Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere,
diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.
Groucho Marx

One of the reasons people hate politics is that truth is
rarely a politician's objective. Election and power are.
Cal Thomas

Politics is the art of choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable.
John Kenneth Galbraith

Don't worry. This is not that kind of post. I will not be espousing any candidate or be arguing for any position or ideology. There's plenty of that to be found out there if you want it. Believe me, you won't have to look very hard. [……]

When Otto von Bismarck said, "Laws are like sausages, it is better not to see them being made," he had no way of knowing just how prophetic it was. There are more similarities than he ever dreamed.

Not only do you not want to see them made, but the end result is usually full of pork and will often leave you with an upset stomach.

Boy, was I wrong! The latest comes in the form of this $700B crap sandwich that they've sold as the only way to save humanity. Not only is it a lousy attempt at a solution that won't work - it perpetuates the problem. And then comes the salt in the wound!!!

Instead of voting on this thing on its merits - after all, we're only shelling out over 25% of the total budget for the upcoming year, what's a few hundred billion between friends, huh? - the wastes of flesh in [……]

From the looks of it right now, I've made up my mind who to vote for.

I can't totally rule out a change in that stance but I haven't yet seen anything that'll convince me that either one of these guys will provide any meaningful leadership and not drag us ever closer to a Socialist/Marxist nanny state.

This post on a friend's blog got my writing blood flowing again. This time, there's actually some substance to my rambling, which should scare anyone who knows me.

There are a couple of problems with the Second Amendment debate in this country beyond the fact that there is even a debate to begin with:

First, too many on the left view all guns to be bad and think that getting rid of them will reduce gun crimes. This is a naïve argument at best and fails to acknowledge that criminals by definition break the law and breaking one more isn't [……]

While I have specifically refrained from commenting on the Presidential election (save for that uninformed Wexler kid) - and not because of a scarcity of items that were worthy of comment - I want to make one statement.

I was prepared to write a post lamenting the reduction of the electoral process to a rodeo of legal wrangling in which the candidate on the short side of the tape can't accept the outcome. Such is the legacy of Mr. Gore circa 2000.

What we witnessed that year was a cross between a spoiled child screaming for his way and a narcissist who [……]

First, let me echo the sentiments of countless journalists and others in saying that you are a smart and impressive young girl. You carry yourself in a way well beyond your 12 years and I won't be surprised to see your name in the years to come in either California state or national politics. I applaud you for taking an interest in and action about things that will affect your life for years to come. Unfortunately, that is the extent of the similarity between those comments and mine. Most of them continue on to fawn on you and your speech [……]

I've been wanting to write this for quite a while and today seemed a fitting time. This afternoon President Bush signed the ban on partial birth (D&X - Dilation & Extraction) abortions and, while I support that measure, I disagree with many conservatives on a fundamental cornerstone of the abortion debate.

But first, I'd like to quickly debunk a point that the opposition to this law are going to bring up, specifically that it doesn't include an exemption for preserving the health of the mother. But what that phrase - "the health of the mother" - really means is another matter [……]

How did I miss this when it happened? The UCLA Bruin Republicans held a bake sale to demonstrate the hypocrisy of affirmative action.

Although applicable to the general practice of racial preferences, the particular target of the demonstration was admissions practices at many major universities around the country including the University of Michigan which is the subject of two upcoming Supreme Court cases.

Personally, I think the bake sale is a fabulous way to show the inconsistency of people's opinions about affirmative action and to highlight the untruths inherent in the way it is implemented in most cases. Apparently others [……]