Free kibbles

The head of the IAEA says Iran could make a nuclear weapon in 6 months to a year. Wow. John Bolton predicts Israel will strike Iran's nuclear facilities between our election and inaugoration. I agree that a strike would be welcomed in the Middle East, while publicly condemned. Arabs don't want Persians to have a nuclear weapon, and Sunnis don't want Shiites to have a nuclear weapon.

Terrorists in Gaza fired rockets into Israel despite the cease-fire agreement. What a surprise. The terrorists didn't keep their word. Who would have every guessed that might happen? This cease-fire agreement just means Hamas can rearm, regroup and attack Israelis with impunity.

Socialized medicine strikes again, this time in Japan. Japan will impose fines on businesses with fat employees over the age of 40. That's some pretty low waist size limits too, especially for the men. Under socialized medicine, the government has unlimited power over our bodies and behavior. It's an abomination.

Senate prepares to pass $300 billion housing bailout bill. Do you think Congress realizes we're already in debt, and that so-called bailout is just adding more debt that the same people will have to pay later?

Leading global warming fraud James Hansen, the man responsible for the discredited hockey stick graph and for manipulating NASA's climate data to make it appear that recent years appear hotter than they are, recognizes his chance to use the global warming fraud to implement world-wide Marxism is slipping away as people learn the facts about natural climate variations. Why NASA hasn't fired this liar is beyond me. Kofi Annan carries the torch, claiming rich nations should pay for climate change, not poor nations - a thinly veiled translation of Marx's "from each according to his means to each according to his needs."

Reason remembers George Carlin, but the FCC censorship battle continues.

Anne Applebaum wonders why we expect presidents to be nice guys. I don't.

Cato scoffs at Congress' attempt to blame speculators for the price of oil. Speculators are betting the price goes up because of rising demand and flat supply, and Congress is a big reason the supply is flat and the demand is rising so fast.

Proving that an election doesn't lead to good self-government, Pakistan is leaderless and the power and territory controlled by terrorists is increasing after the election western powers pushed so hard for to limit Musharraf's power. As I wrote at the time, we should have kept our noses out of Pakistan's internal politics and focused on our strategic objectives. Now we have a significantly worse situation in Pakistan.

Barack Obama's entitlements for women.

The new Democrat talking point is that oil companies aren't drilling for oil on land they already lease from the government, so the government shouldn't lift the ban on drilling in other places. This WSJ article explains that not every piece of dirt in the US has oil under it (did Democrats really think Americans were that dumb to think so?), plus it takes time and money to explore leased lands.

I doubt anybody is surprised to learn that 2 studies prove that ethanol subsidies have had significant effect on raising food prices, but have had a negligible effect on fuel prices. That's what always happens when government sticks its nose in the marketplace - no problems are solved, but new problems are created.

1 Democrat is backing off her call to nationalize oil refineries. But just 1.

Fred Thompson enumerates the privileges granted to Guantanamo terrorists in their tribunals that the Supreme Court called "inadequate" in its decision to grant detainees habeas corpus. No prisoner of war in history has ever been granted such extensive legal privileges, but they weren't enough for this Court, which obviously considers them common criminals instead of enemy combatants. The Court would have been more honest if it had just declared the War on Terror unconstitutional.

If cars had become more efficient at the same rate as computers, Britain would need only 1 liter of fuel per year, and our oil reserves would last for the duration of the solar system. I could take a cheap shot about government interference in the auto industry as compared to the semi-conductor industry, and while that does have an effect, it wouldn't be fair because of the differences in technology.

Here's another fine example of the effectiveness of capitalism versus socialism. The Times puts up searchable archives from 1785 to 1985. How long do you think it will take before all government documents are searchable online?