Another letter to the editor of the Patriot-News:

Cynthia Tucker recites another variation of the usual liberal class warfare mantra when she says that deregulation “allowed businesses to pillage the economy.”  God forbid people might be able to make some money free of government interference.  As a matter of fact, the only pillaging I’ve seen recently was when government gave big corporations billions of taxpayer dollars to save them from their own foolish decisions.

Coincidentally, I just saw where executives from all those same corporate beneficiaries of government largesse just happened to attend a fundraiser hosted by Barack Obama last week in New York City.  I’m sure they were all busy showing him their gratitude for the bailout with large donations.  I’m equally sure that our President will now have his staff quickly implement “tough standards and more inspections,” just like Cynthia says.

No, seriously, why do you think corporate bigwigs are giving the Democrats money?  Are they doing it to encourage the Dems to regulate them more and better?  The only regulations those corporations are interested in are the ones that act as a barrier to prevent competitors from entering their line of business.  So when liberals demand that we ensure safety by regulating industry, who do they think they’re kidding?"

The truth is that the only thing government intervention in the economy has ever done is slow it down.  It doesn’t necessarily result in safer products, and product recalls, as a fraction of total sales, are relatively small.  More government oversight hasn’t ever benefited anyone but existing corporations, who use government regulations as a barrier to prevent competitors from entering their line of work.  No wonder most corporations favor regulating their industries.

A couple of months ago, New York Times columnist and faux economist Paul Krugman wrote an editorial critiquing critics of Obama care, who are comparing the Democrats' health care "reform" as resembling that of the U.K. or Canada. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/17/opinion/17krugman.html

Implementing "reform" that would look like one of those two countries' health care systems wouldn't be a good thing for us.  It can take months to receive care for most cancers following diagnosis, whereas in this country, you'd begin receiving care within no more than a few days.  "Elective" procedures such as hip and knee replacements, which, although officially classified as elective, can alleviate years of misery for those who receive them, can take years.  In this country, getting a hip or knee replacement usually takes only a few months.

Krugman, however, says that it isn't so.  He says, based on one of the more palatable proposals put forward by the Democrats, that our system won't look so much like the U.K. or Canada but like Switzerland.  The Swiss have implemented a system whereby the private sector provides health insurance, but everyone is incentivized to participate one way or another.  Krugman goes on to say, "In this country, the Massachusetts health reform more or less follows the Swiss model; costs are running higher than expected, but the reform has greatly reduced the number of uninsured."  Yes, it's true that Massachusetts is using the Swiss model.  It probably looked like a good idea to Gov. Mitt Romney when he pushed to implement it five years ago.  After all, nanny-state Massachusetts residents were pushing for universal health care, and Romney, free-marketeer that he is, saw a chance to use the private sector to solve this problem.  Even Krugman admits that " costs are running higher than expected," but how is it working otherwise?

Funny you should ask.  My wife is from Massachusetts, and one of her sisters, Maureen, still lives there.  The other day, my dear sister-in-law called to talk, and one of the topics of conversation was how bad the health care system has become in Massachusetts.  My wife saw an opening and mentioned that Obama wants to bring this magical health care system to the whole country.  Unfortunately, Maureen, deluded liberal that she is, immediately admonished her poor sister to "stop talking politics," as though stating the truth is simply "talking politics."  Maureen, if you happen to read this, please pay careful attention to the first couple of paragraphs.

The complaints about Massachusetts' new health care system seem to focus mostly on costs.  Besides the huge, and probably unsustainable, additional cost to the taxpayer mentioned in Krugman's column, due to the necessity for subsidies to much of the population, there also seem to be increased costs for individuals, in spite of those subsidies.  Furthermore, despite the program's stated goal of universal health care, about 4 - 5% of the state's residents still aren't covered.  There are various reasons for this, but it seems to be mostly due to the fact that the incentives and subsidies simply aren't enough to get people to carry health insurance  This fact is a graphic example of the principle of decreasing returns to scale, a principle of economics that points up the futility of trying to get absolutely everyone to adopt a policy that many of them don't want.  People who are still uninsured mostly don't want to be or feel they can't because they have other, better ways to spend their money. 

Set aside for a moment the morality, or lack of it, of trying to force people who are supposed to be free to buy something they either don't want or don't feel they need.  86% of Americans are satisfied with their health care and their coverage, so what are we trying to fix, and at what cost?  How much more incentive can we possibly give this remaining 4 - 5% to make them buy coverage?  There is no "answer" to the "national health care crisis;"  there are only, as in all walks of life, trade offs.  We just need to be adult enough to accept that we simply can't fix everyone's problems, no matter how hard we try, because the trade off, which is spending gigantic sums of money, simply isn't worth it.

A few weeks ago, I came on here looking for one of my favorite columnists, Burt Prelutsky.  Burt's a right thinker with a great sense of humor about the inherent contradictions and lack of common sense that constitute liberalism, a lot like Ann Coulter, so I was really surprised and disappointed to find him gone.  The reason for my disappointment is obvious, but I was really more surprised because Burt was consistently one of the top rated columnists on townhall.com, a site that has a lot of good columnists but also a few that are, frankly, stupid.

So I'm a bit late, I know, but I feel like I ought to comment, particularly in view of what I read on Burt's site, where he still publishes: burtprelutsky.com.  The August 18th entry states that he believes his next-to-last column, which was critical of Islam, might have scared the townhall editors into dropping him, although their stated reason was that they couldn't afford the $20 per column they were paying him.

I was thinking maybe I wasn't coming here often enough, which is how I became award of Burt's dismissal late, but now I'm not sure I'm not coming too often. Of all the stupid moves, this one takes the cake. Burt was, as I mentioned, consistently one of the most popular columnists here, while I note that illegal immigrant-lover Linda Chavez, consistently the lowest-rated columnist here, is still posting away. That's ridiculous. Based on what Burt said in his August 18th column about what he was paid, I sincerely doubt that he was fired based on budgetary considerations. I still like to come here to blog, but I have other blogs that I could use just as well.  This is definitely food for thought.

Note:  this is the column I promised a few weeks ago that was going to be called R.I.P Burt.  Sorry it took so long to post.  Burt's a good man, and he deserved better than this.

The Patriot-News actually published one of my many letters to their editors, albeit somewhat altered. Anyone interested can view the original letter a few posts below. When the P-N actually publishes one, though, the liberal roaches literally come out of the woodwork. One emerged this time, for example to quote the definition of “empirical” from the Merriam-Webster dictionary, in which apparently, the first definition of "empirical" means "originating in or based on observation or experience." The libbie went on to say, “By definition, therefore, "empirical data" does not need does not need [sic] to be obtained in a laboratory. 

This is just more ignorant liberal commentary. One might be able to obtain empirical data outside the laboratory, but its collection still has to conform to scientific methodology. Mathematical forecasting models don't constitute empirical data in any way, shape, or form. But this genius doesn’t agree, so he sends me to a website he says will educate me in “the empirical study of climate”: http://www.ace.mmu.ac.uk/Resources/gcc/3-1.html and tells me that I “can believe whatever [I] want, but [my] letter is not remotely convincing.”

O.K., genius, let me convince you by quoting your own website. First, the site cites its source for empirical evidence, saying, “the period traditionally associated with instrumental records extends back only to the middle of the 19th century.” In other words, we only have real data for the last 150 years or so. Wow, a whole 150 years! To heck with any data covering the last millennium, let alone the last 300,000 or so, when real climate change began. But if we look back at life 1,000 years ago, we’d find that there were vineyards in England and farms in Greenland. How can that be? Why, it was a lot warmer 1,000 years ago than it is today, and could you believe it, the seas weren’t 20 feet higher?!?

This website went on to say further, “for periods prior to the recording of instrumental data, climate changes have to be reconstructed from indirect or proxy sources.” So it’s proxy data they're using for 1,000 years ago. Now, continuing to play my friend’s game, I went to his second favorite website, Merriam-Webster.com, to look up the definition of “proxy”: it’s a “function” that “acts as a substitute for another.” So it’s really substitute data that we’re looking at before 150 years ago. That’s very enlightening, since substitute data is by definition not empirical.

Finally, this person came back on to comment that I’m biased and admitting I made a mistake. Well, to that I say “yes” and “no.” Yes, I'm definitely biased - towards the truth. No, I'm not admitting my letter is in error. Far from it. The whole point of my letter is that math models don't constitute empirical evidence. Empirical evidence is that which is gained in repeatable experiments conducted in accordance with the scientific method. That's the third time now that I've had to that concept to this particular liberal critic, who claims, by the way, to not be liberal. I wonder if he came back again and finally got it. 

For those of you who still don’t get it, let me expand a little. The forecasting that these "climate modelers" are doing is the same kind of math modeling that analysts attempt to perform on, say, the stock market or the weather, using the same methods and having the same level of validity. In fact, if these climate modelers are such good forecasters, why are they even bothering to try to model the climate a hundred years from now? Why don't they just become billionaires playing the market? The answer is that they can't forecast with enough accuracy to make any money. Ditto the climate. That’s the right answer.

Friday, the Nobel Prize Committee announced the 2009 winner of its Peace Prize:  President Barack Obama.  I agree with virtually all Republicans and a lot of Democrats as well that this award is, to say the least, premature.  Barack Obama has accomplished very little in his life besides being elected President of the U.S.  It's not that that's such a small achievement, and yet, by comparison to many other winners, it really doesn't amount to much.

Past winners have included such notable humanitarians as Mother Theresa, Elie Wiesel, the Dalai Lama, and Nelson Mandela, as well as numerous Middle Eastern statesmen who have worked hard to advance the peace process.  It has even been awarded to activists who have committed their lives to try to end the threat of nuclear weapons and the global holocaust that would result from their usage.  Of course, there have been the occasional joke recipients, such as Jimmy Carter, Al Gore, and, of course, that noted peace activist, Yasser, Arafat.  I'm afraid that Obama's award falls closer to the latter group falls closer to that latter group than to the former.

Naturally, the Nobel Committee had its own take on this, citing "his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples."  Of course, there are some cynics who say that such actions such as his decision to cancel the Eastern European missile defense system have actually made war more rather that less likely.  Those same people speculate that Obama's award is due more to the fact that he simply isn't George W. Bush than any other reason. 

But I'm not a cynic.  I think that the Committee sincerely does have what it considers good reasons to present Obama this award.  Europeans are continually trying to project their values onto our country, because they think we should be inclined to adopt a socialist, or at least democratic socialist, economy like theirs.  On the other hand, because we're haven't done that, we're much more prosperous and overall successful than they are, which is an embarrassment to them. If socialism is so great, after all, why is our per capita GNP so much higher than theirs?  Why is our standard of living so much better?

Europeans therefore try to build the credibility of anyone they think might move us in the direction they'd like to see us go, and the Nobel Committee sometimes uses their prizes to lend such credibility.  This award was probably a part of that process, and it isn't the first time it's happened.  Another example of the same process was when they awarded Paul Krugman the Nobel in Economics last year. 

Krugman did some interesting and useful work in international trade in the 1970s, but it was hardly prizeworthy.  Furthermore, his analyses of our economic system that he frequently writes in his N.Y. Times column is consistently wrong, which demonstrates that he really doesn't understand the fundamentals of economics.  On the other hand, he's one of those leftists who wants us to become more like Europe, so they awarded a "prestigious" prize to him to boost his credibility with the common man.  Unfortunately for them, the common American understands much more about what it takes to be successful than the common European, so it hasn't helped him all that much. 

I've commented on Krugman's failings before, and I'm sure I'll have the opportunity to do so again.  Meantime, Americans should be wary of any politician or policy analyst embraced by the European community.  They don't have our best interests at heart.

Here's a reply to another idiotic letter to the editor, one which I've sent to the editors in rebuttal.  I don't expect they'll publish it, so here it is.

"Mark Miller contends that Paul Krugman, who is in face a Nobel-winning economist, “knows his stuff.”  No, he doesn’t.  He continually makes predictions and cites facts that are erroneous.  But Krugman isn’t the only liberal who’s continually in error.  So is Mark Miller.

Probably the biggest error in Miller’s letter is to say that the Obama plan will pay “for health care by letting Bush’s tax cuts for those earning more than $250,000 expire.”  Let’s look at the facts.  The Bush tax cut reduced the top tax rate from 39% to about 35.5% on the top end of earnings.  That means that only the top $125,000 or so of income is actually taxed at that rate, so that the total increase in tax paid by each individual will be about $4500 per year.  Meantime, the Obama health care plan is estimated to cost about $800 billion.  That means that we’d have to have almost 183 million taxpayers making $250,000 per year, and since only about 1% of the 300 million Americans actually make that much, Miller is telling a white lie."

Finally, the “ultra-wealthy” might have inherited their money, but they still invest it and spend it, as do wealthy entrepreneurs and athletes.  If you tax them to give their money to the government, some bureaucrat gets it to waste.  In any case, people making over $250,000 per year aren’t “ultra-wealthy,” but they are doctors, lawyers, accountants, and business executives, and they are indeed the most productive members of society.

I would say that people like Miller need to check their facts, but I don’t want to waste my breath.  Liberals aren’t interested in facts, at least not if they contradict their cherished beliefs.  This letter is for the reality-based community."

Another letter to the editor of the Harrisburg Patriot-News.  They might even publish this one.  They should, because it contains more than the usual good insights.

"A climate modeler is a person who statistically analyzes historical weather data such as temperature such as temperature to determine correlations that can be used to forecast future climatologically significant events.  Environmental "watchdogs" such as Al Gore inform us that there is a "broad consensus" among "climate modelers" that human activity is causing climate change.  Their pet researchers cite "empirical evidence" that they've uncovered as proof it's so.

Empirical data is data obtained in a laboratory using repeatable experiments in accordance with the scientific method.  No "climate modeler" has any such evidence linking "global warming" or its newly-fashionable cousin "climate change" to human activity.  I note, however, that "climate change" has replaced "global warming" as the cause du jour among environmental activists, probably because what was previously thought to be a worldwide warming a decade or so ago seems to have reversed, at least temporarily.  Activists are much safer in declaring the crisis to be climate change, because since the climate is always changing, they're in no danger of contradiction.

Bear in mind that the climate models now predicting worldwide weather disasters are based on the same relationships that weather models use.  Then reflect on the fact that weather forecasters using those same models frequently couldn't predict today's weather even if they happened to be reading tomorrow's newspaper.  That should give you some idea why there are numerous skeptics, both in and out of the climatology business, about climatologists' prediction that the oceans will rise 20 feet by the end of the century.  Most of us aren't willing to restrict economic output, negatively impacting the lives of perhaps billions of people, based on such predictions.

So when columnists like Paul Krugman talk about "climate change" as an "inconvenient truth." don't you believe it.  Krugman and his leftists cohorts are just telling convenient lies."

Frequently at Sunday Mass, we offer prayers for "justice" in the world at large.  While I'm certainly willing to pray for justice - it's one of those concepts with almost universal appeal - I'm never sure exactly what the good Father thinks I'm praying for.  Many people seem to equate "justice" with ensuring everyone has a more or less equal income, for example, in spite of the fact that different people bring various skill sets to the workforce, including some who seem to have the ability and/or desire to work harder to earn more money.

True justice, to some, would ensure that people who work harder for whatever reason should have more money and the things it can buy.  But unfortunately, even that's frequently not the case.  Sometimes, people who are just simply lucky make a lot of money, as for example when they win a lottery.  Other times, there are people who win the "lottery of life," as some liberals like to call it, and have the ability to make more money in the world of business.  Of course, most of these people work their fannies off, too, so maybe that meets the previous definition of justice.

While much attention is paid to people who are monetarily rich, no one says a whole lot about those who are wealthy in many other ways - those who have jobs they like, loving families, and/or a full, healthy, and active life that keeps them constantly entertained and interested in living.  Here in America, that happens to be most of us.  We in this country benefit from an economy and a lifestyle that enables us to be and do pretty much what we want, and that's a priceless blessing.  There are some malcontents, to be sure, but even most of them are quite well off.  They're simply concerned that there might be some Americans who aren't receiving their "just" rewards, but in reality, most of us have plenty.  They have no proof that this is the case - because, after all, it isn't the case - but they need something to protest to stay busy and fulfilled.  To each his own, I guess.

So instead of constantly worrying about some ill-defined concept of "justice," perhaps we should count our blessings.  We have a system that works to keep the maximum number of people well off, leaving out just a few who simply won't join the party and fend for themselves.  Tinkering with that system will only sub-optimize our overall well being, and that wouldn't be a good thing for most of us.  There will always be those malcontents driven by envy for people who have more than they do; envy is, in fact, probably the biggest problem in American society today.  Let's not be like the dog in the manger and lose what we have just because we're worried about what everyone else has.

Ultimately, the only one who can ensure that justice is done is God.  He has specifically reserved the right of judgment to himself.  Those who judge, and envy, will themselves be judged, so let's stop concerning ourselves with "justice" and live our lives the way we know they should be lived.  Everything else is just a distraction.

In 1970, Tom Wolfe published a book of two social commentaries in the form of long essays.  One of those essays, "Radical Chic," made fun of status-conscious celebrities who fawn over extreme leftists like Cesar Chavez and the Black Panthers.  In their celebrity delusion, they imagine that by attaching themselves to people with a "cause," they can stay cool and relevant while atoning for the "sin" of being rich.  It was laughable then, and it's still hilarious.

Fast forward almost 40 years, and we find that "radical chic" has been replaced by child molester chic.  Celebrated director/pervert Roman Polanski, who raped a 13-year old girl in 1977 and has been on the lam in France ever since, was finally apprehended in Switzerland Saturday.  Who knew Swiss authorities, or authorities in any other of the libertine countries of Western Europe, for that matter, could be so civic-minded?  Polanski, who fled the U.S. to France upon being released after the 42-day psychiatric evaluation that followed his guilty plea, has had a U.S. arrest warrant outstanding since 1978.  Apparently, since the Los Angeles County district attorney's office refused to give up on putting him in prison, this evolved in 2005 into an international arrest warrant.  Hence the Swiss arrest, and good for them.

Over the weekend, however, scores of Hollywood notables from actors like Harrison Ford and Debra Winger to directors such as Woody Allen and Martin Scorcese have signed a petition asking for this convicted child molester to be released.  The petition, with a list of signers, can be found here:  http://www.sacd.fr/Le-cinema-soutient-Roman-Polanski-Petition-for-Roman-Polanski.1340.0.html.

Their stated reason for this request seems to be that a film maker of Polanski's "stature" (he's made a few successful movies) is above the law, and any attempt to make him do the time for his crime is simply the work of Neanderthals in the U.S. justice system.  Winger termed the L.A. D.A.s "philistines" and studio head Harvey Weinstein says his friend, whom he calls a "humanist" (as opposed to a rapist), has been the victim of a gross "miscarriage of justice."  Here's a news flash, Harvey.  Your buddy pled guilty, which means he said he did it.

Although radical chic is hilarious, child molester chic isn't at all funny.  If this were just a mere anti-war protest, I could just write it off as more unpatriotic behavior on the part of spoiled Hollywood brats biting the hand that feeds them and their over-inflated egos.  This, however, is a bit more disturbing.  Raping a 13-year old girl should be something everyone, left and right, can condemn.  The fact that at least some on the left won't do that should really make everyone else wonder where the moral compass of these people is pointing.

I learned the other day that Burt Prelutsky, one of the most popular columnists on this site was recently canceled.  I was going to write a farewell column to him which I was going to jokingly call "R.I.P. Burt."  Then, Sunday morning, I had a reality check in the form of some very bad news about a friend of ours, news that suddenly made the R.I.P. for a canceled column seem like a very hollow and inappropriate jest.

There are a few outstanding individuals throughout history whose lives have truly changed the world for the better - Newton, Einstein, Washington, Lincoln, among many others - but probably the best epitaph most of us can ever aspire to is for people to say that we were a nice person who positively impacted their lives.  Our friend Laura was one of those people.  Laura was a good friend of ours for probably most of this decade.  A lifelong diabetic, she eventually, before she turned 40, wore out her kidney and pancreas and required a double transplant to continue living.  Fortunately, a blessed donor appeared in time to save her life, but the transplants were a mixed blessing.  Following the surgery, doctors advised her that the anti-rejection drugs she'd be required to take for the rest of her life also carried the risk of causing cancer later on.

That warning turned out to be prophetic.  A little over three years ago, she did in fact develop Merckel cell skin cancer, which eventually spread everywhere else.  About two years ago, when it began spreading, her oncologists gave her three to six months to live.  She fooled them not once but several times, as the cancer continued its march through her body.  Each time she'd have a new treatment and/or surgery to remove tumors from their latest site, the doctors would again give her three to six months, and they were always wrong.  She bounced back again and again, all the while taking time to enjoy the good things life has to offer with her husband.  They cruised and vacationed all over the world, living life the way it was meant to be lived before her disease inevitably finally took her.

Then, the final blow fell.  She discovered her husband betrayed her when, a little less than a year ago, she caught him e-mailing his new girlfriend, whom he met at his cycling club.  This distressing turn of events left her one surviving aunt as the only family member she could rely on in this ultimate crisis.  Because of her diabetes, she was never able to have children, and most of the rest of her family had predeceased her.

Still, Laura soldiered on, fighting the cancer while living life to the fullest.  Instead of cruising with her husband, she cruised with her friends.  Friends, you see, was one thing this remarkable woman had plenty of.  Her positive attitude towards her life, in spite of the bad cards she'd been dealt, set an amazing example for the rest of us in her life to follow.    She had even bounced back as recently as three weeks ago when the cancer caused brain tumors that made her temporarily incoherent.  The doctors predicted then that she'd never leave the hospital again, but just over a week later some of her friends took her on a shopping excursion to one of the local craft shops.  She'd fooled the doctors again, one last time, and began radiation treatment to try to shrink the tumors in her brain.

Finally, though, over this last weekend, Laura hit the wall.  Never physically robust, in spite of her huge heart, she had shrunk in size to not much more than a wraith, and her body finally began to shut down.  She finally died Tuesday afternoon, a fighter to the end.  She was surrounded by her friends, one of whom was her beloved aunt Chris, who took care of her for the last 8 weeks of her life with help from many of those other friends.  There's no doubt in my mind that she then quickly ascended into heaven, where we'll all eventually see her again.

Even knowing that, though, doesn't make it any easier to lose her, in part because she left all too soon.  Neither does the certainty of knowing that her passing was inevitable, as it is for all of us.  It's never easy to lose even someone who's elderly, but Laura was only 50 years old, the youngest person in the hospital room where she finally passed.  And it doesn’t even make it easier knowing that we're not grieving for her, because she's in a better place, but for ourselves, because we miss her.  It still hurts.

P.S.  I'll get to Burt's departure shortly.

Saul Alinsky was a radical organizer who rose to prominence in the 1960s through his relentless "activism" on behalf of what he called "powerless people."  A Playboy magazine interviewer, in an interview published right before his death in 1972, laughably called him "one of the great American leaders of the non-socialist left."  That's really funny, because Alinsky was definitely a socialist.  He has, in fact, been called neo-Marxist by more credible journalists.

Alinsky, an experienced agitator, published a book called "Rules for Radicals," in which he outlined the tactics he had successfully employed over the years to extort money from corporations on behalf of his clients.  The gist of Alinsky's rules was to make his "enemies" capitulate with a mix personal attacks using half-truths and outright lies to demonize them.  He would combine these with institutional attacks on their organizations taking advantage of their need to interact with the public by misusing their  own rules to trip them up with contradictions and make them look bad.  "Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules" was Alinsky's motto, believing that no organization could have a contradiction-free set of regulations and that making them try to enforce all their rules would make them look like deceivers.  Actually, use of this tactic marked Alinsky as a professional liar, but he'd say the ends justify the means, just like his mentors, Marx and Lenin.

Alinsky's other main tactic was to exhort his followers to "infiltrate the system from within," having them cut their hair and don business suits to look respectable, all the while plotting to overthrow the American capitalist system.  Alinsky has several prominent disciples who have followed this particular advice very well, rising to positions of great responsibility in the U.S. government.  Most notable among these are Secretary of State and former Senator Hillary Clinton, who's senior thesis at Wellesley College extolled the virtues of Alinskyism, and, of course, President Barack Obama, who learned "community organizing" in Alinsky's own home town of Chicago in the mid-1980s and later put those lessons into practice.

So Saul Alinsky is dead, but his legacy lives on.  One organization in particular, however, epitomizes Alinskyism today in that they use whatever tactics necessary to aid their "powerless" clients in ripping off taxpayer dollars from the government.  That would be the so-called Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now (better known in the news as ACORN.)  ACORN has for years engaged in a no-holds barred effort to obtain mortgages for people who were a bad risk to pay them back, which, of course, was a key component of the financial market failure one year ago.  In the past, ACORN has been known to engage in such despicable tactics of tailing the children of offending bank executives, haranguing them about their parents' "crimes" against the poor, which is activity bordering on the criminal in itself.  This time, however, ACORN has been caught suborning actual criminal activity.

A recently released video shot at the ACORN office by two undercover journalists posing as a "procurer" and prostitute in Baltimore  reveals that ACORN representatives are perfectly willing to abet criminal activities in the name of activism. An ACORN person advised the two journalists about how to purchase a house with taxpayer money while lying on tax forms about the source of the couple's income.  This film is apparently only one of several shot by various undercover journalists in different parts of the country revealing similar behavior.  Saul Alinsky would be proud, but the Senate has now voted 83-7 to deny future funding to ACORN.  It appears that even most Democrats can be shamed.

So ACORN's days may be numbered, at least as far as the taxpayer funding their chicanery goes, but Alinsky's legacy still lives on like a virus infecting our free society.  ACORN's demise won't stop Alinskyites from continuing their mischief.  To the contrary, they'll scatter likes rats deserting a sinking ship and form new organizations devoted to the same ends.  And just remember, they have some powerful allies, such as the ones in the White House and State Department, so let's deprive their high-government allies of their power, starting in 2010 and continuing in 2012.  Our freedom depends on it.

The U.S. is but one of almost 200 national entities in the world, countries that range in size from Monaco to China.  Those other countries vary not only in size but also in their level of threat to our national security, from, well, Monaco to China.  The most important duty the Constitution assigns to our federal government is protecting us from the threats, large and small, that other countries pose for us.

Friday, our new President scrapped our Eastern European missile defense system.  This program was carefully negotiated by George W. Bush with our Eastern European allies for deployment there as a defense against both Russian and Iranian ballistic missiles potentially carrying nuclear warheads.  The Russians, of course, are mildly ecstatic about what they view as a huge diplomatic coup, and there was even a report yesterday that they've now scrapped their pending deployment of tactical missiles near the Polish border.  If they're really doing that, good for them - and good for us, too - but the Russians aren't the only threat the missile defense system was supposed to protect us against.

The Iranians have so far been silent, but the system was designed to prevent them from lobbing nuclear warheads at us, too.  Iran is led by lunatic mullahs and their tools, like Mahmoud Ahmendinijad, who have promised, due to their extreme anti-Semitism, the destruction of our ally Israel, the Middle East's only democracy.  Unless Mr. Obama plans to abandon Israel to the Muslim wolves there, we're going to be a target of these madmen.  In fact, even if we did throw the Israelis to the wolves, these people hate us so much that Israel would still be smoking ruins when they found some other excuse to target us.

One of the criticisms leveled at the newly-scrapped system, which was supposed to counter an attack from Iranian intercontinental ballistic missiles, was that it was too far away from Iran to defend against short-range missiles.  Short-range missiles are now expected to be a threat long before the Iranians develop ICBMs, and they can be better combated by a simpler system, according to the Obama Administration.  The last time I checked, Iran, or any other Asian country, for that matter, can't reach the U.S. with short-range missiles, but even if we accept that all we need for now is a simple system, why not prepare for the future, when the Iranian lunatics have developed the long-range systems that there's no doubt that they want?

There's also no guarantee that Russia, historically an imperialist nation of the first rank, won't want to use short range missiles against our European allies someday, so why not leave in place a single, comprehensive missile defense system that counters any and all threats?  Instead, we've once again deserted defenseless countries that have put their faith in our reliability as an ally.  Time and again since the Second World War we've promised our allies the moon, only to run out when a chicken administration decided it didn't have the stomach to stand and fight.  The most recent occurrence of this phenomenon was in 1979, when the ill-fated Carter Administration sold out the Shah of Iran, forcing him into exile and turning the country over to the same lunatic mullahs we now need a missile defense system for.

It's not just that we're running out on our allies, though.  We're letting other countries dictate our foreign policy to us.  Here's a news flash, people.  Other countries don't have our best interests at heart - they have their best interests in mind when they formulate policy, even if they're formulating our policy.  Even our closest allies - the ones in Western Europe - look out for their own interests first.  When most of these countries balked at invading Iraq, and some of them backed out after being threatened by terrorists, they weren't thinking about our well-being.  The were looking out for themselves. 

These countries are being short sighted, of course, because they're acting like they want the terrorist crocodile to eat them last, but as long as the U.S. and Israel are gobbled up first, they don't seem to care.  We had the power to deal with Iraq, just as we now have the power to deal with Iranian and Russian missiles and terrorist threats.  Even if we didn't believe there was a strong probability of being attacked, why, when we have the power to do something about it, would we take a chance on the goodwill of other nations?  Even if there's a 90% chance these other nations mean us no harm, that's still a 10% chance that they do.  Let's invest a little of our power to change things for the better and improve our odds of success.

Let's therefore use our military to stabilize the Middle East and build and deploy whatever defensive systems we need to help ensure the safety of our citizens.  Let's not rely on promises from imperialistic powers and nations run by homicidal/suicidal maniacs.  Our safety depends not only on our strength but on our willingness to use it.

Another letter to the Patriot-News editorial staff.  Sometimes, these even get published.  If this one does, it will ignite a firestorm.

"Cynthia Tucker writes that immigration reform will be "ugly" because, as President Obama has said, "any form of pathway for legalization for those who are already in the United States is unacceptable."  Yes, Mr. President, and Ms. Tucker, some of believe the law should be enforced.  Our country is flooded with illegal aliens, and this situation can't continue, because we can't know if illegal immigrants might be criminals, mentally ill people, or carriers of contagious diseases.  This latter possibility has become more worrisome recently with the news that there is a worldwide swine flu epidemic raging, and deadly swine flu is not what we need here now, or ever; we have enough of our own problems.

Unfortunately, the current system of simply returning captured illegal aliens to their homeland at the expense of the U.S. taxpayer isn't working.  They simply return as soon as they can.  Discouraging these lawbreakers is therefore going to require tougher measures.  Let's start instead by giving them one warning, so that the first time they come here illegally, we fly them home with the warning not to come here again without permission, while collecting a sample of their DNA.  

Each time illegals are captured, their DNA can be compared with a database of previous lawbreakers to see if this is their first time.  If it isn't, they can be deported again - just as soon as they pay back the taxpayer by working off their debt in a labor camp.  There is precedent for this in our country.  Many states, particularly in the South, have required prisoners to work off their debts to society by building roads, for example.  I've heard numerous politicians and other public figures state that we desperately need to rebuild our infrastructure, including highways and other roads.  These illegals could work on these kind of projects until such time as it is deemed that their debt to the U.S. taxpayer has been satisfied.  Then, and only then, they'll be sent back again to their country.

This plan kills a couple of birds with a single stone: it deters illegal immigration while providing needed labor at low cost for rebuilding highways and other roads.  It seems like a good, workable plan to me, which probably means it has little or no chance of ever becoming reality."

Liberals would have us believe that lack of federal government regulation caused the financial market meltdown last year, with Wall Street firms such as Goldman Sachs and Bear Stearns taking unreasonable risks with investors' money.  In particular, they fault these firms for investing in derivative securities based on, among other financial instruments, high-risk mortgages, and they say that government regulation could and would have prevented them from going astray.

But what do Wall Street types think about this?  Most of them have been fairly close-mouthed about it, probably because they fleeced the feds for billions of dollars in bailout money and don't want to kill the goose that's laying the golden egg.  However, a few days ago the Massachusetts Attorney General's office released transcripts of a conversation between convicted broker/swindler Michael Madoff and officials of the Fairfield Greenwich Group, a company accused as acting as a "feeder fund" (using another, "master" fund to invest assets investors have place with the feeder for safekeeping) for Madoff's "master" fund.  Fairfield has just settled with the state for $8 million without, presumably, admitting guilt, for its role in the scandal, but what the transcripts reveal about Madoff and the Securities and Exchange Commission is much more interesting.  

The conversation was Madoff's attempt to coach Fairfield executives in their dealing with a 2005 SEC investigation into Madoff's investing practices.  Much of the conversation focused on how Madoff decided where and when to invest, the two key decisions any fund manager faces, and the details he provided to Fairfield actually outlined a reasonable investment strategy - had it been real.  Anyone who wants to read about it can find the transcripts here:

http://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/pdf/Fairfield_Exhibit_1.pdf

The details are gory unless you're a financial geek, but what Madoff tells Fairfield to say would have made sense to someone in that industry, as Madoff outlined how he was using models to invest using 95% confidence intervals for returns on investments.  Unfortunately, the models Madoff described to Fairfield were bogus, and it ultimately developed that Madoff wasn't really investing at all.  He was operating a multi-billion dollar Ponzi scheme, whereby money obtained from recent investors was used to pay off people who had invested earlier.  Even more unfortunately, the SEC failed to recognize the scam for what it was.

But Fairfield's coached testimony ultimately convinced the SEC investigators that all was as it should be, just as Madoff said it would.  He accurately predicted that "the [Securities and Exchange] Commission has no idea what the hell is going on" so that Fairfield didn't have to worry.  After all, "you don't have to be too brilliant with these guys."  Apparently, Madoff's low opinion of the people who were investigating him was well justified.

Then, however, Madoff revealed another reason why the SEC might roll over on his scheme, besides the fact that its investigators were ignorant of financial derivatives.  He went on to add, "these guys they work for five years at the Commission [and] then they become compliance manager at a hedge fund."  So they don't want to dig too deeply into these funds' strategies and maybe make them mad, because they want one of the companies to hire them in a few years.  That's understandable, since these civil servants are lucky to be making over $100,000 a year, while a hedge fund compliance manager can make many times that on Wall Street.  Still, anyone who thinks these SEC investigators are protecting the individual investor is dreaming, as liberals frequently do.  And supposing that increased regulation will be the cure for Wall Street chicanery, or even honest mistakes, is purely the stuff of which fantasies are made.

I mentioned all of this to a liberal of my acquaintance, and wouldn't you know that this person's take on the situation was that it was all the Republicans' fault that the SEC isn't more vigilant, because it was Republicans that stripped the SEC of its investigative clout.  Of course, Madoff's been running this scam since the early 1990s, when that good Republican Bill Clinton was President, but why let facts get in the way of your fantasy?  It's so inconvenient.

The moral of this story, then, is that regulation isn't the answer.  Not only is it not the answer, it can actually make the situation worse, by providing the illusion that all is well in the investing world because the feds are looking out for the individual investor.  Folks, they're not looking out for you, and your best defense is to become a smart investor, or at least know who you can trust based on reputation, and forget the regulation.

Another letter to the editor of the Harrisburg Patriot-News:

"I see where mind-reading columnist Thomas Friedman claims that many Republicans "just want President Barack Obama to fail."  He must be using his ESP, because although some Republicans have predicted Obama will fail and that it will be his downfall, I have yet to see where any have said they want him to fail.  It's also possible that Friedman is delusional, like so many other liberals, because, among other things, he also refers to Obama as a "centrist," which his record shows he clearly is not.

I can only speak for myself, but I believe I do speak for most Americans - Democrats as well as Republicans - when I say that I hope our country does well enough to remain the greatest country in the world.  I also hoped that in the 1970s, however, when the mis-administration of one James Earl Carter turned us into a second-rate power.  Unfortunately, Carter's policies were guaranteed to fail, and all the hope in the world couldn't have and didn't change that fact.  So it will be with Obama's disastrous policies of government intervention in the marketplace and appeasement of terrorist-sponsoring states such as Iran.  I hope I'm wrong, but I'm not wrong.

American business will ride the engine of entrepreneurship to win in the global business arena,  not by having the taxpayer subsidize health insurance.  We will also not win in the globalized economy by making our businessmen slaves to treaties designed to prevent "global warming" when those treaties, like the Kyoto Accords, place no comparable burden on China or India.  The Indians and the Chinese aren't foolish enough to sign anything like that, so why should we be?  Most international corporate managers, eastern financiers, and technology entrepreneurs understand this quite well, and the ones who don't will soon be reminded of how true it is.  Meantime, Tom Friedman should take his ESP act to the circus, where it belongs."