Barak Obama's massive "Cap and Trade" Waxman-Markey energy bill passed the House of Representatives without anyone having read it, and no one seems to think that unusual anymore. Our elected representatives have more important things to do with their time than read bills before passing them, it seems. More than 300 pages of additions and alterations were added to the bill at the last moment, and 219 members of Congress still went ahead and voted "yes" -- including 8 Republicans. Many of the 44 Democrats who voted "no" sought permission from Democrat House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to do so, knowing that they would be blamed for the massive price hikes on everything that will result from this economy killer of a bill if it passes the Senate.

Somehow, Congress is becoming increasingly irrelevant in our Federal government, en route to being a mere rubber-stamp for the President and his unelected "czars." Where are the powers delegated to these czars enumerated in the Constitution, anyway? Sometimes even they are mere figureheads -- "Energy Czar" Carol Browner as much as admitted during an interview that she hadn't read the bill. So what's in it? No one knows yet, despite it being on its way to becoming law. It seems that faceless "experts" and bureaucrats write out the actual bills, and the members of Congress just throw in some pork for themselves and vote. Is that how it's supposed to work? 

I hope people start to notice that we're moving towards a one-man government before it's too late. No wonder Hussein supports the Leftist Honduran President Zelaya's attempt to overturn the constitution and set himself up as dictator -- he's looking to do the same thing himself, but far more subtly.

Somewhere on page 1,437 of an unread bill that passes in the dead of night will be a measure to bypass Congress altogether and put Presidential appointees directly in charge of writing bills for the President to sign into law, and that will be that.

After thirty years of brutal repression under a theocratic dictatorship, the Iranian people are finally taking to the streets to protest what many of them have always known -- that their votes, like their lives, never mattered at all to their government. Millions of people are bravely ignoring threats from the regime to march in the streets vowing "Death to the Dictator" and asking "Where Is My Vote?" -- and for every person in the street, there are many more just as angry, but too afraid to march. People around the world have taken to the streets in solidarity with the Iranian people. Both Houses of Congress have voted to condemn the Iranian government for their crackdown on protesters. And what do we hear from our precious, "historic" President? Some empty words. A quote from Martin Luther King.

Obama's silence on this matter is the most shameful action (or, in this case, inaction) by the supposed Leader of the Free World since Jimmy Carter twiddled his thumbs while 52 Americans were held hostage for 444 days 30 years ago by the same group of terrorists now running Iran. "The Iranian government must understand that the world is watching. We mourn each and every innocent life that is lost," Obama finally said. What kind of weak-kneed spineless platitude is that to offer people struggling to throw off not just a stolen election, but three decades of totalitarian rule? What would Obama have said at the Berlin Wall in Reagan's place? I can only imagine it might have been "Mr. Gorbachev, some say that walls don't always make good neighbors, but it's not our place to meddle."

The Iranian people are finally awake and demanding their rights, and the US government -- once the greatest force for liberty and freedom in the world -- is hitting the snooze button and rolling over for another ten minutes of sleep. Obama claims he is waiting to see what happens in Iran before "meddling." In essence, Obama is still voting "present," as he did during most of his short stint in the US Senate. Why is it acceptable to "meddle" with the inner politics of a democratic government like that of Israel, but not a dictatorship like Iran?

We've come a long way down from "we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty" to "the last thing that I want to do is to have the United States be a foil for those forces inside Iran who would love nothing better than to make this an argument about the United States." In counterpoint to Michelle Obama's infamous statement during her husband's campaign, for the first time in my adult life I think I am actually ashamed of my country. Or at least our President.

Future historians will indeed look back on this day as an historic day, but not for the reasons the slobbering, celebrating Obamaniacs think. Today marks the day when America makes such a radical and deliberate departure from those things which made us the great nation we are that it's unlikely we will ever recover our current stature. We have lost our footing as a nation of rugged individualists working hard to make lives for ourselves and our children, and become a nation of sheep meekly turning over our children's inheritance to fund "the common good" as determined by Big Daddy Government.

Today is the day when a President takes office who was elected not on the basis of capability, experience or even a specific agenda, but purely because he looked and sounded good. While those may be more than adequate criteria upon which to base one's vote for American Idol, it paves the way for a disastrous American President.

We never before elected a President who promised in advance to ruin our economy by forcing energy prices to skyrocket. "So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can," Obama said in an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle, "it's just that it will bankrupt them because they're going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that's being emitted." We've never elected a President whose answer to a looming recession was to take as much money from the job creators as can be grabbed and fork it over to those who caused the problem in the first place... while throwing the most expensive inauguration bash for himself the world has ever seen. And you thought those AIG executives who spent bailout money on fancy weekend getaways were bad? At least we didn't elect them President.

America has never elected a President who deliberately populated his cabinet with known criminals and people of questionable judgment. But here comes Obama, nominating a Treasury Secretary who refused to pay his taxes, a Secretary of State whose husband takes money from foreign governments, and an Attorney General who pardoned terrorists and those who did business with an enemy state. Why not put GM board member Erskine Bowles in charge of Transportation, or America-hating professor Ward Churchill in place as Secretary of Education? Dr. Kevorkian for Surgeon General?

This is the first time we've elected a President who promised to lose a war and treat enemies captured on the battlefield as though they were American citizens caught committing ordinary crimes. It's the first time we've elected a President who promised to take away any of our Constitutionally-protected rights, or deliberately make them too expensive to exercise for the ordinary citizen. It's the first time America has elected a President whose only legislative accomplishments involved ensuring that children who manage to survive an abortion, don't.

Never before have we elected a President who campaigned on the basis of giving everything to everyone and solving all problems. We were never that naive. Either Obama voters really believed he could deliver on all his conflicting promises, or didn't care how much he lied to the other guys as long as THEIR agenda item was taken care of. We never before elected a President because of his skin color, or because he could read a script well, or because he looked nice on camera and had a soothing voice. But now we have the American Idol President, the Affirmative Action President, the "community organiser" who worked his way up through the Chicago political machine by hobnobbing with known terrorists and fiery anti-American radical preachers.

During Obama's tenure, China will replace us as the world's most powerful nation, expanding its sphere of influence to include South and Central America as well as much of Africa. North Korea and Iran will become nuclear powers (unless Israel sacrifices itself to stop Iran, beginning a war in which we will not back them up). Russia, in cooperation with China and North Korea, will regain much of the power it held at the height of the Cold War. Europe will continue to slide weakly down the path to Islamic domination.

Al-Qaeda and their allies will be emboldened and strengthened by the closing of Gitmo, the end of strong interrogation methods and the quick retreat from Iraq. When Obama shows them weakness by "reaching out" to terrorist groups (Hamas) and their supporters (Iran), they will surely strike us again on our own soil.

Meanwhile, our economy will shrink as corporations move overseas, and much of what's left will come under the direct centralised control of the Federal government. Our military will become smaller and weaker, while Obama's "civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded" as the military will grow. The power of the Federal government will expand until nearly every aspect of our lives, from which cars we buy to what medicines or operations we get, will have to undergo approval by someone in Washington DC. And the Obama government will provide "free" money for all sorts of entitlement programs until we drown in them, taking that money from those of us who continue to work harder and harder for less and less. We will follow Great Britain down the path through socialised medicine, to the lapse of law and order, to determined submission to foreign cultures proliferating on our own soil, to the ruination of the economy by unfundable Big Government programs.

None of this is yet set in stone, but the chance to stop the decline of America is small indeed at this juncture. Only at the local level can enough people get involved in politics to make a difference. If enough big-government Democrats and, yes, big-government Republicans are replaced at both State and national levels in 2010, we may yet have a chance to stop the slide. But I fear we have already passed the high point of America's greatness, and too many will settle for the immediate gratification of getting something for "nothing" to turn the country from its path. Entitlements are a drug to which more and more people will become addicted every day between now and the next elections.

The election of an inexperienced, untested, far-Left chameleon candidate who makes promises no one can deliver will be seen in the future either as an anomaly or the real beginning of America's decline. Whether that anomaly becomes the norm depends on us.

With the election of Barack Obama has come, for many people, a renewed realisation that the world is a very dangerous place; that we are still in the middle of a war against fanatical killers who deliberately target civilians. We must rely on an inexperienced, naive, UN-appeasing "world citizen" type to keep the enemy from carrying out more 9/11 style attacks -- or worse -- on our home soil. The economy is likely to increase the slide on which it's been since the Democratic takeover of Congress in 2006, which will lead to more unemployment, poverty, and desperation -- and thus to higher crime rates. Moreover, with the Democrats in charge of House, Senate and White House, it's almost certain that they'll make serious attempts to strip away our Second Amendment rights, preventing us from defending ourselves from the dangers around us. Lawbreakers aren't known for their sportsmanship -- criminals rarely wait for the police to show up, even if their intended victims manage to call 911 before they're attacked.

It's no wonder that so many people have considered buying a gun lately, most of them for the first time in their lives. Potential and veteran gun owners alike have rightly deduced that it's better to buy now, while we're still allowed to do so, than after draconian anti-gun legislation has made guns too difficult to obtain for law-abiding citizens. Most criminals honor gun laws in much the same way they obey laws against rape, robbery and murder. For the law-abiding citizen, guns are like umbrellas: it's better to have one and not need it than need one and not have it.

Guns are a tool like any other. You wouldn't use a screwdriver to hammer a nail, or a hammer to saw a plank (although I've often wanted to use one to "fix" my computer). You need the right tool for the job. Therefore, before purchasing a gun, you have to define the job you want it to perform. Guns are meant to be a tool purely for self-defense, never aggression or intimidation. Besides hunting and collecting, the only reason to own a gun is to protect your life or the lives of others.

The first question most people ask is whether they should buy a revolver or semi-automatic. That depends on the intended use. Revolvers can be kept loaded practically forever. A semi-auto takes ammunition from a spring-loaded clip (used mostly for rifles) or mag (for handguns) that may lose strength when compressed for a very long time, which could cause the gun to jam. Semi-autos also have a higher chance to jam than revolvers due to the more complex feeding mechanism. Fans of revolvers, which usually hold six rounds, have a saying: "six for sure." On the minus side, revolvers are wider, something to consider if you intend to carry concealed. As a rule, revolvers hold fewer rounds of ammo than most semi-automatics. However, both revolvers and semi-autos can function well under any of the broad categories of weapon usage. It's a matter of personal choice.

It's important to know whether you are allowed to own hollowpoint (HP) ammunition in your state. Hollowpoints have, as the name implies, a dimple in the tip that causes the bullet to "mushroom" on impact. That means more energy is dumped into the target, reducing the chance of the bullet passing through and striking something -- or someone -- behind it. Transferring more energy to the target means there's a greater likelihood of knocking him, her or it down. Nine millimeter rounds have the reputation of being underpowered, but that's mainly due to the forced use of FMJ (full metal jacket) rounds in the military. These tend to pass through a target, making a hole but leaving him able to continue fighting. Our armed forces are restricted to FMJ rounds for "humane" purposes, but you may not have to hamper yourself in the same way. If you live in a state with such restrictions, purchase a .40 caliber or larger semi-auto, or .38 Special or larger revolver.  Alternately, you could buy "expanding full metal jacket" or EFMJ ammo, which is basically hollowpoint covered with a thin metal cap.

The following are my own way of categorising guns, and reflect my own preferences. (Since this is primarily about self- and home defense, I deliberately omitted rifles.) Keep in mind that I am not an expert or the definitive word on the subject. Your mileage, as they say, may vary.

Concealed carry weapons are exactly what the name implies. They're designed to be carried without broadcasting the fact that you're armed on national tv. Concealed carry weapons are generally light and flat, designed for carrying in a pocket or inside-the-pants holster. My choice: Kahr CW9 (9 mm) with a 7-round mag of HP. Other choices: Springfield XD 3" in 9mm or .40 caliber, Smith & Wesson Model 642 "hammerless" revolver in .38 Special.

Home defense weapons tend to be a bit larger and heavier. Weapons designed as sidearms for military or police forces are ideal for this purpose. The increased weight gives more stability when aiming. My choice: SIG-Sauer P226 (9mm) with a 15-round mag of HP. Other choices: 1911-style .45 (Colt, Springfield, SIG-Sauer), Springfield XD 5" in .45, .357 Magnum revolver (Ruger, Colt, Smith & Wesson).

Emergency weapons are simply home defense guns you can keep loaded in your nightstand or behind the bed. Revolvers are best for this purpose. This is a superfluous category if your home defense weapon is already a revolver. My choice: Ruger Service-Six .357 Magnum with six rounds of .38 Special HP ammo (and a speed-loader for faster reloading). Other choices: Colt .38 Police Positive, Colt Cobra .38 Special.

Target practice weapons are a must, since even an hour's worth of shooting once a week with a large gun can be tiring to both hand and wallet. A lighter gun is needed with which to practice effective aiming and firing techniques (although occasional practice with all of your guns is necessary). A .22 caliber is the best choice for regular target practice. My choice: Harrington & Richardson "Sportsman" top-break .22 revolver which holds 9 rounds. Other choices: Colt Diamondback, Smith & Wesson model 41.

Shotguns are also handy for home defense and emergencies, and one can even obtain a shotgun for hunting in many states that won't allow handguns. 12 is probably the most common "gauge" for a shotgun, and one can load it with solid bullet-like rounds (called "slugs") or buckshot pellets. (Bird shot is, of course, strictly for the birds.) Semi-automatic and pump-action shotguns hold extra shells in a tube under the barrel. As with semi-automatic pistols, leaving them loaded for long periods of time may eventually weaken the spring slightly. However, a single- or double-barreled "break action" shotgun can be left loaded, but must be reloaded after each barrel is fired. My choice: Mossberg 500 "Persuader" pistol-grip 12-gauge shotgun with 9 rounds of 00 buckshot. Other choices: Remington 870 pump-action, Rossi Overland double-barreled "coach gun."

The best course of action to take if you're considering a gun purchase is locate a range near you and visit them. Most ranges welcome questions, allow visitors to pay for range time by the hour, and keep plenty of rental guns on hand to try out.

I hope the Republican party learns a lesson from their stunning defeat last night. As damaging a blow as it was to the country as a whole, we can still hope to turn things around after two years of Jimmy Carter-style fumble-fingered government (double-digit unemployment and "stagflation," with Socialised medicine to boot). Although it may already be too late to stop the march to Socialism entirely by 2010, the Republican party will still be the best chance to do that -- but only if they stop trying to be more Liberal than the Democrats. They have to understand what really happened in 2006 and 2008, and return to the "less is more" style of government that lets people manage (or mismanage) their own lives. McCain had no real hope of capturing the party's Conservative base, and why would Democrats vote for him when they had a perfectly good candidate of their own? But the Republicans cannot recoup their losses without effective leadership. With that in mind, I just wrote the following email to my only Republican Senator, Arlen Spector. I doubt he will do more than laugh, if indeed he ever reads it, but I'd urge anyone who wants to fight for this country to contact your own Republican Senators; call them, write them or email them -- if you still have any. You can find your Senator's contact info here.

"As you know, the Republicans suffered a devastating blow last night. Don't make the mistake of thinking it was because the country has moved to the Left, or that we want a Socialist nanny-state government. The reason the Republicans lost is because you have lost your way. Ronald Reagan once said "a political party cannot be all things to all people," and yet you Washington denizens thought that was the way to win. You were wrong. You nominated John McCain, and he utterly failed to win either the base of your own party or enough Democrats. If you want the Republican party to go the way of the Whigs, Tories and the Bull Moose Party, by all means keep doing what you're doing -- trying to out-Liberal the Democrats. But if you want the party to come roaring back in two years, I strongly urge you to put Tom Coburn in charge as the Senate Minority Leader. He is one of the few Republicans who knows how to bring the party back to power. He never lost touch with the base. He is the only hope that there will even BE a Republican party by 2012."

How far does one stick to his principles? What is worth breaking your word for? As Election Day approaches, these are the questions that plague me. For nearly two years, I have said that I would not vote for John McCain, just as I would not have Rudy Giuliani, Mike Huckabee or any other Liberal Republican. I would even have preferred to see Hillary Clinton in the White House, betting that there would be enough opposition to her in House and Senate to keep the Federal government in stalemate for the next four years.

Sadly, it looks as though the Republicans are going to lose enough seats in the Senate to give the Democrats a filibuster-proof majority. Even if my most optimistic projections come true, the Democrats will have 55 seats, and there are certainly more then five Republicans Liberal enough -- or craven enough -- to vote with them on the important issues. Moreover, Pennsylvania is actually a swing state this time around -- as much due to McCain's being too much of a Democrat as it is to Obama's being too much of a Marxist who wants to "spread the wealth around," ruin small business owners, drive large business overseas and bankrupt the coal industry with his cap and trade policy. All but the most committed Leftists want to be able to afford electricity more than a few hours a day, after all.

So the choice comes down to this: cast my vote for someone who cannot win, or help a Republican who barely deserves the label into office, where he can wreak domestic havoc almost as badly as the Democrat surely will -- and sign it "Love, the Republican Party." If I do so, I must surrender my adherence to principle and go back on my word.

Damn you, John McCain. Damn you, Republican party. You aren't worthy of sacrificing my self-respect for. If I vote for McCain, I won't be able to look myself in the mirror. It will be hard to accept having knowingly enabled him to promote global warming hysteria, attack corporations, raise taxes on "the rich," work with his "good friends across the aisle" to ensure that judicial nominees are acceptable to both sides, prevent our intelligence services from using effective interrogation methods, grant civil rights to captured terrorists and push for more government control over everything from baseball to the banking industry. And when his amnesty-that's-not-amnesty ushers in tens of millions of new voters looking for handouts, who will Americans blame for selling their country out to foreign nationals? John McCain, who promised La Raza (the Hispanic version of the KKK) just a few months ago that he was still committed to his "comprehensive immigration reform" package.

But what if I don't vote for McCain? How can I knowingly allow the country to be ruled by the Marxist Barack Obama and a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate? If I could be sure that there would be enough real Republicans left after the election to stop the Obamessiah's destructive policies, I could relax and watch the fireworks as Left and Right stand deadlocked for four years. I can't bank on that. If we're lucky, there will be enough solid Republicans left after the election to get up a decent football game. The rest will be McCain-style "moderates" who care more about looking good on camera and getting favorable press coverage than doing what's right for the country. With the likes of Barack Obama pushing European Socialism at every opportunity, we'll be lucky if anyone has a private-sector job left in four years. And Obama's attitude toward gun owners and unborn babies are as loathsome as his desire to make peace with the world's worst dictators.

If Pennsylvania were not a swing state, my vote probably wouldn't matter, and I could vote my conscience with a light heart. But McCain has been surging here lately, despite the media's many oversampled and desperate push-polls. It's down to the wire. More than ever before, my vote matters.

I suppose the best argument I can make to convince myself to vote McCain is this: do I want to let America take a mortal wound by my inaction, or deal it a blow that I hope is merely critical? Allowing Obama to ruin this country may be too heavy a price to pay for my principles. If I force myself to vote for McCain, I am agreeing to the harm he will cause this country. But can I live myself if I stand by and allow Obama to utterly destroy it?

You know how deeply annoying living in a development can often be, because there's always some prissy little Homeowners' Association President with a Napoleon complex throwing his weight around telling you how often you should water your lawn so it stays the same shade of green as everyone else's, or dictating what Christmas home decorations you're allowed to put up so no one feels offended or intimidated?

And you know how annoying paying a mortgage can always be, because there's a ton of finance company rules and regulations and terms to which you must adhere, and non-compliance could result in foreclosure?

Now replace "prissy little Homeowners' Association President with a Napoleon complex" and "finance company" with "massive army of prissy little bureaucrats backed by the full might of the Federal government in all its red-tape-wrapped glory," and double the number of rules and regulations. Welcome to life under a nationalised mortgage industry. It's going to be just as bad as living under a nationalised health care system would be.

Oh, wait: we're almost certainly getting that, too.

So we're told that the world faces a financial meltdown unless Congress spends over 700 billion dollars of our money right now to buy up bad debts from financial institutions that never should have made the loans in the first place. It's a terrible idea for several reasons. The taxpayers should not be forced to bail these companies out of loans they agreed to make. Will the taxpayers repay me if I gamble away my savings? The government should not take over the entire loan industry, which would be the effect of its bailing these companies out and then, as they put it, "increasing oversight." More regulations and restrictions and oversight committees equal a larger, more powerful government, with more control over who gets a mortgage and who does not. I don't want Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi to make the decision on whether I can buy a house any more than I want them deciding whether I can get an operation. Most important of all, free-market capitalism is already overly restricted, and nationalising an entire sector of the market would be a huge move towards Socialism that we cannot afford to make.

How did we get into this mess? The Democrats and other Socialists are blaming the problem on free markets and capitalism run amok, for which the answer is (of course) more government interference. But that makes no sense, if you know the history of the situation. The Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae) was created in 1938 as part of the New Deal to help more people buy homes. It's not the free market at work. It was technically privatised by Lyndon Johnson in 1968 to remove it from the federal budget, and the Federal Home Mortgage Corporation (Freddie Mac) created in 1970 to expand the business of reselling mortgages. Though they are run as private corporations, they are in fact funded and controlled by the federal government. They operate by buying loans from banks, bundling them together and selling them with the guarantee that they will be paid. They have a line of credit with the US Treasury. The banks are more likely to take risks when loaning money, as they know they can sell those loans to the government. When bundled with other loans, a bad one or two doesn't make that much difference. That works very well as long as the vast majority of loans are made to those who will definitely pay them back -- the only kind of loans banks would normally make, if left alone.

But they haven't been left alone. The Democrats have spent the last seventy years using Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to push banks into making increasingly risky loans to people who should never have been able to get them. In 1977 President Carter signed the Community Reinvestment Act, which required banks to make sub-prime loans to people in low-income areas, who couldn't afford to pay them back. The process drastically accelerated in 1999, with the appointment of Franklin Raines (Bill Clinton's White House budget director) as its CEO. Jamie Gorelick -- Deputy Attorney General under Clinton and author of the infamous "wall" that prevented the CIA and FBI from sharing information regarding terrorists loose in this country -- served as Vice Chairman of Fannie Mae from 1997 through 2002. The free market would never in a million years have led major banks to give low-interest loans with no money down to people who could not put up the collateral or prove they could pay the loan back. It's not just the poor -- plenty of people have been living way above their means for far too long, and now the proverbial piper must be paid. But in order to continue operating as though they were financially solvent, and in order to guarantee huge bonuses to their officers, those responsible for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac lied. And those appointed as watchdogs over the two mortgage companies also lied.

Fannie Mae, it turned out, overstated its earnings by $10.6 billion from 1998 through 2004. Franklin Raines was finally fired, and is now a "financial advisor" to Barack Obama. Freddie Mac was discovered to have understated its profit by nearly $5 billion from 2000 through 2002, after which it went through more high-level turnovers than the late Roman Empire. Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT), head of the Senate Banking Committee, received an incredibly sweet deal on his mortgage from Countrywide Financial, from which Fannie Mae buys more loans than any other single company. Coincidentally, former Fannie Mae head Jim Johnson received a similar deal from Countrywide, and decided to step down from his position as advisor to Barack Obama when that became public. Dodd, however, still chairs the committee which writes laws governing the operation of mortgage companies, which is exactly like hiring a fox to guard the henhouse. Dodd has also received $165,400 in campaign donations from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac over the years.

In 2003, the Bush administration recommended creating "a new agency ... within the Treasury Department to assume supervision of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac." The weak proposal was shot down by Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts, who said bluntly, "I do not think we are facing any kind of a crisis." In 2004, Alan Greenspan warned that the rapid growth of both companies, not based on a solid financial footing but on "cooked" books and falsified earnings statements, would cause a collapse of the financial market. After widespread reporting of the financial scandal in 2005, Sen. John McCain attempted to introduce a bill calling for oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, but the bill never made it out of committee. So nothing was done, and now that the housing market has taken a downturn, the investors who bought those bundled loans suddenly found themselves holding either debts they can't collect, or overpriced property they can't resell. But then came the federal government, like a white knight, and re-absorbed both agencies. Now the government is promising to buy up all those bad loans and set everything right. And nearly everyone's acting as though that's a good thing.

Listen, the fact that the government wants to buy up those bad debts does not mean they will go away. Those people still owe that money, only it's the government that's going to own everything when they lose their homes, businesses and properties. The companies from which the government will buy those debts, the banks that made those risky loans in the first place, and Fannie/Freddie executives which bought them up and then sold them as assets, are the only beneficiaries of this buyout deal. If the government bails them out, they will continue to make the exact same mistakes. If we do not allow them to fail now and face the recession that would likely follow, they will inevitably fail a few years from now anyway and cause a worldwide full-blown depression.

On the other hand, the government will have plenty of homes available for tens of millions of new immigrants to buy after amnesty is enacted, with no money down and at low, low interest rates.

30 Sept 08 UPDATE: Read an editorial by Jeffrey A. Miron, a senior lecturer in Economics at Harvard who opposes the idea of the government bailing out mortgage companies.

Ever since John McCain announced that Alaska Governor Sarah Palin would be his Vice President, Conservatives and Republicans alike have been beside themselves with joy. Republican party faithful practically fainting in ecstasy over Palin I can understand, since it almost guarantees McCain a win in November. However, McCain himself has not changed just because he added Sarah Palin to his ticket. He's the same person, with the same attitudes and agenda, that he was the day before -- when the odds were good that he was going to pick Joe Lieberman as his running mate. Nothing is different now. Adding Palin to the ticket has done nothing to change him or his policies, and I, for one, don't think she's going to be setting the White House's agenda if McCain wins. She'll be doing the political equivalent of cutting the opening ribbons at shopping malls. Without altering his own political policies one iota, McCain has tricked a lot of Conservatives into supporting him based on his picking as his running mate a person whose entire job will consist of breaking ties in the Senate... of which there will be damned few, with President "Reach Across the Aisle" setting the agenda.

And yet, Conservatives are flocking to the McCain-Palin banner in droves, sending in those all-important campaign donations. That makes me sad, it really does. Because I can't imagine how anyone could really believe that John "Screw the Conservatives" McCain is doing anything but using Palin as a stalking horse. She's not going to be running the White House. She's not going to be setting policy. She's going to sit in the Senate just in case there happens to be a tie someday, and that's it -- aside from a lot of photo ops. Don't get me wrong -- I like what I know of Sarah Palin so far, aside from the fact that no one seems to know her position on granting amnesty to illegal immigrants. If she runs in 2012 I might even support her. It's just that Palin has only one purpose as part of McCain's campaign: to trick Conservatives into voting for the guy who has spent his entire career stabbing them in the back. And so far, it's working. I guess the McCain-Palin campaign can be summed up as "Change You're Desperate to Believe In."