At a recent event in Washington, you said, “Americans do want to pay taxes for services” and “Americans are looking for more government in their life, not less.”  Although I respect you tremendously Mr. Powell; you’re flat out wrong.  (Why did President Obama run on a platform of cutting taxes for 95% of Americans if we liked having our money forcibly taken from us?) Mr. Powell, I realize you made these remarks in reference to the awful position the Republicans find themselves in at the moment.  I gather your solution for the Republicans to get out of the wilderness is for us to be more Liberal.

Can I ask you sir, what is the point of having a two party system if both parties basically believe in the same philosophy? Do you think that this situation would be good for America?  Would there be healthy debate and a checks on state power if everyone held the same basic beliefs?  I’m all for the Republicans being more inclusive and ending the shrillness, but to change the core tenet of the party, limited-government, would not be beneficial to anyone, least of all Republicans.  Your solution would be to have two big government parties.  No yin and yang, but yin and  yin!  In Star Wars terms, there would be no balance to the force (wow, that was geeky).  You’re basically suggesting we have a one party system, because that’s worked so well for the Cubans and North Koreans.  With all due respect Sir, I’m hoping the Republicans pass on taking your advice, in fact I’m hoping they do the complete opposite!

Sincerely,

The Stellar Anomaly

Sarah Palin\’s legal defense fund is up and running.  Please support if you can.  I find it horrendous that she’s been hit with so many frivolous and inane ethics violations, most of which have been dropped.  The legal fund as been charged with being an ethics violation itself.

This whole debacle is so infuriating because the sheer maliciousness .  People are literally and intentionally trying to bankrupt her, basically destroying her life, because they’re scared sh*tless.  Everyone knows politics can be a nasty business, but this is ridiculous.

Poor Republicans can’t catch a break.  Wilderness = Home of GOP for a very long time.  Get ready for a filibuster proof Democratic Party with basically no checks and balances to their power.  I’ve always wondered what living under a one party system would be like, well I guess I’ll find out soon enough!

I’m sure you all know who Susan Boyle is by now.  Her story is amazing and it is a real testament to the notion that hard work, talent, and courage mixed together can take a person to great heights in life.  I’ve posted her version of Cry Me a River, which she recorded as part of a charity cd made in 1999.  Only 1,000 copies were made, which I’m sure will be really valuable and expensive collector’s items.  You know you’ve made it when people start digging around for your long lost songs!  What this song proves is that Susan is no “one trick pony.”  She is really talented and her inner-beauty is much more special than her outer appearance.  While listening to this song, just pretend that you’ve never heard of Susan before or at least don’t know what she looks like.  I was picturing some femme- fatale character in a tight dress, sitting on a piano in some smokey high class bar.  That’s what she truly is inside, whether or not she looks the part.

Mr. Miller’s argument is something that I have argued for a while now as well.  I find it especially interesting because Miller is no right-wingnut; he refers to himself as “progressive.”  In the article, Miller states,

…Obama never answered the question of how his epic debt can be squared with his call for generational responsibility. He can’t, because it can’t.Behind this fudge is a secret: Obama and his advisers expect to limit such debt via broader tax increases, presumably in a second term. As every honest observer knows (and as I show in this chapter of my book The Tyranny of Dead Ideas), once this recession is past, taxes will go up in the years ahead no matter who is in power. John McCain’s top economic advisers from the campaign say so themselves. That’s because we’re retiring the baby boom, which means we’ll be doubling the number of people on Social Security and Medicare. We already have trillions of dollars in unfunded promises in these programs. The math simply doesn’t work at current levels of taxation.

Miller goes on to say that he believes raising taxes will be necessary to pay for our huge debt that is growing ever more gargantuan by the second. This argument has its merits, but we differ on whether or not raising taxes does anything positive during either prosperous or rough economic times.  Raising taxes makes everyone less productive and if the President continues to only tax the rich, revenues would eventually start to get smaller, because there would be a smaller pool of rich people to tax.  According to the Wall Street Journal, even if Obama took 100% of the incomes of people making over $500,000 a year, he still wouldn’t be able to pay for everything he’s promised.

The government already taxes us into oblivion. Most people work until April to pay for all of the items that they’re taxed on.  How about we reduce our debt by not spending so much?  Would anyone counsel a friend with a huge amount of credit card debt to spend more money?   You’d probably tell him or her to spend less.  Why the same logic doesn’t apply to the state is beyond me.

This argument basically comes down to the old fight over whether or not the state should have an active role in regulating the economy.  I know a lot of people feel comforted because they at least know that the people “running” things are doing “something.”  Quite frankly, I’d be a lot happier if the people running things would stop meddling and let the economy fix itself.  People are smart; they what to do when times get tough.  If the government would get out of the way and stop trying to fix everything, I guarantee that the free-market would correct itself in a much faster time than if the state tried to fix it.  Tea party anyone?

Anything with Journey in it has to be kick ass! (I know, I’m a huge loser)

Meghan McCain wrote a nice little puff piece on Louisiana’s First Lady, Supriya Jindal, today  on the Daily Beast.  I’m glad to see any good press about the Jindal family, especially after the Governor’s disastrous debut on the national stage last month.  I’m even happier to see that the piece is from Ms. McCain.  I guess she finally decided to stop bashing her fellow Republicans for a while.  We’ll see how long that lasts. Anyway, I think that the interview was entertaining.  Those Jindals are one  impressive couple!

On a side note, I’m still not Meghan McCain’s biggest fan.  A commenter on the Daily Beast summed up my thoughts about her perfectly

In my opinion, Meghan McCain is starting to show everyone her strong suit………. “fluff”.

Does nobody else notice that this young woman, with her insight regarding the ’08 implosion of the GOP, having sat in the front seat during the debacle, has written about nothing, NOTHING!.

Let’s see, there was……

“Lack of internet savvy lost it for the GOP”.
“All the bad guys who abandoned my daddy”.
“Ann Coulter is a big meanie”.
“Laura Ingram is a big meanie”.
“I can’t find a boyfriend”.
“I’m fat, so what, don’t be mean”.

And now a fluff piece that’s only worthy of TMZ or Perez Hilton…

Meghan, nobody will take you seriously, until you write seriously about serious topics. As for right now, you’re almost good enough to work in the mailroom of the National Enquirer.

Be serious and we will take you seriously, in the meantime, we’ll continue to roll our eyes and chuckle at the poor little rich girl that can’t find a boyfriend.

With Good Reason, a public radio show, discusses the conventional wisdom that today’s colleges and universities are hotbeds of liberal thought.  It features a good debate between two professors from my Alma mater, George Mason University.  Daniel Klein, an economics professor and self-professed “libertarian,” argues for that today’s universities are indeed biased towards the left.  While Bruce Smith, a public policy professor and self-proclaimed “conservative” argues that we need more politics in the classroom, not less.  He even calls a few of his fellow conservatives “whiners.”  Very interesting. 

From personal experience, I’m definitely in agreement with Professor Klein.  The classes in which the political leanings of the professor were hidden were always more enjoyable and were far better places to learn because students had no fear of retribution for disagreeing with the teacher.  By contrast, I found that the classes where the teacher made it clear what his politics were, and most of the time if a professor was open about his political leanings, he leaned heavily leftward, students tended to just repeat what the teacher said to make sure he got a good grade.  That’s not learning, that’s regurgitating.

Ann Coulter and Keith Olberman go head to head over their Alma mater.  This fight is especially interesting to me because of my love of college! I really want to be a freshman again, that was a fun year.

I her latest column, Ann takes Keith to task for pointing out every little insipid rhetorical mistake that his political opponents make and his need to constantly belittle people who didn’t go to a brand name “prestigious” school like he did.  Oh wait, it turns out that he didn’t really go to a  distinguished Ivy League school himself.  He graduated from the state affiliated land-grant agriculture school of Cornell, not the College of Arts and Sciences. Oops!  If you’re going to go around acting superior to others for graduating from a prestigious college or university, at least graduate from a prestigious college or university.  His defense was sad.  It actually made me feel bad for him.

But to be fair, Ann is guilty of the same unnecessary behavior.  I’m sure the graduates of the ag school are just as intelligent as those who graduated from the College of Arts and Sciences.  Ann, I’m sure that really intelligent people apply to the ag school as a way to pay lower tuition than applying to the CAS.  Did you ever think about like that? You’re not smarter than the kids at the ag school just because you paid more tuition at the College of Arts and Sciences.

What makes me side with Ann in this fight is this quote from her column

I wouldn’t mention it, except that Olbermann savages anyone who didn’t go to an impressive college. As it happens, he didn’t go to an impressive college, either.

At least Ann actually went to the Ivy League college of Cornell University, while Keith didn’t yet he pretends he did to feel better about himself. Insecure much?

P.S. Here’s Ann’s response to Keith’s response. Enjoy!

I knew she’d show up on tv eventually.  The video is pretty long; almost 20 minutes.  Skip to about 10:40 to avoid all of the boring parts.  Dare I say it; I have a new favorite free-market beauty to obsess over, sorry Ann Coulter!