DADvocate

In USA Today:

Our view on agricultural subsidies: Down on the farm, it's business as usual

House Democrats botch chance to overhaul wasteful crop spending.
If now isn't the time to overhaul the nation's Depression-era system of farm subsidies, it's hard to imagine a better one.

Crop prices are high, driven in part by a huge demand for corn to make ethanol, which squeezes the land available for other crops and raises their prices as well. Democrats took over Congress last year, vowing to show they're the financially responsible stewards their Republican predecessors were not. And President Bush asked Congress to direct the subsidies to the smaller, family farmers that politicians love to claim they support.

So, given this confluence of events, what did House Democrats do? Not much. Last week, under heavy pressure from farm organizations and fearing for the survival of Democratic freshmen from rural districts, they pushed through a business-as-usual farm bill that largely extends the current subsidy system for five more years.

In a small nod toward change, the bill cut the $2.5 million annual income limit for getting subsidies to $1 million (or $2 million if a husband and wife each claim subsidies). House Democratic leaders called this "reform," but it was just a ghost of the real thing. Bush had proposed a $200,000 ceiling.

Emphasis added

Millionaire farmers getting subsidies. Wow!

My late ex-father-in-law was a millionaire farmer worth somewhere between $5 and $10 million when he died. He was also a devote Catholic who once "donated" $10,000 to the Catholic church to get an autographed picture of the Pope. (That's more than Pete Rose gets for autographs.) During Bill Clinton's run for a second term, I discussed with my father-in-law at the time whom he was going to vote for. "I'm voting Democrat. Everyone knows the Democrats did more for the farmers than the Republicans ever did."

I mentioned that Clinton/Gore supported abortion which is clearly against the teachings of the Catholic faith. My ex-in-law hesitated for a moment then responded, "Well, I'm voting Democrat. The Democrats have helped farmers ever since Roosevelt."

Buying votes. That's why Democrats like farm subsidies. You can own 3,000 acres of farmland and have an income in the millions and still get handouts. Of course, that's what Democrats do best, take your money and give it to someone else, thus creating a dependence on government and building a voting base that wants that easy money the government took from you.

Additionally, I know a farmer whose tax return I caught a glimpse of last year. Less than $20,000 adjusted gross income. Yet, he drives a brand new Dodge diesel quad cab pickup truck that costs over $40,000. What the article doesn't mention is that farmers have a myriad of deductions. Farmers also conduct a lot of transactions on a cash only basis making income difficult to track by the IRS.

We don't need the IRS to more closely track farmers' incomes. We just need a more reasonable approach to farm supports. I'm all for ensuring an abundant food supply but there must be a better way.

Instapundit.

BTW - Part of my retirement plan is to engage in small time farming. (Seriously.) I hope they don't cut the subsidies too much. :-)

My favorite liberal, Patrick at Hurricane Radio, left this link in a comment today.

Children in some Army families are vulnerable to abuse and neglect by their mothers when their fathers are away at war in Iraq and Afghanistan, a large Pentagon-funded study finds.

Mothers were three times more likely to have a substantiated report of child mistreatment when their soldier husbands were deployed than when the fathers were home, according to the research. Mothers at home were nearly four times as likely to neglect their children and nearly twice as likely to physically abuse them during deployment periods.

Women, worried and under stress from a spouse at war plus children to care for, and those children pay the price.

Parenting may be the toughest job there is. I believe one of the reasons many women prefer to work and put the children in daycare or not have children is that parenting is too damn hard. Working is easy by comparison. Your children may be ungrateful and resentful of your efforts. You can't fire your children like an unruly employee.

Over the years, most human societies evolved a family system with a male and female parent. The absence of one puts tremendous stress on the other parent. I don't want to demonize anyone but I hope that the radical feminists take note that women are fully capable of and perform abusive behavior.

The Army appears to be responding appropriately to the situation.

The Army recently announced it will hire more than 1,000 additional “family readiness support assistants” to help families of deployed active-duty, Army Reserve and National Guard units.

Have a social work or psychology degree? Here's a job opportunity.

DrHelen posted today on two 13 year old boys in Oregon being held on criminal charges for slapping girls bottoms. Once again, those who supposedly are educating our children and enforcing our laws are out of control and behaving like power drunk idiots.

The case is pretty much this.

Court papers said the boys touched the buttocks of several girls, some of whom said this made them uncomfortable. The papers also said Cory touched a girl's breasts. But police reports filed with the court said other students, both boys and girls, slapped each other on the bottom.

"It's like a handshake we do," one girl said, according to the police report.

The boys were initially charged with five counts of felony sexual abuse. At a court hearing, two of the girls recanted, saying they never felt threatened or inappropriately touched by the boys. The judge released the boys but barred them from returning to school and required that they be under constant adult supervision.

District Attorney Bradley Berry has since dismissed the felony counts. The boys face 10 misdemeanor charges of harassment and sexual abuse. They face a maximum of up to one year in a juvenile jail on each count, though Berry said there was no way the boys would ever serve that much time.

"An appropriate sentence would be probation," he said. "These are minor misdemeanor charges that reflect repeated contact against multiple victims. We never intended for them to get a long time in detention."

"We're not seeking major penalties," he said. "We're seeking change in conduct."

---

Berry, the district attorney, said the victims -- the girls who were touched -- were being overlooked. "What's been lost in this whole thing are the victims, who have been pressured enormously by these boys' friends," he said.

Let me begin by saying virtually all of what the district attorney is saying is bullshit. The few of you who regularly, or irregularly, read my blog know I rarely cuss. Sometimes nothing else suffices. I am certain that millions of boys, at some time or another, have engaged in the same activity. (I can't remember actually doing such but I did do other things probably equally evil in the eyes of the almighty Bradley Berry.)

This is a case that could have and should have been handled within the school. This speaks to the incompetence of the teachers and school administration. That D.A. Berry is making such a case out of this says something about him also. Classically Liberal believes that Berry is simply a bully. "Why is Mr. Berry prosecuting these children in Oregon? Because he can."

Of course government is supposed to be different. The Founding Fathers basically saw it as a playground patrol who was there to stop the bullies. What they didn’t expect was that the bullies would become the playground patrol. And the more power the patrol had the more bullies found it irresistible. Like moths to the flame, bullies are attracted to the accumulation of power over others.

Classical Liberal points out another case of district attorney going after a boy for what should have been dealt with outside of the criminal justice system. Are these district attorneys destroying boys lives in an attempt to further their careers. Ray Nifong certainly tried.

DrHelen links to a column by Mark Steyn on the subject.

Do you know Cory Mashburn and Ryan Cornelison?

If you do, don't approach them. Call 911 and order up a SWAT team. They're believed to be in the vicinity of McMinnville, Ore., where they're a clear and present danger to the community. Mashburn and Cornelison were recently charged with five counts of felony sexual abuse, and District Attorney Bradley Berry has pledged to have them registered for life as sex offenders.

Oh, by the way, the defendants are in the seventh grade.

Messrs Mashburn and Cornelison are pupils at Patton Middle School. They were arrested in February after being observed in the vestibule, swatting girls on the butt. Butt-swatting had apparently become a form of greeting at the school – like "a handshake we do," as one female student put it. On "Slap Butt Fridays," boys and girls would hail each other with a cheery application of manual friction to the posterior, akin to a Masonic greeting.

One commenter at Steyn's post leaves this address to send money to support the boys' legal defense:

Cory and Ryan Legal Defense Fund
235 E 3rd Street Suite 1
McMinnville, OR 97128

Another commenter to Steyn's column had this to say:

DA Bradley Berry, you are going DOWN. Not only will you be stripped of your job and law license, held in criminal contempt and never again hold a meaningful job anywhere in the USA thanks to your absolute buffoonery and the publicity you have brought upon yourself. You are also going straight to hell for willfully destroying the lives of these children. And society will be far better off when it happens.

A little strong but I can't disagree unless Mr. Berry performs the necessary acts of contrition before it's too late. Disgusting!

Learning the the "Ghastly Details" of the Petit home invasion robbery, rapes, murders, arson, etc. creates ever more concern over the safety of my family. This incident shows the horrible extent to which crime can go.

The state medical examiner confirmed that Jennifer Hawke-Petit, 48, was strangled and that her daughters, 17-year-old Hayley and 11-year-old Michaela, died of smoke inhalation. The deaths were ruled homicides.

The girls' father, Dr. William Petit Jr., a prominent endocrinologist, remained hospitalized with head injuries.

All three women were raped, sources familiar with the investigation told both the Waterbury Republican-American and Hartford Courant. Petit was beaten with a baseball bat, thrown down the basement stairs, and then tied up in the cellar.

The girls, sources told the Courant, were tied to their beds and raped repeatedly, then left to burn after gasoline was poured around their beds and ignited.

The suspects entered the Petits' Cheshire home at about 3 a.m. Monday, planning to burglarize it, state police said.

Sources familiar with the investigation tell the Republican-American that Hawke-Petit and Michaela were followed home from a supermarket Sunday by the suspects. The men then went to a Wal-Mart to buy an air rifle and a rope, and then waited about a mile-and-a-half away

It only gets worse the more you read.

Having an 11 year old daughter myself, I cannot imagine the terror and pain of the parents and the girls. I cannot imagine the continuing pain and trauma of the father who, after witnessing these horrors, must carry these memories with him the rest of his life. And, I wonder, what could have been done to prevent this unimaginable tragedy?

My first thought goes to "What if Mr. Petit had a gun handy?" Owning a gun may not have prevented the eventual outcome but it would have given the Petit family a fighting chance. The perpetrators were not armed with guns. If one of the family members had been able to pick up a gun and use it, this story would have been a footnote maybe making some of the pro-gun ownership blogs or given a short blurb in the NRA Armed Citizens.

But what happened is a nightmare worse than many Hollywood horror movies.

I don't own a pistol but more and more consider purchasing one legally. I do have a couple of rifles and a shotgun. But, a pistol would be easier to keep close by and easier to hide from intruders. My son has passed the hunter safety class with a perfect score and is a licensed hunter who has shown complete respect and safety practices with firearms.

What is the risk that my family would suffer a similar plight as the Petit family? Obviously quite small. But, we routinely take precautions against quite small risks all the time while ignoring others. A child is 100 times more likely to drown in a swimming pool than die in a gun accident. Automobiles, bicycles as well as swimming pools cause significantly more deaths than guns. (I must interject here that the exact differences are hard for me to determine because it appears that virtually every source I find juggles the statistics to suit their agenda. Numbers from different years, different age groups, etc. are used. But looking at this article you can see that a lot of things we don't worry about as much hurt and kill kids more than guns.)

I'm not yet ready to fork out the several hundred dollars that a pistol costs but I'm considering it more seriously.

Congress has passed the security bill with a provision that protects those reporting suspicious activity from being sued.

House-Senate negotiators finally reached an agreement this week after Democrats worked out a provision satisfying GOP demands that people who report what they in good faith believe to be terrorist activity around planes, trains and buses be protected from lawsuits.

I like how the MSM tried to give the credit for the Democrats.

The bill, passed by the House on a 371-40 vote, ranks among the top accomplishments of the six-month-old Democratic Congress. The Senate approved the measure late Thursday by 85-8, and the White House said the president would sign the bill.

Emphasis added

Reading further down the article you'll find this.

Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., who steered the legislation through the Senate with Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said it would "make our nation stronger, our cities and towns more secure and our families safer."

So, an independent and a Republican steer a bill through Congress and it's a Democrat accomplishment? Interesting. Don't forget how the Democrats almost scuttled the bill and wanted to leave every day Americans open to lawsuits if they reported suspicious activity.

If you don't think lawsuits are a possibility, watch this interview Carson Tucker does with Ibrahim Hooper, the spokesman for C.A.I.R. You'll have little doubt left in your mind that C.A.I.R. could care less about our security.

Hilary Duff that is. My 11 year old daughter pointed out to me that Hilary has managed to stay sober, unarrested and drug free. Quite a feat by today's standards for young celebrities. Since the MSM is obsessed with young female celebrities who can't behave normally, I thought I'd give Hilary a little recognition. I found this nice little article.

To date, Duff is one of scant few members of Hollywood's new guard who have yet to be arrested, shipped off to rehab, or caught flashing their lady parts to paparazzi while clumsily exiting a limo.

Instead, she has made a pretty smooth transition from teen-TV fare like Lizzie Maguire to popular big-screen projects like A Cinderella Story and the Cheaper by the Dozen franchise. Along the way, she's released six CDs, and while critics haven't always been kind to her fluffy brand of pop, the Dignity disc -- awash in electro-clash stylings and heavily autobiographical lyrics -- has been met with pretty positive reviews.

I remember Hilary as the cute, refreshing young teen in the Disney Lizzie Maguire show. Thanks, Hilary, for being a positive role model to which my daughter can aspire.

And, thanks to my daughter for being smart enough and observant enough to realize that there is at least one young female celebrity out there worth admiring.

Bush is threatening to veto Children's Health Care Insurance Program. Liberals/progressives are crying that Republicans hate children. Well, the first liberal linked to actually has a brain and uses it.

Every time libs/progs want money, rob of us of our right, or invade our privacy, it's for the children. Through my observations of family, friends, co-workers, acquaintances, and university faculty, I have seen no evidence that those of the lib/prog tint care for children more than right wing conservative whacko wingnuts.

Indeed, many seem to care less. They don't like children in their homes, etc. I once had a liberal tell me that abortion was OK because children were better off not being born than living in this cruel world.

But children serve a good purpose as tools for advancing socialist goals via guilt tripping. Rather than debating the merits of a topic, they just yell, "It's for the children!" Encroaching government control into daily life doesn't matter, civil rights don't matter (unless you can accuse Bush of violating them), it's for the children!

Of my siblings and myself, I have four children, my three liberal siblings have only one. When it comes to children, I have four times the investment, four times the experience, my opinion should count four times as much.

Yes, health care is too expensive. Through my experience working in a nursing home and in mental health, the government has played a significant role in the increasing cost of health care as they often set fees, and many other requirements that drive costs up. Personal liability lawyers like John Edwards certainly haven't helped either.

Some of the aspects of this bill are ridiculous.

Members of Congress have decided, however, to expand the program to include, in some cases, up to families earning $80,000 a year -- which would cause people to drop their private insurance in order to be involved with a government insurance plan.

-George W. Bush

$80,000 is over 50% greater than my salary. I successfully carry health insurance on my family with little sacrifice. $80,000! People that make that much money live in $160,000 to $240,000 houses and drive new cars every two years. Yes, this is a push towards socialism, not better, more affordable health care.

In my experience working with government agencies and their staff, they are horribly inefficient and generally apathetic. When my daughter was 10 days old she came down with spinal meningitis. Our horrible private health care system and Children's Hospital of Cincinnati saved her life. She is now an extremely bright, athletic 11 year old. I wonder how a bureaucratic government agency would have reacted in this situation where minutes were crucial.

If you want to do something for my kids, give them a world in which their civil rights and privacy are protected and minimize government invasion into their personal lives. The government doesn't need to know every time they go to the doctor. And, they don't need some government bureaucrat telling them when and were to go to the doctor, hospital, etc. Just look at the problems and more problems Tennessee has had with its TennCare program.

The last thing we need is putting the most incompetent entity available in charge of our health care.

Today news hit the airways that 29000 registered sex offenders had profiles on MySpace.

MySpace.com has found more than 29,000 registered sex offenders with profiles on the popular social networking Web site — more than four times the number cited by the company two months ago, officials in two states Tuesday.

Sex offenders could also be members of MySpace under false identities making them impossible to identify.

Law enforcement officials in two states have announced that the social-networking site MySpace has identified 29,000 registered sex offenders using its service. That's more than four times the number identified by MySpace earlier this year, when it yielded to pressure from a group of state attorneys general to turn over the account information of convicted offenders.

"The exploding epidemic of sex offender profiles on MySpace -- 29,000 and counting -- screams for action," Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said in a statement. "Our information demands reveal shocking new skyrocketing numbers of convicted sex offender profiles on MySpace. Each of these 29,000 separate profiles reflects a potential predator willing and able to exploit a child."

Still More Offenders?

The identification of the 29,000 registered sex offenders -- enough to fill a small city -- was aided by the fact that the individuals in question used their real names to sign up for their MySpace accounts. No one has offered any estimate as to how many registered sex offenders might have accounts under false identities.

Not comforting information for parents.

Unfortunately, parents, especially mothers, are at risk also. This report focuses on how sex offenders use dating sites to meet victims. Earlier, I had read a comment in a now lost blog from a woman who said she had nearly been raped by a man she met via a popular dating site.

On the heels of all this comes a study that says the risks of MySpace for kids is exaggerated.

Fears that teenagers using the social networking website MySpace are exposing themselves to sexual predators by disclosing too many personal details are probably overblown, researchers say.

---

Of the 2,423 profiles created by individuals aged under 18, 948 were set to "private," meaning that they could only be viewed by friends.

Of the remaining 1,475, one person in 12 revealed their full name, 57 percent included a picture, 27.8 percent listed their school, 81 percent identified their city and 0.3 percent provided their phone number.

Four percent included an instant messaging name, and one percent an email address.

---

MySpace requires users to be at least 14 years of age, and the profiles of those representing themselves as 14 or 15 are automatically set to "private" view only.

Of course, children can lie about their age as easily as sex offenders can fake their identity.

If your child is that one in out of however many who is harmed in some way, the numbers don't matter. Be aware of the dangers, teach you children of the dangers and make sure you know what they're doing on the computer. And, perhaps more importantly, what they're doing when they aren't on the computer.

I found this kind of humorous and maybe scary. Beatles fans are angry that Proctor & Gamble is using the song, "All You Need Is Love" in its Luvs disposable diapers commercials.

"I just cannot see a Beatles song being used for trivial things ... not Beatles songs!!!!" fan Andy Bonnell said by e-mail from Liverpool, England, the Beatles' home base.

Such sentiments represent something of a lost cause. A version of their song "Help!" was used in a car commercial in 1985, and the many appearances since then include the late John Lennon's son Julian's 2002 cover of "When I'm Sixty-Four" for insurer Allstate Corp. and current Target Corp. store commercials that use a version of "Hello Goodbye" - "Goodbuy" in the ads.

But the "All You Need..." campaign, launched this month for Procter & Gamble Co.'s Luvs diapers, struck a particularly sour note for some fans, who heated up online forums about it. Among the objections is that the idealistic song, popular in the counterculture "Summer of Love" era and among Vietnam War opponents, is being used at the time of another war, in Iraq, to evoke soiled diapers.

"For people who feel that political connection, it comes off as kind of a callous action," said Angela Natividad, coeditor of adrants.com, a marketing commentary site. "You've got the Beatles, which draws like, religious feelings, and you've got the war."

Somebody needs to get a life.

Now for the scary part.

Let's hope that none of these angry people, especially the ones with the "religious feelings," are Charlie Manson disciples.

The National Council of La Raza apparently feels it needs to combat "a wave of hate". La Raza's evidence of this hate comes from "from talk radio's efforts to sink the Senate's immigration bill."

Hate? I haven't seen evidence of hate towards Hispanics. Not supporting an amnesty bill that would have given an easy path to citizenship to millions of illegal immigrants is not an act of hate but one of supporting due process and of supporting legal immigrants. Indeed, if look at history, Hispanics, in the last few decades, have been welcomed into this country much more positively than the Irish, Italians, Polish, Africans or virtually any other ethnic/racial group except Anglo/Saxons.

La Raza plays the hate/race card because they have nothing else to stand on. They want quick and easy citizenship for people whose first act in this country was an illegal act. Of course, their approach is likely to create friction that will then be labeled "hate." Therefore creating the self-fulfilling prophecy they desire.

Senator Feingold wants to censure Bush.

Sen. Russ Feingold said Sunday he wants Congress to censure President Bush for his management of the Iraq war and his "assault" against the Constitution.

---

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said Feingold's proposals showed the nation's frustration. But Reid said he would not go along with them and said the Senate needs to focus on finishing spending bills on defense and homeland security.

"We have a lot of work to do," Reid said. "The president already has the mark of the American people — he's the worst president we ever had. I don't think we need a censure resolution in the Senate to prove that."

I find Mr. Feingold's accusation of Bush's ""assault" against the Constitution." cynical, and outrageously ironic. Feingold himself co-sponsored the McCain-Feingold Bill (Duh!). Parts of which have been found unconstitutional once, and again.

Now, that's an assault on the Constitution!!

Of course, Bush signed this bill. So he is as culpable as Feingold, but Feingold doesn't seem to realize this. Feingold has even less of a clue than Reid, if that is possible. Our current group of Congressional members seem to be the most clueless in history.

I vote we censure the Senate and the House of Representatives as they are the worst Congress ever which the poll numbers easily show us with a Congressional approval rating of less than half that of Bush's.

Our great Democratic Senators say sue the bastards!!

Congressional Democrats today failed to include a provision in homeland security legislation that would protect the public from being sued for reporting suspicious behavior that may lead to a terrorist attack, according to House Republican leaders.

“This is a slap in the face of good citizens who do their patriotic duty and come forward, and it caves in to radical Islamists,” said Rep. Peter T. King, New York Republican and ranking member of the House Homeland Security Committee.

More here.

[The Dems] scuttled this amendment in committee in a way that makes them difficult to track down individually. That’s sneaky but it’s how Washington often works. Rep. Bennie Thompson is the most likely culprit, but it’s unlikely that he’s flying solo here.

We have programs in place in virtually every locality in which citizens can anonymously report suspected child abuse (indeed, in some states you are legally required to report suspected child abuse), cruelty to animals, illicit drug activity, DUI's (many law enforcement vehicles have phone numbers on them to call to report suspected DUI's), almost any other type of suspected criminal activity. But, the Democrats in the Senate don't think we should be able to report suspected terrorist activity without fear of losing our homes, savings, etc.

I am SO GLAD that the Dems now have a majority of the Senate so that they can show us their vision for the future: CAIR suing anyone who says a bad word about any suspected Islamic terrorist activity. Oh, happy day!

Congress now claims its worst rating ever. I agree with Instapundit that this is worrisome. Especially, since Congress either doesn't care what the American people want or think, or is too clueless to figure it out. After the immigration debacle, you'd think they would be trying a little harder. Do the Democrats think they are shoe ins for the next elections including the Presidency because Bush is such a failure.

Guess what, guys. Bush's ratings are nearly 2 and half times better than Congress'. Your presidential candidates are a bunch of babbling prima donnas except for Hillary who successfully rode to her position on her husband's coattails while claiming to be a liberated, independent woman.

What is wrong with these guys (Democrat Senators)? I don't know but it scares me a lot more than any potential takeover by Bush.

Hat tip to Instapundit and Michelle Malkin.

Cruising through Blogland today, I was directed by Right Wing News to a post at Daily Kos entitled WARNING: A Real Dictatorship Coming!. Since I infrequently visit Daily Kos, I was flabbergasted how these simple left-wingers had caught on the next major plot by the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy. Damn!!

I have never in my 50 years of life been more frightened then I am now. I have seen the arrogance of this White House and the massive damage done to our country. But the Katrina-size storm clouds are gathering folks. If we do not wake up now and flood Congress to impeach the President and Vice President, one year from now, Daily Kos may be banned and Markos himself may be disappeared, in a federal prison somewhere.

Even as I write these words I feel like a wild-eyed nutcase. If it were not for the OH SO REAL danger this country faces in the next 15 months or so as the people in power see their own doom and are determined to prevent their expulsion from power by suspending next year's elections and declaring martial law WHEN the next 9/11 comes or events that can be construed as a national emergency to "justify" such actions, I would be holding my tongue and crossing my fingers.

The writer goes on and on but the message is clear: We've been found out!!. As of this writing, the post at Kos has 743 comments. Most take the writer seriously and plan to take action to resist our takeover. The word is already broadly disseminated in the wide suppository of information among the left-wing.

For all you fellow VRWC's out there, it's time to fall back on Plan B, more chem trails with secret chemicals designed to bring everyone under our control. Please try to keep this one under your hat!

Looking at the potential replacements, electricity, hydrogen, alcohol and diesel, for gasoline to power our vehicles, diesel appears to have a definite advantage. Diesel typically comes from the same crude oil as gasoline. But diesel can come from many other sources, also, coal, oil shale, via recycling plastics and other waste products and algae.

Current diesel engines will run on these fuels with little or no modification of the engine. Diesel engines have the power and reliability to handle any of the tasks we ask of our cars and trucks. Plus, diesel satisfies one other requirement, the macho factor.

Many men, and a few women, like thundering, pavement shaking engines that draw attention and a little fear. Diesels can do this. Hybrids can't and may electrocute a someone in the event of an accident. Hydrogen is too dangerous. Alcohol can't be produced in large enough quantities to supply demand. Alcohol also ignites too easily and burns with an almost invisible flame which can fool others

We already have millions of diesels on the road. Several guys I know have switched out the computer chips to improve performance of their machines. They run quite well. Amateur mechanics everywhere are waiting to create the new generation of diesel based hot rods. This insures the success of diesel as the fuel of the future. It is already being greeted with open arms by everyone from from eco-freaks to good ole boys in pickup trucks.

Lately, Instapundit has been all over this story of a black teenager in Georgia serving 10 years in jail for receiving oral sex from his white girl friend. I first posted on this November, 2006 after reading posts by Instapundit and Eugene Volokh.

Apparently the prosecutor, McDade, feels a strong desire to keep this kid in prison although there appears to be no compelling reason and, under a new law in Georgia, the boy's "actions" are no longer considered criminal.

CORRECTION: - My charges of racism based on a black/white encounter were based on erroneous understanding.

Volokh does bring up the question of race here and decides race is not a significant factor. I still wonder.

Yes, at 56 years old, I'm a little too old for summer camp. But, spending a week with my son and his troop mates is too good to pass up. I love the outdoors and camping. Camping for a week while the camp staff cooks and does the dishes is too good to pass up.

My son and I participated in the camp's Frontiersman program. It involves learning and demonstrating some outdoor skills such as starting a fire using flint and steel, bow drill or hot spark methods, tying certain knots, basic archery and riflery and some leather working. We also participated in some camp projects and brush clearing. The final night we hiked into the woods, constructed crude individual shelters, and spent the night in the woods without flashlights, etc.

The high point of the week for me was when my son and I were doing leather work and another Scout from a different troop mentioned that it was "neat" that we were doing this as a father/son activity. He wished his father liked the outdoors and they did more things together. Moments like this let me know that my efforts and time are going to good use.

The camp forbids radios, TVs, mp3 players and any other electrical forms of entertainment. There is no cell phone reception. Two pay phones provide access to the outside world for campers and leaders. Not being bombarded with the news of the world for a week allowed me to relax. But, unfortunately, one must keep an eye on their governing bodies in order to prevent tyranny.

I returned home in time to not watch the Live Earth concert. It struck me how Live Earth was essentially a modern version of the primitive rain dance. Let's sing and dance and some how the world will respond as we wish. Never mind the greenhouse gases we created in order to hold the concert or the lavish, energy consuming lifestyles most of the performers lead. Only the common man is expected to sacrifice.