I love FoxNews (or rather, the Factor) legal analyses
Because they are (or at least seems to be to my layman eyes) constitutional—and socially conservative. Here's the latest one:
He's absolutely right. There is nothing we can do about the case that was already closed—he doesn't spell it out, but we all know that our constitution prohibits double jeopardy. A criminal, no matter how heinous cannot be tried twice for the same crime—the only way a judge or jury can rule on the same issue is on the appeal by the convicted, which obviously isn't going to happen here.
And he makes a very good case what can be done within the confines of the Constitution. Although this "civil confinement" seems like it could be a slippery slope, but well, this case seems like a clear-cut case—and it's not an indefinite confinement, it's only 18-months, and there will be a hearing to justify it, not just be done on the whims of some lawyer or administrator.
This was a very ... pleasant legal analysis to listen to: unlike liberals who would be all for re-trying the case over and over with different juries and with different venues until they get the "right" result, if it's a case they care about (which obviously won't be a child rape case—maybe it'll be different if someone shot a child with a handgun). And his concluding remarks, "I will not weep if something happens to David Earls," is, well, amusing (and, like everything else in the segment, I agree—I personally won't do anything to people like this guy, but I see no reason to grieve if someone thought, well, Oklahoma legal system didn't do enough).
This segment doesn't seem to be so clear cut.
I guess in the general terms, I agree with Megyn Kelly's sentiment—I don't want a state that meddles in affairs of private citizens—in which no clear crime has been committed, not one of those blanket laws like "disturbing the peace" or something. But, when children (i.e. legal minors) are involved, well, I do think the rules change a little. The government has a duty to protect those who cannot protect themselves—those who, by one reason or another, have no, and cannot have, self-determination and self-ownership. The children (and unborn babies, in my opinion) are the largest constituents of this group.
When a parent clearly (and beyond all reasonable doubt) endangers a child, I think the government—especially the local government, has the power and duty to intervene. This can, of course be a slippery slope again, as we know from the notorious reputation of some child protective services, but some cases are clear enough that it's beyond this type of argument—and this probably is one of them.
What would happen if this analysis/opinion were done by a liberal? Why, they'd sue McDonald's, because obviously neither the child nor the mother is responsible for the actions of either of them—but McDonald's executives are!
Good riddance, registered traveler program
It's good that it's dying. A person shouldn't have to choose between getting to his destination faster (i.e. not missing the flight) and giving up his basic rights under the constitution (unreasonable search, which collection of storage of fingerprint/etc. under this program could be categorized as) voluntarily and willingly.
If you are going to check the papers like the Nazis or Soviets, you'd better check them the old fashioned way—that way at least people know how obnoxious your paper-checking is. Fastpass is moral only when, well, only money is involved. Every American has a duty to defend the constitution from enemies foreign (terrorists) and domestic (TSA, another terrorist organization).
P.S. They also have a similar thing with passports. At least thankfully last time I connected through Dulles airport near Washington D.C., I saw no one using that. Given that they collect a fingerprint every time you come in, I am sure this program also adheres to fascist/communist ideals and a free man has no business using it—even though waiting in the line for regular customs might take 30 minutes to 1 hour longer.
Why kids suck: they are so easy to brainwash
... and chances are, they are brainwashed by people whose ideas you disagree with.
This segment at Fox News channel proves that kids suck.
These kids are supposedly geniuses—one even graduated from a college (supposedly) before 12. But if you listen to them, you wouldn't be able to tell that they are geniuses. What they say contains nothing original—and when they are original (such as the record deficit spending being "investment" for the future), it's so absurdly ridiculous—kinda like fairy tales and monsters only kids can think up.
That one conservative kid echoes many ideas that I agree with, but I still cannot rule out the possibility that he is simply parroting what he heard from other conservative pundits, rather than reaching the conclusion himself after digesting the issues and thinking about it for himself (although if I trust his earlier interview, at least he's not parroting his parents, the most likely brainwasher of kids).
Anyways. This is why kids suck. You can't trust anything they say—that is, anything they say will be their own, rather than simple mirror reflection of what they have heard and seen.
I like Israel, but I draw the line at …
where we keep sending them borrowed money:
As Americans struggle through the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, this emergency supplemental appropriations bill sends $660 million to Gaza, $555 million to Israel, $310 million to Egypt, $300 million to Jordan, and $420 million to Mexico. Some $889 million will be sent to the United Nations for so-called "peacekeeping" missions. Almost one billion dollars will be sent overseas to address the global financial crisis outside our borders. Nearly $8 billion will be spent to address a "potential pandemic flu" which could result in mandatory vaccinations for no discernable reason other than to enrich the pharmaceutical companies that make the vaccine.
In fact, even if it weren't borrowed from China (instead, it would be robbed from Americans), I would oppose this charity of perpetual aid to foreign nations, including Israel.
I like Israel. As one of the few secular, democratic states in the Middle East, I have every reason to like it (as for the Palestinian conflict, well, plenty blood has been spilled on both sides, so while I don't think Israelis are blameless, I don't think they bear all the blame). But I like Israel primarily as one of the few allies the U.S. has in the Middle East. We (or rather, our defense contractors) sell weapons to them, and they use these weapons against our common enemy. We mutually benefit (as no American lives need to be sacrificed in this way).
But why are we sending continued "aid" to these "allies"? Are our allies beggars who continually need our charity? What kind of allies are they? If they do need charity, must we do it with money collected at gunpoint (which some call "tax")? Can't we simply encourage private citizens to contribute voluntarily and willingly to this charity?
Marshall plan at least had some justification behind it: those European nations were nearly completely ruined after two world wars, while United States mostly escaped unscathed—at least as far as industrial infrastructure is concerned. We could even say that we had moral duty to help them the same way we helped them in the two world wars we fought for them—by using coercion and effectiveness only the sovereign state could bring upon its citizens.
More than 60 years after the last world war, I am not sure if any of those justifications stand.
Existence of New Zealand (and Canada) is the proof for America's restraint and commitment to peace
Imagine America was like Iran or North Korea (or imagine that they, against the laws of nature, had ingenuity and resources that America has). We would have the one world government now, and frankly, it's not going to be a government that anyone like (even the statist liberals, who would marry the government if they could).
If you can't imagine that New Zealand might be worth having by America, all you have to do is look at Canada or Mexico. The fact that they are still here is all the proof we need to accept American leadership (yes, I know *some* people tried invading Canada, but that was way before WWII, when all everyone had was muzzle-loaded rifles and nothing else; and as for the territories from the old Mexico, well, they were bought fair and square—after some, ah hem, local disagreements were settled).
On the other hand, the fact that we have soldiers in Europe and Asia who are not even collecting tributes is, well, I guess the proof for American stupidity—or "generosity", if you want to put a happy face to it, as liberals want to do for fascism.
Edit: Oh, wait. I guess it was an ad aimed at Aussie audiences.
Omaha? Obama!
Ha-ha.
On the other hand, this is probably no more serious a slip of the tongue than calling our president Mr. Osama.
Ice age for Republicans? No. Ice age for RINOs? Yes.
Mr. Paper-counter can argue with the numbers all he wants, but when his premise is wrong, numbers don't just lie—numbers actively mislead.
Somehow, Mr. Obama-fan presumes that the last election represented core Republican values pitted against core Democratic values and hence the results can be used to predict the outcome of future elections and contests. But no, that's not the case at all. Last election was rigged—by the liberal media who pushed their "favorite" RINO onto the Republican ticket. Sen. McCain offered nothing substantially different (except for perhaps the tax holiday he proposed for gasoline in the midst of petroleum crisis that evaporated away) from Obama as far as fundamentals go—and he wasn't very, shall we say, endearing to social conservatives, as someone who cheated on his wife, divorced her, and re-married. In the next election, with any hope, we will put a real Republican, a true conservative—in the fiscal sense, at the very least—on the ballot. Then we will see how the Latino demographic, which indeed will become a very influential "minority" group, votes.
So, in this time of tribulation for conservatives, it's a good thing that RINOs like Specter are jumping the ship, thinking that it's sinking. Once we shed all this dead weight, we will be stronger for it. After all, the tea parties in April proves that conservatism is alive and kicking. And although that event was strictly nonpartisan, when it comes down to it, the Republican party is (and should be), the best platform for conservative agenda.
Just wait until they ban alcohol again
Ron Paul writes (speaks?) on a topic very dear to my heart:
Last week, another bill was passed and signed into law that takes more of our freedoms and violates the Constitution of the United States. It was, of course, done for the sake of the children, and in the name of the health of the citizenry. It's always the case that when your liberty is seized, it is seized for your own good. Such is the condescension of Washington.
I personally don't like smokers. I don't smoke, I don't like the smell of the smoke, and I think I'm allergic to it, too. This is even before we talk about the supposed harms of second-hand smoking. But I don't want the government "cracking down" on either smokers or tobacco companies (especially when the tobacco company is no longer lying to people), no more than someone who didn't have particular fondness for Jews before WWII might have wished Holocaust to happen.
If there's to be any ban on tobacco, it has to be done at the local level. It has to be done by individual private building owners, and perhaps on the largest scale that's (barely) acceptable, by city councils. Any governmental organization larger than that has no legal power to regulate tobacco—least of all a federal agency. Where in the Constitution does it say that when tobacco is grown in a state, processed in the same state, and smoked in the very same state, the federal government could have any say as to in what manner it can be smoked or marketed? (Although I don't find it morally acceptable, I suppose on legal grounds a state, depending on its constitution, could regulate tobacco within its own sphere of influence.)
If there's a bar where there's no smoking at all (not even on the balconies, as smoke does enter back into the bar even then), I might be more inclined to go there than at bars where people smoke. If there's a city where smoking is generally not accepted, I might be more inclined to live there in order to live with like-minded people. But a federal government "regulating" honest marketing of tobacco is way beyond where I draw the line.
300 out of 3,000,000
As stated on HotAir.com:
Mr. Franken — a former comedian and “Saturday Night Live” star known for creating such characters as self-help guru Stuart Smalley — holds a 312-vote lead out of nearly three million in the race to be the next U.S. senator from Minnesota.
Wow. 300 difference out of 3,000,000. We experimentalists have a name for numbers like that: zero. Here's what you get from counting statistics. If you try to count the number of a random event happening 1,500,000 times, then from Poisson statistics you get a standard counting error of [latex]\sqrt{1.5\times10^{6}} \approx 1.2 \times 10^3[/latex]. This means, anything less than 1200 is statistically insignificant.
If we had to do this election scientifically—and we are genuinely interested in finding out what the people really do want—then the only way to do it is re-run it, because any discrepancy within 1200 vote should result in a tie. But then, political science is not a real science, and re-running an election is expensive.
This is yet another reason we need a small, non-invasive government. Do you want your life messed up because the "majority" (by a difference statistically insignificant) voted for the other guy? With a small government that stays within the confines of our constitution, it doesn't matter who's in the office. Heck, we could have Hitler as president and Mussolini as the speaker of the house (or is it the other way around, after all, the current president is popular with the liberal media, as Mussolini was). As long as they are required to stay within the confines of the constitution, they won't be able to do anything truly damaging—at least not in the 4 years that it takes for us to vote them out.
Bush's worst mistake …
... apparently wasn't the Iraq war.
It was not having Cheney go on a speaking tour of the country to bolster the base of his support (and not, well, following the core conservative values and principles of small government with small spending that Cheney preached and practiced).
Cheney's as usual, right. Republican party does need to expand—we need something to check the power of Democratic monsters—but it cannot do that by becoming a monster like the Democratic party. It needs to keep to its fundamentals and values, and well, if General Powell wants to follow those values, he's welcome to the party. But if he wants to make Republican party more "moderate", well, perhaps he should stick to the party with whom he apparently agrees better.
We already ran the most moderate candidate we will ever run in a long time.