Libertarians can pull a good vote.

I had wonderful news this morning when I checked the results of the Gippsland By –election, which was held yesterday. The libertarian, Liberty and Democracy Party scored a fantastic 4.35% elevating us from the less than 1% type to a minor party which can genuinely influence the result of elections. That sort of vote in a general election could easily result in a senate seat.

This video is of our candidate, Ben Buckley whose high profile probably helped a lot.


This is followed by the leader of our New South Wales senate team in the last federal election, Terje Petersen on Coast FM.


From the LDP Blog

Our candidate Ben Buckley lives at Benambra and is well known to the rural community throughout Gippsland. For many years he was co-owner and Chief Pilot of Alpine Aviation, involved in crop dusting plus emergency Medivacs and mercy flights.

At 71, Ben is still involved in the provision of fire spotting services and general aviation.
Ben’s early years were spent in contract deer culling in New Zealand, where he also learnt to fly. His fame and skill as a pilot spread and one of Ben’s major achievements was flying an ultra-light aircraft from Australia to New Zealand.

Ben’s adventures and anecdotes around his flying, disputes with Aviation Department bureaucracy and community activities are contained in the book ‘Buckley’s Chance”, published in 1998.

Ben has always been a staunch supporter of the timber industry as well as pushing for better access to the bush by four-wheel drivers and hunters. His passion for community issues led him to enter local government and he is now in his second term as a Councillor with East Gippsland Shire Council. Prior to its amalgamation he spent 12 years as a Councillor with Omeo Shire, including one term as President.

Ben has been a proud fighter for the people of Gippsland, helping make the Great Alpine Road a tourist icon as well as pushing for the all-weather upgrade of the Mitta Mitta and Benambra-Corryong Roads.

Describing how the LDP will appeal to Gippsland voters, Ben said, “The LDP stands for low taxes, small government and individual freedom. That’s also what I believe in, and I think a lot of Gippsland people do too.”

“Australians pay far too much tax and both Coalition and Labor governments try to bribe us with our own money. On average people are paying 30% more tax than 10 years ago, even after adjusting for inflation. Neither the Liberals, Nationals nor Labor have any real commitment to restructure our taxation system to correct this. With all the money being generated from GST, company tax, petrol tax, traffic fines etc, we could be paying zero personal tax,” Ben explained.

The LDP has a well-developed policy to reduce taxes that involves a tax-free threshold of $30,000 and a flat 30% tax rate above this. It is also committed to reducing or removing other taxes such as land taxes and Council rates, to significantly decrease the tax burden on all Australians.”

“Governments are also far too authoritarian and intrusive. None of the major parties has any commitment to individual choice and responsibility. While the proper role of government is to protect our lives, freedom and property, our governments are transforming Australia into a place where every aspect of life is controlled.

“The LDP stands for reduced government intrusion in the lives of ordinary people. That includes things like voluntary voting, assisted suicide and removing the petty rules and penalties that torment businesses. It would restore to property owners the right to permit smoking on their property and to cut down their own trees. Even when the choices that individuals make are unwise and could harm them, so long as nobody else is forced to suffer harm, ‘It’s your choice, not the government’s’”, Mr. Buckley said.

The LDP is unlike most small political parties because it is not focused on a narrow range of issues and does not reflect the views of a dominant individual. It is also not pursuing a left or right wing political agenda. It is a genuinely broad-based party, defining itself as anti-left, anti-right and pro-liberty. Parties with a similar approach include ACT in New Zealand and the Libertarian Party in the USA.

“Farm Lobbies abandon Farmers.”

By Viv Forbes.

The Carbon Sense Coalition today accused the big farming lobby groups, government departments, politicians and Ministers representing agriculture of ignoring science and abandoning farmers to unjustified carbon taxation.

The chairman of “Carbon Sense”, Mr Viv Forbes, claimed that there was no justification whatsoever for including emissions from farm animals in any carbon emissions tax scheme.

“Every intelligent farmer can understand the carbon food cycle whereby every bit of carbon dioxide released by farm animals or plants into the atmosphere has previously been removed from the same atmosphere.”

“This simple process is surely not beyond the understanding of all the lobbyists, bureaucrats, researchers and media living off farmers?”

“In the farm sector carbon balance, apart from any fossil fuel used, it is a zero sum game, and all farm animals have ZERO NET CARBON EMISSIONS.”

“Grazing animals have not yet learned to live on coal or diesel fuel, and they cannot create carbon out of rocks, soil or water. Therefore they must extract it, via grasses and grains, from that marvellous gas of life in our atmosphere, carbon dioxide. All foods and organic matter represent carbon that has been sequestered by life processes into living matter. The carbon is simply recycled at ZERO COST.”

“Farm plants and animals are every bit as green as forests. Both farms and forests extract carbon from the air and store it in organic life forms until that organic matter is burnt or decays in the open air, thus returning their borrowed carbon to the atmospheric storehouse.”

“Why then do those who grow forests attract a carbon credit and but those who grow cattle and sheep cop a carbon tax?”

“Australia and New Zealand lead the world in harvesting solar energy and carbon dioxide to produce an abundance of clean green food. Why then are both the New Zealand and the Australian governments proposing to force farm animals into their emissions trading quagmire? And why are they subsidising the conversion of farmland producing food into forests producing nothing but carbon credits or crops producing ethanol motor fuel? What are future generations going to eat?”

Forbes claimed that farmers need to start agitating now or they risk being the only bunnies still paying carbon taxes.

“Motorists who vote and use petrol will escape the carbon tax by sleight of hand – petrol excise will in future be called “carbon tax”. Exporters will get an exemption to enable them to compete with more sensible regimes with no carbon taxes. Other protected species like working families in marginal electorates will get subsidies to cover carbon taxes on electricity bills. Truckies will blockade the roads if politicians add carbon tax to diesel prices. That leaves farmers as the only big group with so few votes and such incompetent leadership that they will pay the carbon tax.”

“Farmers have been abandoned by Ag Force, the Meat and Livestock Authority, CSIRO, the National Party, our “working families” Government and most of the similar organisations in New Zealand. It is not clear whether this is because of a lack of scientific logic or cowardice in the face of electoral hysteria on global warming.”

“But the politicians representing the treasured “working families” in the battling suburbs had better start taking notice of rising food prices or a more soundly based hysteria about the growing shortage of food will sweep emissions trading nonsense from the political landscape.”

A possible reason for press bias.

I like many have been confused and angered by the attitude of the press in this election, I saw it here in Australia in the lead up to our last federal election and have to go through the whole thing again in the US one. The press in Australia decided that Rudd could do no wrong, In the US it seems that Obama is in the same position.

Today I encountered a letter on the 'Just Say No Deal' site, which may have an element of sour grapes about it, its hard to tell from afar. If there is an element of truth in it however, it may go a long way to explaining some of what is happening. I doubt very strongly that it is the sole reason but it is worth publishing as something to think about: -

"Dear Just Say No Deal People:

I just found out about you through the WaPo article. My congrats. I like your attitude. For the record, I'm a straight, middle-aged white guy (who supports gay rights) who has twin teen-age daughters. I'm also a MSM journalist who left after more than 20 years to go freelance.

During this election cycle, my initial choice was John Edwards. After he dropped out, I was eager to see who would most closely adopt John's populist, anti-corporate positions. To my surprise, it was Hillary! As the primary dragged on, I found myself liking Hillary more and more, and Barack less and less. It had nothing to do with race and gender, and everything to do with actual issues.

As a former MSM guy, I'd like to share some insights you don't see on many blogs. Since the 1970s, the media have been rabid about affirmative action. So every newsroom in America -- print, broadcast, and web -- is heavily populated with people of color. On the surface, there's nothing wrong with that. The problem is, a lot of these newbie’s aren't professional journalists. They're professional blacks (or whatever), and they're extremely militant about promoting the interests of their race/ethnicity. They scare the shit out of their white colleagues, male and female.

I'm convinced that these white colleagues -- regardless of their own leanings -- are so eager to "get along" and "not offend" that they've been intimidated into supporting Obama. The result: monolithic media support for Obama. Between now and November, be assured that you will see nothing but wet kisses for Obama from the MSM. It's going to be "elect Obama or else" 24/7.

As you might guess, I have a personal axe to grind here. Despite a master's from the ultra-liberal Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism -- and scads of writing awards -- I simply could not advance in the MSM. They were more interested in promoting the likes of Jayson Blair, the 20-something black NYT reporter who ended up fabricating dozens of stories.

But who cares? Freelancing rocks, the MSM is doomed, and I enjoy the independent, PUMA thinkers.

As a guy who's voted Democrat since '72, I'm not willing to throw my support to McCain. At this point, however, I don't think a protest vote for Nader is a bad idea.

Sincerely,

- Rick, former MSM Journalist

Sarah Palin interviewed by Larry Kudlow.

I don’t tend to get a lot of comments on my site, but the ones I get are really good, it’s the old adage of quality versus quantity. Some come up with great things of interest and on this occasion ‘Alex’ has come up with a ripper that I wouldn’t have seen: -



I am not certain of the viewing habits of people online, I try to keep down to shorter clips, but at 8 minutes this is of interest all the way.

I was especially impressed with the following exchange between Larry Kudlow and Sarah: -

Kudlow: Well are profits a dirty word? In energy, or other businesses?

Palin: Well no, of course not. And low taxes of course, we know spur the economy. I’m a Republican. I am for low taxes. We have to make sure though that an appropriate value is placed oil and gas resources. And that the people who own these resources are able to benefit from the development of them. But no, profit is not a dirty word.

Kudlow: Why don’t we just liberate, and decontrol, and deregulate the whole bloody energy business – whether it’s oil, gas, shale, nuclear, coal, natural gas, as well as wind and solar – why don’t we just decontrol, deregulate, go for an America first energy policy? Get independent of Saudi Arabia? America first. Create all of these millions of high paying jobs. Why isn’t anybody talking about that in this race? That’s the natural, Reaganesque thing to do. Isn’t it?

Palin: Yeah absolutely! You’re hitting the nail right on the head. That’s what so many of us normal Americans are asking. The same thing. Why aren’t the candidates talking like that? Where we can secure America and we can be more independent when we talk about energy sources if we could drill domestically.

Here we sent [Energy] Secretary Bodman overseas the other day, and our president had to visit the Saudis a few weeks ago, to ask them to ramp up development. That’s nonsense. Not when you know that we have the supplies here. You have the supplies in your sister state called Alaska, where we’re ready, willing and we’re able to pump these supplies of energy, flow them into hungry markets across the U.S. We want it to happen. It’s Congress holding us back.

I find it disturbing that a ‘can do’ nation like the US is sitting on its hands on the energy issue while having vast untapped reserves just waiting for the drill bits to go into them. Rather than do this the nation goes cap in hand to other nations who are in some cases hostile, resentful, or at least dubious in their friendship.

Fair enough these reserves are not tomorrows fix, but they offer a great long term solution if projects are started soon. In the time that they have been blocked they could have been brought online three times over.

The Democrat controlled Congress seems to think they are doing a great job in blocking this, which indicates a total lack of reality on the issue. If they were doing much at all right they would not have an approval rating running at about half that of George Bush.

Draconian Regulation.

One of the disadvantages of full time work is that I tend to miss a lot of the addresses by bureaucrats. This is not necessarily a bad thing, as listening to fascists gets really boring after a while. However without it, it is difficult to keep up with their rather draconian vision for our future.

I am grateful to Ron Kitching for drawing to my attention to the address by Graeme Samuel the chairman of the ACCC (Australian Competition and Consumer Commission) to the National Press Club, with a letter, some of which is reprinted below.

The ACCC and Its Future.

After listening to Graeme Samuel the chairman of the ACCC address the National Press Club, (25.06.08.); I came to the conclusion that the ACCC is the personification of a perfect Fascist System of which Mr. Samuel is the Supreme Fuhrer.

In the language of the Third Reich, he has six other UnderFuhrers, who decide the fate of their victims.

As Goebbels said in 1944: "We do not need to know what the Fuehrer is going to do -- we believe in him." The Rudd government apparently, believes in Samuels.

The German Fuhrer constantly talked about will. His attitude was, if you will it, you can do it. This was part of his appeal. People saw him as a strong figure, a man of destiny, able to convey the absolute conviction that he was correct. He had a mission and a will to fulfill it.

This is the impression I got of Graeme Samuel during his speech and question time. He has a destiny to fill. That destiny being the lowest possible prices for consumers, regards of all consequences.

In his speech he referred to current economic trends: -

“According to data from the International Monetary Fund, average global food prices have jumped nearly 50 percent since the end of 2006. World oil prices went up by 9 per cent in one month during May, and angry truck drivers and fishermen have begun blockading major European cities and ports demanding government action. In Australia, these pressures have led to consumer confidence hitting a 16-year low, according to the Westpac-Melbourne Institute survey released earlier this month.”

None of this is related to commercial action, it is mostly the result of state interference in commerce, diverting huge quantities of food in misguided efforts to produce biofuels, and at the same time preventing access to oil and gas deposits, as well as blocking such technology as nuclear energy.

He went on to detail how we have faced other crises in the past most of which were solved by deregulation under Keating, which removed a great deal of protectionism and forced the creation of a more competitive economy, which was largely unaffected by events such as the Asian meltdown.

He makes the following comment: -

“…..with concerns of predatory pricing. This conduct results in fewer competitors in the market and ultimately leads to higher prices as businesses are freed from the constraints of their competitors’ best offers.

But proving a company has engaged in predatory pricing is notoriously difficult. This is because the difference between what is predatory pricing and vigorous price competition is not immediately obvious and requires careful analysis.”

When a bureaucrat complains that a practice is hard to prove it is normally a call to reduce the legal protections available to those they wish to ‘prove’ it against. Basically laws such as this are a nebulous hotch potch of rules, which make the legality of any act in business subject to the whims of those administering the law.

As result those in business have real reason to fear the attention of these groups. This leads to the situation where, “.... Such is their fear of prosecution that people come and confess, and that is good, whether they are guilty or not.” Also, they must get in first. If an opposition confessor tells all first, he gets immunity and the other(s) get jail.”

Samuel’s ACCC has made a point of terrorizing businessmen with the threat of Jail. To quote him: “We have been very astute in our pursuit of cartels. We have 21 cases on our books and six in court. Cartel criminals are frightened of jail.” He kept talking about reforms, reforms and more reforms, which spawn interventions, interventions and more interventions.

Much has been made of a proposed ‘Fuel Watch’, which is designed to ‘protect the consumer’ but which will actually assist the major companies to dispose of the independents. They propose A Takeover Watch and A Housing Watch, Grocery Watch and he talked briefly about a Fertilizer Watch. With 650 staff, and I suppose a growing number of professional spies, we will soon have a Watch For Everything.

The way ‘Watches’ work is to encourage consumers to report activities they don’t like. This may on occasion lead to the uncovering of dishonest practices, but in practice tends to lead mostly to harassment of businessmen for legitimate price settings in a volatile situation, by busybodies who want to exercise a sense of ‘empowerment’ for the first time in their mundane, miserable lives.

The ACCC are basically creating a free spy network.

They are determined to stamp out ‘predatory pricing’ – charging too little, ‘collusion’ – charging the same, and ‘gouging’ charging more. They remind me of the lines from “The Incredible Bread Machine.”

"The Rule of Law, in complex times, 

Has proved itself deficient. 

We much prefer the Rule of Men, 

It's vastly more efficient!

Now let me state the present rules," 

The lawyer then went on, 
"
These very simple guidelines, 

You can rely upon: 

You're gouging on your prices if
You charge more than the rest.

But it's unfair competition if 

You think you can charge less! 

"A second point that we would make 

To help avoid confusion... 

Don't try to charge the same amount,
That would be Collusion! 

You must compete. But not too much,
For if you do you see, 

Then the market would be yours –
And that's Monopoly!

Some Commonsense from Carbon Sense.

Viv Forbes and Ron Kitching are amazing people, for the amount of well considered and thoughtful work they put out, Viv in spite of being a very busy man with a farm and other interests, Ron still working part time, and writing books like he is still a spring chicken.

The following are a couple of snippets passed on to me by Ron.

I noticed that the Chairman of carbon-sense.com, Mr Viv Forbes, said it was staggering that politicians in Australia and New Zealand could consider introducing an Emissions Trading Scheme.

Forbes continued: Such a huge speculative venture is extremely dangerous, with no Prospectus, no independent economic assessment, no environmental impact statement and no sunset clauses.

Sale of these Emissions permits is no different from an offer of speculative shares ­ they are offering to sell bits of paper recording property rights ­ in this case the right to emit carbon dioxide.

However, the massive scale of the offer will dwarf any previous capital raisings in our region. And like all promoters, the governments are rushing things along to catch the boom before the global warming bubble is punctured by economic and scientific reality.

ASIC should demand the same standards as are imposed on every capital raising ­ independent assessment of the scientific facts presented by the promoters and an auditor's report on the financial and environmental risks of the venture.

The scientific basis for more carbon taxes is disappearing like frost in the morning sun ­ every day more scientists join over 30,000 who have signed petitions or written papers denying the case put forward by the IPCC.

Not even the climate agrees with the IPCC, with temperature falls over the last 10 years wiping all of the gains in the 20th century.

Martin Ferguson and Oil and Gas.

Martin Ferguson, Minister for Resources and Energy and Minister for Tourism is one of the more sensible and articulate members of the Labor Government.

He has quite rightly suggested that oil and gas producers ought to increase production. However, exploration has to precede production.

Huge targets for oil and gas exist both on and off Australia's and New Zealand's continental shelves. In his capacity as Minister for Resources, Martin and his NZ counterpart ought to make the ground available and at the same time, make incentives available for explorers to drill for oil and gas.

Should it be found in huge quantities, as may well be the case, further incentives should be made available to encourage the building of new oil refineries in this nation.

All of this would bring the necessary capital, the new expertise and new jobs to Australia and New Zealand.

As the facts are available to those interested, he then ought to bury once and for all, the IPCC politically induced scam of carbon dioxide induced climate change.

Only then may energy costs may fall considerably.

From a personal standpoint I think that if the areas are available and the oil/gas is there the oil companies will need little incentive other than security of tenure and the chance to 'make a quid' to solve our problems. Politicians seem to labour under the delusion that they are necessary to make things happen. I think the reason for this is that they wish for all things that happen to be in their own image.

This of course is a personality disorder, all they really need to do is get out of the way and let us get on with it.

Palin and Red state Oregon.

Click to enlarge.

In a recent poll by Survey USA of Oregon voters Obama was leading McCain by 48% to 45% which makes the difference 3% with a margin of error of +/- 4.3%, which is something of a surprise given the fact that Oregon is a very Democrat state.

A post on HillBuzz titled “Nightmare Scenario For Dems: McCain Could Win Oregon” suggests that this could even be worse if McCain was to pick Sarah Palin as a running mate. An extract is included below.

A glance through the archives of the site indicate that HillBuzz is in fact a genuine pro Hillary site though the current tone indicates the degree of bitterness felt by many of her supporters at the treatment she has received at the hands of the DNC.

There are so many terrible things in the latest SurveyUSA Oregon poll for Democrats that we don't really know where to start. 


It's very hard to believe McCain is this close to Obama in Oregon, though. If SurveyUSA is not an outlier, then this could spell a McGovern-level loss for Obama against McCain, because Oregon should be a cakewalk for a Democrat. There's just no reason for it to go Republican, and if it starts trending towards McCain, Obama might only win Hawaii (pride-voting for a native born candidate), Illinois (if you win Cook County, you win the state, and Obama is considered a Chicagoan, which Mayor Daley will deliver to him with zero worries), and Washington, DC (African American pride-voting will carry the capital district easily) in the fall. 



McCain and Obama are tied in Massachusetts right now, but that's 100% linked to Deval Patrick's performance, and the fact people there heard all of David Axelrod's "Hope/Change" malarkey and know what results it all brings (no hope, no change, just an ineffective governor in over his head). They will hold Patrick's performance against Obama, and will also, we believe, hold John Kerry against Obama as well (if the Republicans run an effective and well-funded candidate, they could very well pick up Kerry's seat, if they worked hard enough: his primary challenge from Ed O'Reilly shows he is more vulnerable than Democrats care to admit). 



The one big problem with the SurveyUSA poll is that it fails to poll a McCain/Palin match up, and instead goes with McCain/Fiorina. That's a mistake, because Oregon is a state where Sarah Palin would be a TREMENDOUS asset to McCain. 


One recent article on McCain's VP choices claimed Palin, as governor of Alaska, brings nothing to the table, since Alaska is so remote and its electoral votes are a slam-dunk for the GOP. True, Alaska is not part of the contiguous United States, but Oregon is not that far away, in relative terms, or in cultural terms. It's the Pacific Northwest, and Governor Palin should be as known to the people of Washington state and Oregon as Governor Strickland is to people in West Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee

If used properly, Palin could put Washington state, Oregon, and even California into play. Think about it, a state with two female United States senators would be very receptive to Palin's record of achievement and strong personal skills. From what we've read about her, she's won over her harshest critics by showing up and doing a great job cleaning up the corruption from Alaska's previous nepotism-prone administration.

In our opinion, McCain/Palin takes Oregon, Washington, and Alaska, and makes things incredibly close in California (which McCain will win with an effective outreach to Hispanics and the working class). 

If that happens, the Democrats really are looking at their worst electoral defeat in a generation.

Anonymous comes up with some good stuff.

Anonymous is usually an annoying bastard who turns up occasionally makes some (often) stupid statement and disappears into the ether. Sometimes he/she comes up with something special, and this time he did.

The following is addressed to John McCain urging him to select Sarah Palin for a VP.

First and foremost, Sarah Palin shares your values. She killed the bridge to nowhere. Need we say more?

As for the politics, Sarah Palin transcends geography. Her constituency, like yours, goes beyond state lines.

She will get your ticket access to voters all over the country based on who she is and what she stands for. Because she's young, a woman, a mother with young kids, she will grab media attention more than any other potential candidate.

Gov. Palin also has a son in the active duty military. You have very wisely taken your son's service in Iraq off the table as a campaign talking point. That is and should be respected. But others can talk about it and reflect on what it means.

A McCain-Palin administration would be the first in memory, which has family members in uniform during wartime from both the President and Vice President. That would be a powerful statement as to the importance of national service, especially in uniform.

Most importantly, any Vice President should be ready to step up and serve in the event she is needed. Frankly, who is really ever ready? Gov. Palin is as ready as anybody, she is a quick learner, and in her public career has exhibited the courage and decisiveness needed for a great leader.

Godspeed to you in your campaign and in making this important decision."

Anon. if this is your work, get yourself a blog and start writing more of it, you’re too bloody good to sit around making comments.

Obama's vocal chickens, coming home to roost.

Al, ‘the Catskill Commentator’ is back online and appears to done quite a bit of thinking on his fishing trip.

His first post back is a great one, as I have lost count of Obama’s ‘misspeaks.’ I am not sure if I have missed this expression before, but it seems to be very fashionable in this election. Everybody seems to be using it. It is nice to see a different term used.

Anyway, Al has put together a list, which he refers to as; Obama’s “Not Exactly’s”: This person is more dangerous than any candidate in recent years….

There are 38 of them listed, which I am not sure is all of them but that will certainly do for a start.

Look for; “OBAMA SPIN: EXACT QUOTES DEBUNKED” and while you are at it check out "DEM CONGRESS SCORECARD FOR LAST 2 YEARS."

John McCain, Drill now.

Steve Maloney is one of the hardest campaigners for John McCain, he is always there, he is always making sense, he is always relevant, and he is always coming up with good ideas. He has just published a post by Jack Kelly, who has excellent ideas on how to win in November, some of which I quote here. I recommend the article: -

Barack Obama has the lead for the time being. But three signposts point the way to a McCain landslide in November -- in the unlikely event the Arizona senator has the wit to heed them.

What figures to be by far the most important issue this fall is the skyrocketing price of energy and its deleterious effect on the broader economy and national security. Now that Sen. McCain has flip-flopped on drilling off of our coasts, there is a substantial difference between him and Sen. Obama on the issue. Sen. McCain also supports building more nuclear power plants, which Sen. Obama opposes.

Opinion polls indicate a large majority now supports drilling for oil off our coasts and in Alaska. That majority is likely to expand and harden as gas prices rise this summer. But Sen. McCain can't fully capitalize politically on this change in public attitude unless he completes his flip-flop, and consents to drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

At present the statement made by McCain is close to a flip flop, he really needs to go further, by admitting his previous position was wrong, completely so, and he now realizes that the only salvation for American consumers is to aggressively drill for oil in every place it is likely to be found.

If oil drilling is not pursued and soon the current $4.00 at the pumps will look good to consumers in the future, some of the more remote areas will be virtually uninhabitable, as people will not be able to afford the cost of travelling to and from them.

Drilling now will not immediately solve this crisis, but it will at least give hope for the future. When oil comes online, it will immediately ease the pressure, a little at a time.

The US cannot afford to ignore it’s own substantial reserves of oil and gas while continuing to pay huge prices for foreign supplies, some from regimes that are openly hostile and who can hold the US to ransom.

The upside is massive increases in employment, reduction of deficits, greater self sufficiency, a significant global easing of the pressure on supplies, and an ability to have a more independent foreign policy.

He needs to move aggressively on this and take the high moral ground, not only on drilling, but increasing refining capacity, and getting more nuclear power. The greens wont like it but if the US greens are anything like our Australian ones they are mostly liberals anyway.

Jack Kelly finishes his essay with some great advice: -

The signposts also indicate who Sen. McCain should choose for his running mate. No Republican can better make the case for drilling than Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, and no governor has fought harder against corruption, especially in her own party.

So go to ANWR, Sen. McCain. Embrace Sarah Palin there. You'll have to eat some crow. But crow doesn't taste so bad when it's served on the White House china.

NEW PREAMBLE TO THE CONSTITUTION

This was sent to me by Viv Forbes. I am hoping to find the author so we can have a proper constitution written.

Update; I have just found a similar one written for America on 'Tales from the Trailerpark.': -

'We the sensible people of Australia, in an attempt to help everyone get along, restore some semblance of justice, avoid more riots, keep our nation safe, promote positive behavior, and secure the blessings of debt-free liberty to ourselves and our great-great-great-grandchildren, hereby try one more time to ordain and establish some common sense guidelines for the terminally whiny, guilt ridden, delusional, and other liberal bed-wetters.

We hold these truths to be self-evident: 





ARTICLE I: You do not have the right to a new car, big screen TV, or any other form of wealth. More power to you if you can legally acquire them, but no one is guaranteeing anything. 





ARTICLE II: You do not have the right to never be offended. This country is based on freedom, and that means freedom for everyone -- not just you! You may leave the room, turn the channel, express a different opinion, etc.; but the world is full of idiots, and probably always will be. 





ARTICLE III: You do not have the right to be free from harm. If you stick a screwdriver in your eye, learn to be more careful; do not expect the tool manufacturer to make you and all your relatives independently wealthy. 





ARTICLE IV: You do not have the right to free food and housing. Australians are among the most charitable people to be found, and will gladly help anyone in need, but we are quickly growing weary of subsidizing generation after generation of professional couch potatoes who achieve nothing more than the creation of another generation of professional couch potatoes. Get an education and go to work.... don’t expect everyone else to take care of you! 





ARTICLE V: You do not have the right to free health care. That would be nice, but from the looks of public housing, we're just not interested in public health care. 





ARTICLE VI: You do not have the right to physically harm other people. If you kidnap, rape, intentionally maim, or kill someone, don't be surprised if the rest of us want to see you break big rocks into little rocks for a very long time.





ARTICLE VII: You do not have the right to the possessions of others. If you rob, cheat, or coerce away the goods or services of other citizens, don't be surprised if the rest of us get together and lock you away in a place where you still won't have the right to a big screen color TV or a life of leisure. 





ARTICLE VIII: You do not have the right to a job. All of us sure want you to have a job, and will gladly help you along in hard times, but we expect you to take advantage of the opportunities of education and vocational training laid before you to make yourself useful. 





ARTICLE IX: You do not have the right to happiness. Being an Australian means that you have the right to PURSUE happiness, which by the way, is a lot easier if you are unencumbered by an over abundance of idiot laws. 





ARTICLE X: This is an English speaking country. We don't care where you are from, English is our language. Learn it or go back to wherever you came from!

(And Lastly....) 





ARTICLE XI: You do not have the right to change our country's history or heritage. This country was founded on the belief in a fair go for all so if you are coming here from somewhere else accept the fact you came here because our lifestyle is better. Assimilate and fit in or else head back to where you came from. 







If you agree, share this with a friend. No, you don't have to, and nothing tragic will befall you if you don't. I just think it's about time common sense is allowed to flourish. Sensible people of Australia speak out because if you do not, who will? 


Update: Papachango has suggested the following amendment to Article X which may be more appropriate: -

This is an English speaking country. You can speak whatever language you like here, but if you don’t learn English don’t expect anyone to understand you, and don’t expect the government to give you free interpreters.

Hit Jobs, but isn't Obama above all that.

Photo Cindy McCain at an 'Operation Smile' mission in Vietnam. ("Time")

SJ Reidhead is a significant source of the information in this post.

There will always be some of the more extreme elements, some to the point of being human filth around election campaigns. Most candidates tend to discourage this sort of thing as they not only invite retaliation, but also tend to be an embarrassment to anyone with a sense of honour. John McCain seems to have little time for them, and has disassociated himself from them.

They seem to be out in force at present however on the left hand side of the online world, and there they are not rejected.

Right Pundits has exposed an organised smear campaign aimed at Cindy McCain in order to discredit her or even to destroy the McCain marriage.

“The tale of a Cindy McCain affair has an even more suspicious beginning. The rumor did not start from a blog or any news source at all. Instead, is started from Internet searches themselves! About 9pm EST on June 18th 2008 a giant rush of internet searches for “Cindy McCain affair” were made in the Google search engine.

Google keeps a list of hot searches that it makes available to bloggers as a service to the blogging community. The service tracks what people are looking for on the internet at any given hour. Many bloggers keep abreast of those search trends for stories that they might have missed. Many stories will appear on the internet as a result of monitoring those hot searches, something I like to call “me too” stories.

That is what happened with the Cindy McCain affair rumor. It was manufactured out of thin air as a result of a giant rush of sudden, inexplicable internet searches for the topic. Whether the search engines were deliberately manipulated to produce a buzz is anyone’s guess. My guess is the campaigns are sophisticated enough about the internet to know that computerized searches can be rigged to simulate a million searches in an hour to produce a Machiavellian effect. Create enough searches for a story and you create the story.

Predictably, a thin blog post then appeared as a response to the searches themselves. Credit this time goes to an unknown blog called “Corey’s Hijinks” which first published an article about the rumored Cindy McCain affair about 60 minutes after the searches first stormed the internet. Corey’s Hijinks has been in existence for 60 days and claims “Word, thoughts, and other junk” as a slogan. It posts stories exclusively based on hot searches, manufacturing a supply for a perceived search demand.”

This was obviously a deliberate calculated effort to manipulate a story where none existed, for the political ends of another candidate, and there is only one who would benefit by this. Well he has been promising a new way.

Another interesting smear the Obama campaign is raising for another attempt to give it some legs is the old disproven one that McCain abused his wife with disgusting language in public which was put up by a left wing hack writer who has never been able to come up with a source.

This has now been featured on Youtube by a group calling itself ‘The Public Service Administration’ that alleges to be a comedy group. The problem is they only make fun of people who are running against Barack Obama. This is obviously a supporting element to the Democrat campaign, right. Well no they also attacked Hillary Clinton.

MSNBC meanwhile is doing its usual thing, hit jobs on McCain, with the latest being some leftist dweeb named Dan Abrams, playing an excerpt from an interview with John McCain on Fox where he says, “It wasn’t until I was deprived of her company that I fell in love with America,” which he then proceeds to repeat over and over playing every clip he could find of it and laboring the subject.

Dan is apparently trying to present himself as some sort of new Keith Oberman, without much success. (Dan the real Keith would be just as obviously a mouthpiece, but would find a few more words to express it, repetition just gets so boring.)

McCain was obviously very fond of his country, otherwise he would not have placed himself in the position he did. He had the chance to leave the theatre shortly before being shot down when his ship returned for repairs, but volunteered to stay on with another ship that needed more pilots.

He is indicating in this probably that he may have taken it a bit for granted until that, or some similar idea. To suggest that he was somehow ‘unpatriotic’ over this statement is really laboring the Democrat cause a bit.

I don't normally do silly quizzes.

Well I don't usually admit to it. I have just finished a real bastard of a job in a blind sublevel about 600 meters down with poor ventilation, and moved into a really good spot in the main vent stream. Its like heaven, so I am feeling a bit frivolous.

Thanks for this to Heartless Libertarian.

What Kind of a Western Bad-Ass are You? created with QuizFarm.com

You scored as Lee Van Cleef You look like an accountant, but your steely glare and matching nerves make you a match for any hard-case out there. Clint Eastwood 100% John Wayne 100% Lee Van Cleef 100% Charles Bronson 100% Lee Marvin 63%

Decency in Politics, .... if only.

The other day I found a faux advertisement in Delaware Libertarian, for the 1800 election, which reminded me of a story I have admired ever since I first found it. On looking it up I decided to publish it in full as it has great relevance at present.

My reference is 'Rip Van Australia' by John Singleton, and Bob Howard, chapter heading, 'Decency'. My copy is very old, dog eared, and well used, but I cannot replace it as it appears to be out of print.

Decency. 

The real test of a person's morality is whether or not they act only on the basis of legality, or rather on the basis of a sense of what is 'the right thing'. This sense of, 'the right thing,' was traditionally very strong in England ('it's just not done, or 'it's just not cricket').

Suppose, for example, you found a loophole in the law that offered you the opportunity of legally making a lot of money, or of gaining a crucial advantage over your business competitors. But, even though it was legal, you felt it was somehow wrong.

It would involve taking an unfair advantage, or the taking of something that, really, by any decent standard of fair play and justice, you did not feel you were entitled to. The question then, is set. Do you, legally and safely, take advantage of the situation, or do you do 'the right thing' and act in accordance with your conscience and sense of decency and morality?

While the obvious answer is that the latter is unquestionably the right answer, it yet remains a fact that increasingly in this modern world, people are opting for the former. That this is so is probably due in no small part to a curious inversion that has taken place during the history of modern democracies.

It was originally the case that the government could only do those few specific things detailed in its Constitution and nothing outside those. We, the people, on the other hand, were prevented from doing only a few specific things, and allowed to do everything outside them.

This situation has now almost completely reversed, with the government of today almost unlimited in its powers, and we, the people, severely restricted in our freedoms all, it must be noted, under the same Constitution. Such are the inroads made on the simple meaning of language by generations of rationalizing lawyers and politicians.

As the law came to be more involved in regulating behaviour, the concepts of individual responsibility and morality came to be displaced by the concept of legality. Ideally, of course, legality and morality should coincide, but strict adherence to that would leave very little scope for political action as it would almost completely eliminate the State in one stroke.

Most of our laws today violate the rights of some, if not all, citizens, and are thus legal, but immoral. In an essay titled 'A Study in Manners,’ Albert Jay Nock cites a case that all modern politicians could take a lesson from.

In 1800 in the U.S.A., there arose a contest between the Federalists and the Republicans for the presidency. John Jay was the Federalist governor of New York, and a fierce opponent of Thomas Jefferson, the Republican presidential candidate. It so happened that John Jay was in a position, by a process of which the details are unimportant, to stop Jefferson from being elected.

Alexander Hamilton, a Federalist colleague of Jay's, urged him to act. Hamilton assured Jay that, 'in times like these in which we live, it will not do to be over scrupulous', and that 'the scruples of delicacy and propriety, as relative to a common course of thing,., ought to yield to the extraordinary nature of the crisis. They ought not to hinder the taking of a legal and constitutional step to prevent an atheist in religion and a fanatic in politics from getting possession of the helm of State'.

Jay did nothing he did not even acknowledge Hamilton's letter. 

After Jay's Death nearly thirty years later, the letter was found in his papers inscribed, 'Proposing a measure for party purposes which I do not think it would be becoming to adopt.'

Jefferson duly won the election, an event which was so distasteful to Governor Jay that he soon after retired from public life, although in the prime of life. As Nock put it:

One rubs one's eyes in astonishment. What an extraordinary reason to assign for a decision of such profound political significance! What an extraordinary standard by which to appraise political conduct! That an act is illegal might conceivably give some shadow of reason why a politician should object to it. The exceptional politician might even, indeed, in an atrabilious moment, object to an act because he found it immoral or dishonest. Objection, however, to an act which is neither illegal or dishonest merely because it is unbecoming. This represents a distinction which, to put it gently, few politicians of today could be expected to draw under any circumstances, let alone such circumstances as pressed so powerfully on Governor Jay.

It is easy to see how far, in the course of two hundred years, our standards of morality and decency have declined.

And let's not dismiss this as an amusing anecdote only. Let's not start in with arguments about practicability, necessity and pragmatism, of political reality and 'the art of the possible'.

This issue goes to the very centre of our modern problems. To return again to early American history, Thomas Jefferson once remarked that 'it is the manners and spirit of a people which preserve a republic in vigour.

A degeneracy in these is a canker, which soon eats to the heart of its laws and constitutions'. Evidence of this, unfortunately, we see all around us in Australia.

This does not mean, however, a blind following of convention. Social customs change with the times and there is no harm in that. Indeed, much that passes as manners today is unnecessary, because they are largely empty and mechanical gestures. But what is needed is a genuine respect for the values of conscience, decency and 'doing the right thing'.

(Albert J Nock, On doing the right thing)

Obama, another embarrassing associate.

That moral high ground Obama likes to stand on appears to be sinking. Jim Johnson is under the bus with Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Pfleiger,Tony Rezko …. How many others was that?

Johnson who was the head of Sen. Obama's vice presidential search committee, received $1.9 million in loans at below market rates from Countrywide Financial, which was embarrassing for Obama, because he had blamed most of the subprime mortgage crisis on Countrywide.

Fannie Mae executives concealed $10.6 billion in losses through questionable accounting practices. This was about 19 times the size of Enron's losses, but attracted much less media attention. The fraud was discovered during the tenure of Mr. Johnson's successor, Franklin Raines however federal investigators concluded the scandal was rooted in a corporate culture that dated back 20 years.

Johnson served on the boards of five corporations that granted their senior executives the kind of lavish pay packages Mr. Obama has denounced.

Another appointment to his vice presidential search committee is Eric Holder, who was deputy attorney general during the Clinton administration. Mr. Holder was a key figure in the pardon of fugitive financier Marc Rich, whose ex-wife, Denise, was a major contributor to Clinton campaigns and to the Clinton library fund.

Mr. Rich fled to Switzerland to avoid prosecution on 51 counts of tax fraud, and was not eligible for a pardon under Justice Department guidelines. But Mr. Holder circumvented normal procedures and kept other Justice Department lawyers in the dark. A congressional committee described his conduct as "unconscionable."

Is there any room left under the bus for this guy?

Unconscionable seems to fit quite a few Obama appointees. Oh well, so many friends, so few ethics.

Obama, on bringing guns to Knife Fights.

Remember when Obama went all self righteous (oh hang on, that’s all the time isn’t it) about the Clinton remark about Robert Kennedy being assassinated while campaigning in June. He seemed to feel that it was some sort of dangerous talk.

He then turns around and in talking about the campaign against McCain getting ugly says, “If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun.” BHO seems to have one standard for himself and one for everyone else.

Imagine the howls of outrage from him and all those in his camp if John McCain were to suggest that he might "bring a gun" to his campaign against Barack Obama? Yet Obama has made just such a statement.

What a bizarre statement for a total anti guns in private hands freak to make anyway. Perhaps he is merely trying to convince all those bitter working class small towners, that he supports their right to cling to their guns and religion.

The Economic State of the Nation.

By Ron Kitching.

This was written as a letter to the editor by Ron, he has drawn the information for it from a larger article by Dr Muriel Newman, of the New Zealand Centre for Political Research.

In his new book, “The Economic State of the Nation”, Dr Roger Bowden, a N. Z. Professor of Economics N.Z., examines the theme that profligate government spending does more harm than good. Since 1999 the public service numbers have almost doubled.

His results paralleled many other studies from around the world that show that spending exceeds a critical level of GDP. In Colin Clark's essay titled Public Finances and Changes in the Value of Money, published in The Economic Journal December 1945, and in a later essay titled “Is Britain Heading For A Big Inflation?” published in The Manchester Guardian, September 18th, 1951, Clark asserted that “.... if the quota of the National Income claimed by the state reaches 25%, the tax burden involved cannot be supported, without such burdens generating inflationary pressures.”

The government has started taking over what was previously the responsibility of the individual, as spending reaches 35% of GDP.

Professor Bowden says: “Once started, managerial bureaucracy becomes a self-perpetuating virus. Like a swelling flood sweeps common sense from its path, and it becomes overlain with empire building, careerism and other supplementary agendas. Now the organization is being run by incompetent people, and their mistakes are no longer micro, they are mega.”

He has calculated that some 60 percent of the budget for public research funding is now gobbled up with administration costs. In the tertiary education sector, he reveals that for each coalface staff member who does the teaching and research, there are now two administrators.

Australia is closely following the N. Z. example.

Zimbabwe, We need the League of Democracies NOW.

THE United States has called for urgent Security Council action on the Zimbabwe crisis after President Mugabe's regime struck at his rivals only two weeks before Zimbabwe's presidential run-off.

Police yesterday twice detained his challenger, Morgan Tsvangirai, and jailed deputy Opposition leader Tendai Biti on treason charges. Treason of course carries the death sentence.

The US ambassador also said 20 tones of American food aid for impoverished Zimbabwean children had been seized by authorities last week and given to Mugabe supporters at a rally.

The repeated detentions, coupled with Western accusations the Zimbabwe regime is using food as a weapon, demonstrate the obstacles to the Opposition's campaign thrown up by the longtime leader.

Mugabe has raised the spectre of war by warning that his staunchest supporters are ready to take up arms rather than let the Opposition triumph in a June 27 election.

All pretence that this regime is in some way democratic should be binned where they have belonged for years.

No international recognition or protection should be afforded to governments which rule by terrorizing their own people no matter how they came to power in the first place, and no manner of throwing them out should be illegal, as long as the rights of the population of those countries are respected afterwards.

One of John McCain’s better ideas has been the establishment of a “League of Democracies”. It sounds very much like a solution some of us came up with in a discussion on the thoughts on Freedom site some time ago, and which I have already posted on as the ‘Allied Democracies Group.’

I think it would be most unwise to hold our breaths waiting for the UN to do something, I would like to be wrong on this, but I doubt it.

I believe a League of Democracies or an Allied Democracies Group could be a viable proposition along the following lines: -

(1) That the above organization be made up of nations with a high standard of liberty and human rights.

(2) An agreed format for the requirement for intervention to be declared.

(3) A mutual defense pact, be formed among those countries.

(4) The nations within the organization strip tyrant nations of their recognition.

(5) Sanctions by the member nations in combination with (4) above to be used in preference to military intervention.

(6) After removal of recognition a “third party” nation that is affected by the subject nation may take unilateral action, however must guarantee that the rights of the population of the subject nation afterwards or face action itself. The ADG itself may take the action itself.

(7) The UN would be supported only when they are acting in a proper manner.

This pretty much concludes the points, at least those I can think of at the moment, but I feel there will be others.

There are at present several European armies not being constructively used, there is really no good reason to allow this barbarity to go on.

Obama, exposing those 'lies' other than from his own campaign.

Barack Obama is trying out the the Internet and enthusiasm of his supporters to fight what he claims is a smear campaign stalking his campaign for the Presidency.

He has unveiled a new website at www.fightthesmears.com to debunk false rumors peddled by email and right-wing media outlets.

The site was created after one recent, and thus-far unfounded, assertion that Obama's wife Michelle had been caught on tape slurring white people.

"People can upload their address books and easily send fact-based emails to their friends and family.

"Just knowing the truth isn't enough.

"You have to proactively tell people the truth for us to fight back."

This has the sound of the activity of the Paulbots from a while ago, who would attack in droves at the slightest hint of any criticism of their candidate. I would like to think that the intentions of the candidate would match his rhetoric but on past record I don’t hold out much hope of this.

I have seen accusations against candidates, which I frankly feel are untrue, unethical, and unprincipled on the net, and avoid pushing these. The fact is though, that most of these are coming from the Obama campaign supporters. Whether these grubs are officially linked to his campaign is a matter of conjecture.

Of more concern to me are the smear tactics from Obama himself and people who are close to him.

Obama has consistently claimed that ‘McCain wants a 100 year war in Iraq despite knowing that it is untrue. Howard Dean is one of his backups on that, even claiming that when McCain quotes the text of what he originally said, ‘that it is a distortion’.


Brownstein is absolutely right. McCain has fought back against the use of his “100 Years” statement stating it was in the context of a US presence similar to Korea. That is fine; personally, I haven’t any problem with that interpretation. —Yet McCain has also strongly warned of the dire consequences should US troops redeploy. That’s where the problem comes in.

McCain’s defense has always been to show the clip or to repeat what he actually said, and Fox played that clip. Dean’s response was to claim, “Our problem is that McCain is distorting what he [McCain] said.” The Dems feel that if their edited out sections of what he said are left in it is a distortion. Shout the lie again, fellas someone might believe it this time.

Note that FactCheck. Org has said that “What the DNC conveys is the opposite of what McCain said. 



Obama then compounded his falsehood by claiming; John McCain got upset today apparently because I had repeated exactly what he said, which is that we might be there [Iraq] for 100 years if he had his way. This is not what he said, and could only be considered a deliberate distortion of the situation. 


John McCain released a positive ad highlighting his lifetime of service to the American people, which nobody would deny. The reaction from Howard Dean was to accuse him of being an opportunist. Obama tries to claim some sort of military kudos by making false claims about uncles and so on.

Democratic Sen. Jay Rockefeller, an Obama acolite claimed, McCain dropped laser-guided missiles from 35,000 feet. He was long gone when they hit.” “What happened when they get to the ground? He doesn’t know. You have to care about the lives of people. 



John McCain was engaged in low-level attack on a heavily defended power plant in Hanoi when he was shot down. McCain and his comrades were willing to put their lives at great risk in order to hit specific, high-value targets without the assistance of guided munitions. The laser guidance system was not use until the next year.

It would be utterly inconceivable that Rockefeller was not aware of the facts when making this claim.

Before Obama makes any more claims to the moral high ground he should actually try to find some to stand on.

The Budweiser Story

This was just sent to me by a friend, It as you will see is claimed to be a true story. I cannot vouch for that, but if it isn't it should be.

The Budweiser Story

This is TRUE!

How Budweiser handled those who laughed at those who died on the 11th of September, 
2001...

Thought you might like to know what happened in a little town north of Bakersfield , California.

After you finish reading this, please forward this story on to others so that our nation and people around the world will know about those who laughed when they found out about the tragic events in New York , Pennsylvania , and the Pentagon.

On September 11th, A Budweiser employee was making a delivery to a convenience store in a California town named McFarland.

He knew of the tragedy that had occurred in New York when he entered the business to find the two Arabs, who owned the business, whooping and hollering to show their approval and support of this treacherous attack.

The Budweiser employee went to his truck, called his boss and told him of the very upsetting event!

He didn't feel he could be in that store with those horrible people. His boss asked him, "Do you think you could go in there long enough to pull every Budweiser product and item our beverage company sells there?

We'll never deliver to them again." The employee walked in, proceeded to pull every single product his beverage company provided and left with an incredible grin on his face.

He told them never to bother to call for a delivery again.

Budweiser happens to be the beer of choice for that community.

Just letting you know how Kern County handled this situation. And Now

The Rest Of The Story:

It seems that the Bud driver and the Pepsi man are neighbors. Bud called Pepsi and told him.

Pepsi called his boss who told him to pull all Pepsi products as well!!! That would include Frito Lay, etc.

Furthermore, word spread and all vendors followed suit! At last report, the store was closed indefinitely.

Good old American Passive-Aggressive A$$ Whoopin!

Pass this along, America needs to know that we're all working together!

If you can read this.

Thank a teacher...

If you are reading it in English....

THANK A SOLDIER!!!

Reagan Conservatives, and George Wallace Republicans.

A couple of days ago I asked the question, “Are the extreme conservatives the descendents of the old Southern Democrats?”


Oddly the label ‘conservative’ seems to have been adopted by the Republican Party to the point that everyone from the relatively libertarian Jeff Flake, through to the most far right wingers are referred to as ‘conservatives’, with no clear concept of what it actually implies. Certainly, for such a wide cross section to fit comfortably within this description, its definition must be so loose as to be almost meaningless.

If Jeff Flake were used as an example, then it must imply a concept of individual sovereignty that is, that we are free to conduct our lives with the minimum of state interference.

The far right on the other hand, hold to a concept that freedom is some sort of license from the state that allows the population to conduct their lives in such a manner as to stay within the limits of the beliefs of the central authority, provided of course that the authority is the far right.

Essentially then the Republican idea of conservatism stretches itself to embrace everything from moderate libertarianism through to fairly extreme authoritarianism. I think the label should be dropped.

In my search for answers I came across an article in ‘Econolog’ “The Conservative, the Progressive, and the Masonomist” where the following was suggested as a definition:

The core belief of conservatives is that we are going to hell in a handbasket. Depending on who you talk to, this has been happening since the 1960's, or since the French Revolution, or since the fall of the Roman Empire, or since ___. Depending on who you talk to, our problem is that we have forgotten the teachings of Ronald Reagan, or those of the Founding Fathers, or those of Jesus, or those of Plato, or those of ___.

This was disputed in the comments section, where I found the following gem from Troy Camplin:

Troy Camplin, Ph.D. writes:

He's using the traditional definition of a conservative. Your terms have become so screwed up as to have become almost meaningless.

We have people who call themselves conservative who actually are conservative (Pat Buchanan), conservatives who are a combination of conservative and classical liberal (Rush Limbaugh), conservatives who are classical liberals (Ron Paul), liberals who are conservatives (Joe Leiberman), liberals who are Leftists (Obama), liberals who are progressives (Hillary Clinton), etc.

We need to clarify our terms, since we group people together who probably should not be together. Quite frankly, what Pat Buchanan wants economically is far closer to what Obama wants than to what either Ron Paul or Rush Limbaugh want -- but he's considered a conservative.

Now, to the extent that Buchanan's type of government-controlled economy (I have heard him say, "I am opposed to the free market system") is founded in much older thinkers than Marx, while Obama's is based precisely on Marx, that does make Buchanan a conservative in the European sense of the term, though the result of what he and Obama both want are practically identical. So we really need a clarification of terms.

Also, I think a less school-specific term than "Masonomist" would be preferred. My Masonomist world view was developed without having read anything by anyone from GMU -- except for a few articles and a book by Walter Williams. Still, my systems view of the world was developed primarily from other thinkers' work.

In concluding I will explain the term Masonomist. A Masonomist is an adherent of the economics Department of George Mason University Which appears to impart a remarkably (for a university) free market view: -

“Most economists favor the free market, with reservations. Masonomics rejects the reservations. If John and Mary are free individuals, and John trades with Mary, then John and Mary both are better off. End of story.

A great one for libertarians.

For follow up I recommend a great article by SJ Reidhead, "Out of Touch Conservatives" at the Pink Flamingo.

Shooters Party MPs Performance.

David Leyonhjelm has written a "Performance Review" on the Shooters Party MLC's first 1 and 2 years in NSW parliament. It can be found on the ‘Australian Gun Owners Blog.’

MLC Performance Review.

By David Leyonhjelm.

In May 2008 it was a year since Roy Smith took his seat in the upper house of NSW Parliament and two years since Robert Brown took over John Tingle’s seat. This post examines their performance over that period.

Politicians must be held to account. We pay their salaries and they spend our money. It is pointless merely being in parliament if it has no effect. We all know that politicians mostly just talk, but outcomes are what really matter; tangible changes that benefit those who voted for them, not just press releases, questions in parliament, speeches and newsletters.

In March 2007 Robert Brown wrote on the party’s website: “We will negotiate the end of the ridiculous twenty-eight day so called “cooling off” period, at least for second and subsequent firearms. This has been dropped by most other jurisdictions, as being pointless and expensive.”

After the election Shooters Party members were told in a newsletter in the third quarter of 2007: “Our two votes will be crucial again and again, and the Government will be aware of that when our members are negotiating improvements in the firearm laws, and other matters affecting legitimate firearm owners.”

Roy Smith’s inaugural speech in parliament spelled out a list of objectives.

Smith and Brown regularly do hold the balance of power in the Legislative Council. Many votes are decided by a majority of one, two or three votes, meaning there would have been a different result if they had voted differently.

However, it is also a fact that they do not hold the balance of power exclusively. There are eight cross bench members, including the Greens with four and the Christian Democrats with two. If the Greens and Christian Democrats join with either the Government or Opposition, the two Shooters Party votes will not determine the result.

So, given that, have Brown and Smith met the expectations they raised? This is my opinion of their performance so far. For background, go to the summary on MLC Watch or for more detail, Hansard is on line. My rating of their performance (out of 10) is as follows:

Brown: 2 for effort 1 for results

Smith: 5 for effort (mostly due to the Firearms Amendment Bill) 0 for results

To understand why they have been given this rating, Go to David's article for a detailed rundown, I thoroughly recommend it.

Obama and stupid reasons to vote for him.

This is a comment left on one of the sites I visit frequently: -

“Actually, I kind of want Obama to win just to shut up the morally high and mighty lefties that refuse to believe racist Americans would ever elect a black man.”

I think given the context that this remark was made ‘tongue in cheek’ however I am inclined to think that this thinking is out there being taken seriously. One party or another was always going to put up an African American sooner or later, and race would in fact be a background issue.

Our side has put up the name of Colin Powel, at times and Condoleezza Rice is still considered a viable VP by some even now. Both would be excellent, although I worry that Powel may be a little suspect on gun rights.

I think most of my readers know by now of my preference for Sarah Palin for VP however if she were to be unavailable, I consider the sheer ability of Condi to make it worth taking the risk of putting up a prominent figure from the current administration. She has performed with distinction in a very difficult time.

Both of them are credible people, and would both be very deserving of America’s votes. There would be no point in putting up a totally unsuitable candidate with no qualifications or experience. In the unlikely event of such a candidate getting elected, the results of the administration would set back the cause of black American politics for years to come.

A black president will be a great thing when it happens, as long as it happens for the right reasons, that is that the person who makes it is the best of the candidates available in a good field. This is not the case in this election.

Obama is not ready, he is not qualified, he has little going for him other than what we in Australia call “the gift of the gab,” in other words a good talker. The Democrats had the choice between him as potentially the ‘first black President’, and Hillary as potentially the ‘first female President,’ and they blew it.

With the active collaboration of the liberal press they decided to throw Hillary under the bus and present us with a candidate who is surrounded with religious whackos, political left wing extremists, and corrupt sleezebags. Add to this his propensity for ‘misspeaks’ like his relatives liberation of death camps that the Red Army carried out, and how many states was that again?

Of course you have to expect a certain amount of confusion from a guy whose parents met and conceived him at an event that occurred several years after he was born.

It will be great when America votes in someone who will “shut up the morally high and mighty lefties that refuse to believe racist Americans would ever elect a black man,” or alternatively a woman of any race, but lets get it right first.

Sarah Palin, and only Sarah Palin will do.

I just received an interesting series of Emails from three of my contacts in the US and have decided to share some of their views, as well as some of mine as follows.

There is a hard push for Romney by the talk show mafia for VP. On Palin..."Puh-lez" said Hewitt, "We already have Alaska and she's a nobody with zero experience."

This is idiot talk, while there may be a tactic of selecting a VP who will bring home another state that the Presidential candidate can’t get on his own it is ridiculous to say that a viable candidate from a state which may be in the bag, (if it is) should be automatically excluded. Few would agree that she is a nobody, and as a governor she has vastly more executive experience than Obama.

Medved had a woman on his show, a main stream Conservative from the Heritage Foundation who came right out and said she wanted to limit Hispanic and Latino immigrants, including those 2nd and 3rd generation.

That was Heather MacDonald. She's basically an anti-Hispanic racist, her work completely discredited by reliable sources. She writes for all the usual anti-immigration sources, is their little darling. Her statistics have been debunked time and time again, but it doesn't matter.

Michael pointed out that those "2nd and 3rd generation" were American citizens and she said that is why we have to close our southern borders and give Asian and Canadian immigrants preference for citizenship so we'd have the right 2nd and 3rd generation citizens that will add to our nation not take away jobs and social services.

“The right 2nd and 3rd generation citizens,” really says what she is on about. She feels that Hispanics are an inferior ‘breed’ to Asians and Canadians.

Medved had a counter point guest who quoted study after study showing that Hispanics are under represented in jails and other unsavory numbers. He also said that Hispanics were less likely to use the social services and could not be compared to Blacks who have been in the system for generations.

She didn't want to hear it. She got angry at the "race card" being pulled but it was obvious that the focus of all this immigration anger wasn't legal or illegal; just toward Hispanics and their legal offspring.

These elite, ivy league, so called conservatives are going to put the most scary liberal in the WH. And that illegal (aka Hispanic) immigration vitriolic talk has got to go where Tancredo and Hunter and Santorium (and ultimately Romney once he got on that wagon) went.

There are aspects of American politics that I simply don’t understand. The thing I love about America is that in many ways it is not only a geographical entity but a state of mind, a philosophy in its own right. The concept of liberty it is founded on and which the left despises is something to aspire to. The basic concept of ‘consensual’ government, that is government by the consent of the governed is a wonderful innovation.

I am seeing more and more writings indicating that Hispanics are not that fond of Obama, and dislike the Democrats, who tend to use the threat of deportation in elections to blackmail them into voting for the left. Eric Dondero over at Libertarian Republican has made numerous posts urging the GOP to try harder in Hispanic areas as they are available to us.

Are the extreme conservatives the descendents of the old Southern Democrats?

My only regret about Sarah Palin is that she didn’t start a bit sooner in politics and is not at the moment a credible candidate for the Presidency at the moment.

My thanks to Malia Nash, SJ Reidhead, and Steve Maloney.