Category: Uncategorized

I really don’t understand the phenomenon of leaving one place because you don’t like it, then working to make the place to which you’ve escaped more like your previous place. I was reading George Will’s column, which mentioned that Arizona is becoming more liberal because of Californians fleeing the disaster that liberals have made of California. I’ve seen a similar phenomenon in Florida, where people move from the North because they like the sun and low taxes, then immediately begin complaining that the public services are not as all-ecompassing and why doesn’t Florida just institute a state income tax so that the state government can provide [fill-in-the blank] like their old state does.

Either embrace your new culture or stay home. It’s that simple. I hate The Gap on every corner phenomenon. That doesn’t mean we should ban it, but at least think twice before you go buy an overpriced fake Italian coffee at Starbucks and consider patronizing the local coffee shop on the corner instead. And forget The Gap. Their clothes are the epitome of bland and boring anyhow.

Scott Breed writes to WND: It is our obligation to vote and to vote prayerfully. If you think conceding the presidency of the United States — to a person who is as outside the will of God as John Kerry seems to be — is OK as long as you maintain the principles of your vote, you are making not only a grave political mistake, but possibly a grave spiritual sin.

This cretin attempts to argue that since no man is perfect, you must vote for the lesser of two evils. What a load of literal non-sense. There is a massive difference between voting for someone and refusing to vote for his opponent, and it is significant that he can’t even quite bring himself to utter the words that not supporting evil is “a grave spiritual sin.”

A general warning to Christians: if you feel the need to preface a statement with “possibly” or “could lead to” before a statement on sin, then stop and rethink what you’re about to say. Nine times out of ten, you’d be much better off shutting your trap before you make an ass of yourself.

George Delano must be in trouble if his supporters are feeling the need to accuse others of grave sin for not supporting a man who repeatedly offends their conservative principles. Now there’s a Christian notion if I’ve ever heard one – sell out your principles for worldly power. This would be outrageous if it wasn’t so outrageously stupid. President Bush made a calculated decision to move to the left. Neither he nor his supporters should be surprised or upset that those of us on the right have no desire to see that he maintains his power. If the Republican Party will not support individual freedom, Constitutional rights, national sovereignty and small government, it has no reason whatsoever to expect that those of us who do will continue to support it.

If you genuinely like George Bush and his performance in office, then vote for him, by all means. But if your only reason for supporting Republicans is that Democrats are worse, you are politically rootless. You have no principle except your misconceived pragmatism. That argument will never change. You will never leave the Republican Party, no matter what they do, because the Democrats will always be worse as the two parties drift slowly, but surely, towards their bipartisan destination of all-powerful state.

Hank writes again: I’m deeply troubled by the actions of the neo-cons and Christian extremists in the FCC and DOJ. I’m more appalled at the entire lack of reaction by the populace in general. Combine this with a total apathy about the removal of our rights by USA PATRIOT Act and the Bush administrations insistence on scaring people into believing they have to surrender their rights to have them protected, and I don’t see this country’s democracy lasting much longer.

There’s your answer, Hank. What would possibly be the purpose behind an alliance between the secular Jewish neocons in the administration and their nonexistent Christian extremist colleagues? So now the FCC is full of Christian extremists… really? Did the fact that the secular Soviets had a far more rigorous policing of art than the FCC has ever envisioned escape your attention? Or that the FCC was stricter 50 years ago? How many of those seven words can’t we say now?

The truth is that what you rightly fear has nothing to do with Christianity or even religion at all. Liberals, neo-cons and compassionate conservatives alike are uniting to destroy the remnants of the Constitutional republic that remain. This Christian extremist loathes the Patriot Act, would ban the FCC outright and despises the Bush administration’s use of the oldest totalitarian canard in the book – put your faith in me and you will be safe. And yet, as a liberal, would you turn to the central government to stop this? Only the central government is the very instrument of all of this!

This country isn’t and never was a democracy. If you want to defend your God-given (yes!) rights, then cast aside your emotional bond with big government and embrace the intellectual freedom of libertarianism. The love of money may be the root of all evil, but government is evil’s strong arm. Bush and Ashcroft are not right-wing, they are strong government advocates just like Hilary Clinton. Their arguments may be different, but the results always point in the same direction: more central government power, less individual freedom.

Walk into the light….

Hank writes: Those Christian extremists also have the most powerful organization in the world under their direction. That includes multi-trillion dollar power to cripple economies, a defense budget larger than the rest of the world’s combined as well as the ability to annihalate any country they see fit. That’s just what they can do to foreign peoples they don’t like. This says nothing for what they have in store for those of us here. Forgive me if I’m more threatened by the fundamentalists running our govermnent more every day rather than a bunch of penniless Muslims half a world away.

This is stunningly and uncharacteristically poor thinking by Hank. The only way it can possibly be considered even vaguely valid is to define all Christians as extremists. George Bush is a Methodist, which is a liberal mainstream Christian denomination. His administration is full of non-practicing Jews, so much so that its defenders claim that simply to criticize the neocon influence on the administration is tantamount to anti-Semitism. Unless Hank is referring to Focus on the Family, which is much more of a Christian fundamentalist organization than the Bush coterie, he’s simply making statements that would sound more appropriate coming out of the humorless and factually challenged morass that is Air America.

Ironically, one could almost make a better case for the Clinton administration being full of Christian extremists, being that Bill Clinton is a nominal Southern Baptist and his administration was less populated by obviously non-Christian Jews.

Finally, our government isn’t the one with the power to cripple economies. Its part is done. Thanks to years of bipartisan mismanagement and the disastrous leadership of the Federal Reserve, that power now lies with the Chinese and Japanese governments.

Rich Lowry writes on NRO: By my count, the ranks of chastened hawks -chastened in their own differing ways, of course-now includes Charles Krauthammer, David Brooks, and Francis Fukuyama. It’s possible to be sadder, wiser, and still resolved to see this thing through. That’s where NR is, and where, I suspect, a lot of supporters of this war are.



Nation-building is not an appropriate enterprise for a free society. It was a bad idea in Woodrow Wilson’s time and it is a bad idea now. All that we are likely to accomplish in Iraq, I fear, is to enhance the power and ambition of the United Nations. After all, if we turn primary responsibility over to them, who could argue that the organization needs military capability of its own as well as a means of funding it?

As for the chastened hawks, how much longer will it take for them to take the next step and conclude that American troops should not be there, not to mention Bosnia or any of the 100 other countries in which our troops are stationed as they attempt to maintain Pax Americana. The romantic irony of bringing “democracy” to these foreign lands aside, it simply isn’t going to work. The projected stay has now reached 10 years. No doubt it will soon be longer than that.

DS writes of Air America: Decided to listen while driving around the last two days. I get the Portland station. Could not believe the low life attempt at humor. VP Cheney and Justice Scalia being gang sodomized? Saying Bush likes seeing people on fire jumping out of buildings! Not only is it not funny; it is totally disgusting. Even though I think they are helping the Republican cause it’s embarrassing to listen to. The laugh track is worse than Gilligan’s Island. I wonder what they plan to do to sink to new lows.

Go off the air. That’s my guess. Speaking of radio, I’ve been digging up some information on Pirate Radio, Icecast and other Internet radio options. What’s the general preference – and I’m promising nothing – downloadable MP3’s from a web site or streaming from a server? Given that you won’t be able to tune in on your radio anyhow, I don’t see any real benefit to the latter, but lots of additional expense and operating issues. Then again, perhaps I’m missing something. Anyone have any thoughts?

Dr. Kern, of the SKI gold stock analysis system, writes: The great crash of the century has been initiated. Liquidate all assets that can decline in net asset value (stocks, bonds, real estate, gold, but not EE, I Savings Bonds, or cash). As I stated on the triple buy in 12/02, but this time in reverse, all traditional technical indicators of oversold conditions will prove to be wrong. The gold stocks declined today through all stops and although the panic selling is usually indicative of a low, I’ll pick the needle out of the century’s haystack, and indicate SELL EVERYTHING (due to the greatest and truest triple sell [signal] in history). I understand that you will view this communication as being the rantings of a lunatic and a contrary indicator. Do not fight the SKI indices. Please remain out of everything until the patterns indicate that a great bottom has occurred. IT has happened and the indices have spoken.

This is certainly in line with what Bob Prechter said when I spoke to him yesterday. He felt the top of a Cycle, Supercycle and Grand Supercycle Wave 2 was in very recently. I note, on the other hand, that the R/DMA-200 barely been punctured yet, which is my usual buy signal. I won’t get concerned until the R/DMAs drop below .90, which has not happened in this ongoing bull market for metals.

One thing that makes me at least pay attention here, however, is that Kern has been an unrepentant gold bull – he still is, actually, in terms of his logic, he’s just sticking manfully by his system – so this is not someone who is simply a bear by temperament.

From the Daily Reckoning: “Investors are convinced that the recent spate of good economic news will cause the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates before the end of the year. They’re dead wrong. Here’s the fact investor are missing: consumers can’t afford rising interest rates. The Fed can’t raise rates, says Denning, “until the final piece of the inflation puzzle is in place: rising consumer incomes. Until that happens, rising prices will simply make consumers cut back on spending. Throw in rising interest rates and energy prices and you have two more factors which lead to slower consumer spending and economic growth. “Bottom line: the economy can’t grow until the consumer can spend more. And the consumer can’t spend more when prices and interest rates are rising. If consumer incomes don’t inflate, inflation in producer prices or consumer prices won’t matter. Until consumer incomes rise, the Fed stands pat. “And here’s a prediction for you – the Fed will become so concerned with the market pricing in rising rates (and pushing mortgage rates up) that it will cut rates by 25 basis points at its May 4th or June 30th meeting.”

That flies in the face of what almost everyone is thinking. I have no opinion myself, but I have to admire the boldness of his call. By the way, I had a nice chat with Robert Prechter of Elliott Wave fame. I’m preparing an interview for a future column. Should be interesting for the dismal scientists.

MANCHESTER, England — Manchester United dismissed speculation Tuesday that the club’s 67,000-seat stadium was a target for al-Qaida terrorists. British media reported that seven people arrested in anti-terrorist raids in the Manchester area Monday were planning suicide bomb attacks at the soccer team’s high-profile Premier League game against Liverpool on Saturday.

The only improvement would be if Bayern Munich were the visitors. Or Dirty Leeds, but then, considering their performance this year, I suppose a bomb would be redundant.

I don’t know if Kurt Warner can still play. But if I didn’t have a marque quarterback, I’d sure sign him and find out for myself. Even if he won’t ever regain the form that had TMQ writing about him being an alien entity, he’d make for a solid backup.