No one is more racist than a liberal, but they have gotten away with it because in recent years they've cloaked their racism in "caring" terminology. Their racism has been the condescending kind, the "soft bigotry" that views minorities as being helpless victims, incapable of making it without some big government program.

It was not always so. At one time, liberals were quite outspoken in their disdain for anyone whom we would call today "minorities" - Daniel Flynn gives an excellent synopsis of the historical racism of the American Left at:

 http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=OTc0NDgzOTlkY2MyNzJhNDgyNGNkY2JkMWQ0NGJkOWI=&w=MA==

For the most part, liberals since the 1960's have tended to focus their racial hatred on white Americans - a quick glance at an of the liberal hate sites like the Daily Kos will invariably find some vile comment directed at anything "Eurocentric," but rarely did high profile public figures dare to voice their bigotry openly and publically.

Until now.

Barely had Obama taken his oath of office when the comments began.

Reverend Lowery delivered a "prayer" at the inauguration that was about nothing BUT race, speaking in humorous, and overtly positive, rhyme about each and every racial group - except one. He ended his little ditty with the backhanded jibe "when white will embrace what is right."

In the reverend's world, only "white people" need to be told to change their ways -  "people of color" are always paragons of virtue,  immune from criticism, or even scrutiny.

Tom Brokaw opines that Obama's victory will "stick it to those Southern white guys." Gee, Tom, nice bit of stereotyping there. I'm surprised you didn't figure out a way to work the word NASCAR in there.

But perhaps the most blatant expression of the liberal view was uttered by Robert Reich, who manages to combine elitism, sexism AND racism in one sentence, stating his opposition to stimulus funds going to "skilled" workers and "white male" contractors. He actually admitted out loud that, in his view,  RACE should be the primary criterion for passing out government goodies.

All this coming from a man so insecure about his diminutive stature (he's barely visible talking over a lectern) that he once complained that he got beat up as a kid for being short by people who he is certain grew up to be "right-wing Republicans" - talk about stereotyping.

Liberals are obsessed with race. It is the prism through which they view EVERY human being who crosses their path. And it isn't just high profile politicians and media people who are afflicted with this race fixation.

We are friends with a black women who lives in Madison, Wisconsin. She has often commented that, when out with her infant in a stroller,  it is liberal women who cannot comment about her baby without reference to race: "black babies are soooo cute." She notes that women who turn out to be conservatives say simply "what a cute baby."

Speaking of NASCAR, if a team owner was approached by a black 28 year old driver, the only, and I mean ONLY, thing that "good ol' boy" owner would care about was this: can he drive. Trust me, if that young man took a car out on the track and shaved a 10th of a second off the track record, he'd have a contract in his hand in less time than a pit stop (around 17 seconds for you elitists who know nothing about NASCAR). In the real world, performance trumps everything - and in NASCAR the only "race" that matters is the one you win.

For those who thought that the election of Barak Obama would be the death knell for racial politics, I have bad news. The race hustlers like Al Sharpton and friends will not be out looking for real jobs anytime soon. If anything, they will be more intent than ever to make sure that race is always the focus of every issue in America.

Nanny - State legislators in Minnesota are running amok. First we had the ridiculous smoking ban in PRIVATE businesses, and now we have the government-knows-better-than-you mob (and they ARE a mob) clamoring for... a trans-fat ban in restaurants!

I don't know about you, but I have just about had it with these cultural fascists running around telling you and me how to live our lives. Now, other than an occasional cigar (just to annoy the anti-smoking nazis) I've never smoked in my life, and I certainly dislike the smell of cigarettes, but I dislike the idea of intrusive government even more.

And please, enough of the bogus hysteria about "second-hand smoke" - even if it were true (which it's not) if I don't like a bar, restaurant, or any other venue because it is, in my estimation, too smoke-filled, then, voila! I can go somewhere else.

Ditto if I work there - if I don't like the atmosphere, I am free to find a job somewhere else. I know, I know, those who think that both patrons and workers are helpless victims, unable to take care of themselves will say that such people "don't have a choice."

BULL!

Whether a patron or an employee, I am perfectly capable of making that decision for myself, thank you very much. And when it comes to food, I am just as capable of choosing what I will or will not eat - I don't need some snotty little bureaucrat deciding for me.

It's bad enough that many restaurant managers are so intimidated by potential lawsuits and other harassment, that I sometimes have trouble getting someone to serve me a bloody rare cheeseburger. Now they want "the government" to decide what kinds of fat are "acceptable" for me to eat?

And spare me the canard that private eating habits are a "public health issue." If I want to eat "trans-fats" then I will eat trans-fats. If some Gen-Xer wants to eat four hot-dogs and a liter of Mountain Dew for lunch, I say, let him. If I want to have my cheeseburger barely cooked, that's my business.

So, unless and until I do something that does DIRECT, VERIFIABLE, and PROVABLE HARM TO SOMEONE ELSE...

LEAVE ME ALONE!

From a friend who remembers when...

Those really were the good ol' days. Pilots all knew who Jimmy Doolittle was. They chased women, drank coffee and whiskey, and smoked cigars. They carried their own suitcases like the real men that they were.

Pilots didn't bend over into the crash position multiple times each day in front of the passengers at security so that some Government slug could probe for tweezers or fingernail clippers or too much toothpaste.

Pilots did not go through the terminal impersonating a caddy pulling a bunch of golf clubs, computers, guitars, and feed bags full of tofu and granola on a sissy-trailer with no hat and granny glasses hanging on a pink string around their pencil neck while talking to their personal trainer on the cell phone!

Back then, being an Airline Captain was as good as being the King in a Mel Brooks movie.

All the Stewardesses (aka - Flight Attendants) were young, attractive, single women who were proud to be combatants in the sexual revolution. They didn't have to turn sideways, grease up and suck it in to get through the cockpit door. They would blush and say thank you when told that they looked good, instead of filing a sexual harassment claim. Junior Stewardesses shared a room and talked about men.... with no thoughts of substitution.

Passengers wore nice clothes and were polite - they could speak and understand English. They didn't speak gibberish or listen to loud annoying rap on their Ipods. They actually bathed so they didn't smell like a rotting pile of garbage in a jogging suit and flip-flops.

Children didn't travel alone, commuting between trailer parks.

There were no foul-mouthed "gangsta's" asking for a "mu-fuggin" seat belt extension or a Scotch and grapefruit juice cocktail with a twist.

If the Captain wanted to throw some offensive, ranting jerk off the airplane, it was done without any worries of a law suit or getting fired.

Axial flow engines crackled with the sound of freedom and left an impressive black smoke trail like a locomotive burning soft coal. Jet fuel was cheap and once the throttles were pushed up they were left there, after all it was the jet age and the idea was to go fast (run like a lizard on a hardwood floor).

"Economy cruise" was something in the performance book, but no one knew why or where it was. When the "clacker" went off no one got all tight and scared because Boeing built 'em out of iron back then, so nothing was going to fall off, and that sound had a satisfying affect on real pilots then.

There was very little plastic and no composites on the airplanes (or the Stewardesses' pectoral regions). Airplanes and women had eye pleasing symmetrical curves, not a bunch of ugly vortex generators, ventral fins, winglets, and flow diverters.

Airlines were run by men like C. E. Woolman, C. R. Smith and Juan Trippe who had built their companies virtually from scratch, knew many of their employees by name, and were lifetime airline employees themselves...not "financial" types and bean counters who flit from one occupation to another for a few bucks, a better "golden" parachute, or a fancier title - while fervently believing that they are a class of beings unto themselves.

And so it was, back then....

Every where you look, the affects of the economic downturn are obvious - layoffs, cuts in wages and benefits, store and factory closings, families reevaluating their budgets to determine where they can make cuts. But, hey, in such hard times everyone has to "cut back" -  don't they?

Well, not exactly everyone.

If you are a State or Federal Government worker, not only can you be relatively certain that you won't lose your job, you probably won't even be denied your "guaranteed" raises.

But why? If private sector workers at every level are having to do with less, why should government (and by extension, government workers) be exempt from the pain?

The obvious answer is that they shouldn't. After all, every penny of a government worker's paycheck comes from those of us who work in the private sector - it only makes sense that during a downturn the burden be shared equally. But it's not.

The problem is rooted in two areas. First, the bureaucratic mindset that permeates the halls of government - NOTHING must interfere with MAINTAINING and GROWING the bureaucracy. They put on elaborate charades that make it APPEAR they are "cutting back" - but it's usually little more than that.

Bureaucratic chicanery works like this - suppose you are a high-level manager at a Government agency here in Minnesota. Faced with demands to reduce "headcount" you lay off a small number of people...only to immediately rehire them as "temporary" workers the very next day!

You get away with it because, thanks to the rather weird rules and regulations common to most governmental bodies, such workers are not included in the "permanent" head count, and voila! - a "staff reduction" is magically achieved - with no real reduction in staff! They never even have to clean out their desks! Worse - a year later these "temporary" workers' contracts get renewed - with a raise!

The second problem is simply this: every government program has a whole army of workers administering it. And the vast majority of government workers are union members who vote for Democrats, and whose union contracts are negotiated by union officials who donate heavily to Democrats.  Note that the heavily Democratic metropolitan areas around the country also have the highest concentrations of social welfare programs - and the government workers who run them. Thus no elected Democrat wants to anger a built-in voting bloc by voting to eliminate their jobs.

Sad to say, especially in the past 10 years, Republicans have become nearly as bad - attempting to buy votes from the public sector union members by throwing as much money at them as Democrats do, sometimes even more. Not surprisingly, all they succeeded in doing was to increase the number of government workers - who promptly turned around and voted Democrat.

This is why, whenever government tax revenues fall (as they inevitably do in an economic downturn), their solution is NEVER to do as the rest of us do: reduce expenditures. Oh, no. Almost invariably, some official will imperiously announce that they will be "forced" to - you guessed it - raise taxes.

And when they DO actually talk about "cutting back" have you noticed the reductions NEVER target the enormous "entitlement" programs that make up the biggest portion of both State and Federal budgets? Ditto the countless (and generally useless) social programs, and numerous public services and projects that no one really NEEDS (i.e. that new "community center" that will be used to show "global warming" movies to your kids).

No, whenever actual cuts are announced, you can be sure they will start with:

Police. Firefighters. Emergency Responders. Well, you get the picture.

So, you feel guilty, you suck it up, roll over, and agree to...yet another tax increase. And the cycle begins all over again.

And it will continue until those of us who are paying all of the bills DEMAND that government do what every one of US has to do: make the hard choices and CUT spending. And by that I do not mean a "reduction in the rate of growth" - I mean genuine CUTS.

Because there is simply no reason to continue giving government workers a free pass during tough economic times.

OK, all you naive "sportsmen" who voted for Obama (along with a whole flock of anti-gun Democrats), get ready. Because you're about to get just what you deserve. Trouble is, the rest of us who own guns are going to become your "collateral damage."

Now, this goes beyond Democrats and Republicans - a heck of a lot of my gun owning friends are Democrats. It just so happens that at this point in history, the once gun-friendly Democratic Party of my youth is now controlled by the anti-gun, anti-self-defense types like Nancy Pelosi and Charles Schumer. That's just the reality.

And YOU made it possible.

Yes, you, the "I'm just a hunter - I don't have to worry about them taking MY guns" types who vote for candidates who pass "assault weapons" bans. Oh, I forgot, YOU don't own an AR-15 or an FN-FAL, so you're willing to throw your fellow gun owners overboard for...what? False promises of "free" health care? A "stimulus" check? Or (my personal favorite) "I'm a union member, so I have to vote Democrat - the union says so."

And you, the "country club" gun owners, who proudly announce to your liberal cocktail party friends that you "don't belong to the NRA or anything" and that oh heavens, no, you don't hunt - you just shoot for "sport."

But perhaps the worst of all are the rest of you apathetic gun owners who never join a gun rights group, never call, never write, never even e-mail your representatives or senators to protect your gun rights. Because YOU are the reason we will now have an overwhelmingly anti-gun Senate and Congress, along with by far the most anti-gun President in U.S. history.

And the attacks have already begun. In 17 states so far, Democrat-led legislatures are proposing the, ahem, "Ammunition Accountability Act" - nothing short of an outrageous demand that ammunition manufacturers engrave a SERIAL NUMBER on EVERY SINGLE bullet they sell!

Such a measure will obviously do NOTHING to prevent crime or save a single life. But from a purely practical perspective, do you people have any idea what such a mandate will do to ammo prices? They will skyrocket. Ammunition prices have already gone up 70% in the past 5 years (due to the increased demand for copper and lead by China and India). Oh, sure, they've tried to say that it will cost "only" $2.50 extra per box - but the reality will surely be far worse.

Oh, and you reloaders? Well, since you will have no economical way to inscribe a unique serial number on each and every round you load, YOU will become a criminal. Yeah, yeah, I know "they'll never come after me..." Tell that to Randy Weaver...

Ah, I know what some of you hunter types are thinking - "Oh, well, I only fire a couple rounds to sight in my gun and then a few more during deer season, so I guess that isn't so bad."

Think again. Because that's only the beginning.

For example, another tactic that is gaining momentum is the banning of ALL lead bullets for hunting - just such a measure has already been proposed for deer hunting in Minnesota by (you guessed it) a suburban, female, Democrat legislator. And why? Well, it seems that after almost a century of Minnesota hunters eating deer meat (without a single case of "lead poisining" ever recorded), suddenly a few tiny grains of lead that MAY have fragmented from the bullet are a "serious threat" to public health.

The "lead phobia" is so out of control that community "food shelf" groups are turning down perfectly good deer meat! Apparently it is better to let the homeless starve than risk their ingesting a few grains of lead (which is almost always removed during processing anyway).

Oh, one other reason for banning lead - apparently someone, somewhere found a sick eagle and was oh-so-certain that it became ill by feasting on...deer guts. Ipso facto, it MUST have been due to...lead fragments!

Now, those of you who have priced solid copper bullets lately will understand what passage of such mandates will mean. If solid copper ammunition costs around $50 a box now, imagine what it will cost when they are MANDATED. But if Minnesota's 500,000 deer hunters sit silently on their lazy apathetic butts, it WILL happen.

But there's more. Taxes. In an economic downturn, state governments are looking for every opportunity to expand their tax base - and gun owners are right in their cross-hairs. Even as I write this, proposals are already being floated to:

* Add a huge tax on each new firearm purchased - some states even want to apply a tax to private sales of USED guns.

* Require registration of all existing firearms - with a big fee attached of course.

* Additional taxes on ammunition (on top of all the other mandates mentioned).

* Raising "concealed carry" permit fees to $500 or more - Obama himself has stated he would like to see ALL carry laws repealed (heavily armed personal bodyguards are OK for him and his fellow legislators, but allowing YOU to carry a handgun....oh no...too risky). Some savvy Democrats realize such a drastic measure would cost them in the mid-term elections, but, hey, if they can't repeal them, no problem - just make permits so expensive that most folks won't be able to afford them.

* Raising hunting license fees dramatically - remember that the anti-gun types hate ALL hunting, so anything that discourages it is fine with them.

* Creating outrageous "special fees" for "military style" firearms (AKA "assault weapons") - Oh, and the definition of "assault weapon" will be expanded to include just about every auto-loading firearm in the nation (another Obama proposal).

* Require "state approved" training for all gun owners - at YOUR expense, of course.

* Continued attacks on Gun Shows - either outlawing them completely, or slapping huge taxes on both exhibitors and patrons. This obsession with gun shows continues, despite years of studies, by the FBI and others, that prove what gun owners knew all along: thugs, drug dealers, and gangbangers do NOT get their guns from gun shows (or any other legal source, for that matter) - they steal them or buy them from the black market.

* Expanding the definition of "unlicensed dealer" to mean ANYONE who transfers a gun, thus requiring a background check and a "transfer tax" - even from a father who gives his own son a gun for Christmas! (We're not making this up).

And I haven't even touched on the "Star Trek" proposals that seek to require some sort of magic fingerprint recognition before the gun can be fired. The "thinking" that goes into these proposals goes beyond a lack of engineering realities - it is downright insane.

Note that the anti-gun contingent will have all sorts of "nice" sounding language ("keeping guns out of the wrong hands...protecting the children...'common sense regulation'...blah, blah, blah.") to describe these covert assaults on your privacy and your rights, but their real goal has never changed - slowly but surely eliminating the private ownership of firearms, by gradually making it ever more expensive, more complicated, and more time consuming, so that eventually, you just throw in the towel. Don't believe it? Ask yourself this: If Feinstein, Schumer, Pelosi and friends could get away with it, would they ban virtually every gun you own?

Unless you're in total psychological denial, you know the answer.

Ironically, the same people who wail and wring their hands over the "intrusiveness" of anti-terrorism measures such as the Patriot Act have no problem using the power of government to target innocent gun owners. But then, to these people, an American gun owner is a far greater threat than an Al Qaida terrorist.

So, thank you, all you guys (and girls) who made this possible. And when you wake up a year or two from now, and wonder where your rights went, just don't say we didn't warn you.

Or...you can join the fight now - better late than never. And your fellow gun owners will welcome you back with open (albeit locked and loaded) arms.

Every winter it happens - SUV drivers careening across medians, sliding into ditches, slamming into stopped cars, you name it. And why? After endless commercials showing SUV's blasting down snow covered mountain roads, these poor souls actually believe their SUV's have "more traction" than other vehicles.

Even here in Minnesota, where you'd think people would have figured it out by now, my cop friends marvel at the number of reckless SUV drivers they encounter in their winter patrols - as one of them recently quipped, "Geez, how many stupid people ARE there, anyway?"

But don't SUV's and other "all-wheel drive" vehicles have more traction? The short answer is NO. The problem comes from a lack of understanding about what "traction" actually is. Traction is simply the TOTAL coefficient of friction between the tire and the road, and is the result of two major factors.

The first is pressure - the amount of WEIGHT each tire supports. This is the reason front drive vehicles can "get going" on a slippery road - there is nothing magical about front wheel drive, it just puts a bigger percentage of the car's total weight (primarily the engine) over the drive wheels, thus exerting more pressure on those tires. This is the same reason that a rear drive car like a Porsche 911, which has a REAR mounted engine, has a remarkable ability to accelerate on a slippery road surface.

Second, the friction between tires and the road. Friction is affected by the size, tread pattern, and tread compound of the tire itself, AND of course, the CONDITION of the ROAD SURFACE.

Now, you shouldn't have to be a rocket scientist to understand that a wet road will be more "slippery" than a dry road, and that a snowy, slushy, or worse, icy road, will be even worse. At least one would think so. So, why then, do these folks continue to barrel along at 50 or 60 miles per hour on roads that are the equivalent of skating rinks?

Because owners of front wheel drive and 4 wheel drive vehicles (incorrectly) attribute their ability to ACCELERATE more quickly on a slippery surface with having more "traction." But as stated, ANY vehicle with a certain set of tires and a certain weight will have the same actual TRACTION per tire, REGARDLESS of whether it is front drive, rear drive or all wheel drive.

What gives these vehicles the ability to "get going" is that they have the ability to distribute POWER more effectively, and thus USE the available traction of more tires more effectively. In the case of front drive, power is going to the tires with more traction (the fronts) and in an all-wheel drive vehicle, power can be distributed to all four tires.

This gets more complicated when you start introducing things like limited-slip differentials, which allows even a rear drive vehicle to double the number of tires available to accelerate - instead of having one wheel spinning, power can be divided between the two drive wheels. Drag racers learned this a long time ago.

But here's the problem: No matter what kind of drive-train your vehicle has, ONCE YOU ARE MOVING, ALL BETS ARE OFF. Because, as pointed out, the only thing keeping your car on the road is the friction between your TIRES and the road.

Car and Driver magazine did a wonderfully informative demonstration of this years ago - they compared 2 pairs of identical vehicles, an Audi (one with front wheel drive and one with 4-wheel drive) and a Mercedes (one with REAR drive and one with all wheel drive). They compared acceleration, cornering and braking on a snow and ice covered test track. Oh, and they compared the vehicles first with standard, all-season radial tires, and then they they ran the same tests with winter-only snow and ice tires.

Not surprisingly, the front drive and 4-wheel drive cars out-accelerated the rear drive car, but when it came to CORNERING or STOPPING, the front drive and the 4-wheel drive cars had NO advantage at all. As a matter of fact, the REAR DRIVE car with snow and ice tires out-cornered and out-stopped BOTH 4-wheel drive vehicles when they were running on the all-season radials.

So, at the end of the day, the only real way to increase your car's TRACTION, is to install the best snow and ice tires available for your vehicle. However, while I recommend winter tires for anyone who lives in a place like Minnesota (even on your SUV) they will only give you a slight increase in traction, and even that improvement can be wiped out (pun intended) if you simply use them as an excuse to drive faster than you should.

The bottom line? Once your vehicle is moving, your front drive or 4-wheel drive BUYS YOU NOTHING.  So, if you let the improved ability of your SUV to pull away from a stoplight deceive you into thinking you can blast along without a care in the world, be forewarned - you may very well find yourself in that snowy ditch, dazed and confused (if you're lucky, that is).

In an age when life expectancy has soared to levels undreamed of just a century ago, it is rather amazing how many people find an endless stream of things to fear.

I suppose it shouldn't be surprising - almost daily, we hear about some automotive recall, invariably described as a "potentially dangerous" condition (even if not a single person has yet been harmed, nor is likely to be).

Every Christmas season, we are guaranteed to be treated to some news talking head, ominously going over the list of "most dangerous" toys. We have "Warning" labels on virtually every product sold in America. And a staple on morning TV talks shows is the oh-so-concerned member of this or that "consumer advocacy" group, wringing their hands over the latest threat to life and limb.

This phenomenon is not new - when microwave ovens first came out, we heard all sorts of dire warnings about how children in the womb would be genetically damaged, and men who stood too close could become sterile. And we are still being warned of "brain cancer" from cell phones, even though decades of science has shown little correlation with cancer, let alone any causal relationship.

Such groundless fear is the very reason that we still do not have widely available the most effective means of keeping meat and other foods bacteria-free: Irradiation. Never mind that irradiation has been used safely for more than 50 years (the waves pass harmlessly through the food, affecting only the bacteria, and leaving no residual radiation - zero, zip, nada). Ignoring science is bad enough, but what makes this situation so laughably ironic is that while the populace today is terrified of "food-borne illness" they are even more afraid of the most effective preventive measure to fight it!

Of course, there certainly are real threats in the world, but the most interesting aspect of our cultural paranoia is how many of the things people fear today are NOT real, or at least not to the extent they seem to believe. And even more disturbingly, the very people who refuse to recognize threats that actually do exist (international Islamic terrorism), are the same folks who will accept without question a "threat" that is either exaggerated to outlandish proportions (second-hand smoke) or virtually created out of whole cloth (global warming).

As a matter of fact, the entire "Green" movement is predicated on acceptance of a whole series of groundless fears. One recent commercial referred to carbon dioxide as a "pollutant."  Apparently they were asleep in science class when carbon dioxide was discussed - CO2 is the substance plants use to turn sunlight into energy...and in the process producing oxygen, a gas that most humans find somewhat useful. Far from being a pollutant, CO2 is a vital component of all animal life on Earth.

But fear is the greatest weapon in establishing and expanding a ruling bureaucracy's control over your life - therefore, in the absence of a real threat, it is necessary to create one.

Thus evolved the "Dragon in the Woods" - give up some of your freedoms (and your money, in the form of taxes), and the King and his knights will protect you from the dragon.

Now, even genuine threats can be used to encroach on freedoms - for instance, care must be taken in fighting terrorism that innocent citizens are not subjected to unreasonable constraints and/or harassment.

But the sad reality is that most of the things that people fear today border on the comical, if not downright silly.

Yet the cumulative affect of piling little fear upon little fear is a populace willing to let "the Government" take more and more control over their lives.

But, hey, at least we'll be safe from the latest "Dragon in the Woods" won't we?

In Minnesota, Al Franken, an utterly obnoxious failed comedian-turned-Democrat-Senatorial-candidate, aided and abetted by George Soros backed state officials, is calmly stealing an election, vote by fraudulent vote.

In New York, Caroline Kennedy, little more than Paris Hilton with a better education, believes she should be a United States Senator because...well, apparently, because she's a Kennedy.

And in my former home state of Illinois, Democrat Governor Blogojevitch, acting like some sleazy Maxwell Street vendor, puts Barak Obama's former Senate seat up for bidding (with the ever-so-complicit media denying ANY involvement by the Obama team, of course.)

And the response from the average American to these outrages?

Silence.

In fact, if you ask them about it, few Americans can tell you any details about any of the above-mentioned scandals - most don't even know that Blogoyevitch is a Democrat, which is understandable, since it is virtually impossible to find the word "Democrat" preceding "Governor Blogoyevitch" in any of the countless news reports of his ongoing tribulations (now, had he been a Republican...).

This should come as no surprise. After all, an astonishing 40% of American voters still don't know that Democrats have been in the Congressional majority since 2006 (not surprisingly, over 60% of Obama voters still wrongly believe that Republicans are in charge).

If you ever wondered how we got to the point of Government mandated light bulbs, Ethanol subsidies, "global warming" schemes, and a Federal budget that cannot possibly be sustained, the answer is that most Americans are clueless about the workings of government.

They don't seem to understand how politics affects their own daily lives, directly and indirectly. Most do not even understand something as simple as how taxing "big business" merely ends up costing all of us - in increased prices and, in many cases, lost jobs.

When asked about "politics" in general, their response is often to roll their eyes and claim that "I'm not political" or that "I don't pay attention to that political stuff." 

But even worse than a lack of understanding is that many people simply don't seem to care. And this growing apathy is not a partisan issue - too many Democrats and Republicans alike are guilty of not knowing or caring about the actions of their own government.

And once apathy becomes the norm, the unavoidable result is the loss of the most precious commodity of all - Liberty.

...but they're not from Mars. During the flying saucer craze of the 1950's, those "little green men" became a staple of horror films, and the phrase itself was used by stand-up comics to denigrate those who believed that "UFO's" were piloted by beings from afar.

Today, we actually are being overrun by "little green men" - but they are not visitors from another galaxy. No, the "greenies" of today are the storm troopers of the "Green Movement." And they are every bit as bent on taking over your life as any horde of interstellar invaders.

Yes, they're everywhere. From mainstream news media hacks who dutifully parrot the (Green) party line, to left-leaning late night talk show hosts like David Letterman and John Stewart, the onslaught continues. Even entertainment shows seem to find a way to include some sort of comment about "global warming" or "saving the planet."

And I'm not just talking about "Boston Legal" (a show that has set the standard for "liberal-propaganda-masquerading-as-entertainment" run amok). No, it is hard to find ANY prime time show, from drama to comedy, that doesn't get in a few licks about "climate change" or "the environment."

Oh, and if you think that the commercials will give you a break from the eco-nonsense, forget it. In one add, a store proudly proclaims that they carry "all the eco-friendly, 'green' brands you want." A trash removal company, of all things, touts it's "contribution to 'saving' the planet."

Food stores now have whole sections for those who prefer "natural" or "organic" foodstuffs. What exactly this marketing slogan really means is open to debate, since research shows that "organically grown" vegetables are not one bit more nutritious (nor any "safer") than their "artificially" raised counterparts, and "free-range" chickens have exactly the same probability of E-coli as farm raised birds.

But as I sit here in Minnesota, on the eve of record cold temperatures, I am reminded that it is the "global warming" fanatics who represent the greatest long-term threat to the American way of life. And the "greenies" ARE fanatics - what else do you call people who persist in believing in something long after it has been shown to be a colossal fraud?

After all, it is the "global warming" mob that gave us the multi-billion dollar ethanol scam, which has done nothing but cause food prices to skyrocket (and make giant "factory farms" like Archer Daniels Midland rich beyond their wildest dreams). It is the climate change true believers who wish to hamstring the American economy at the very time when it needs to be unleashed. It is they who wish to change the very way you live your life - from mandating ridiculously expensive light bulbs to telling American car companies that they must produce "green" vehicles. (And presumably, forcing YOU to then purchase them).

And spare me all the talk of "science" - REAL scientists, many of whom, until recently, have been intimidated into silence, are now speaking up. And what they're saying is what many of us have sensed all along - that most of the so-called "climate science" is not science at all. It is at best pseudo-science, and the real agenda is not (and never has been) about "saving the planet" - it's about controlling your life.

Hey, if people want to buy "organic" food, God bless 'em. If they feel some sense of moral superiority driving a "Smart Car" then go for it. And all of us want clean water and air.  But when the eco-terrorists want to "cure" the planet of an imaginary disease by telling the rest of us how to live (by LAW, no less) well, then that's where I draw the line.

Yes, the "little green men" are here, but unlike the bug-eyed demons portrayed in "War of the Worlds," we can't just wait for them to catch a disease - they already have. It's called "bacillus environmentalis extremis" - and it's spreading.

And it will continue to spread until we inoculate the populace with a (very) heavy dose of reason and sanity.

Now that the Bush Administration has finally lifted the idiotic ban on guns in national parks, the ball will be squarely in Obama's court - will he let it stand, or will he kow-tow to the anti-gun contingent of the Democratic Party, many of whom helped elect him?

The issue is relatively simple - should normal law abiding citizens, who are legally able to carry a firearm for protection everywhere else, be forced to become defenseless as soon as they set foot in a national park? The answer is obvious - of course not.

After all, setting aside the dangers of wild animal attacks, which are on the rise, we have seen numerous cases of people (more often women) who have been robbed, raped and murdered in these supposedly "safe" parks. Bedsides, since any rational person knows that those intent on doing harm will hardly be the ones to abide by such a prohibition, it should be seen as ludicrous on its face.

A President Obama will doubtless be pressured to reinstate the ban. No sooner had the ban been lifted than Senator Feinstein howled, "The Bush administration changes will make our national parks more dangerous and will upset the delicate balance that exists between park visitors and wildlife."

Predictably, Feinstein exhibits the elitist liberal attitude toward the public (meaning YOU and me)  - we are not to be trusted. You see, in Feinstein's world, thugs and sociopaths prowling our parks are fine, but you and I carrying guns will make them "more dangerous." Naturally, the Senator cannot supply us with any hard data proving her fears to be legitimate. Of course she can't. Because the exact opposite is true - good people with guns are still, well, good people. In fact, the record clearly shows that carrying a gun actually makes people LESS likely to be involved in conflicts, not more.

And excuse me for laughing out loud at the second part of her statement - precisely what "delicate balance" vis a vis "wildlife" will be "upset" by a park patron carrying a handgun? Will it cause mental anguish to the bears? Erectile dysfunction in a rutting moose? What nonsense - complete and utter nonsense.

Then there is Bill Wade, president of the Coalition of National Park Service retirees, who complained: "Once again, political leaders in the Bush administration have ignored the preferences of the American public by succumbing to political pressure, in this case generated by the National Rifle Association."

"Preferences of the American public?" Who is he talking about? Forget the NRA - across the country the American public has resoundingly endorsed the right of people to carry guns for self-defense. In FACT, There are now only two states left that do not allow the carrying of firearms by law-abiding citizens: Wisconsin, and of course, Illinois, Obama's home state, where gun control has reached a level of repression previously seen only in Stalinist dictatorships.

All to no avail, by the way - because in spite of (or more likely, BECAUSE of) their Draconian measures, Chicago is always in the running as Murder Capitol of the nation, competing each year with Washington, D.C., Detroit and New Orleans, all of which, coincidentally, have equally harsh (and equally ineffective) gun control policies.

Yet no matter how many times the anti-gun hysterics are proved wrong, they persist in their crusade to deny you and me our basic human right of self-protection. Their opposition to you being able to defend yourself in national parks is merely the latest example.

Oh, sure, many of the anti-gun contingent will claim to support your right of self-defense "in your own home." But this is a canard. As Hamline University Law Professor Joe Olson rightly observed years ago, "You should not lose your fundamental right to protect yourself the moment you walk out your front door." (Or drive into a national park, we would add.)

President-elect Obama has already shown signs of a more moderate and thoughtful approach to governance than many of us expected - I pray that he continues on that path and let's this latest ruling stand.

The Mumbai, India terrorist attacks should serve as a reminder that terrorism is real, tangible, and a threat everywhere...waiting only for the right opportunity to explode. And, try as we all do to engage in denial, the reality is that it is only a matter of time before a Mumbai-style event occurs on American soil.

Back in 1993, right after the first World Trade Center bombing, I was talking with a friend of mine who was raised in Israel. I opined that it would be a relatively simple matter for terrorists to stage simultaneous attacks on, say, a dozen shopping centers around the country. And not just in New York, Washington D.C. or L.A. For maximum "terror" they would include a mall in Omaha, a high-end store in suburban Atlanta, a Wal-Mart in Oklahoma, a shopping center in Memphis. In other words, the heart of Middle-America.

Why? Simple - to destroy our sense of security, our misguided belief that we are safe in Des Moines and Fargo because "terrorists only attack places like New York." The message of these attacks on the country's hitherto untouched hinterlands would be this:

"We can get to you...anywhere."

The body count from the attacks themselves could range from bad to truly horrific, but the economic devastation created would be even more far reaching. If only 5% of the people who normally go to the malls to shop decided to stay home, the impact would be enormous.

Sure, there might actually be an increase in Internet shopping, but the fallout from all those "brick and mortar" stores suddenly faced with decreasing revenues would reach far beyond the stores themselves. The affects would roar through our already weakened economy like a financial tsunami.

It's so diabolically simple that I'm amazed they haven't done it so far. After all, I'm no rocket scientist, and if I can come up with the idea, the terrorists most certainly could as well. And the odds are, they already have. Does anyone seriously believe that Minnesota's monstrously huge "Mall of America" does not appear scribbled on some terrorist's notepad under the heading "potential targets."

Beyond the bloodshed and the economic damage, the threat to our civil liberties would also be drastically increased. With a Congress under Democratic control, and a President Obama, with his documented anti-gun and anti-self defense views, odds are that one of their first responses to a Mumbai type of assault would be, you guessed it, gun control. And lots of it.

The anti-gun establishment news media would jump on board in a New York minute.  And no amount of reasoning would likely prevail against the onslaught of the media blitz that would surely follow.They will be salivating.

Talking heads will ask the idiotic "Where did they get their guns" question. And endlessly repeated video of a sobbing mother, holding her dead child in a blood soaked blanket, will roll over cooler-headed arguments with ease.

And they won't care that you're a Democrat (even if you have an Obama sticker on your car) - if you're a gun owner, you'll be on "the list."

So for the sake of our people, and our liberties, this is one time I pray to God that I will not have to say "I told you so."

Just when you thought the action hero was dead, the hit show "24"  is back with a vengeance. If you're looking for Starbucks loving, politically correct, metro-sexual "girly-men" - forget it. Tough guy Jack Bauer is ready, willing, and able to dispatch the bad guys with speed, skill, and yes, violence - good, old fashioned, righteous violence.

More importantly, unlike so many of the gutless wimps who inhabit our culture today, Jack does not suffer from paralyzing ambivalence. He recognizes the difference between right and wrong, and he has no hesitation in doing what's right.

While "24" has always remained politically aloof (one never knows which political party the various presidents portrayed in the show belong to), the writers do take delight in skewering the politically correct - people and institutions that represent the kind of ineptness and cowardice that Jack despises are all fair game.

The UN naturally comes to mind. With its history of bumbling failure in combating terrorist regimes and their often genocidal policies, UN types are an obvious target. In the opening hour, vicious rebels in a strife torn African country are rounding up young children to use as cannon fodder in their ongoing civil war.

Jack is friends with the principal of a small rural school, and when he learns that rebels are on their way, he asks the local UN representative for help. The UN guy (conspicuously holding the now infamous UN "Blue Helmet") claims that "the UN is neutral in this conflict." With undisguised disdain, Jack suggests that, if he won't fight, he should "hide in the shelter with the rest of the children."

When the rebels arrive at the school looking for conscripts, Jack, though hopelessly outnumbered, becomes a one-man army - using guns, knives, and even explosives, he dispatches dozens of the rebels with wild abandon. But despite his best efforts, Jack is wounded and captured.

However, the school principal, having retrieved some weapons from a secret compartment in his office, comes to his rescue, shooting several rebels and setting Jack free. Together, they pile the young boys into a bus and head off for the American embassy.

Meanwhile, the sniveling UN bureaucrat has jumped in his Land Rover and taken off on his own, leaving Jack, the principal, and the children to fend for themselves. But later, the UN employee is himself captured by the rebels. Predictably, he not only tells them where the children are headed, he attempts to buy his freedom by ratting out Jack as the man who killed the brother of the rebel captain.

When Jack arrives at the American Embassy, he is then confronted with yet on more agonizing dilemma - the embassy official will allow the children sanctuary only if Jack turns himself in on an old charge of "torturing terrorist suspects." Displaying a level of integrity that is becoming increasingly rare, Jack finally accepts the deal - he is willing to sacrifice his own freedom for the sake of the kids.

Now, "24" also has numerous sub-plots involving intrigue in the White House and various shady characters and their covert agendas, not to mention the impending inauguration of the first women president.

But the real allure of the show is, and always has been, the sheer joy of watching a 21st Century version of the classic warrior, a man who refuses to adopt the nauseating political correctness of those around him. A man who recognizes the reality of evil in the world - and will do WHATEVER IT TAKES to defeat it. A man willing to give up everything to protect the innocent.

And we love him for it.

The uncertainty over the direction of the impending Obama administration is causing some interesting market responses. Some indicators, like gun and ammunition sales, are showing big up-ticks, while others like housing starts, are way down. And the stock markets have been nothing short of a roller coaster ride.

But rightly or wrongly, the one thing that all of these occurrences have in common is the FOO factor - Fear Of Obama.

Now, I'm not one of those who is going to blame Barak Obama for the housing crisis - that debacle was begun in the Carter Administration, and exacerbated by a whole series of bad policy decisions by both Democrat and Republican politicians. But when builders don't know what is going to happen to capital gains, as well as other taxes, they are not going to commit to new construction.

Ditto the Dow, which peaked just a year ago at 14,000 and was declining before the specter of an Obama presidency. Rising oil prices were at least partially to blame. But markets trade on the future - prices reflect what traders  believe is GOING to happen. And markets like CERTAINTY, or at least as much of it as they can get.

And on that score, Obama has some work to do - with the talk of raising taxes being all over the board, investors and business owners are nervous. Just today, the Dow dipped below 8000 for the first time in more than 5 years.

Gun owners, and would-be gun owners, are also concerned about the future of their rights in a country with a Democrat controlled Congress and a Democrat president. With rumors of various gun control schemes being floated by Democrats even before the inauguration, they can't help wondering.

So they are hedging their bets, buying firearms and ammunition at a furious pace - certain guns and types of ammunition are already on back order. I personally received 48 phone calls from people wanting to sign up for Handgun Carry Permit classes - most remarked that they wanted to "get it while I still can."

The legitimacy of these fears is open to discussion -  I personally hope that a President Obama adopts a sensible, centrist approach to governance. Some of his cabinet choices may in fact give some credence to this view. Others might not.

But until President-Elect Obama alleviates the fears of many Americans that he intends to pursue a destructively radical agenda, the FOO factor is likely to continue.

Last week a good friend of mine who lives in Washington State was almost killed - not by a teenager with a gun, but by a teenager with a car...and a cellphone. A 16 year old girl ran a stop sign and slammed into the driver's side door of my friend's car. The teenager was talking on her cell phone. My friend is still in the hospital with multiple fractures and internal organ damage.

And this teenage girl is not an anomaly - while 16 and 17 year-olds represent only 11% of the driving population, they are involved in an astonishing 40% of all fatal crashes.

Yet, in spite of this fact, and in spite of estimates that at least 4000 lives would likely be saved by simply raising the driving age to 18, such measures never even make it out of committee. And while Washington State does have a "no-talking-on-a-cell-phone-while-driving" law, there is little real enforcement, and you certainly don't hear cries for banning them.

Note also, that nobody asked "where she got the cell-phone" or "what kind of car" she was driving. Yet, had the very same teenage girl been recklessly handling a gun when she injured my friend, oh, the wailing and gnashing of teeth that would have ensued. And none of the outrage would have been directed toward the girl - oh, no. Suddenly, "where she got the gun" would be a major focus.

But isn't "gun control" a dead issue? Didn't Democrats learn their lesson when they lost numerous races in the past dozen years over the "gun" issue? Well, not exactly. Just when you thought the dinosaur known as "gun control" was extinct, anti-gun rumblings are starting up again, this time from those in the incoming Obama administration.

They're talking about resurrecting the failed "assault weapons" ban (and yes, it was a failure - even supporters now admit it had NO impact on violent crime at any level). But, hey, what chance does reason and logic have against images of "scary looking guns."

They are also proposing absurdly complex technical requirements for firearms  - "for the children" of course. Things like magic fingerprint readers and other nonsense that borders on science-fiction, if not outright fantasy. At least to anyone who knows a thing about firearms.

Note that Law Enforcement organizations have already stated clearly that they will NOT accept such firearms for duty use - they know that such needlessly complex mechanisms could easily cost officers their lives. So police will likely be exempt from such requirements. YOUR life, however, will not be the concern of gun control advocates.

Now, this should not even be a liberal vs. conservative issue: I have very liberal friends who own guns. I have students in my carry permit classes who are die-hard liberals. So, reason SHOULD prevail.

But it doesn't.

No matter how persistent the failure of gun control, the answer is always "more gun control." Whether violent crime goes up, down, or stays the same, the drumbeat for more restrictive laws continues.

Predictably, these latest doomed-to-fail policies will be dressed up in the usual emotional rhetoric about "keeping guns out of the wrong hands" but the result will be the same - thugs, rapists, robbers, drug dealers and murderers WILL continue to obtain firearms. We already know this to be true.

Right here in Minnesota, the Force Science Research Institute at Mankato State recently completed a 5-year study with the FBI on the most violent and dangerous offenders of all: 17 - 25 year old, mostly inner city males, who get in shoot-outs with Police Officers. They looked at 800 incidents and zeroed in on 40 cases for in-depth study. Among their findings:

Unlike the high tech hardware carried by thugs on TV shows, the "gun of choice" of these real-life killers is based on whatever is "cheap" and "available" - almost half of them chose inexpensive revolvers.

Where do they get their guns? Contrary to the myth of the "gun show loophole" not a single firearm was bought at a gun show - NOT ONE. One gun was bought legally - every one of the others was stolen, or bought stolen on the street.

When asked "Has any law designed to prevent your owning firearms - federal, state, or local - been effective?" the most frequent answer, according to the study team was "they just laughed out loud at us, and told us 'you must be kidding'" (or something a bit more "colorful").

And how old were these perpetrators when they first carried a gun? Shockingly, they were only 9 to 12 years of age. By age 17, they were carrying a gun "just about every day." So much for laws that decree age restrictions and background checks. Worse, many of these "street combat veterans" had been in multiple gun fights prior to shooting it out with police. One in ten had been wounded, some more than once!

But perhaps the most disturbing finding was the ruthlessness of today's young killers. To quote the report: "Davis said the study team did not realize how cold blooded the younger generation of offender is. They have been exposed to killing after killing, they fully expect to get killed and they don't hesitate to shoot anybody, including a police officer. They can go from riding down the street saying what a beautiful day it is to killing in the next instant."

[Note: for a truly eye-opening look at today's inner city youth, be sure to see the History Channel series "Gangland" - it will help you understand the utter foolishness of gun control efforts.]

Sadly, no matter what the reality on today's streets, whether idiot teenage drivers who talk and text message while driving, or the vicious teenage killers who roam our cities, reason continues to take a "back seat" to emotional hysteria.

And emotion invariably leads to bad policy.

Declaring every desire a "right" has become a standard tactic of the Left. Can't persuade a majority of your fellow citizens to support your view in the legislature? No problem - run to the courts and try to get your way via the judiciary.

Let me be clear - I am neither supporting nor opposing the idea of allowing two men or two women to marry. I am merely pointing out that in fact, no one, not even a "straight" couple, has a "right" to be married. Because marriage is a creation of society, the structure of such an institution is determined by the will of the people.

Currently, the people, via their legislatures, have decided that marriage shall have certain characteristics and parameters - age, mental competency, restrictions based on relationship of the parties, limiting a marriage to only two parties, and yes defining the union as  between a man and a woman.

Now, my close liberal friends know that, while I don't believe it would be a good idea, I have no problem with the principle of redefining marriage to include same-sex couples - so long as they do it legislatively. Because if we as a culture wish to make those changes, we are empowered by the Constitution to do so.

Since it appears that, at least for the time being, the overwhelming majority of Americans do not wish to alter the terms of the institution known as marriage, then that should be respected as the law of the land.

But if the time should come that the majority of Americans agree to change the rules governing marriage, then I would most certainly respect the will of the people just as strongly.

Some "gay marriage" proponents have attempted to equate their desires with the Civil Rights movement. But this is a canard. Marriage is not a right at all, let alone a civil right. While everyone (whether gay or straight) has the right to mate with, and/or co-habit with, whomever they choose, they do not have a "right" to demand that society change the structure and definitions of a social instrument just to accommodate their views.

Civil Rights refer to the inherent rights people have by virtue of simply being human - life, liberty, and the freedom to pursue their desires. Thus slavery and segregation were manifestly violations of true civil rights. But same sex couples are free to live and work where, and with whom, they wish. And neither I nor anyone I know would ever allow that freedom to be circumscribed.

But if they do wish society to rewrite the marriage laws to legally sanction a same-sex relationship, they are free to work to make that happen. Just do it via the proper course: getting the majority of your fellow citizens to go along with you, and not by attempting to get some court to override their will.