Michael Moore and I share two things in common. We're both from Michigan and we're both grew up in the midst of Big Three blue collar workers.  But that's where the similarities end and the different readings on what the "majority" of Americans think about things. Michael Moore seems to have two basic beliefs: (1) The majority of Americans have liberal opinions. (2) Conservatives are all about "me me me me". To extrapolate on that, he essentially feels that m...

Those who say there isn't a liberal bias in the media should take a closer look at what the media chooses to report on. It doesn't even take long to discover that the issues that get reported tend to be ones dear to liberal causes. Let me give you a good example: Today the news covered how any millions of people are not covered by medical insurance.  It was reported repeatedly on NPR, CNN, ABC News, and CBS evening news (didn't see NBC but I bet it was reported there). Is that real...

There was a report, repeated often on the news today, that there are now 44 million Americans without health insurance. So what? No, seriously. What exactly does that mean? Does it mean you can't get medical care? No. What it means is that if you need medical care that you are responsible for paying for it yourself.  In other words, there are 44 million Americans whose health care isn't pay for by someone else (i.e. such as their employer as part of their compensation package). Unt...

Seems like everyone is writing about the recall in California. It makes for an exciting story but the aftermath won't likely be nearly as exciting. You already hear the Democrats complaining about lack of polling places (apparently it was too much to have to fill out a ballot and mail it in for these people). But here's some sobering realities: California is a mess. Why any business would locate itself in California is beyond me. If any state should have been chopped up into several states it...

Right now there's a lot of people who seem to think that because we haven't found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq is a major problem for the US. In fact, it's not. In the bigger picture, WMD was just a low hanging fruit excuse to do what needed to be done in Iraq. Those same people seem to forget that there were a lot of other low hanging fruit reasons to invade Iraq. One of the most obvious is, if he didn't have WMD, then Saddam was a fool to flout the UN resolutions and mess with the inspe...

At the risk of being an anti-populist (and worse), I'll be up front: I don't agree with universal suffrage. There, I've said it. Go ahead, call me names. I'm a bad bad man. But there's a reason for my view on this.  I don't believe that those who don't contribute to the treasury should be allowed to dictate what is done with that treasury to those who do. Calor writes in "Why the left hates Bush" that Gore should have been President. If only a few voters in Florida had man...

In American politics, presidential candidates like Howard Dean stress the need of getting other countries to like us "again". Do you think that French candidates sweat whether the United States likes France? In fact, the United States has a 200+ year obsession with wanting other countries to like us or to accept us. The upper crusts of the American life have traditionally felt scorn and embarrassment at the "crass" culture of the United States. In the United States, the middle class has always ...

Chicago Boyz has an article that outlines the continuing problems between the French and the UK. The French perspective seems to be "How can you Brits side with the Americans?" the British view tends to be "How can you not?"  British Foreign Minister Jack Straw thinks the problem comes from differing experiences from the second world war. IT was a watershed moment for the French.  As the Chicago Boyz blog points out, the French capitulated quite easily. As I'v...

Manufacturing jobs going over to China? Republicans fault. IT jobs going to India? Republicans. Acid rain? Republicans. Warm weather in November? Republicans. In fact, all bad things, if you listen to some people, are the fault of Republicans. You see, they have a deep dark secret: They favor businesses. And as hard as this is believe, given how enlightened we're supposed to be these days, they actually think capitalism is good. Isn't that amazing? Capitalism good! Let's take the charge t...

There is often a basic problem when trying to debate geo politics. You have one side that seems to be ruled by emotion or at least believes in "spiritual forces". You have the other side that seems to be ruled by logic and believes in direct causes and effects. The two don't mingle too well in debates. And nothing brings that up into sharper contrast than the debate about "root causes" of 9/11. For instance, some try to argue that the United States "provoked" ...

MadIce writes: I agree with your "True progress, in my opinion, is a melding of ethics and a realistic understanding of human nature." But isn't that a liberal point of view? It would allow you to make a progressive decision. Not necessarily. Each side's ideologues believe they have a lock on both. Communism failed because it didn't take into account human nature (which led to cascading inefficiency that ultimately spelled its ruin -- people generally want to succeed fo...

A lot of people claim Fox is a tool of the Republican party. But one has to wonder where that comes from. Being a regular FNC viewer, I decided to take a look at the line up and disect its "conservativeness". In a nutshell, FNC is simply a mirror of the other major news organizations. Instead of liberals picking and reading the news, it's conservatives. But unlike the other news organizations, FNC seems more inclined to present both points of view. Take a look and judge for yourself or...

People on the right tend to have an almost blind faith in market capitalism.  But people on the left tend to have a blind faith in the government's ability to distribute "Fairness". Nothing shows the perils of fairness more than when you talk about how much different professions pay. After all, what kind of world is it where a basketball player can make $10 million a year while a teacher only makes $30,000 a year? That, on the surface, strikes many people as a reasonable question....

Luvscure1 wrote an article that was very articulate even though I totally disagreed with it (which is why I featured it -- I wonder if Luvscure1 has anything to do with my favorite musical group, "The Cure" but that's a different subject). Amount of sympathy I have for people on welfare: 0. There are only two things you have to do in life to stay off of welfare statistically: Finish high school. Don't have any children until age 25. While it won't guarantee you never b...

I just finished Politicians, Partisans, and Parasites: My Adventures in Cable News by Tucker Carlson. It's a book that is...well Tucker Carlson's adventures in Cable News. Which isn't necessarily a good thing or what exactly I was hoping the book would be about. But let me start from the beginning... I first encountered Tucker Carlson on a late night TV show called "The Spin Room".  I immediately liked this guy as we share similar views on most issues. But more importantly tha...