AMERICANS MAKE BETWEEN 375 BILLION AND 420 BILLION LOCAL CALLS A YEAR

THAT'S AN AVERAGE OF 400 BILLION CALLS ON LAND LINES PER YEAR. THAT DOESN'T INCLUDE CELLPHONE CALLS.

So, if the US fed gov't is monitoring a few million call records it is, IN FACT, a highly targeted program - I mean, sheesh, "tens of millions" out of 400 BILLION/year, that's like what.... .25%, AT BEST.

And, it's a legal program too - WITHOUT a warrant. At least according to the SCOTUS; (see Smith vs Maryland, 1979 - a DECISION written by liberal hero Blackmun!), AND ACCORDING TO US CODE! (MORE HERE. AND HERE.)

This makes perfect, common sense, when you think about it: Gathering and analyzing call RECORDS is more like a police roadblock which stops EVERYONE (even though the police are searching for someone in particular), than it is like a search of a single car. Or look at it this way: It's more like the surveillance of all the people coming and going from a suspect's home, than it's like the search of the suspect's home. In both cases the former requires NO WARRANT, while the latter does.

And those who claim that subsequent laws passed by Congress "closed that loophole" conveniently forget that the Constitution can only be altered by AMENDMENT: Congress cannot pass a law which makes illegal something which is constitutional - only an AMENDMENT can do that.

Those who deride the Bush Administration for this highly targeted and entirely legal effort are not dummies; THEY KNOW THIS, and they deride Bush anyhow - just for temporary political gain. It's shameless and disgusting - and IT AIDS THE ENEMY!

The Left knows this, too. They don't care. The Left would rather hurt Bush, than hurt the REAL enemy. The Left has always put their own anti-West/anti-free market/anti-religion socialist/partisan political goals ahead of everything and anything else.

This attack against Bush, Hayden and the NSA is merely another in a long line of attacks which prove that the Left -- and the MSM they dominate -- couldn't care less if their tactics mean we could lose Iraq, or WW4 - AS LONG AS THEY HURT BUSH.

WHY WOULD THEY RISK LOSING WW4?! Because they value multiculturalism. abortion, euthanasia, socialized medicine, government pensions, and the "progressive" tax system more than they value individual liberty.

(ALSO MORE HERE.)

5/14/06 - ADDENDUM: THERE'S ANOTHER REASON THE DEMOCRAT/LEFT IS ATTACKING THE NSA - MONEY:

TRIALS LAWYERS ARE ALREADY SUING THE TELECOMS WHICH LAWFULLY COOPERATED WITH THE NSA FOR BILLIONS!

Heck, this could be a bigger windfall for "Dem/Left ambulance chasers/trial lawyers" than the bogus Cerebral Palsy (CP) lawsuits lawyer-scumbags like John Edwards brought against good OB-GYN's. These lawusits made scum like Edwards rich, and drove good doctors out of the business of delivering children. AND THE WHOLE THING WAS BOGUS! All lawyer-scumbags like Edwards did was convince a jury that the CP of the baby was the fault of the doctor. This is something which has since been proven to be ENTIRELY BOGUS. Has Edwards returned the money!? HA! Scum. Well, these very same type of "trial lawyers" are now suing the telecoms FORT BILLIONS? CONCIDENCE?! Hardly. This type of scum cares not a whit if they ruin doctors lives, wreck the practice of sound medicine - AS LONG AS THEY THEMSELVES GET RICH. The lawyers who are suing the telecoms over the NSA brouhaha don't care if they damage Bush or our efforts to win WW4 - AS LONG AS THEY GET RICH. Scum.

The Left is a Fifth Column, undermining our efforts to defeat the enemy. In fact, they're the only force which can lead to a victory for the enemy. For if they get in power, they will SURRENDER. Of course, they'll call it appeasement, or raprochement, or detente, or "PEACE IN OUR TIME." YUP: they'll do to the Iraqis and Afghanis what they did to the South Vietnamese in 1975, and the Contras in 1982 and the Cuban Freedom Fighters in 1962, the Tutsis in 1994, and Eastern Europe at Yalta in February 1945 - and so on: ABANDON THEM.

This is why I actually consider a Democrat/Left/dove victory in the Fall to be the single GREATEST threat we face as a civilization. Seriously: it'd be like the Brits electing Chamberlain PM in 1943!

NEW NSA BROUHAHA IS NOT NEW AND NOT BAD

WASH POST:

The Bush administration has secretly been collecting the domestic telephone records of millions of U.S. households and businesses, assembling gargantuan databases and attempting to sift through them for clues about terrorist threats, according to sources with knowledge of the program.

The "call detail records" enable U.S. intelligence agencies to track who calls whom, and when, but do not include the contents of conversations, the sources said ...

This type of intel gathering is NOT illegal or unconstitutional; (it's like setting up a roadblock or doing random searches - NEITHER OF WHICH REQUIRES A WARRANT OR PROBABLE CAUSE; IT MERELY NEEDS TO BE REASONABLE).

And - as a recent report about the 7/7 subway bombings in London revealed - it can possibly detect terrorists BEFORE THEY STRIKE. Which is good.

Politicians who deride it are fools. And there are plenty like that. In both parties.

MORE HERE. AND HERE, TOO. NYTIMES bias HERE.

BTW: Americans make BILLIONS AND BILLIONS of calls. Sifting through CALLING PATTERNS of a few million in order to ferret out some which might be terror-related is not "widespread surveillance" - as the Left-wing dominated MSM portrays it - but TARGETED intel gathering. WHICH CAN SAVE LIVES.

But then, truth and life are two things that the Left doesn't believe in.

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC: TREES CAUSED MAMMOTH EXTINCTIONS

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC/NATURE:

Dale Guthrie, a researcher at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks, has spent some 20 years examining more than 600 bones of large mammals from Alaska and the Yukon Territory. ... Guthrie's data, published in tomorrow's issue of the journal Nature, shows that increases in moisture and warmer temperatures 13,500 to 11,500 years ago allowed for edible plants to migrate north. This plant exodus provided more food sources for horses, mammoths, bison, and elks living in the far north, he suggests. ...

But then the milder climate backfired on the big mammals. It paved the way for trees, which eventually outshaded and outcompeted the low-lying plants the animals depended on, Guthrie says. The upstart forests transferred the landscape's nutrients to the treetops, out of the reach of large mammals. Elks and bison, it seems, adapted better to the new landscape than mammoths and horses. ...

Guthrie notes that there is thousand-year gap between when people showed up and when mammoths died off.

IOW: People didn't kill them off; the extinction of the mammoths was entirely NATURAL.

Today's eco-nazis seem to feel that the current state of natural affairs is perfect and immutable and should not be changed, nor would it be changed if it weren't for evil humans. No species would become extinct, no climates would change. Which is pure bunk. The geo-eco-bio world is constantly changing, and some species survive and others do not. No law and no treaty and no technology will ever change that fact.

(OH, BY THE WAY: THERE WERE NO STINKING SUV'S AROUND BACK THEN - ABOUT 13,500-11,500 YEARS AGO - EITHER. SO I GUESS THE WARMING UP OF THE CLIMATE WAS NATURAL, TOO.)

THE UN AND THE IAEA ASSIST THE TRIUMPH OF EVIL

BBC:

UN nuclear chief Mohamed ElBaradei has welcomed the move by the UN Security Council to hold off imposing sanctions on Iran over its nuclear programme."The only solution to the Iran situation is a comprehensive package through dialogue, through negotiation," Mr ElBaradei said. The US had said earlier this week that pursuit of a tough UN Security Council resolution on Iran would be delayed.

"It is very good that the [UN] Security Council holds its horses," Mr ElBaradei said at a news conference in Amsterdam. "I am very optimistic, I hope both sides will move away from the war of words, I hope the pitch will go down... we need compromises on both sides," he added. ...

Tehran has so far ignored calls from the UN to suspend uranium enrichment.

As the old saying goes, all that evil needs to triumph is for good men to do nothing. Though in this case it seems to me like the UN is - for all intents and purposes - actually abetting Iran, by providing the means for them to delay until they get the bomb.

Baradei, and his ilk on the morally relativist Left, make no moral distinction between the two sides in this confrontation: the democratic West (where all people are equal before the law), and the tyranny of Iran - where open calls for genocide are repeatedly made by their president, and where women are virtual SLAVES.

MY POINT: the bomb is itself not a problem. The problem is, WHO has the bomb. No decent country is threatened by Israel's bomb anymore than they are threatened by France's or ours. But the whole of the CIVILIZED world is threatened by the POSSIBILITYof Iran getting the bomb. NOT because Iranians are evil, but because Iranians are enslaved to an evil regime ruled by evil men who follow an evil ideology - an evil ideology which must be destroyed for Humanity to be liberated.

We cannot co-exist with jihadoterrorism. It's us or them. One way or another. By regime change or by preemptive strike.

The Baradei's and Kofi's and Hillary's of the world will do nothing but talk. And talk is not a policy. Nor is appeasement a winning strategy.

As a man far braver and smarter than Baradei once said: "I know not what others may choose. But as for me..."

Which man's approach changed the world for the better? Has appeasement ever done more than give the enemy time to strengthen!? NO.

The critical moment approaches. If we prize our liberty, then we will need at least as much wisdom and courage as Mr. Henry.

THE UK TAKES ANOTHER STEP TOWARDS BECOMING A BRAVE NEW WORLD

WASH POST:

British regulators yesterday ruled that fertility clinics may screen out human embryos carrying genes that raise the risk of cancer in adulthood -- a move the government said could prevent future suffering but that others said was proof that the age of handpicked, "designer" babies is at hand. ... Some experts fear that as scientists discover genes affecting traits such as obesity, addiction, intelligence or height, a market in elective embryo screening may emerge -- backed by evidence that selected children would be healthier, happier and more successful.

The kind of testing in question, known as preimplantation genetic diagnosis, is conducted on one or two cells removed harmlessly from a three-day-old test tube embryo created by in vitro fertilization. If a cell is found to harbor an unwanted gene, that embryo is not used.

This type of screening is immoral. It's eugenics and it's a hop-skip-and-jump from this to "creating a master race." Amniocentesis yields similar results. And the CHOICE CROWD supports it: PERIOD. After all, (they seem to say): "Having perfect babies is so much more pleasureable. That's what the secular pro-choice crowd is ALL about, really: hedonism: "If it feels good, then do it." Even if it's immoral - 'cause in their morally relativist world, there's no such thing as universal morality; morality is just subjective, merely product of one's culture. Which is why they're incapable of advocating direct action to support universal human rights. Heck, I can't even find a pro-choice person to admit that using abortion to choose the gender of a baby should be made illegal WORLDWIDE. Their's is truly a Brave New World. Brave New World is nothing if not a Leftist totalitarian "utopia" where pleasure rules. And where imperfect babies are aborted. Imperfect PEOPLE killed. Shameless.

THE UN IS A HARMFUL CESSPOOL WHICH SHOULD BE ABOLISHED

First this item, from the BBC:

Liberia sex-for-aid 'widespread'

Young girls in Liberia are still being sexually exploited by aid workers and peacekeepers despite pledges to stamp out such abuse, Save the Children says. Girls as young as eight are being forced to have sex in exchange for food by workers for local and international agencies, according to its report. The agency says such abuse is continuing as people displaced by the civil war return to their villages.

This was hardly the first UN sex scandal - more HERE and HERE and HERE and and HERE. And HERE, too. IT'S OBVIOUSLY A SYSTEMIC PROBLEM.

NOW THIS - (also from the BBC):

UN elects new human rights body -

UN general assembly - Voting is expected to finish on Tuesday -

Several nations considered by activists to have poor human rights records have won election to the newly formed UN Human Rights Council. China, Cuba, Pakistan, Russia and Saudi Arabia were among 44 states confirmed on the 47-strong council, elected by the UN General Assembly.

(More on the idiotic "UN Humans Rights Council" HERE.)

And who could forget the UN FOOD FOR OIL SCANDAL, (MORE HERE.) Or that Kofi is corrupt useless scum who stood by and watched as 750,000 Rwandans were slaughtered.

I have come to believe that THE UN DOES MORE HARM THAN GOOD.

It's time to withdraw, and KICK THEM OUT OF THE USA. They can sell the Manhattan property to Trump - it would make a fine hotel/condo/casino/marina.

EGYPT NAILS MAJOR JIHADOTERRORIST

BBC:

Egyptian police say they have shot and killed the suspected ringleader of an Islamic militant group blamed for last month's deadly bombing in Dahab. ... Security forces said they surrounded Mr el-Mallahi in an olive grove to the south of el-Arish, after receiving a tip-off. Lt Gen Essam el-Sheikh, head of police in northern Sinai, told the Associated Press news agency that an accomplice, named as Mohammed Abdullah Abu Grair, was arrested in the same operation. "This is a major blow to the terrorist group," Gen el-Sheikh said.

Er um... this came as a result of a TIP - meaning that local Muslims turned them in.

Could it be that Bush and Rummy will win the hearts and minds of the Muslim world BEFORE they can convince the Left!? As absurd as it sounds I think the answer is: "YES!" Muslims living in the Third World may be more rational than affluent Lefties living in their fantasy world.

IOW: Today's Left may be EVEN more conspiratorial, and in deeper denial than Muslims. Or look at it this way: As a cult, Leftism (meaning socialist totalitarianism - or Marxism, Stalinism, Maoism, Nazism, etc.) killed more people and developed more adherents in the 20th Century than Islam has in fourteen centuries!

And as long as the Left dominates the academy, the MSM and the bureaucracy this will be tough to alter. Victory in Iraq, and else where in WW4 may very well be the final blow which eradicates the Left. I think they sense this and it's ANOTHER reason that they are making it so tough for our side to win.

LT GENERAL HAYDEN WAS UNANIMOUSLY CONFIRMED BY THE SENATE AS PRINCIPAL DEPUTY DIRECTOR OF DNI

Arch leb-Dem Senator Mikulski even went out of her way to endorse him.

As principal Deputy DNI - for all intents-and-puposes - the CIA already "reported" to him, so the charge that his nomination represents an encroachment of the Pentagon into intelligence is hollow at best - but perhaps shameless and LUDICROUS better describe it.

As for the NSA Terrorist Intercept Program debate that will inevitably now result: I welcome it! (See below.)

BTW: Six (6) previous DCI's were active military men at the time of their nomination. As Drummond of POLIPUNDIT points out: all were nominated by Dem presidents so it was okay. Heh.

THREE SOLUTIONS TO THE ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION ISSUE

The three major reasons most Americans are unhappy about illegal immigration these days are simple:

(1) the illegals pay next to no taxes, yet use a lot of services (like hopsitals, schools, roads, utilities, etc.);
(2) they don't assimilate;
(3) there are too many of them and they are depressing income.

Each of these has a simple solution:

First, cut the W2 tax rate for all W2 filers. Make up the difference with a national SALES TAX. This is a tax which illegals CANNOT AVOID PAYING. Nor could tourists. EVERYONE CONSUMING ANYTHING WOULD PAY IT. Let's say actuaries say we can make make it around 5%. Then, we give a TAX REBATE to ALL W2 filers of 5% on the first $35,000-$50,000 of their gross income - or thereabouts, so that the National Sales Tax would be ENTIRELY NEUTRAL for the LEGAL working class. This tax should increase federal receipts, too - since it would tax the consumption of an additional 12 millions consumers, the ILLEGAL ALIENS.

Second, we should make English the official language for all federal activities, and require that states make English their official language in order to get any federal funds, (like people getting a driver's license should be required to speak and read English). This will improve assimilation.

Third, build a fence.

Problem solved.

HAYDEN'S NOMINATION WILL LEAD TO GOP VICTORY IN NOVEMBER

By nominating Hayden, Bush BRILLIANTLY guarantees two things: (1) that we get an outstanding DCI; and (2) that the GOP gets a great issue for the coming election, one which will bifurcate the electorate in a way which benefits the GOP as it galvanizes the GOP base.

Let's face it: Bush has disappointed AS LOT of conservatives for A LOT of reasons: spending and PORK is rampant; immigration policy has been weak (AT BEST!); Bush has seemingly caved-in on "man-made" global warming; and his communications department has been PITIFUL (ever since Hughes and Fleischer first left. Let's hope Bolten and Snow mend things).

And these disappointments come as the Dem/Left, and the MSM they dominate, have been relentless in its attacks - ATTACKS WHICH HAVE BEEN FUELED BY A SEEMING FIFTH COLUMN WITHIN THE CIA: from the NSA leak to the Rendition leak, to the "Secret prison" leak, and so on. I t seems as if there is a cohort within the CIA which has been actively and illegally trying to undermine the policy of the duly elected government of the United States of America. This is nothing less than an attempted coup d'etat.

Yet Bush holds on... by the skin of his... Well you know what I mean!

Now, here comes the Hayden nomination. And we can depend on the Dem/Left - folks like Feingold - to try to use the president's nomination to reopen the debate on the NSA Intercept Program. AND WHAT WILL BE THE RESULT? The same now as when that debate last occupied center-stage: a resounding victory for Bush! The Dem/Left will expose themselves as soft-on-defense (and pro-terrorist's rights), and the GOP will come off as the only party the nation can trust with our national security.

BRAVO BUSH! GOOD NOMINATION. I look forward to the debate.

AND REMEMBER: this debate will be occupying center-stage over the next month or so, just as (I PREDICT): the DOW will climb OVER 12,000; and oil prices per barrel will continue to decline; and we will catch-or-kill Zarqawi.

I SMELL A BIG GOP WIN IN NOVEMBER! (Related thoughts HERE from Betsy.) MORE HERE, TOO.

THE IRONIC HYPOCRISY OF THE ATHEISTIC LEFT

The atheistic Left doesn't believe in God, but they sure seem like they want to play God:

They want to manipulate - even kill - human embryos; they think it's fine to euthanize preemies, the comatose; to abort fetuses on demand; and to practice nearly all forms of eugenics.

They want to control GLOBAL CLIMATE - (and think they can!).

They want to ARBITRARILY pick winners and losers in the marketplace and to redistribute other people's personal property according to their own ideas of who deserves what.

They want to ARBITARILY redefine ANCIENT institutions like marriage and CITIZENSHIP and RELIGION according to their own "image" by making gay marriage legal, by making illegal immigration legal, and by making religions which have - for THOUSANDS OF YEARS - banned homosexuality, accept it.

The post modern Left is thoroughly "humanistic" and sees nothing eternal or metaphysical OR EVEN TRUE outside or beyond humanity and human subjectivity. Religious people see that there are things which TRANSCEND our subjective and cultural situations - that truth and beauty and justice are not merely subjective positions which are culturally defined, but are transcendent and absolute and universal, (even if our appreciation of their transcendence is almost always approximate). Acceptance of our approxiamte ability to perfectly comporehend transcendent truths is exactly why religious people know that they CANNOT and SHOULD NOT play God.

Another irony is that while the Left propounds that God is a dangerous figment of the human imagination, (which is inevitably a product of one's culture and personal psychology, and is therefore far from perfect/objective and is almost always biased), the Left believes that these imperfect and inevitably BIASED people can play God (pick winners and losers in the marketplace, and in life-and-death situations). This is actually beyond irony and into PURE HYPOCRISY. Like nearly everything about the Left. (I KNOW: I used to be a Leftist!)

BOTTOM-LINE: The FACT that each person's awareness and capability is imperfect is why BELIEVERS don't play God, and why when Leftists do try to play God they always make things worse!

WHAT IF AMERICANS DID TO MEXICO WHAT MEXICANS WANT TO DO TO AMERICA?

Great sarcastic post here, at NEWS WITH VIEWS. INTRO:

Dear President Bush:

I'm about to plan a little trip with my family and extended family, and I would like to ask you to assist me. I'm going to walk across the border from the U.S. into Mexico, and I need to make a few arrangements. I know you can help with this.

I plan to skip all the legal stuff like visas, passports, immigration quotas and laws. I'm sure they handle those things the same way you do here.

So, would you mind telling your buddy, President Vicente Fox, that I'm on my way over? Please let him know that I will be expecting the following:

His list of "requests" is damning - and it would also be SIMPLY hilarious if it weren't sadly so effin true! RTWT.

VIETNAM: MYTHS, LIES AND THE NYTIMES

Taranto has the goods via BETSY who makes a stunning case against the NYTIMES.

MONEY QUOTE:

if they [the NYTIMES] can't get 30-year old history right [about Vietnam], don't be shocked about the errors that they have about current events [IRAQ!].

Vietnam was a noble casue; we were winning militarily. If the Left-wing dominated MSM hadn't LIED about the war, and if the doves/Democrats hadn't pulled the plug on the South Vietnamese in 1975 - A FULL TWO YEARS AFTER THE LAST US COMBAT TROOP HAD LEFT VIETNAM - then TODAY, South Vietnam would be as free and as rich as South Korea, and we'd probably be driving South Vietnamese cars, using South Vietnamese cellphones.

Instead, the south of Vietnam - like the north - is nearly as poor and as tryannized as North Korea! Because the 1970's Democrat doves (including the likes of current party leaders TEDDY JO KENNEDY and JOHN KERRY) pulled the plug on our democratic allies in the south of Vietnam, 65 MILLION Vietnamese have lived in poverty and under tyranny for more than 30 years!

If they are given the chance in 2006, I believe the Democrat doves - TEDDY JO KENNEDY, JOHN KERRY AND DEAN AND BOXER AND REID AND PELOSI AND DEAN AND DURBIN - will do the same thing to Iraq, Afghanistan - and Israel. And the LYING MSM will aid and abet.

700 TON MESSAGE FOR IRAN AND NORTH KOREA

CHICAGO TRIB:

The Pentagon plans to explode a 700-ton conventional bomb on June 2 at the Nevada atomic test site as part of a military program to develop weapons for destroying underground enemy bunkers.

The blast will be one of the largest bomb tests since the end of the Cold War. ... Defense Intelligence Agency and Central Intelligence Agency officials have testified that potential adversaries such as North Korea and Iran increasingly burrow their secret weapons and command centers into well-protected underground bunkers.

The June explosion "represents to us the largest single explosive that we could imagine doing conventionally to solve that problem" of destroying underground bunkers, Tegnelia said.

If they don't get the message now, we will send it again - next time via AIR MAIL!

A MODEST PROPOSAL FOR THE 21ST CENTURY

Recently, The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists in the UK - a professional docotr's organization in the UK - took a public position AGAINST giving medical care to extremely premature babies - babies gestated less than 25 weeks when born. BBC:

Early babies dubbed bed blockers

A row has broken out after experts described the costly treatment of very premature babies as "bed blocking". A report by the birth specialists' professional body said the care of sicker babies was compromising services for healthier babies and their mothers.

Costs must be considered as experts became able to save more and more earlier babies, the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists added. ... The RCOG report to the Nuffield Council on Bio-ethics said:

"Some weight should be given to economic considerations as there is a real issue in neo-natal units of 'bed blocking'; whereby women have to be transferred in labour to other units, compromising both their and their babies' care. "One of the problems of the 'success' of neonatal intensive care is that the practitioners are always pushing the boundaries. "There has been a constant need to expand numbers of cots to cover the increasing tendency to try and rescue baby at lower and lower gestations."

President of the Royal College of Paediatrics Professor Alan Craft said many paediatricians would support moves to bring in a model followed in the Netherlands of no active intervention for these very early babies. ...

Pressure group Patient Concern said the attitude of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists towards premature babies would horrify potential parents.

The group's co-director Joyce Robins said: "Babies born at 24 weeks have nearly a 40% chance of survival. What is the next step? Withholding treatment from anyone with cancer, heart or respiratory disease who has only a 40% chance of a worthwhile life?

"Once we have doctors marking people for life or death on this inhumane basis, we shall find ourselves in a terrifying society."

ER UM.... they're not JUST doctors; in the UK - because medicine is SOCIALIZED - they're the GOVERNMENT, and they often try to save the GOVERNMENT money. And because a SOCIALIZED healthcare system means RATIONING care, it also means that the GOVERNMENT picks "winner & losers" and even puts its OWN INTEREST into the equation. This bit of news PROVES that doctors are willing to ration care to save the government money.

The proposal to withhold care to save money is an IMMORAL PROPOSAL. But if socialists REALLY want to save money, then I suggest [sarcastically!] that we can solve our HEALTHCARE, MEDICARE, MEDICAID and SOCIAL SECURITY problems all at once and very easily: we need only pass a mandate (that's Left-speak for pass a law) that would do THREE THINGS:

(1) make it ILLEGAL to give ANY MEDICAL CARE to anyone over 70;

(2) make it illegal to give any medical care to any baby gestated less than 25 weeks;

and (3) make it illegal for people below the poverty line to have children.

Right now, most people get most of their medical care in the last few years of their life - and for most of us that's after we're 70.

Our increased longevity is one reason that Social Security is goiung bankrupt: When it was designed in the 1930's the retirement age and the average life-span were BOTH 65, so Soc Sec didn't have many long-payouts then; now it does!

But, if we made it ILLEGAL to giove healthcare to people overe 70 - and just let OLD PEOPLE DIE - then instead of a deficit we'd have a surplus - in Soc. Sec. AND Medicare! YUP: We would reap a double saving: We'd save tons of Soc. Sec and tons of Medicare. What good are old people anyhow: they are unproductive, and besides they're no longer "with-it" or hip. Also: let's raise the age of retirement to 70! WE SAVE EVEN MORE!

And by making it illegal for poor people to have children we can effectively end poverty in a generation! (Heck: we should probably just EUTHANIZE people on their 70th birthday - it would save the government money and keep real estate prices low! Old people are just taking uo space that young people need! And preemies are not worth the time or money!) [SARCASM OFF!]

Each of these immoral proposals are the logical extension of socialism. And things like this happen in China where they practice infanticide and forced abortions to keep the population "under control."

BUSH, SUV'S AND MPG: MORE BOGUS REGULATIONS

The "liberal" Bush Adminstration - which claimed we are "addicted to imported gas" - recently annouced the biggest increase in MPG requirments for SUV's. They're requiring that US automakers raise the AVERAGE MPG ratings of their SUV FLEETS.

This cannot have ANY possible effect on US consumption of gas. People purchase cars - and SUV's - according to their own needs and these purchases DO NOT "mirror" the fleets AT ALL!

Look at it this way: if each US automaker only made 2 SUV's - one which got 40 MPG and one which got 10 MPG, then their fleet average would be within the goal set by Bush - 25 MPG (for 2011!).

However, if consumers only buy the 10 MPG SUV, then this new regulation would have ZERO EFFECT. Free people buy what they want; this is THE MARKETPLACE. And the MARKETPLACE determines what our "national" gasoline usage is; it is NOT and can NEVER BE determined by the government setting fleet averages.

That's why this type of regulation is nothing more than phony posturing by demagogues - in this case Liberal Green ones. People who applaud this kind of regualtory misadventure are fools.

CHIRAC CAPITULATES TO THE LEFTIST RIOTERS

After the The Paris Intifada, the cowardly French capitulated to the Muslim banlieue gangs - gangs made up of mostly unassimliated immigrant thugs. Now, THE FRENCH HAVE NOW PROVEN THAT THEY ARE SUCH DAMN COWARDS, THEY'LL EVEN SURRENDER TO THEMSELVES:

Contentious French labor law to be modified -

MarketWatch:

French President Jacques Chirac on Friday night said the government's highly contested new youth labor law, known as CPE, would be applied despite mounting opposition it. Originally, the law aimed to make it easier for employers to hire people under 26 by allowing them to dimiss them at the end of a two-year period without cause. In the face of recent strikes that have paralyzed universities and transport networks, Chirac, however, made significant concessions. In one of the most highly anticipated televised addresses of his presidency, he said he would cut the trial period during which employees could be summarily dismissed from two years to one. He also said employers would have to give a reason for the lay off.

Chirac and Villepin have TOTALLY CAVED IN TO THE SOCIALIST RIOTERS! What a JOKE! If Sarkozy isn't elected - or if he is, but DOESN'T SUCCEED in Angloi-zing France - the republique will, in only a decade or so, certainly resemble Turkey and Egypt more than Luxembourg or Switzerland: it will continue to have very high unemployment and be mostly MUSLIM.

The Eiffel Tower will become a muezzin serving the Mosque de Notre Dame!

OVERSIGHT, "CHECKS & BALANCES" AND CENSURING BUSH

I got a chance to watch some of the CENSURE HEARINGS tonight on C-SPAN - you know the hearings that FEINGOLD forced on us, and in which he called JOHN DEAN of Watergate INFAMY - (who by the way is hardly an unbiased witness: he wrote a book calling for the impeachment of Bush BEFORE the NSA stuff became public!).

Here's the GIST of the whole dang "NSA-Censure" controversy:

Lefties like Feingold - (and even some LIBERALS LIKE SPECTOR) - think that the president should NOT have "gone around" the FISA Court for his "NSA International Terrorist Intercept Program." They believe this because they think that the way Bush did it was WITHOUT enough CHECKS & BALANCES or OVERSIGHT; they think that the FISA process is more of a CHECK on presidential authority.

THIS IS ABSOLUTELY FALSE. Here's why:

The FISA process requires that the POTUS (through his AG) need ONLY get approval from ONE SINGLE SOLITARY APPOINTED JUDGE IN TOTAL SECRET, and this only has to be renewed every 90 days.

The process which Bush used for this program entails informing EIGHT (8!) ELECTED CONGRESSMEN IN BOTH HOUSES EVERY 45 DAYS!

This means that by ANY LOGICAL MEASURE, the specific way that Bush has authorized the NSA to go about their interceptions means the program actually has MORE CHECK & BALANCES than if he had been using the FISA process!

I REPEAT:

FISA process = secretly telling ONE (1) appointed judge every NINETY (90) days.

Bush told EIGHT (8) ELECTED Congressman every FOPRTY-FIVE (45) days.

By my reckoning, the way Bush went about it SIXTEEN (16) times MORE OVERSIGHT than if he had used the regular old vanilla FISA process - (which is, BTW, a process he has used MORE than any other president - PROVING he is not shy about using it when he thinks it's correct to do so).

The people who assert that "KING GEORGE", er um Bush, "usurped" UNCHECKED secret powers under the cloak of "national security" argue as if the program was unchecked (which is NOT true - it has MORE checks!), and as if we were NOT at war (not true - we are!), and as if the POTUS was NOT the Commander-in-Chief (he is!).

They are Leftists & Liberal poseurs, partisan hacks, and demagogues trying to make a mountain out of a molehill. They should be TOTALLY ignored on this issue. MORE HERE AND HERE. And more here, too. And here.

IRAQ DOCS PROVE PUTIN ISN'T TRUSTWORTHY

POOTY-TOOT: PART OF THE PROBLEM, NOT PART OF THE SOLUTION.

A MUST READ FROM CAPT'S QUARTERS.

Complete roundup of news reports and blog comments HERE.

MUCH MORE HERE AT GATEWAY PUNDIT: evidence of high level miltiary meetings between Saddam and Russian envoys days before the war, AND... contemporaneous reports of the strange movements of Russian ambassador Titorenko - to Syria and back to Baghdad - in the first stages of the war.

(IT ALL SMACKS OF COLLUSION AND MAKES ME SURER THAN EVER THAT RUSSIA PROBABLY HELPED SADDAM HIDE THE WMD STOCKPILES IN SYRIA.)

UPDATE: OVER ONE YEAR AGO I POSTED THAT PUTIN WAS PART OF THE AXIS OF EVIL, PART OF THE PROBLEM AND NOT THE SOLUTION:

PUTIN-IRAN AXIS - (Friday, February 18, 2005)

MSNBC/AP:

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Friday that he is convinced Iran does not intend to develop nuclear weapons and said he plans to visit Iran. Putin, at a meeting with Iranian National Security Council chief Hasan Rohani, also said Russia would continue its nuclear cooperation with Iran. Moscow has helped Iran build a nuclear reactor, a project that has been heavily criticized by the United States which fears it could be used to help Tehran develop nuclear weapons.

I have looked into Putin's eyes and seen the soul of an autocrat and an adversary who has joined the Axis of Evil. Putin is helping Iran, Styria, and North Korea. That makes him part of the problem, not part of the solution.

It is HIGH TIME we fomented an ORANGE REVOLUTION in Russia! More HERE.

UPDATE: NRO has a MUST READ on Russia by Ilan Berman. EXCERPT:

Moscow's renewed maneuvers in the Middle East have everything to do with ideology. Over the past year, Putin's increasingly authoritarian governing style has succeeded in eliminating any semblance of serious domestic opposition to the Kremlin, giving the Russian president virtual carte blanche to formulate foreign and defense policy. Worse still, this growing political mandate has been mirrored by the revival of unhealthy notions of Russian greatness and geopolitical opposition to the United States. Whether these ideas actually benefit Russian national interests in the long term remains to be seen. But for the United States, the Kremlin's counterproductive policies in the Middle East — and the corrosive ideology underpinning them — are becoming harder and harder to ignore.

THE RECENT FACTS WHICH HAVE COME TO LIGHT ONLY REINFORCE MY OPINION - JUSTIFIABLY SO.

IF RUSSIA BLOCKS ANY MOVE AT THE UNSC AGAINST ASSAD OR IRAN, THEN IT PROVES THAT THE RUSSIA IS AN ENEMY AND THE U.N. IS USELESS; AND THEN, WE SHOULD WITHDRAW FROM THE UN AND KICK THEM OUT OF THE USA.

SCIENTISTS DISCOVER 130,000 YEAR OLD SUV!

NOT! Today's BIG BOGUS GLOBAL WARMING NEWS is this:

Global warming appears to be pushing vast reservoirs of ice on Greenland and Antarctica toward a significant, long-term meltdown. The world may have as little as a decade to take the steps to avoid this scenario.

Those are the implications of new studies that looked to climate history for clues about how the planet's major ice sheets might respond to human-triggered climate change. Already, temperatures in the Arctic are close to those that thawed much of Greenland's ice cap some 130,000 years ago, when the planet last enjoyed a balmy respite from continent-covering glaciers, say the studies' authors.

(SAME BS HERE AND HERE AND HERE AND HERE - and in 400 other articles today!)

IOW: according to these scientists, the Earth was about this warm 130,000 years ago - in between the last two ice ages (and before humanity burned any fossil fuels!). IOW: These alternating ages have ALWAYS been a part of Earth's NORMAL geo-history. SO, WHY BLAME HUMAN USE OF FOSSIL FUELS NOW?!

It makes no sense at all - except as subterfuge for Leftists to pass all kinds of restrictions on free enterprise and for them to raise taxes and redistribute the revenue to people and organizations they like.

If they succeed, it will DO NOTHING TO CHANGE GLOBAL WARMING, while damaging the world's economies, and hurting the Third World by diverting monies which SHOULD INSTEAD be used to build them water purification plants; (polluted WATER - and NOT polluted air - is the REAL chief environmental killer of most people in the world).

Man-made global warming due to man-made greenhouse gases is one of the most pernicious BIG LIES in human history, right up there with everything Marx, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, and Bin Laden ever said. SURE: So-called "man-made global-warming" does have many adherents - in science and in politics it's the dominant meme. SO WHAT!? Communism - the fastest growing CULT of all-time (and the fastest dying!) had 2 billion adherents; Islam has 1 billion. Their numbers don't prove their claims.

SECRET TAPE OF NOTORIOUS DANISH "CARTOON" IMAN IMPLICATES AMR MOUSSA IN JIHADOTERROR

FROM AGORA - (VIA GATEWAY PUNDIT WHO HAS ADDITIONAL LINKS):

BREAKING NEWS

This just in. One down. One being tackled as we speak. Imam Abu Laban of pig-eared fame apparently knew about a planned “Martyr action” on February 21st. Quoting from my transcript of previously unreleased footage from Mohammed Sifaoui, the journalist who broke the news of Imam Ahmed Akkari’s death threats against Naser Khader. Imam Abu Laban is speaking of a man who plans to execute a martyr operation in connection with the Battle of Khartoon:

"He’s doing everything to get contacts. ... He’s contacted Amr Moussa and means to wreak absolute havoc. ... He wants to join the fray and turn it into a Martyr operation right now. "

... [a] French TV journalist ... infiltrated the Danish Imam environment. One of his recordings with a hidden camera reveals that Imam Abu Laban speaks of a person who, quoting: “Wants to wreak absolute havoc and conduct a Martyr-operation.”

Danish Police plans to question Imam Abu Laban about that as soon as he return from a conference of Imams in Bahrain.

TO ME THE BLOCKBUSTER NEWS IN THIS ISN'T THAT ABU LABAN IS A LIAR; (THAT WAS WELL KNOWN AND I FIRST POSTED THAT MONTHS AGO).

THE BIG HEADLINE NEWS IS THAT A JIHADOTERRORIST WOULD BE IN DIRECT CONTACT WITH AMR MOUSSA - WHO IS THE FORMER FOREIGN MINISTER OF EGYPT - (FOR A DECADE!) - AND PRESENTLY THE SECRETARY GENERAL OF THE ARAB LEAGUE! (MORE DETAILS ON MOUSSA HERE AND HERE AND HERE. AND HERE, TOO.)

WHY WOULD A JIHADOTERRORIST BE IN CONTACT WITH MOUSSA - AND WANT TO DISCUSS A "MARTYR OPERATION" WITH HIM BEFORE THE ATTACK!? THERE'S ONLY ONE POSSIBLE EXPLANATION:

MOUSSA MUST BE A PART OF THE JIHADOTERRORIST MOVEMENT.

MOUSSA MUST BE HELD TO ACCOUNT FOR THIS, AND WE MUST FOLLOW THE TRAIL WHEREVER IT LEADS: TO THE ARAB LEAGUE, MUBARAK - ANYWHERE.

JERUSALEM AND THE SO-CALLED "AL AKSA" MOSQUE - AL-AQSA IF YOU PREFER...

Jews have continuously lived and worshipped in Jerusalem - and Judaism has held it as its spiritual center - for over 3000 years. It is literally mentioned in the Bible THOUSANDS of times. Jews have always prayed facing Jerusalem. IOW: Jerusalem is really very important to Judaism.

IS JERUSALEM REALLY IMPORTANT TO ISLAM?

The rational answer is: NOT UNTIL AFTER THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE STATE ISRAEL. In fact, it is not mentioned even ONCE in the Koran.

There is PHOTOGRAPHIC evidence - WHICH PREDATES THE STATE OF ISRAEL - which proves how not only how UNIMPORTANT Jerusalem is to Islam, but how UNIMPORTANT THE SO-CALLED "AL AKSA" Mosque is to Islam.

Here are links to 3 photographs of the "AL AKSA" Mosque which are from the 19th Century, and show it to be virtually abandoned, definitely neglected, and in total disrepair; REMEMBER: these photos were taken at a time when MUSLIMS ruled the region. PHOTO #1, PHOTO #2, PHOTO #3. [More photos HERE.]

If Jerusalem and the "Al Aksa" Mosque were truly important to Muslims then it would have NEVER EVER been allowed to look as it does in these 3 photos. If Jerusalem was truly important to Muslims, then the Ottoman Empire might have made it the regional HQ. THEY DID NOT.

Rational persons have no choice but to conclude that the contemporary claims made by Muslims on Jerusalem and the "Al Aksa" Mosque are NOT based on any historical fact - or even original Koranic thinking, but are an ARTIFACT of the second half of the 20th century, and specifically of "radical/political Islam." [More HERE and HERE.]

ANYONE who argues that Jews should give up their rightful claim on ALL OF Jerusalem - and the Temple Mount - on behalf of an entirely BOGUS 20th Century claim made by radical Muslims is either irrational, unjust, or an anti-Semite. TAKE YOUR PICK.

Justice cannot ever be based on a lie.