WMD

I have sacrificed my precious social life to bring this week’s article to you, my readers. I should be up at the Winter X Games 2006 in the liberal and obscenely rich town of Aspen, Colorado. As anyone can guess, the Winter X Games for a snowboarder such as myself are the Olympics of the snowboard industry. I wanted to go watch a little bit, but I decided to stay at home and do my blog article this week (and get some study time in for several upcoming tests). With that said, let’s get to this week’s article.

Perhaps we finally are starting to see signs of the old adage “You cannot avoid the truth forever.” Recently el número dos general in Saddam Hussein’s military, General Georges Sada, revealed a bit of information that has proven to be acidic to the liberal story on weapons of mass destruction. General Sada explains that before the war, two airline pilots told him that Saddam's Republican Guard loaded chemical weapons onto two converted civilian aircraft, which the pilots then flew into Syria under the banner of humanitarian relief.

This makes sense to any reasonably open-minded person on several levels. First and foremost, it is still hard to believe the United States, France, Russia, Germany, Great Britain and Israel were all wrong concerning the weapons of mass destruction. However, feelings do not make evidence (that is hard for liberals to grasp, I know). However, we gave Saddam plenty of time to ship his weapons elsewhere. We openly debated with the world about the War On Terror’s Iraqi Theatre for months. It is logical, however, to assume Saddam would have shipped his weapons outside the country. By doing this, he would ensure his own survival. How so you may ask? It is simple if you think about it. If no weapons were ever found, Saddam could plead an illegal war removed him from power. Under a liberal court system, that could be enough to lighten his sentence (if he were in Vermont, that would be enough to clear him of all charges with an official apology from the State of Vermont). When you add these three events together (several intelligence agencies claiming he had weapons, months of debate prior to war, and survival in court), shipping the weapons off to another country not only seems plausible, but also logical.

Now, as this story gains more speed (like the snowboards at the X Games), the liberals will be faced with a slightly uncomfortable situation. Is it possible that President Bush told the truth after all? This would be a most unfortunate position for Mother Sheehan and the like. In fact, the only thing the liberals will be able to do in this situation is their standard approach – smear tactics. They will smear this general as a delusional right-wing agent of some sort. This is to be expected. But never fear, for as the old adage says, “You cannot avoid the truth forever.”

Another fine lesson from Conservative Textbook.

The Environment

he elevation is nearly 12,000 ft. above sea level. Surrounding me on three sides are towering mountains forming a bowl several miles in diameter. The bowl is buried beneath a double-digit snow pack. In all directions, the cliffs and mountains that reach to the sky create an eerie and beautiful landscape that is my own private world. Few venture this high; the snow is deep, the powder is high, the temperature is several degrees below 0 Fahrenheit. The wind blows at my face, its cold bite nips at my protective garb. I pull my goggles tighter around my eyes. They tighten against my helmet. My face mask keeps my face warm, yet I still feel the cold chill of the wind. Feeling ready, I take one last look at my thin air, treeless, Rocky Mountain alpine domain where I can count on my gloved hand how many other humans are in a 10 mile radius – five. I rise to my feet, adjusting momentarily to the awkward feeling of being nearly bolted to a board. Leaning forward, I begin to slide. As I quickly adjust from looking at the mountains and begin to look at the two-foot deep powder in front of me, I realize the cold, the wind, the merciless mountains, and the human devoid land I am in is what I live for during the winter months. It is at this point my snowboard begins to take true speed as I descend down the alpine mountains of Loveland Ski Area.

Sounds fun, doesn’t it? Snowboarding, one of the more dangerous sports a teen such as myself can choose from, is the most invigorating and adrenalin-rushing sport I have ever participated in during my brief life of 18 years. This sport, along with the older and more refined sport of skiing, is world famous and a cash machine for Colorado and other western states (although Colorado is the best for skiing/snowboarding).

It is not just the rush that I enjoy with snowboarding. The scenic opportunities are remarkable with the sport. Though I am a native Coloradoan, I would never venture into an alpine bowl during the winter months. It is simply not safe for your average hiker. The snow is too deep, the wind is too cold, and the threat of frostbite is always present. However with snowboarding, I can see sights that even my Colorado eyes would not normally see (let alone a tourist’s eyes!). Which brings up a good question – is it right to snowboard?

There is a small movement afoot to end skiing and snowboarding for the very reason I just described. There are those who desire to close the ski slopes so as to keep humans from places that they would not normally go. This, of course, is the environmental movement. The answer that logically arises from the clashing of these two movements is where do we, as humans, draw the line? Where do we draw the line between economic prosperity and environmental protection?

Being a free market capitalist, I believe in pursuing activities that will further the benefit of those who are participating in that activity. At the same time, however, I am an avid outdoorsman who loves nature. I have found a balance between these two often-differing sides.

Nature is a beauty to behold. However, even in the communist U.S.S.R. you could enjoy nature as you worked hard in life to get nowhere due to the economic policy the U.S.S.R. had in place. Prosperous production facilities produce so many of the goods we have come to take for granted such as iPods, iMacs, iBooks, and those cool little Starbucks cups. However, many times these facilities will pollute the surrounding area and will cause nature to die on several levels.

The line must be drawn at a very distinct point. What liberals and environmentalists many times desire is a pristine world… where humans are not allowed to venture into nature and enjoy that pristine world. Ultimately, this philosophy leads to the idea that man is the problem on the Earth. It is therefore to nature’s benefit that we lessen man’s impact by lowering man’s numbers. This, of course, is a very dangerous policy. Under the right government, such a policy is a recipe for genocide.

I have come to the decision that the best balance between capitalism and environmentalism is freedom. It is paramount that the freedom to pursue activities that will benefit you stay intact. If people cannot freely go out and participate in something that will benefit them, then we are not much better than communists. However, such benefits must be taken into account in the light of the environment they very well might affect.

Let’s take an example I saw once in a textbook I had for school. Let us say that we have several factories that produce the all-important iPods. These factories, however, produce air pollution. This is very unfortunate. However, iPods are a titanic product that consumers desire. Therefore, the two sides in this situation are the producers and the environmentalists. What is the best way to solve such a problem? Believe it or not, I have come to the decision that the best way to solve a pollution problem such as the one described above is with taxation. Before you fall over in you seat, however, let me explain how this would work.

Legislation would be passed that increases a tax on pollution. The tax bill would simply say that producers have the option of either lowering their pollution or paying the tax and maintaining their pollution level. This is the capitalistic thing to do. The beauty of such a tax is that it is business-friendly. If a producer decides that is more costly to continue polluting than pay the tax, the producer will lower the pollution levels of the factory. When that occurs, the producer will no longer have to pay the tax. In this case, the producer is not penalized by taxes, and the environmentalists are satisfied.

What happens though when another factory finds it is more costly to lesson pollution than to pay the tax? Then the producer will simply pay the tax. In this case, the business is allowed to continue, but at the same time the producer is paying the public for the right to pollute.

There is one major distinction I must make before I leave this topic. Many of you might consider my idea of taxing pollution a liberal/socialist idea. A casual glance at it may produce such a feeling. However, there is a titanic difference between my tax idea and a standard liberal tax. Let us take the above example again. My tax on pollution can be avoided; if the business finds it more costly to continue polluting, then the business will find a way to stop polluting and will therefore not pay the tax. The pollution tax, therefore, is avoidable if the business finds the tax burdensome. A liberal, on the other hand, would prefer to place a tax not on pollution but on iPods (remember, this is a set of factories that produces iPods). How can the business avoid paying the iPod tax if it wants to produce iPods? It cannot avoid paying this tax. That is a liberal tax. Other examples of liberal taxes are income, Social Security, Medicare, FUTA, and SUTA taxes. The difference between a tax by a capitalist and a tax by a liberal is that the capitalist’s tax can be avoided if it makes economic sense to do so; the liberal tax cannot be avoided.

This very simple argument solves the questions it addresses. In real life, the problems of pollution and such are much larger than this example shows. However, the idea of taxing pollution is a start.

In summary, the best way to draw the line between business and the environment is to let businesses (and by extension people) decide where that point is. I believe it is completely within government’s rights to produced incentives for a clean environment. However, those whom the incentives are directed against must have an opportunity to avoid those incentives. That is the line, ladies and gentlemen. The taxed producers must be given the option to avoid the tax by changing their habits IF it is profitable to avoid the tax.

Another fine lesson from Conservative Textbook.

Wrong, Wrong, And Again I Say Wrong

Has anyone noticed that the modern news media is not trustworthy anymore? Of course, conservatives have known this for quite some time (decades to be exact). The mainstream media has had a terrible set of years in the new millennium. In recent months, however, the mainstream media has made this most clear to any observer. Perhaps the best way to show this decline is to take you on a guided tour of a once great industry that now finds itself in the depths of embarrassment.

Let us begin with the 2000 United States Presidential Election. If you will recall, there was a slight mix-up with voter predictions in Florida that year. As you will also recall, the media declared Gore the winner of Florida’s electoral votes. However, as the truth eventually came out, it became clear that Bush had won the election. Nevertheless, the media declared a winner without all the facts. Keep that in mind as we continue on our journey.

During the months before the War on Terrorism’s Iraqi Theatre, the media had discovered the fact that this war could cost more lives in the American military than any other war in modern history. Of course, that didn’t quite happen after all. Nevertheless, the media declared the causalities for the war without consulting the military first (or waiting for the war to start).

Slightly before the 2004 Presidential election, the mainstream media executed a major mistake. This mistake consisted of Dan Rather, CBS, and Mary Mapes. Forged documents were found that claimed President Bush had left the military on several occasions when it was not lawful to leave. These documents were probably worked up on Microsoft Word as it turns out, not a typewriter. Odd, isn’t it, that the editors didn’t catch that little mistake.

When we finally came around to the 2004 United States elections, the media was in less than perfect shape. However, they opened their wounds even larger when they declared Kerry as president before the votes were even counted (do you see a pattern here?). The exit polls, which had been stocked with extra Democrats to throw off the results, were taken as fact by the media. When the real votes were counted and the results disagreed with what the media had been declaring all night as a Kerry victory, the media was speechless (some reports believed the real votes were wrong and the exit polls were correct, but that’s a different story).

Recently, we heard about "rape rooms" in the Superdome of New Orleans. As it turns out, the media was reporting on rumors that had not been confirmed by the proper processes. There were also rumors of over 100,000 deaths in New Orleans that also proved to be untrue. In this crisis, the media relied on rumors far more than facts.

Quite recently, the mining crisis in West Virginia proved to be very damaging on the media. In a rush to be the first with the status of the missing miners, the media outlets relied on shouts from the mines as their information source without first verifying that the miners had been found. As it turns out, these shouts were not good sources to use. The miners had been found, but they were not alive. This mess-up angered the nation and bloodied the nose of the media once again.

I could go on and on about media mistakes that have cost lives (Korans down the toilet), media ineptness on business reporting (this one strikes deep for me since my career will no doubt be in business), and a host of other issues. Perhaps this shows how important the new media of talk radio, blogs, and the Internet really is to the news. Perhaps this is just a sign that the old media is truly wallowing in the mud of their past, yet claiming glory.

Another fine lesson from Conservative Textbook.

Run, Wal-Mart, Run Part II

The Dude Page
Excerpts from Run, Wal-Mart, Run
April 7, 2005

The General Assembly in Maryland has voted to enact a law that is designed to hurt Wal-Mart and Wal-Mart alone. The bill would require organizations with more than 10,000 employees to spend at least 8 percent of their payroll on health benefits, or put the money directly into the state's health program for the poor. Wal-Mart is the ONLY company in the state that fits that description. Wal-Mart has 15,000 some employees. Being a smart company, Wal-Mart has said that this might make it abandon further projects in the state…. Keep in mind that it is the Democrats who believe that this country’s economy is dying, and that the poor cannot afford anything. If this is really the case, then why are they driving away Wal-Mart? They are socialists, that is why.

I have a very simple solution for both the state of Maryland and Wal-Mart. The state should enact that law, and Wal-Mart should move from the state. Move just over the border into other states. That way, the Democrats get their wish for fewer or no Wal-Marts, and Wal-Mart can take the jobs away from that state to a state that will appreciate them. That is a wonderful idea. I hope it happens so that it will teach a lesson to the Democrats. Businesses will not stay in a country, state, county, or city that is unfriendly to business.

I knew we’d see this story again. That is why I have all The Dude Page articles stored on my stylish Apple PowerBook G4. The year is now 2006, and the liberals feel the time is right to proceed with this law again. In May of 2005, Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. vetoed the law because of the Maryland Chamber of Commerce’s statement that the law was illegal and went against federal law.

The Democrats are at it again as I said. This time, however, they are back with the wrath of over a year of waiting. Their allies in the labor unions are at their side again, and this time the unions are not satisfied with just Maryland becoming unfriendly to business; the labor unions in 31 states are requiring large employers to spend more on health care benefits or contribute to Medicaid this year. States these unions are aiming for include: Colorado, Connecticut and Washington (On a side note, this is a brilliant strategy. All three of these states are liberal. There is no doubt in my mind they will win in these states, which will increase morale for the entire campaign. That’s just a side note though).

Being a business major (well… in 7 months I will be), I could easily argue how this plan will hurt business and the general public. However, I will let the professionals explain it to you.

Sarah Clark is a Wal-Mart spokesperson. She told the press more than three-quarters of the company's 1.3 million employees have health insurance, either through work, their family or Medicare.

"They should focus on solving the nation's health care challenges, not attacking companies that provide families with access to affordable health insurance," she said.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce said the unions' effort, if successful, would make it harder for companies to survive. Bruce Josten of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce said U.S. companies already have to pay for health care costs, unlike competitors in Europe and Asia.

When you read this, you probably see the logic in this, unless of course you believe in the U.S.S.R. style of life. However, there is something simply profound in the above excerpts that many of you might not have noticed – unlike competitors in Europe and Asia. I believe these attacks on free enterprise are a two-phase plan by the Left to fundamentally change the way the United States operates.

The first stage is simple – force companies to pay obscenely high health care packages for their employees. Most people know companies will not do this and NOT change their practices. Companies, in an effort to maintain profitability, will raise prices, cut employee pay, or shift their health care over to the government. Management will recognize that the third option, the government, is probably the best option for the company to maintain profitability and satisfy the liberals. Does the phrase “unlike competitors in Europe and Asia” seem more logical now? Liberals, I believe, are attempting to force businesses into socialism by making businesses dependent on the government for services they have to provide for their employees. Of course, we all know where socialism leads – double digit unemployment (10% for France, 11% for Germany, etc.), incredibly long unemployment spells, and a disincentive to work hard because it will get you nowhere in life.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is what socialism brings you. This, ladies and gentlemen, is what labor unions, Hillary RODHAM Clinton and millionaire Senator Rockefeller desire for you. The first way they’ll go about getting this for you is by attacking successful American companies so that the American companies will become dependent on the government.

Another fine lesson from the Conservative Textbook.