Say what you will about the Americans, but we're pretty good at turning former bitter enemies into some of our closest allies.

Vietnam may be taking the first steps down that path, as Fred Stakelbeck observes at TCS Daily:

What was unthinkable only a decade ago has now become reality. The U.S. and Vietnam realize that beyond the shadows of mistrust and suspicion, lie similar aspirations and values which can be used for their mutual benefit. Vietnam is determined to take its place among other Asian countries in the global economy, and views the U.S. as a key partner that can help it meet its long-term objectives. New geopolitical realities, most notably China's growing influence in Southeast Asia and the creation of regional alliances such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), will also continue to bring both countries closer together.

The continuing growth of China's power makes a more favorable strategic relationship between the U.S. and Vietnam desirable for both sides--possibly moreso for Vietnam than for America.

At the American Spectator, Paul Miller observes (emphasis added):

In Chicago Congressional lawmakers including Jan Schawkowsky (D-IL) and Danny Davis (D-IL) addressed the crowd calling for the murders in Darfur to stop. Neither of them offered any solutions to the crisis. Like every rally in America featuring leftists speakers, the crowd held signs and made statements criticizing the Bush administration for not doing anything. The fact that President Bush is the only world leader to characterize the tragedy in the Sudan as genocide is completely ignored by a crowd who view hating Bush a priority over saving lives.
. . .
I also must ask the following question to the leftists who claim they are concerned about Darfur. Why are the people of Darfur more important that the people of Iraq? You cry for an end to the tragedy and a few go as far as to call for NATO and UN intervention. But when Saddam Hussein was mass murdering Kurds your voices mostly were silent and adamantly opposed to any military action to save the those massacred men, woman and children.

Making the rounds on the Internet is this amusing little spectacle:

Steve Spengler's Pop & Mentos Fountains

 

We're planning to have some fun with this at my sister Betty's gala 4th of July Extravaganza. If I remember, we'll try to take some video.

(We're also going to a fireworks show at a local fireworks warehouse tonight--buy tonight and get 20% off. We're planning to buy $500 of fireworks this year, so the savings will be significant. Maybe we can apply that 20% to . . . MORE FIREWORKS!!! YAY!!!!)

P.S. Steve Spengler appears to spend an awful lot of time thinking about soda pop.

Hat tip:  my very own Snookums.

From GatewayPundit, a story in USA Today (additional hat tip: Right on the Right):

The country that executed more than four times as many convicts as the rest of the world combined last year is slowly phasing out public executions by firing squad in favor of lethal injections. Unlike the United States and Singapore, the only two other countries where death is administered by injection, China metes out capital punishment from specially equipped "death vans" that shuttle from town to town.

Makers of the death vans say the vehicles and injections are a civilized alternative to the firing squad, ending the life of the condemned more quickly, clinically and safely. The switch from gunshots to injections is a sign that China "promotes human rights now," says Kang Zhongwen, who designed the Jinguan Automobile death van in which "Devil" Zhang took his final ride.

As GatewayPundit notes, the Chinese are strongly suspected of harvesting organs from their populace for sale in the lucrative organ transplant business. That they now have killer RV's is just way too creepy for words.

Oops, forgot the picture . . .

Chinese RV of Death

Cassandra at Tigerhawk mourns with Elton John and other like political science experts the loss of freedom in America:

It's a sad day when Hollywood artists cower in their gated mansions while George Bush's war machine crushes our precious freedoms flatter than Rachel Corrie; when the last feeble whispers of protest are drowned out by a hail of National Guard bullets:

"There was a moment about a year ago when you couldn't say a word about anything in this country for fear of your career being shot down by people saying you are un-American."

I don't know, I don't see very much cowering.

On the other hand, this reminds me to dig out my one Dixie Chicks CD, and run it over with my car a couple of times.  Possibly a Neil Young CD or two, as well, then mail the debris back to those patriotic Americans.  (Oh, Neil is Canadian?  Whatever.)  Just exercising my freedom of speech rights, don'tcha know.

Writing in Human Events Online, Cato Institute senior fellow Alan Reynolds explains (about as clearly as an economist can) why tax increases never raise as much as the politicians claim, while tax cuts actually increase the tax revenue collected:

More than a dozen highly regarded studies have shown that the amount of income reported by those facing the highest marginal tax rates is extremely sensitive to changes in those tax rates. This is measured by the "elasticity" (responsiveness) of taxable income.

Translated into English:  rich people are not stupid.  If you raise tax rates, they will figure out ways to avoid the tax.  Economists call this "elasticity."

. . .

What all this means is that cutting the top tax rate in half has resulted in much more income being reported and taxed in every country that tried it -- the United States, United Kingdom, New Zealand and India, for example. Some mistakenly imagined that proved the rich suddenly became richer when U.S. tax rates fell from 1986 to 1988. What it actually proved was that the rich reported more taxable income when tax rates on an extra dollar became more reasonable. These facts are not seriously in dispute regardless what portion of this widely observed "Laffer Curve" phenomenon was due to a change in actual income (a supply-side effect) or to a change in the proportion reported to tax collectors.

Translated into English:  no, really, rich people are not stupid.  If the government takes less in taxes, the rich people have less incentive to find ways to shield their income/assets from taxation.  It's more of a pain in the a$$ to shield their income than it is to just pay the tax.  Plus, taxable sources of income (stocks, real estate, etc.) tend to have higher rates of return than non-taxable sources (municipal bonds, etc.), so actual income increases. 

It's simply human nature.  Some people of course have difficulty with the concept of people acting like people.  Using Reynolds' words at the end of his essay:

Get over it.

Whole Foods Market CEO John Mackey comments on the "freedom movement," in a story posted at the Ludwig von Mises Institute:

"The freedom movement remains a small, relatively unimportant movement in the United States today," he writes. "As a businessman who knows something about marketing and branding, I can tell you the freedom movement is branding itself very poorly."

By incorrect branding, Mackey means that too much emphasis about individual freedom has been focused on side issues, such as the legalization of drugs, and not enough on the big picture. Instead, he maintains, if it's to have any chance of having a mass appeal, the freedom movement will have to consciously create a broad and inspiring vision, an idealism that addresses the direct correlation between economic freedom and societal progress.

The freedom movement, libertarians, and free market economists, he writes, have done a poor job of defending the social legitimacy of business, economic freedom, capitalism, individualism and free markets. The message should be that business, working through free markets, has arguably been the world's greatest force for human progress and our collective well-being, delivering increased prosperity, less poverty, extended longevity and democratic freedoms.

I've wondered about this for a long time.  How can freedom and liberty, two bedrock foundations of our country and fundamental principles of classical liberal Western civilization, be so horribly, completely misunderstood by so many people for such a long time?  How does a dangerous concept like "fairness" come to be more respected than "liberty?"

Hat tip:  FreeRepublic.

The Kansas City Star has an article reporting that a subdivision planned in Kansas City suburb of Lenexa, Kansas will as a part of its homeowner's agreement ban sex offenders from living in the neighborhood:

In August, construction will begin on the Kansas City area's first sex-offender-restricted subdivision, probably only the second such development nationwide.

"Certainly, there are things you can do to improve a neighborhood, like pour better streets or build a park. But this is more," Texas-based developer Clayton Isom said. "We can keep one little girl or boy safe."

This is one of those issues where I'm a bit torn.  Mostly I think that people should be free to enter whatever agreements they want with each other--even neighborhood covenants.  On the other hand, even sex offenders have to live somewhere (or do they?  he asked, chuckling evilly). 

On the third hand, it seems to me that good old back-alley whuppins by the men-folk of the victim upon the offender would control sex offenders much more decisively and completely than our law enforcement system.  Perhaps that should be legalized as a part of the punishment meted out by judges to child molesters:

"I sentence you to be beaten within an inch of your very life by your victim's dad, the victim's uncles Joe, Ken, and Michael, her two brothers Victor and Ivan, and her grand-dad Pops, and after that, should you survive, then spend ten years in the State Pen taking it up the wazoo from Big Bubba the Cellblock Boss.  Oh, by the way, any relative of the victim shall also, for the rest of your natural life after your sentence is served, be allowed by Law to beat the holy bejeezus out of you if they ever, EVER lay eyes on you again. Bailiff, take the convict out back to the alley."

Gateway Pundit continues to be all over the goings-on in Iran with this post documenting the beating of Iranian Women Protesters.

The Iranian mullahs are not nice people, folks.  Do you really want them to have nukes?

In my new quest to find libertarian/center right bloggers in the greater Kansas City area, I've come across Lone Pony.  Here, she has a personal moment and decides to move forward rather than live trapped in the past:

I used to blame things on my husband:

I'm ANGRY because you went drinking and drove home and ended up in the front yard on top of that beautiful rose bush I planted. What I should have felt was disgust and pity. (Someone called me out today and made me look at myself and feel ashamed. Let's make you mad and see if you do anything about it. I feel like fighting with someone smaller than me, so that I can whip them and feel like a big man again.)

I'm INSECURE because you like trashy women. Is that the kind of woman I am??? You picked me, you picked her...am I like THAT??? (Hell no!)
. . .
I act like a BRAINLESS IDIOT because I've accepted your lies without confronting you. (It didn't take you long to train me. No wonder you don't respect me.)

Well...*censored* YOU. And shame on me. I picked you and I stuck around when you treated me badly.

I don't want to be a lonely, angry, insecure, fearful, shameful, brainless idiot.

Good for you, Lone Pony.  Do what you know is right, and do it with optimism and good cheer and without fear.  If only more people learned what you say here, the world would be a much better place:

My friends should be those who make me feel proud of who I am.

They should be the people who make it easier for me to be the person I want to be.

I used to blame things on other people. I used to think the way I felt was because of other people. But, didn't I make those choices myself? Didn't I choose to be with that person? Therefore, shouldn't I take the responsibility for my feelings and my actions?

Once again, bravo, Lone Pony!

(Irritatingly, my fingers persist in wanting to type 'pony' as 'poney.'  Grr.)

Hat tip:  The Chatterbox Chronicles.