Imagine what the uproar would be if say Dick Cheney said that Democrats pretty much act the same and look the same to him.  There's be cries for his resignation.  After all, Republicans ousted Trent Lott over a lot less.  But the Democrats..well, they have different standards of behavior.  It's okay for them to be overt bigots.  Whether that be former KKK Senator Byrd or Jesse "Hymie Town" Jackson, and now Howard Dean, Democrats have spent so much time accusing others of...

For all the talk about how Dubya is ruining the environment, the reality is somewhat different.  When it comes to auto emissions, the US has the tightest auto emissions laws in the world.  For instance, starting this year, US autos are only allowed to put out 1/4th as much NO2 as their European counterparts.  But across the board, from cars to industry emissions, the US air quality laws are far stricter than other industrialized nations.  When it comes to clean air, the US - ...

My last article on inheritence taxes sure drew some controversy.  Surprisingly, much of it from conservatives.  Perphaps it's because I'm an only child or perhaps I just don't have the "correct" attitude on families but to me there are two types of income: Earned and unearned.  My problem with welfare is that it provides unearned income to people.  And so to me, inheritence isn't much better than welfare. Before you turn your flame throwers on, hear me out.  My view...

My wife and I are looking for lake front property up near Higgins Lake Michigan. There's not much lake front property now.  Not surprising given the law of supply and demand.  But the realtor told me something telling -- the reason there's not much land available is due to multi-generational inheritence.  That is, 150 years ago people bought land up there and simply hand it down from generation to generation.  Family land. How can that be bad? At first glance, such ge...

It is very common on-line to see people debating passionately about a given topic despite the fact they know next to nothing on the subject they're talking about.  I recently wrote about this issue  here.  Passion is good.  Passionate ignorance is not.  For economic discussions, here are some useful charts, courtesy of the congressional budget office.  They're not "spun". They're just figures that help people know how tax dollars are collected and spent. How th...

 In the recent Presidential Election the exit polls showed something very interesting: Married people with children voted for Bush at a rate of 60% to 40%. That's landslide numbers by any means. Which brings such to the Terry Schiavo case where some believe that the divide is amongst conservatives and liberals. But is it really? From just casual discussion with friends and neighbors it seems that the married people I know who have cihldren are much more likely to be horrified about wha...

As far as the law is concerned, it has spoken. Many courts have heard Terry Schiavo's case and concluded that Terry would not have wanted to be kept alive through artificial means. That is what this case boils down to. People have the right to decide whether they want to be kept alive via artificial means.  And the courts determined that there was sufficient evidence through testimony that Terry would not have wanted to be kept alive this way. However, it's the "evidence" that is prob...

During the early 90s the American right came to be seen as dominated by its zealots, bigots and extremists.  It was the high-tide of people like Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, and David Duke.  The Republicans (rightly) paid a political price for it.  The blindly ideological right is always ready to take center stage. Those of us who consider themselves socially moderate but fiscally conservative (that also includes not just me but Instapundit's Glenn Reynolds, Steven Den Beste,...

The said that Afghanistan would be a quagmire. They were wrong.  They said that invading Iraq would cause an "unrelenting wave of terrorists attacks on US soil" they were wrong.  They said that an invasion of Iraq would cost "half a million civilian deaths" they were wrong. And most recently that the US was losing the hearts and minds of Iraqis. That turn-out in the the Iraqi election would be low because people didn't have faith in the system.  And they were wrong again. 72...

Glenn Reynolds had a very interesting discussion with regards to how the Democrats should deal with their kooks: You rightly point out that we liberals must do our best to shout down, disassociate ourselves, do everything we can to make ourselves no longer the party of Michael Moore, Howard Zinn, Noam Chomsky, et al. And as you noted, the Right does do a better job of quieting its 'idiotarians'. The only problem is, they essentially do it with the "bribes and promises" approach. Jerr...

One thing that is both amusing and frustrating about the left in the United States is the claim that we went into Iraq mainly because of WMD.  That this was the only real justification for going into Iraq.  Left-wing comedians like to make a lot of noise on this.  John Stewart on the Daily Show, like many left wingers uses the "I'll make a snarky one liner to make the other side look stupid even though it's a strawman argument". Here is the resolution that congress voted on: ...

Not too many good Democratic politicians these days. What we mostly hear are shrill idealogues who come across as pretentious whiners. Not the new Senator from Illinois who has shown poise and intelligence in Condi Rice's senate confirmation. Here are some observations from Belgravia: OBAMA: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, members of the committee, Dr. Rice. First of all, let me say how grateful I am to have the opportunity to serve on this committee. I know that it has a...

If we learned anything last year with regards to the media and bloggers, it is that the days of ideologically driven "mainstream" reporting are numbered.  When CBS tried to smear Bush with blatantly phoney National guard documents it blew up back in CBS's face as Internet users posted on-line how the documents were obviously forged. Conservatives have had to grin and bear it for years as the mainstream media, led by the New York Times and followed by the network news stations, had a virt...

Here's an interesting view point from a well known Democrat: Born again Christians shouldn't get to vote: Following University President Don Randel’s warm introduction, the famed author, host, and wry wit of A Prairie Home Companion, started by commenting on election results. “I am a Democrat—it’s no secret. I am a museum-quality Democrat,” Keillor said. “Last night I spent my time crouched in a fetal position, rolling around and moaning in the dark.” Not one to shy away from speak...

I love statistics. The generosity index is from the people at the Catalogue of Philantrophy.  It is computed by taking each state's average income and the state's charitable donations and then ranking them. Turns out, red states do much better than blue states: Now before conservatives get too excited about demonstrating their moral superiority, I would be interested in seeing a chart of the original data - that is, the average income per person per state. Because this may be ...