What's Stopping Them?

A new website called patrioticmillionaires.org is collecting signatures from wealthy people to petition the president to increase taxes on people who make more than one million dollars per year.

Fine. My question (asked by many others) is, "What's stopping them from writing a personal check to the government today?"

I wonder how many of them are willing to send in a big check (or have done so already) to the government on their own, privately, if they're so convinced that Washington deserves more of their money.

My guess is that none have—and none will.

They want you (if you're a millionaire) to be forced to support a profligate government that has demonstrated it has neither the will nor the capacity to manage the money we have given it. Why on earth would anyone thing they are capable of managing more?

But if you think they are, Mr. and Ms. Petition Signer, please send in your check and leave the rest of the millionaires alone.

The Insanity of War

"Lord, have mercy on the beautiful, innocent children of war."

This image is borrowed without permission from Romeo Gacad/AFP/Getty Images from the "Afghanistan: 2011" photo series at The Atlantic's "In Focus with Alan Taylor."

This horrendous scene is stunning—and depressing. NATO tanker trucks full of fuel making their way through Pakistan (our supposed ally) to Afghanistan were attacked by GUYS ON MOTORBIKES—motorbikes—and blown up. How many millions of dollars in equipment and fuel is going up in smoke because a bunch of guys in sandals on motorbikes blew them up? It's this kind of insanity that makes the average person (Southerner, at least) wonder who's in charge over there? This is really depressing. (I say that with respect for our military commanders. But neither the U.S. nor NATO can afford this kind of waste, the fog of war notwithstanding.)

This image is borrowed without permission from Banaras Khan/AFP/Getty Images from the "Afghanistan: 2011" photo series at The Atlantic's "In Focus with Alan Taylor."

Steve Forbes: "Obama's policies are the definition of insanity."

Steve Forbes predicts Obama will be gone in January, 2013, and along with him Ben Bernanke, and that the U.S. will be back on a gold standard within five years. This is a great (and encouraging) interview from Forbes' perspective, but a terrible job by Newsmax.tv -- using a blond talking head to read questions to Forbes which one wonders if she even understands. Who is Newsmax kidding with this kind of production? I couldn't even bring myself to post it here. But if you want to hear Forbes' perspective, which is well worth listening to, you can watch it here.

Forbes is a lot like Ron Paul—his quirky personality and mannerisms kept him from being widely considered as a two-time presidential candidate. But the man, like Paul, knows his economics and history.

Food as Medicine

Last Monday night, CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta aired a one-hour special on heart disease, the focus being on preventing and reversing heart disease with food instead of medicine or surgery. Feature prominently was Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn who has tutored former president Clinton into a vegan lifestyle and back to health after heart surgery, then stents, failed to "fix" his heart problem. Dr. Gupta spent a year on his own study and has become a believer. If you missed the one-hour special, called "The Last Heart Attack," and want to see it all, it's available at Dr. Gupta's blog here.

This is a brief summary interview on CNN where Dr. Gupta summarizes the message of the hour-long special: heart disease can be prevented, and reversed, using food as medicine.

This additional short interview contains more of Dr. Gupta's findings from the hour-long special. Good stuff:

Jerusalem: Center of the World

A preview of a 2013-release IMAX 3-D movie on Jerusalem and the Holy Land. Having stood in most of the spots shown in this movie, I got chills seeing them again and remembering why Jerusalem remains the most important piece of real estate in the world:

Jerusalem | Filmed in Imax 3D from JerusalemGiantScreen on Vimeo.

Ron Paul: Smartest Guy in the Room

Congressman Ron Paul was on Fox News Sunday morning answering some marshmallow questions thrown to him by Chris Wallace. Yes, the questions were easy for Paul to answer, and the 14 minutes amounted to a campaign opportunity for the Congressman. But that's a good thing. From all I know of the Congressman, I don't agree with 100% of his views on everything. But he says more that's right about the Constitution, the economy, the role of government, and the status of liberty in America than any other candidate in the race. He's not the most polished or most handsome candidate (which says something about why we should pay closer attention than we might otherwise pay), but he's definitely the most accurate on matters of substance.

For clarification, Paul uses the term "monetize the debt" near the end of the interview. This refers to the Federal Reserve Bank (headed by Bernanke) buying up the bonds that the Treasury Department (headed by Geithner) continues to issue. In the last few years, the Federal Reserve (as I understand) has bought about three-fourths of the trillions of dollars of new debt instruments issued by the U.S. Treasury Department. And where does the Federal Reserve get the money to buy the Treasury bonds? It "prints" it—creates it out of thin air. This is what's known as "monetizing the debt"—increasing the money supply to buy U.S. debt instruments. And it's this "monetizing of the debt" (increasing the money supply out of thin air) that results in inflation. I don't think the average person understands the charade that's going on at the Federal level. The right hand (the Treasury) sells new debt instruments (bonds) to continue to fund the bankrupt U.S. government and the left hand (the Fed) creates money out of nothing to buy the debt. The only reason the U.S. government stays in business is by living off new borrowed money (new debt that it borrows from itself). Ron Paul is the only candidate who continually tries to expose this bankrupt policy.

This is a great interview: