September 2006 Archives

Representative Mark Foley (R-FL) has resigned from Congress after it was revealed that he sent sexual instant messages to teenage male pages. That's gross. Plus, he was the chairman of the House caucus on missing and exploited children, which makes his behavior doubly damning. At least he had the decency to resign immediately rather than pondering the meaning of "is". If he actually broke any laws, I hope he ends up in jail. The end.

Hurricane Katrina is still causing problems more than a year later, and not only in New Orleans.

"When the 'Katricians' themselves are quoted as saying the crime rate is gonna go up if they don't get more free rent, then it's time to get your concealed-handgun license," warns the radio ad by Jim Pruett, who co-hosts a talk-radio show and owns Jim Pruett's Guns & Ammo, a self- styled "anti-terrorist headquarters" that sells knives, shotguns, semiautomatic rifles and other weapons. As Pruett describes the dangers posed by "Katricians," glass can be heard shattering and a bell tolling ominously.

The radio spot highlights what many gun-store owners say is a trend in Houston: trade in weapons amid a surge in the homicide rate that police attribute to the more than 100,000 hurricane evacuees still in the city. Although the gun-sale reports are largely anecdotal, Texas officials said applications for concealed- weapons permits were up statewide: 60,328 from Jan. 1 to Sept. 1 this year, compared with 46,298 for the same period last year.

The Houston Police Department estimates that one in five homicides in the city now involves Katrina evacuees - as suspect, victim or both. Many Houston residents, including some evacuees, are worried that crime will only get worse once housing and other public assistance end.

So what should Houston do? I don't think they're allowed to "exile" evacuees (or anyone else), so is the city stuck supporting these refugees for a generation or more? The problem is magnified because the least successful New Orleanians were the most likely to become refugees, and the least successful refugees are the most likely to stay put wherever they initially ended up. So Houston and other cities (like Baton Rouge) are now overflowing with people who are basically the least capable remnants of the least capable citizens of one of the least capable cities in America.

I'm sure glad my wife and I left California before the state embraced this economy-destroying global warming nonsense.

"We have begun a bold new era of environmental protection here in California that will change the course of history," the Republican governor said.

The measure passed by the Democratic-led Legislature last month caps the state's man-made greenhouse gas emissions. The most populous U.S. state seeks to reduce its emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, a cut of about 25 percent.

I just hope someone buys our house before the state goes completely down the tubes.

Normally when we think of obscenity we think of pictures or movies that show sexualized nudity -- and often "obscenity" is considered to be pornography that is particularly degrading or disgusting, beyond the pale of normal sexuality. There are federal laws against obscenity but they aren't enforced very broadly because there isn't much agreement on what is obscene and what isn't ("I know it when I see it"). Historically, however, obscenity prosecutions weren't focused only on graphic depictions of sex:

For the past three decades, the courts have been concerned almost exclusively with obscene visual images, not graphic verbal descriptions of sexual activity, but such was not always the case. The early and celebrated legal battles in this country sometimes involved what are now recognized as great works of fiction that included sexual themes: books such as James Joyce's Ulysses or D. H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterly's Lover. But it is important to remember that obscenity issues can still involve non-visual material, as demonstrated by a Florida prosecutor's decision to (unsuccessfully) try the rap group Two Live Crew for violating Florida's obscenity statute by singing rap songs with graphic sexual lyrics.

And so now we have the modern equivalent, though almost certainly without the redeeming literary qualities of Lawrence or Joyce: Karen Fletcher is being prosecuted for obscene stories on her website.

A woman who authorities say ran a Web site that published graphic fictional tales about the torture and sexual abuse of children has been indicted on federal obscenity charges.

"Use of the Internet to distribute obscene stories like these not only violates federal law, but also emboldens sex offenders who would target children," U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan said Wednesday in announcing the charges against Karen Fletcher, 54.

A component of obscenity laws that particularly interests me is that the laws aren't intended to protect the subjects of the obscene works, but rather their potential consumers. In this, obscenity laws are different from laws prohibiting visual child pornography which are justified by a desire to protect children from being exploited during the production (though even the definition of child pornography is rather complex). The argument behind obscenity laws is not that anyone is hurt during creation, but rather that the consumers of the work will be harmed by their consumption and that society as a whole will be degraded.

I'm quite torn over these sorts of obscenity prosecutions. On the one hand, yes, I'm disgusted and disturbed by the accusations against Karen Fletcher, and if they're true then she's a horrible person who I would never want to associate with and who should have as little influence on society as possible. On the other hand, I'm not comfortable with the government deciding to prosecute a woman just for writing gross stories. Assuming the stories are complete fiction, who is hurt? The author and readers have sick minds, but there's no evidence that writing or reading such stories leads to actually carrying out abusive acts. In contrast, my intuition suggests that people with abusive inclinations might have less opportunity and motivation to actually harm children if they are distracted by fiction. If obscene stories serve as an "outlet" for these sickos, then eliminating the stories might actually lead to more abuse and do more harm than good. We could then lock the abusers up when they're caught, but only after they have claimed a victim.

I'm curious about the notion that parents have to "pick their battles" with their children in the sense that they shouldn't try to win every point but focus only on the important issues. This seems like an eminently sensible strategy for dealing with a spouse or other equal, and even more-so a boss or other superior, but is this the best way to deal with a subordinate? Using this article as an example, here's a mother who dislikes them but lets her teenage daughter wear sexy t-shirts anyway.

Most parents interviewed said that they would rather not see their kids wear the racy shirts but that they sometimes give in. Rosa Pulley tried to order her daughter Keana, 17, a Gar-Field senior, to return a T-shirt that says, "yes, but not with u!" But Keana insisted. "I have to pick my battles," the mother said. "Okay, I don't like it. She's wearing it, but it could be something worse."

As I'm learning with dogs and dominance challenges, if you expect to lead the pack then it's important to win every single time. Parents who aren't willing to fight and win every battle probably discover soon thereafter that they aren't able to lead and control their child. I suppose that this dominance role should diminish as the child gets older and takes control of her own life, but I don't think that transition should be allowed to complete until the child is self-sufficient.

It looks like someone at 7-Eleven reads my blog because the company is dropping CITGO as its gasoline supplier at more than 2100 locations.

Convenience store operator 7-Eleven Inc. is dropping Venezuela-backed Citgo as its gasoline supplier at more than 2,100 locations and switching to its own brand of fuel.

The retailer said Wednesday it will purchase fuel from several distributors, including Tower Energy Group of Torrance, Calif., Sinclair Oil of Salt Lake City, and Houston-based Frontier Oil Corp.

A spokeswoman for Dallas-based 7-Eleven said its 20-year contract with Citgo Petroleum Corp. ends next week. About 2,100 of 7-Eleven's 5,300 U.S. stores sell gasoline.

Citgo is a Houston-based subsidiary of Venezuela's state-owned oil company, and the foreign parent became a public-relations issue for 7- Eleven because of comments by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

A perfect example of why government regulation isn't required to shut idiots up -- the market can take care of itself.

Seth Roberts of the University of California, Berkeley, has published a paper with ten "new ideas" about how sleep, mood, health, and weight relate to each other. From the abstract:

Little is known about how to generate plausible new scientific ideas. So it is noteworthy that 12 years of self-experimentation led to the discovery of several surprising cause-effect relationships and suggested a new theory of weight control, an unusually high rate of new ideas. The cause-effect relationships were: (1) Seeing faces in the morning on television decreased mood in the evening (>10 hrs later) and improved mood the next day (>24 hrs later), yet had no detectable effect before that (0–10 hrs later). The effect was strongest if the faces were life-sized and at a conversational distance. Travel across time zones reduced the effect for a few weeks. (2) Standing 8 hours per day reduced early awakening and made sleep more restorative, even though more standing was associated with less sleep. (3) Morning light (1 hr/day) reduced early awakening and made sleep more restorative. (4) Breakfast increased early awakening. (5) Standing and morning light together eliminated colds (upper respiratory tract infections) for more than 5 years. (6) Drinking lots of water, eating low-glycemic-index foods, and eating sushi each caused a modest weight loss. (7) Drinking unflavored fructose water caused a large weight loss that has lasted more than 1 year. While losing weight, hunger was much less than usual. Unflavored sucrose water had a similar effect. The new theory of weight control, which helped discover this effect, assumes that flavors associated with calories raise the body-fat set point: The stronger the association, the greater the increase. Between meals the set point declines. Self-experimentation lasting months or years seems to be a good way to generate plausible new ideas.

Although Connie Bennett is freaking out about fructose and claiming it's dangerous, fructose is a natural sugar that's found in many foods, such as "honey; tree fruits; berries; melons; and some root vegetables, such as beets, sweet potatoes, parsnips and onions".

Here's more of the theory on "What makes food fattening?".

(HT: Tyler Cowen.)

In a bizarre move that's almost certain to reduce the security of British subjects, British police have agreed to get permission from "Muslim leaders" before conducting terror raids.

POLICE have agreed to consult a panel of Muslim leaders before mounting counter-terrorist raids or arrests. Members of the panel will offer their assessment of whether information police have on a suspect is too flimsy and will also consider the consequences on community relations of a raid.

"Hey Osama, can we pretty please raid the flat down the street with all the smoke billowing from the windows?"

Members will be security vetted and will have to promise not to reveal any intelligence they are shown. They will not have to sign the Official Secrets Act.

"We'll be raiding at 3am, but please don't tell them or they'll move their bomb factory before we get there. Promise? Crescent your heart and hope to die, strap a bomb-belt to your thigh?"

What's wrong with you, Britain? I was watching PBS last night and 200 years ago you Brits sentenced an 11-year-old girl to death for stealing her friend's clothes, and then considered it gracious to commute the sentence and merely ship the child off to Australia. That's pretty hard core, and that's why you ruled the world. And now this nonsense? Don't you have any pride?

The whole idea is idiotic, but I'm sure it'll move to America. Some other ideas:

- Notify the trailer park block president before raiding a meth house.

- Get permission from Marion Barry before conducting any crack whore sting operations.

- Ask Robert Byrd to oversee hate crime prosecution.

- Put Ted Kennedy in charge of the little guppies swim class.

- Oh whatever, this is too easy, use your imagination.

My continuing effort to get Sean Penn to shut up has apparently drawn some attention from Sean Penn himself, commenting pseudononymously as "Paul".

You’re an ignorant simpleton. A typical American brainwashed conservative who supports a war criminal in George W. Bush. You are pretty much exactly what is wrong with the world. Sean Penn is a talented actor with a social conscience who is trying to draw attention to the atrocities being committed by your fascist country. I'm an aussie and I hate it that our government supports your semi-retarded leader. He is honestly the laughing stock of the world, a village idiot made President. Well done America.

Don't waste your time insulting Sean Penn when you would rather be out shooting guns and attending KKK meetings you neo-conservative d%#k head.

Ok ok, "Paul"'s eloquence discredits my theory that he's actually Sean Penn, but he certainly knows the "talented actor" very intimately. However, I'm glad he commented because until now I didn't realize that I'm exactly what's wrong with the world. I thought Islamofascist terrorists blowing up Australians in Bali nightclubs might be even worse than I am, but perhaps not.

It's true that shooting guns at KKK members sounds appealing, but so many of them are now distinguished Democratic Senators that it would almost certainly be illegal. Perhaps "Paul" should learn more about American politics before he jumps into the fray; still, he's more gracious than American leftists in labeling our President only semi-retarded.

Orpah brags about how she's the boss of all these white people. You go, girl! White people clearly make better employees.

Condoleezza Rice demolishes Bill Clinton's lies and misrepresentations about the war on terror before 9/11. Orpah take note: maybe black people can make good employees after all!

Amidst all the wailing and gnashing of teeth over Big Oil and Big Aerospace, you'll hardly hear anyone complain about how Big Agriculture costs Americans almost $500 billion per year. Impudent does a good job laying out the case against agricultural subsidies, but I think he misses one key point. On his hit-list:

- Agricultural subsidies aggravate illegal immigration.

- Agricultural Subsidies cause havoc in the third world, and are a stumbling block to better relations with our trading partners.

- Farm subsidies don't go to small family farms, they mostly go to huge Agribusiness, like Archer Daniels Midland, Con-Agra, and Dole Pineapple, among others.

- The most successful program to steal your money from you by Agri-business is Ethanol subsidies.

His punches are right on the nose, and I've criticised govnernmental agricultural manipulation before myself, but the one thing Impudent doesn't mention is that America requires an immense agricultural industry for the sake of national security. If we weren't able to grow enough food to feed ourselves we'd be even more dependent on tyrannical third-world countries than we are now. Imagine if tin-pot dictators could threaten us not just with high oil prices, but high food prices! A major world war could easily disrupt shipping and lead to very difficult circumstances if America were not self-sufficient. We need to keep giant farming corporations in business, but the free market price of food would force them to leave their fields barren because yes, the third world can grow food much more cheaply than we can. So it goes. The price of freedom, I suppose.

It looks like the GOP's fortunes may be turning around. When I first asked "Will Republicans lose the house?" near the end of August, Tradesports gave the party a 46% chance of retaining their House majority in November, and a 79% chance of holding on to the Senate. As of today, people betting on the 2006 election give the GOP a 57% chance of retaining the House and a 83% chance of keeping the Senate. That's a remarkable change in a little less than a month.

Along the same lines, Larry Kudlow writes about "The GOP's Bush-led turnaround".

Oil and gasoline prices have plunged over the past month, taking away a big Democratic issue. The broad stock averages have had a nice run since Labor Day and are closing in on five-year highs. This rally is a measure of the future economy and business profits, and it signals continued growth as far as the eye can see. And while investors are abandoning the energy sector, consumers are spending -- making the retail stock index one of the hottest plays on Wall Street.

At the same time, inflation indicators such as gold, commodities and energy have been pummeled. Long-term interest rates have dropped quickly from 5.25 percent to 4.6 percent, another sign of diminishing inflation fears. Consequently, the Federal Reserve hasn't touched interest rates at its last two meetings, while many on Wall Street are now betting the next Fed move will be a rate cut, not a hike.

Meanwhile, the monetary base, which measures the Fed's dollar-creating activities, has been flat-lined, with literally zero growth over the past eight months. As Milton Friedman taught us, excess money is the cause of rising inflation. But the Fed is taking care of that problem, which is why forward-looking market indicators (i.e., gold, energy and long-term bond rates) have all dropped significantly. In fact, if you combine the rising stock market with the falling inflation markets, the clear forecast is for non-inflationary growth.

I sincerely hope that the Democrats don't win a single seat until they wise up and return to sensible economic and foreign policies. It's not great to have both elected branches of government controlled by a single party, but it's better than the alternative when that includes sharing power with the likes of modern leftists.

Mark Steyn reviews Lawrence Wright's The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road To 9/11 and relates some of the history behind the modern anti-West jihad. For instance, about Sayyid Qutb, the father of the jihad:

In an Islamist grievance culture, the tower doesn't have to be that tall to loom. The tragedy in Wright's book is that across little more than half a century a loser cult has metastasized, eventually to swallow almost all the moderate, syncretic forms of Islam. What was so awful about Sayyid Qutb's experience in America that led him to regard modernity as an abomination? Well, he went to a dance in Greeley, Colo.: "The room convulsed with the feverish music from the gramophone. Dancing naked legs filled the hall, arms draped around the waists, chests met chests, lips met lips . . ."

In 1949, Greeley, Colo., was dry. The dance was a church social. The feverish music was Frank Loesser's charm song Baby, It's Cold Outside. But it was enough to start a chain that led from Qutb to Zawahiri in Egypt to bin Laden in Saudi Arabia to the mullahs in Iran to the man arrested in Afghanistan on Sept. 11. And it's a useful reminder of how much we could give up and still be found decadent and disgusting by the Islamists. A world without Baby, It's Cold Outside will be very cold indeed.

We should realize that peace on the Islamists' terms will not be very pleasant.

When people first hear that time is considered to be a fourth "dimension" akin to the three dimensions of space, they often get confused and think that because it is useful to consider time and space together that they're the same. In fact, there are many differences between time and space, and perhaps the most important is that time is not symmetrical and has a very definite directionality. What I mean is this: if you look at a picture it's impossible to know if the image you see is the original or if it's been reversed.

Space is symmetric in that if you consider any of its dimensions in reverse it doesn't affect the rationality of your perceptions. Space appears to be symmetric in every way. A car that gets 30 mpg driving north will get 30 mpg driving south, east, or west. A box two feet long, three feet wide, and four feet tall has the same volume as a box three feet tall, two feet wide, and four feet long.

Time is different in that it is directional, a property commonly referred to as time's arrow. The Second Law of Thermodynamics says that some events are irreversible in that once they have occured the universe cannot be put back to the way it was before. (In fact, almost every event is irreversible.)

Consider the situation in which a large container is filled with two separated liquids, for example a dye on one side and water on the other. With no barrier between the two liquids, the random jostling of their molecules will result in them becoming more mixed as time passes. However, if the dye and water are mixed then one does not expect them to separate out again when left to themselves. A movie of the mixing would seem realistic when played forwards, but unrealistic when played backwards.

If the large container is observed early on in the mixing process, it might be found to be only partially mixed. It would be reasonable to conclude that, without outside intervention, the liquid reached this state because it was more ordered in the past, when there was greater separation, and will be more disordered, or mixed, in the future. ...

The thermodynamic arrow of time is provided by the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which says that in an isolated system entropy will only increase with time; it will not decrease with time. Entropy can be thought of as a measure of disorder; thus the Second Law implies that time is asymmetrical with respect to the amount of order in an isolated system: as time increases, a system will always become more disordered. This asymmetry can be used empirically to distinguish between future and past.

If you had two complete snapshots of the universe it would be possible to determine which was taken before the other by calculating the amount of entropy in each snapshot; the shot with less entropy was taken first. Thus, time is not symmetric, and traveling forward through time (as we all do) is very different from traveling backward.

Here's a fun and simple test that might reveal a bit about how nimble your brain is. I've seen it in a few places, and it's probably been send around through chain email at some point, but the best web presentation I can find is at Creativity at Work: How do you put a giraffe into a refrigerator?.

1. How do you put a giraffe into a refrigerator?

The correct answer is: Open the refrigerator, put in the giraffe and close the door. This question tests whether you tend to do simple things in an overly complicated way.

2. How do you put an elephant into a refrigerator ?

Wrong Answer: Open the refrigerator, put in the elephant and close the refrigerator.

Correct Answer: Open the refrigerator, take out the giraffe, put in the elephant and close the door. This tests your ability to think through the repercussions of your actions.

3. The Lion King is hosting an animal conference, all the animals attend except one. Which animal does not attend?

Correct Answer: The Elephant. The Elephant is in the refrigerator. This tests your memory. OK, even if you did not answer the first three questions, correctly you can surely answer this one.

4. There is a river you must cross. But it is inhabited by crocodiles. How do you manage it?

Correct Answer: You swim across. All the crocodiles are attending the Animal Meeting! This tests whether you learn quickly from your mistakes.

Silly, yes, but perhaps useful. I doubt the attributed source or accompanying statistics are true.

I'm not a fan of boycotts, so what follows is just a bit of trivia that might interest people who were insulted by Hugo Chavez's recent lunacy: CITGO is owned by the Venezuelan government.

The company is owned by PDV America, Inc., an indirect, wholly owned subsidiary of Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A., the national oil company of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.

That means that if you buy gas from a CITGO station, you're directly supporting the Chavez government.

(HT: DeoDuce and reagan80.)

Despite claims that everyone has AIDS I'm not sure that HIV tests for everyone is the best strategy for combating the disease.

All Americans between the ages of 13 and 64 should be routinely tested for HIV to help catch infections earlier and stop the spread of the deadly virus, federal health recommendations announced Thursday say. ...

"We know that many HIV infected people seek health care and they don't get tested. And many people are not diagnosed until late in the course of their illness, when they're already sick with HIV-related conditions," said Dr. Timothy Mastro, acting director of the CDC's division of HIV/AIDS prevention.

"By identifying people earlier through a screening program, we'll allow them to access life-extending therapy, and also through prevention services, learn how to avoid transmitting HIV infection to others," he said.

But the vast majority of people are not at risk for getting HIV, so advocating widespread testing seems more like a proxy for politically incorrect but more useful strategies.

Some physicians also question whether there is enough evidence to expand testing beyond high-risk groups, said Dr. Larry Fields, the president of the American Academy of Family Physicians.

"Are doctors going to do it? Probably not," Fields said.

But the recommendations were endorsed by the American Medical Association, which urged physicians to comply.

"This is important public health strategy to stop the spread of HIV," Dr. Nancy Nielsen, a Buffalo, N.Y.-based physician who sits on the AMA's governing board, said in a statement.

Maybe the AMA and the CDC should put more effort into convincing people not to have anonymous gay sex while shooting heroin. Just a thought.

Considering my recent rants against weathermen, reader JV forwarded a link to Forecast Advisor, a site that compiles statistics on weather forecasts and will tell you which service has been the most accurate for your particular zip code. Very cool stuff.

(Indirect hat-tips also to Lifehacker and Clicked.)

The New York Times has a voyeuristic article about "Why the Rich Go Broke" that is absolutely fascinating. There are lots of details about particular people, and regarding celebrities and athletes specifically:

"You have people who are struggling for a long time and then overnight, boom, they hit it," says Shelley Finkel, Mike Tyson’s manager. "If they don’t have someone watching out for them, and some emotional stability, it will be very hard for them to be grounded financially."

MR. FINKEL, a genial, elfin 62-year-old New Yorker who began his own career promoting a A-list rock stars like Jimi Hendrix, said he had always advised musicians and athletes to protect their wealth by socking away a chunk of their earnings into annuities or pensions. Few of them have heeded that advice, he said, including Mr. Tyson, who Mr. Finkel believes earned and lost more than $400 million in his boxing career.

"It’s very hard to tell them ‘Don’t!’ because they love the instant gratification," Mr. Finkel says. "I think the human in general is vulnerable and whatever their weakness is it’s going to get exploited, particularly around money."

I enjoyed reading the whole thing... even though I'll probably never be rich, I enjoy knowing that I'm more financially savvy that most of the people who are.

I've knocked Representative Charlie Rangel (D-NY) for soliciting bribes, and I find his politics deplorable in many cases, but I've got to thank him for defending America and President Bush against the insane Hugo Chavez.

"You do not come into my country, my congressional district, and you do not condemn my president. If there is any criticism of President Bush, it should be restricted to Americans, whether they voted for him or not. I just want to make it abundantly clear to Hugo Chavez or any other president, do not come to the United States and think because we have problems with our president that any foreigner can come to our country and not think that Americans do not feel offended when you offend our Chief of State..."

Hey it's on Drudge so you've seen it, but at least I can get on the record.

Update:
Putting her finger to the wind, Nancy Pelosi has also decided to defend the President and America.

One of President George W. Bush's fiercest political opponents at home took his side on Thursday, calling Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez a "thug" for his remark that Bush is like the devil.

"Hugo Chavez fancies himself a modern day Simon Bolivar but all he is an everyday thug," House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi said at a news conference, referring to Chavez' comments in a U.N. General Assembly speech on Wednesday.

"Hugo Chavez abused the privilege that he had, speaking at the United Nations," said Pelosi, a frequent Bush critic. "He demeaned himself and he demeaned Venezuela."

All true enough, so thanks. Now if only we could get Democrats to be such fierce defenders of America when we're attacked with bombs and not just words.

I haven't seen this program promoted much yet, but Wal-Mart is planning to sell generic prescription drugs for $4. What an evil corporation!

"Each day in our pharmacies we see customers struggle with the cost of prescription drugs," said Wal-Mart CEO H. Lee Scott, Jr., in a statement. "By cutting the cost of many generics to $4, we are helping to ensure that our customers and associates get the medicines they need at a price they can afford."

The initiative would be the fourth time since last October that Wal- Mart has moved to improve health benefits.

Wal-Mart's recent moves to improve its health care plan include relaxing eligibility requirements for its part-time employees who want health insurance, and extending coverage for the first time to the children of those employees. Part-time employees, who had to work for Wal-Mart for two years to qualify, now have to work at the company for one year. This year, Wal-Mart also expanded a trial run of in-store clinics, aimed at providing lower cost non-emergency health care to the public.

Last October, Wal-Mart offered a new lower-premium insurance aimed at getting more of its work force on company plans.

Wal-Mart contributes greatly to America's standard of living, both by providing more than a million jobs and by selling all sorts of stuff at great prices. Does anyone know if Wal-Mart manufactures these generic drugs itself?

Democrats are protesting quite a bit about the Federal Election Integrity Act that will require voters to show valid picture identification to vote in federal elections. The claim it's some sort of "poll tax", but it's hard to see why it would be difficult for any citizen to get some form of valid ID.

The Federal Election Integrity Act was approved on a nearly party-line 228-196 vote. Republicans backed the bill 224-3, with three nonvoters; Democrats opposed it 192-4, with five nonvoters. They were joined in opposition by the House's one independent member. ...

The so-called "Voter ID" bill, aimed at stamping out voter fraud, would require voters in federal elections to provide picture identification by 2008 and provide proof of U.S. citizenship by 2010. It was among the recommendations made last year by the bipartisan Commission on Federal Election Reform, headed by former President Jimmy Carter, a Democrat, and former Secretary of State James A. Baker III, a Republican.

"Effective voter registration and voter identification are bedrocks of a modern election system," they wrote in their final report.

But Democrats, siding with groups that work on behalf of minorities and illegal aliens, called the bill a "modern-day poll tax" and said it would place an insurmountable burden on voters and infringe upon their voting rights.

Insurmountable? How stupid do Democrats think minorities are? Isn't that insulting to any of the constituents they claim to represent? It's not exactly hard to get an ID... if you're a citizen (or even if you're not...).

That they are protesting so much can indicate only one thing: Democrats know that they benefit most from voter fraud. The Democrats have been losing elections for a long time now, and they know they've got no hope of winning if they can't get votes from illegal immigrants and dead people.