The great Chicago Shoot Out

8 Dead out of 52 shot in Chicago

Soooo how are those Zero Tolerance no Guns Allowed laws working out for you?

Russia...the New Capitalists

“Russia needs a real investment boom”, in order to achieve its modernisation goals, he said. To stimulate that, Mr Medvedev announced Moscow would introduce zero taxation on capital gains for companies working on long-term investments starting from January next year and said Russia was improving the legal system to provide better protection for businesses against the long arm of bureaucracy.

He added Russia had already simplified migration procedures to help attract “highly-qualified specialists” working in investment and high-tech sectors into the country.

Responding to criticism that Russia’s approach to building an innovation economy was driven from the top down and state interference could hinder development, Mr Medvedev said the state would concentrate its efforts on fostering a good business climate. “No matter how many state-owned companies we have, modernization will happen, above all, through private business. And only if there is competition,” he said. “The state should not tear down the apples from the tree of economics. What the government should do is help grow our apple orchard, develop our economic environment.”

Seems to me that that sounds an awful lot like Capitalism...minimal government intrusion, zero capital gains taxes....cutting taxes to increase investment and spending...hmmm where have I heard that?

The article can be found here:

Everyone needs to read Home on the Range

Find her Brigid's writings here for the rest of this work:

The Right to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. The phrase, penned by Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence and written 11 years before the U.S. Constitution was adopted, is said to have been influenced by the writings of John Locke, who expressed a similar concept of life, liberty and estate (property) in his work.

What is a Right? It's a principal that defines and sanctions a man's freedom of action within a social framework. There are many rights, but the one true right is the right to life, not in the context of the right to be born, but a man's right to his own life.
What is liberty? Again, I think Jefferson was somewhat influenced by the words of John Locke, who said in The Second Treatise of Civil Government (1690) -

The natural liberty of man is to be free from
any superior power on earth, and not to be under
the will or legislative authority of man,
but to have only the law of nature for his rule...
freedom of men under government is, to have
a standing rule to live by, common to every one
of that society...
and not to be subject to the inconstant, uncertain, unknown,
arbitrary will of another man....

Life and liberty as integral parts to a whole. He goes on to say:

This freedom from absolute, arbitrary power,
is so necessary to, and closely joined with a man’s preservation,
that he cannot part with it,
but by what forfeits his preservation and life together:
for a man, not having the power of his own life,
cannot, by compact, or his own consent,
enslave himself to any one....

A very provocative article

What is wrong with the President? One Shrink takes a stab at the analysis here

Correction

Apparently my graph understates the problem....but you can hardly fault people for using the data the government provides.....I didnt expect them to lowball the estimates by an order of magnitude :P My bad, I should know by now, NEVER ever under any circumstances believe anything coming from Barry or his staff :/

Do not believe the hype and hysteria

Oil spills in perspective. (source was the Limbaugh Web site.)