Meanwhile, as the focus of American news has been on the conventions, the radical Islamics are continuing in their barbaric ways.  In a small village of Pakistan, three young women were shot and then buried alive, because they went against tribal customs and preferred to choose their own husbands.  Along with the teens, two older women were buried along with them, because the two sympathized with the three young girls by protesting.

They were abducted by gunpoint, taken by land cruiser Jeep to a remote area and shot.

“The girls were seriously injured but were still alive at that moment. Sattar Umrani and his accomplices hurled them into a wide ditch and covered them with earth and stones. When the two older women protested and tried to stop the burial, the attackers were so angry that they also pushed them into the ditch and buried them alive. After completing the burial, they fired several shots into to the air so that no one would come close.”  More. . .

There is some protest to the protest, but the ruling elite have nothing more to say than “It is a Baluch tribal tradition (to bury accused women alive) and we have to respect it.”  

Tribal customs or not, this is still terrorism, although be it terrorism focused on their own.  

Elections and Hurricane Gustav take center stage in American news, but across the globe some sort of Islamic terrorism is an everyday affair. 

Here in the US, CNN defends Islamism by closing their eyes to the radical nature of the madrassa teachings of the “Karachi Kids.” 

And back in the middle east, in Gaza, formerly Jewish land traded to the Palestinians for peace, 11 year old boys are being trained to kill Jews.

In Mexico, it’s the drug cartel beheading dealers and dumping their carcasses near Cancun. 

Terror by any other name is still . . . terrorism. 

American Thinker.

Here’s a change we can support.  Go get them Sarah.  

The Bush tax cuts expire in 2011 and the Alternative Minimum Tax is a catastrophe ready to be thrown out with the script.  Whoever wins the presidency will deal with taxes on an ongoing basis as the federal government is in dire straits of debt.   For a politician it’s either raise taxes or cut the budget.  And to even think that our elected officials will choose the latter choice, is idiocy. 

Unique Opportunity Is at Hand for Far-Reaching Federal Tax Reform

by Scott A. Hodge at the Tax Foundation.

The seeds for compromise lie in the fact that both sides have something to gain by addressing these problems at once. Naturally, Republicans want to avert the largest tax hike in history by maintaining the lower tax rates on income, capital gains, dividends, and married families with children. Meanwhile, Democrats will be brought to the table by the fact that the AMT is largely a Blue State problem, mostly affecting those living in high-tax and high-income states such as California, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York.

“. . . .how do we craft a politically realistic tax reform plan?”

And so, Scott Hodge sets out the menu point by point.

1. Eliminate tax exemptions and deductions.
2. Make any tax reform a tax cut and tax simplification.
3. Continue to shield low-income earners with a super-deduction.
4. Make everyone a stakeholder.
5. Fend off the special interests.

And yet, Hodge does not come to a logical conclusion, but only recommends a simplification of the codes.  The logical end to all this would be The FairTax Plan which eliminates all corporate taxes, and all individual income taxes as well as the IRS and it’s never ending adjustments and changes that keep thousands of lawyers and bookkeepers busy.  

The FairTax Plan installs a national retail sales tax in it’s place, which everyone pays the same rate all the time: no deductions, no special rules, no lawyer fees, no forms to fill out, and on top of that sends monthly prebates to every citizen to cover the cost of the tax for the basic necessities of life. 

Read more about it.   The rest of the story.

The impact of the FairTax on American manufacturing, agriculture, trade, and international competitiveness

What kind of an economic wizard are you?   Find out by taking the Corporate Tax Quiz.  I just took it and I got this reply: “Congratulations! You have a good understanding of why taxes matter and should help us educate your friends and family.”  And I only got 8 correct answers out of 15 questions. 

You could get a reply that said: “Congratulations! You have a poor understanding of why taxes matter and are qualified to work at the IRS.”  or  “Congratulations! You have an excellent grasp of why taxes matter and are qualified to work at the Tax Foundation.”

Go ahead take the quiz.   Just 15 questions, multiple choice.

If you’re a believer in the Global Warming theories as expounded by Gore and the IPCC of the UN, then get a life, as there is serious research to the contraries point of view. 

Enter The Climate Change Research Program, which “issued a “Unified Synthesis Report” in July for public comment, claiming to synthesize 21 studies to present an alarming series of regional climate change projections.”

Unfortunately, not only can climate models not credibly do that but only 8 of the 21 studies had actually been completed and released. For these and other reasons the report violates the federal Information Quality Act and also the U.S. Global Change Research Act, and cannot be permissibly disseminated.

“The authors go to great lengths to obscure their inability to credibly articulate human influence on the climate,” said Christopher C. Horner, Senior Fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. “They do so through selectivity in research, alarmist language, failure to provide relevance or context to many of their claims, and generally throughout with transparent advocacy in tone and content.”

So how, what and why? 

1. Selectivity in research. 
2. Alarmist language. 
3. Failure to provide relevance.

All of the above with the purpose to: “obscure their inability to credibly articulate human influence on the climate.”

But what’s the ultimate purpose for proclaiming that humans have caused climate changes through our selfish indulgences of the industrial revolution?   And that catastrophes are eminent if the world does not act right now to avert the eventual millions of human lives that will be lost, if we don’t limit energy usage everywhere; in industry, in offices, in homes and on the roads. . . especially in the western nations and specifically the USA, the greatest polluter of all. 

In very simple words, these elite desire much stricter regulated government control over industry and people. 

Socialism.  Fascism.  Communism.

This time New Orleans is telling people to get out, or else you’re on your own.  No shelters will be available  as there were in 2005.  What a difference a few years and a change of governors make.

Those among New Orleans’ estimated 310,000 to 340,000 residents who ignore orders to leave accept “all responsibility for themselves and their loved ones,” the city’s emergency preparedness director, Jerry Sneed, has warned.

Yes, and Mayor Ray Nagin has learned a thing of two also.  But this time republican Governor Bobby Jindal has stepped in to assist the mayor to help prepare the city for the newest global warming caused hurricane Gustav, which may or may not directly hit the city.

This time, the city has taken steps to ensure no one has an excuse not to leave. The state has a $7 million contract to provide 700 buses to evacuate the elderly, the sick and anyone around the region without transportation.

In 1965 Hurricane Betsy slammed into New Orleans, after hitting southern Florida, on Sept. 9th and killed 75 people over all and caused over $1 billion worth of damage.  The levees of New Orleans broke then also, and flooded the area as the water reached the eaves of house in some areas.

It was ten days or more before the water level in New Orleans went down enough for people to return to their homes. It took even longer than that to restore their flooded houses to a livable condition. Those who did not have family or friends with dry homes had to sleep in the shelters at night and forage for supplies during the day, while waiting for the federal government to provide emergency relief in the form of trailers.

In all, 164,000 homes were flooded at the second landfall.

Evidence suggests that cheap construction and poor maintenance of the structures led to the failure of the levees. However, popular rumor persists that they were intentionally breached, possibly as a means of salvaging the more prosperous French Quarter^{.  Wikipedia}  

Some things just stay the same.  43 years after hurricane Betsy and numerous levee repairs, they are still likely to break.   Truly amazing that in the 21st century, with all of our technology and computer equipped heavy equipment, the US government cannot build a levee that will withstand a hurricane, when in the 1930’s the country was able to build the Hoover Dam.   Why is that?

I just can’t recall a liberal democrat ever using words like both Obama’s have used in their speeches to the DNC.

“- that through hard work and sacrifice, each of us can pursue our individual dreams but still come together as one American family, to ensure that the next generation can pursue their dreams as well.”

“Because for two hundred and thirty two years, at each moment when that promise was in jeopardy, ordinary men and women - students and soldiers, farmers and teachers, nurses and janitors — found the courage to keep it alive.”   Read Obama’s entire text of 8/28/08

They did it without government help.  People just doing it on their own. 

It’s got that ring of the basic Judeo-Christian values that possessed average Americans of generations past.  The generations that did come together as patriots to defeat enemies and secure the future of the American dream for their heirs through their own individual values of hard work and short term sacrifices for future benefits.

It was done without a lot of help from the government.  They just did it.  They did not even consider that the government was there to help those in need.  It was not even considered a function of the federal government to help those who can help themselves.

Why are these democrats now bringing the basic values of hard work and sacrifice into their political discourse?  What is going on here?   It never used to be that way.   Are we missing something?

If you think that possibly the liberal left is changing their stripes, it will not happen, not in my life time, not in any of their lifetimes, nor that of your children. 

Good news about Palin and her philosophy about taxes.

When Sarah Palin was mayor of Wasilla, AK, she reduced the city property taxes to 1/2%.   And since then, that legacy has carried over to where they have been eliminated altogether.

The new Mayor Dianne M. Keller was a city council member when Palin was mayor, and fondly recalls her as a very strong-willed, energetic individual that will get done whatever she sets her mind to.

WASILLA, Alaska has also grown dramatically since the 70’s with just a few hundred people, and now is pushing 10,000. 

Sounds like McCain has hit that grand slam stunning everyone with his maverick ways.  Kind of endearing.  Perhaps he’ll have a hunting caribou moment with Sarah and Todd along the ANWAR coast as they explore for oil.

Another reason to like the Sarah Palin pick is that she is not a man made global warming believer.  “I’m not one … who would attribute it to being man-made.” 

Now McCain is still struggling with the issue.  “He’s even incorporated the human role in causing global warming as a plank in the Republican platform.”

McCain has been against drilling in ANWR, but Palin is working on him.  

I think he might come along on ANWR if he sees our 2,000 acres for himself.”
On June 18 — two days after McCain announced his support for offshore drilling — he indicated to a town hall in Springfield, Mo., that he indeed might “come along” on ANWR: “I don’t know how you’d take advantage of [ANWR] in an ecological manner, and that’s one of the reasons why I have opposed drilling up there. But as I say, I will look at all policies I have in light of this changed economic environment.”

Politico.

There we have it, the most diverse election candidates in the history of the US of A.   John McCain has just announced that he has chosen Sarah Palin, the governor of Alaska as his running mate.  Barrack Obama has Joe Biden, a white man as his running mate.

Who says that there we don’t have equal diversification in this country.   The following groups might object though.

The gays are left out.

Hispanics are left out,

Muslims are left out.

Jews are left out.

Atheists are left out.  At least non of these candidates has directly come out and said they are anti-god.

But what a brilliant move by McCain.  Now, there’s a race.  While Oprah was wiping the tears out of her makeup, McCain was holding on for the perfect moment to reveal the pick that has excited the conservative base.  Talk about oneupmanship.   Obama is asking who is Palin?   While CNN and MSNBC are sending hound dogs to Alaska. 

Who is Sarah Palin?   Insight here.  And here, here and here where she negotiated a deal with Canada to build a transnational natural gas pipeline from the arctic to the states.