From Folly To Follow Up

The Republican Party is (if you believe the MSM) in a state of disarray. Senator Arlen Specter's recent declaration that he was finally switching parties is (the wags proclaim) proof that the Republican Party was on the downslope. While there is some reason to believe that, I don't think that the MSM has a clue as to the WHY and the HOW. I am not going to get into that necessarily here, but I would like to get into what Republicans can and should do to move the Party forward. This column was sent to me by a friend and I think it is a very good place to start. Put aside the militaristic language of "enemies" and "battle" and instead....

Just think what would happen, if we could harness the power of all the individuals that belong to all the freedom groups in America and then some, and focus that power on one national, burning issue? Or better yet, what if we could get all the people who voted conservative in the last election (over 60,000,000 Americans) to focus like a laser beam on one, agreed-upon issue? We would be unstoppable and the reality is, we can!

President Reagan is said to have taken the following position on legislation. He supposedly said that if the legislation did not make the country safer, more prosperous or more free then it was not worthy of his support. THAT is what Republicans should be focusing on!

We need to take a page out of the MoveOn.org playbook - we are not "pro-life" or "pro-2nd Amendment" or "pro-homeschooling" or pro WHATEVER Republicans - we are Republicans and we need to come together to GET REPUBLICANS ELECTED! Yes we should make sure that we nominate principled Republicans but if we do not send more than one or two principled Republicans to DC, we are not going to be able to change a thing.

To my friends in the Libertarian and Constitutional and Republican Parties - we need to quit isolating ourselves and come together FOR THE GOOD OF THE COUNTRY! It really is not optional now.

Showing Up May Not Be All The Job - But It's A Start

Governor Huntsman is certainly working hard to build his name recognition around the country. Sadly, he is showing the rest of the country just how little he knows about what Republicans in Congress are doing...

With the party reeling from Sen. Arlen Specter's defection, a prominent moderate Republican governor is warning that GOP leaders in Washington have failed to offer a positive alternative to President Obama's initiatives.

"You can't just say no. You can't just obstruct or obfuscate," Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman said in an interview with ABC News. "Instead of just kind of grousing and complaining, it would do us all a whole lot of good if we actually started engaging directly in finding compromises and common ground and shared solutions."

Huntsman is one of the most popular Republican governors in the country and a possible candidate for president in 2012. He gives fellow Republicans an "incomplete" grade on their first 100 days as an opposition party.

Perhaps Governor if you had bothered to SHOW UP for the Salt Lake County GOP Convention last Saturday you could have SPOKEN to your "fellow" Republicans like Congressman Rob Bishop. IF YOU HAD BOTHERED TO SHOW UP, Rep. Bishop could have told you about some of the solutions that Republicans are proposing but Democrats in Congress are burying because they have the majority! IF YOU HAD BOTHERED TO SHOW UP you would have learned about a RepublicanAlternative Stimulus package that would have created twice the jobs at half the cost of the one that was shoved down the country's throat. IF YOU HAD BOTHERED TO SHOW UP you would have learned about the Republican Alternative Economic Recovery plan. IF YOU HAD BOTHERED TO SHOW UP you would have learned about a Republican Alternative Housing Recovery plan that would worked with homeowners and banks in order to keep foreclosure at bay - rather than just giving more and more money to failing banks in the hopes that they will not foreclose...and then there was Republican Alternative Energy proposals from last summer. But you didn't bother to show up...you were too busy

As a matter of fact Governor...it is amazing how much you learn when you bother to dig deeper rather than reciting the DEMOCRATS talking points! Maybe if you talked to your "fellow" Republicans like Rep. Bishop - who just happens to BE IN CONGRESS you would know what Republicans in Congress are actually doing...

Food for thought....

The Shape of Things To Come

Tempers flared in the MN House yesterday during debate on the Omnibus Transportation bill.

If Tuesday paints a picture of how the 2009 legislative session will end, it won't be pretty.

An exchange between legislative leaders and a key Pawlenty administration official Tuesday morning was as tense of an exchange as seen in the Capitol this year. And things got worse a few hours later in the House chamber.

Republicans shouted down the Democratic speaker when she ruled that time had expired on a transportation debate, with two GOP amendments not yet heard.

Let's hop in Mr. Peabody's way back machine for just a moment to set the stage for yesterday's fireworks. Back in February, the House Floor Rules were changed to limit the amount of time for floor debate on issues. Discussion of this started last summer (as reported by the St. Paul Legal Ledger and apparently no where else). Even back then there was objection to the limit saying that it would not not allow representatives the ability to offer amendments and changes to the bills. Well yesterday those predictions came to fruition.

Back to today - house Minority Leader Marty Seifert was understandably concerned about the turn of events...

"I don't know if this is some type of flexing of the muscles or what," an angry House Minority Leader Marty Seifert, R-Marshall, said. "If you gag these two people from offering their amendments, who's next ... who are you going to gag next?"

Representative Bernie Lieder(DFL Crookston) also expressed concerns about the tone that this sets for the remainder of the session given that the real work of the body - balancing the budget deficit - has yet to be done!

Lieder was not optimistic for a smooth end to the session, which must pass a $33 billion budget while plugging a $4.6 billion deficit.

"I don't think the last three weeks are going to be easy," he said.

When the Speaker finally realized that she could not allow debate to end without hearing the final two amendments, she waived the white flag.....

The hour-long dust-up ended when House Speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher, DFL-Minneapolis, sent word to Seifert that if Republicans quit objecting, Democrats would allow the debate to resume and GOP Reps. Torrey Westrom of Elbow Lake and Mark Buesgens of Jordan could offer the remaining amendments.

Which is as it should have been.

Yesterday's dust up is the calm before the storm. Without a doubt the most contentious bill will be the Tax Bill once it comes out of conference. The House and Senate leadership is going to have to lean hard on their more vulnerable members (members who represent more conservative districts). They got away with voting against the bill once - they will not be afforded that luxury again! As we saw last session with Rep. Mary Ellen Otremba (who reportedly was threatened with losing her committee chairmanship if she voted against the final Transportation Bill) was not allowed to vote her conscience and for her constituents even though she knew the Transportation Bill was not in their best interests. The Tax Bill just barely passed both chambers - 35-31 in the Senate and 68-65 in the House - and those Democrats (Will Morgan - Burnsville, Sandra Maisin - Eagan and Maria Ruud - Eden Prairie for example) who voted against it will be under intense pressure to make sure that they vote the way that their leadership dictates on the final bill.

Those vulnerable members of the House and the Senate have a very painful choice to make in the coming days. They are either going to have to vote their leadership or their district! Given their past records, I am willing to stick my neck out and say that the answer will be they will vote as their leadership dictates...for they fear the Speaker and her first lieutenant Tony Sertich more than they fear the voters back home! If you live in their districts, you may want to help change that perception.

Taxing The Economy

The Washington Post had a story yesterday that highlights some of the "rich" that are getting targeted by the Obama Administration and the Minnesota DFL.

Gail Johnson doesn't think of herself as wealthy. The former pediatric nurse has spent 20 years building a chain of preschools and after-school programs that accommodate sick children so working parents can keep their jobs.

But, like most small-business owners, Johnson reports her profit on her personal tax return. In a typical year, she and her husband make more than $500,000, according to her accountant, a figure that throws them squarely into the ranks of the richest Americans -- and makes them a prime target for the Obama administration's tax policy.

Since last year's campaign, President Obama has vowed repeatedly not to increase taxes for families making less than $250,000 a year. That pledge, while politically popular, has left him with just two primary sources of funding for his ambitious social agenda: about 3 million high-earning families and the nation's businesses.

Johnson, with her company, falls into both categories. If Obama's tax plans are enacted, her accountant estimates that her federal tax bill -- typically, around $120,000 a year -- would rise by at least $23,000, a 19 percent increase.

So Ms. Johnson, whose company takes care of sick children so that their working parents can go to work, pays approximately 20% of her annual income in taxes and the Obama Administration is raising that by an additional 19%. Anyone wonder how many people she will have to lay off in order to meet that payment? More importantly how many other jobs are going to go away....

Across the nation, many business owners are watching anxiously as the president undertakes expensive initiatives to overhaul health care and expand educational opportunities, while also reining in runaway budget deficits. (ed - yeah that is why the deficit projections for the Obama tax plans have the deficit DWARFING anything coming from President Bush) Already, Obama has proposed an extra $1.3 trillion in taxes for business and high earners over the next decade. They include new limits on the ability of corporations to automatically defer U.S. taxes on income earned overseas, repeal of a form of inventory accounting that tends to reduce business taxes, and a mandate that investment partnerships pay the regular income tax rate instead of the lower capital gains rate.

Republicans are doing what they can to save these jobs.....

Republicans and business groups argue that Obama's plan to tax the rich would strike some of the nation's most productive businesses. Though certain very large companies must organize as separate entities that are taxed twice -- on profits and shareholder dividends -- most smaller businesses opt to be taxed only once by reporting their profits on the personal tax returns of their shareholders.

Most of these businesses make much less than $200,000 a year, though the precise figure is in dispute. Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner has said the tax increase would affect about 2 percent of taxpayers with small-business income. An analysis by the Bush Treasury Department found that 7 percent of filers with business profit were in the top brackets in 2006. More recently, the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation, which evaluates tax policy for Congress, projected that 3 percent of filers with business profits -- about 750,000 taxpayers -- were likely to face higher taxes in 2011 under Obama's proposal.

Whatever the figure, Republicans argue that those who fall into the upper brackets tend to be firms with the greatest capacity for job creation. In a 2007 survey, the National Federation of Independent Business found that about 15 percent of small-business owners -- and half of those with at least 20 employees -- said they expected their household income to exceed $200,000. In the Washington region, Census figures show one in seven families earn more than $200,000 a year.

But then again some could argue that if they had not been such prolific spenders themselves when they had control of the House and the White House we might not be in the deficit boat we are in now. I'm just sayin' guys.....

Ms.Johnson, explains what this kinds of increased costs will do to her business.

Johnson said such an increase would force her to consider scaling back operations.

"You can try to pass it on to consumers. But if you raise tuition, you put pressure on family budgets," she said. "For us, we're caught between the devil and the deep blue sea."

For the MN Legislatures DFL Leadership - "scaling back operations" is code for LAYING WORKERS OFF and SPENDING LESS! Ms. Johnson is painfully aware of the one thing that Congress, the President and many State Legislatures (like Minnesota's) are apparently oblivious about....that passing on the additional costs in THIS ECONOMY is not going to work and that in order to meet expenses, cutbacks must be made! And Ms.Johnson is not the only employer considering "scaling back".

Other business owners are also nervous. Jim Murphy, president of EST Analytical in Fairfield, Ohio, which sells analytical instruments to environmental testing labs and pharmaceuticals, said his company is struggling in the sluggish economy. But if profit returns to pre-recession levels -- about $455,000 -- Murphy said his accountant estimates that Obama's proposals could add $60,000 to his $120,000 tax bill.

"The misconception is that guys like me take [our profits] and put it into our pockets," said Murphy, who employs 47 people. "But the money the company earns in a given year is used to buy additional inventory so we can grow and hire." A 50 percent tax increase, he said, would be "really painful."

As someone who grew up with an entrepeneur for a parent I can concur - everything they get back in profit goes back into the business! That is how you grow a small business!

There may be a need for "shared sacrific" of that there is no doubt. However, when it is the taxpayer that is the only one sacrificing - well there is nothing "shared" about it. The government needs to do what every other business out there is doing...cutting back...doing without (or with much much less). Then and only then can they talk about a 'shared" sacrifice and then maybe we should talk about raising taxes more and more.

Net Insanity

When I first got this story in my inbox yesterday, I was skeptical....

Barack Obama's nominee for "regulatory czar" has advocated a "Fairness Doctrine" for the Internet

that would require opposing opinions be linked and also has suggested angry e-mails should be prevented from being sent by technology that would require a 24-hour cooling off period.

The revelations about Cass Sunstein, Obama's friend from the University of Chicago Law School and nominee to head the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, come in a new book by Brad O'Leary, "Shut Up, America! The End of Free Speech." OIRA will oversee regulation throughout the U.S. government.

Consider the source, I said to myself...some guy who is trying really hard to sell an obviously partisam book. So I decided to do a little searching on the 'net this morning to see if I could find any other corroboration for the allegation and boy did I find it. You can tell, if you go read the whole thing and I encourage you to do so, that the author is a fan of Sunstein's - not a critic. However, he is also intellectually honest enough to admit that the man he admires has a couple of issues that he is less than wise on.

Sunstein’s general outlook about the Internet and what it is doing to society. In Republic.com, Sunstein argued that the Internet is destroying opportunities for a mingling of the masses and shared social experiences. The hyper-customization that specialized websites and online filtering technologies (blogs, portals, listservs, political websites, etc.) offer Americans is allowing citizens to create the equivalent of a highly personalized news retrieval service that Sunstein contemptuously refers to as “The Daily Me.” Actually, the phrase “The Daily Me” was coined by Nicholas Negroponte in his brilliant 1995 book Being Digital to describe what he argued would be a liberating break from traditional, force-fed media. But what irks Sunstein about “The Daily Me” is not the amazing new array of choices that the Internet offers Americans, it’s that the Internet and all these new technologies allow citizens to filter information and tailor their viewing or listening choices to their own needs or desires. While Negroponte welcomed that filtering and specialization function, Sunstein seems to live in fear of it, believing that it creates extreme social isolation and alienation.

While Sunstein has a point about the social isolation that the net can cause, he is dead wrong that allowing people access to more information is bad for the Republic. It is not the access to the information that is bad - it is what people do with it. People who do live in the echo chamber are going to be an echo chamber themselves. The left's issue with additional information is that their echo chamber is no longer the ONLY one out there. For years they domoniated the access to information - in the universities, on the National nightly news, in most major city newspapers, on NPR and a whole host of other outlets. Then along came talk radio and almost instantly the calls to silence it began.

He argues that unrestrained individual choice is dangerous and must be checked or countered in the interests of “citizenship” and “democracy.” In his own words: “A system of limitless individual choices, with respect to communications, is not necessarily in the interest of citizenship and self-government. Democratic efforts to reduce the resulting problems ought not be rejected in freedom’s name.” In other words, as I noted in my review of his book in Regulation magazine back in 2000, Sunstein is essentially saying that the Internet is breeding a dangerous new creature: Anti-Democratic Man. And government should not hesitate to act to counter it.

It is ironic, to say the least, that the ideas that fought so hard to open up the country to discussion of ideas back in the '60s are now hell bent on shutting discussion down via fiats like the so-called "Fairness Doctrine".

However, this column does countradict one of the accusations of the WND column and that is the accusation that Sunstein wants to establish a "Fairness Doctrine" for the 'net.

Sunstein’s views about the Internet and what it is doing to society are troubling enough. Far more problematic, however, is what Sunstein has suggested we should do to deal with this supposed problem. After Sunstein worked himself up to a boil about all this in Republic.com, he tossed out what I believe is the single most dangerous public policy idea for the Internet suggested in the past 10 years: mandatory “electronic sidewalks” for cyberspace.

Sunstein called for popular or partisan websites to be forced to carry links to opposing viewpoints. Think of it as a combination of must carry mandates and the Fairness Doctrine for the Internet...

Importantly, in his 2006 book Infotopia, Sunstein seemed to pull back from these views and proposals somewhat, although he still bemoaned the supposed dangers of “The Daily Me.” But in this November 2007 interview with Salon, Sunstein seemed to completely abandon his old proposal:

I have thought over the years of whether it makes sense for the government to have a regulatory role [for the Internet]. But the Internet is too difficult to regulate in a way that would respond to these concerns. The first book ["Republic.com"] had suggestions that government should consider fairness-doctrine-type mandates on Web sites. It suggested that it’s reasonable for government to think about creating the equivalent of linking obligations and pop-ups, so that you’d be on one site — say, a conservative site — and there’d be a pop-up from a liberal site. I now the believe that the government should not consider that — that it’s a stupid and almost certainly an unconstitutional suggestion.

Sunstein is certain correct when he says that it is a "stupid - almost unconstitutional" suggestion. There is simply no way to enforce what he proposed in his first book. Give him points for learning a lesson.

So what about the most ridiculous proposal of the bunch....the mandatory "24 Hour cooling off period" before sending angry emails? It was a very real proposal!

In Nudge, a book about how small proposals or policies can have major social influences, Sunstein and his co-author Richard Thaler describe as their “favorite proposal,” a so-called “Civility Check” for online speech and interactions. Here’s what they say:

The modern world suffers from insufficient civility. Every hour of every day, people send angry emails they soon regret, cursing people they barely know (or even worse, their friends and loved ones). A few of us have learned a simple rule: don’t send an angry email in the heat of the moment. File it, and wait a day before you send it. (In fact, the next day you may have calmed down so much that you forget even to look at it. So much the better.) But many people either haven’t learned the rule or don’t always follow it. Technology could easily help. In fact, we have no doubt that technologically savvy types could design a helpful program by next month.

We propose a Civility Check that can accurately tell whether the email you’re about to send is angry and caution you, “warning: this appears to be an uncivil email. do you really and trulywant to send it?” (Software already exists to detect foul language. What we are proposing is more subtle, because it is easy to send a really awful email message that does not contain any four-letter words.)...

When I first responded to Sunstein and Thaler’s “Civility Check” notion, I went a little hard on them calling that idea “absurd and horrendously elitist.” What I should have made clear is that there is a difference between suggesting this sort of thing as an industry “best practice” as opposed to mandating it by force of law.

Indeed, in October of last year, Google launched a new Gmail feature called “Mail Goggles” that, according to the launch message on Google’s Gmail Blog, will help users “stop sending mail you (will) later regret.” The feature — perhaps better labeled a “Drunk Check” — “will check that you’re really sure you want to send that late night Friday email” by asking you to “solve a few simple math problems after you click send to verify you’re in the right state of mind.” It’s not identical to what Sunstein and Thaler have in mind, but it’s close. And I’m fine with Google adding such a feature to their Gmail service, especially since you don’t have to use it if you don’t want to.

I agree with Sunstein and Thaler that there is "insufficient civility" in our society. It is not hard to find - whether it is in the business world or the sports arena or on the internet...especially on the internet. It is so easy to hide behind "anonymous" and leave some of the nastiest comments to other peoples thoughts and beliefs. However, mandating civility is impossibly and incredibly naive! It is (as Mr. Thierer points out) a great best practice - but mandating it? What utter nonsense!

Mr. Thierer points out one of the nasty realities of DC life in his conclusion....

Will Sunstein continue to push any of these views in his new position as Obama’s regulatory czar at OIRA? If so, how much impact will Sunstein’s views have on others in the Obama Administration, especially at the FCC? Or, have his views changed enough that we really shouldn’t worry?

Who knows. It may be that Sunstein will be too busy trying to mediate fights between agencies and other “czars” in the Administration — of which there seems to be no shortage these days!

Which is yet another reason to pare down the size of government. However, there are good reasons for ALL internet users to be concerned. With the make up of Congress and the far left ideals of White House, it is not out of the realm of possibility for a internet "Fairness Doctrine" to be enacted. Before my friends on the left start gearing up their campaign to get it done, I would just ask them to stop and think about how that could effect them come the day when the Republicans get back into power. Think about how it could be used on you. Would you want YOUR free speech silenced because you do not agree with the "powers that be". Yes today, your people have the power, but that will not last forever and a 'net "Fairness" doctrine will last longer in office than your guys will. Are you willing to live under that? If the answer is no, then you need to make sure that you impress on your people the dangers of censorship - not pushing the idea further along for temporary gain.

Think about it...

Cancelled...

Imagine you are the parent of a three year old who is in need of life saving surgery. No worries, you say - I have government provided health care. My child will get the life saving treatment she needs....the government said they would provide it........

A three-year-old girl waiting for vital heart surgery has had her operation cancelled three times in as many weeks because of a shortage of hospital beds.

Ella Cotterell was due to have an operation to widen her aorta artery in her heart on Monday at Bristol Children's Hospital, but her surgery was cancelled 48 hours before because all 15 beds in the intensive care unit were full.

No before all you lefties start screeching - yes I fully understand and admit that we have had situations here where a hospital's beds are all full. I am NOT saying that never happens here. However, the fact that there are only 15 ICU beds in this particular hospital does say something about state of health care in Britian. Especially in a speciality hospital such as Women's and Childrens Hospital where little Ella was to have her surgery.

This is not necessarily a failure of universal care as much as it is a failure of today's modern medicine administration. While we don't know from the article the nature of the "emergencies" that caused little Ella's surgery to be cancelled, we have to wonder about a system that does not have the flexibility to move the surgery to a different hospital (this child's aorta is very weak and could rupture at any moment) or one that, if rescheduling is the absolute only option, has to wait weeks before they can even give you a new date!

The problem with health care in America (and as we see here in the UK as well) is that it is not responsive to the patients - only to insurance and insurance administrators. Changing out administrators (from insurance companies to the government) is not going to make health care better. Making the system more accountable to the patients will - which is why Universal Healthcare is, in the end, a real killer.

Founders Morning Quote

"History affords us many instances of the ruin of states, by the prosecution of measures ill suited to the temper and genius of their people. The ordaining of laws in favor of one part of the nation, to the prejudice and oppression of another, is certainly the most erroneous and mistaken policy. An equal dispensation of protection, rights, privileges, and advantages, is what every part is entitled to, and ought to enjoy... These measures never fail to create great and violent jealousies and animosities between the people favored and the people oppressed; whence a total separation of affections, interests, political obligations, and all manner of connections, by which the whole state is weakened."

--Benjamin Franklin, Emblematical Representations

We are slowly starting to see the policies that favor one part of the nation over another creep into our country as well which is one reason why you see the animosity between the cities and "fly-over" country.

More Liberal Hypocrisy

From the people who yell at people of faith to "get out of my bedroom" comes this latest level of hypocrisy courtesy of Rick Moran.

For some, it is a question of politics. And after 8 years of hearing the left say that a person's sexual life is not the business of the public and what someone does when he is not doing the people's business should be his own affair, it takes a lot of sand to suddenly become interested in such matters when they involve a member of the opposite party.

There exists a small homosexual clique that has taken it upon themselves to "out" gay Republicans. These vicious slime merchants inhabit "alternative" media including websites, newspapers, and now, Hollywood. Their stated goal; to expose "hypocrisy" by outing conservative politicians, and even more incredibly, those who work as aides for the lawmaker.

You should read the whole thing. Rick has it nailed - it's not about privacy. It's about political agendas...and rank hypocrisy.

Finally...

With 26 days left in the Legislative session (and with very little fanfare I might add), the House and Senate DFL majorities release their solution to the $6.4 billion dollar budget deficit. The Bemidji Pioneer reports...

ST. PAUL – Legislators arrived at the Minnesota Capitol in early January with five months to fix a multi-billion-dollar budget deficit.

Now, lawmakers are staring at the same massive budget problem and a deadline just three weeks out. And no one knows how the problem will be fixed.

Much of the Legislature’s heavy-lifting always occurs in the session’s final weeks – or, more accurately, days – as lawmakers scramble to pass a new two-year state budget, erasing a projected $4.6 billion deficit by the constitutional May 18 adjournment date.

Before we start looking at what the DFL led legislature finally proposed one has to point out again that they have had over 4 months to put forward a thoughtful solution to this bill. However, in their usual fashion, the DFL has pushed the state of Minnesota to the brink of a shutdown! It is no coincidence that this biennium budget, as with the 2005 budget bienium, happens to come on the political eve of a gubernatorial election.

After a year of knowing that there was a recordbreaking budget deficit (remember, the Legislature was told at the end of the LAST session that the deficit was going to be this bad) the DFL Legislature had all the time and resources that they needed to fix this pending crisis. Then when the took to the floor in January, the choose not to do anything. In fevruary, they choose not to do anything...March the same...Instead they spent that time writing legislation designed to blacklist and punish businesses that chose not to be unionized! It was not until April 21 that they introduced the first bill to try to fix the problem and their answer was predictable...they proposed tax increases on cigarettes, liquor and beer, snowmobiles, downloadable music (the so-called iTunes tax), clothing, food and gifts that you give to others (again). When they did finally decide to cut spending, the decided to cut school funding, public safety, hospital funding and veterans care funding. Meanwhile, Senators like St. Cloud's Tarryl Clark are sending out push polls to their constituents asking what "essential" services they would cut - even though the House and Senate proposals were already in committee (isn't it nice how they ask for your input AFTER THE FACT?). If the tax hikes (some quite regressive) aren't bad enough, the DFL Tax Bill repeals tax deductions for mortgage interest, charitable contributions (we can't have those charities competing for your tax dollars after all) and K-12 education expenses. The DFL's tax bill even takes away a gas tax credit that was designed to protect POOR PEOPLE from gas tax increases!

Even some DFLers were horrified by the increased taxes! Others came flat out and admitted what the rest of us have long said - increased taxes will push consumers to buy their goods elsewhere.

Senate Taxes Committee Chairman Tom Bakk, DFL-Cook, said eliminating the current mortgage interest deduction could hurt Minnesota’s high rate of home ownership and higher alcohol taxes would drive some liquor shoppers across the Wisconsin border.

Emphasis mine....

There can be no mistaking the DFL's motive here. House Speaker Margaret Kelliher Anderson is toying with the idea of running for governor as is Senator Tom Bakk, former House Minority Leader Matt Entenza, Representative Joe Atkins and the aforemention Senator Clark from St. Cloud. All of these legislators have a stake in making Governor Pawlenty (if he runs for re-election) or any Republican Legislator who decides to run look bad by forcing another government shut-down. It is their hope that they can again (as they did in 2006) blame the Governor Pawlenty and the Republicans for this government shut down. Will the voters of Minnesota fall for this blatent ploy again? Only if the Republican Party runs the same kind of lame campaign that they did in 2006. Hopefully they have learned a lesson from the last two elections and will put together (either as a party or as individual candidates) a campaign that finally holds the DFL accountable for their deceptive actions. Remember - NOT ONE DFL candidate for the House ran on tax increases in 2008. As a matter of fact they all ran as "fiscal moderates" who were going to be respectful of the taxpayers resources. Now that they have shown their true colors, it is up to the Republican candidates and the Republilcan Party to take advantage of that - if they want to regain the House in 2010.

Is the Debate About Over?

WOW! Could this be the end of the debate over adult versus embryonic stem cell research?

Researchers have announced a breakthrough that could end the ethical debate surrounding stem-cell research.

The groundbreaking technique would allow the conversion of adult cells into an embryonic-like state. Researchers have been competing in recent years to reach just such a discovery, which would allow them to perform their work without using the controversial embryonic stem cell lines.

Scientists at the the Scripps Research Institute in San Diego believe the key to their success is converting the cells by using recombinant proteins, which eliminates subsequent genetic alterations that typically occur during later stages.

"Instead of inserting the four genes into the cells they wanted to reprogram, the scientists added the purified engineered proteins and experimented with the chemically defined conditions without any genetic materials involved until they found the exact mix that allowed them to gradually reprogram the cells," researchers said in a news release.

Common sense says that if this technique is what they say it is, this should be the end of the debate. If we can get the supposed benefits of embryonic stem cells WITHOUT the ethical and medical challenges that come with embryonic stem cells it really is a no-brainer. However, there are too many people with too much invested in the culture of abortion and "baby farming". You think that last comment is a little too much? Well that is essentially what is happening. Embryos - potential babies - are being "farmed" out to make these stem cells. That is why the ethical concerns are so important and why this discovery is SO VITAL!

Update and bump:

The Wall Street Journal has more indepth coverage of this technology above including a diagram of how the process works!

The stem-cell field has long aimed to harness the master cells of a human embryo, which can be turned into heart, nerve and other types of tissue. The long-term hope is that such tissue could be used to test novel drugs, or be transplanted into patients to treat diseases. But because the cell extraction destroys the embryo, the technique has ignited much ethical controversy.

In the past few years, scientists have found an alternative approach. By introducing several genes into a mature human cell, they have been able to reprogram it to a primitive, embryonic-like state. The approach carries risks, however. The genes are transported with the help of a virus, which can cause cancer. Plus, the DNA of the inserted genes may trigger other unwanted genetic changes in the target cell.

Now, instead of reprogramming the cell with four introduced genes, researchers have achieved the same result by inserting four proteins associated with those genes. This technique is deemed to be safer because it doesn't require genetic manipulation.

Another take on the story can be found here.

In addition to all of this news, comes this wonderful news from the Times of London.

Some have been left free from seizures and better able to walk after the treatment.

Researchers said that the results suggest that the "very simple" injection of their own cells can stimulate the regrowth of tissue damaged by the progression of the disease.

The preliminary findings add to the growing evidence that stem cells could be used to treat the crippling neurological disease, which affects about 85,000 people in Britain.

Last year experts suggested that stem cell therapy could be a "cure" for MS within the next 15 years.

While obviously no conclusions in terms of therapeutic efficacy can be drawn from these reports, this first clinical use of fat stem cells for treatment of MS supports further investigations into this very simple and easily-implementable treatment methodology".

Note that this was not embryonic stem cells - it was fat cells from an adult.

There is so much more promise from adult stem cells which is why throwing good money after a promise of fools gold!

Founders Morning Quote

"Besides, to lay and collect internal taxes in this extensive country must require a great number of congressional ordinances, immediately operation upon the body of the people; these must continually interfere with the state laws and thereby produce disorder and general dissatisfaction till the one system of laws or the other, operating upon the same subjects, shall be abolished."

--Federal Farmer, Antifederalist Letter, 10 October 1787

Technical Difficulties

My apologies to anyone who tried to visit overnight last night or this morning. Due to self induced technical difficulties, the site was down or (after about midnight Mountain time) stuck back in a time warp back at Sunday the 19th. However the fine folks at HostGator were able to restore the site quickly and helped me undo the residual damage. Now we are back online and ready to rock!

Todays Cool Science

I found this really neat science story today

Twitter messages are so short - a 140-character limit - that you have to really think about what you want to say.

For Adam Wilson, thinking is all he has to do.

Earlier this month, Wilson thought of a tweet (the name for a post to the social networking site) and poof, his computer read his mind and sent the darn thing. At just 23 characters, Wilson's message, "using EEG to send tweet," was done with a computer setup that interprets brain waves.

The technology could one day help patients who otherwise can't communicate finally talk to the outside world. Among them are people with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), brain-stem stroke or high spinal cord injury...

"We started thinking that moving a cursor on a screen is a good scientific exercise," said Justin Williams, a University of Wisconsin-Madison assistant professor of biomedical engineering and Wilson's adviser. "But when we talk to people who have locked-in syndrome or a spinal-cord injury, their No. 1 concern is communication."

In collaboration with research Gerwin Schalk and colleagues at the Wadsworth Center in Albany, N.Y., Williams and Wilson developed an interface that involves a keyboard displayed on a computer screen...

Wilson, who used the interface to post the Twitter update, likens it to texting on a cell phone.

"You have to press a button four times to get the character you want," he said of texting. "So this is kind of a slow process at first."

However, as with texting, users improve as they practice using the interface. "I've seen people do up to eight characters per minute," Wilson said.

The micro-blogging Twitter site, with its basis in very short messages, fits locked-in users' capabilities, Williams said. Tweets are displayed on a user's profile page and delivered to other Twitter users who have signed up to receive them.

"So someone could simply tell family and friends how they're feeling today," Williams said. "People at the other end can be following their thread and never know that the person is disabled. That would really be an enabling type of communication means for those people, and I think it would make them feel, in the online world, that they're not that much different from everybody else. That's why we did these things."

Funding for the project came from the university, the National Institutes of Health and the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation.

I'm thinking that this could also be a break through for some autism patients as well.

This study really bears watching as science fiction becomes science fact.

Founders Morning Quote

"The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite."

--James Madison, Federalist No. 45

Emphasis mine.

Today On MidStream Radio

Jazz and I have a special guest on MidStream Radio today. Roger Simmermaker, author of the book "How Americans Can Buy American". We start in 10am Eastern, 8am Mtn. We hope you will join us.

Fuzzy Facts

Last month, House Republicans (based on an MIT study) announced that President Obama's cap and trade proposals would end up costing the average household roughly $3100 a year. Shortly thereafter, Polifact interviewed the author of the MIT study where he contradicted that information. He said that it would only cost the average household $215 a year extra. Well that lead to all sorts of derision from the left. Well the worm has (as they say) turned yet again.

During a lengthy email exchange last week with THE WEEKLY STANDARD, MIT professor John Reilly admitted that his original estimate of cap and trade's cost was inaccurate. The annual cost would be "$800 per household", he wrote. "I made a boneheaded mistake in an excel spread sheet. I have sent a new letter to Republicans correcting my error (and to others)."

It is nice to see that MIT professors fall prey to the same mistakes (in relying on spread sheet calculations and typos) as the rest of us do. It is comforting in some small way. However, the mistake gets even bigger as the interview with Weekly Standard goes on.

While $800 is significantly more than Reilly's original estimate of $215 (not to mention more than Obama's middle-class tax cut), it turns out that Reilly is still low-balling the cost of cap and trade by using some fuzzy logic. In reality, cap and trade could cost the average household more than $3,900 per year.

The $800 paid annually per household is merely the "cost to the economy [that] involves all those actions people have to take to reduce their use of fossil fuels or find ways to use them without releasing [Green House Gases]," Reilly wrote. "So that might involve spending money on insulating your home, or buying a more expensive hybrid vehicle to drive, or electric utilities substituting gas (or wind, nuclear, or solar) instead of coal in power generation, or industry investing in more efficient motors or production processes, etc. with all of these things ending up reflected in the costs of good and services in the economy."

In other words, Reilly estimates that "the amount of tax collected" through companies would equal $3,128 per household--and "Those costs do get passed to consumers and income earners...

So in other words, the House Republican Caucus was RIGHT...cap and trade will cost the American taxpayer $3128 a year IN ADDITIONAL TAXES!!!!! Michele Bachamann was right - someone alert Eric Ringham (Star Tribune editor)!

Now there is some debate on what will happen with those tax dollars....

...Reilly assumes that the $3,128 will be "returned" to each household. Without that assumption, Reilly wrote, "the cost would then be the Republican estimate [$3,128] plus the cost I estimate [$800]."

In Reilly's view, the $3,128 taken through taxes will be "returned" to each household whether or not the government cuts a $3,128 rebate check to each household.

That is a big assumption given that we are talking about a government that already takes more (in the form of taxes) than it gives back to the people. However, that is only one of many assumptions that this MIT professor makes when he makes this statement. First off, who is going to get that money from those that collected it? The state government or the Feds? It should be the states since they most closest regulate the energy companies, but I think we can safely assume that since this is federal cap and trade that it will go to the feds. The next assumption is that there is a mechanism in the bill to give that money back which there currently is not! Then there is the assumption that the average citizen thinks like an MIT professor....

The average citizen does not think like an MIT professor. They see the additional expenses in their monthly bill as just that. IF they get anything back from the government, they will not think of it as a "repayment" of that monthly expense - because that has already been spent. The Republicans presented this cap and trade increase in a way that the average bill payer is going to see it - as an upfront expense which is going to hurt those on fixed incomes the most!

The fact that Democrats are out to over tax everyone - rich and poor alike is no surprise to those of us in the "loyal opposition". Whether it is raising taxes on every day expeditures like food and clothing, to the occasional "luxury" like alcohol and cigarettes (more on this later), to electricity and heat, the Democrats are out to over tax everything that moves in order that they can force their lifestyle choices on the rest of us. It is time for the average citizen to say "Enough is enough". The Tax Day Tea Parties were just the beginning. Now is the time for every citizen to make sure that their legislator (state and federal) hears from them regularly - whether they agree with you or not! Make sure that the will of the voters are known in St. Paul, Salt Lake City and Washington DC! Make sure that your cap and trade supporting governors like Pawlenty and Huntsman know that you are NOT PLEASED with their signing on to a scheme that will take more and more of your hard earned tax dollars away from the more important things like private charity and your own family. That is the beginning....more to come.

Founders Morning Quote

"To take from one, because it is thought his own industry and that of his fathers has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers, have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, the guarantee to everyone the free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it."

--Thomas Jefferson, letter to Joseph Milligan, 6 April 1816

Emphasis mine.....

The AG Saga Continues (Again)

I can't tell you how stunned and shocked and amazed I was when I read this story....NOT! (HT HA again)

The WCCO I-TEAM first told you about expensive, sound-proof doors in the Attorney General's Office. Now there are allegations of unethical and unlawful behavior from two former lawyers in the office speaking publicly for the first time.

Minnesota Attorney General Lori Swanson issued a press release response but refused to sit down with WCCO for an interview. And the State Legislative Auditor has just reopened an investigation based on the sworn testimony of several lawyers who have not spoken out before now.

Paul Civello was a Medicaid fraud attorney under former DFL Minnesota Attorney General Mike Hatch and his successor, the DFLer Swanson.

"It was always political mode," said Civello.

Actually - anyone who has been following this story for the last year is not surprised at any of Civello's allegations.

In an interview with the I-TEAM, Civello said employees were routinely pressured into working on high profile cases intended only to bring publicity and political attention to the boss.

But there's more to his charges than just politics.

"The problem I found in the Medicaid Fraud Control Unit was an attempt to deceive the Office of Inspector General (about the make up of the unit)," said Civello.

When Eric Black (from MinnPost) first started digging into the many allegations of corruption in the AG's office he covered the Medicaid Fraud unit allegations specifically! As did the bloggers of the Minnesota Independent! One has to wonder about the timing of the WCCO story. Where was Mr. Kessler last May when Eric Black (among many others in the blogosphere) was digging into these very allegations?

No matter - the good news is that because these two new attorneys have come forward, Legislative Auditor Jim Nobles is re-opening his investigation into the office.

But in an unusual move, the auditor is now taking another look.

"Certainly if there are misrepresentations, we want to uncover that," said Jim Nobles, Minnesota's Legislative Auditor.

The steady drip, drip, drip of allegations into the Attorney General's office is putting an uncomfortable spotlight back on Ms. Swanson at a time when she probably would least like to have it happen. The MN Senate race is going to be going to the courts and the AG's office is going to have to (as the representatives of the people of MN) step in and ask for some resolution soon. It is bad enough that you have will most likely have a Democrat AG asking that the courts seat a fellow Democrat in a disputed election - but when that Democrat has the stench of corruption floating about her, that is going to cause people to second guess WHATEVER she advocates for! These allegations are also coming as both parties start gearing up for election 2010. With Ms. Swanson up for election in 2010 and two years worth of corruption allegations swirling about her, you know that the primary challengers are lining up now - trying to quietly build a grass roots movement behind them...and you know that the Republicans are salivating over the opportunity to run against a tainted opponent.

A Climate Of Tolerance

Through out the decades of debate, one of the leading mantras from the gay rights community has been that the religious community needs to be "tolerant" of their lifestyle choices. Yet as we saw the other night, tolerance seems to be a one way street.

Outspoken gay rights activist (and celebrity blogger) Perez Hilton was a judge on last weeks Miss USA competition. During the question and answer session, Hilton confronted Miss California...



In a video posted on his personal YouTube Channel, Hilton had this to say about Miss California.



HT to HA for the videos.

Hilton even went on to tell ABC News that Miss California "...was definitely the front-runner before that..." and that her answer "lost it" for her. All for expressing a lifestyle choice.

Yet people of faith are taken to task for their "intolerance". Perhaps Mr. Hilton should try to practice a little bit of the tolerance that he demands of others. Then maybe we can actually have a civil discussion on the issue.

Founders Morning Quote

"But what do we mean by the American Revolution? Do we mean the American war? The Revolution was effected before the war commenced. The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people; a change in their religious sentiments, of their duties and obligations... This radical change in the principles, opinions, sentiments, and affections of the people was the real American Revolution."

--John Adams, letter to H. Niles, 13 February 1818

How Green Is My Recovery...

MMGW proponents will tell you that the road to economic recovery is to be found in "green jobs". These jobs are supposed to save us all and thus need to be subsidized heavily. One problem with that (HT Powerline) .....

When everybody seems to have the same big idea, you just know it can only mean trouble. Remember sub-prime mortgages? Now universally excoriated as the spawn of the devil, the proximate cause of the credit crunch and all that followed, a few years back “sub-prime” was everyone’s darling. Financiers loved it because it generated sumptuously high-yielding debt instruments; governments, because it promised to make even the poor into proud property owners.

Now business lobbyists and governments on both sides of the Atlantic have got a new big idea. They call it “green jobs”. Leading the pack is, as you might expect, Barack Obama. The president recently defended a vast package of subsidies for renewable energy on the grounds that it would “create millions of additional jobs and entire new industries”.

In all fairness, I wouldn't say that President Obama is necessarily "leading the pack". That honor goes (as it should) to former VP Al Gore! However, the point of the column really is what happens when government decides who is going to win the innovation lottery (as opposed to letting the market decide)....

In Britain, the business secretary, Lord Mandelson, promises billions in state aid for the same purpose. To add verisimilitude, last week he gave a royal wave from the inside of a prototype electric Mini. Mandelson’s chauffeur was a representative of the lower house: the transport secretary, Geoff Hoon.

The occasion for this photo opportunity was the government’s proposal to offer a £5,000 subsidy to anyone buying an electric car of a type not yet available: exact details to be given in Alistair Darling’s forthcoming budget. The idea is to create a “world-beating” British-based electric-car-manufacturing industry, while also attempting to meet Gordon Brown’s promise to have the nation converted to electric or hybrid cars by 2020.

Can I just another quick aside here. If we all convert to electric cars, aren't we going to need to bring more power plants on the grid soon? If we add more coal fired power plants to the grid, how are we reducing green house gasses?

All snark aside, what do you think will happen should the day come when the US, Canada and Enlightened Europe all impose cap and trade restrictions on their businesses?

If making carbon this personal seems rude, then think globally instead. During the presidential race, Barack Obama was heard to remark that he would bankrupt the coal industry. No one can doubt Washington’s power to bankrupt almost anything—in the United States. But China is adding 100 gigawatts of coal-fired electrical capacity a year. That’s another whole United States’ worth of coal consumption added every three years, with no stopping point in sight. Much of the rest of the developing world is on a similar path.

Seriously, with all of the other more pressing issues facing our leaders, one has to wonder just how much money can be thrown into these "green jobs" initiatives.

Analysts say the focus next week will be on help for renewable energy such as wind power, grants to make homes more energy efficient and perhaps a scheme to encourage drivers to trade in old cars for less polluting new models.

But while such promises may impress voters, Brown has little spare cash to throw at large-scale environmental projects as the budget deficit is expected to top 10 percent of GDP this fiscal year because of the economic downturn.

"He hasn't got a lot of room for manoeuvre, it is window-dressing," said Alan Clarke, UK economist at BNP Paribas.

Don't get me wrong - I am all for finding alternative fuel sources. It does need to be done. However, as I have said before, the government should not be in the business of deciding up front which alt fuel is going to win. I said that when President Bush and Tim Pawlenty were pushing ethanol and I'm saying it now while President Obama is pushing electrics. Let the car manufacturers figure out which alt fuel is going to be the easiest to convert their cars to. Let the oil companies go the route that BP is going - for they have been working on synth fuels for some time now. Let the businesses who know their business best go about finding these alt fuels and get the governement the heck out of the way. That is the quickest way to get the innovation that we need done!

Putting It Into Perspective

Today's Yahoo Finance has a column up that finally discusses some things that my radio partner Jazz Shaw and I have discussed multiple times....

Ellen Parnell and her husband, Donald Parnell Jr., seem like the kind of well-off couple President Barack Obama has in mind when he suggests raising taxes on families earning more than $250,000 a year. A surgeon at Fort Sanders Sevier Medical Center in Sevierville, Tenn., he drives an Infiniti. They vacation at a beach resort every year.
Yet, right now he is working seven days a week. The car is more than a decade old, the vacation home in Sandestin, Fla., comes at a moderate weekly rate because members of Ms. Parnell's extended family own it. Her family of five would like more room than they have in their 2,500-square-foot home, yet they can't afford anything larger. The downturn has them skittish about paying for renovations.

Now many folks would say "Oh I would LOVE to have their problems instead of mine" and I can sympathize. Heaven knows I would not mind having a slightly larger home but then again, I certainly would not want to have many of the minuses that come with being a surgeon. For example, there is malpractice insurance, there are lingering medical school loans to pay back and THEN there is the mortgage, car payment, monthly utilities, college, taxes etc to think of.

However, the point that Jazz and I have made when we have had this discussion boils down to a simple real estate marketing phrase....location, location, location. A person making $250,000 would be able to live quite well here in Utah, but in New York City or California....

Changes to the tax code don't generally make adjustments for high costs of living in particular areas of the country.

San Jose, Calif., Mayor Chuck Reed calls a family living in Silicon Valley earning $250,000 "upper working class." That is about what two engineers working at a technology firm can expect to make, but "a family earning $250,000 a year can't buy a home in Silicon Valley," he said.

That is something that a simple statistical figure can not take into account! As the column points out, $250,000 IS in that top bracket of income earners. But those statistics don't take into account that most folks making that kind of money live in cities where the cost of living is much higher which eats up a larger portion of that income than it does elsewhere.

The reasons for the insecurity are that net worth is declining at the same time that expenses like education and health care, two of the biggest concerns cited by members of that income group, are going up faster than wages and income, says Heidi Shierholz, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute in Washington. "Those are the biggies. They are huge parts of the set of middle-class aspirations, and the prices of those have increased way faster than income." The bursting of the housing bubble makes that more stark.

These concerns, tied to a falling economy, are having a political impact for many people.

James Duran owns a human-resources company in Silicon Valley and is president of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce in California. He supported Mr. Obama, but is worried about the tax proposals. He has laid off some employees in recent months and has been wondering how he can fund an extension of those workers' health-care benefits.

Mr. Duran said he and his wife earn about $400,000 annually, but "I'm barely getting by." They have high property and state taxes, as well as college tuition and savings to cover. "I'm an Obama man, but this side of him is a difficult pill for me," he said.

Congress is already backpedaling because of it...

Already, many members of Congress are seeking to scale back some of the proposed tax increases, which call for raising the top federal tax rates to 36% from 33% on households earning $250,000 or above.

...because they know that they have to face the voters long before President Obama does!

Meanwhile, many small business owners are cutting back their business in order to cut back their income in order to get in just under the cap.

Now to be fair, the Parnell's don't want pity....

"I'm not after sympathy. We are blessed. What I want is a reality check on what rich means," Ms. Parnell says. "I can pay my mortgage and I can buy some clothes. I'm not going without, but I'm not living a life of luxury."

While I happen to agree with Mrs. Parnell, I know that the Obama's and the rest of the class envy crowd don't. The Parnell's are the epitome of the "evil rich" that need to be punished. They won the "lottery" of life and therefore they have all the means to pay more. Isn't that the way the progressive theory goes?

See What You Started Governor?

During the last budget biennium Governor Pawlenty, in an attempt to say he stood by his "no new taxes" pledge insisted that his new cigarette tax was really a "fee". "It's a tax" activists on the left and right said - no a "fee" countered the governor...."tax" the activists asserted..."FEE" the governor insisted..."whatever" the activists shrugged as they walked away muttering something about walking and ducks....Well now the Governor's insistence is coming back to bite us all in the wallet yet again.....Representative Karen Clark (DFL-Minneapolis) has authored a pair of bills that, under the guise of being a "health and judicial impact fee" are designed to raise the taxes on beer and alcohol as much as 100%! Rep. Clark's "fee" is supposed to offset judicial fees and alcohol related court costs...right??? After all - the bill's respective titles do imply that. However, half of the fees go to (wait for it....)......


THE GENERAL FUND! This tax is not about offsetting "judicial" or "health" costs due to alcoholism. It's just one more way for the Democrats in the Legislature to pick the pockets of hardworking Minnesotans yet again!

Thanks for the latest sterling example of what the DFL is all about Rep. Clark! We really appreciate it.

Trying Too Hard To Be "Too Cool"

That is what this WSJ journal column but Die Zeit editor Josef Joffe is doing.

Nearly 100 days into Barack Obama's presidency and he is still a rock star in Europe, as evidenced by the large crowds that turned out to cheer him at the recent G-20 summit in London and NATO summit in Strasbourg, France.
George W. Bush was heartily disliked in Europe west of Warsaw, and Mr. Obama is universally loved. But how well does that popularity translate into power? How far could President Obama push his agenda with, say, German Chancellor Angela Merkel or French President Nicolas Sarkozy? About as far as you can throw a piano.

One of President Obama's campaign promises was that he was going to restore our "standing" in the international community. He is finding out that just being the "popular kid" does not automatically equate having a good standing with cool kids.

At the G-20 summit in London, Frau Merkel politely said nein to Mr. Obama's entreaties about adding billions to the German economic stimulus pot. (Actually, it was a sheer pleasure to watch the Europeans, who have never seen a government expenditure they didn't like, celebrate fiscal discipline in the face of U.S. profligacy).

Afghanistan? Mr. Obama asked his European allies to contribute more troops and put them where the fighting is -- mainly in the embattled south. This is where the Anglo powers bear the brunt of warfare while the French, Germans and Italians remain happily ensconced in the quieter north. Though Mr. Obama says he received "strong and unanimous support" on Afghanistan from his NATO partners in Strasbourg, he got no additional troop commitments. The Europeans are happy to see the U.S. president add another 19,000 American troops to the 38,000 already there. Why worry, if Mr. Big is willing to carry the load?

Actually, you know it is bad when the President of FRANCE calls you "weak".

The US President is weak, the Spanish leader is dim, the German Chancellor is clinging on to France’s coat-tails and the head of the European Commission is irrelevant.

That, at any rate, is the world according to President Sarkozy, who has spent the week airing his unvarnished opinions of Barack Obama and an array of international politicians — abruptly ending France’s honeymoon with the US and needling Washington on several strategic issues.

Actually it has been quite depressing to read the European's take on the G-20 Summit - especially as it relates to President Obama. For no matter how hard he tried, the President made no further inroads, respect wise, with the Europeans than President Bush did.

It sort of reminds me of the liberal left's incessant tittering about "tea bagging" this past week (in lead up to the Tea Parties on tax day). They were trying so hard to appear cool - all the while looking like the wanna be's that they really are!

Fueling the Debate Over Alternative Fuels

My partner in internet radio "crime", Jazz Shaw, spent the last half of last week at the New York City Auto Show (his field dispatches can be found here and here). However, the story that he brought back from Manhattan that interested me the most was this one (courtesy of Green Dreams).

“We need a simple way to store and carry hydrogen energy and a simple process to produce hydrogen, said Y.H. Percival Zhang, assistant professor of biological systems engineering at Virginia Tech.

Using synthetic biology approaches, Zhang and colleagues Barbara R. Evans and Jonathan R. Mielenz of ORNL, and Robert C. Hopkins and Michael W.W. Adams of the University of Georgia, are using a combination of 13 enzymes never found together in nature to completely convert polysaccharides (C6H10O5) and water into hydrogen when and where that form of energy is needed. This “synthetic enzymatic pathway” research appears in the May 23 issue of PLoS ONE, the online, open-access journal from the Public Library of Science.

Here is an exciting practical alternate fuel that does not use foodstuffs (a la ethanol) in it's generation and yet we have politicians who are stuck on dictating which form of "alternative" energy we can use (Governor Pawlenty and former President Bush with corn ethanol and current President Obama with electricity). Both of the current, politically popular alternatives have their disadvantages - ethanol with it's dependence on foodstuffs and electric fuel cells because....well where do you think the electricity comes from (hint coal fired and nuclear POWER PLANTS).......

Rather than governement deciding which alternative fuel will be the "winner" in the free market, how about we let the smart folks (like the smart folks at Virginia Tech) do their thing and figure out the best way to make alternative fuels that are easy to produce, easy to convert existing cars to and (most importantly) easy for the country to convert to. It is the common sense thing to do...

The REAL Promise of Stem CellsSte

Last week, I told you how Oprah's favorite doctor, Dr. Mehmet Oz, said that we were "single digit years" away from cures for multiple diseases including Parkinson's Disease using ADULT stem cell therapies. Well, here are some links that will give you more insight into that claim.

New York Times...

Published: March 5, 2009

In a striking instance of biologists’ new prowess at manipulating human cells, researchers at the Whitehead Institute in Cambridge, Mass., have converted skin cells from people with Parkinson’s disease into the general type of neuron that the disease destroys.

The Globe and Mail (Canada)

March 2, 2009 at 8:00 AM EDT

TORONTO — Canadian researchers have discovered a new way to turn skin cells into stem cells with fewer potential risks to patients.

Their work removes major barriers to using stem cells, which have an endless capacity for self-renewal, in new medical therapies for people with spinal cord injuries or diseases such as diabetes or Parkinson's.

Science News

(Feb. 13, 2009) — A little more than a year after University of Wisconsin-Madison scientists showed they could turn skin cells back into stem cells, they have pulsating proof that these "induced" stem cells can indeed form the specialized cells that make up heart muscle.

In a study published online Feb. 12 in Circulation Research, UW-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health professor of medicine Tim Kamp and his research team showed that they were able to grow working heart-muscle cells (cardiomyocytes) from induced pluripotent stem cells, known as iPS cells.

The heart cells were originally reprogrammed from human skin cells by James Thomson and Junying Yu, two of Kamp's co-authors on the study.

In fact, the successes are coming so fast and furious that one pro-life site headlined that they were coming "almost too fast to track" You can, however, track many of the news stories on this subject here.

The Center for BioEthics and Human Dignity, produced a report recently that countered a few of the claims made by the pro-embryonic stem cell crowd regarding the "promise" of embryonic stem cells and the real results that adult stem cell research has already shown in those very areas!

The bottom line here is that we appear to be wasting taxpayer (and private research) dollars on the "promise" of embryonic stem cells when the successes (in human trials) are coming from ADULT stem cell cures! Isn't it time we stopped funding an industry that gets it start from the death of a human (or potential human) being? Isn't it time we started working with the proven cures and quit wishing on a fading star?

Pity Poor Keith....

Keith Olbermann is NOT amused.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

The reason Keith Olbermann is not amused is that HIS President has decided not to prosecute CIA officers who may have engaged in torture. The line of the rant has to be where Olbermann exhorts President Obama to prosecute even if he "doesn't get a single conviction" because it will make people feel better. Never mind if there is a legal leg to stand on, or that there is a case there to have....ruin peoples lives just to make Keith feel better.

Yeah - that is a good way to run a country...

HT to the Logical Husband for tipping me off to this rant.

Founders Morning Quote

OK so I was feeling really lazy yesterday - I'll try to be better today.

"An unlimited power to tax involves, necessarily, a power to destroy; because there is a limit beyond which no institution and no property can bear taxation."

--John Marshall, McCullough v. Maryland, 1819

Founders Morning Quote

"The apportionment of taxes on the various descriptions of property is an act which seems to require the most exact impartiality; yet there is, perhaps, no legislative act in which greater opportunity and temptation are given to a predominant party to trample on the rules of justice. Every shilling which they overburden the inferior number is a shilling saved to their own pockets."

--James Madison, Federalist No. 10

One more day!!!!

Another "I Told You So" Moment

All during the election, everytime I talked to an Obama supporter who said that he was going to change all of the Bush regime war policies, I just kept saying "wait until President Obama starts getting those Presidential Daily Briefs and then we will see." Well again.......

The Obama administration said Friday that it would appeal a district court ruling that granted some military prisoners in Afghanistan the right to file lawsuits seeking their release. The decision signaled that the administration was not backing down in its effort to maintain the power to imprison terrorism suspects for extended periods without judicial oversight. In a court filing, the Justice Department also asked District Judge John D. Bates not to proceed with the habeas-corpus cases of three detainees at Bagram Air Base outside Kabul, Afghanistan. Judge Bates ruled last week that the three — each of whom says he was seized outside of Afghanistan — could challenge their detention in court.

Some of the President's supporters on the left were not pleased with this announcement.

Tina Foster, the executive director of the International Justice Network, which is representing the detainees, condemned the decision in a statement.

“Though he has made many promises regarding the need for our country to rejoin the world community of nations, by filing this appeal, President Obama has taken on the defense of one of the Bush administration’s unlawful policies founded on nothing more than the idea that might makes right,” she said.

President Obama is right here - as was President Bush. Non-US citizens who are arrested outside of the US are simply not guaranteed US citizens rights. I don't care how much you stomp your feet and hold your breath it is simply not so. President Obama, like President Bush before him, knows that and is acting appropriately.