Not really. I made that up. But it is ironic that, in regard to two different strange tribes, "authorities" are saying in one case "leave these people alone" and in the other case "you will adhere to our standards." In the case of primitive tribes like the one recently discovered in the Amazon they prescribe exceptional measures to ensure that the tribes can continue to live their lives as they see fit without outside interference. In the case of the relatively modern and civilized FLDS sect in Texas they prescribe exceptional measures to force the members to live like the authorities want them to live.

In which tribe do you think the children are most abused? How many of the Amazon tribe's girls do you think make it to 18 before giving birth? How many do you think live to be 18?

Granted, I'm talking about two different sets of authorities, but this demonstrates how little confidence we should have in authorities. Authorities are consistent in only one way; they have laws, rules or procedures that allow them to do most anything they want to do. And they will want to do more and more unless we resist. Although they have eroded over the years we have checks and balances built into our method of government. But the greatest check against the oppressive power of government is the people.

Referring to the aerial photographing of the Amazon tribe, Fiona Watson of Survival International, said:

It is understood that when the plane first flew over the village, the people scattered into the forest. When it returned a few hours later they had painted themselves red and fired arrows into the sky.

They must have suffered some sort of trauma in the past and must know that contact is not a good thing.

Perhaps they've been talking to the FLDS sect in Texas.

---

Liberals can't make up their minds whether marriage is a good thing or a bad thing. For decades now people have been downplaying the importance of marriage. It is said that the personal commitment that couples make to one another is what is important, not the legal document that the government issues when they marry. It has become fashionable for couples to live together and produce offspring without the legal ceremony of marriage.

But somehow all that has apparently changed. Homosexual couples insist that the right to legally marry is extremely important to them. If what I read is correct gays and lesbians tend to be socially, if not politically, liberal. Do they not have liberal heterosexual friends or acquaintances who can inform them of the advantages of just living together and the disadvantages of legal marriage? Or do they just want the right to marry so they can then thumb their noses at the same-sex couples who actually enter into a "conventional" marriage?

So, why would a liberal insist that it is not important for a man and woman to marry but that it is important for two men or two women to marry? Simply because they know that social conservatives want the exact opposite. Social conservatives want to maintain conventions and institutions that have worked reasonably well for thousands of years but social liberals want to tear them down. Liberals think they can design better ones; unfortunately their products always require the force of government to work.

It is ironic that getting government involved in the institution of marriage was a liberal act. It was felt that the act should be standardized, legalized and controlled. If it had been left as a cultural or religious act the homosexuals could long ago have set up their own process for marriage. It wouldn't have been recognized by Baptists, but neither would the homosexuals have had to recognize Baptist marriage.

---

About a month ago I e-mailed this message to info@gop.com:

I received an e-mail from you asking me to donate to John McCain's campaign. My position is very simple. Get McCain to change his mind and commit to extracting oil from ANWR and the lower Gulf of Mexico and I will make a very generous donation to his campaign.

This week he stated that he favors letting the states decide if they want to allow oil exploration and extraction off their shores and that he would reconsider his opposition to drilling in ANWR. That's not quite what I asked for but it's close enough. I'm not under any pretense that my message alone caused McCain to change his mind but I feel that I should hold up my end of the bargain.

Here's my next challenge for McCain. Make this announcement in a major speech and I will make a second contribution of double the amount of the first one:

As President you will oppose the revival of the Lieberman-Warner global warming bill and that you will veto it if it is passed by Congress. You have reconsidered the pros and cons of the bill and you now feel that the cons outweigh the pros. Chief among the cons is the devastating economic effect on the poor working class.

I have e-mailed the text of this post to the GOP.

On a related note, I heard Barack Obama criticizing McCain's revised stance on oil drilling. He said that drilling offshore and in ANWR won't lower fuel prices today, tomorrow, next week, next year or even in five years. Well Barack, what about in six years or ten years? Even at my age I think I might need some fuel ten years from now and would like to think I'll be able to afford it on my fixed retirement income. I thought leadership was about where we're going, not where we are.

---

It costs a lot to get reelected to Congress. So the incumbents are willing to take your money and my money to help ease their pain. Not directly, mind you. Devious politicians never do anything directly. After all, it wouldn't be devious if it was direct. The AP reports:

A mortgage aid plan is on track for passage in the Senate as soon as today. The massive foreclosure rescue bill cleared a key Senate test yesterday by an overwhelming margin, with Democrats and Republicans both eager to claim election-year credit for helping hard-pressed homeowners.

The mortgage aid plan would let the Federal Housing Administration back $300 billion in new, cheaper home loans for an estimated 400,000 distressed borrowers who otherwise would be considered too financially risky to qualify for government-insured, fixed-rate loans.

So all those people who have already demonstrated that they are poor risks for loans are going to get another loan backed by you and me. The Senate wants the loans to go as high as $625,000 and the House wants to up that to $730,000. Think about that. If someone with a bad credit rating wants to spend nearly three-quarters of a million dollars to buy a house, you and I are going to be forced to guarantee them a loan -- if the House has its way. President Bush has said that he will veto the bill if it is passed, but that is because he doesn't like some of its provisions.

Some of the lawmakers are pushing to make the bill revenue neutral. But who believes that will happen? If a lot of the "400,000 distressed borrowers" weren't expected to default on their loans they wouldn't need to have the tax-payers backing them.

What this bill is really about is a way for a bunch of well-connected builders to get rid of their over-built inventory of over-priced houses. What a stroke of political genius! Use tax-payer money to reward big reelection campaign donors and buy the votes of over-indulgent borrowers at the same time. I'm still looking for the day when such strategies backfire, but I'm afraid I'm looking in vain.

---

Barack Hussein Obama's solution to the high fuel cost problem is to raise the cost of fuel. He wants to impose a "windfall profits tax" on the oil companies, which will of course be passed on to fuel users. After noticing that the oil companies are still making a nice profit, Barack will probably push to raise his windfall profits tax and so on. Apparently the man hates profits. Never mind that his largest constituent base's retirement funds depend heavily on corporate profits.

And there's this other little fact that Barack ignores. The government profits a lot more than the oil companies from each gallon of fuel sold. Some estimates show the government profiting three times as much. Do you think Barack will levy a windfall profits tax on the government?

Since I was a teenager the percent increase in the cost of a Coca-Cola is as much or more than a gallon of fuel. And it has been reported that Coca-Cola's profit rate last year was greater than the oil companies' profit rates (where profit rate is roughly defined as the amount of profit divided by the amount of money invested in making that profit.) But we don't hear any calls from Barack for a windfall profits tax on Coca-Cola.

Some people point out that the concern is about the "obscene" amount of the oil company profits, not the profit rate. Well, that's like complaining to a bank that your neighbor is making more off his savings than you although both of you are getting the same interest rate, while ignoring the fact that your neighbor has ten times as much money in his account as you have in yours.

It is also argued that the focus is on the oil companies because their products are essential to our everyday lives and products like Coca-Cola are not. Well genius, that is why the oil companies' gross revenues and profits are huge compared to companies like Coca-Cola. In times of shortages it is easier to do without Coke than fuel.

It is also worth noting that liberal Democrats will argue at the same time that oil is essential to our everyday lives and that we should implement extreme measures to limit its supply.

---