Senator Harry Reid, (D-Uranus) claims that even though you may have to pay fines and interest, or even go to prison, if you don't pay income tax, "it's a voluntary system."

His primary argument that income tax isn't paid upon threat of force? Because "other countries" don't allow deductions. I'm not sure what keeps his ears from slapping together, but it ain't his brains.

Free For All - The Free Liberal Blog: Is Taxation Voluntary?

Have you ever heard that a dog "knows" when an earthquake is about to hit?

Have you ever heard that a dog can "sense" when a tornado is stirring up, even twenty miles away?

Do you remember hearing that, before the December tsunami struck Southeast Asia, dogs started running frantically away from the seashore, at breakneck speed?

Do you know that dogs can detect cancer and other serious illnesses and danger of fire?

Somehow they always know when they can "go for a ride" before you even ask and how do those dogs and cats get home from hundreds of miles away?

I'm a firm believer that animals - and especially dogs - have keen insights into the Truth.

And you can't tell me that dogs can't sense a potentially terrible disaster well in advance.

Simply said, a good ol' hound dog just KNOWS when something isn't right… when impending doom is upon us…

We have Ventshade window vents on our vehicle (a four-door SUV), and one came loose and flew off while we were on the freeway. I contacted Lund International, who owns Ventshade about ordering just the one we needed.

Instead, they sent me a brand new set under warranty! That's outstanding customer service — thank you, Lund!

From acclaimed psychiatrist Dr. Lyle Rossiter's book, The Liberal Mind: The Psychological Causes of Political Madness:

Based on strikingly irrational beliefs and emotions, modern liberals relentlessly undermine the most important principles on which our freedoms were founded.

. . .

The roots of liberalism – and its associated madness – can be clearly identified by understanding how children develop from infancy to adulthood and how distorted development produces the irrational beliefs of the liberal mind," he says. "When the modern liberal mind whines about imaginary victims, rages against imaginary villains and seeks above all else to run the lives of persons competent to run their own lives, the neurosis of the liberal mind becomes painfully obvious.

Read the review

Buy the book

I posted this in response to a question on a Yahoo! group, and thought it might be of general interest. The question was "I am interested in learning about ham radio. What courses do you suggest? What radio should I buy to get started?"

To learn the material, I recommend Gordon West’s books; they are available on Amazon.com.

To practice for the tests, try www.aa9pw.com/radio — there is a pool of questions for each exam, and with some work you can memorize the answers. You’ll enjoy the hobby more if you learn the background, though. I used Gordon’s books and AA9PW’s site and passed the Technician and General tests at one sitting, after about a week of study.

There are lots of good websites where you can learn about ham radio; I like eHam; from there you’ll find lots of links to other sites. My favorite site to browse new radios is Universal Radio; look for Amateur Base Transceivers, Amateur Mobiles and Amateur Handhelds. They have lots of info on each radio, and you can tell when they update each section.

Try to get involved locally; if you’re in a big city, there are probably several clubs. Attend a few meetings, and look for a group that actively seeks new members; they’ll be a lot more fun to hang out with, and you’ll get to know some of the people in person that you talk to on the radio. Most clubs hold testing days periodically to facilitate getting your license.

As far as the first radio, some of that will depend upon your license class. Once you pass the Technician test, you’re entitled to use all ham bands from 50MHz and up, which usually means using repeaters. Repeaters are radios which simultaneously receive on one frequency and re-transmit on another, usually using a high antenna in order to receive and be received from further away than a radio on the ground. Your radio will transmit and receive on the opposite frequencies.

If you’re in a city, or live/drive within 10-15 miles of the repeater, a handheld radio will usually work fine. If you live further from the repeater, you’ll need a radio that runs off the car battery and has an antenna mounted on the outside of your vehicle (although an external antenna for the handheld radio could double its range). Since a repeater could have a range of over 100 miles, you could find yourself talking with someone 120 to 200 miles away, depending upon your setup and how far you and the other person are from the tower. For either a handheld or mobile radio, you can get started for under $200 with new equipment, including a good antenna.

(Many of these radios will operate on the same frequencies as FRS radios, and although it’s not legal except in an emergency, it’s pretty handy. My handheld will receive AM, FM, TV, CB, weather, and airplanes and airports, and will transmit and receive on the same frequencies as my local sheriff, fire departments and ambulance company. It costs $300, and is slightly modified. Many volunteer fire departments pick frequencies just outside the ham bands, so their members can use ham radios. One local police department does that – the chief is a ham, and at one time, most of the officers were, too.)

If you pass the General test, you can use lower-frequency radios, which can reach much further -– around the world with a proper setup. I had a horizontal wire antenna strung inside the attic of a rent house a few years ago here in NE Texas, and my furthest conversations were to New York (~1000 miles) and the Oregon-Washington border (~1500 miles). These radios start at around $700 new, and go way past $10,000. Your antenna(s) can cost next to nothing, like mine, or as much as you want to spend.

Most ham radios operate on 12V, so even the long-range radios can be mounted in a vehicle. Lots of truckers and RVers use them, since the range is so much greater than CB radios and the chatter on ham is a lot more civil than what you typically hear on CB. With a well-mounted antenna and cooperative terrain, you should be able to reach up to several hundred miles. From the top of a mountain or on the coast, you might reach Europe or Asia.

I’d recommend studying and passing the Technician and General tests, even if you’re not sure what you want to do otherwise. The test is usually $10. I’d also recommend getting involved with local hams -– a fellow ham in my church gave me my first radios when I told him I’d passed the tests. Including the free radio and the parts for my attic antenna, I was on the air for under $30!

There’s a lot more beyond this, including Morse code, satellite repeaters, bouncing signals off the moon, even chatting with astronauts on the space station. It’s an enjoyable hobby, and I’m sure you’ll find many interesting things to do. The main thing is… get started!

Fox News reports that “Ron Paul says he’s still in the presidential race but is moving to scale back his staff and shift focus to his own re-election campaign for his Texas congressional seat. ‘If I were to lose the primary for my congressional seat, all our opponents would react with glee, and pretend it was a rejection of our ideas. I cannot and will not let that happen.’”

While Huckabee has an uphill battle, needing 977 of the remaining 1150 uncommitted delegates (disregarding Romney’s 286 delegates), Paul would need ALL the remaining delegates PLUS some of Romney’s to get the nomination.

Ron Paul supporters – please visit here.

Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney left the presidential race today, saying he didn't want to hurt the party or the country. Pundits immediately wondered if Huckabee would make a similar "magnanimous" gesture, but of course there is a major difference between the two campaigns — Romney outspent Huckabee 12:1 but only had a few more delegates to show for his investment suggesting that either Romney's message was inferior, or that he just didn't connect with voters. Or both.

Mitt Romney supporters – please visit here.

Gregg Jackson explains why he's voting for Mike Huckabee.

Jackson examines the record on:

• Abortion
• Marriage
• Immigration
• Foreign Policy/National Security
• 2nd Amendment
• Taxes and Spending
• Special Rights for Homosexuals

… and concludes "that when $100 million dollars of GOP campaign propaganda is set aside, Mike Huckabee is the only real across-the-board (social and fiscal) conservative among the three front runners."

Mike Huckabee — the only true conservative in the race.

I was reading Sandy Rios' excellent article supporting Mike Huckabee - A Candidate We Could Get Excited About—if Only the Pundits Would Let Us - and she makes a good point about the argument that Huckabee pardoned over a thousand criminals while governor of Arkansas, including one man who went on to commit murder.

At least he was willing to make the tough decisions, evaluating every one of the 8000 requests for pardon that came across his desk. Maybe he got some wrong, but that's why our judicial system is based upon the idea of "reasonable doubt" — as a society, we agree that it's better to have a few more guilty people walk free, than to put an innocent man behind bars.

In addition, it bears repeating that Romney was more concerned about his shallow record of "no pardons issued." Romney's hometown paper, the Boston Globe, explains it:

Anthony Circosta, a decorated Iraq War veteran from Agawam, needed a gun permit in Massachusetts to get a promotion at his security guard job and to pursue a possible career as a police officer. But first he needed to have his record cleared of a childhood felony - shooting a classmate in the shoulder with a BB gun when he was 13.

The Massachusetts clemency board investigated Circosta's case and twice recommended pardoning him. But then-Governor Mitt Romney refused, preserving a record of rejecting every clemency request that crossed his desk.

That is a perfect example of putting ambition before principle — the primary reason people don't like Mitt Romney.

I recommend Mike Huckabee — a true conservative.

Wow.

To The Point News details How the Clintons Will Destroy John McCain, with some pretty startling allegations, which you can read there. He closes with:

I would not in any circumstances vote for John McCain, not if either Hillary or Obama were the alternative. Evil is safer than crazy. Leftie amateur inexperience is safer than crazy.

. . .

How in the world can the Republican Party get saddled with a nutcase whack-job who knows nothing about economics, is so anti-capitalist he uses "profit" as a term of derision, has never run a business or had any job outside of government, will raise taxes, is so stupid that he believes "stopping global warming" is worth destroying the American economy, won't drill ANWR, won't appoint strict constructionist justices, won't protect marriage, will give amnesty to 20 million illegal aliens, is beloved by the New York Times, and lives in a delusionary world of vanity and rage?

Of course, I recommend Mike Huckabee — a true conservative, not a nutcase whack-job.

Including:

• Thinking his sons working to get him elected equates to servicemen and women fighting in Iraq and Afganistan
• Sticking his dog inside a cage on top of his car for a 12-hour ride across country, hosing the dog's diarrhea off the car and off the dog at a rest stop, and then resuming the trip (wet dog + 55mph wind?)
• Does anyone think he'd get nearly as much attention if he weren't so darned pretty and willing to spend so much of his own money? (at least $35 million through December)

WuzzaDem has the breakdown.

I recommend Mike Huckabee — a true conservative.

Originally, they didn't — not until they saw it in a movie.

Seriously. Get The Straight Dope.

Thomas Sowell dismantles the "Straight Talk Express:"

When confronted with any of his misdeeds, Senator McCain tends to fall back on his record as a war hero in Vietnam.

Let's talk sense. Benedict Arnold was a war hero but that did not exempt him from condemnation for his later betrayal.

Being a war hero is not a lifetime get-out-of-jail-free card. And becoming President of the United States is not a matter of rewarding an individual for past services.

Read the rest at Townhall.com.

I recommend Mike Huckabee — a true conservative.

Some excerpts:

Today, one of the most powerful religions in the Western World is environmentalism. Environmentalism seems to be the religion of choice for urban atheists. Why do I say it's a religion? Well, just look at the beliefs. If you look carefully, you see that environmentalism is in fact a perfect 21st century remapping of traditional Judeo-Christian beliefs and myths.

There's an initial Eden, a paradise, a state of grace and unity with nature, there's a fall from grace into a state of pollution as a result of eating from the tree of knowledge, and as a result of our actions there is a judgment day coming for us all. We are all energy sinners, doomed to die, unless we seek salvation, which is now called sustainability. Sustainability is salvation in the church of the environment. Just as organic food is its communion, that pesticide-free wafer that the right people with the right beliefs, imbibe.

. . .

You may have noticed that something has been left off the doomsday list, lately. Although the preachers of environmentalism have been yelling about population for fifty years, over the last decade world population seems to be taking an unexpected turn. Fertility rates are falling almost everywhere…. There are some who think that world population will peak in 2050 and then start to decline. There are some who predict we will have fewer people in 2100 than we do today. Is this a reason to rejoice, to say halleluiah? Certainly not. Without a pause, we now hear about the coming crisis of world economy from a shrinking population. We hear about the impending crisis of an aging population. Nobody anywhere will say that the core fears expressed for most of my life have turned out not to be true. As we have moved into the future, these doomsday visions vanished, like a mirage in the desert. They were never there—though they still appear, in the future. As mirages do.

. . .

So I can tell you some facts. I know you haven't read any of what I am about to tell you in the newspaper, because newspapers literally don't report them. I can tell you that DDT is not a carcinogen and did not cause birds to die and should never have been banned. I can tell you that the people who banned it knew that it wasn't carcinogenic and banned it anyway. I can tell you that the DDT ban has caused the deaths of tens of millions of poor people, mostly children, whose deaths are directly attributable to a callous, technologically advanced western society that promoted the new cause of environmentalism by pushing a fantasy about a pesticide, and thus irrevocably harmed the third world. Banning DDT is one of the most disgraceful episodes in the twentieth century history of America. We knew better, and we did it anyway, and we let people around the world die and didn't give a damn.

. . .

Because in the end, science offers us the only way out of politics. And if we allow science to become politicized, then we are lost. We will enter the Internet version of the dark ages, an era of shifting fears and wild prejudices, transmitted to people who don't know any better. That's not a good future for the human race. That's our past. So it's time to abandon the religion of environmentalism, and return to the science of environmentalism, and base our public policy decisions firmly on that.

Read the whole thing:

MichaelCrichton.com | Environmentalism as Religion

This quote might be Frank J's greatest single contribution to mankind.

Read it in context so you can explain it to liberals:

IMAO: The Country Needs a Punch to the Face

The Anchoress takes all you whiny "XXX isn't a true conservative" babies to the woodshed:

If Ronald Reagan were alive right now, watching the GOP split into these tantrum-throwing factions (whereby “perfection” is duly defined as “pro-life, pro-gun, pro-free-market, pro-worship, pro-Bush-doctrine, pro-tax-cut, pro-ship-back-all-illegals” and then, as each less-than-perfect candidate’s failure on one or more issues is noted, each are thus deemed unworthy of the support of the pristine and uncompromising “base”) I think he’d be disgusted with the lot of you.

. . .

If I am reading my mail right - and I believe I am - every candidate running for president on the GOP side is - gasp! - flawed in some way. This guy’s too religious, this guy’s a flip-flopper, this guy’s too John McCain, this guy is a tantalizing “almost perfect” flirt who doesn’t want to put out, this guy is too soft on illegals, this guy is too hard on assault rifles, this guy is great on security but he wears a dress!

Oh, boo-hoo, people. Get a grip. The truth is the GOP had produced several reasonable candidates for the presidential nomination. None are “perfect,” but neither are you. A vote for any of them will require from you an end to the thrust-lip tantrum. You’re going to have to wipe your little eyes, haul up your drawers and - egad - do what Reagan would have done; he would have looked for the candidate who he felt was - taken all-in-all - best for the whole nation, not just for some little one-issue subgroup; he would not simply vote for his comfort zone.

Read the whole thing:
Attn GOP: Meet the Woodshed | The Anchoress

There’s a reason some of John McCain's conservative supporters avoid discussing his record. They want to talk about his personal story, his position on the surge, his supposed electability. But whenever the rest of his career comes up, the knee-jerk reply is to characterize the inquiries as attacks.The McCain domestic record is a disaster. To say he fought spending, most particularly earmarks, is to nibble around the edges and miss the heart of the matter.

Read more:

Mark R. Levin on John McCain & 2008 on National Review Online

I recommend Mike Huckabee — a true conservative.

My cousin Craig does the research so we don't have to.

Read the article at:

Is Mormonism Christianity? TQFD 18.01.2008

Everyone that tries this likes it, and it's easy to make. It's the result of a couple of years of experiments and tweaking. If you think I'm a Philistine for not using fresh ingredients, that's okay.

1 large block Velveeta
1 can Ro-Tel Milder*
1 can Ro-Tel Mexican Festival
1 or 2 Ro-Tel cans refilled with water (optional; less water=more stirring)
1 lid cumin
1 lid garlic powder, or 1 tbs minced garlic
1 lid salt (I actually use garlic salt. You can’t add too much garlic; I’ve tried.)
1 lid cilantro
1 tbsp beef bouillon

Optional – 1 pound ground mild sausage*, 2 lids dried minced onion

(Lid = the thing that keeps the seasoning in the jar if you turn it upside down)

If using sausage, brown in pan, adding dried minced onion after meat is brown. Keep stirring until dried minced onion absorbs sausagey goodness. Add more dried minced onion if necessary. Do not drain meat.

Add Ro-Tel, water, and seasonings. Boil for a while, stirring occasionally. To keep from getting bored, slice Velveeta into chunks.

Turn heat down, add Velveeta, stirring until chunks melt. If using sausage, globs of sausagey goodness may float to the surface; keep stirring until they’re mixed in.

We use this as dip for chips, soft tortillas and chimichangas. Without the sausage, it works well on burgers and hotdogs.

* This recipe is pretty mild, and doesn't hurt anyone. If you want it hotter, use Ro-Tel Original, Ro-Tel Extra Hot, hot sausage or just buy a bottle of habanero sauce or whatever floats torches your boat and add it to your personal bowl of queso.

Pretty cool deal - sign up for a course, and they give you a handgun - your choice of a brand new, in-the-box, Springfield XD pistol in 9mm, or .40SW or .45 ACP!

Check out Front Sight Firearms Training Institute.

Being the dad of a young girl, I watch my share of Nick, Disney etc.

Today we watched our first episode of iCarly. The show wasn't bad, and had a good message. However, Miranda Cosgrove needs a voice coach. Any time she speaks above a low volume level, her voice is scary harsh. She sounds like she's angry and stressed.

Someone help this kid, in case I have to watch this show again.

"I forgot to run."

I recommend Mike Huckabee — a true conservative.

That's what we'll hear tomorrow, from a lot of conservative pundits who have spent a lot of time bashing Huckabee right up until they saw him win in Iowa.

He gave them a great "out" with his victory speech; it was very Reagan-esque, with strong imagery of a better America - "I wasn't sure how I felt about Huckabee, until I heard that speech. I gotta say, he sure addressed a lot of my concerns with him right then."

Personally, I've been worried about how all the big name pundits would handle it if Huckabee became the front-runner, but I think he solved it with that speech.

Link

Many Republican voters are dissatisfied with the GOP presidential candidates this year. We share that frustration. But one of these men is going to be the party's nominee. Of this field, Mike Huckabee is the best choice.

It was a hard decision. In most respects, Mr. Huckabee, who governed Arkansas as a pragmatic, compassionate conservative, is not dramatically different from his main GOP competitors. He is somewhat better on energy and the environment, and though none of the Republicans are as forward-thinking about Iraq as they should be, Mr. Huckabee's emphasis on diplomatic engagement in the Middle East is fresh and welcome.

Mr. Huckabee established a respectable record of fiscal responsibility in Arkansas. Rather than run up deficits, he backed raising taxes to pay for needed infrastructure, health care and education. That's called prudence, and it was once a Republican virtue.

Mr. Huckabee is not an ideal candidate. Once a Bush-style Republican on immigration, his recent hard-right turn smells of opportunism. He too often wings it on foreign policy. But Govs. Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush also took office without foreign-policy experience. Much depends on the quality of a president's advisers. A chief executive's core foreign-policy convictions matter most, and on those, Mr. Huckabee is a standard conservative.

His religious conservatism, particularly his past rhetoric on women and gays, can be alarming. But religious conservatives aren't easily pigeonholed. A liberal Arkansas professor told The New York Times Magazine that Mr. Huckabee was a good governor. "When he first came to office, people like me were worried about the religious aspect," she said. "And he is very orthodox on gays, guns and God. But he knows there's more than just these issues."

Indeed. Mr. Huckabee has a stout heart for working families and the poor, which as governor got him crossways with some Republicans. Though his strident criticism of free trade is misguided, the economically moderate Mr. Huckabee seems particularly attuned to the anxieties ordinary Americans face in this era of rapid change.

And he is one social conservative who's acutely aware of the call to racial healing. In 1997, when Little Rock Central High commemorated integration's 40th anniversary, Gov. Huckabee delivered a magnificent speech about race, justice and reconciliation that left many in the audience weeping.

It was a profound and profoundly moving address, and it revealed an unusual gift for leadership. Plain-spoken and eloquent, Mr. Huckabee strikes us as decent, principled and empathetic to the views and concerns of others – an antidote to the power-mad partisanship that has led U.S. politics to a dispiriting standstill.

"I'm a conservative," he likes to say. "I'm just not mad about it." Along those lines, what sold us on Mr. Huckabee is a sense that of all the Republicans, he is the change agent the nation most needs. John McCain, whose candidacy is quite appealing despite concern about his age and temperament, was arguably that man once. But his moment has passed.

America needs a clean break from the bitter politics of the recent past. From the right, Mike Huckabee, a progressive conservative with a pastor's heart, can deliver.

I have a test model that I'm going to put on eBay:

Retroencabulator by Rockwell Automation Systems

I'm a Huckabee supporter, but I think the best zinger of the evening was Thompson's. I haven't seen any mention of it in the media, so I'm including it here.

After Rudy and Mitt got through with their immigration slap-fest, other candidates were allowed to weigh in. A little ways into his response, Thompson said:

As far as Mayor Giuliani is concerned, I am a little surprised the mayor says, you know, everybody's responsible for everybody that they hire, but we'll have to address that a little bit further later. I think we've all had people probably that we have hired that in retrospect probably is a bad decision.

Obviously a slightly-too-subtle reference to Bernard Kerik, Giuliani's ethically-challenged police commissioner and ill-fated suggestion for Secretary of Homeland Security, this one went over the heads of most people in the audience.

Republican Debate Transcript, CNN/YouTube - Council on Foreign Relations

BethAnn says vote for Mike Huckabee!

Make sure you watch the video.

There is a sudden storm of Huckabee-bashing, and I confess I don't understand it. Dick Morris has a good rebuttal today — Huckabee Is a Fiscal Conservative — and I have my own observations about the rest of the Republican frontrunners:

• Giuliani is pro-abortion, even partial birth abortion; anti-second amendment, soft on gay marriage, and pro-illegal immigration, but it's okay because he'll appoint "strict constructionist" judges to the Supreme Court.
• Romney has flip-flopped on gay rights, gun control, abortion, immigration and taxes. How do we know he's ready to stand still?
• Thompson flip-flop-flipped on the FairTax (he's in favor of it, right now), and by many accounts is lazy (like the story of his vacation in Paris in the middle of defending a drug dealer, giving the drug dealer grounds for appeal). He sounds folksy, though.
• McCain - Campaign Finance Reform, aka Incumbent Protection Act. Am I seriously supposed to stop blogging about politics the last few weeks before the election?

Of course, I'll support and vote for any of them rather than Hillary, Hussein or Haircut, but I'd rather get a principled, consistent conservative than Not-a-Democrat.