Quote of the day - John Edwards [Christopher Reeve, Charles Krauthammer]

"If we do the work that we can do in this country, the work that we will do when John Kerry is president, people like Christopher Reeve are going to walk, get up out of that wheelchair and walk again."

John Edwards - October 2004

In response:

"In my 25 years in Washington, I have never seen a more loathsome display of demagoguery."

Charles Krauthammer

Quote of the day - Thomas Sowell [John Edwards]

Edwards' specialty was suing when babies were born with brain defects, which he — like other lawyers cashing in on junk science and gullible juries — blamed on the failure of doctors to have had those babies delivered by Caesarian section.

Since then, Caesarian operations have increased greatly, but without reducing those birth defects that Edwards and others had blamed on a lack of Caesarian deliveries. Studies validated by leading medical authorities, here and overseas, have found no such link between birth defects and a lack of Caesarian births.

Meanwhile, lawyers like John Edwards could laugh all the way to the bank.

Like so many liberals who talk about "bringing down the cost of health care," John Edwards has in fact been driving up the cost of medical treatment. "Defensive medicine," such as unnecessary Caesarian operations, is not cheap. Defensive medicine protects doctors from slick lawyers far more than it protects patients.

Thomas Sowell

Quote of the day - C.S. Lewis

We are what we believe we are.

C. S. Lewis

Quote of the day - Bob Shrum - John Edwards exploits his son's death

"[John] Edwards had told Kerry he was going to share a story with him that he'd never told anyone else—that after his son Wade had been killed, he climbed onto the slab at the funeral home, laid there and hugged his body, and promised that he'd do all he could to make life better for people, to live up to Wade's ideals of service. Kerry was stunned, not moved, because, as he told me later, Edwards had recounted the same exact story to him, almost in the exact same words, a year or two before—and with the same preface, that he'd never shared the memory with anyone else. Kerry said he found it chilling . . "

Bob Shrum - Kerry/Edwards campaign manager - recounting 2004 meetings between Kerry and Edwards prior to Kerry naming Edwards as his running mate.

Quote of the day - Joe Sobran

Odd, isn't it, this modern fascination with politics
and "public service"? A man who runs for office is, after
all, "promising" to make new laws, to create even more
new and arbitrary legal obligations for everyone. At what
point will we -- or rather, did we -- have enough
laws? Why is making new ones still thought of as an
achievement, or a form of production? Just asking.

Joe Sobran

Quote of the day - Ann Coulter - Treason

"Contrary to today's image of McCarthy as a despised Torquemada, McCarthy was given a rare state funeral with a private memorial service in the Senate chamber, his seat covered with flowers. St. Matthew's Cathedral bestowed him with the highest honor the Catholic Church can confer, performing a Solemn Pontifical Requiem Mass before one hundred priests and two thousand well-wishers. Seventy senators attended his funeral, as did J. Edgar Hoover. Thirty thousand Americans lined up outside the Washington funeral home where McCarthy lay to pay their final respects from early in the morning until late at night. Condolences poured in to McCarthy's wife, amounting to more than seventy bags of mail." -- Ann Coulter, P. 123

Socialized health care, smoking bans, tyranny

For those who are tempted to let the health care debate alone in order to focus on immigration or terrorism, etc., I sympathize. But we must remember that George Soros' employees never rest and never give up a battle. The war to turn control of this country over to Soros will be fought on many fronts, including health care. We must remember that socialized medicine is a stepping stone to greater government control. In fact, it is the biggest stepping stone - bigger than the gun grabs, bigger than taxes, bigger than McCain-Feingold, etc.

So let me just say that I think socialized health care is the single biggest factor in transforming the relationship of the individual to the state. In fact, once it's introduced it becomes very hard to have genuinely conservative government - certainly, not genuinely small government. I think I say in my book that in Continental cabinets (and in Canada) the Defense ministry is somewhere you pass through en route to a really important portfolio like Health.

Mark Steyn

It will be very hard for you to campaign for gun rights, lower taxes, free speech, etc. when the government has full power to decide whether your child can see a doctor the next time he gets sick. A society that depends on the government for its medicine is a silent, subservient, feeble society.

See also Tim Harford for a discussion of how the government's control of health care allows the government to regulate more details of our lives.

Quote of the day - Mark Steyn [Salman Rushdie]

And, for a guy dismissed by most of us as crazy, Khomeini made a lot of sense. The Rushdie fatwa established the ground rules: The side that means it gets away with it. Mobs marched through Britain calling for the murder of a British subject – and, as a matter of policy on the grounds of multicultural sensitivity, the British police shrugged and looked the other way.

Mark Steyn - June 24, 2007

Mark Steyn



Salman Rushdie

Quote of the day - Will Durant

When people ask me to compare the 20th century to older civilizations, I always say the same thing: "The situation is normal."

Will Durant

Quote of the day - Cicero

Brevity is the best recommendation of speech, whether in a senator or an orator.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

Quote of the day - Thomas Sowell

Sometimes it seems as if everybody is trying to rip off his own little piece of America, until we are all torn apart.

Thomas Sowell

Quote of the day - C.S. Lewis

We all want progress, but if you're on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive.

C. S. Lewis

Quote of the day - Joe Sobran

Today’s atheists baffle me too. If they don’t believe God exists, why do they hate him so much? That doesn’t figure for me.

Joe Sobran

Quote of the day - Mark Steyn - immigration

The same people who say that government is a mighty power for good that can extinguish every cigarette butt and detoxify every cheeseburger and even change the very climate of the planet back to some Edenic state so that the water that falleth from heaven will land as ice and snow, and polar bears on distant continents will frolic as they did in days of yore, the very same people say: Building a border fence? Enforcing deportation orders? Can't be done, old boy. Pie-in-the-sky.

Quote of the day - Mark Steyn - June 17, 2007

Quote of the day - Ann Coulter [Albania, immigration]

"President Bush was so buoyed by the warm reception he was given in Albania that he immediately gave all 3 million Albanians American citizenship, provided they learn Spanish. The offer was withdrawn when Bush found out most Albanians haven't broken any U.S. laws."

Ann Coulter - June 13, 2007

[For those of you that don't get the joke because they didn't teach you about "Albania" in government schools, Albania is really far away from the U.S. and they don't speak Spanish there, so an offer of citizenship to Albanians on these terms would be almost as absurd as the current shamnesty bill for Mexicans.]

Albania and its neighbors (nowhere near the U.S. or its neighbors)



Miss Mexico, Miss Lebanon and Miss Albania - Ok, Ok. We can give THEM citizenship and amnesty, but no one else.

counter added on March 4, 2008

Quote of the day - Trent Lott

Talk radio is running America. We have to deal with that problem.

Trent Lott - June 15, 2007

[Speaking about opposition to the immigration-amnesty deal.]

Quote of the day - Vaclav Klaus

Let us resist the politicisation of science and oppose the term “scientific consensus”, which is always achieved only by a loud minority, never by a silent majority.

Vaclav Klaus - President, Czech Republic

More bad foreclosure news

As night follows day, the real estate bubble is bursting before our eyes.

U.S. home foreclosures in May jumped 90% from a year earlier, reflecting a poor spring
housing market and foreshadowing even higher levels later in 2007, real estate data firm RealtyTrac said on Tuesday.

Previous - Too much equity?

Quote of the day - Thomas Sowell - immigration shamnesty

The one encouraging aspect of the immigration issue is that the combined efforts of the White House and both Houses of Congress, together with most of the media, have thus far failed to turn the immigration fraud into the law of the land.

Thomas Sowell - June 12, 2007

Quote of the day - C.S. Lewis

This is one of the miracles of love: It gives a power of seeing through its own enchantments and yet not being disenchanted.

C. S. Lewis

Quote of the day - Mark Steyn

And look at it this way: if the "occupation" is so unpopular in Iraq, where are the mass demonstrations against that? I'm not talking 200,000, or even 100 or 50,000. But, if there were just 1,500 folks shouting "Great Satan, go home!" in Baghdad or Mosul, it would be large enough for the media to do that little trick where they film the demo close up so it looks like the place is packed. Yet no such demonstrations take place.

Mark Steyn

Quote of the day - Associated Press - Sadr City

‘The capital’s [Baghdad's] Sadr City section was once a hotbed of Shiite Muslim unrest, but it has become one of the brightest successes for the US security effort. So far this year, there has been only one car bombing in the neighborhood, and only one American soldier has been killed.’

Associated Press - August 2005 - (as quoted by Mark Steyn)

Sadr City

$USB: 30 Years US Treasury Bond (1980 - 200x)

Winter of 2007; South Africa; Argentina; Chile

The Winter of 2007 was severe and bitterly cold in the United States and Canada. But the effects were not limited to North America. New cold records have been set in South Africa also, according to the Cape Times:

THE icy weather of snow, hail and heavy rain that has swept across South Africa over the past few days has set 54 weather records.

The South African Weather Service said 34 new records were set on Monday and another 20 yesterday. Almost all records were for the lowest maximum and minimum daily temperatures in towns across the country.

Similar records have been set in Argentina, according to AP:

A cold snap in Argentina led to electricity and natural gas shortages this week, idling factories and taxis and causing sporadic blackouts in the capital.
Beset by the coldest May since 1962, millions of residents fired up space heaters, straining Buenos Aires' electrical grid for three nights and forcing authorities to slash power supply nationwide and briefly cut domestic natural gas provisions and exports to Chile.

The cold snap jeopardized the economies of both Argentina and Chile, as fuel supplies have been rationed - H/T Bloomberg News.

For those who rely on the government for their education and the MSM/DNC for news, South Africa and Argentina are on different "continents" than the United States. That means they are really far away - not only from us, but from each other. The bitter cold has not been confined to the United States or Canada.

The devastating, bitter effects of the Winter of 2007 have been global. It is more important now to remember this as we endure the heat in the United States. We have more to fear from Al Gore's continuing Assault on Reason than we do from "global warming."
-------------
6-11-07 - Update - new cold records in Denver, compilation of data reveals that warmest years in Denver occurred prior to 1955. Notwithstanding the above, new global warming initiative to crack down on individual liberties in Denver.
The more evidence accumulates against global warming, the stronger the crackdown will be.

Quote of the day - Milton Friedman

The power to do good is also the power to do harm.

Milton Friedman

Quote of the day - Joe Sobran

HAVE YOU NOTICED? Hollywood is not only remaking movies
(PLANET OF THE APES, DAY OF THE JACKAL), but remaking
movies that never should have been made in the first
place (OCEAN'S ELEVEN). Or movies based on TV shows
(CHARLIE'S ANGELS), or even cartoons (ROCKY AND
BULLWINKLE). Couldn't they spend all that money on
something more worthwhile, like drugs?

Joe Sobran - September 2001

Quote of the day - Ann Coulter

In 1960, whites were 90 percent of the country. The Census Bureau recently estimated that whites already account for less than two-thirds of the population and will be a minority by 2050. Other estimates put that day much sooner.

One may assume the new majority will not be such compassionate overlords as the white majority has been. If this sort of drastic change were legally imposed on any group other than white Americans, it would be called genocide. Yet whites are called racists merely for mentioning the fact that current immigration law is intentionally designed to reduce their percentage in the population.

Ann Coulter - June 6, 2007

Quote of the day - Thomas Sowell

The criminal justice system cannot be regarded as serious so long as there are such things as concurrent sentences and sentences of community service.

Thomas Sowell

Quote of the day - Michael Bloomberg

There are lots of threats to you in the world. There's the threat of a heart attack for genetic reasons. You can't sit there and worry about everything. Get a life . . . You have a much greater danger of being hit by lightning than being struck by a terrorist.

Michael Bloomberg - June 4, 2007 - downplaying the terror threat in the wake of the JFK bombing plot.

Quote of the day - C.S. Lewis

What saves a man is to take a step. Then another step.

C. S. Lewis

Quote of the day - Mark Steyn

It's hard to believe that our increasing enthusiasm for hastening death isn't connected to our well-established practice of denying life: abortion and euthanasia sing their siren songs from opposite ends of life's cycle. But what a shame the `pro-choice' movement has no lurid Kevorkian figure to force the issues before 22 million Americans. Instead, under the bland cover of 'a woman's right to choose', the abortionist beavers away in the shadows, and only in the rarest of circumstances is daylight shed on his art.

Mark Steyn - 12-12-98

Quote of the day - Cicero

The wise are instructed by reason, average minds by experience, the stupid by necessity and the brute by instinct.

Cicero

Quote of the day - Joe Sobran

I suppose killing your own children makes some sort of sense from an atheistic and Darwinian point of view. If survival is a ruthless competition, your kids are your competitors, right? No wonder Darwin’s legions are in favor of this “choice.”

Joe Sobran - [commenting on abortion]