Capitalism Paid for Your Ability to Ponder Life’s Bigger Questions
by John Reit (January 2, 2007)

Admittedly, the person I am seeing is a liberal. Luckily, she’s not irrational. She’ll listen to what I have to say, even if her instinct is not to agree with it.

Over drinks the other night, she told me about a DVD she rented called An Inconvenient Truth. I’m sure you’ve heard of it. It’s the movie version of Al Gore’s famous traveling slide show illustrating the Left’s version of why our planet is getting warmer. It goes without saying that she agreed with Gore that the problem is our love affair with industrialization. When I asked what Al would have us do about this catastrophe we are visiting upon Mother Earth, she relayed pretty much what I expected: government regulation, higher taxes, and federally mandated research into alternative fuels. More...

Bush: Link exec salaries to performance
AP via Yahoo! News (1/31/07)
NEW YORK - President Bush took aim Wednesday at lavish salaries and bonuses for corporate executives, standing on Wall Street to issue a sharp warning for corporate boards to "step up to their responsibilities" and tie compensation packages to performance. More...

If Mr. Bush was to apply this standard to himself, he would be starving and living in a cardboard box.

Minimum wage hike would help blacks: study
Reuters via Yahoo! News (1/26/07)
DALLAS (Reuters) - Proposed increases in the U.S. minimum wage would likely result in pay raises for around 2 million black workers, according to a study released this week by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies. More...

Is this what the black community should be aspring to... and by government mandate... minimum wage? Good for those 2 million black workers! What about the tens of thousands of black workers that will be unemployed because of this?

Bush to seek cutback in gas consumption
AP via Yahoo! News (1/22/07)
WASHINGTON - In his first State of the Union address to a Democratic-controlled Congress, President Bush is calling for Americans to slash gasoline consumption by up to 20 percent by 2017. More...

Nothing like a government mandate to jumpstart an economy and make goods cheaper for Americans... just look at the policies during the Great Depression!

House approves Medicare reform measure
AP via Yahoo! News (1/12/07)
WASHINGTON - The House approved legislation Friday requiring the government to negotiate with drug companies over the price of medicines for Medicare participants. More...

If you want the prices lower, how about taking away those taxes you impose on the pharaceutical companies?

Life at America's bottom wage
Christian Science Monitor via Yahoo! News (1/10/07)
MUSKOGEE, OKLA. - It's the kind of December evening when the Hosier family might want to stay home.At work all day, John Hosier has been resting on the living-room couch. Tina, his wife, has had her hands full taking care of their two young children. Yet, here they are, rolling 18-month-old Rose in a stroller with 5-year-old Donald tagging along, on a half-mile walk to the Salvation Army Church in Muskogee, Okla.

It's not just a place of worship and fellowship. The Salvation Army's affiliated store offers discounted goods and employs Mr. Hosier full time. The $6-an-hour job is the family's sole paycheck, which amounts to barely $200 a week. Even with government aid, such as food stamps, the family is on poverty's doorstep. "If it wasn't for the Salvation Army, I don't know where I'd be," Hosier says. More...

What this article won't illustrate is how statistically rare and temporary John Hosier's situation is.

Calif. gov calls for universal coverage
AP via Yahoo! News (1/8/07)
SACRAMENTO, Calif. - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Monday proposed to extend health coverage to nearly all of California's 6.5 million uninsured people, promising to spread the cost among businesses, individuals, hospitals, doctors, insurers and government. More...

Not even Republicans are fiscal conservatives anymore.

France to create 'legal right' to housing
AP via Yahoo! News (1/4/07)
PARIS (AFP) - The French government announced plans to create a "legal right" to housing in response to a snowballing campaign that has seen a tent city for the homeless spring up in the heart of Paris. More...

I don't understand. How can France have a homeless problem? I thought the liberal socialist agenda doesn't "leave anyone behind."

Bush looking at global warming ideas
AP via Yahoo! News (1/4/07)
WASHINGTON - President Bush on Thursday welcomed German Chancellor Angela Merkel's proposal to prod the Middle East peace process and said he was open to new ideas to combat global warming. More...

New ideas? How do you combat Mother Nature?

Group: ExxonMobil paid to mislead public
AP via Yahoo! News (1/3/07)
ExxonMobil Corp. gave $16 million to 43 ideological groups between 1998 and 2005 in a coordinated effort to mislead the public by discrediting the science behind global warming, the Union of Concerned Scientists asserted Wednesday. More...

The real crime is that the mainstream media will never tell you about the "scientific" global warming research that the Left finances.

Germans get incentives for having babies
AP via Yahoo! News (1/3/07)
BERLIN - When her water broke early on New Year's Eve, Julia Gotschlich was mainly thinking about the imminent birth of her second child. But she couldn't help worrying about family finances, too.

She and her husband stood to lose out on more than $13,200 if the baby arrived before midnight, when Germany's generous new family benefits took effect — part of a government effort to raise one of the lowest birthrates in Europe. More...

What would these babies think if they understood they're being conceived solely to support a failed nanny-state system?

Philadelphia Inquirer to Lay Off 68
AP via Yahoo! News (1/2/07)
PHILADELPHIA - The Philadelphia Inquirer, grappling with sharp declines in circulation and ad revenue, said Tuesday it expected to lay off 68 newsroom employees, about 16 percent of its editorial staff. Several reporters at the Inquirer, Pennsylvania's largest newspaper, said they were told Tuesday morning that their jobs were being eliminated. The employees said that they were told to meet with personnel officials Wednesday to discuss details of their severance pay and health benefits. More...