The Exercise of Vital Powers

There is a part of me that wants to see the GOP lose control of the House in next year’s elections. As it stands the Republican Party is not going to put forth any meaningful tax reform, social security reform or spending reform. If they aren’t going to actually do anything useful while up there, they need to be sent packing so a new batch of Republicans can be elected.

That said, this headline scares the hell out of me.

What do Mussolini, Stalin, Kaiser Wilhelm II, Hitler and Alfred Ploetz (author of the anti-Semitic Nuremberg Laws) have in common?
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Parents vs the Childless?

Detroit Times on restaurants and coffee houses discouraging children. (sorry its google cache)

One parent remarks, “I think that the mothers who allow their kids to run around and scream, that’s wrong, but kids scream and there is nothing you can do about it. What are we supposed to do, not enjoy ourselves at a cafe?”

YES! Your misbehaved brat is ruining the enjoyment of the other customers.

“You go to a coffee shop or a bakery for a rest, to relax, and that you would have to worry the whole time about your child doing something that children do”

Yes, you go to a coffee shop to rest and relax. As do most other people. Guess what? Screaming kids make it hard to relax.

From the comments at ProfessorBainBridge.com:

Winston Churchill called democracy the worst form of government except for every other form available.

The Republicans are the worst political party except for every other party that has a chance of winning elections.

Given the loony stance of the LP on key issues, I’d say “except for every other party”.

Human rights abuses in Iraq are as bad as they were under Saddam Hussein if not worse, former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi has said.

“People are doing the same as (in) Saddam’s time and worse,” Allawi said in an interview published in Britain on Sunday.

“It is an appropriate comparison,” Allawi told The Observer newspaper. “People are remembering the days of Saddam. These were the precise reasons that we fought Saddam and now we are seeing the same things.”…

The remarks also follow the discovery of an Iraqi government facility holding 170 prisoners, including some showing signs of torture. (Full story)

“We are hearing about secret police, secret bunkers where people are being interrogated,” said Allawi, who was Iraq’s first prime minister of the post-Saddam Hussein era. (link)

The difference is people can talk about it openly. There will always be sadistic scumbags in the world be it Qusay Hussein or Lindsay Englund. The measure of a culture is how that culture deals with the scumbags. Qusay was living in palaces and next in line to the presidency. Englund is rotting in a federal pen.

This is good news for Atlanta and along with the new aquarium should bring in a lot of tourists.

The Louvre in Paris plans to display some of its renowned collections in the United States, but only at one museum — Atlanta’s High Museum of Art…..

While it is routine for one of the world’s most complete encyclopedic museums to lend works of art to traveling exhibits, they rarely leave for more than three months. The Louvre-High collaboration will last for three years…(link)

I think its pretty cool that the High in Atlanta was chosen over New York, LA or Chicago. Now there are two reasons for me to go downtown (Three if you count my job).

Here is an interesting statistic. It shows the amount of Energy consumed per dollar of GDP. It really is a measure of technological efficiency. We are getting more and more out of every barrel of oil.

Thats good news for America (and the world) and bad news for oil companies and environmental groups. The former because they sell less oil, the latter because their “cause” is weakened.

http://intensityindicators.pnl.gov/graphics.html

HT: Transterrestrial Musings via Instapundit

Did Usama bin Laden leave Afganistan to take up an asylum offer in Iraq?

Thats what CNN reported back in 1999.

No ties indeed.

Tradition has always been that buildings and monuments are named after great deceased people. I think this should be codified in a new Constitutional Amendment:

Section 1.No building, monument or public work shall be named in honor of a living individual currently or previously serving as a President, Vice President, Representative, Cabinet Official, Senator or other Elected Official.
Section 2. The People shall have the right to remedy violations of this article by terminating any living President, Vice President, Representative, Cabinet Official, Senator or other Elected Official to whom a building, monument or public work is named for.

Inspired by this bit of idiocy

“Effective on and after January 1, 2008, no tax on income shall be imposed at a rate in excess of 5.5 percent. Thereafter, on January 1 of each succeeding year, such maximum income tax rate shall be reduced by one-half of 1 percent until such tax rate is zero. …..

The General Assembly shall be authorized to impose an income tax in excess of the rate provided for in this subparagraph only upon a finding that an emergency condition exists in the state for which an income tax must be imposed. No such finding and tax shall become law unless such finding and tax shall receive the affirmative votes of at least two-thirds of all the members…., and be approved by the Governor. No such income tax shall be effective for a period of more than two calendar years unless such tax is renewed by a finding of a continuing emergency condition and a renewal of such income tax by the affirmative votes of at least two-thirds of all the members…. and approval by the Governor.”

Its Senate Resolution 632. Write your Reps to get it out of committee in January.