In The Wall Street Journal,

an editorial about, "all that's right with our great country", includes: "Blogging. The 24-7 opinion sites that offer free speech at its straightest, truest, wildest, most uncensored, most thoughtful, most strange. Thousands of independent information entrepreneurs are informing, arguing, adding information. Imagine if we'd had them in 1776: 'As I wrote in yesterday's lead item on SamAdams.com, my well meaning cousin John continues his grammatical nitpicking with Jefferson (link requires registration) "Inalienable," "unalienable," whatever. Boys, let's fight. Start the war.' Blogs may one hard day become clearinghouses for civil support and information when other lines, under new pressure, break down."

More Peace in Israel

A suicide bomber killed an Israeli soldier and two Palestinians at an army roadblock on Thursday as conflict in the Gaza Strip spilled over into the West Bank.

Israeli officials, blaming the attack on Islamic Jihad, said the bomber was on his way to attack a civilian target in Israel when his taxi was stopped by soldiers at a temporary checkpoint near the West Bank town of Tulkarem.

The army said the bomber detonated his explosives when he was challenged, killing an accomplice and the taxi driver as well as an Israeli officer.

Islamic Jihad has been responsible for most recent rocket fire directed at Israel from the Gaza Strip, a barrage that prompted Israel this week to establish a no-go buffer zone in the north of the territory. The rocket strikes appeared to be a response to Israeli threats to eradicate the militant organisation.

But I thought when Israel gave the Gaza Strip to the "Palestinians", there would be peace in the Middle East.

Lessons of Russia's Gas Attacks

Today in St. Petersburg, Russia attacks using gas IEDs were launched against several hardware stores. Fox News is reporting that the Russians suspect that a rival hardware chain store may have launched the attack as part of a dispute the two businesses were having.

The lesson is that capitalism and the free market cannot exist without a rule of law that applied equally to all. The laws and the judicial system provide a means for entities and individuals to solve disputes peacefully. In Russia, according to the World Bank, Russia has high levels of corruption, respect for the rule of law is low, Russians have a difficult time expressing their opinions and having influence on their government, and the Russian government is unstable among less than ideal conditions for capitalism to thrive. Without the protections of the rule of law and a government whose sole role is to protect life, liberty, and property; anarchy prevails and anarchy, despite what many anarcho-capitalists would like to you to believe, usually leads to the rule of the gun where property rights are non-existant (ie. Somalia). The rule of the gun leads to tyranny as people cry for someone to restore some resemblance of order, such as the Russian people demanded Vladimir Putin restore order after the near-anarcharic rule of Boris Yeltsin. I think we can safely call Putin a dictator.

What Russia must do is combat political corruption and restore the rule of law, not the rule of a tyrant and the mafia in order to combat incidents like today's gas attack. It also wouldn't hurt for the Russians to develop a truly free and democratic system of government. Freedom makes people wealthier where as tyranny and anarchy keep people poorer.

Christmas Eve Quick Hits

Osama's niece poses for sexy photographs.

US and Japan move to develop a joint missile defense system. This will be used in an attempt to deter North Korea.

Google buys 5% of AOL. There may possibly be an AOL IPO as early as 2008.

Judge strikes down California's restrictions on violent video games. He found that this ban violated free speech rights, and he's right.

Muslim homes and mosques monitored for radiation. This only makes sense given the violent nature of the Religion of Peace.

Bethlehem see largest turnout since 2000. All I've got to say is useful idiots.

Congressional Black Caucus Holds Back Money From Katrina Victims

The Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, which slammed the Bush administration for its allegedly slow and racially insensitive response to Hurricane Katrina, has yet to spend any of the estimated $400,000 that it raised for the victims of the Aug. 29 storm.

"We are collecting all the way up through the very end of the year and then our board has set aside a committee who is going to administer the funds," Patty Rice, spokeswoman for the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation (CBCF), told Cybercast News Service on Wednesday. The Foundation is an offshoot of the Congressional Black Caucus and was founded in 1976.

In the days immediately following the hurricane, with parts of the Louisiana and Mississippi coastline demolished and the city of New Orleans under water as a result of broken levees, members of the Congressional Black Caucus condemned the Bush administration's handling of storm relief efforts.

A few brief questions and observations:

1) The Black Caucus has no plans to raise or distribute much money for Katrina victims. They wanted the issue as a means of attacking Bush.

2) The Black Caucus wants to make sure only the correct victims (ie. black and Democrat "Katrina survivors") are helped.

3) Where did they find enough dupes to raise $400,000?

4) Later in the article, the Black Caucus claimed in September to have raised $700,000 but now in December they claim to have only $400,000. Where did the other $300,000 go?

Christmas Wars Come To Wal-Mar

    A group of religious protesters demonstrated outside a Wal-Mart superstore Saturday, hoping to turn away customers by calling attention to the retailer's decision to use "happy holidays" rather than "merry Christmas" in its seasonal advertising.

    But even shoppers who agreed with the protesters weren't willing to interrupt their quest for holiday deals.

    "I believe in Christ, and I don't like the use of 'xmas' or the use of 'happy holidays,'" said Steven Van Noy, 39, as he left the store loaded down with packages. "The bottom line is that they had what I needed at Wal-Mart, so I went to Wal-Mart to buy it."

    Controversy over the secularization of Christmas is nothing new, but this year religious groups are publicly taking on retailers who have decided to tone down the religious aspects of the holiday in their store decorations and promotional material.



What is Wal-Mart supposed to do, pretend that Jews and others who don't believe in Christ's birth don't exist and pander to that small segment of insecure Christians who must have "Merry Christmas" plastered on every building and said by every employee? Non-Christians do live in America and the sooner these insecure Christians realize that, the happier they'll be.

This "War on Christmas" is largely the invention of the Fox News Channel, certain lectures at the Heritage Foundation, lawyers such as those at the Alliance Defense Fund, and advocacy groups such as the American Family Association who even maintains a list of evil secularist companies. This is a season for all the above to rattle the tin cup, flex some political muscle, and turn the spotlight toward themselves. There is no grand liberal war on Christmas. I can go outside and tell people "Merry Christmas" without being thrown out of a store or out of a public place. Most towns in this nation will put up a nativity scene will very little if any fuss. The police will not arrest me if I try to go to midnight mass on Christmas.

The reason why certain business don't say "Merry Christmas" and say "Happy Holidays" is because they want the money of people who celebrate Christmas and people who don't care whether or not you say "Merry Christmas" or "Happy Holidays". Those people outnumber the easily offended and insecure members of the religious right. What these insecure Christians don't realize is that America is a live and let live country. If you are so offended that a business doesn't say "Merry Christmas", don't patronize them, that's your right. However, don't ruin this season for Christians who are more secure in their faith and those who don't even acknowledge Christ.

First Three Steps To Reclaiming Liberty in America

The first three things I would do to restore liberty in America are:

1) End witholding. If the American people actually had to write a check to the Federal and state government every two weeks, we would have lower taxes and possibly a simplier tax code and system almost instantly.

2) End the War on (some) Drugs. This little "war" has given us no-knock raids, restrictions on how much money we can carry, intrusive money laundering laws, sets the stage for excessive foreign interventions, increases crime which leads to other measures limiting freedom, and much more. This makes the Patriot Act seem modest by comparison.

3) Limit the government's ability to take property through eminent domain and other bureaucratic edicts.

I'm curious to know your ideas to restoring liberty in America.