NEWS: Judge Does Right Thing

NEWS: Judge Does Right Thing

Finally, a judge allowed that a non-PC religious point of view was equal in standing to the PC versions.

In a nutshell: a school has a homosexuality day including a panel of religious ministers that say homosexuality is ok. A student wanted to present her religion's view that homosexuality is not ok. She was denied. The judge ruled that the public school had to allow the presentation of the opposing view because to do otherwise is to violate the Establishment Clause of the Bill of Rights.

Now, I don't care about homosexuality. What a person does in their bedroom (short of forcing or harming others, of course) is their business. What's important here is that a judge looked at the words of the Constitution as it is written instead of as they wished it were written.

One small victory for strict constructionism! Yeah!

FOXNews.com - The O'Reilly Factor - Interview - A Rare Victory for Christians

Sowell on Profits

Sowell on Profits

Part I

Thomas Sowell: Profits without honor

To the economically illiterate, if some company makes a million dollars in profit, this means that their products cost a million dollars more than they would have cost without profits. It never occurs to such people that these products might cost several million dollars more to produce than if they were produced by enterprises operating without the incentives to be efficient created by the prospect of profits.

If "obscene profits" are what cause pharmaceutical drugs to cost so much, why haven't socialist countries set up their own government-owned pharmaceutical enterprises to produce drugs more cheaply? Why don't non-profit organizations here do that?

It is because rhetoric is cheap but creating drugs is not. Recent estimates are that it costs $800 million per new drug. That is why drug prices are so high. But needless suffering and premature deaths are even higher costs.

Part II.

Thomas Sowell: Profits without honor: Part II

"Never speak to me of profit," India's legendary leader Pandit Nehru once said to that country's leading industrialist. "It's a dirty word." Policies based on that attitude cost millions of Indians a better life for decades, by stifling India's businesses.

Indian businesses flourished around the world -- except in India. Only after India's severe restrictions on business were lifted in the past dozen years has its economic growth taken off, creating rising incomes, employment and tax revenues. This poverty-stricken country could have had all those things 40 years earlier, except for a prejudice against a word. . . .

For these kinds of non-profit organizations, the sky is always falling or we are threatened with seeing the last few patches of unspoiled land paved over for shopping malls, virtually everything is "unsafe," we are running out of natural resources, and air and water are becoming dangerously polluted.

Facts do not make a dent in these claims. No matter how much data show air and water pollution to be far less than in the past, that only a small fraction of the land of this country is paved over, or that there are far more known reserves of natural resources than there were half a century ago, or that life expectancy is increasing despite innumerable "dangers" proclaimed by hysteria-mongers, the media continue to take these people seriously because non-profit is equated with unbiased.

NEWS: Tariff & Taxes

OP/ED: Tariff & Taxes

FOXNews.com - Views - Heritage Foundation - One Tariff Down, Many More to Go

Thanks to U.S. trade policies, the average American has to spend more just to survive. While the president imposed the steel tariffs, many of these tariffs are the result of congressional action. And more could be on the way. For example, Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, has introduced legislation to level tariffs on a range of Mexican products. He says the list could include many products that can be found in your kitchen: tomatoes, bell peppers, limes, honey and pecans.

TECH: Mommy, Can the Dems Scare Me Some More?

TECH: Mommy, Can the Dems Scare Me Some More?

FOXNews.com - Views - Junk Science - Arsenic-laced Presidential Campaign?

Amid new arm-waving over the administration’s plan to reduce mercury emissions (search) from power plants, Democrat presidential hopeful Sen. Joe Lieberman recently said, “First arsenic, then mercury, what poison will the Bush administration seek to permit into our environment next?”

We can expect many more such comments during the 2004 campaign season from Democrats as they rant and rave about the president’s record on the environment. Their fearmongering about arsenic, however, will lack a factual basis.

A new study reports no increased rates of cancer in the two largest U.S. populations consuming drinking water containing relatively high levels of arsenic. . . .

You might think the combination of much lower exposures in the U.S. and no observed risks at those lower exposures would be a good enough reason not to burden U.S. water systems with expensive regulatory standards, but you’d be wrong.

Make-believe risk often serves as a sufficient excuse for environmental regulations and making up risks is what the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency relishes most, and does best.

When the EPA has no data indicating actual cancer risk from real-life exposures to a particular substance, the agency employs a mathematical trick called the “linear no-threshold” (LNT) model that, by its very definition, simply concocts risk.

The LNT model dictates that any exposure to a supposedly cancer-causing substance increases cancer risk and that cancer risk increases in a linear fashion with increasing exposure. . . .

Needless to say, the new study exposes the revised EPA standard as being without scientific foundation. The Berkeley researchers notably remarked, “Interestingly, the overall risks were below those predicted using data from highly exposed populations in Taiwan.”

That’s not hard to believe given that the supposed risks predicted from the Taiwan data by the LNT model were totally fabricated.

And, no, the study was not paid for by the “arsenic industry.”

First, arsenic occurs naturally in drinking water. Next, the study was funded by the federal government and conducted by Cal-Berkeley’s Allan H. Smith -- a strong proponent of more stringent arsenic regulations.

About 4,000 water systems serving 11 million people nationwide would be in violation of the revised arsenic standard if it were to take effect now. It will cost about $200 million annually to bring these water systems into compliance with the new standard.

I only wish I could afford a television commercial where a little girl asks, “Can we waste even more taxpayer money on junk science, mommy?”

NEWS: Name One

NEWS: Name One

Annan: I'm Not Anti-American . . . . Oh yeah? Ok, Kofi and supporters, name ONE major US goal that Annan pushed the UN to accept. Name ONE topic on which the US had Kofi's wholehearted support.

FOXNews.com - Top Stories - U.N.'s Annan Says He's Not 'Anti-American'

UNITED NATIONS — United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan (search) has a message for those who have the impression that he and the world body are slanted against U.S. interests — "I'm not anti-American."

Annan, in an exclusive interview with Fox News, called that characterization unfair and unfortunate. While the United Nations has had its differences with the Bush administration, especially over the U.S.-led war against Iraq, Annan said the two sides can work well together.

"The U.N. is not anti-American at all," Annan told Fox News' Eric Shawn. "When you go back to the creation of this organization, American leaders and American politicians played a very important role and the U.S. and the U.N. for many years and on many occasions have worked extremely well together."

Classic (?!) Holiday Books

Classic (?!) Holiday Books

Interesting. Here's a list from MSN which lists 10 classic holiday books. I really wish I knew how they were defining "classic."

MSN Encarta - Top 10 Classic Holiday Books for Children

1. How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (1976)
2. Hanukkah! (1990)
3. The Night Before Christmas (1822)
4. Herschel and the Hanukkah Goblins (1994)
5. A Christmas Carol (1847)
6. Celebrating Kwanzaa (1994)
7. The Polar Express (1985)
8. Chanukah in Chelm (1997)
9. Santa Mouse (1996)
10. Festival of Lights: The Story of Hanukkah (1999)

So, a Kwanzaa book written in 1994 is a "classic"?

Look, I could care less if someone wants to celebrate Kwanzaa. Hey, go for it. Have a blast. Learn some good lessons about morality in the stories etc. But let's not play PC games just so we can have a Kwanzaa book on a "Classic Holiday Books" list, ok?

Notice how almost all the Christmas books were written over 20 years ago? Some over 100 years ago? In fact, the average publication year of the Christmas books is 1925 (take out the abberrant 1996 book and it drops to 1907). For the Hanukkah books, it's 1995. The Kwanzaa book was, obviously, published in 1994. The publication dates for the non-Christmas books? All post-PC-"holiday season" implementation.

Haliburton Not Great Capitalist Satan After All

NEWS: Haliburton Not Great Capitalist Satan After All

The Dems are just gonna HATE this. Turns out the Army Corps of Enigineers TOLD Haliburton to use the Kuwaiti gasoline supplies. . . and approved the contract as well.

Byron York & Halliburton on National Review Online

Although Halliburton's actions have been intensely criticized by the administration's opponents, the Pentagon says it has not found any wrongdoing. Said Defense Department comptroller Dov Zakheim on Tuesday, "From what I've seen so far...I have no basis whatsoever to see anything nefarious."

Who Cares? Gore Jr. Arrested for Pot

NEWS: Gore Jr. Arrested for Pot

For everyone who says that the Bush daughters' shenanigans should not be news topics . . . .

Does anyone really care about this? There are lots of good reasons to dislike Gore and his policies etc., but the fact that his son and/or his friends had a small amount of pot on them shouldn't be one of them. Let's focus on the bigger, more important picture here folks. Like showing Gore's believers how he is wrong and exactly why. THAT's what will help change our counrty. Not getting tied up in knots over his son's peccadilloes.

Al Gore's Son Arrested for Pot Possession (washingtonpost.com)