Pennsylvanian in exile

2008-11-16T20:36:00.002-05:00

Stick to baseball, George

One of my least favorite pseudo-conservatives, George Will, shows how out of touch he is with the real conservatives.

WHICH is how discerning conservatives felt while waiting to see if, in Election Day's second-most important voting, Kentuckians would grant a fifth term to Mitch McConnell, leader of the Senate Republicans.

They did, making him Washington's most important Republican and second-most-consequential elected official. This apotheosis has happened even though he is handicapped by, as National Review rather cruelly says, "an owlish, tight-lipped public demeanor reminiscent of George Will."

That disability is, however, a strength, because it precludes an occupational hazard of senators - presidential ambition. Besides, McConnell, 66, is completely a man of the Senate. At 22, he was an intern for Sen. John Sherman Cooper and went from law school to the staff of Sen. Marlow Cook. Because McConnell has been so thoroughly marinated in the institution's subtle mores and complex rules, he'll wring maximum leverage from probably 43 Republican votes.

Which is why Democrats spared no expense in trying to unhorse him, recruiting a rich opponent and supplementing his spending with $6 million from the national party.

Speaking last week by telephone from Kentucky, McConnell said Republicans should feel "disappointment, not despair." Although 23 percent of Barack Obama's voters were under 30, McConnell does not think the younger generation has acquired an indelible Democratic imprint.

Ninety percent of John McCain's vote was white, and the white percentage of the turnout has fallen from 90 percent in 1976 to 77 percent in 2004 and 74 percent in 2008. Hispanics, the nation's largest minority, gave Obama two-thirds of their votes, but McConnell believes that they are entrepreneurial and culturally conservative and therefore not beyond the reach of Republicans.

Legislatively, Republicans can begin clarifying their convictions by pressing to limit the scope and duration of what a Republican administration has unleashed - the increasingly indiscriminate intrusion of government into financing the private sector. McConnell believes the bailout legislation was "necessary but not necessarily precedential."

Democrats probably can peel off a few Republican senators to reach 60 votes for some of their agenda. But not for all of it. For example, McConnell's caucus probably can stop organized labor's top priority - abolition of workers' right to a secret ballot in unionization votes, which Obama has endorsed .

McConnell is Kentucky's most important politician since Henry Clay, "the Great Compromiser." McConnell, too, has the patience that politics repays and that the Republican recuperation might require.

But he also has a keen sense of how the nation "can change on a dime." Drawing upon this year's grim experience, he dryly says: "Governing is a hazardous business for presidential parties."

McConnell oversaw the loss of the Senate and an unconscienable expansion of the Federal government - No Child Left Behind, Medicare Prescription Benefit, Bank bailout, pork barrel spending, Bridges to Nowhere and other obscenities. While I am glad we did not lose any additional seats to the dems, the GOP needs a better leader than a career inside the Beltway man like McConnell.

2008-11-14T07:59:00.003-05:00

Wall Street - No confidence vote for Obama

The Chosen one has been elected and the markets are not happy.

The voters may be full of hope about the looming Obama Presidency, but so far investors aren't. No President-elect in the postwar era has been greeted with a more audible hiss from Wall Street. The Dow has lost 1,342 points, or about 14%, since the election, with the S&P 500 and Nasdaq hitting similar skids. The Dow fell another 4.7% yesterday.

Much of this is due to hedge fund deleveraging, as well as dreadful corporate earnings reports and pessimism that the recession will be deeper than many had hoped. We also don't want to read too much into short-term market moves. But there's little doubt that uncertainty, and some fear, over Barack Obama's economic agenda is also contributing to the downdraft.
I
The substance of what Mr. Obama has promised for the economy is bearish for stocks. The threat of higher tax rates, especially on capital gains and dividends, now may be getting priced into the market. Add that to investor doubts about Democratic policies on unions, health care and trade -- and no wonder stocks are falling. Lower stock prices in turn reduce household net worth, thus slamming consumer confidence and contributing to what appears to be a consumer spending strike.

If Mr. Obama wants to reassure markets, he could announce that he won't be raising taxes for the foreseeable future. Unlike hundreds of billions in new government spending or more taxpayer cash for Detroit auto companies, this no-tax-hike declaration is a "stimulus" that would cost the U.S. Treasury nothing. In the current market, there won't be many capital gains and few companies will have surplus earnings to pay out in dividends. A higher tax rate on zero gains yields zero revenue, so what's the point of raising rates?

What markets want to see from Mr. Obama is a sense that the seriousness of this downturn is causing him to rethink the worst of his antigrowth policies.

2008-11-13T20:56:00.002-05:00

The Fix is in in Minnesota

The dems are just blatantly giving everyone the finger while they steal the Minnesota Senate election.

F Al Franken wins his Minnesota race, Democrats will get at least 58 US senators, giving them an effectively filibuster-proof majority.

When Franken woke up on the day after the election, his GOP opponent, Sen. Norm Coleman, led by what seemed a relatively comfortable 725 votes. By that night, Coleman's lead had shrunk to 477. By Thursday, it was 336. Friday, 239.

By late Sunday, the difference had gone to just 221. When counties finally certified the results on Monday, Coleman's lead had been cut to 206.

A pickup of 519 votes over 5 days - pretty impressive when you consider this was just from the correction of

typos. A recount won't even start until Nov. 19.

Yet, the particular changes are unlikely to have occurred by accident.

Corrections were posted in other races, but they were only a fraction of those for the Senate race. The Senate gains for Franken were 2.2 times the gain from corrections for Barack Obama, 2.7 times the gain Democrats got across all Minnesota congressional races and 5.6 times the net loss that Democrats suffered for all state House races.

In total, the 519 net pro-Franken corrections were greater than the total changes for all precincts in the state for the presidential race, all congressional races and all state House races combined.

But it isn't only the size of the corrections that make these changes so surprising. The majority of Franken's new votes came from just three out of 4,130 precincts. Almost half the gain (248 votes) occurred in one precinct: Two Harbors, a small town north of Duluth along Lake Superior, a heavily Democratic precinct where Obama got 64 percent of the vote.

No other race had any changes in its vote total in that precinct. That single precinct's corrections produced a much larger net swing in votes than occurred for all the precincts in the state for the presidential, congressional or state House races.

Also troubling is that new ballots that weren't included in the original count are being discovered. While not yet a large number, 32 absentee ballots were discovered in Democratic Minneapolis under the control of a single Democratic election judge after all the votes had been counted. When those votes are added, they'll likely cut Coleman's lead further.

The recount starting next week presents an even bigger opportunity for fraud. There's often a lot of pressure to assume that people meant to vote even if they didn't, and it is hard for politics not to enter into these decisions. Yet, relatively few voters failed to record votes this election. Only 0.4 percent of Minnesotans who voted didn't want to vote for president.

Many problems become more obvious in such close races. From ACORN registering thousands of phantom voters to the lack of verifiable voter IDs, Minnesota has many problems with voting that need to be fixed.

But it is the sequence of extremely unlikely events that's giving Minnesotans real concerns. The state's one tight race just happens to be the one with by far the most "corrected" votes, and those corrected votes are occurring in the most Democratic areas - and, no surpirse, favoring the Demcratic candidate.

But the real travesty will be to start letting election officials divine voters' intent. If you want to discourage people from voting, election fraud is one sure way of doing it.

2008-11-13T20:43:00.002-05:00

Kudos to this priest

A priest from South Carolina tells his flock how it is: Repent for voting for Obama.

A South Carolina Roman Catholic priest has told his parishioners that they should refrain from receiving Holy Communion if they voted for Barack Obama because the Democratic president-elect supports abortion, and supporting him "constitutes material cooperation with intrinsic evil."

The Rev. Jay Scott Newman said in a letter distributed Sunday to parishioners at St. Mary's Catholic Church in Greenville that they are putting their souls at risk if they take Holy Communion before doing penance for their vote.

"Our nation has chosen for its chief executive the most radical pro-abortion politician ever to serve in the United States Senate or to run for president," Newman wrote, referring to Obama by his full name, including his middle name of Hussein.

"Voting for a pro-abortion politician when a plausible pro-life alternative exits constitutes material cooperation with intrinsic evil, and those Catholics who do so place themselves outside of the full communion of Christ's Church and under the judgment of divine law. Persons in this condition should not receive Holy Communion until and unless they are reconciled to God in the Sacrament of Penance, lest they eat and drink their own condemnation."

During the 2008 presidential campaign, many bishops spoke out on abortion more boldly than four years earlier, telling Catholic politicians and voters that the issue should be the most important consideration in setting policy and deciding which candidate to back. A few church leaders said parishioners risked their immortal soul by voting for candidates who support abortion rights.

But bishops differ on whether Catholic lawmakers — and voters — should refrain from receiving Communion if they diverge from church teaching on abortion. Each bishop sets policy in his own diocese. In their annual fall meeting, the nation's Catholic bishops vowed Tuesday to forcefully confront the Obama administration over its support for abortion rights.

"It was not an attempt to make a partisan point," Newman said in a telephone interview Thursday. "In fact, in this election, for the sake of argument, if the Republican candidate had been pro-abortion, and the Democratic candidate had been pro-life, everything that I wrote would have been exactly the same."

2008-11-13T20:39:00.002-05:00

Bishops grow a spine, cut ties to ACORN

This piece of news makes my contribution grow larger.

A community grantmaking arm of the U.S. Roman Catholic bishops has cut off all funding for a group embroiled in controversy over claims of voter registration fraud and embezzlement, church leaders said Tuesday.

The Catholic Campaign for Human Development, which supports anti-poverty and social justice programs nationwide, will no longer make grants to the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, known as ACORN, said Auxiliary Bishop Robert Morin of New Orleans.

The decision was made following claims that nearly $1 million had been embezzled from ACORN by the brother of its founder.

Morin, who helps oversee the Catholic program, said forensic accountants hired by the church found that "our funds were not involved with those that had been embezzled."

The Catholic Campaign for Human Development, which has an annual budget of about $10 million, had planned to grant about $1 million to local groups across the country through ACORN this fiscal year, Morin said. None of that money will be distributed.

"There will be no funding relationships with ACORN groups in the future," Morin said, during the fall meeting of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Steve Kekst, ACORN executive director, said Tuesday night that he had just learned of the decision and declined to comment until he could speak with church leaders.

ACORN founder Wade Rathke has defended allowing his brother to make restitution privately, saying that getting law enforcement involved could have risked ACORN's financial ruin.

New Orleans-based ACORN, which has chapters in 110 cities and 40 states, completed a massive registration drive in poor and working-class neighborhoods — which tend to vote Democratic — across 21 states, signing up more than 1 million new voters.

ACORN, which advocates for the underprivileged, has said the registration problems were isolated and that its own workers noticed the problems and alerted local election officials in every state that is now investigating.

The Catholic Campaign for Human Development gets most of its funds from parish collections the weekend before Thanksgiving, according to its annual report.

The collection this year is set for Nov. 22-23.

The damage has been done with the massive ACORN voter fraud, but at least they will not get any money from me through the Church.

2008-11-04T23:22:00.001-05:00

2008-09-08T09:42:00.002-04:00

It's the dollar, stupid

Hopefully McCain can realize what Bush doesn't: it's the dollar, stupid!

When John McCain speaks to the Republican convention tonight, one of his priorities will be explaining his economic plans to a restive American middle class. He'll help his campaign, and the country, if his program includes separating himself from the Bush Administration's malign neglect of the dollar.

In debates over the Bush economic record, the dollar's decline and its companion rise in prices are the great missing links. Democrats don't mention it because they'd rather indict the Bush tax cuts as a way to justify a huge new tax increase. Wall Street and big business don't talk about it because they've been complicit in urging devaluation. And the media mostly ignore it because so few of them even think about monetary policy. The mystery is why more Republicans don't regret it because the political consequences have cost them dearly.

Consider the nearby chart, which chronicles the rise and fall of what the late economist Arthur Okun called the "misery index" in the late 1970s. By adding the national unemployment rate to the annual rate of inflation, the misery index offers a simple but revealing look at American economic well-being. As you can see from the chart, it's also a useful political indicator. Jimmy Carter was run out of office as the index soared above 20 in 1980, while Republicans benefited as it fell throughout the following decade. George H.W. Bush suffered as it spiked in the early 1990s, while Bill Clinton prospered through the 1990s as it fell again.

As for the political challenge that Mr. McCain faces, look no further than the "misery" spike of 2008. At 5.7% in July, the U.S. jobless rate isn't much worse than it was (5.4%) when Mr. Clinton ran for re-election in 1996. The difference is the rolling 12-month inflation rate, which at 5.6% puts the misery mark at 11.3 -- back to heights not seen since the early 1990s.

The opinion polls support what the misery index and common sense tell us. According to a Pew Research poll in July, no less than 45% of the public cited rising prices as the top economic problem. That was nearly double the 24% who cited prices in February. "Nearly two-thirds (64%) now say their incomes are not keeping up with the rising cost of living," according to Pew. By marked contrast, only 5% mentioned unemployment as the main issue.

This misery spike is the direct result of the dollar plunge and soaring commodity prices that began last August. That's when the Federal Reserve responded to the credit crunch by sprinting to cut interest rates to their current level of well below the anticipated level of future inflation. In other words, much as we also experienced for most if not all of 2003-2005, the U.S. again has negative real interest rates. The price of the first episode was the credit mania and housing boom and bust. Understandably, investors responded to this second round by shorting the dollar and fleeing to other stores of value, such as oil and commodities.

Chairman Ben Bernanke insists the Fed has had no other choice to stave off recession, and that in any case "core inflation" (which excludes food and energy) is contained. We've tangled with those arguments many times and won't do so again today. But there's no denying that the result of the Fed's reckless easing has been a spike in consumer prices, especially in food and energy, and thus a decline in real middle-class purchasing power. American consumers -- aka voters -- are justifiably angry about this because they don't buy Cheerios and gasoline with "core" dollars.

As a political matter, President Bush appointed Mr. Bernanke and thus shares responsibility for this policy outcome. He also appointed Fed Governors Donald Kohn and Frederic Mishkin, the other intellectual architects of the Fed's dollar neglect. More broadly, the Bush Administration has tolerated -- even encouraged -- a policy of dollar decline throughout its tenure.

All three of its Treasury Secretaries have lectured us that a falling dollar is useful to help exports to reduce the trade deficit. In any case, they like to add, the dollar's price is set by a "free market" -- and don't we favor free markets? They seem not to understand that a currency is not like bananas or wheat; its supply is set by a monopoly known as the central bank.

As for exports, they are the excuse used for centuries by politicians who believe nations can devalue their way to prosperity. Exports have provided an economic lift over the last two quarters or so, though that may end as the rest of the world economy slows. But the export boom has been more than offset by the harm that the commodity price spike has done to the U.S. middle-class consumer, as well as to the auto, airline and many other industries. Rising exports are best used politically as an argument for freer trade. As a justification for dollar devaluation, they are a siren song.

The good news is that the dollar has rallied in recent weeks, while commodity prices have fallen from their peaks. Markets had overshot on the upside as they often do and have since had to cover themselves. Slower growth outside the U.S. may also play a role. The widely advertised dissents from further easing inside the Fed have helped, as perhaps did Barack Obama's recent remarks that he favors a stronger dollar. When the liberal candidate for President comes out in favor of sound money, the world notices.
* * *

Which brings us back to Mr. McCain and his challenge -- and opportunity. The Arizonan needs to separate himself from the Bush economic record, and he is doing so with credibility on spending. But he can also do so by describing how this Administration has lost its way on the dollar and inflation. This would allow him to address middle-class anxiety without violating his free-market principles.

The Bush economy has been better than Democrats claim, especially given the bubble it inherited from Mr. Clinton. But its Achilles' heel has been that Republicans forgot that Reaganomics was about more than keeping taxes low. Central to its success was also sound money and low inflation. Mr. McCain can begin to help the GOP reclaim that lost half of the Reagan legacy.

2008-09-08T07:10:00.003-04:00

Sara Barracuda

Jack Kelly writes of how the media assault on Sara Palin has backfired spectacularly.

"You arrogant ass! You've killed us!" So said the executive officer of a Soviet submarine to his captain in Tom Clancy's novel "The Hunt for Red October" after the captain had recklessly fired a torpedo that homed in on his own sub.

NBC's David Gregory must have had similar thoughts as he noted, ruefully, that the news media's assault on Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin boosted substantially the television audience for her acceptance speech Wednesday night.

No friend of Barack Obama -- and the last week has demonstrated he has no better, nor more unscrupulous, friends than those in the news media -- can be happy about that.

Journalists last week cast aside the mask of objectivity to reveal they are so deeply in the tank for Mr. Obama most have grown gills. For six days, Sarah Palin and her family were subjected to a relentless barrage of innuendo. Journalists were trying to "define" her before she had an opportunity to introduce herself to the people in the lower 48. She was portrayed as an ignorant redneck from a hick town who should be home caring for her children instead of running for high public office.

Then Sarah Palin got her opportunity to speak, and her enemies learned firsthand why her nickname is "Sarah Barracuda."

Dismiss if you will the rapturous response to Ms. Palin's speech by the delegates in the convention hall and the posters on conservative blogs. The best testament to its power was the lame response of the Obama campaign. They noted she had the help of a speechwriter (the very talented Matt Scully) in preparing her remarks. Well, duh. Every major political figure has speechwriters. Sarah Palin works fine without a script. It's Barack Obama who ums and ahs without a teleprompter.

In my lifetime, I've only heard three or four speeches (all by Ronald Reagan) that I thought were as good or better than Sarah Palin's. She's as much a natural in politics as Michael Jordan was in basketball.

"Several moderate Democrat friends of mine have been e-mailing -- few if any would ever vote for McCain -- but all agree Palin was very strong," Michael Crowley wrote on The New Republic's blog. "The more liberal among them are a little panicked."

With good reason. With a smile on her face, Ms. Palin sliced and diced Barack Obama with the skill she dresses a moose she just shot. There were a host of good lines which I'm sure we'll see in McCain commercials in the near future. But ultimately the most effective may be this one: "In small towns, we don't know quite what to make of a candidate who lavishes praise on working people when they are listening, and then talks about how bitterly they cling to their religion and guns when those people aren't listening."

What gives this line its power is that Sarah Palin is definitely part of the "we" -- the small town, blue-collar Americans who will decide this election.

Only once in modern times has a vice presidential candidate swung an election. Lyndon Johnson brought Texas and Alabama to John F. Kennedy in 1960, states that otherwise would have been suspicious of a Catholic liberal from New England. I think Sarah Palin will be the second. She has changed the nature of this race in ways ominous for Mr. Obama.

First, this race is no longer between a candidate who advocates change and the status quo, as Democrats would like to frame it. It's between two different visions of change, and between a ticket that's actually delivered reform, and a ticket that just talks about it. The argument that John McCain represents a third term for George W. Bush was strained to start with. It's ludicrous now.

Second, the Republican base is more fired up, and the party more united than it's been since Ronald Reagan ran for his second term. Conservatives see in Sarah Palin Ronald Reagan in a dress, the brains and backbone of Margaret Thatcher in a younger, prettier package. The Grand Old Party has a bright new face.

Mr. Obama owes much of his new troubles to his friends in the news media. Republicans -- and independent and Democratic women appalled by their sexism -- were enraged by the vicious assaults on Sarah Palin and her family.

After he learned his fleet had attacked Pearl Harbor before a formal declaration of war, Japanese Adm. Isoroku Yamamoto is reputed to have said: "I fear all we have done is awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve."

The vice presidential debate is Oct. 2. If I were Joe Biden, I would be very, very afraid.

2008-09-08T06:56:00.001-04:00

2008-09-07T20:45:00.002-04:00

Pelosi gets called to the principal's office

The Archbishop of San Francisco decides he had better say something to Pelosi.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is being invited by her hometown archbishop to discuss her erroneous views on the Catholic Church's teaching on abortion.

In a statement released today, Archbishop George Niederauer of San Francisco joined the list of bishops who have responded to Pelosi's misrepresentation of Church teaching, which she expressed during an interview Aug. 24 on NBC-TV's "Meet the Press."

Catholic San Francisco, the official newspaper of the Archdiocese of San Francisco, published Archbishop Niederauer's text.Pelosi, when asked to comment on when life begins, said that as a Catholic, she had studied the issue for "a long time" and that "the doctors of the Church have not been able to make that definition."

Cardinal Justin Rigali, chairman of the U.S. bishops' Committee on Pro-Life Activities, and Bishop William Lori, chairman of the Committee on Doctrine, responded the next day stating that her answer "misrepresented the history and nature of the authentic teaching of the Catholic Church against abortion."

The prelates noted that since the first century the Church has "affirmed the moral evil of every abortion." A series of statements were released by other bishops across the United States, including Archbishop Donald Wuerl of Washington, D.C., Archbishop Charles Chaput and Auxiliary Bishop James Conley of Denver, Cardinal Edward Egan, archbishop of New York, Archbishop John Nienstedt of St. Paul and Minneapolis and Bishop Samuel Aquila of Fargo, North Dakota.

Not polling

Archbishop Niederauer's statement said, "It is my responsibility as archbishop of San Francisco to teach clearly what Christ in his Church teaches about faith and morals, and to oppose erroneous, misleading and confusing positions when they are advanced."

After citing the Catechism of the Catholic Church and reaffirming the teaching of the Church that life begins at conception and that abortion has always been considered wrong, he added, "We believe that we are called to trust the Spirit to guide the Church, so we do not pick and choose among her teachings."

Pelosi's office issued a statement Aug. 29 that said: "While Catholic teaching is clear that life begins at conception, many Catholics do not ascribe [sic] to that view." "That statement," responded Archbishop Niederauer, "suggests that morality can be decided by poll, by numbers. If 90% of Catholics subscribe to the view that human life begins at conception, does that makes Church teaching truer than if only 70% or 50% agree?Authentic moral teaching is based on objective truth, not polling."

Communion

Regarding calls for the archbishop to make a decision to exclude Pelosi from receiving Communion, the archbishop warned that the Church "should be cautious when making judgments about whether or not someone else should receive Holy Communion."

He cited the 2006 document of the U.S. episcopal conference "Happy Are Those Who Are Called to His Supper" that states: "If a Catholic in his or her personal or professional life were knowingly and obstinately to reject the defined doctrines of the Church, or knowingly and obstinately repudiate her definitive teachings on moral issues, however, he or she would seriously diminish his or her communion with the Church.

"Reception of Holy Communion in such a situation would not accord with the nature of the Eucharistic celebration, so that he or she should refrain." The archbishop added, "In his or her conscience, properly formed, a Catholic should recognize that making legal an evil action, such as abortion, is itself wrong."

"I regret the necessity of addressing these issues in so public a forum, but the widespread consternation among Catholics made it unavoidable," the prelate continued. "Speaker Pelosi has often said how highly she values her Catholic faith, and how much it is a source of joy for her.

"Accordingly, as her pastor, I am writing to invite her into a conversation with me about these matters. It is my obligation to teach forthrightly and to shepherd caringly, and that is my intent."

Today, tomorrow

Cardinal Francis George, archbishop of Chicago, also contributed a statement this week. He said that public policy issues are often misrepresented in the midst of political campaigns."While everyone could be expected to know the Church's position on the immorality of abortion and the role of law in protecting unborn children, it seems some profess not to know it and others, even in the Church, dispute it," he said.

The cardinal went on to clarify: "The Catholic Church, from its first days, condemned the aborting of unborn children as gravely sinful. [...] The teaching of the Church was clear in a Roman Empire that permitted abortion. This same teaching has been constantly reiterated in every place and time up to Vatican II, which condemned abortion as a 'heinous crime.'"This is true today and will be so tomorrow. Any other comments, by politicians, professors, pundits or the occasional priest, are erroneous and cannot be proposed in good faith."

2008-06-29T21:49:00.002-04:00

The Fed's Emperor has no clothes

Economic Illiteracy is probably a reason why the weak dollar isn't being blamed for sky-high gas and oil prices, but it should be, and Ben Bernanke bears much of the blame.

Surveying yesterday's depressing rout in the markets – the Dow industrials went off 358 points – we wondered whether years ago the young Ben Bernanke was read the story of "The Emperor's New Clothes." All recall how the emperor's world falls apart when a boy shouts, "But he has nothing on!"

Earlier this month the emperor of interest rates announced to much fanfare that the Federal Reserve's Open Market Committee would "strongly resist" inflation expectations and supported a "stable" dollar. In the days since, the Fed has shown it is unwilling to back up that talk with any monetary tightening. The stock market has headed down, and commodity prices have gone up. Index losses yesterday across the Dow, Nasdaq and S&P 500 were all nearly 3%. Crude oil was up $5. Gold rose an amazing $35.

Amid sudden climactic shifts, mankind looks for answers. Among those adduced yesterday for the market fall were analyst downgrades for Citigroup and General Motors, OPEC president Chakib Khelil's remark that "OPEC has already done what OPEC can do," and more grim outlooks for autos and airlines. From the political world comes the suggestion that markets are translating Barack Obama's 12-point lead in the polls as ensuring massive tax increases next year.

Our own view is that the market is issuing a challenge to the credibility of the interest-rate emperor. Mr. Bernanke told the world that he'd resist inflation. That statement has been followed by the rise, and now the surge, of most inflation indicators, whether May's 7.2% increase in producer prices or the spike in commodities. If the market concludes that the Bernanke Fed "has nothing on," yesterday's shocks will settle across the land as stagflation, or worse. It won't be the world of fairy tales.

2008-06-29T21:46:00.002-04:00

Sure, just let them all out

What kind of people are housed at Guantanamo? These kinds of people.

Two Kuwaiti al Qaeda operatives who conducted suicide attacks were featured at the end of the video. Abu Omar al Kuwaiti, also known as Badr Mishel Gama’an al Harbi, and Abu Juheiman al Kuwaiti, also known as Abdullah Salih al Ajmi, are both shown on the video, along with their attacks in Mosul, said Kazimi.

Harbi, who claimed to be a "veteran of the jihad in Afghanistan," conducted a suicide car bomb attack on a police station in Mosul on April 26, 2008.

Ajmi was released from Guantanamo Bay and was searching for "a way to reconnect with the jihad." He claimed he was tortured while at Guantanamo Bay.

Ajmi "is seemingly responsible for an earlier truck bombing at the Iraqi Army HQ in the Harmat neighborhood of Mosul on March 23, 2008," said Kazimi. The attack occurred at Combat Outpost Inman, an Iraqi Army base that served as the headquarters for the 1st Battalion, 3rd Brigade of the 2nd Iraqi Army Division.

Thirteen Iraqi soldiers were killed and 42 were wounded after Ajmi drove an armored truck packed an estimated 5,000 to 10,000 pounds of explosives through the gate of the outpost and detonated in a spot between the three main buildings of the compound. The blast destroyed the facades of the three buildings, including the building housing the battalion headquarters.

2008-06-26T21:31:00.000-04:00

Like Schoolgirls...

2008-06-26T21:29:00.001-04:00

Hooray for the 2nd Amendment!!!

The Supreme Court gets one right for a change.

The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that Americans have a constitutional right to keep guns in their homes for self-defense, the justices' first major pronouncement on gun control in U.S. history.

The court's 5-4 ruling struck down the District of Columbia's 32-year-old ban on handguns as incompatible with gun rights under the Second Amendment. The decision went further than even the Bush administration wanted, but probably leaves most federal firearms restrictions intact.

The court had not conclusively interpreted the Second Amendment since its ratification in 1791. The amendment reads: "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."

The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that Americans have a constitutional right to keep guns in their homes for self-defense, the justices' first major pronouncement on gun control in U.S. history.

2008-06-25T22:17:00.002-04:00

No fried food? This is NOT my parents' democrat party

In order to make the Democrat convention as green as possible, they are banning fried foods.

As the Mile High City gears up to host a Democratic bash for 50,000, organizers are discovering the perils of trying to stage a political spectacle that's also politically correct.

Consider the fanny packs.

With biodegradable balloons and organic snacks, Denver Democrats hope to stage the "greenest convention" ever. See examples.

The host committee for the Democratic National Convention wanted 15,000 fanny packs for volunteers. But they had to be made of organic cotton. By unionized labor. In the USA.

Official merchandiser Bob DeMasse scoured the country. His weary conclusion: "That just doesn't exist."

Ditto for the baseball caps. "We have a union cap or an organic cap," Mr. DeMasse says. "But we don't have a union-organic offering."

Much of the hand-wringing can be blamed on Denver's Democratic mayor, John Hickenlooper, who challenged his party and his city to "make this the greenest convention in the history of the planet."

Convention organizers hired the first-ever Director of Greening, longtime environmental activist Andrea Robinson. Her response to the mayor's challenge: "That terrifies me!"

After all, the last time Democrats met in Denver -- to nominate William Jennings Bryan in 1908 -- they dispatched horse-drawn wagons to bring snow from the Rocky Mountains to cool the meeting hall. Ms. Robinson suspected modern-day delegates would prefer air conditioning. So she quickly modified the mayor's goal: She'd supervise "the most sustainable political convention in modern American history."

Now, she must pull it off.

To test whether celebratory balloons advertised as biodegradable actually will decompose, Ms. Robinson buried samples in a steaming compost heap. She hired an Official Carbon Adviser, who will measure the greenhouse-gas emissions of every placard, every plane trip, every appetizer prepared and every coffee cup tossed. The Democrats hope to pay penance for those emissions by investing in renewable energy projects.

Perhaps Ms. Robinson's most audacious goal is to reuse, recycle or compost at least 85% of all waste generated during the convention.

To police the four-day event Aug. 25-28, she's assembling (via paperless online signup) a trash brigade. Decked out in green shirts, 900 volunteers will hover at waste-disposal stations to make sure delegates put each scrap of trash in the proper bin. Lest a fork slip into the wrong container unnoticed, volunteers will paw through every bag before it is hauled away.

"That's the only way to make sure it's pure," Ms. Robinson says.

Republicans are pushing conservation, too, as they gear up for their convention in Minneapolis-St. Paul. Like the Democrats, they're cutting down on printing by doing as much work as possible by email; using recycled office furniture; and urging employees to walk or take public transportation to work. The Republicans also encourage vendors to be as environmentally friendly as possible.

But Matt Burns, a spokesman for the Republican convention, looks on with undisguised glee at some of the Democrats' efforts -- such as the "lean 'n' green" catering guidelines.

Among them: No fried food. And, on the theory that nutritious food is more vibrant, each meal should include "at least three of the following colors: red, green, yellow, blue/purple, and white." (Garnishes don't count.) At least 70% of ingredients should be organic or grown locally, to minimize emissions from fuel burned during transportation. "One would think," says Mr. Burns, "that the Democrats in Denver have bigger fish to bake -- they have ruled out frying already -- than mandating color-coordinated pretzel platters."

2008-06-24T19:39:00.002-04:00

Democrat compassion: Tearing apart a 6 yr old

Proving once again that the Democrat party loves criminals more than the innocent, is this abomination:

The father of a slain Florida girl pushing for mandatory prison time for child rapists in the Bay State is blasting a Taunton lawmaker who said he’d torment young victims on the witness stand to defend his perv clients.

“Why doesn’t he figure out a way to defend that child and put these kind of people away instead of trying to figure ways for defense attorneys to get around Jessica’s Law?” Mark Lunsford fumed, slamming recent remarks by Rep. James Fagan. “These are very serious crimes that nobody wants to take serious. What about the rights of these children?”

Lunsford, whose daughter Jessica was raped and murdered in Florida by a repeat sex offender, will be in Massachusetts tomorrow to push lawmakers to pass Jessica’s Law, which would require a 20-year sentence for rape of a child under 12. The House passed a watered-down version of the bill last week but Lunsford and other victims’ rights activists will be pushing the Senate to include mandatory prison time in the final law.

“If this bill is not going to put these people away, don’t disrespect me by putting my daughter’s name on it,” Lunsford told the Herald last night. “You have to put these guys in prison and admit these people are uncurable.”

Fagan, a defense attorney, infuriated victims’ rights advocates during a recent House debate when he said he would “rip apart” 6-year-old victims on the witness stand and “make sure the rest of their life is ruined.”

In a fiery soliloquy on the House floor, Fagan said he’d grill victims so that, “when they’re 8 years old they throw up; when they’re 12 years old, they won’t sleep; when they’re 19 years old, they’ll have nightmares and they’ll never have a relationship with anybody.”

Fagan did not return calls seeking comment.

You have to do a little research though to learn that the piece of garbage is a democrat.

2008-05-06T16:19:00.002-04:00

Glorious Canadian socialized medicine!

In the medical utopia of Canada, high risk pregnancies are being sent to the US for better care.

More than 100 Canadian women with high-risk pregnancies have been sent to United States hospitals over the past year – in what a doctors' group attributes to the lack of a national birthing plan.

The problem has peaked, with British Columbia and Ontario each sending a record number of women to U.S. neonatal intensive care units (NICUs). Specifically, 80 B.C. women have been sent to U.S. hospitals since April 1, 2007; in Ontario, 28 have been sent since January of 2007, according to figures from the respective health ministries.

André Lalonde, executive vice-president of the Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada, said the problem is due to bed closings that took place almost a decade ago, the absence of a national birthing initiative and too few staff.

“Neonatologists are very stretched right now,” Dr. Lalonde said in a telephone interview from Ottawa. “We're so stretched, it's kind of dangerous.”

A national birthing initiative, he said, is urgently required to ensure services are planned, guidelines on the best way to care for these patients are implemented, and a stronger focus is placed on maternity patient safety.

Canada, once able to boast about its high rank in the world for low infant-mortality rate – sixth place in 1990 – saw its rank plummet to 25th place in 2005, according to figures published this year by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.

Specifically, Canada's infant mortal babies who aren't sent to the U.S. can still face several moves while at homeity rate of 5.4 deaths per 1,000 live births is tied with Estonia's and more than double Sweden's rate of 2.4.

The inability for Canada to care for all of its sick and premature babies has caught the attention of renowned pediatrics professor Shoo Lee, who is studying the health outcomes of infants sent abroad, in addition to those who remain here, often under stretched staffing conditions.

“If you have insufficient resources in the province, what does that mean for those kept in the system?” Dr. Lee, director of the Canadian Neonatal Network, said from Edmonton. “Are they being admitted to the NICU only when they are very sick? Are they being pushed out too early to make room for others?”

Philippe Chessex, division head of neonatology for B.C. Women's Hospital & Health Centre, said every effort is made to avoid out-of-province transfers. Even sick babies who aren't sent to the U.S. can still face several moves while at home.

“We're transferring babies across the province, in all directions, to try to find an extra bed for the next potential birth or for any baby already born,” Dr. Chessex said in a telephone interview from Vancouver. “We now have babies who have been transferred up to six times after leaving here before reaching home.”

For parents, the devastating news that their baby is sick due to a malformation, illness or being born prematurely is compounded by the reality that there simply is not a bed available for their infant close to home.

“Whenever a sick baby is born, it's really a disaster for these families because it was unexpected. And it just puts a terrible stress on them,” Dr. Chessex said. “If they are sent out of country at that moment, it is just unbelievable the kind of pressure that they must go under.”

No one knows that better than Jade Pascoe, of Cranbrook, B.C., who went into labour 15 weeks earlier than her due date. She gave birth on March 29, to Nevin James William Moore, who came into this world weighing 1 pound 10 ounces. “They tried to get me somewhere in Canada,” said Ms. Pascoe, 19. “But there was nowhere to send me.” The hospital where she gave birth does not have a NICU. And when no NICU bed could be located in B.C. or Alberta, her son was sent to a hospital in Spokane, located in eastern Washington.

2008-05-06T16:10:00.002-04:00

Why we still need Gitmo

A terrorist was released from Gitmo.....and then blew himself up.

A Kuwaiti man released from the U.S. prison in Guantanamo Bay in 2005 has carried out a suicide bombing in Iraq, his cousin told Al Arabiya television on Thursday.

A friend of Abdullah Saleh al-Ajmi in Iraq informed his family that Abdullah carried out the attack in Mosul, his cousin Salem told the Dubai-based television channel.

"We were shocked by the painful news we received this afternoon ... through a call from one of the friend's of martyr Abdullah in Iraq," said Salem al-Ajmi in a telephone interview aired by Arabiya.

He did not say when the suicide bombing happened.

Abdullah had been missing for two weeks and his family learned he left Kuwait illegally for Syria, he said. Abdullah had sent messages to his wife from Iraq.

Abdullah, 30, had a son after he was released from the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where the United States holds suspected terrorists, Salem said.

There were no indications Abdullah had any plans to join insurgents in Iraq although he became less sociable in the period before he disappeared, he said.

Many of the men held at Guantanamo were captured in Afghanistan in the U.S.-led war to oust the Taliban after the September 11, 2001, attacks. Many have been held for years and nearly all are being held without charge.

Washington has designated Guantanamo prisoners "enemy combatants."

2008-05-05T22:08:00.002-04:00

PJ O'Rourke's advice to new graduates

My favorite writer, PJ O'Rourke, tells recent grads of Fairness, Idealism, and other atrocities.

Well, here you are at your college graduation. And I know what you're thinking: "Gimme the sheepskin and get me outta here!" But not so fast. First you have to listen to a commencement speech.

Don't moan. I'm not going to "pass the wisdom of one generation down to the next." I'm a member of the 1960s generation. We didn't have any wisdom.

We were the moron generation. We were the generation that believed we could stop the Vietnam War by growing our hair long and dressing like circus clowns. We believed drugs would change everything -- which they did, for John Belushi. We believed in free love. Yes, the love was free, but we paid a high price for the sex.

My generation spoiled everything for you. It has always been the special prerogative of young people to look and act weird and shock grown-ups. But my generation exhausted the Earth's resources of the weird. Weird clothes -- we wore them. Weird beards -- we grew them. Weird words and phrases -- we said them. So, when it came your turn to be original and look and act weird, all you had left was to tattoo your faces and pierce your tongues. Ouch. That must have hurt. I apologize.

So now, it's my job to give you advice. But I'm thinking: You're finishing 16 years of education, and you've heard all the conventional good advice you can stand. So, let me offer some relief:

1. Go out and make a bunch of money!

Here we are living in the world's most prosperous country, surrounded by all the comforts, conveniences and security that money can provide. Yet no American political, intellectual or cultural leader ever says to young people, "Go out and make a bunch of money." Instead, they tell you that money can't buy happiness. Maybe, but money can rent it.

There's nothing the matter with honest moneymaking. Wealth is not a pizza, where if I have too many slices you have to eat the Domino's box. In a free society, with the rule of law and property rights, no one loses when someone else gets rich.

2. Don't be an idealist!

Don't chain yourself to a redwood tree. Instead, be a corporate lawyer and make $500,000 a year. No matter how much you cheat the IRS, you'll still end up paying $100,000 in property, sales and excise taxes. That's $100,000 to schools, sewers, roads, firefighters and police. You'll be doing good for society. Does chaining yourself to a redwood tree do society $100,000 worth of good?

Idealists are also bullies. The idealist says, "I care more about the redwood trees than you do. I care so much I can't eat. I can't sleep. It broke up my marriage. And because I care more than you do, I'm a better person. And because I'm the better person, I have the right to boss you around."

Get a pair of bolt cutters and liberate that tree.

Who does more for the redwoods and society anyway -- the guy chained to a tree or the guy who founds the "Green Travel Redwood Tree-Hug Tour Company" and makes a million by turning redwoods into a tourist destination, a valuable resource that people will pay just to go look at?

So make your contribution by getting rich. Don't be an idealist.

3. Get politically uninvolved!

All politics stink. Even democracy stinks. Imagine if our clothes were selected by the majority of shoppers, which would be teenage girls. I'd be standing here with my bellybutton exposed. Imagine deciding the dinner menu by family secret ballot. I've got three kids and three dogs in my family. We'd be eating Froot Loops and rotten meat.

But let me make a distinction between politics and politicians. Some people are under the misapprehension that all politicians stink. Impeach George W. Bush, and everything will be fine. Nab Ted Kennedy on a DUI, and the nation's problems will be solved.

But the problem isn't politicians -- it's politics. Politics won't allow for the truth. And we can't blame the politicians for that. Imagine what even a little truth would sound like on today's campaign trail:

"No, I can't fix public education. The problem isn't the teachers unions or a lack of funding for salaries, vouchers or more computer equipment The problem is your kids!"

4. Forget about fairness!

We all get confused about the contradictory messages that life and politics send.

Life sends the message, "I'd better not be poor. I'd better get rich. I'd better make more money than other people." Meanwhile, politics sends us the message, "Some people make more money than others. Some are rich while others are poor. We'd better close that 'income disparity gap.' It's not fair!"

Well, I am here to advocate for unfairness. I've got a 10-year-old at home. She's always saying, "That's not fair." When she says this, I say, "Honey, you're cute. That's not fair. Your family is pretty well off. That's not fair. You were born in America. That's not fair. Darling, you had better pray to God that things don't start getting fair for you." What we need is more income, even if it means a bigger income disparity gap.

5. Be a religious extremist!

So, avoid politics if you can. But if you absolutely cannot resist, read the Bible for political advice -- even if you're a Buddhist, atheist or whatever. Don't get me wrong, I am not one of those people who believes that God is involved in politics. On the contrary. Observe politics in this country. Observe politics around the world. Observe politics through history. Does it look like God's involved?

The Bible is very clear about one thing: Using politics to create fairness is a sin. Observe the Tenth Commandment. The first nine commandments concern theological principles and social law: Thou shalt not make graven images, steal, kill, et cetera. Fair enough. But then there's the tenth: "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is thy neighbor's."

Here are God's basic rules about how we should live, a brief list of sacred obligations and solemn moral precepts. And, right at the end of it we read, "Don't envy your buddy because he has an ox or a donkey." Why did that make the top 10? Why would God, with just 10 things to tell Moses, include jealousy about livestock?

Well, think about how important this commandment is to a community, to a nation, to a democracy. If you want a mule, if you want a pot roast, if you want a cleaning lady, don't whine about what the people across the street have. Get rich and get your own.

Now, one last thing:

6. Don't listen to your elders!

After all, if the old person standing up here actually knew anything worth telling, he'd be charging you for it.

2008-05-05T21:37:00.002-04:00

Obama's oil windfall tax

Barack, ever the radical socialist, wants to punish the oil industry.

This is one strange debate the candidates are having on energy policy. With gas prices close to $4 a gallon, Hillary Clinton and John McCain say they'll bring relief with a moratorium on the 18.4-cent federal gas tax. Barack Obama opposes that but prefers a 1970s-style windfall profits tax (as does Mrs. Clinton).

Mr. Obama is right to oppose the gas-tax gimmick, but his idea is even worse. Neither proposal addresses the problem of energy supply, especially the lack of domestic oil and gas thanks to decades of Congressional restrictions on U.S. production. Mr. Obama supports most of those "no drilling" rules, but that hasn't stopped him from denouncing high gas prices on the campaign trail. He is running TV ads in North Carolina that show him walking through a gas station and declaring that he'll slap a tax on the $40 billion in "excess profits" of Exxon Mobil.

The idea is catching on. Last week Pennsylvania Congressman Paul Kanjorski introduced a windfall profits tax as part of what he called the "Consumer Reasonable Energy Price Protection Act of 2008." So now we have Congress threatening to help itself to business profits even though Washington already takes 35% right off the top with the corporate income tax.

You may also be wondering how a higher tax on energy will lower gas prices. Normally, when you tax something, you get less of it, but Mr. Obama seems to think he can repeal the laws of economics. We tried this windfall profits scheme in 1980. It backfired. The Congressional Research Service found in a 1990 analysis that the tax reduced domestic oil production by 3% to 6% and increased oil imports from OPEC by 8% to 16%. Mr. Obama nonetheless pledges to lessen our dependence on foreign oil, which he says "costs America $800 million a day." Someone should tell him that oil imports would soar if his tax plan becomes law. The biggest beneficiaries would be OPEC oil ministers.

There's another policy contradiction here. Exxon is now under attack for buying back $2 billion of its own stock rather than adding to the more than $21 billion it is likely to invest in energy research and exploration this year. But hold on. If oil companies believe their earnings from exploring for new oil will be expropriated by government – and an excise tax on profits is pure expropriation – they will surely invest less, not more. A profits tax is a sure formula to keep the future price of gas higher.

Exxon's profits are soaring with the recent oil price spike, but the energy industry's earnings aren't as outsized as the politicians seem to think. Thomson Financial calculates that profits from the oil and natural gas industry over the past year were 8.3% of investment, while the all-industry average is 7.8%. And this was a boom year for oil. An analysis by the Cato Institute's Jerry Taylor finds that between 1970 and 2003 (which includes peak and valley years for earnings) the oil and gas business was "less profitable than the rest of the U.S. economy." These are hardly robber barons.

This tiff over gas and oil taxes only highlights the intellectual policy confusion – or perhaps we should say cynicism – of our politicians. They want lower prices but don't want more production to increase supply. They want oil "independence" but they've declared off limits most of the big sources of domestic oil that could replace foreign imports. They want Americans to use less oil to reduce greenhouse gases but they protest higher oil prices that reduce demand. They want more oil company investment but they want to confiscate the profits from that investment. And these folks want to be President?

Late this week, a group of Senate Republicans led by Pete Domenici of New Mexico introduced the "American Energy Production Act of 2008" to expand oil production off the U.S. coasts and in Alaska. It has the potential to increase domestic production enough to keep America running for five years with no foreign imports. With the world price of oil at $116 a barrel, if not now, when? No word yet if Senators Clinton and Obama will take time off from denouncing oil profits to vote for that.

2008-05-05T21:32:00.002-04:00

One for the Chicken Littles

An economist tells the chicken littles that scarcity is bunk.

Since the Industrial Revolution, the prices of oil, coal, foods, metals and timber have fallen drastically relative to wages. You propose that that 250-year "commodity holiday" has now come to an end and that we face a future of scarcity. That is bad news for Californians, who live their lives predicated on cheap gas, cheap food and abundant water.

However, before people abandon their suburban ranch houses and SUVs, they should note that history has not been kind to those many commodity Jeremiahs who have prophesied scarcity on the basis of commodity price spikes.

In 1865, economist William Stanley Jevons predicted the exhaustion of Britain's coal reserves. Today, Britain's energy prices are considerably cheaper than when Jevons wrote. In 1972, the Club of Rome predicted the depletion of oil reserves in 20 years. Up until last year, oil was cheaper and more abundant than when the club wrote.

The trend of energy and resource prices is completely uncertain, not inevitably higher. It is true, however, that two new elements have entered world demand.

First, more than 2 billion people in China and India now have rapidly growing incomes. For the previous 200 years, their incomes stagnated, and Europe and the U.S. had the world's energy reserves to themselves. World demand for energy and commodities is now rising faster than at any time in history. Second, fear of global warming has led to substantial areas of farmland in the U.S., Brazil and Europe being converted to growing crops suitable for the production of biofuels.

But on the other side of the equation is the constant advance of energy and farm technologies, which amounts to 250 years of steady progress. Permanently higher prices will accelerate research that cheapens energy and allows us to use it more efficiently. In past years, generating electricity with carbon-free nuclear power was only modestly more expensive than coal- and gas-powered plants, even at yesterday's bargain oil prices. If we can find some hole in the Earth to shove the nuclear waste in, then we have a huge alternative source of energy ready to go.

Before you throw up your hands in horror at the prospect of new Chernobyls, note that the French have been generating 80% of their electricity through nuclear power for 20 years without incident. And these are people so fussy about their food purity that they are the world's second-biggest consumers of bottled water.

The Holy Grail of energy research is, of course, solar. It's free, environmentally friendly and made in the U.S.A., not imported from lands of strife and terror.

Solar electricity, however, is still about four times as expensive to generate as conventional electricity. It is produced at times and places inconvenient for consumers. It can only supplement rather than replace other power sources. But new technologies could change that cost disadvantage at any time.

The recent price hikes in commodities and energy are too sudden to have been caused by a gradual squeeze on the markets by Asian demand and biofuels. Energy and commodity prices will likely cease their long decline soon. Whether they will rise significantly only a true prophet knows.

2008-04-27T10:12:00.002-04:00

PA law screws consumers, AGAIN

Due to some archaic laws (which is an apt description of many of PA laws), Walmart cannot offer many of its $4 prescriptions.

A 67-year-old law is preventing Pennsylvania residents from obtaining the full list of $4 prescription drugs sold at Wal-Mart.

Will it take that many years to decide if the 1941 law is doing more harm than good?
A bill that would allow the $4 prescriptions has lingered in the state Legislature for 13 months, with no debate and no action scheduled.

In late 2006, Wal-Mart began selling 331 medications for $4 for a 30-day supply.

The drugs are generics -- cheaper equivalents of brand name drugs.

The $4 offerings include medications for many common illnesses, including infections, high blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease and depression.

Because of the 1941 law, 56 of the drugs have to sell for $9 in Pennsylvania.

Last fall, Wal-Mart expanded the list of $4 drugs and added some $9 drugs, including drugs for birth control and fertility. In Pennsylvania, however, the $9 drugs sell for about $25.

The 1941 law is intended to prevent businesses from driving others out of business by selling goods at prices below cost. The goal is to protect consumers, because a company that wiped out competitors could then charge any price it wanted.

After Wal-Mart began offering the $4 drugs, state Sen. Pat Vance, R-Cumberland, introduced a bill to change the 1941 law so it no longer applies to pharmacies.

With medications costing so much that some people can't afford them, Pennsylvania residents need access to the most affordable drugs, Vance said. She predicted the bill would be quickly approved.

But it has sat in the Senate's Consumer Protection and Professional Licensure Committee, led by state Sen. Robert Tomlinson, R-Bucks, since March 13, 2007.

Fran Cleaver, the director of the committee, said this week that she can't remember the last time the bill was discussed.

She said the bill has opponents, including independent pharmacists, and it's up to Vance to broker a compromise.

Vance disagreed, saying it's Tomlinson's responsibility to move the bill. Tomlinson didn't respond to requests to discuss the bill.

Barry Kauffman, the executive director of Common Cause Pennsylvania, said the ability of committee chairmen and party leaders to control which bills see action has been a thorn in the side of reform advocates.

"I think its a tremendous roadblock. It's one of the reasons Pennsylvania is considered to have one of the most backwards legislatures in the nation," Kauffman said.

If the committee chairperson doesn't like a bill, or is strongly influenced by an interest group, he or she can keep the bill in committee, he said.

Keeping a bill in committee can also spare legislators from having to cast a risky vote, Kauffman said.

He favors a provision, known as a gavel amendment, that would guarantee each legislator a vote on one or two bills per session. That would make it harder for important bills to die in committee, Kauffman said.

Vance said that the bill, SB 379, addresses an important situation and that she is committed to its passage.

She said she recently began enlisting the support of AARP, which favors the bill.

When asked about the level of support from the public, Vance said only a few constituents have contacted her about lack of access to $4 medications.

Tom Snedden, who directs the state's PACE and PACENET programs to provide affordable drugs for seniors, said having access to the full selection of $4 drugs would have an impact, and he supports changing the 1941 law.

He estimated that PACE and PACENET, which are paid for by lottery ticket sales, would have saved $3 million in 2007 if program users could have obtained all the $4 drugs.

The main opponent of Vance's bill is the Pennsylvania Pharmacists Association, which represents independent pharmacists.

Patricia Epple, the president of the association, said small pharmacists will go out of business if they try to match Wal-Mart's prices.

The association contends that would be bad for consumers because independent pharmacists provide more information, service and attention than pharmacists in a high-volume setting, such as Wal-Mart.

But Epple said her organization might not oppose Vance's bill if it eliminat

ed the 1941 law entirely, so all businesses would have to play by the same rules.

2008-04-26T11:21:00.001-04:00

The Truth Hurts

I like this school board member.

A Florida school board member is drawing fire from some parents for saying they should spend money on school clothes for their children instead of buying alcohol and cigarettes.

School board member Jay Wheeler's comments were made in an e-mail response to parents’ complaints that they cannot afford the new uniforms mandated by the Osceola County School District, according to MyFOXOrlando.com.

"Everyone can afford Wal-Mart and if they can’t, they need to think about turning off their cable TV or stop buying alcohol or cigarettes and spend their money on their children," he wrote.

Parent Maria Quintana says Wheeler’s e-mail is insulting.

“I have a job and sometimes it's really hard. You have to struggle," Quintana told MyFOXOrlando.com. "And to have them say something like that is really degrading."

Wheeler stands by his comments, saying people should get serious about education and put their children first.

"I thought it might be a wake-up call and I think it's something people want to say but were afraid to,” he said.

2008-04-24T21:44:00.001-04:00

Don't Bail Out Bob

Great video!

2008-04-22T18:55:00.001-04:00

"Why I left Greenpeace"

One of the founders of Greenpeace tells us why he left Greenpeace.

In 1971 an environmental and antiwar ethic was taking root in Canada, and I chose to participate. As I completed a Ph.D. in ecology, I combined my science background with the strong media skills of my colleagues. In keeping with our pacifist views, we started Greenpeace.

But I later learned that the environmental movement is not always guided by science. As we celebrate Earth Day today, this is a good lesson to keep in mind.

At first, many of the causes we championed, such as opposition to nuclear testing and protection of whales, stemmed from our scientific knowledge of nuclear physics and marine biology. But after six years as one of five directors of Greenpeace International, I observed that none of my fellow directors had any formal science education. They were either political activists or environmental entrepreneurs. Ultimately, a trend toward abandoning scientific objectivity in favor of political agendas forced me to leave Greenpeace in 1986.

The breaking point was a Greenpeace decision to support a world-wide ban on chlorine. Science shows that adding chlorine to drinking water was the biggest advance in the history of public health, virtually eradicating water-borne diseases such as cholera. And the majority of our pharmaceuticals are based on chlorine chemistry. Simply put, chlorine is essential for our health.

My former colleagues ignored science and supported the ban, forcing my departure. Despite science concluding no known health risks – and ample benefits – from chlorine in drinking water, Greenpeace and other environmental groups have opposed its use for more than 20 years.

Opposition to the use of chemicals such as chlorine is part of a broader hostility to the use of industrial chemicals. Rachel Carson's 1962 book, "Silent Spring," had a significant impact on many pioneers of the green movement. The book raised concerns, many rooted in science, about the risks and negative environmental impact associated with the overuse of chemicals. But the initial healthy skepticism hardened into a mindset that treats virtually all industrial use of chemicals with suspicion.

Sadly, Greenpeace has evolved into an organization of extremism and politically motivated agendas. Its antichlorination campaign failed, only to be followed by a campaign against polyvinyl chloride.

Greenpeace now has a new target called phthalates (pronounced thal-ates). These are chemical compounds that make plastics flexible. They are found in everything from hospital equipment such as IV bags and tubes, to children's toys and shower curtains. They are among the most practical chemical compounds in existence.

Phthalates are the new bogeyman. These chemicals make easy targets since they are hard to understand and difficult to pronounce. Commonly used phthalates, such as diisononyl phthalate (DINP), have been used in everyday products for decades with no evidence of human harm. DINP is the primary plasticizer used in toys. It has been tested by multiple government and independent evaluators, and found to be safe.

Despite this, a political campaign that rejects science is pressuring companies and the public to reject the use of DINP. Retailers such as Wal-Mart and Toys "R" Us are switching to phthalate-free products to avoid public pressure.

It may be tempting to take this path of least resistance, but at what cost? None of the potential replacement chemicals have been tested and found safe to the degree that DINP has. The Consumer Product Safety Commission recently cautioned, "If DINP is to be replaced in children's products . . . the potential risks of substitutes must be considered. Weaker or more brittle plastics might break and result in a choking hazard. Other plasticizers might not be as well studied as DINP."

The hysteria over DINP began in Europe and Israel, both of which instituted bans. Yet earlier this year, Israel realized the error of putting politics before science, and reinstated DINP.

The European Union banned the use of phthalates in toys prior to completion of a comprehensive risk assessment on DINP. That assessment ultimately concluded that the use of DINP in infant toys poses no measurable risk.

The antiphthalate activists are running a campaign of fear to implement their political agenda. They have seen success in California, with a state ban on the use of phthalates in infant products, and are pushing for a national ban. This fear campaign merely distracts the public from real environmental threats.

We all have a responsibility to be environmental stewards. But that stewardship requires that science, not political agendas, drive our public policy.