Tsunami Victims Relief

I'm sure we've all been shocked by the devastation in Indonesia, India, Sri Lanka, and many other nations caused by the recent Tsunami. Hugh Hewitt (hat tip) has provided a link for donations, which you can access here.

Let's hope and pray that the efforts of the American government, the UN, and the multitude of american and international charities will be able to at least limit the suffering of our neighbors in Asia and save as many lives as possible.

RMR

Looking for quality - which "looks like America"

Today there is a USA Today story about the diversity of Bush's cabinet, which ties the Clinton cabinet as the most diverse in history. This is one of the most under-reported aspects of the Bush presidency. Amid all the "he only appoints insiders", "he only appoints his friends", and "he only appoints people who agree with him" stories, no one ever notes that the alleged insiders, friends, and yes-people are 50% minorities.

The EEEEEEvil white guy president not only has appointed talented and qualified blacks, hispanics, asians, and women to his Cabinet, they also are among his most trusted advisors (which can not have been said of the Kerry campaign....hmmm). This is because Bush doesn't give a rip what color someone is, he just wants them to do a good job. In a color blind world, with all other things being equal, one would expect that such an attitude would result in diversity. And, presto, it has. And what a crowd of talent! From a provost of stanford to a former chair of the joint chiefs to the president of Kellogg who started as a truck driver, this is a group of singular achievement.

The best part about the story is that Bush is not out there promoting it. Clinton scoured the country to find the first female attorney general (he went through three I think before he got to Reno in the confirmation search) and bragged that his Cabinet would "look like America". Bush just picked his old colleague who served as the white house council and happened to nominate the first Hispanic to head the Department of Justice. When inclusion is your habit, finding diversity is not that hard, is it?

RMR

Enough whining already!!!

It never fails that the moment conservatives get power that they immediately start finding ways to attack each other. The latest is the idealogical purists screaming that the new Intelligence Reform Bill which just passed the Senate 89-2 doesn't have protections against illegals getting driver's licenses.

Guys I normally like from Rush to Sean to even marginal guys like G Gordon are all griping that the bill doesn't contain this one provision. My answer: grow the *%&*$& up!

The real debate on this issue is not whether people oppose illegals getting driver's licenses. Everyone who matters in the business of passing laws, i.e. a majority in congress and the president, agree on the issue. The question is, what are the political and tactical issues involved in including the license provision in this bill?

Licenses for illegals is always a hot-button issue because the dems always paint it as anti-immigrant and racist rather than as a security issue. Do we need to have that debate while the president is trying to pass a bill on reorganizing intelligence gathering and oversight, which is only tangentially related to driver's licenses? The bill would have serious problems in the conference committee, especially with the nut ball wheenies in the Senate. Also, the new Senate leader for the Dems, Harry Reid, would love the chance to capitalize on an issue just like this to make his mark as a new leader. Why give him the chance?

The smart money is to take the 98.9% we are getting right now and take care of the more controversial issue of licenses when we have 55 votes in the Senate, and more importantly 51 conservatives even if the moderate wheenies jump ship (but I doubt Mr. Specter has the stones to do that right now).

Conservatives, especially those in the media, need to start acting like we're in the majority and get stuff done, rather than demand instant just-add-water idealogical purity like a minority party. Wouldn't you rather just get the exact bill you want in January? When we have more votes the whole thing would take a week, tops, to do. We can write it exactly right and pass it while the Dems howl from where they belong: the sidelines.

RMR

In support of the National Sales Tax

Imagine if you will a world where only old people remember why April 15th is important. Or when "What is 1040 EZ?" is a correct response on Jeopardy. We could be there sooner than you think. In this article, one of the President's economic advisors says that the switch from an income tax to a consumption tax could be easier than many people think.

here's a brief collection of comments from the article:

N. Gregory Mankiw, chairman of the president's Council of Economic Advisers, [believes]...that tax laws discourage saving and investment and that changing that could free up money for business investment... Under a consumption tax, Mankiw said, "The result would be greater saving, increased capital accumulation and higher growth in productivity and wages."

Amen! The tax on earnings we currently slave under is much more painful and economically restrictive than a tax on consumed goods would ever be. Just think, you would pay your taxes one little hunk at a time, rather than the big hunk of change on April 15.

But there are many more advantages. For starters, people would be intimately aware of when the Democrats wanted to raise their taxes, because they would notice it every time they bought something that was taxed. This is far better than the largely hidden tax system we live under today, in which the government quietly steals money from your paycheck every couple of weeks with you scarcely noticing it. Second, the large underground economy would be taxed because the income from porn, drug, sex, and all other things illegal would be taxed when those profiting from it bought something. Third, what could be more fair? Those who have a lot and buy a lot would pay a lot, and those who scrimp and save would pay very little. Fourth, one of Big Government's best tools to screw around with our lives, the tax code, would not exist. Congress could focus its time on something more productive than a four inch thick book of loopholes and incentives. Finally, the multi-billion dollar bill we collectively pay each year to comply with our bloated tax code could be spent on something better like books, opera tickets, or flat screen TV's instead of lining the pockets of accountants and IRS officers.

I know many will say that such a system would be regressive and EEEEEEEvil. They prefer the profligate waste and corruption our current system supports and legitimizes. Then again, they also think that socialized medicine is a neat idea.

They are wrong on both counts.

RMR

Liberal faith?

There is an interesting article on CNS today about Global Warming. Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Richard Lindzen says that much of today's belief in global climate change is just that, belief, rather than based on scientific fact.

The argument is summed up in this paragraph:

"With respect to science, the assumption behind the [alarmist] consensus is science is the source of authority and that authority increases with the number of scientists [who agree.] But science is not primarily a source of authority. It is a particularly effective approach of inquiry and analysis. Skepticism is essential to science -- consensus is foreign," Lindzen said.

Lindzen's big point is that the number of scientists who believe in something is irrelevant. The only thing that matters is the quality of the information and the conclusions that are drawn. If even one person proves scientifically that the majority belief is false, it's still false.

Let's face it, the belief that the World Will End Tomorrow Unless We Do Something Now is a core belief of the activist Left. Forget that they were saying the same thing in the 80's. Always remember that history starts today for liberals - the debunking of all previous claims doesn't mean anything. Couple this with an activist and rather uneducated press that will always run out with Chicken Little predictions to get ratings or sell papers - all without bothering to see if alarmist predictions meet a scientific standard. As long as the story fits the Zeitgeist of global climate alarmism, it must be true.

What's unfortunate is that, as Lindzen says, any scientist that finds that global climate change isn't happening gets mocked as a heretic and her funding is cut. I thought that science was the search for objective truth, not the search to verify the opinion of the Sierra Club.

Liberals don't care about the truth though, they care about what feels true.

RMR

Ann Coulter knocks two out of the park

The queen of conservative opinion, Ann Coulter, has two fantastic columns this week. Read them here and here.

I know...I know, I haven't posted in a week and the best I can come up with is "read these two columns". I've been busy with "life" - holiday family visit and my real job. However, I promise not to abandon the whole blogging thing just because the election is over. There are lots of important issues that need discussing.

RMR