Good for the Ruskies...

MOSCOW -- Shamil Basayev, the Chechen warlord who masterminded the Beslan school siege and dozens of other horrific attacks across Russia, was killed yesterday after eluding capture for more than a decade, top Russian officials said. Basayev, the most brazen and ruthless of the Chechen warlords, had taken responsibility for organizing the September 2004 hostage-taking in Beslan, where more than 330 people, half of them children, were killed when Russian forces stormed a school where they were being held. Bashir Aushev, Ingushetia's deputy prime minister, told the Interfax news agency that a large explosives-packed truck detonated as Basayev and other militants sat in cars alongside.

Sometimes you just have to admire the brutality with which Communism doles out justice.

"As a result of the blast, only pieces of two of the fighters were left," Mr. Aushev said. "Basayev was identified by fragments of his body. To the best of my knowledge, they identified him by his head."

Ouch!

These hate-America, Hollywood types crack me up with their self-important pronouncements...telling American men we are too masculine to get along in the modern world...and I suppose France's femininity has worked well for them over the years...

Ethan Hawke blasts BushBy Indo Asian News ServiceLondon, July 8 (IANS) Actor Ethan Hawke has criticised US President George W. Bush's decision to go to war in Iraq and feels American men should re-think the concept of masculinity.

'Masculine identity has been ruling the world for a long time. You could make a case that it was needed at one time to keep people safe, build buildings, make roads and conquer nature. But that masculine thing has also led us to war. Men like to fight. But, because of globalisation, I think, in some fundamental way, 'Might makes right' is over.'

George Bush is making difficult decisions and taking difficult actions daily, to deal with crazed lunatics who are threatening the security of the world with WMD's and long range missiles. These actors who make their fortunes pretending to be hypermasculine heroes are ironically, really just a bunch of touchy-feely, emotion-driven, pudding heads whose toughest decision each day consists of which size double-caff latte' to order at Starbucks. Obviously you have to take a hardline with these wacko dictators...it's all they understand. Diplomacy has never worked with people who are liars and will break their end of a bargain whenever it suits them. Diplomacy, dialogue, and "understanding" has always defined the liberals' method for appeasing homocidial madmen who threaten the world. It's decisive, confrontational, big-stick action that achieves peace with violent, rogue nations like Iran and North Korea...not mommy-style coddling.

Every day I'm thankful that a man like Bush is dealing with the world's trouble-makers and not a hand-wringing, bedwetter like Ethan Hawke.

These people are too stupid for words...

Here we have yet another example of... [human stupidly chooses to get close to a wild animal and wild animal badly hurts stupid human].

PAMPLONA, Spain - A New Yorker was paralyzed below the waist while dodging young bulls with other revelers in the bullring at Spain's San Fermin Festival in Pamplona on Friday, festival organizers said.
The 31-year-old, named by hospital authorities as Ray Ducharn, was undergoing surgery after being taken to intensive care after he was hurt while trying to escape when the animals were released in Pamplona's bullring following the famous running of the bulls through the town's streets.
It was unclear exactly how Ducharn was injured but he did not appear to have been gored, organizers said.

You don't have to be gored to sustain a very bad injury. These bulls weigh like 1500-2000 pounds. Stepping on you would break bones. I get the whole thrill seeking thing but this is exactly like jumping into a shark tank at the aquarium with an open wound.

Other equally sensible events for thrill seekers:

- Chutes and 'Chetes -- 25 parachutes are thrown from an airplane followed by 26 thrill seekers with machetes

- The Gator Dash -- 100 thrill seekers douse themselves with chicken broth and try to survive a night in the Everglades

- Hooligans and Highjinks -- 100 thrill seekers attend a British soccer match cleverly dressed as fans of the team that just beat the crap out of them the previous day

If anybody has any good suggestions for thrill seeking events for people stupid enough to run with the bulls, post them in the comments section.

Nobody's business but the stockholders'...

MSN Money -- Last year was a very good year to be an average CEO.
A typical chief executive at a U.S. company earned 262 times the pay of a typical worker in 2005, according to a recent report.
With 260 workdays in a year, that means that an average CEO earned more in one workday than a worker earned in 52 weeks.

Well heaven forbid the guy on whose shoulders the success or failure of an entire Fortune 500 company rests should be compensated according to his performance of his responsibilities!

Isn't this the stockholders problem? If they think the CEO is competently guiding their company to reap profits in the marketplace thereby enriching them, why shouldn't they approve whatever compensation package they see fit to approve? If the stockholders loose money and the company looses value due to his poor leadership and imcompetence, they can always fire him.

The reason workers don't get paid a lot is because there a thousand guys who can do their jobs. With these really big companies, there are a handful of guys who have the business skill to keep or make the company profitable.

"But Ed" you say, "why should that guy make so much more than me when we work for the same company...it's still just a job?" I just told you why. Could you guide a complex, diversified company with thousands of employees through the labarynthian maze of government regulations and constantly evolving market dynamics and out-compete the competition for market share and huge profits? The answer is no.

It's all about class envy. People automatically think, probably because the media like to portray it this way, that rich people got rich by cheating, stepping on the little guy, or just by blind dumb luck, when the fact is they got rich by making wise decisions, by being educated and motivated, and by recognizing opportunities when they present themselves.

Poor people are poor because they regularly make bad decisions, fail to get educated, are less motivated and fail to take advantage of opportunities.

The job of CEO is worth whatever the shareholders are willing to pay somebody to do it, and the job of machine operator on the factory floor is worth whatever the shareholders are willing to pay somebody to do that job.

Would you pay the stockbroker next door $1000 to cut your grass when there are 50 kids in the neighborhood willing to do it for $10? Likewise, would you let the kid cutting your grass choose your retirement investments because he was willing to do it for $10?

We need to stop jeolously fretting about what other people are earning and concentrate on making good decisions for ourselves so we can be rich too.

Somebody better do something...

There are now three, count them three, Asian countries in close proximity to each other poised with their fingers on hair triggers of missiles aimed at each other. Somebody should lay the smack-down on Kim Jong Il before it gets out of hand. China should do it but they are enjoying watching the dog-eating dictator tweak the nose of the world's lone super-power. For some reason, though I cannot figure it out, Taiwan is flexing it's muscles toward China during this whole NoKo temper-tantrum by Jong Il. China and Taiwan have been at odds for years so what's all this about now?

Taiwan plans to test-fire a missile capable of hitting China, alarming the island's main ally, the United States, a cable news network said on Thursday.

The Hsiung Feng III, developed by Taiwan's Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology, has a range of 360 miles and is accurate to within about one and a half feet, the online edition of cable news network ETTV said, quoting unnamed military sources.

China, which has claimed sovereignty over Taiwan since their split in 1949 at the end of the Chinese civil war, has deployed nearly 800 short-range ballistic missiles aimed at the self-ruled island in case it formally declares independence.

The United States, which recognises Beijing's "one China" policy but is Taiwan's major supplier of arms, had expressed its concern to the Taiwan government, the Web site said.

I guess the U.S. has got to play both ends against the middle with China and Taiwan but something bad is going to happen sooner or later if China decides to act on it's claim that Taiwan is still part of China. Hopefully these tensions will continue, unacted upon, far into the future: far enough that China will have succommed to free-market capitalism and it's old-world communist leaders will have died before they decide to reclaim Taiwan.

Like we need another world hot-spot to deal with in addition to Israel, Iraq, Iran, and NoKo.

Hopefully this will be the start of a trend...

Finally, some sanity in the whole I'm-too-stupid-to-know-that-smoking-was-bad-for-me excuse that sick smokers use to steal money they didn't earn from the tobacco companies. We've known cigarette smoke was harmful and addictive for at least 40 years.

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) - The Florida Supreme Court on Thursday rejected a $145 billion punitive damage award against tobacco companies for injuring smokers, saying it was excessive. The award had been the largest ever by an American jury.
The justices also approved an appellate court ruling that it had been a mistake to certify a class-action lawsuit representing an estimated 300,000 to 700,000 ill Floridians. The certification led to the huge jury award for punitive damages in 2000.

Too bad we don't have the loser-pays legal system in this country. Every smoker's attorney out there who brought a losing case against the tobacco industry would then have to pay the court costs associated with the fraudulent suit, including the defense's legal fees. That'll make them think twice befor trying to claim that they didn't know smoking was bad for them.

Helping Republicans win election after election...

Seriously, but for Howard Dean and Hillary Clinton, is there any greater asset to the conservative election cause than momma-moonbat herself...Cindy Sheehan?

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - About 150 protesters sat in front of the White House on Monday to savor their last meal before starting a hunger strike that some said will continue until American troops return from Iraq.

Yeeeaaaaay, long troop deployments!

The demonstration marking the Independence Day holiday was organized by CodePink, a women's anti-war group that called on volunteers to abstain from eating for 24 hours from midnight on Monday.

I am completely at a loss as to what a hunger strike accomplishes any more.

Some protesters said their fast would continue beyond July 4th.

If it's true what they say that 3 weeks without food is deadly, then I think we should encourage them to shoot for a good month.

Anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan, whose son was killed in Iraq, said she would drink only water throughout the summer, which she said she would spend outside President George W. Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas.

"This war is a crime," Sheehan told a crowd of clapping, cheering protesters. "We represent millions of Americans who withdraw their support from this government."
The demonstrators crouched in the muggy evening next to a piece of pink plastic, spread down the road as a table and table-cloth in one. It was covered with wilted pink sunflowers and plates of vegetarian curry, white rice, and beans.

What a bunch of fruit-cakes!

My prediction: in about 1 week the media will tire of the 110 degree Texes summer heat and Cindy's rantings and take their cameras home to cover actual news, and about 1 minute later, Cindy will pack it in and head for the nearest Pizza Hut saying, "I can get more accomplished in Washington where the cameras are."

The end isn't as near as you've been told by Al Gore...

OK all you hippie, Gaia-worshipping, the-end-is-near, hysterical, global warming alarmists...check out this short essay at realclearpolitics.com by John Stossel. Others have been making this very point for years but he really nails it...

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2006/07/a convenient lie.html

Scientists whose careers live and die by grant funding generally reach conclusions that agree with the funding organization's outlook. Not biting the hand that feeds you is human nature.

Liberals mourn the untimely demise of Ken Lay...

UPI -- Enron Corp. founder Kenneth Lay, who was convicted of helping perpetuate one of the most sprawling business frauds in U.S. history, died Wednesday of a heart attack in Colorado, disappointing liberals across the country. As the largest donor to George Bush's presidential campaigns and a member of corporate America, Lay found himself with a double bull's-eye on his back. Following his conviction for the Enron financial scandal, along with CEO Jeffery Skilling, liberals gleefully looked forward to October, the month scheduled for Lay's sentencing. He faced possibly decades in prison.

Said one New York Times reporter who wished to remain anonymous, "We've [the liberal media] been trying to get this character for years. He represents all that is evil about corporate America, and that he's a Republican only fueled our hatred of him."

Liberals nationwide were smuggly anticipating covering Ken Lay being perp-walked to jail. Now after his death, they only have Jeffery Skilling to kick around.

Continued the Times reporter, "We feel like the rug has been yanked out from under us, like Christmas has been cancelled or something. Sure Skilling is made from the same mold as Lay but he's a small fish. We had bagged the biggest crook in corporate history and we deserved to be able to enjoy the spoils of our victory. Lay's sentencing would have been the perfect platform to show the world how evil corporations are and how they should be much more heavily regulated by the government, controlled by Democrats of course."

The Times reporter, resigned to the truth of Lay's demise, offered this parting comment, "Believe you me, we have lots of other corporate heads in our gun sights. We'll get 'em! We'll get 'em all!"

A day that will live in infamy!!!

Today is the 144th anniversary of the creation of the Internal Revenue Service. Originally it was intended to help pay for the Civil War but could anyone have imagined that by a century and a half later, it would have turned into the single greatest tool for controlling Americans by government?

The Revenue Act of 1862, formally cited as Act of July 1, 1862, Ch. CXIX, 12 Stat. 432, was passed by the United States Congress during the American Civil War and signed into law by President Abraham Lincoln. The law established the first federal income tax in United States history....

And it was all down hill from there.

Income between $800 and $10,000 was taxed at a 3 percent rate. Higher income was taxed at a 5 percent rate.

To me, the progressive tax structure is the single greatest economically damaging encroachment into the lives of Americans by our government. It punishes achievement and innovation, and rewards laziness and incompetence.

The income tax was to be withheld by the employer...

That's because the government rightly assumed that no free American would voluntarily give up a huge percentage of his hard earned wages to add to an enormous pile of money to be used by politicians to buy votes in order to get re-elected.

A permanent tax collection agency and the office of the Commissioner of Internal Revenuewere established.

There you have it folks...144 years ago today, the politicians created the mechanism by which they can control the lives of the citizens they pretend to represent by seizing their income before it even gets to the person who earned it and redistributing it in a way that insures their continued grasp of power.

Dec 7, the day the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, is the recognized Day of Infamy, but the day the IRS was created had far more dire implications for the lives of Americans than a war with the Japanese.