Of course. It couldn't be that those opponents want freedom instead of tyranny. The west would be happy to see Russia united in the cause of freedom, but that isn't the case.

Early votes show that French rail workers are voting to return to work. That would be a big victory for Sarkozy.

FEC eases election ad rules. The government has no power to stifle freedom of speech regardless of what the Congress, President, and Supreme Court say. The people own the political process as well, not the candidates or the government. I would like to see massive civil disobedience - hundreds or thousands of organizations should run political ads for or against any candidate or issue before the 2008 election. The people should demand our innate right to freedom of speech.

Gen. Petraeus heads up Army's promotion board, signaling a change in promotion philosophy toward innovation and creativity.

City outlaws internet harassment.

Republican leaders write booklet to help Republicans make the argument for smaller government. It's more accurate to say they wrote this booklet to help their members fool the public into thinking that Republicans support smaller government when Republicans actually thrive on earmarks and titanic government just the same as Democrats. Republicans have no interest in small government, they've proved that, and only a fool would fall for their "small government" crap ever again.

Author explains that Scott McClelland's new book has no new information about the Plame non-affair.

Obama's education plan: more big government and more indoctrination.

SEC investigating the Clinton's patron company, infoUSA.

Hillary Clinton goes on the attack. The Democrat race is still incredibly tame so far.

Author considers an independent Ron Paul run for president. We'd get Hillary for 4 years, but it might transform the Republican party. I think that transformation is wishful thinking. Even the Reagan revolution, which didn't even manage to shrink government at all, just slow its growth for a couple decades, was but a passing fad for Republicans who quickly returned to their big-government selves.

Very few facts about Condoleezza Rice.

Mirror neurons, empathy, and morality.

Author compare's Hillary Clinton's Media Matters to hall monitors who make verbose mountains out of molehills. Funny.

I'm not sure these people were CNN plants. I think it's very likely that everybody, or at least most people, at that debate was some sort of Democrat activist. They acted like it.

Satire claims holiday feasts increase global warming. Christmas lights are already being attacked global warming activists. We don't need to give them any more ideas.

Cato welcomes the Supreme Court hearing on DC's gun ban.

Even though Ambassador Crocker reported that Iran is using talks with the US to further its own ends and has no intention of changing course on its nuclear program, Cato continues to advocate negotiations. We have to get over this flawed idea that negotiation is always in our interest as an article of faith. It's not true. The goal is to stop Iran from developing a nuclear weapon. If talks make it less likely they'll stop, we shouldn't talk. What will make Iran stop is real action like cutting off all refined fuel supplies to the country. That will force them to stop enriching uranium. That puts us in a position of strength and them in a position of weakness. At that point, they'll negotiate in good faith. Until we have a position of strength, negotiations work in their favor, not ours, and we shouldn't pursue them.

Security is improving in Columbia.

Ann Coulter says the New York Times is trying to fool its readers into believing most Americans support a pathway to citizenship for illegal aliens. Why wouldn't they name the specific polls, if they actually existed? No wonder it's losing readers.

Extremely long and detailed analysis of the FairTax. I haven't read this yet, because it's so long, but this is excellent! I'm just afraid it will be off-putting to anybody who isn't already on board just because of its length. Still, this means the FairTax is becoming more mainstream. I look forward to Boortz' response.

George Will writes about the "Millionaire's Amendment" in the bipartisan McCain-Feingold abomination against freedom of speech. This amendment seems targeted at rich independents, strengthening the stranglehold on power of the 2 parties as well as incumbents imo, but the main reason I posted this article is because I love the opening paragraph:

Quote:

Congress is less divided by partisanship than it is united by devotion to the practice of protecting incumbents. Doing this with, for example, the bipartisan embrace of spending "earmarks" is routinely unseemly. But occasionally, incumbent protection is also unconstitutional.

The 2 parties are united behind a common, highest priority, their own power. Since all power ultimately belongs to us, the corollary to that is they are united behind taking our power from us. To end this abuse, vote third party.

I'm unhappy to see Pat Buchanan try to leverage libertarian ideals to argue against equal rights for gays in the workplace. An employer should not be allowed to discriminate by race, sex, because they are accidents of birth. Nor should an employer be allowed to discriminate by religion or sexual orientation, because they are private. Unfortunately we can expect this law to be abused to extend to behavior on the job that the employer doesn't agree with too.

Thomas Sowell explains how liberals use statistics to misrepresent the wealth of the elderly, who are pretty well off in general.

John Stossel tells the story of how communism almost killed the Pilgrims, who, fortunately for them, adopted private property rights and free markets before they died and subsequently prospered.