For example...

Where in the Constitution does it say the federal government has the power to do this?

I'm not against art. I'm all for it. I think that the arts are a valuable part of our culture and should be encouraged. However, I do not think the government should be using my tax dollars for this purpose. If private individuals want to fund the arts, great. Should we return to the system of patronage that characterized previous centuries and which produced such works as the plays of Shakespeare and the paintings of Michelangelo? Maybe. That's a good topic for discussion.

One of the things you run into with government sponsorship of the arts is trying to figure out just which artistic endeavors merit such support. From the article:

Public support for the arts was hotly debated in the 1990's. Conservatives complained that the agency was financing obscene or sacrilegious works by artists like Robert Mapplethorpe and Andres Serrano. Former Senator Jesse Helms, Republican of North Carolina, repeatedly tried to eliminate the agency.

So who decides? I, for one, consider the works of Lorenzo Sperlonga to be very artistic. They're also, mostly, very erotic (i.e. Not Safe For Work), but you can't deny the talent behind them. Should the federal government be funding his work? I think it should be up to the public to decide what artists they want to support. The arts won't go away without the NEA.

The Tenth Amendment

Amendment X to the Constitution of the United States of America states:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.

First of all, we must keep in mind that governments (federal, state, local) do not have rights; they have powers. Only people have rights. The Tenth Amendment defines a class of powers and then defines their status.

"... not delegated to the United States by the Constitution,..." - This first clause of the definition excludes all powers that are specifically delegated to the United States, referring to the federal government. Most of these powers are described in the original text of the Constitution, some are described in later amendments.

"... nor prohibited by it to the states,..." - The second clause excludes all powers that the Constitution specifically says the state governments do not have. For the most part, these are listed in Article I, Section 10, which states:

Section 10. No state shall enter into any treaty, alliance, or confederation; grant letters of marque and reprisal; coin money; emit bills of credit; make anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts; pass any bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law impairing the obligation of contracts, or grant any title of nobility.

No state shall, without the consent of the Congress, lay any imposts or duties on imports or exports, except what may be absolutely necessary for executing it's inspection laws: and the net produce of all duties and imposts, laid by any state on imports or exports, shall be for the use of the treasury of the United States; and all such laws shall be subject to the revision and control of the Congress.

No state shall, without the consent of Congress, lay any duty of tonnage, keep troops, or ships of war in time of peace, enter into any agreement or compact with another state, or with a foreign power, or engage in war, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent danger as will not admit of delay.

The final clause, "... are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people," designates the status of these powers. They are reserved to the states or the people. The federal government does not have these powers. Period. For example, until the Sixteenth Amendment was ratified in 1913 (and there is question as to whether it was properly ratified), the federal government could not assess an income tax. But the states could, and many still do. Should an amendment be added that says states can't do that, then that would become one of those powers prohibited by the Constitution to the states.

A strict interpretation of the Tenth Amendment leads to the conclusion that a great number of the powers the federal government now exercises are unconstitutional. The amendment essentially says to the federal government, "You can do these things and no more." Unless it's something specifically listed in the Constitution, the federal government shouldn't be doing it.

This, of course, is one of the reasons the amendment process was incorporated into the Constitution in the first place. The authors knew that they couldn't plan for all eventualities to come so they created a mechanism whereby the Constitution could be modified to deal with things they missed, or with things that would develop in the future. But they also made sure that amendments could not be passed easily. The Constitution is a "living" document in this sense but it grows and evolves slowly, not subject to the whim of the moment.

Quote of the day

"Each individual of the society has a right to be protected by it in the enjoyment of his life, liberty, and property, according to standing laws. He is obliged, consequently, to contribute his share to the expense of this protection; and to give his personal service, or an equivalent, when necessary. But no part of the property of any individual can, with justice, be taken from him, or applied to public uses, without his own consent, or that of the representative body of the people. In fine, the people of this commonwealth are not controllable by any other laws than those to which their constitutional representative body have given their consent." --John Adams


Via The Federalist

Help! Help! I'm being repressed!

Check it:
Al Franken Knocks Down Dean Heckler

Excerpts:

Wise-cracking funnyman Al Franken yesterday body-slammed a demonstrator to the ground after the man tried to shout down Gov. Howard Dean.

and

Franken said he's not backing Dean but merely wanted to protect the right of people to speak freely. "I would have done it if he was a Dean supporter at a Kerry rally," he said.

"I'm neutral in this race but I'm for freedom of speech, which means people should be able to assemble and speak without being shouted down."

My response:
So Al Franken commits assault and justifies it by saying he's for freedom of speech. How did Al Franken arrogate to himself the role of Protector of Free Speech? The obvious question is whether or not he would have done the same thing if it had been a rally for Bush. The answer to that question cannot be known without that situation actually occurring, and I doubt it ever will. But it ultimately doesn't matter. What matters is that Al Franken took it upon himself to attack a person physically because he was making noise. I'm willing to bet that trying to shout down a speaker at a rally is not a crime in Exeter, New Hampshire. Even if it is, it certainly doesn't justify physical violence.

Quote of the day

"Leaders from both parties -- Republican Senator Orrin Hatch and Democrat Ted Kennedy -- have vowed to push through a new, wide-reaching federal 'hate crimes' bill before the end of the current session. A 'hate crimes' law would make crimes motivated by enmity toward blacks, gays or other protected groups into a special federal offense....The proposed law declares that criminals motivated by a government-designated set of intolerable ideas -- racism, sexism, religious sectarianism, anti-homosexuality -- deserve special prosecution and additional punishment. But to subject someone to trial and punishment on the basis of his ideas -- regardless of how despicable those ideas might be -- constitutes a politicization of criminal law.... A 'hate crimes' law would expand the law's concern from criminal action to 'criminal thought.' It would institute the premise that the purpose of our legal system is not to defend the rights of the victim, but to punish socially unacceptable ideas. This is a premise that should be abhorrent to a free society....It is an attempt to import into America's legal system a class of crimes formerly reserved only to dictatorships: political crimes. Instead, we should insist on the one principle that forms the foundation for the protection of all rights, i.e., that the purpose of law is to punish criminals for initiating force against others, not for holding bad ideas." --Robert Tracinski

Let's go over this again...

Mike over at Cold Fury reiterates some very important points regarding Iraq, Saddam's weapons of mass destruction, how intelligence works, and why we were justified in removing Saddam from power. You can read his post here.

Some choice excerpts:

And flawed interpretation of intelligence is simply not the point anyway. There are three facts pertaining here that evidently need to be stated and restated: 1) that the onus was on Saddam to prove beyond any reasonable doubt that he had in fact destroyed the weapons that we knew he had - and not on the current administration to prove their continued existence; 2) that he do so within fifteen days of agreeing to the cease-fire; and 3) that he not actively pursue the development and acquisition of such weapons ever again.

Saddam did none of those things. He was in direct, clear violation of the terms of the cease-fire right from the beginning; Saddam was subject to perfectly legitimate and justified removal from power not merely since UN Resolution 1441 (which an alarmingly large number of people really ought to read again, apparently), but from April 3, 1991 - the date of the adoption of UN Resolution 687, which says in part:

8. Decides that Iraq shall unconditionally accept the destruction, removal, or rendering harmless, under international supervision, of: (a) All chemical and biological weapons and all stocks of agents and all related subsystems and components and all research, development, support and manufacturing facilities; (b) All ballistic missiles with a range greater than 150 kilometres and related major parts, and repair and production facilities;

Saddam was never in compliance with any of the multiple resolutions calling for his cooperation as demanded in 687 and all the others. And as far as I’m concerned, that’s not even the half of it.

Iraq was a member of the UN. That means it was legally bound to comply with UN resolutions. Failure to comply should have resulted in action by the UN, but they refused to do anything. So we, with help from various other nations, most notably Great Britain and Australia, did what the UN lacked the will to do.

if Saddam didn’t have them and had destroyed them according to the agreements he had made years ago, why would he risk a war he knew he couldn’t win to keep us all thinking he still had them? Why would Saddam have put himself into that sewer-smelling rathole he was found in when all he had to do to avoid that fate was invite the inspectors in with open arms and give them documentation of the destruction of the WMDs? He could have ended Iraq’s pariah-nation status, started to repair the damage done by years of sanctions, discontinued the no-fly zones, and gone blithely on with enriching himself at the expense of his own people for the rest of his natural life without so much as a murmur of protest from the saintly UN with one simple gesture. And he didn’t do it.

I think it ought to be obvious to anyone who’s not a fully paid-up member of the Bushate Brigade that Bush believed that Saddam still possessed WMDs. And I also happen to think that there’s more than ample reason for the sensible among us to believe that he did in fact have them, and that the stalling and dickering at the UN allowed him time to remove them to another location for safekeeping (best guess: Syria) until the pressure was off and the storm had blown over. Given the conduct of previous administrations, his apparent belief that Bush would eventually leave him be in the face of opposition to war from states like France and Germany - who had a proven vested interest in continuing the status quo in Iraq - was at least somewhat justified. The thing that really tripped Saddam up was 9/11, and his underestimation of the impact that those 3000 dead had not just on Bush but on all of us.

One current theory is that Iraq didn't have many, if any, WMD's but Saddam didn't know it. His top people mislead him for any number of plausible reasons. Even in this case, all the evidence available to us outside Iraq indicated that they existed. Assuming this is true, everyone else was deceived the same way Saddam was.

And what was the proper course of action to take to guarantee American security in the post-9/11 age?

The Left’s answer was the same thing it’s always been: to trust in the strength of negotiations and diplomacy in the face of abundant evidence of their failure, to rely on the UN to enforce its resolutions in the face of mounting evidence that it lacked the will, and to basically continue on as if 9/11 had never happened - to keep trying to kick that football after Lucy has pulled it away for the thousandth time.

Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result when all the previous attempts ended up the same is one definition of insanity. Sure, it would be nice if diplomacy and negotiation could solve all the world's problems. The problem with the belief that they will is that it is predicated on the assumption that the other guy wants the same thing.

Read the comments to the post as well. The first commenter makes a very good point:

To believe that Bush lied about Iraq's WMD abilities means giving the benefit of the doubt to Saddam Hussien but not G.W. Bush. It means you assume pure motives on Saddam's part and nefarious ones on Bush's. It means you believe that Saddam should be innocent until proven guilty but that the opposite standard applies to Bush. And let me tell you,9Zlabelieve such things is nothing short of demented.

This is a test

This is a test post to test commenting through HaloScan.

Update: Looks like it works.

Comments on the SOTU Address

There are already a ton of commentaries on the President's address so I won't be exhaustive in mine. I do, however, want to address a couple of points that he made.

First of all, the section of the speech where he talked about steroid use in sports seemed out of place. The general discussion about the problems of drug use among youth was appropriate but I've never heard steroids addressed specifically before by a president. Perhaps he put it in because the quarterback of the New England Patriots was in attendance. Still, it seemed to disrupt the flow of the speech.

Second, I want to address the section where he talked about marriage. Here are the relevant paragraphs:

A strong America must also value the institution of marriage. I believe we should respect individuals as we take a principled stand for one of the most fundamental, enduring institutions of our civilization. Congress has already taken a stand on this issue by passing the Defense of Marriage Act, signed in 1996 by President Clinton. That statute protects marriage under federal law as a union of a man and a woman, and declares that one state may not redefine marriage for other states.

Activist judges, however, have begun redefining marriage by court order, without regard for the will of the people and their elected representatives. On an issue of such great consequence, the people's voice must be heard. If judges insist on forcing their arbitrary will upon the people, the only alternative left to the people would be the constitutional process. Our nation must defend the sanctity of marriage.

Note that he refers to the fact that President Clinton signed the Defense of Marriage Act. This could be taken several ways, I'll leave it up to you to determine which way(s) you take it. The last part is what made me cringe. Regardless of whether you support or oppose marriage, civil unions, or whatever between two people of the same gender, I oppose a Constitutional amendment. This is something that is properly left up to the states. The bit about "one state may not redefine marriage for other states" addresses Article IV, Section 1 of the Constitution which states:

Full faith and credit shall be given in each state to the public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of every other state. And the Congress may by general laws prescribe the manner in which such acts, records, and proceedings shall be proved, and the effect thereof.

For example, this is why states recognize the driver's licenses of other states. It also applies to marriage licenses. The second sentence of this section is the authority under which the Congress passed the DoMA. This provides specific exception to how marriages are treated. Similar laws could be passed regarding driver's licenses or concealed weapon permits.

I'm not a Constitutional scholar but, on the face of it, the DoMA itself appears constitutional. As I interpret it, it says that, if one state allows marriages/civil unions between two people of the same gender, other states are not required to recognize them, although they can do so if they so choose. I think that's good enough. Now, I do think that there are activist judges out there that are using the bench to advance their own agendas. However, I also think that an amendment to the Constitution is like using a sledgehammer to pound a thumbtack. One comment I read speculated that the "constitutional process" Bush referred to is not that of amendment (he never actually said the word "amendment") but rather the process of impeachment. Assuming the charges are justified, my initial opinion is that it would be a better way to deal with judges that step over the line.

Massaging the numbers

According to this article:

A gun safety group says nearly one in seven guns linked to crimes or considered suspicious from 1996 through 2000 can be traced back to the same 120 gun stores.

Later in the article, it says:

Kessler says the 120 gun stores are located in 22 states and make up less than 1 percent of all individuals and stores licensed to sell guns during the five-year period. Yet the stores supplied nearly 15 percent of guns recovered in crime, according to Kessler's group.

This does sound alarming. And there may, in fact, be a problem. However, as Kim Du Toit points out, what if it's just because these stores simply sell that percentage of the guns sold in that 22 state area? From his post on the subject:

So if the sales from the 120 stores reflected, say, 20% of all handguns sold in the area, then the "guns used in crime" percentage is essentially meaningless. The number of "crime" guns is just a factor of their gross sales volume -- just as Chevrolets are used by many bank robbers, because more Chevys are sold than Audis.

He goes on to say:

All that said, there may a problem -- but it can't be solved by additional legislation (which is what those gun-controlling dickheads at AGS want).

If the salesmen at Don's, Chuck's and Badger are selling to "straw purchasers" -- people who buy guns and then resell them to criminals, then the ATF should go after the individuals, not the gun stores.

I've worked in a gun store before, and let me tell you, you can't tell whether the person you sell a gun to isn't going to turn around and sell or give it to someone else. You may have an idea, of course -- but you try to refuse a sale to Lakeesha Washington or Maria Lopez, just because they're poorly-dressed and fit the profile of a gang-banger's girlfriend. Can you say "ACLU", children? If they pass the NICS check, you are required to sell them the guns they want -- which is as it should be.

It's an insoluble problem. Even if the ATF manages to close down these three stores, or all one hundred and twenty, the scumbags will just go to other stores.

All very good points. As I and other proponents of gun rights say over and over again, laws that limit access to guns only do so for law-abiding people. Criminals, by definition, don't obey the law so they have no problem violating laws that say they can't have guns.

Lileks on space

I keep saying that nobody says it like James Lileks. I wish my writing could be half as creative and entertaining as his. Oh well, I'm still just starting out at this and I'm working on it. Who knows, maybe some day someone will look at what I write and say "I wish I could write like that." But I'm not going to hold my breath.

Someone wrote an article basically lambasting James. His response? See it here.

Most of the article talks about how he feels regarding the plan to return humans to the moon and why America is the country he feels is best suited to do so. Excerpt:

Yes, I know - cheap robots do the job just as well, and sometimes better. Our cosmological imaging programs have returned stunning results. It only seems like we’ve stalled because we don’t see grainy photos of men on another planet driving around and playing golf.

But we’re not driving around and playing golf. More to the point: It has been too long since a human hand put a flag on another planet, and I’d like to see that happen again. It will happen; it's just a question of who does it. I would prefer that the hand be American.

In other words, I’d rather that hand represent the world.

Huh? You say. Wha? A UN flag would represent the world.

No, a UN flag would represent bureaucrats and governments. When I think of an American astronaut on Mars, I can’t imagine a face for the event. I can tell you who staffed the Apollo program, because they were drawn from a specific stratum of American life. But things have changed. Who knows who we'd send to Mars? Black pilot? White astrophysicist? A navigator whose parents came over from India in 1972? Asian female doctor? If we all saw a bulky person bounce out of the landing craft and plant the flag, we’d see that wide blank mirrored visor. Sex or creed or skin hue - we’d have no idea.

This is the quintessence of America: whatever face you’d see when the visor was raised, it wouldn’t be a surprise.

To prove I am a rank sentimentalist: I say the first foot on Mars belongs to a Navajo. No: a Navajo from the Marine Corps. Just because. I can’t think of a reason why not. Can you?

In today's Bleat, Lileks talks more about the plan and addresses its detractors. In particular, he refers to an editorial cartoon which shows a little girl in a wheelchair reading the paper and saying, "They're prepared to spend how much so a man can walk on Mars?" Here's an excerpt:

Yes, we could make that little fictional girl walk if only we spent the money. But curing spinal cord injuries wouldn’t inspire us. Maybe it’s a stem-cell funding research reference - a valid jibe, I suppose, if this was an either-or thing, and people had deeply-held moral objections to a Mars mission. It just strikes me as the same old provincial jibe I dimly recall from the Apollo era: why are we going to the Moon when there are so many problems here?

Because there’s an entirely different set of problems up there.

And the answers might come in handy.

There are many things that it is worthwhile to do. I believe the exploration of space is one of them; apparently the artist does not. Certainly medical research to help people like this little girl is a worthwhile endeavor. But that doesn't mean that it's the only thing that we should be spending money on. Nor does it necessarily follow that redirecting the money intended for space exploration to medical research will make that much of a difference. Yes, we do need to have priorities. If I had to choose between putting a man on the moon by 2030 and curing cancer by the same date, it would be a no brainer. The nice thing is that these are not mutually exclusive options.

Quote of the day

"The 1998 missile strike on the Sudan was an unannounced, unprovoked attack that destroyed that Third World nation’s only medicine factory. Yet it provoked no opposition outcry on the left. The Clinton air strike violated every principle of the current liberal critique of Bush foreign policy. The target of the attack was an alleged chemical weapons factory (which the Administration subsequently was forced to concede contained no chemical weapons facility). Yet, there were no inspections, UN or otherwise, preceding the attack to determine whether the factory was actually producing chemical weapons, as the Clinton White House claimed. There was not even a presidential phone call to the head of a state with whom the United States had diplomatic relations to request such an inspection. The strike in the Sudan was ordered without a UN resolution, without a congressional authorization and without approval from the Joint Chiefs of Staff (who actually opposed it). Yet no critic of the current Bush foreign policy on Iraq expressed concern over the aggression. This is in dramatic contrast to the present critique of a war policy that is based on 12 years of disregarded UN resolutions and thwarted UN inspections, and two congressional resolutions (under two Presidents) supporting a regime change by force." - David Horowitz

For many more quotes from Mr. Horowitz, click here.

Quote of the day

"My ardent desire is, and my aim has been...to comply strictly with all our engagements foreign and domestic; but to keep the United States free from political connections with every other Country. To see that they may be independent of all, and under the influence of none. In a word, I want an American character, that the powers of Europe may be convinced we act for ourselves and not for others; this, in my judgment, is the only way to be respected abroad and happy at home." --George Washington

And then there's this view on immigration reform

The Federalist, which bills itself as "The Conservative e-Journal of Record" has its own take on the President's proposed immigration reform. The entire thing is here (it's under the heading "Top of the fold"). Here's an excerpt:

In the 48 hours since the announcement, the Bush immigration-reform plan has met with vehement resistance from every band of the political spectrum. Indeed, a sizeable majority of Americans are opposed to any expansion of existing immigration, or any legitimization of existing illegal aliens. While a great deal of this reticence was anticipated, and some of it justified, a number of qualifications on the issue of immigration reform must be brought to light.

First, this is not a new issue. Following a February, 2001, meeting between President Bush and Mexican President Vicente Fox, a U.S.-Mexico High Level Working Group on Migration was established. This group would be tasked with addressing the problem of illegal immigration from Mexico to the U.S., which is estimated to compose more than 60% of all such immigration into the U.S. On September 6, 2001, the U.S. and Mexico agreed to "match willing workers with willing employers" and "ensure migration takes place through safe and legal channels." Five days later, of course, the discussion of immigration reform, border policies and economic integration would come to an abrupt halt with the terrorist attacks of 9/11.

Second, the Bush plan is, in part, politically timed and motivated. With the ascendancy of Arnold Schwarzenegger, California will likely be hotly contested in the upcoming presidential race. As such, the Hispanic vote will become critical to either party's hopes of carrying the Golden State -- and its treasure trove of 54 electoral votes. Should President Bush carry California, his re-election would be assured. However, when seen alongside a strong economic recovery and significant progress in the war on terror, California is not essential to the President's prospects.

Consequently, charges of "hispandering" don't stand up to scrutiny. Rather, the Bush immigration-reform plan should be seen as a first step toward the more substantive reform we anticipate after this election cycle. Even congressional proponents of the measure do not anticipate a bill to pass in 2004, indicating that the Bush team is using this occasion to gauge and build public support for farther-reaching reform beginning in 2005 with the President's second term.

They sum up their analysis with this:

Summing up, the plan is intended to confront the realities of illegal immigration. Illegal immigrants are in the U.S. now -- between 8 million and 14 million of them, according to various estimates. Simply by being here, these illegals benefit from a wide array of social services at the local, state and federal levels; they do not, however, pay taxes on their earnings. A temporary-worker program like that proposed by the Bush administration will channel this immigrant labor into the tax base, rather than permitting it to siphon off government resources.

One thing I've noticed about The Federalist is that they are not prone to knee-jerk reactions about this kind of thing. They take their time and present careful, studied analyses which sometimes disagree with the rest of the Conservative establishment. This may turn out to be a case of the President and/or those who advise him being a lot more shrewd than they appear to be initially.

And another one

I've been hearing about this for a while now. I was hoping that there was a reasonable explanation for it, or that it was exaggeration by Bush's opponents. However, given the source of the article, and the number of reports I've heard about this, it looks to be pretty much true. As usual, someone else has already said what I would have said so I'll just link to their superior words. In this case, the irascible Kim du Toit doesn't hold back and has the added benefit of experience with a truly oppressive regime.

When the election comes around this November, I'm going to find myself in the position I found myself in last year, namely that of trying to decide which is the lesser of two evils. Last year I ducked the issue by voting for Harry Brown, the Libertarian candidate. This year I'll probably go ahead and vote for Bush since the alternative (unless by some miracle the Democrats nominate Joe Lieberman) will be unthinkable.

For those that think I'm a total Bush fan

Bush the President, that is, not Bush the band.... As I've mentioned in the past, although I agree for the most part with how he's handling the war against terror and other foreign policy issues, I'm rather disappointed in his extreme lack of conservatism when it comes to domestic issues. For example, he apparently signed the campaign finance reform law in the hope that it would be struck down as unconstitutional. That plan backfired spectacularly with the recent Supreme Court ruling. He also signed the Medicare drug benefit into law, thereby hugely increasing government spending and expanding the power of the federal government. The most recent example is his proposed immigration reform. Since others have already detailed what is wrong with it, I'll save time and link to them.

John Hawkins at Right Wing News comments here and here.
Emperor Misha I, as usual, makes his point very well if very bluntly.
Joe Kelly at The Sake of Argument comments here and here.

This is a tough one, I admit. I'm not unsympathetic to those coming to this country trying to find a better life for themselves and their families. However, we have a process in place and those that bypass it and are subsequently rewarded for it rather than punished are metaphorically spitting in the eyes of those who take the time and effort to enter this country and achieve citizenship legally.

Faxes and spam

The FCC has fined Fax.com, Inc. 5.4 million dollars for faxing unsolicited advertisements to consumers.

From the article:

The commission said it rejected arguments from Fax.com that the ban on unsolicited faxes was unconstitutional and that the fine was excessive.

Whether or not the fine was excessive, their activities are not protected by the Constitution. You see, "freedom of speech" doesn't mean "speech paid for by others against their will." When someone sends a junk fax, the recipient pays a significant portion, if not the majority, of the total cost in the form of electricity, paper, and toner. In addition, there's the cost of having their fax machine tied up receiving ads so it can't receive legitimate faxes.

When I get junk mail via the US Postal Service, I'm not paying anything to receive it. The sender has incurred the full cost. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if junk mail helps keep postal costs down for everyone else since it must represent a large amount of income for the USPS. Therefore, I don't mind receiving it, especially since I get a credit on my waste collection bill based on the weight of my recyclables.

Spam email has the same problems as junk faxes. If anything, the sender pays even less of the total cost. The cost to get the email to me is paid, in succession, by every system it passes through. And, ultimately, it's the consumers of Internet access that have the costs passed on to them. It is for this reason that I believe the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991, which gave the FCC authorization to enact rules about junk faxes, should be extended to cover spam email. The analogy between junk faxes and junk email is nearly exact.

The S Factor

In this guest column for the Seattle P-I you have it in a nutshell, the attitude of the liberal elite toward those who disagree with them. How can George W. Bush be so popular? There's only one possible explanation: His supporters are all stupid!

The S factor explains Bush's popularity

Or is it a parody?

Emperor Misha I has some choice invective in response: We're All Stupid, I Tell You, STUPID!
John Hawkins at Right Wing News also comments: Vote For The Democrats Or You're Stupid!.
Mike at Cold Fury has his usual incisive take on it: Hey, stupid!