The Waterkooler

Visitors to parks in Hamburg Germany have been warned to watch out for exploding toads. Several thousand toads in the German city have mysteriously spontaneously exploded, sending entrails and body parts over a wide area.

But now the mystery seems to have been solved. Scientists say it is the crows, who are pecking out the toads' livers.

Based on the wounds, Mutschmann said, it appears that a bird pecks into the toad with its beak between the amphibian's chest and abdominal cavity, and the toad puffs itself up as a natural defense mechanism. But, because the liver is missing and there's a hole in the toad's body, the blood vessels and lungs burst and the other organs ooze out, he said.

Rumors are circulating around the Waterkooler that crows and toads have an age-old feud that goes back to an argument on the Ark. We could neither confirm nor deny that this is a sign of the apocalypse.

This post from the WSJ Best of the Web

"Survey Finds Many Have Poor Grasp of Basic Economics," reads a New York Times headline. No doubt many do, but reporter Mary Williams Walsh immediately draws policy implications that suggest she has a poor grasp of how a free society works:

With Washington considering whether to strengthen Social Security by giving Americans more responsibility for their own retirements, a survey released yesterday suggested that the typical American does not know enough about economics to prosper in such a system. . . .

Other analysts said they thought that the findings added to a growing body of evidence that the typical American is poorly equipped to take advantage of what proponents call the ownership society: a future in which individuals are free to invest their own retirement money, rather than having to accept the returns offered by the Social Security program or a group retirement program at work, like a pension plan. . . .

"It is abundantly clear that there are a large number of Americans who are completely unprepared to make these decisions," said Steve Blakely, the [Employee Benefits Research Institute]'s editor and communications director.

To see why this argument is faulty, consider an analogous one: Most Americans don't know much about medicine, therefore the government should control health care. Or: Most Americans don't know much about journalism, therefore the government should control the press.

Americans who don't understand economics don't need the government to make their decisions for them. There are people in the private sector with the expertise to help them make their decisions. But apparently Mary Williams Walsh has never heard of accountants or financial planners.

Fla. Gun Law to Expand Leeway for Self-Defense
You would think that a law would not be necessary to allow you to defend yourself in your own home. But then we would have to remind you that we live in a country brimming with anti-gun nuts who would rather you retreat into the bathroom and cower in your shower while intruders roam freely through your house as they please. They want you to hide there in the bathtub as a sitting duck to these would-be killers in your home. Only then - from behind the shower curtain - do you have the right to defend yourself.

Well, thanks to Jeb Bush, Floridians are no longer commanded by law to hide in their bathrooms as criminals and murderers take over their homes.

The Florida measure says any person "has the right to stand his or her ground and meet force with force, including deadly force if he or she reasonably believes it is necessary to do so to prevent death or great bodily harm."

Of course, this is going to upset a lot of criminal coddlers in this country...

"I am in absolute shock," Sarah Brady, chair of the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, said in an interview. "If I had known about it, I would have been down there."

Well, you may be shocked but it seems like common sense here at the Waterkooler. Critics disagree:

Critics argue that the measure is so broad it will encourage fights between neighbors, parents at soccer games or drinking buddies to escalate into gunfights.

But law enforcement officials think it is a good idea.

Law enforcement did not try to block the measure, siding with the NRA rather than opposing the group, as many sheriffs and police officials had done during the debate two decades earlier over right-to-carry.

Florida Attorney General Charlie Crist, a leading candidate for the Republican governor's nomination in 2006, was among those who wrote letters of support. With that kind of high-level backing, Rep. Dennis Baxley, a Republican from Ocala who sponsored the House measure, could ridicule critics as "hysterical."

Hysterical is an understatement. Citing Dirty Harry, some Floridian journalists warn tourists of the middle east-esque dangers the state now poses:

Martin Dyckman of the St. Petersburg Times told tourists, indisputably a bedrock of the state's economy, to stay away: "Lebanon might be safer."

Read the bill here

Thanks to the WSJ Best of the Web for this one. It reminds us here at the Waterkooler of how the media likes to confuse the issues on what would otherwise be common sense...

The Associated Press reports that the U.S. prison population grew "at a rate of about 900 inmates each week between mid-2003 and mid-2004." And of course the AP's Siobhan McDonough treats us to the usual confusion about what it all means:

While the crime rate has fallen over the past decade, the number of people in prison and jail is outpacing the number of inmates released, said the [Bureau of Justice Statistics] report's co-author, Paige Harrison. For example, the number of admissions to federal prisons in 2004 exceeded releases by more than 8,000, the study found.

Hmm, more criminals are in prison and the crime rate is down. Seems like simple cause and effect to us, but somehow it's supposed to be a paradox.

A Washington Post editorial, meanwhile, has another variation on this "paradox":

In Baltimore, murders are up and convictions are down. You read that correctly: Even as the city has gained the dubious distinction of having the nation's highest big-city murder rate, prosecutors say that conviction rates in homicide cases are falling. The main cause is that, increasingly, witnesses will not cooperate or testify, often because they are afraid. And no wonder: Since last September seven witnesses have been shot or murdered--a rate of about one a month.

The authorities are having a harder time prosecuting murderers, and there are more murders. "You read that correctly," says the Post--but why wouldn't you? It makes perfect sense.

I had to excerpt this entire article from C-Log today and let it speak for itself:

NYT: Defender of our Marines?

The apparent shortage of up-armored Humvees was a hot topic last summer after American casualties began to mount in the wake of increased IED and RPG attacks on troops riding in these quick but minimally armored vehicles -- a concern that was addressed almost immediately by the Defense Department. However, there is only scant admission in the Times' article that DoD made "vigorous efforts" to rectify matters in the wake of an increasing insurgency, as it instead concentrated on giving the impression that our Marines are fed up with the service they're being asked to provide.

Michael Moss of the New York Times reports today on several Marines who have complained upon returning home from Iraq about substandard armor and manpower in the field.

In returning home, the leaders and Marine infantrymen have chosen to break an institutional code of silence and tell their story, one they say was punctuated not only by a lack of armor, but also by a shortage of men and planning that further hampered their efforts in battle, destroyed morale and ruined the careers of some of their fiercest warriors.

The saga of Company E, part of a lionized battalion nicknamed the Magnificent Bastards, is also one of fortitude and ingenuity. The marines (sic), based at Camp Pendleton in southern California, had been asked to rid the provincial capital of one of the most persistent insurgencies, and in enduring 26 firefights, 90 mortar attacks and more than 90 homemade bombs, they shipped their dead home and powered on. Their tour has become legendary among other Marine units now serving in Iraq and facing some of the same problems.

"As marines (sic), we are always taught that we do more with less," said Sgt. James S. King, a platoon sergeant who lost his left leg when he was blown out of the Humvee that Saturday afternoon last May. "And get the job done no matter what it takes."

The experiences of Company E's marines (sic), pieced together through interviews at Camp Pendleton and by phone, company records and dozens of photographs taken by the marines, show they often did just that. The unit had less than half the troops who are now doing its job in Ramadi, and resorted to making dummy marines from cardboard cutouts and camouflage shirts to place in observation posts on the highway when it ran out of men. During one of its deadliest firefights, it came up short on both vehicles and troops. Marines who were stranded at their camp tried in vain to hot-wire a dump truck to help rescue their falling brothers. That day, 10 men in the unit died.

Sergeant Valerio and others had to scrounge for metal scraps to strengthen the Humvees they inherited from the National Guard, which occupied Ramadi before the marines (sic) arrived. Among other problems, the armor the marines (sic) slapped together included heavier doors that could not be latched, so they "chicken winged it" by holding them shut with their arms as they traveled.

"We were sitting out in the open, an easy target for everybody," Cpl. Toby G. Winn of Centerville, Tex., said of the shortages. "We complained about it every day, to anybody we could. They told us they were listening, but we didn't see it."

The company leaders say it is impossible to know how many lives may have been saved through better protection, since the insurgents became adept at overcoming improved defenses with more powerful weapons. Likewise, Pentagon officials say they do not know how many of the more than 1,500 American troops who have died in the war had insufficient protective gear.

But while most of Company E's work in fighting insurgents was on foot, the biggest danger the men faced came in traveling to and from camp: 13 of the 21 men who were killed had been riding in Humvees that failed to deflect bullets or bombs.

I might be going out on a limb here, but one gets the feeling the Times loves our Marines only when they can be used as a club with which to beat the Bush administration and its prosecution of the war. After all, most telling about this article isn't even its content but the actual mechanics of writing. Notice how often in only the eight paragraphs I excerpted the word "Marines" is spelled with a lowercase "m". Are the Times' editors really unaware that "Marines" is a proper noun? Or, as I imagine, is this simply a point so trivial to Mr. Moss and the editors so as to never have crossed their minds in the first place?

The Marines -- and those of us who honor and respect the work they do -- would never overlook such a thing.

---

Well said, C-Log. The Waterkooler has only this to add: to those who would use the unfortunate shortages of up-armor in Iraq as a reason to quit the war - and we know you are out there - I am just glad you were not around to see the Battle of the Bulge, or the Bataan Death March; I am glad you were not around to complain about the death toll in Normandy, or MacArthur's setback in the Philippines, or any of the the prolonged, bloody battles on the islands of Iwo Jima, Leyte, Luzon, Okinawa, or Saipan. I am glad you were not there the day the Japanese unleashed the Kamakazi and destroyed 13 US destroyers.

But then I am reminded of the fact that men like you, men like Charles Lindberg and his America First campaign, have, in fact, always been around. Yes, I forgot that for a moment. But then again, we do tend to forget the politically expedient ramblings of history's losers, don't we?

Or do they? Think about it, if women made less money for doing the same job as men, wouldn't men be out of work?

Statistics show that women and men with equal experience and qualifications, doing the same job, for the same hours, under the same conditions-get paid the same, or more. Men are the real victims, taken advantage of because of their innate chivalry and social expectations that they trade earning power for love and sex and be "willing to die to support the wives and children."

Of course, we all know the truth: men make more on average because on average they deserve more. On average, they work longer hours and on average, they take on more dangerous jobs.

But the real question is: why are men always expected to pay the bill? And, what are we paying for, exactly?

Guys, if you have never tried it,this is what happens when a man refuse to pay for dinner.

Even if men did make more than women, women still come out ahead, as we see in this example from the AskMen.com website:

Last week, I went on my twentieth date with a woman, let's call her Amber. We started the evening with a movie. We went to see Scream 3 and the tickets were expensive. After the movie, we went out to dinner at Athena's, and dinner was quite pricey too.

Following dinner, we went for a walk to help digest the food and ended up at a lounge where we stopped for drinks. I had a Long Island Iced Tea and Amber had an Absolut Vodka with Cranberry and the total cost, once again, hurt my wallet just a little. The total cost for that one night was 188 George Washingtons.

Assuming I receive a weekly paycheque of $1000 and I go out for dinner twice a week, my net paycheque is deducted down to $624 ($1000 - $188 - $188 = $624), while Amber's paycheck (70% that of the man's check) is $700. So Amber is making $76 per week or $3952 per year more than me.

It all seems a bit unfair, especially for short men, who make even less money.

Being that one of our favorite people has a birthday that coincides each year with Earth Day, the crew at the Waterkooler is especially sensitive to hippie-esque claims about the dangers that man poses to the cosmos.

But lucky for the universe, the likes of Drew Barrymore and Cameron Diaz have come to the rescue.

Their new MTV series, Trippin will surely be a turning point in the battle of mud vs. man...

In recent years, the government has spent millions of dollars fighting obesity and publicizing the message that two out of three American adults are overweight or obese, and at higher risk for heart disease, arthritis and diabetes...

But is was all a lie...

Fatophobes have lost the scientific high ground. Numbers indicating that obesity was a leading cause of preventable death now reported to be 14 times off the mark. And that is enough of an anomoly to expose not mistakes, but fraud.

Analysis by government scientists shows that far fewer people than thought die from being fat.

Last year, the CDC issued a study that said being overweight causes 400,000 deaths a year and would soon overtake tobacco as the top U.S. killer. After scientists inside and outside the agency questioned the figure, the CDC admitted making a calculation error and lowered its estimate three months ago to 365,000.

CDC Director Dr. Julie Gerberding said because of the uncertainty in calculating the health effects of being overweight, the CDC is not going to use the brand-new figure of 25,814 in its public awareness campaigns and is not going to scale back its fight against obesity.

Wait a minute, the CDC admits the number are way, way off but they are NOT going to use the new numbers in their public awareness campaigns? But, but, but, um, excuse me, hello, please can you explain this please?

So why would someone fudge the numbers so? Why would they lie to us like that? Well, 1) that's what do-gooders do. And 2) because it makes money for the pharmeceutical companies.

The pharmaceutical industry in particular is putting its enormous resources behind research that grossly exaggerates the health risks and costs of being overweight. And of course, once they convince us of the problem, drug manufacturers will peddle the cure. “In short,” says Paul Ernsberger, a Professor of
Medicine, Pharmacology and Neuroscience at Case Western Reserve University, “economic factors encourage a systematic exaggeration of the health risks of obesity.”

Common Obesity Myths include:
1 Obesity Kills 400,000 Americans a year
2 You Can't Be Overweight and Healthy
3 Obesity Is a Disease
4 Overeating Is the Primary Cause of Obesity
5 Soda Causes Childhood Obesity
6 64 Percent of Americans Are Overweight or Obese
7 Obesity Costs the US Economy $117 Billion Annually

The anti-pleasure principle

CDC website

Read the myths about obesity here

The Immigrants’ Rights Project of the American Civil Liberties Union today announced that it has sent two national staff members to Arizona to support the Legal Observer Project organized by the ACLU of Arizona.

Since April 1, armed private individuals under the so-called "Minuteman project" have come to Arizona for the purported purpose of spotting and reporting individuals who the Minutemen claim are violating federal immigration law.

What is up with the language here? so-called? purported purpose? who the Minutemen claim are violating immigration law?

Are we missing something here at the Waterkooler? So, let me get this right. The ACLU will attack Sean Hannity for stepping across the border illegally, and then turn right around and with their very next breath, suggest that what thousands of illegals are doing every day is somehow NOT illegal?

ACLU, Illegals' Strategy: Let's Sue

Angered by the actions of "Minutemen" civilian border guards, some U.S. citizens of Mexican descent are crossing from Mexico into southern Arizona in the hopes of being "detained" by the vigilantes so they can then sue them for violating their civil rights.

Civil Rights? Even if you are a US citizen, you still cannot just decide to cross the border willy nilly anywhere you like. It is still illegal, as Sean Hannity found out when the ACLU took pictures of him stepping over the border in hopes that the border patrol would lock him up. Hey, ACLU, where were your cameras when thousands of illegals came storming across the border last night?

Also, we at the Waterkooler would like to send a note to civil rights groups and illegal invaders to this country: the word "civil" is defined in terms of citizenship. Therefore, no citizenship, no civil rights. Period.

DEFINITION OF CIVIL RIGHTS: The protections and privileges of personal liberty given to all US citizens by the Constitution and Bill of Rights.

So how then does the ACLU explain this:

The Immigrants' Rights Project of the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation was established in 1987 to expand and enforce the civil rights and civil liberties of non-citizens.

Maybe these pictures of 2 ACLU members smoking pot while monitoring the Minutemen will help explain things.

All of this begs the question, is the ACLU aiding illegal entry into US?

Some Support for the "so-called Minutemen"

WASHINGTON - A Republican senator said yesterday the government should consider deputizing private citizens, like the Minuteman Patrol in Arizona, to help secure U.S. borders.

Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colo., said the U.S. Border Patrol also should look to local law enforcement and state officials for help along the most porous parts of the U.S.-Mexico line.

Thank you, Senator. Also supporting the Minutemen: THE ACTUAL BORDER PATROL, who claims they have had no complaints about abuses from the Minutemen.

"We want to make it clear – because we've had a lot of questions about this – we have not had one single complaint from a rank-and-file agent in this sector about the Minutemen," says a statement on the site. "Every report we've received indicates these people are very supportive of the rank-and-file agents; they're courteous. Many of them are retired firefighters, cops, and other professionals, and they're not causing us any problems whatsoever."

The group blames the ACLU for setting off ground sensors in the area of the Minutemen activities:

"Reports of [Minutemen] causing 'ground sensors' to go off are exaggerated because most of those are being set off by the ACLU sneaking around trying to find the Minutemen doing something wrong."

So, to sum up, you have the Minutemen who are out there doing their part to help secure our border from illegals (with the hearty appreciation of the Border Patrol), and the ACLU sends "monitors" who aid and abet criminals, commit assult, and smoke pot to watch the Minutemen to make sure they aren't doing anything wrong. Typical.

MORE BORDER NEWS

An Indiana man who detained a number of illegal immigrants on his own in Arizona could face at least 20 years in prison.

Border Agents Support Minutemen

Estimates suggest the number of illegals in this country could be more than 20 million with approximately 10,000 illegals coming across the border daily.

Sean Hannity crosses border, draws ire from ACLU

Minutemen Eye Canada border

Minutemen Mission Statement

Minutemen Web Site

The battle lines for the confrontation will be largely set after today, when the Judiciary Committee is expected to vote to send two of President Bush's more controversial nominees for the federal bench to the Senate floor for confirmation. California Supreme Court Justice Janice Rogers Brown and Texas Supreme Court Justice Priscilla R. Owen have been previously filibustered by Democrats. And party leaders have signaled they will try to block them again.

Frist will in effect sound the battle horn as soon as he puts one of them on the schedule for debate. Before that, he is expected to make an overture to Democrats — a kind of "one last chance" for peace. But neither side expects he can offer a gesture acceptable to Democrats.

Full Coverage

Now that we are moving toward an "ownership society," more and more we each have our interests vested together. The days when you could argue that the goings-on on Wall Street were meaningless to the Average Joe are of the past. With our 401-K's and Social Security funds tied to the market, more eyes in this country are watching Wall Street than ever before.

"Markets go up and markets go down. But the slide over the last month on Wall Street is hardly good timing for President Bush, who now finds himself with another issue to explain as he struggles to win over public opinion -- and the votes he needs in Congress -- for his proposal to add investment accounts to Social Security," according to The New York Times. "The evidence shows that long-term market investment for Social Security, while hardly risk free, bears little resemblance to the 'meltdown' scenarios painted by many account opponents," says former Cato social security analyst Andrew G. Biggs in "Personal Accounts in a Down Market: How Recent Stock Market Declines Affect the Social Security Reform Debate."

The civil rights establishment was once a fiercely independent force that bedeviled politicians on both sides of the aisle and evaluated policies based on whether those policies harmed or helped the poor. This tradition of independence has disappeared. Over the last two decades, in fact, the old-line civil rights groups have evolved into wholly owned subsidiaries of the Democratic Party. The groups are disinclined to turn on their friends - or to openly embrace even beneficial policies that happen to have a Republican face.

Usually when we see this sort of acting out it tends to come from democrats and liberals. In fact, Michael A. Smith, the man who spat upon Jane Fonda, could well have been a liberal, we don't know. The Waterkooler does not condone such action. That is our official policy. But we are curious to know if others out there, conservatives who are surely above such debased behavior, may feel that this case warrants an exception?

Smith, a Vietnam veteran, told The Kansas City Star Wednesday that Fonda was a "traitor" and that her protests against the Vietnam War were unforgivable. He said he doesn't chew tobacco but did so Tuesday solely to spit juice on the actress.

"I consider it a debt of honor," he told The Star for a story on its Web site. "She spit in our faces for 37 years. It was absolutely worth it. There are a lot of veterans who would love to do what I did."

"Because of Jane Fonda, most Vietnam veterans were spit on when we came back. When I came back through L.A. airport, there were people lined up to spit on us."

When Fred Chabrow went out for a steak dinner with his parents here last Christmas Eve, he did something he had not done for almost a decade, not since a car accident ended his law career, consigned him to a wheelchair, erased his memory, and left him unable to start a simple conversation.

''Fred started hitting on a couple of the waitresses,'' says his father, Penn. 'He said, `Gee, it's Christmas Eve. It's a shame you have to work. We'd like a table for three, no smoking, please.' ''

It was the start of a week of miraculous breakthroughs, a week in which the old Miami Fred -- Fred the flirt, the sports fan, the smart aleck -- suddenly returned.

Until recently, doctors believed that a damaged brain could not be repaired, and little could be done to help the 80,000 people a year who, like Fred, survive traumatic injuries with serious brain damage. But a new wave of research shows that the injured brain can sprout new connections between cells and train surviving cells to perform new tasks, enabling some brain-injured patients to begin to reclaim their minds.

more

The balance between security and privacy is a tenuous one. In order to know if child molesters live in your neighborhood means someone has to manage a database of everyone in you neighborhood. And that means YOUR private information is in danger of being hacked. So, is the added security worth the loss in privacy? Are there any legal solutions? Or is technology now beyond our control?

Warning on spread of state surveillance

Governments are building a "global registration and surveillance infrastructure" in the US-led "war on terror", civil liberty groups warned yesterday.

The aim is to monitor the movements and activities of entire populations in what campaigners call "an unprecedented project of social control".

Google Launches Personal History Feature

"We think there is some value in providing people with visibility into their past activity on Google," said Marissa Mayer, the company's director of consumer Web products.

But privacy rights expert Pam Dixon is worried the service will make it easier for mischief makers, snoops and perhaps even the government to get their hands on a user's entire search history.

"It's really a bad idea," said Dixon, executive director of the World Privacy Forum. "If you need to keep track of your past searches, I recommend using a notebook. It would be a lot more private and a lot less risky."

LexisNexis Warns 280,000 of Info Breach

DSW Data Theft Larger Than Predicted

IRS Flaws Expose Taxpayers to Snooping, Study Finds

NY Attorney General Spitzer Targets Identity Theft

Two former FBI agents who helped solve the case have written a book detailing the investigation. Jon Hersley and Larry Tongate wrote "Simple Truths" to show Americans how the evidence trickled in and the case was solved.

Ten years after Timothy McVeigh detonated a truck bomb that killed 168 people at the Oklahoma City federal building, the antigovernment militias that attracted intense police scrutiny after the bombing have all but disappeared, according to analysts who track the groups.

Authorities say the threat from domestic terrorists remains strong and is worrisome because of "lone wolf" actors who may have associated with extremist groups and remain committed and violent.

Oklahoma City Bombing Anniversary

OKC Bombing Chronology

The Democrats in the House of Representatives are engaging in one of the oldest and best-established ceremonies of that distinguished body: the ritual slaughter of a prominent member.

House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.), in his first detailed written response after weeks of questions about his dealings with lobbyists and handling of ethics matters, issued a broad denial that he violated any law or House rule in accepting trips abroad, and he implored supporters back home to accept his version of what he called "the real story."

DeLay said in the message, titled "What the Press Isn't Telling You" and covering about six single-spaced pages, that his overseas trips were "proper" and "properly vetted and undertaken" and that if there were any question about the source of funding for that travel, no member of Congress "should be responsible for deceptive behavior by outside organizations."

Democrats refuse GOP offer at ethics hearings.

Why is it when you try to stop people form invading your country you are called anti-immigrant? Does anyone really believe that House leaders like James Sensenbrenner are actually anti immigrant? Who are these civilrights.org guys anyway? No one is trying to stop immigration here. Hello? God forbid if we could actually pass legislation that would help us enforce our laws.

Note to civil rights groups: the word "civil" is defined in terms of "citizenship." No citizenship, no civil rights. Therefore, illegals have no rights. Period.

As a Roman Catholic cardinal, the new Pope Benedict XVI warned American voters against departing from church teaching at the ballot box, drew criticism from victims of clerical sex abuse and opposed married or women priests. And even publicly called for the denial of Communion to John Kerry for being pro choice

In the news he has been called "very conservative," and a "hardliner." CBS has even called him God's Rotweiller So, just how radical is the new Pope?

Michael Novack says "Critics who describe newly chosen Pope Benedict XVI as an "authoritarian," a "watchdog" and, most peculiarly, a "neoconservative," are seriously "misreading the man".

So what is Pope Benedict's vision of the Church?

Benedict was the oldest pontiff elected in 275 years. One young priest from Cologne, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told The Associated Press in Rome that Benedict has trouble sleeping and has a "delicate constitution." The pope's brother expressed a similar concern in a television interview. So, are you prepared to watch another Pope grow old and die before your eyes?

Pope Bio

Pope Quotes

Highs and Lows of Papal History

Papal History Murky?

Pope may have received most votes ever

Popular Pope Names

Pope Joan? Was she myth or reality?

Pope Joan Soon to be major motiion picture

AARP - Where We Stand

AARP supports:

* Offering individual retirement accounts in addition to Social Security
* Raising the cap on wages subject to Social Security tax so that 90 percent of wages nationwide would be covered
* Making the Social Security system universal, with everyone sharing its obligations and benefits
* Investing a portion of the trust fund in a total market index fund to increase the return. By law, the trust fund now may be invested only in government bonds.

Congressman Paul Ryan's Plan

Ryan, one of the youngest members of the House at age 35, proposes letting younger workers invest a portion of their payroll taxes in voluntary, tax-free personal accounts. Full benefits as they exist now would remain for workers older than 55 or any younger worker choosing not to establish an account.

Under Ryan’s plan, as a worker ages, the account’s investments would shift from higher-yielding equity holdings to lower-risk bond assets. Over the course of the worker’s career, the investments would earn a far higher rate of return than Social Security currently does, according to Ryan.

NY Times Plan: More Illegals

Illegal Immigrants Are Bolstering Social Security With Billions?

The thing to notice here is that the article does not mention a single COST of illegal immigration. Leave it to the NYTimes to present only one side of an issue.

GOP Leaders Running from Private Accounts?

Some GOP'ers think it may be best to compromise on private accounts now, fight for them again later...

South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, for example, has had meetings with members of both parties in recent months in hopes of jump-starting compromise talks.

Talk of Raising Retirement Age

Republican Senators Charles Grassley of Iowa and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, along with Democrats Byron Dorgan of North Dakota and Charles Schumer of New York, have said raising the retirement age should be considered.

Illegals and Now Shows - Wash Times

Virginians got a reminder last week of how the federal government's turn-'em-loose illegal-immigration policies work. Last Sunday, a Fairfax County police officer in Annandale stopped a Dodge van after it made an illegal U-turn. The officer discovered 11 Mexican nationals inside, all of them illegals. County police handed the illegals over to the Department of Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. Shortly after processing the illegals, however, ICE released them into the general public on a promise. The promise was to show up Thursday at ICE's Northern Virginia offices for immigration proceedings. But the illegals failed to attend.

Are Filibusters A Good Idea?

The best argument for the filibuster is that it gives rights to political minorities and forces consensus. The best argument against it is that it thwarts democratic accountability. The majority should be able to enact its program so the voters can see if they like the results.

Do Dems Hate Christian Judges?

"As the Senate heads toward a showdown over the rules governing judicial confirmations, Senator Bill Frist, the majority leader, has agreed to join a handful of prominent Christian conservatives in a telecast portraying Democrats as "against people of faith" for blocking President Bush's nominees.

As the liberal, anti-Christian dogma of the left has been repudiated in almost every recent election, the courts have become the last great bastion for liberalism," Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council and organizer of the telecast, wrote in a message on the group's Web site. "For years activist courts, aided by liberal interest groups like the A.C.L.U., have been quietly working under the veil of the judiciary, like thieves in the night, to rob us of our Christian heritage and our religious freedoms."

Frist Educates Public on Senate Rules Change - CNS News

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist is using the Internet to explain why the Senate may change its rules to allow an up-or-down vote on President Bush's judicial nominees.

McCain Irks GOP over anti-Filibuster

"Look, we won't always be in the majority," Mr. McCain told MSNBC's "Hardball" host Chris Matthews Thursday night. "I say to my conservative friends, someday there will be a liberal Democrat president and a liberal Democrat Congress. Why? Because history shows it goes back and forth. I don't know if it's a hundred years from now, but it will happen. And do we want a bunch of liberal judges approved by the Senate of the United States with 51 votes if the Democrats are in the majority?"

Bringing the case against judges

Judges Make Their Case

The Latest News on Filibusters

History of the Filibuster

http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-axis12.html

The agents turned up Thursday evening, just before the public opening of "Axis of Evil, the Secret History of Sin," and took pictures of some of the art pieces -- including "Patriot Act," showing President Bush on a mock 37-cent stamp with a revolver pointed at his head.

"It frightens me ... as an artist and curator. Now we're being watched," Hernandez said. "It's a new world. It's a Big Brother world. I think it's frightening for any artist who wants to do edgy art."

Is this really a case of Big Brother going to far? Or just a routine, albeit thorough investigation into a possible threat to the President?