Excerpt: "Even better, McCreery has volunteered that the helicopter will using its infrared camera to peer into houses, something that's been ruled unconstitutional for police officers."

That will be a spooky visitor during your next BBQ. -Pk

Pre-Crime Eye-in-the-Sky, Now Privatized

Excerpt: ""Having made America a bilingual--bicultural country, having established multiculturalism, having the large foundations fund the doctrine of 'Victimology', I would next make it impossible to enforce our immigration laws. I would develop a mantra: "That because immigration has been good for America, it must ALWAYS be good. I would make every individual immigrant sympatric and ignore the cumulative impact of millions of them.""

It's an interesting read whether you agree or not. -Pk

How to Destroy America

Excerpt: "Aside from reliance on feelings, how else can one explain a person who believes, let alone proudly announces on a bumper sticker, that "War is not the answer"? I know of no comparable conservative bumper sticker that is so demonstrably false and morally ignorant. Almost every great evil has been solved by war -- from slavery in America to the Holocaust in Europe."

I found myself laughing, cringing, and cursing at various points in this article. He chooses examples that touch nearly every hot-button issue in today's political environment and I almost find that unfortunate.

One example I can't, under any circumstance, get my head around is "For liberals, the entire worth of the human fetus is determined by the mother's feelings. If she feels the nascent human life she is carrying is worth nothing, it is worth nothing. If she feels it is infinitely precious, it is infinitely precious."... and Conservatives do what exactly?

At the end of the article he hits on this veryyy lightly with "To be fair, feelings also play a major role in many conservatives' beliefs. Patriotism is largely a feeling; religious faith is filled with emotion, and religion has too often been dictated by emotion. But far more conservative positions are based on "What is right?" rather than on "How do I feel?""

I wish somebody would write something about right/feelings/_REALITY_...

I have no other way to explain this selection other than to say it elicits reaction. ;-) Cheers, -Pk

Liberal feeling vs. Judeo-Christian values: Part VI

Excerpt: "It’s ironic that some of the same people who deride the narrow moralism of the “values voters”—Jane Smiley in her now-infamous rant in Slate, for instance—also deplore the “greed” driving Bush’s re-election. Greed is to the moralists of the left what sex is to the moralists of the right."

There are other choice sections in that article, including the bit about Bush voter demographics, Ah-nuld, etc.

Worth a few minutes of your time. Cheers, -Pk

The “Values” Panic

I'm marking this under Society because I'm biased.

Excerpt: "The more seriously you take the idea of global warming, the more seriously you have to take nuclear power. Clean coal, solar-powered roof tiles, wind farms in North Dakota - they're all pie in the emissions-free sky. Sure, give them a shot. But zero-carbon reactors are here and now. We know we can build them. Their price tag is no mystery. They fit into the existing electric grid without a hitch. Flannel-shirted environmentalists who fight these realities run the risk of ending up with as much soot on their hands as the slickest coal-mining CEO."

Cheers, -Pk

Nuclear Now!

This is quite interesting IMO. Select an individual country to see the trend. Note that key allies of the USA like Australia and Canada are liberalizing rather rapidly for large economies. Lets shoot for 1.79 at least! Cheers, -Pk

2005 index of economic freedom

The illustration alone is worth posting this article. I won't comment as I might be a bit too lengthy. Draw your own conclusions. Cheers, -Pk

Capitalism and its Role in American Society’s Plunge into the Abyss.

Excerpt: "To summarise: After World War II, opinion was socialist while practice was free market; currently, opinion is free market while practice is heavily socialist. We have largely won the battle of ideas; we have succeeded in stalling the progress of socialism, but we have not succeeded in reversing its course. We are still far from bringing practice into conformity with opinion. That is the overriding non-defence task for the second Bush term. It will not be an easy task, particularly with Iraq threatening to consume Bush's political capital."

There is a sad comedy to all this. We won! We won! Lets start doing what they were doing during their decline! Yay! Cheers, -Pk

Scrapbook: Battle for free-market agenda is only half won