A Personal Note

Starting this weekend, I will likely be offline for a few days. For those of you who know me personally, you already know why; for my readers from afar, I'll explain briefly.

My wife and I are going in to the hospital Sunday morning to have our third child, a son. He is not expected to live for more than a few hours, if even that long.

Since about 18-20 weeks along, he has had essentially no amniotic fluid around him, though our doctors haven't been able to conclusively explain why (an extremely long, frustrating, and painful story all in itself). However, the details at this point are irrelevant since the act of breathing amniotic fluid in utero is what stimulates the bulk of a baby's lung development, and without that fluid the lungs will be underdeveloped to a fatal degree. The precise cause of these circumstances is purely academic; the effect is all too real.

Needless to say, the past few months have been pretty awful for us, and we're now coming to the culmination of this long and emotionally brutal road, only to begin what is likely to be a different but equally brutal road of recovery and healing.

I say I will 'likely' be offline because I have no idea how we will handle these next few days. I'm taking some time off from work to spend with my family, but in some ways having something like this blog to focus on -- even temporarily -- may provide some welcome distraction. So, this blog may remain completely untouched for a few days, or it may see an explosion of content and brilliant analysis the likes of which have never before been seen on the face of the Earth (or somewhere in between). I just don't know.

Regardless, it's in God's hands, and we know that even if we don't understand why we've been chosen to deal with this, He will carry us through it. For those of you who pray, please pray for our littlest son, my wife and myself, and our two older kids, as well as our family and friends as we all go through this difficult time together. We are very blessed to have a huge support network embracing us already, but I'll take any extra prayers that any of you want to toss up on our behalf! I'm not too timid to ask you to pray for a miracle -- a perfectly healthy little boy -- but if that's not in The Plan I would ask for grace and strength for all of us as we move forward, no matter what happens.

I sincerely thank you...

Fun & Frivolity: Various Videos

I thought it might be fun to usher in this weekend with some humorous videos.

First, if you enjoy laughing at people, check out this video of a German bed prank. It needs no translation:

Next, check out this DUI traffic stop:

Amazing - I don't think I could do half of this stuff! This one is so over the top that I'd easily believe it's a fake. Either way, it's funny.


Finally, as a techie myself, I can sadly identify way too closely with Three Dead Trolls in a Baggie's presentation of 'Welcome to the Internet Help Desk' (mild language warning):

In case you're wondering, yes, this is scarily close to real life...

Have a great weekend!

Canadian Health Care Sucks...Says The Architect Of Canadian Health Care

Americans need to consider very carefully the words of the man who destroyed Canada's health care system.  Mainly, those on the Left who support universal health care need to get a clue and realize that what us opposers are predicting will happen in the U.S. has already happened in Canada!  Excerpts:

As this presidential campaign continues, the candidates' comments about health care will continue to include stories of their own experiences and anecdotes of people across the country: the uninsured woman in Ohio, the diabetic in Detroit, the overworked doctor in Orlando, to name a few.

But no one will mention Claude Castonguay — perhaps not surprising because this statesman isn't an American and hasn't held office in over three decades.

Castonguay's evolving view of Canadian health care, however, should weigh heavily on how the candidates think about the issue in this country.

Back in the 1960s, Castonguay chaired a Canadian government committee studying health reform and recommended that his home province of Quebec — then the largest and most affluent in the country — adopt government-administered health care, covering all citizens through tax levies.

The government followed his advice, leading to his modern-day moniker: "the father of Quebec medicare." Even this title seems modest; Castonguay's work triggered a domino effect across the country, until eventually his ideas were implemented from coast to coast.

Four decades later, as the chairman of a government committee reviewing Quebec health care this year, Castonguay concluded that the system is in "crisis."

"We thought we could resolve the system's problems by rationing services or injecting massive amounts of new money into it," says Castonguay. But now he prescribes a radical overhaul: "We are proposing to give a greater role to the private sector so that people can exercise freedom of choice."

Castonguay advocates contracting out services to the private sector, going so far as suggesting that public hospitals rent space during off-hours to entrepreneurial doctors. He supports co-pays for patients who want to see physicians. Castonguay, the man who championed public health insurance in Canada, now urges for the legalization of private health insurance.

What would drive a man like Castonguay to reconsider his long-held beliefs? Try a health care system so overburdened that hundreds of thousands in need of medical attention wait for care, any care; a system where people in towns like Norwalk, Ontario, participate in lotteries to win appointments with the local family doctor.

Years ago, Canadians touted their health care system as the best in the world; today, Canadian health care stands in ruinous shape.

The emergency measures they're taking in Canada now to fix their crisis sound amazingly similar to what we've already got here, don't you think?  The article cites numerous examples of Canadians seeking health care in America because they can't get it at home due to a number of reasons: excessive delays, rejections due to simple paperwork snafus, and higher quality, to name just a few.  But it's not a uniquely Canadian problem.  It happens everywhere universal health care is implemented.  Take Britain, for example:

Britain's system, once the postwar inspiration for many Western countries, is similarly plagued. Both countries trail the U.S. in five-year cancer survival rates, transplantation outcomes and other measures.

The problem is that government bureaucrats simply can't centrally plan their way to better health care.

A typical example: The Ministry of Health declared that British patients should get ER care within four hours. The result? At some hospitals, seriously ill patients are kept in ambulances for hours so as not to run afoul of the regulation; at other hospitals, patients are admitted to inappropriate wards.

Americans are fed up with what we've got now.  But, the question is how do we fix it?  Do we go the way of Canada and Britain, as Obama proposes, or do we move more toward privatization and reform, as McCain proposes?

However the candidates choose to proceed, Americans should know that one of the founding fathers of Canada's government-run health care system has turned against his own creation. If Claude Castonguay is abandoning ship, why should Americans bother climbing on board?

Amen!  Universal health care is a very, very bad idea, and it will destroy our health care system.  This is not speculation, this is not an educated guess...it is a FACT based upon overwhelming evidence from other countries who have tried it and failed.  We need to change things, yes.  But the change we need is NOT universal health care.

There's my two cents.

Quick Hits With Comments

I've got a bunch of links to stories that deserve at least a small comment.  Here we go...

Global Warming
Eight inches of hail in Nebraska?  More evidence for global warming, undoubtedly.  Some think we're on a global warming bubble, and that Americans aren't going to put up with it much longer, especially as the nonsense infringes upon their lives and pocketbooks more and more.  That would be fine with me: let it burst!  If you want a great visual on exactly how devastating the CO2 content is to our atmosphere, go here and follow the instructions.  It's pretty astounding how little there really is out there, and to think it's going to destroy the planet is laughable.  Regarding ANWR, you would think that the person with the most vested interest in keeping Alaska's environment clean, it would be the Governor, right?  Gov. Palin said, in effect, 'just drill, baby!'  What should this tell us about which is the higher priority for Alaskans?  To give you yet another taste of just how bad the environmental madness has become, the green nitwits in Madison, Wisconsin are trying to ban drive-throughs because they encourage people to drive their cars.  Even more ridiculous is the fact that Spain's Parliamentary is moving to give rights to apes.  The sheer idiocy of environmentalists should be enough to convince people their whole premise is a joke.

Profiling
Read this:

A schoolboy aged 12 has been identified as an al-Qaeda inspired extremist after sending beheading videos to his classmates, police have disclosed.

Anti-terrorism chiefs have said the example revealed how violent extremism is spreading "like a virus infecting young minds".

The blond, white schoolboy from West Yorkshire is among 120 people being dealt with by police in a new anti-terrorism scheme targeting al-Qa'eda inspired youths.

Does this not strike you as odd?  Why do they specify this kid is a 'blond, white' kid?  This article goes out of its way to repeatedly stress his whiteness and that he's not a Muslim.  Call me crazy, but isn't this profiling?  I mean, they're identifying him by his physical characteristics (or the lack of Muslim physical characteristics), aren't they?  I thought that profiling was unacceptable...

Illegal Immigration
In what could be a signal for the November election, a shameless open-borders amnesty proponent was destroyed in the Utah primary this week.  Chris Cannon -- who had the full backing of the White House, incumbents campaigning for him, and a 7-to-1 spending margin advantage -- was beaten by 20 points, and the only main difference between him and his GOP challenger was illegal immigration.  Warning...warning...warning...Americans are still ticked off about this...!

By the way, Europe is trying to implement some strict new reforms regarding illegal immigration, but it is likely to meet with stiff resistance from the sizable Muslim minorities in many of those countries.  Will we see more riots from 'teens'?  Can Europe save itself, or is this too little too late?  My guess is the latter, if this report from the U.K. is any indication.  A radical Islamic cleric known to have influenced the 9/11 hijackers was released recently after deportation efforts were defeated in court.  Um...is anyone in America paying attention to this?  Perhaps in relation to GITMO...?

Religious tolerance and moral decay
From the NYT:

Although a majority of Americans say religion is very important to them, nearly three-quarters of them say they believe that many faiths besides their own can lead to salvation, according to a survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.

The report, the U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, reveals a broad trend toward tolerance and an ability among many Americans to hold beliefs that might contradict the doctrines of their professed faiths.

For example, 70 percent of Americans affiliated with a religion or denomination said they agreed that "many religions can lead to eternal life," including majorities among Protestants and Catholics. Among evangelical Christians, 57 percent agreed with the statement, and among Catholics, 79 percent did.

Among minority faiths, more than 80 percent of Jews, Hindus and Buddhists agreed with the statement, and more than half of Muslims did.

The findings seem to undercut the conventional wisdom that the more religiously committed people are, the more intolerant they are, scholars who reviewed the survey said.

"It's not that Americans don't believe in anything," said Michael Lindsay, assistant director of the Center on Race, Religion and Urban Life at Rice University. "It's that we believe in everything. We aren't religious purists or dogmatists."

Is it any wonder that we're experiencing an incredible amount of moral decay in this country?  People of pretty much all faiths don't even have faith in their own faith!

Speaking of moral issues, the homosexual agenda has now officially been made public by a group of homosexual advocacy organizations.  [I would like to take this opportunity to specifically point this out to the anonymous person who heckled one of my posts several months ago where I suggested precisely this plan for long-term desensitization.  It's not so laughable now, is it?]  The plan is to use progressive desensitization to wear down resistance:

"Essentially, they are doing the so-called 'boil the frog in the water' routine," Mat Staver, founder of Liberty Counsel, speculates. "They're wanting to, basically, prepare the ground, prepare the ideas and thinking so that, one day, you just simply wake up and same-sex 'marriage' has become commonplace," he explains. "And then, once people accept that kind of relationship, then they're going to bring out the cross-dressers, the transvestites, the trans-sexuals, and other kinds of deviant activity."

Not surprisingly, the MSM is fully on board to help push the agenda forward.

Another tactic is to relegate the role of the father, instead promoting same-sex parenting as equal to that of heterosexual parenting.  As the building block of stable society, the family is probably the institution most under attack in our country right now.  Without a moral foundation for upholding it, we are losing our understanding of what a family provides, and with that loss of understanding will come the loss of our society as we know it.

FEMA
In stark contrast to New Orleans after Katrina, we haven't heard one peep of whining or moaning about needing federal help for Iowa and Missouri, we haven't heard rumors of raping and looting, we haven't heard reports of rioters shooting at helicopters.  Why not?  Could it be that it's a different mentality?  Some of it could be that, according to reports from all throughout Iowa and Missouri, FEMA is doing an excellent job of assisting with some of the worst flooding seen in decades.  Still, it will be very interesting to see how the reporting (or lack of) continues once the problems begin affecting areas like New Orleans (downriver).  Will we see more of the complaining and expectations for government to save those poor, helpless people, or will we have what we see now in Iowa and Missouri, where people roll up their sleeves, dive in, help each other, and just plain get things done?  If we do see the difference, we'll be forced to examine the question of why, and that won't make liberals (or New Orleans) look good.  For more details and thoughts on the matter, check out the Elephant Forum's comparison of the two disasters, and Heavy-Handed Politics offering some questions worth thinking about.

The liberalism parade continues...
It's hard to find a more appropriate example of liberalism fixing the wrong problem than what's going on in Michigan.  There is apparently a horrendous problem with people moving around a LOT, which is making it hard for students to focus on schoolwork and education.  What's their solution?  To give $100 in rental assistance to help people stay put.  Never mind that Michigan is the only state to be going through a multi-year recession while the rest of the country is growing, never mind the quality of education, never mind the suffering economy based on decades of Democrat policies...let's just shell out some more money to try to persuade people to stay in their current awful circumstances.  Liberalism never offers solutions; it only offers enslavement.

And how about this story from Toronto, where a mother was accused of sexually abusing her autistic daughter based on a suspicion from a psychic!!!

Okay, I've had enough.  This madness is starting to make me nauseous...

There's my two cents.

Fun Reader Participation

I've had a couple readers contact me about swapping links, and I like both of their sites, so I wanted to take a post specifically to share them with you.

First we have a humorous test that will help you identify if you're a Conservative, a Liberal, a Libertarian, or a Communist (if you don't already have a pretty good idea, you REALLY need to get out more). It's good for more than a few hefty chuckles, so take a couple minutes to check it out:

http://www.geocities.com/donaldjhagen/humoroustest.html

Here are just a few of my favorites to get you started:

1: Government's practice of stealing from the rich to give to the poor is...

CONS: a crime.

LIBL: a brave, generous and heroic deed.

LBRT: a foolish, misguided attempt at social engineering.

COMM: an inspiration to us all.

10: What techniques are best for maintaining discipline in the classroom?

CONS: If just one student misbehaves, severely punish the entire class.

LIBL: Force boys who refuse to settle down to take psychotropic drugs, such as Ritalin and Prozac.

LBRT: Anyone who doesn't want to be in class can leave.

COMM: Anyone who doesn't want to be in class can be made an example of.

86: What is the best method for a sitting president to handle negative press coverage?

CONS: Accuse the media of being liberally biased, and then reassure the American people by telling them that their president is not a crook.

LIBL: Accuse the media of being duped into reporting a false and slanderous story concocted by an embittered person with an axe to grind, and then reassure the American people by telling them that their president did not have sexual relations with that woman.

LBRT: Admit he screwed up.

COMM: Round up the reporters and send them to reeducation camps.

113: What method would you use to combat federal budget deficits?

CONS: Lower the size of the spending increases already planned in next year's budget.

LIBL: Turn the Justice Department loose on large corporations. File lawsuits against every business whose activities even remotely harm the health and well-being of others, including these evil paradigms of modern villainy:

- Big Cars, for alleged injuries resulting from failing to lobby strongly enough to prevent auto airbags from becoming mandatory optional equipment.

- Big Boobs, for faux silicone breast implant illnesses inflamed by the media's feeding frenzy of fear induced mass hysteria.

- Big Mines, for the severe emotional anguish environmentalists must endure just thinking about all the havoc and habitat degradation caused by strip mining.

- Big Box Discount Retailers, for the unfair business practice of attracting customers away from their competitors by unscrupulously selling products at lower prices.

- Big Processed Foods, for the severe mental trauma endured by diners having to worry about the long term consequences of eating foods containing chemicals with scary sounding names like butylated hydroxyanisole (BHA) and butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT).

- Big Internet Chat Rooms, for dashing the hopes and dreams of millions of singles and married people still searching for that someone special.

LBRT: Eliminate every federal spending program except the Department of Defense. Then cut defense spending by replacing career soldiers with private mercenaries.

COMM: Make people stand in even longer lines to receive government services.

169: Do women belong in combat?

CONS: No. Women on the frontlines would seriously hinder our military readiness. After all, a chain is only as strong as its weakest link.

LIBL: Yes. Women are just as capable and bloodthirsty as men.

LBRT: If they've got the guts, they deserve a shot at the gory glory.

COMM: No. During times of military conflict, a woman's place is in the munitions factory.

Read and enjoy!

Next, we have a new blogger in the blogosphere: The Elephant Forum. Though relatively new, he writes like an old-timer, with lots of links and references to back up his points. He's got a snarky streak, too, which makes his posts great fun to read, so go check him out!

The Biggest Troop Appreciation Ever!

Move America Forward is an organization that is co-sponsoring a great event this evening.  Kyle-Anne Shiver at American Thinker offers some background and has the details:

Especially since 9/11, our own generation's Day of Infamy, our American troops have given us all they have to give.  They've gone wherever we've sent them and done with honor all that we've asked of them.  They've put their lives and limbs on the line every day for our Constitutional liberties and way of life.

We owe every freedom we enjoy, yesterday, today and tomorrow, to the brave men and women, who freely abandon the comforts of home to serve wherever the fight beckons. That is why I will not permit the words, "war weary," to enter my spoiled, pampered, home-front vocabulary.  I refuse to give in to the naysayers who dominate our mainstream press. I refuse to join in with those who whine in the age-old coward's laments:  "Give appeasement a chance!"  "We're tired of the fight!"  "It's an unwinnable war!"  "Liberty is too expensive!"

What a heap of yellow-bellied poppycock!

Somehow it never seems to dawn upon the loony leftists that when evil threatens to have its sway, those who do nothing to stop it are every bit as guilty as the perpetrators.  I thank God every day on my knees for those who refuse to give up, stalwartly fight the temptation to go home and cower in their warm, snugly beds -- our fighting forces.  They are the Americans most worthy of the name, and it is to them and their families that we owe all that we have to give - and then some.

I thank God, too, that there are so many civilians this Country over who share my spirit of gratitude.  The efforts to aid our troops with moral support from home and with various, small material comforts are as myriad as American ingenuity.

From the Front Lines will be a webathon event between 4 PM and midnight EDT, co-sponsored by Move America Forward's Melanie Morgan and Blogger extraordinaire, Michelle Malkin.  Joining them will be a host of conservative talk radio giants, even the great el Rushbo himself.  The date is today, June 26. You can watch the event on ustream.tv (http://www.ustream.tv/channel/from-the-frontlines).

Of course, the end result will be sending our troops in harm's way the biggest shipment of morale-building goodies packages to date.  But the extra reward is to each citizen who takes part, in knowing his efforts are part and parcel of winning this war.

As one of my new heroes, Lt. Col. (ret) Steve Russell says, "We cannot afford to allow our home front to become our exposed flank in the War on Terror."  Every time we take part in an effort to support our troops, we take up arms on the home front flank and help defeat our enemies wherever they try to stand against us.

Americans are not wimps and sissies.  Let's make sure we prove it by supporting our troops and Move America Forward in this brave new effort on the home front.

This online support drive is shooting to send the largest shipment of care packages ever to our troops, and they need the help of as many patriotic Americans as possible.  The organizers have turned out many of the biggest names in conservative media to partake of this noble event, so tune in to the links above to check it out, contribute if you can, and be a part of honoring our troops and winning this war.

There's my two cents.

You Can't Fuel Everyone

Ann Coulter writes a good article on gas prices that's got a lot of good information and is also entertaining to read.  Check it out:

Liberals dismiss studies that show a link between abortion and breast cancer, claiming they are biased because the people promoting the studies are "anti-choice."
 
For the same reason, no one should believe the Democrats' "energy" policies.

Democrats couldn't care less about high gas prices. The consistent policy of the Democratic Party, going back at least to Jimmy Carter, has been to jack up gas prices so we can all start pedaling around on tricycles.

Environmentalists are constantly clamoring for higher gas taxes as the cure-all to their insane global warming theory. Clinton proposed a 26-cent tax on gas. John Kerry said it should be 50 cents. Gore endorsed the Malthusian proposal of Paul and Anne Ehrlich in "The Population Explosion" that gas taxes be raised gradually to match prices in Europe and Japan.

The result is consumers now pay about 46 cents per gallon in gasoline taxes. That's not including taxes paid directly to the government by the oil companies and passed onto consumers. As the inestimable economist John Lott has pointed out, in the past 25 years oil companies have paid more than three times in taxes what they have made in profits.

B. Hussein Obama's response to soaring gas prices is to have the oil companies collect even more money from us at the pump, proposing a "windfall profits tax" on oil companies. "Corporate taxes" sound like taxes on rich people, but all they do is force corporations to collect taxes on behalf of the government.

Democrats have worked hard to ensure that Americans pay as much for gas as Europeans do. After a quarter-century of gas tax hikes, a ban on drilling for oil and a complete destruction of the nuclear power industry in America, I guess liberals can declare: Mission accomplished!

In response to skyrocketing gas prices, liberals say, practically in unison, "We can't drill our way out of this crisis."

What does that mean? This is like telling a starving man, "You can't eat your way out of being hungry!" "You can't water your way out of drought!" "You can't sleep your way out of tiredness!" "You can't drink yourself out of dehydration!"

Seriously, what does it mean? Finding more oil isn't going to increase the supply of oil?

It is the typical Democratic strategy to babble meaningless slogans, as if they have a plan. Their plan is: the permanent twilight of the human race. It's the only solution they can think of to deal with the beastly traffic on the LIE (Long Island Expressway).

How do liberals propose we acquire the energy required for the economic activity and production that results in light appearing when they flick a switch? The larger enterprise involved in producing that little miracle eludes them.

Liberals complain that -- as B. Hussein Obama put it -- there's "no way that allowing offshore drilling would lower gas prices right now. At best you are looking at five years or more down the road."

This is as opposed to airplanes that run on woodchips, which should be up and running any moment now.

Moreover, what was going on five years ago? Why didn't anyone propose drilling back then?

Say, you know what we need? We need a class of people paid to anticipate national crises and plan solutions in advance. It would be such an important job, the taxpayers would pay them salaries so they wouldn't have to worry about making a living and could just sit around anticipating crises.

If only we had had such a group -- let's call them "elected representatives" -- they could have proposed drilling five years ago!

But of course we do pay people to anticipate national problems and propose solutions. Some of them -- we'll call them Republicans -- did anticipate high gas prices and propose solutions.

Six long years ago President Bush had the foresight to demand that Congress allow drilling in a minuscule portion of the Alaska's barren, uninhabitable Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). In 2002, Bush, Tom DeLay and the entire Republican Party were screaming from the rooftops: Drill! Drill! Drill!

We'd be gushing oil now -- except the Democrats stopped us from drilling.

Drilling on only 0.01 percent of ANWR's 19 million acres was projected to produce about 10 billion barrels of oil. From all domestic sources combined, we currently produce about 1.8 billion barrels of oil per year. To a layperson like myself, 10 billion barrels seems like a lot of oil.

The other party -- plus John McCain -- ferociously opposed drilling in ANWR, drilling offshore or drilling anyplace else. Instead of Drill! Drill! Drill!, their motto could be: Kill! Kill! Kill!

They refuse to believe our abortion studies? I refuse to believe they care about Americans having to pay high gas prices.

She raises a lot of the points that I've mentioned before, but I wanted to post this because she just has a way with words...

There's my two cents.

Link Roundup

Here's a super-sized mid-week link roundup for you.  Tons of good stuff!

In the USofA:

• The Internet could be changing soon...
  
• The can't-do society.
  
• Huge illegal immigration raid in Houston.
  
• It's a different kind of patriotism.
  
• Despite Dems/MSMs best efforts, the economy still growing.
  
• Oh, no: Home sales up in May.
• Democrat waffles on socializing the oil industry.
  
• Potential victory for California homeschoolers?
• Another first for W.
  
• Hansen is abusing the public's trust.
  
• Polls showing Americans want drilling.
• Drilling and our collective madness.
  
• How big money is hijacking small business.
  

Election news:

• Obama takes aim at small businesses.
  
• It's all about Obama.
  
• Who's obsessing about race??
  
• McCain should address Obama's charge that all Republicans are racist.
  
• Obama pads his resume.
  
• St. Barack is just a mirage.
• Classy: Obama advisor says McCain is 'too fat'.
  
• The debate McCain must force upon Obama.
• Muslims unhappy with Obama.
  
• Obama's lack of modesty.
• The Obama Left.
• North Korea endorses Obama.
  
• The Democrats' lumpy bed.
  
• a

War on Terror:

• An Iraq debate worth having.
  
• Hezbollah changes their demands (shocker).
  
• What the 'religion of peace' does to 3-year-old children.
  
• Real feminism (hint: it's a Muslim woman learning to shoot a gun).
  
• Petraeus looks toward Afghanistan.
• Differences between McCain and Obama on terrorism.
  

Around the world:

• Mugabe wins through terror.
  
• Getting rid of Mugabe.
  
• Bush to relax sanctions on North Korea.
  
• U.N. worthlessness shines when it comes to Zimbabwe.
  
• More thought police in Canada.
  
• Mexican smugglers endanger U.S. residents.
• Chinese hackers causing more problems (when we will start doing something about China??).
  

Enjoy!

They Get One Right

The Supreme Court just released their ruling on the Washington D.C. gun ban:

The Supreme Court says Americans have a right to own guns for self-defense and hunting, the justices' first major pronouncement on gun rights in U.S. history.

The court's 5-4 ruling strikes down the District of Columbia's 32-year-old ban on handguns as incompatible with gun rights under the Second Amendment. The decision goes further than even the Bush administration wanted, but probably leaves most firearms laws intact.

The court had not conclusively interpreted the Second Amendment since its ratification in 1791. The amendment reads: "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."

The basic issue for the justices was whether the amendment protects an individual's right to own guns no matter what, or whether that right is somehow tied to service in a state militia.

This is obviously good news for gun owners, and bad news for people who think the Constitution should be interpreted as a living, evolving document.  The question here was whether a 'well regulated militia' was referring to an official state-sponsored organization, or just any individual.  That may seem like a small difference, but it is critical. 

Basically, the Founders put in the 2nd Amendment to ensure that this very last resort against an oppressive government.  They looked at history (not to mention the history that they'd just finished writing with the Revolutionary War) and saw instances from all over the world where an oppressive regime remained in power because they controlled all the weaponry.  It's awfully hard to fight against shields and swords with your bare hands, you know.  This fact is one of the reasons that martial arts have been developed all over the world - to even the playing field between peasants and trained/better-equipped soldiers.

Anyway, the Founders -- who intentionally incorporated numerous checks and balances in our government -- realized this, and knew that in the event of an oppressive government, the people needed to be able to rise up and remove that oppressive government.  To do that, the people needed the right to bear arms outside of a government organization.  The 2nd Amendment is the ultimate balance against government tyranny, which is why it needs to be preserved as it was intended so many years ago.

Given the last couple of rulings from this bunch, I wasn't sure they'd get this one right, either, but it is a great relief that they did.  I'll post more analysis as it comes out, but for now we can all sleep more peacefully, knowing that guns aren't only in the hands of criminals.

There's my two cents.

Supreme Court Rules Again Today

The Supreme Court offered two rulings today, one overturning a Louisiana state law allowing the death penalty for child rapists, the other limiting the penalties paid by Exxon for the 1989 Valez oil spill in Alaska.

The big news, of course, is the rape ruling. There's no shortage of analysis about it, and this is another example of the Court breaking down along ideological lines and overreaching its authority. Some examples of commentary (I'll summarize at the bottom):

Andy McCarthy: Even if you agree with their bottom line, do Justice Kennedy and the justices in Kennedy v. Louisiana have a clue about how offensive it is to write this line in rationalizing why a man who has savagely raped his eight-year-old step-daughter should not be executed by the humane process of lethal objection:

"Evolving standards of decency must embrace and express respect for the dignity of the person[.]"

And as for their "proportional" punishment argue, I think it's silly on its face — read the almost unreadable (because it's so excruciating) account of the rape and ask yourself whether it is really "disproportionate" to administer lethal-objection execution to a man who committed this type of barbaric a sexual assault on a child.

But let's give him that one for argument's sake. The Eighth Amendment talks about punishment that is cruel. First, punishment does not become cruel just because it's disproportionate. And second, are we really striving here for proportionality? If a crime is cruel — as it clearly was in this case — wouldn't a proportionate punishment also have to be cruel, and thus in violation of the Eighth Amendment?

Ed Whelan: Kennedy’s 36 pages of insufferable blather amount to little more than a declaration that the majority doesn’t think that capital punishment is ever a fair penalty for the rape of a child—“no matter,” as Justice Alito puts it in his dissent, “how young the child, no matter how many times the child is raped, no matter how many children the perpetrator rapes, no matter how sadistic the crime, no matter how much physical or psychological trauma is inflicted, and no matter how heinous the perpetrator’s prior criminal record may be.”

If I find time, I may focus more attention on Kennedy’s string of assertions. For now, I’ll just call attention to the facts that occasioned Kennedy’s pronouncement that “[e]volving standards of decency must embrace and express respect for the dignity of the person”—the person whose dignity is the object of his concern being the rapist, not the victim and not other future victims.

Matthew J. Franck: Reading on in Justice Kennedy's excursion in moral self-indulgence in the Louisiana child-rape case, we encounter this bit:

Evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society counsel us to be most hesitant before interpreting the Eighth Amendment to allow the extension of the death penalty, a hesitation that has special force where no life was taken in the commission of the crime.

The italics are mine. The dishonest historical conceit here is that Kennedy writes as though Louisiana were now, after centuries of common, statutory, and constitutional law governing the death penalty, going to impose the penalty for the rape of a child for the first time—and the Court must decide whether the Constitution "allow[s] the extension"!

In truth, of course, what the Court has been doing for several decades now is arrogating to itself the right, under some alleged authorization flowing from the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments, to progressively restrict the imposition of the death penalty, from its historic application in many kinds of cases at the time of the founding, to just one class of cases today, the narrowest category of aggravated murders.

But it takes a special kind of gall—or judicial obliviousness, more likely in Justice Kennedy's case—to write as though the death penalty's imposition, in a class of cases in which that was historically normal, is some kind of "extension" we must decide whether the Constitution "allows."

UPDATE: I see that Justice Alito, in his dissent, also notices this "extension" language, though he makes a different observation about it. Alito rightly notes that such phrasing runs against the grain of the Court's traditional (and correct) view that "[l]aws enacted by the state legislatures are presumptively constitutional." In other words, for the Court to uphold the imposition of the death penalty for child rape would not be an "extension" of the penalty on the Court's part but only a decision not to use its power to gainsay a valid exercise of legislative authority. After all, "until today, this Court has not held that capital child rape laws are unconstitutional." Right you are, Justice Alito.

Powerline has a good summary:

The Supreme Court's death penalty jurisprudence is unprincipled. Capital punishment certainly was not considered "cruel and unusual" at the time the Constitution was adopted, or for nearly two centuries thereafter. So what the Court has done in recent decades is to make it up as it goes along. Today it held that while it is constitutional for a state to punish murder by death, it is prohibited to punish child rape--in the case at issue, the rape of an eight year old girl by her stepfather--by death. Needless to say, no such distinction appears in the Constitution. It is solely the product of arrogant quasi-politicians who have been in Washington too long.

If you can stomach it, go here to read the entire legal account of what this poor 8-year-old girl endured at the hands of her own stepfather, and then you decide if it's worthy of the death penalty.

So, what we have here is another power grab by the Supreme Court. The historical precedent and Constitutional issues at play indicate that since this is a state law, it is constitutional. Disregarding that minor detail, the Court decided otherwise, overturning laws in five states. Once again, the Court stuck their nose into a place it didn't belong, ignored history and precedent, and magically found a new application for 'cruel and unusual'. All in a day's work for this Supreme Court.

And would someone tell me what this liberal fetish is with having more sympathy for the criminal than the victim? I mean, come on, Justice Kennedy...! You're worried about the dignity of this vile human being who raped his 8-year-old stepdaughter, literally ripping her apart?? I think he voluntarily gave up his dignity when he ruined this little girl's life. What is wrong with liberals that they consistently criminalize the victim and victimize the criminal?

Unreal.

But more fun will come soon - tomorrow the Court is expected to release their long-awaited ruling on the Washington, D.C. gun ban. And, I'm planning to circle back around to the terrorist ruling with more analysis in the coming days, too.

If anything, these rulings should show exactly how important elections are, both in regard to the President and to the Senate. The President nominates the people who populate the federal judicial branch, and the Senate approves them. There can be no doubt that a President Obama will nominate Justices to the far Left who will continue to chip away at the Constitution and American freedoms. McCain, on the other hand, has pledged to nominate Justices like Roberts and Alito. However, even if McCain wins, and even if he nominates well, the Senate can kill any appointment he makes.

So, your vote counts. Not only does it elect our legislative leaders, it dictates the judicial branch, as well. It's hard to imagine anything that could impact your life much more than those two put together.

There's my two cents.

Dave Ramsey Gets Heated

Right Truth posts a great article from Dave Ramsey, the Christian financial guru, that is an excellent encapsulation of what we face in our two presidential candidates when it comes to taxation. Check it out:

A couple of weeks ago, I worked late like I sometimes need to do to run my business. It was a nice Tennessee summer evening, and I was enjoying the drive home. About 7:30, as I pulled to a stop light a few blocks from my office, I noticed a light on in the corner office of a friend’s office building. Through the twilight I could make out my friend’s silhouette as he bent over his desk. Being a fellow entrepreneur, I knew what he was doing.

He was looking over some receivables. Some turkey hadn’t paid him, and he was trying to make his accounts balance so he would have the cash to make it another day. In that instant, I had a flashback to some of the ridiculous statements I’ve been hearing on the talking-head news channels and from some individuals during this political year. And I’ll be honest—I instantly felt the heat of anger flow through my body.

Let me tell you why. You see, my friend who I saw working late—we’ll call him Henry—is a great guy. He’s what you want your son to grow up to be. He loves God, his country, his wife, and his kids. He didn’t have the academic advantage of attending a big-name university. Instead, he started installing heating and air systems as a grunt laborer after he graduated from high school. He was and is a very hard and diligent worker, and before long, the boss taught him the trade. But when he was 24, after 6 years of service, the company he was working for got into financial trouble and laid him off.

Henry still had his tools, so he bought an old pickup to haul around his materials and tools, and suddenly he was in business. He knew about heating and air-conditioning, but not about business, so he made a lot of mistakes.

He persisted. He took accounting and management at the community college to learn about business. He started reading books on business, HVAC, marriage, kids, God, and anything else someone he respected recommended. Today he is one of the best-read men I know. Soon, because of his fabulous service and fair prices, he developed a great reputation, and his little business began to grow.

Henry started 15 years ago, and now he has 17 employees whose families are fed because he does a great job. He is in church on Sunday and seldom misses his kids’ Little League games. Sometimes he has to miss a game because some poor soul has their AC go out in the 96-degree Tennessee summer heat, but Henry makes sure they are served. He is, by all standards, a good man. He is, by all standards, what makes America great.

Henry and I are friends, and so he asked me some financial questions last year. I learned in the process that his personal taxable income last year was $328,000. I smiled with pride for this 70-hour a week guy because he is living the dream.

At the stop light that evening, I also thought of another guy I know—and that is where the anger flash came from. We will call him John. While John does not have the same drive Henry has, I can say that he, too, is a good man.

John also graduated from high school and did not attend a big-name university. He went to work at a local factory 15 years ago. When 5:00pm comes around, John has probably already made it to his car in the parking lot. He comes in 5 minutes late, takes frequent breaks, and leaves 5 minutes early. However, to his credit, he is steady and works hard.

Over the years, due to his steadiness and seniority, he has worked his way up to about $75,000 per year in that same factory. He seldom misses his kid’s ballgames, but ...

... most nights you will find him in front of the TV where he has become an expert on “American Idol,” “The Biggest Loser,” and who got thrown off the island. When he is not in front of the TV, he spends a LOT of time and money bass fishing on our local lake. He never works over 40 hours a week and hasn’t read a non-fiction book since high school.

This is America, and there is nothing wrong with either set of choices. Nothing wrong, that is, until the politicians and socialists get involved ...

I have seen several elitist people on the talking-head channels make the statement lately that people making over $250,000 per year have a “moral imperative” to pay more in taxes to take care of the country’s problems. This is not only infuriating—it is economically, spiritually, and morally crazy!

Where in the world do these twits get off saying that Henry should be punished for his diligence? If you are John, where do you get off trying to take Henry’s hard-earned money away from him in the name of your misguided “fairness”? If you want to sit on the lake, drink beer, scratch your butt, and bass fish, that is perfectly fine with me. I am not against any of those activities and have engaged in some of them myself at one time or another. But you HAVE NO RIGHT to talk about “moral imperatives” about what other people have earned due to their diligence. That money is not yours! You want some money? Go earn some! Get up, leave the cave, kill something, and drag it home.

We are in a dangerous place in our country today. A segment of our population has decided that it is the government’s job to provide all of their protection, provision, and prosperity. This segment has figured out that government doesn’t have the money to give them everything they want, so somebody else has to pay for it. That is how the “politics of envy” was born. “Tax the rich” has become the mantra of the left, and this political season it has been falsely dubbed a “moral imperative.”

Ninety percent of America’s millionaires are first-generation rich. They are Henry. To tax them because you think it is a “moral imperative” is legalizing governmental theft from our brightest, most charitable, and most productive citizens.

If I can get a law passed that says you must surrender all your cars to the government because it is the “moral imperative” of anyone who owns cars to support the latest governmental program, that would be a violation of private property rights and simply morally wrong. This new “moral imperative” to redistribute wealth is no different from that. It’s the SAME THING!

Please, America, re-think the politics of envy! You are sowing the seeds of our destruction when you punish the Henrys of our culture.

If you think taxing the populace to support government programs is the best way—and I don’t—then at least tax every single person the same! There are very few Henrys out here who would squawk much about paying a set percentage of their income—if everyone else did, too. But this idea of some butt-scratching bass fisherman saying government should tax his neighbor and not him—just because his neighbor has succeeded—must stop.

So the next time an elitist media talking-head starts telling you it is the moral imperative of our culture to tax my friend Henry, change the channel.

The next time you see someone wealthy who feels guilty and is preaching the politics of envy, change the channel.

The next time you see some celebrity who feels guilt over their income preaching socialism, change the channel.

And the next time you run into a misguided, butt-scratching bass fisherman who says the evil rich people in our culture should have their private property confiscated because that is fair… well just shake your head walk away—and make sure to vote against his candidate.

If he and his type win, God help America.

It doesn't get much plainer than that. Thanks, Dave!

There's my two cents.