Gas Tax Dollars Down

This piece about the loss of gas tax revenue in several states has me thinking that the legislatures, as usual, were short sighted in their failure to make greater efforts to reduce the price of gasoline.
Anyone with half a brain knows that as any item goes up in price, the demand for it will drop. Sometimes that has residual consequences, like the loss of the tax revenue that is built in to every gallon of gas we comsume.
It reminds me of when that stupid "luxury tax" was passed, back in the 1980's. When cars and boats priced higher than $30K had a special tax added to their cost, it hurt the car and boat industries, as people stopped buying those types of things. Congress had to repeal the tax, as it was putting some companies out of business.
Until we elect members of Congress who have brains, we will suffer similar ignominies.

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More Of The Same From Gary Hart

This piece from the old Democratic loser Gary Hart is sad, it is so misguided. There are so many claims and statements in it that I can't believe he wrote it with a straight face. Here's a typical quote:

"Harry Truman created international networks that repaired the damage of World War II and defeated communism"

Now I actually admire the job Truman did after The War, but he fell down a notch in dealing with the Korea issue.
But the last time I checked, it was Ronald Reagan who set the groundwork for WINNING the cold war.
The rest of his diatribe can best be described as more of the same. "We are in a quagmire" type rhetoric that doesn't view the World in a realistic manner. He states:

"History will deal with George W. Bush...."

He's right, but not the way he thinks. The final outcome of getting the Middle East onto the same page as the rest of the world, with freedom for women and Democracy in the governments will surely make Bush look very good. Even great.

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Two Faced Dems At It Again

This piece about Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele shows again how the Left has no shame in its attacks on Republicans. When Steele presented his ad about preventing car thefts, it threatened the chop shops being run by the "poor and downtrodden". In other words, the constituency of the Democratic Party.

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Recruiting of the Rich Down?

This long winded piece about how the more well-to-do are not sending there kids off to war acts like it's some sort of new revalation to the world. Every country, in every war throughout time that I'm aware of has suffered through the same malady.
I am thinking about when the rich were the warriors, back in the past. The days of the Teutonic Knights? Yes. The Roman Army? Some of them.
But by and large, the wars fought for the politicians have been fought by the less fortunate in society.
The officers are the rich and educated, and the foot soldiers are the cannon fodder. It's history, just repeating itself.
I guess Terry M Neal doesn't read much history.

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Banks Not Suited To Help vs Terrorism?

This slanted piece about the costs to the banking industry in the war on terror shows a severe lack of insight by its author, Stephen R. Heifetz. Here's how he is described at the bottom of the column:

"The writer is a Washington attorney. He represents financial institutions on anti-money-laundering matters and worked on these issues at the Justice Department."

Not like there isn't some special interest invoved here. This quote makes it hard to take the entire piece seriously:

"...financial institutions are not good at detecting funds flowing to suspected terrorists"

Duh. The banks have been given specific guidelines to follow. The taking of a few moments to spot a certain threshhold of cash transactions doesn't cost money, or at least very much.
Taking the time to fill out whatever paperwork is necessary and forwarding it to the Feds can't cost 7 Billion dollars. I don't care what the International Institute for Economics says.

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Military Base Closures Not A Cut And Dried Issue

This piece on Washington Post .com shows the short-sighted views of a typical politician. The accusations made against Donald Rumsfeld show a lack of strategic thought on the part of the Senator from Virginia, John Warner.
Any clear thinking person who knows our national security issues realizes that it's not a good idea to centralize too much military power in one close area, with the threat of a weapon of mass destruction looming.
Either a terrorist act, or war with China are very real possibilities, and the spreading out of our own military facilities as targets is the best strategy to offset the threat to our military capabilities.

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Placement Of Cell Phone Towers A Problem?

Now I've heard a lot of stupid stuff in my life. This one is right up there. The "head in the sand" reaction to the placement of a cell phone tower at a church in St Louis is bizarre, to say the least. I'll bet all the statements by this dope, David O'Brien are self serving, to get some sort of government aid in selling his place, and moving. His claims (he acts like he is the spokesman for the entire neighborhood) that:

"Almost every one of my neighbors says they're going to move if this thing goes up"

will probably be empty threats.

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