Political Commentary

Interesting Point

Just as torturing helpless animals as a child is a good sign of a psychopath, corrupt politicans usually cut their teeth on land deals.

And in an email, Dennis Wingo explains what Harry Reid did:

First, Harry buys the land for $400k in 1998.

Second, he sells it in 01 (before the Bush tax cuts) for $400k, with no net capital tax gain.

Third, he sells it again in 04 and pays personal capital tax gain at 15% the rate in 04.

This is a $165k tax on a $1.1M sale.

If that had been a sale through a company, the sale would have been taxed at the corporate tax rate of 35% or $385k. The difference is $220k in his pocket by the way that he accounted for the sale.

Political Commentary

Reason To Be Disgusted With The Bush Administration

Number 13,765, and a continuing mystery. Why did Sandy Berger get off with such a light sentence from the Justice Department?

Frankly, I would love to see the Republicans lose power, because they deserve to. Unfortunately, there’s no way to do that without having the Democrats win, which they don’t deserve, and the country would suffer for it. And not fake, hysterical suffering like the fantasies of the Bush haters.

Oh, and if we had more Republicans like Dick Armey, who came down with both feet on idiotarian bully James Dobson, the party would be in a lot better shape. What we need is an army of Armeys.

Science And Society

Crushing Of Dissent

Nuremberg-style trials for global warming skeptics?

Next time they call people fascists, some of these folks need to look in the mirror.

[Update a couple minutes later]

Jonah Goldberg (with whom I had the pleasure of chatting for a few minutes last night) has related thoughts.

So much of the demonization of conservatives from liberals in the last fifty years has worked on a formula which goes something like this: “I want use the state to impose my dreamy good intentions. Conservatives are evil. So, if they get ahold of government they will use government to do evil in the same way that we would do good.”

Biting Commentary about Infinity…and Beyond!