Free kibbles

The Dutch are posing a stupidly dangerous question about an insult to the Koran: If I insult you, am I responsible for your violence? Anybody who would ask this question does not respect free speech. Officials advise filmmaker to leave the country.

UK considers paying obese subjects to lose weight. Talk about a big-government solution to a big-government created problem. The solution is to free people to be responsible for their own health care. When people pay for their own health care, they focus on prevention because it's so much cheaper. When a third pays the health care bill, people don't care about prevention. Third party payer systems of any kind, socialized medicine is just the worst, incentivizes people to be more unhealthy and drives up the cost of health care.

Ron Paul has explained that this so-called tax rebate is actually a welfare check for everybody in America. It has no relationship to taxes. This isn't allowing (why did we ever put ourselves in a situation where we have to beg government to "allow" us to keep more of our own money anyway?) Americans to keep more of their own money, as the President and his Democrat partners are trying to mislead us into believing. This is a handout from government financed by increased debt. This illustrates that the government aristocrats of the 2 parties are identical for all intents and purposes in their mismanagement of our country and their scorn for regular Americans.

Condoleezza Rice offers normalized relations with Iran if it ends it's nuclear enrichment program.

Bill Gates calls for "kinder capitalism," but what he's really calling for is more corporatism, another form of socialism. Free markets are the best economic system for the poor, not government directed incentives for companies to address the poor.

Iraqi police chief killed in ambush.

Gaza's pain spreads to Egypt. Egypt should work with Israel to oust Hamas. That's in their best, long-term interest. I'm sure they fear terrorist retaliation in the short term, but taking out Hamas would would reduce the problem of refugees and terrorists.

Gore continues his fraud, claiming climate change is worse than feared. Maybe he forgot all the dire predictions of 10 and 20 years ago that haven't come close to coming true, just like his current dire predictions for the future.

Wall Street recovery continues. I guess the Fed rate cut encouraged investors.

Sometimes low tech solutions are the best. The Border Patrol is riding horses to track down gate crashers.

Chavez has Venezuelan troops seize 500 tons of food. How's that socialist revolution working out for Venezuela?

The Pope doesn't understand that all the media care about is their own power and therefore their ratings. Ethics never enter into their thinking.

Reason wonders if we're winning in Iraq, or if we've only achieved a stalemate. Violence is undoubtedly dropping, so that means we're winning. But it doesn't mean we'll win. The violence may level off at a stalemate. Apparently that's good enough for John McCain who will leave troops in Iraq for 50 years. Ouch.

Reason tries to blame the US for lack of immigration. Bull****. The US is being swamped by illegal immigration, and since it horribly distorts our economy and society, we have to resolve that problem before we can figure out a reasonable legal immigration solution. And after we get control of our borders, our immigration policy should be based on our needs, not the needs of Bangladeshis or any other foreigners.

Newt Gingrich could take the nomination in a brokered convention.

Rudy Giuliani is falling in Florida. This sucks because he recently came out for significant tax and spending cuts. Republican front runners McCain, Romney, and Huckabee have not.

McCain wins Louisiana. Ron Paul takes second. According to the LAGOP, uncommitted actually won, McCain second, and Paul third. Bizarre. Too bad this info doesn't have a permalink.

Glenn Beck interviews Ron Paul and tells him he's probably the closest candidate we have to a founding father.

Bill Clinton accuses Obama of a political "hit job". This from the guy (and his wife) who has engineered more political hit jobs than anybody in my lifetime. Obama was not prepared for dealing with the Clintons. Now he knows why over half the country loath them. They may turn off Democrats as well this time. Democrats are worried about the Clinton's underhanded attacks.

Blacks mistakenly believe Bill Clinton improved their economic status. Everybody who likes Bill Clinton is mistaken, except his cronies.

It doesn't apply in the "hit job" case, but the media likes to exaggerate conflicts between campaigns. The media thrives on conflict.

An argument for legalizing performance enhancing drugs. Not quite as good as mine, if I do say so myself.

1 rogue French banker loses $7 billion, leading to global market crash. We were just talking about this possibility last night.

Cato says NATO must succeed in Afghanistan in order to survive.

Cato explains that the way the Clintons have tag-teamed on attacking Obama is what we can probably expect if Hillary wins the White House. Yuk. Who's the boss? Bill is definitely overshadowing Hillary at this point.

British self-censor story about the 3 little pigs because it might offend Muslims.

Dutch to ban burqas in schools and government buildings. Do they mean the whole burqa? That would be excessive. I can understand banning covering the face because you can't communicate well with a person who has their face covered.

Illegal immigration hurts blacks the worst.

Thomas Sowell says McCain's age is legitimate issue to discuss.

Tom Delay advocates House Republicans take the initiative and promote conservative principles.

Victor Davis Hanson almost gets it right on the economy. We need spending cuts to match tax cuts and get to a much smaller, balanced budget. But Americans do not need to sacrifice. Government does. If we dramatically cut spending, taxes, and regulations, Americans could pay off credit cards, save, and still buy iPods. Americans should give up their credit cards, but that's not a policy decision.

Robert Novak says Republicans are as addicted to earmarks as ever.

Dick Morris claims that Bill Clinton is intentionally drawing fire from Hillary to help her in the election. He's the focus of the news and Obama. Obama has yet to figure out how to deal with it.

Americans tend to vote for their own party for a better economy, instead of for better policy.

The WSJ endorses Giuliani's tax plan. While it's far superior to our current system, the FairTax is far better.

Legal doctrine may allow cell phones and PDAs to be searched without probable cause or warrant.