Right Mind

Phoenix Rises on Marriage

See: FREE Marriage Protection Kit 

From the FRC:

The marriage protection amendment may have been last on Arizona's legislative agenda, but it certainly wasn't least. The hotly debated initiative, which would give voters the opportunity to join Florida and California in protecting marriage this November, would not die, despite the desperate attempts by liberal members to kill it. In fact, the Senate discussion was so heated on both sides that it went down in the record books as one of the longest sessions in the history of the Arizona legislature. For the pro-family groups watching this nail-biting exchange, it was a long day that ended in dramatic fashion when Senate President Tim Bee cast the final vote in favor of putting the referendum on the ballot.

We congratulate the Center for Arizona Policy (CAP) for persevering even when the outcome looked bleak. As recently as last week, the Senate narrowly voted down an attempt to put the marriage protection amendment on the ballot. Thanks to the work of CAP, pro-marriage leaders in Arizona pulled the provision back from the brink and revived it on Friday before the session concluded. By a 16-4 vote, the Senate entrusted the definition of marriage to the people. If you'd like to learn more about what's at stake in November, log on to www.frc.org today and order your free marriage protection kit. Help empower your friends, church, and community to defend the union of a man and woman! 

And this from Citizen Link:

‘All one needs to do is look at California to see why Arizona needs to have a constitutional amendment on marriage.’

Arizona voters will get another chance to define marriage in November, thanks to a 16-4 state Senate vote Friday. Two years ago, a more complex marriage-protection amendment failed at the polls by 2 percentage points.

This year's amendment states that "only a union of one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in this state."

Peter Gentala, general counsel for The Center for Arizona Policy Action, called the victory “tremendous news” for Arizona residents and their children.

50 Years in 3 Minutes

From Ye Li over at Yell.

A picture of the future American nanny state

Invite everyone, or invite no one.

From the Chicago Sun Times:

STOCKHOLM, Sweden — A school has confiscated an 8-year-old boy’s birthday party invitations after they were handed out during class because it said it had a duty to ensure against discrimination.

The boy handed out invitations to classmates at his school in Lund, southern Sweden, but did not invite two boys because they were not his friends, the Sydsvenskan newspaper reported earlier this week. The school, 360 miles south of Stockholm, confiscated all the invitations, saying it objected because it had a duty to ensure against discrimination.

The report on Friday did not name the boy or his family. It said the boy’s father has filed a complaint with the parliamentary ombudsman. The father told the newspaper that the two classmates were not invited because one had bullied his son and the other had not invited his son to the classmate’s birthday party.

‘‘My son has taken it very hard,’’ the father told Sydsvenskan of the school’s decision. ‘‘It’s like taking someone’s mail.’’

The parliamentary ombudsman has asked the school board to decide on the issue before Sept. 8.

HT: Adam S.

When government subsidies aren't enough...

…you move to the suburbs to find more money.

Great strategy: target the poor, racial minorities. Use the wealthy suburbanites to subsidize it. Classic.

From the Houston Chronicle:

Annie Nguyen, 27, a secretary without health insurance, has been treated at Planned Parenthood's main clinic in Midtown, but she prefers going to the organization's satellite facility on FM 1960.

"It's easier for me to go to the one in Champions," said the resident of northwest Harris County, who goes to the clinic for regular wellness checkups. "It's closer to my home."

Over the next four years, Planned Parenthood intends to open two more suburban clinics to serve the organization's primary targeted group - poor and uninsured women - as well as more affluent, paying patients.

HT: Adam S.

Obama's Dry Hole

From the Wall Street Journal:

"I want you to think about this," Barack Obama said in Las Vegas last week. "The oil companies have already been given 68 million acres of federal land, both onshore and offshore, to drill. They're allowed to drill it, and yet they haven't touched it – 68 million acres that have the potential to nearly double America's total oil production."

Wow, how come the oil companies didn't think of that?

Perhaps because the notion is obviously false – at least to anyone who knows how oil and gas exploration actually works. Predictably, however, Mr. Obama's claim is also the mantra of Nancy Pelosi, Barbara Boxer, John Kerry, Nick Rahall and others writing Congressional energy policy. As a public service, here's a remedial education.

Democrats are in a vise this summer, pinned on one side by voter anger over $4 gas and on the other by their ideological opposition to carbon-based energy – so, as always, the political first resort is to blame Big Oil. The allegation is that oil companies are "stockpiling" leases on federal lands to drive up gas prices. At least liberals are finally acknowledging the significance of supply and demand.

Only before they deny it…

To deflect the GOP effort to relax the offshore-drilling ban – and thus boost supply while demand will remain strong – Democrats also say that most of the current leases are "nonproducing." The idea comes from a "special report" prepared by the Democratic staff of the House Resources Committee, chaired by Mr. Rahall. "If we extrapolate from today's production rates on federal lands and waters," the authors write, the oil companies could "nearly double total U.S. oil production" (their emphasis).

In other words, these whiz kids assume that every acre of every lease holds the same amount of oil and gas. Yet the existence of a lease does not guarantee that the geology holds recoverable resources. Brian Kennedy of the Institute for Energy Research quips that, using the same extrapolation, the 9.4 billion acres of the currently nonproducing moon should yield 654 million barrels of oil per day.

HT: Adam S.

Barack Hussein Obama – Muslim apostate? For Al Qaeda, the answer – and the implication – is clear

This is an interesting perspective. I would think that any US President is open game by Al Qaeda. But would BHO’s murtad fitri status make him a catalyst for Islam against the US?

From the Christian Science Monitor:

Osama bin Laden must be chuckling in his safe house. After all, the 2008 campaign could very well give Al Qaeda the ultimate propaganda tool: President Barack Hussein Obama, Muslim apostate.

The fact that Senator Obama – the son of a Muslim father – insists he was never a Muslim before becoming Christian is irrelevant to bin Laden. In bin Laden's eyes, Obama is a murtad fitri, the worst type of apostate, because he was blessed by Allah to be born into the true faith of Islam.

There are two types of apostates according to sharia (Islamic law) and the Hadith (sayings of the prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him).

The first type is murtad milli, one who converted to Islam and later renounced the faith. The second, and most egregious, type is murtad fitri. It refers to a person born of a Muslim father who renounces his birthright. Two recent examples of the latter are Magdi Allam (a male Egyptian who converted to Catholicism in Italy) and Ayaan Hirsi Ali (Somali-born woman who's now an atheist). Both now face death threats.

According to Islamic jurisprudence, children of a Muslim father – even an apparently nonpracticing one, such as Obama's father, and irrespective of the mother's faith – are automatically Muslims. Most Muslims around the world agree: A child of a Muslim father is a Muslim. Period.

Should Obama become US commander in chief, there is a strong likelihood that Al Qaeda's media arm, As-Sahab, will exploit his background to argue that an apostate is leading the global war on terror (read: attacks against fellow Muslims). This perception would be leveraged to galvanize sympathizers into action.

Remember: Al Qaeda's ultimate goal is to restore the caliphate (the Islamic form of government that would preside over the community of believers) and expand Dar al Islam ("Abode of Islam"). Reaching it requires a long war against all – Muslim and non-Muslim – who don't share its extremist Wahhabi worldview.

Al Qaeda, though, has struggled recently to recruit volunteers for this jihad. While bin Laden retains significant support as someone willing to stand up for Muslim concerns, most Muslims abhor Al Qaeda's terrorist methods whose primary targets are innocent noncombatants.

But an apostate as head of the United States could change this equation. It would be a propaganda boost for Al Qaeda's mission. All one has to do is read Al Qaeda's public statements to recognize how frequently it makes baseless apostasy accusations against fellow Muslims who challenge its message or actions.

That's why Obama is bin Laden's dream candidate.

Once branded as an apostate, President Obama would face enormous difficulties in the foreign policy realm, especially in the fight against terrorism.

HT: Tim T.

The greatest student prank of all time revealed after 50 years

According to the U.K. Daily Mail.

This is a great article. Well worth the read.

Can you imagine what would happen today if students pulled off this kind of prank? People are so grumpy these days.

Even a prank Anonymous, Topless, and Proud seminar sent Moscow’s progressives into apoplexy.

HT: Dave G.

Google Shuts Down Anti-Obama Sites on its Blogger Platform

Here is a list of the Blogspot blogs that have been frozen by Google thus far:

• Blue Lyon @ http://bluelyon.blogspot.com
• Come A Long Way @ http://comealongway.blogspot.com
• Hillary or Bust @ http://hillaryorbust.blogspot.com
• McCain Democrats @ http://mccaindemocrats.blogspot.com
• NObama Blog @ http://nobamablog.blogspot.com
• politicallizard.blogspot.com @ http://thelizardannex.blogspot.com
• Reflections in Tyme @ http://reflections-in-tyme.blogspot.com

Read the update below, then tell me that progressives believe in Freedom of Speech and the First Amendment.

Via Newsbusters:

[It] is starting to look like this Blogspot shut down of anti-Obama sites occurred because of a concerted effort by Obama supporters.

What they did was go to the Blogspot addresses found on the site of the NoObama coalition called Just Say No Deal and constantly hit the "mark as spam" link so that Google's Blogger would be flooded with spam warnings. This caused Google/Blogger to freeze the sites marked.

Apparently, this campaign merely took advantage of Google/Blogger's flawed system of finding spam blogs. So, it looks like what we have here is an Obama dirty trick to shut down political opposition. Looks like Obmatons aren't much for that whole democracy thing, eh?

Once I find a link to an Obama site talking about this attack, I will post it.

HT: Dave G.

Undercover Cops Allegedly Frame 4 On Drug Charges: NYPD Investigating Incident, Officers Placed On Modified Duty

If this turns out to be true, justice would require that whatever punishment would have been given to the intended victims, these cops would receive the same sentence.

That kind of justice would be a wake-up call to any and all corrupt cops.

But since we don’t live in a just society, that won’t happen.

Where the Right Went Wrong: There is no Conservative Party in D.C.

There is no conservative party in Washington. There is a Democratic Party of tax-and-spend and a Republican Party of guns and butter and tax cuts, too. Washington is all accelerator, the brakes are gone.

—Pat Buchanan, Where the Right Went Wrong

Anglican Clergy Create Anti-Homosexual Alliance

From the International Herald Tribune:

Anglican conservatives, frustrated by the ongoing stalemate over homosexuality in the Anglican Communion, declared Sunday that they would defy the church's historic lines of authority and establish a new power bloc within the church that will be led by a council of predominantly African archbishops.

The announcement came at the close of an unprecedented meeting in Jerusalem by conservatives, who contend that they represent a majority of the 77 million members of the Anglican Communion.

…

A statement the delegates issued in Jerusalem said that it was time to establish a branch in the United States and Canada that would absorb the churches that have been outraged by the American church's consecration of an openly gay bishop in 1993 and the Canadian church's blessing of same-sex unions.

They also challenged the authority of the archbishop of Canterbury. The current archbishop, Rowan Williams, has been a disappointment to conservatives because he did not discipline or engineer an eviction of the liberal North Americans. The archbishop of Canterbury historically has not had the power to decree policy in the Communion, but in the past he determined which churches belonged to it.

The conservatives said that while they acknowledge Canterbury's historic position, they did not accept the idea "that Anglican identity is determined necessarily through recognition by the archbishop of Canterbury."

They said that what would determine membership in their conservative alliance within the Communion is a manifesto they issued Sunday, called the "Jerusalem Declaration," which contains 14 principles of theological orthodoxy.

Shouldn't a Fortune Teller Know Better?

I’m in Seattle for the weekend with my two oldest boys.

#2 son and I got to walk around Pike Place Market for about three hours this afternoon.

We came across the following at a fortuneteller’s shop. First her sign, then the paper in the window:

Wouldn’t you think that a fortune teller would know not to miss a customer coming in?

More tax and spend

The following letter to the editor appeared in today’s Lewiston Tribune:

More tax and spend

• Barack Obama opposes drilling for oil on our continental shelf and in ANWR [Arctic National Wildlife Refuge]. Democrats and environmentalists have stopped legislation permitting drilling for over 15 years. Obama says drilling will not have an immediate effect on gas prices.
• Obama opposes extension of the Bush tax cuts. The result will be a huge increase in tax rates.
• Obama brags about his proposed bill SB 2433. This bill will tax the United States 0.7 percent of our national income, or $845 billion dollars. The United Nations will administer these funds to reduce the rate of global poverty.
• Obama plans to nominate activist judges to the Supreme Court and federal judiciary. This will ensure removal of the ban on partial-birth abortion.
• Obama proposes to treat terrorists as criminals, providing them access to all the protections of our judicial system. This includes the right of discovery, which was used during the trial of the terrorists responsible for the first twin towers bombings. The trial exposed data that was secret and critical to our ability to prevent future terrorists attacks, such as 9/11, and bombings of embassies.
• Obama has pledged to immediately remove our troops from Iraq without seeking advice from our leaders on the ground, or reviewing conditions on the ground.
• Obama has stated he is willing to have face-to-face meetings with the heads of terrorist nations without preconditions.
• Obama supports national health care administered by the government, socialized medicine.

Obama says he wants change. Looks like same old bigger government, tax and spend.

James H. Stevens
Asotin

George Carlin on Global Warming

Warning: some bad language in here (Carlin drops the f-word a few times).

HT: Chris W.

Guns

WALL-E Redux

I posted last night that I personally thought the environmentalism/global warming “propaganda” (my word) that ran thru WALL-E was overdone.

Let me review my reasons for saying that:

• Nothing green is growing on the planet any more.
• A single cockroach is the only life left on earth.
• All humans have abandoned the planet because of the pollution.
• There’s even pollution in space (where people started dumping their trash)
• Earth is no longer the blue planet but the brown planet.
• The sun seldom breaks thru the smog.
• WALL-E’s single job is to clean up the pollution — a job that after 700 years still cannot be completed.
• The wicked Wal-Mart style corporation called “Buy-n-Large” (BnL).
• The President says “stay the course”.
• Capitalism is bad.  

I’ve had some friends write to say they disagreed. They didn’t think it was heavy-handed or preachy; and that I only saw it because I wanted to.

Fair enough. Given that I’ve been up to my ears in global warming discussions for the past five years, I could be hyper-sensitive to it. I’m going to see the movie again. It’ll probably be less annoying to me the second and third times around. And I probably will even laugh at them.

John M. Frame wisely writes,

“It is simply false to claim that art has nothing to do with ‘messages.’ Indeed, we are living in a time in which the messages of art are becoming more and more explicit.”

I would like to take a second to discuss a plot device called a MacGuffin.

A MacGuffin (sometimes McGuffin) is a plot device that motivates the characters or advances the story, but the details of which are of little or no importance otherwise.

The element that distinguishes a MacGuffin from other types of plot devices is that it is not important what the object specifically is. Anything that serves as a motivation will do. The MacGuffin might even be ambiguous. Its importance is accepted by the story's characters, but it does not actually have any effect on the story. It can be generic or left open to interpretation.

The MacGuffin is common in films, especially thrillers. Commonly, though not always, the MacGuffin is the central focus of the film in the first act, and later declines in importance as the struggles and motivations of characters play out. Sometimes the MacGuffin is all but forgotten by the end of the film.

Again, I could well be wrong about this. But it seemed to me that the whole green agenda in WALL-E was not a MacGuffin, but instead was an intricate part of the movie.

For those of you who have seen the movie, here’s a thought experiment: could it have been effectively made without that being the plot (or sub-plot, depending upon how you look at it)?

How Does Idaho Compare

Check out this data.

Click on the images to enlarge.

Or download the PDF file here: File Attachment: 2006 How Does Idaho Compare.pdf (334 KB)

Americans Oppose Income Redistribution to Fix Economy

Recent polls of interest from the Gallup Organization:

Americans Oppose Income Redistribution to Fix Economy: Given a choice, Americans prefer that the government focus on improving the economy as opposed to redistributing wealth, by an overwhelming 84% to 13% margin.

This view is widely shared by Republicans (90% to 9%), independents (85% to 13%), and Democrats (77% to 19%). 

Too bad Congress doesn’t oppose income redistribution.

WALL-E

Update: I added three more items that came to mind.

I went to see the movie WALL-E today.

Overall, I highly recommend it.

I will warn you that, as we’ve seen in other Hollywood movies, there is a heavy emphasis on global warming, environmental devastation from pollution, etc.

In WALL-E, you see this for instance in:

• Nothing green is growing on the planet any more.
• A single cockroach is the only life left on earth.
• All humans have abandoned the planet because of the pollution.
• There’s even pollution in space (where people started dumping their trash)
• Earth is no longer the blue planet but the brown planet.
• The sun seldom breaks thru the smog.
• WALL-E’s single job is to clean up the pollution — a job that after 700 years still cannot be completed.
• The wicked Wal-Mart style corporation called “Buy-n-Large” (BnL).
• The President says “stay the course”.
• Capitalism is bad.  

A long time ago, this reached the level of propaganda for me. I hate propaganda (e.g., Happy Feet).

While this relentless theme wasn’t so overwhelming as to spoil the movie for me, it does get old after a while — especially when you have it reoccuring in movie after movie.

Finish High School, Finish College

Mark J. Perry is a professor of economics and finance in the School of Management at the Flint campus of the University of Michigan. 

Click on the image to enlarge.

This is from his site: Carpe Diem

The chart above displays unemployment rates by education level from 1993 to 2005, and shows the averages over this period on the right side of the chart.

 

It's interesting that there are big differences between a) no high school and high school (3.4% difference in averages), and b) some college and college grads (1.5% difference), and a pretty small difference between high school and some college (0.90%).

Demeaning gays uncharitable, but tax-free

The following editorial by Jim Fisher ran in today's Lewiston Tribune.

First, Roman Catholic leaders sought to inject their teachings into American politics by threatening to deny Communion to office holders who don't toe the doctrinal line. Now, the Mormon Church has sent word to its California members they are expected to work against a citizen initiative on the state ballot.

Are these religious or campaign organizations? And if they are the latter, should they continue to enjoy the special position, and tax-free status, they are given in American society?

That question is made most pertinent by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' decision to involve itself in the California initiative campaign to overrule a state Supreme Court decision authorizing same-sex marriage. A June 20 letter from church President Thomas S. Monson and his two top counselors to bishops in the state seeks members' support for the proposed amendment to the state constitution.

But it does more than that. The letter asks members to "do all you can to support the proposed constitutional amendment by donating of your means and time to ensure that marriage in California is legally defined as being between a man and a woman," and an accompanying note says the letter should be read during church services this Sunday.

"The church's teachings and position on this moral issue are unequivocal," the letter says.

<tongue firmly implanted in cheek>

I’m sure if Fisher were writing 150 years ago, he would have objected to churches taking an abolitionist political position as well…

Kindasorta politics

Day By Day© by Chris Muir.

More on the Canadian thought police

Canadian stand-up comic, Guy Earle, who will face a human rights tribunal hearing in British Columbia after Lorna Pardy, a lesbian, complained she and her friends faced homophobic and sexists insults during one of his shows in Toronto.

This time in B.C.

Via the Vancouver Sun:

A Canadian stand-up comedian will face a human rights tribunal hearing after a woman complained she and her friends faced a "tirade of homophobic and sexist comments" while attending one of his shows.

In a decision released this week, the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal ruled there is enough evidence to hear the case of Vancouver woman Lorna Pardy against Toronto comedian Guy Earle. Zesty's Restaurant in Vancouver, where the May 22, 2007, show took place, was also named in the complaint. The restaurant has since closed.

Pardy could not be reached Wednesday for comment. However, the tribunal's decision says she alleges she was discriminated against over her sex and sexual orientation when Earle made public comments "intended to humiliate her." The ruling says Earle and Pardy "have very different versions of who was to blame for the incidents, how it came about and how it escalated." There is also a dispute over what role alcohol played in the incident.

 HT: Adam S.

Death of the West

If we do not solve our civilizational crisis -- a disintegrating culture, dying populations, and invasions unresisted -- the children born in 2006 will witness in their lifetimes the death of the West. In our hearts we know what must be done. We must stop the invasion. But do our leaders have the vision and will to do it?

—Pat Buchanan, State of Emergency

New cars must meet California standards

From today's Spokesman Review.

Starting with the 2009 model year, new cars sold in Washington must meet strict California emission standards. Buy a car that doesn’t and you’re in for a shock: You won’t be able to register it in Washington.

…

California, Oregon and at least 14 other states have adopted California-style auto standards, according to the Department of Ecology.

Idaho hasn’t, and state officials say it will be up to Washington consumers to ensure they’re getting the right kind of car. The vehicles are commonly known as "California cars" or "50-state cars."

Idaho Power seeks to raise base power rates by almost 10 percent

From the Idaho Statesman:

Idaho Power is asking for permission to raise the company’s base power rates by an average of 9.9 percent, the company announced Friday.

Residential rates would only increased about 6.3 percent, small commercial rates would rise 10.3 percent, large commercial rates would rise 11.5 percent, and industrial and irrigation rates would climb 15 percent.

“Two forces are driving this increase; growth in the number of customers and a growing demand for electricity,” said Idaho Power Vice President for Regulatory Affairs Ric Gale. “We have invested heavily to ensure we can provide a safe and dependable supply of energy for our current and future customers. This request seeks to recover those investments.”

Boston Wireless Firm Mapping You

From Tom Sowa over at his Spokesman Review blog :

As they say in the real estate business, it’s all about location.

The same is true in the fast-accelerating tech segment called location — in this case, referring to systems that help users find out where they are.

Coupled with the surge in social networking, the mobile device industry is rolling out dozens of new tools and software applications that find where you are, who’s nearby and whether there are other attractions worth exploring.

It’s no surprise that a Boston mobile services company hired drivers to spend hundreds of hours prowling Spokane and Kootenai counties. That company, Skyhook Wireless, is collecting the location of nearly every Wi-Fi signal in public spaces, building a database that is the key resource it sells to customers like Apple and others. (Story continues below video)
To watch a video on how Skyhook Wireless works, click arrow below. For full screen view, click button on frame

Obama was against it before he was for it

Here’s an amazing flip-flop.

Even the Dem’s cannot reconcile this.

Sit back and enjoy.

Founders gave us that right

The following commentary by Michael Costello ran in today's Lewiston Tribune. Costello is always well worth reading.

You can find a copy on his website: The Pajamahadin.

I was briefly elated, then deflated, when I heard that the United States Supreme Court had struck down the District of Columbia’s handgun ban. Certainly, most people of my ideological persuasion were thrilled with the ruling and I was certainly much happier than I would have been had the Supremes ruled the other way.

What depressed my spirits was the notion that the Supreme Court or anybody else has the power to decide what rights I will be permitted to exercise. It’s written there in the Constitution for crying out loud. Why is it the business of the court to decide whether or not I’ll be permitted to keep that right?

Sometimes it’s hard to believe that when the Constitution was being drafted, many opposed the Bill of Rights because it was considered superfluous. The Constitution carefully enumerated and limited the powers of government, and nowhere in the document was the government empowered to control our speech, infringe upon our rights to keep and bear arms, toss us into jail without due process or to seize our property. Opponents argued that future interpreters might conclude that the Bill of Rights was the sum total of all our rights.

Wow. Would they be surprised if they saw today’s America. We have to fight to simply hold onto even those few rights in the Bill of Rights. And we’re losing.

Four years ago, the Supreme Court ruled that we no longer have a Fifth Amendment right to our property. In the Kelo decision, the court decided that local governments can take your property away from you if they’d prefer that someone else owned it. And before that, the courts decided that environmental law trumps property rights.

Shortly after the Kelo decision, the Supreme Court decided that the government had the authority to regulate political free speech under the guise of campaign finance reform. The Supreme Court has now given us the perverse situation in which the government can muzzle political debate but not pornography. Somehow, I don’t think that was the original intent of the Constitution’s authors.

When I read the outpouring of joy at Thursday’s court ruling, I was reminded of the scene from George Orwell’s 1984 in which the people are thrilled when the government allows the people a tiny increase in their chocolate ration, after that same tyranny had just slashed the ration by a much larger portion. So it is with our rights. We are supposed to be grateful that the Supremes or the Congress did no crush any more of our freedoms than they already have. I find it distressing that so many feel relieved because the Supreme Court did not declare part of the Constitution unconstitutional. And of course, both the court and the Congress have given me many reasons to fear for my freedoms.

It’s a strange world we live in when our courts grant rights to terrorists that have never been recognized for prisoners of war, while limiting the rights of citizens.

I credit Stephen Breyer for writing a dissenting opinion that clearly described the amorphous, unlimited power that he thinks the judicial branch should wield. While acknowledging that the Second Amendment granted an individual right, he argued the right should be dribbled out to the people on a case-by-case basis. He specifically addressed the District of Columbia’s case and argued that in such a high crime area, local governments should have the power to limit gun ownership: “In my view, there simply is no untouchable constitutional right guaranteed by the Second Amendment to keep loaded handguns in the house in crime-ridden urban areas.” Actually, it’s in high crime areas where the citizens need the right to own guns for self-defense.

In the other dissenting opinion, John Paul Stevens tried to preserve gun control with Humpty Dumpty-like manipulation of the language by assigning definitions to words that are not found in any dictionary of any time.

Recalling Lewis Carol’s masterpiece, Through the Looking Glass: “When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less.”

“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”

“'The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master - that's all.”

If Barack He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Middle-Named Obama wins the presidential election, he’ll undoubtedly be looking for a Humpty Dumpty to fill the next vacancy, maybe someone who’ll debate what “the meaning of is, is.” 

Higher taxes no solution

Here’s an excellent, informed letter, well worth reading.

It’s from Alison Acosta Fraser, Director of the Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies.

Take a second to read all of it.

The following letter to the editor appeared in today’s Lewiston Tribune:

As a full-fledged member of the Concord Coalition "Fiscal Wake-Up Tour," with David Walker and others, I must take issue with your June 15 editorial ("What's disaster to Crapo is part of the solution"), which promotes the misplaced notion that raising taxes to pre-2001 levels will meaningfully improve our long-term fiscal problems.

Congressional Budget Office analyses show that returning to the higher tax rates would raise federal revenues by the equivalent of 1 percent of gross domestic product over the long term. That's a lot of money, but it's no way to fix our long-term fiscal problems. Currently, if taxes are held at their average rates, we face a fiscal gap of more than 10 percent of GDP by 2040 and nearly 17 percent by 2050.

To plug that gap with tax hikes, we'd have to nearly double current marginal tax rates, imposing top rates of 60 percent. That's a prescription for economic collapse, not fiscal responsibility.

The root of the government's fiscal problems isn't that taxes are too low. It's that politicians have made promises that taxpayers can't possibly afford.

The culprit here is excessive entitlement spending. Absent reform, spending on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid will continue to grow automatically, at an increasingly unaffordable pace. In only 20 years, payments on just these three entitlements - plus debt interest payments - will exceed today's total federal budget.

To solve any crisis, you must address the cause. You can't tax your way out of a spending problem any more than you can cure a drinking problem by offering endless refills. America's fiscal challenge can only be met by reforming entitlement programs so that they provide vital safety nets without breaking the bank.

Alison Acosta Fraser
Director, Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies
The Heritage Foundation
Washington, D.C.