Hate Crimes

This is a topic that has puzzled me since it's inception. As a brief history lesson, hate crime legislation came about after the murder of Matthew Shepard. Matthew was gay and was beaten so severely during a robbery that he later died. There was very conflicting testimony at his trial and during subsequent interviews about whether the murder was motivated by the fact that he was gay, but the legislature had already made up its mind that this crime was motivated by hatred for gay people. So, a bill by the name of the Matthew Shepard Act was proposed in 2007 which would make it a federal offense to commit a crime against a gay person if the crime was motivated by a bias against gay people. The bill was passed by both the house and the senate, but was ultimately vetoed by President Bush. Later, Senator Ted Kennedy attempted to attach the bill as an amendment to a federal defense appropriations bill in order to force President Bush to sign the law or veto necessary defense expenditures. And liberals wonder why people think the left hates the military!

I have a couple of problems with this proposed legislation. First, the Constitution expressly reserves and gives police power to the states. All people, including gay people, deserve equal protection under the law, and that constitutional right is made applicable to the states through the conduit of the 14th Amendment. Therefore, there is absolutely no need for a federal statute making this specific act a crime. That should be reserved to the states.

Secondly, the states have addressed this. Every state in the union has a law that makes it a crime to kill a person. Why are these normal murder laws not sufficient to cover "hate crimes"? Is the murder of a gay any worse than the murder of a heterosexual? If your best friend was murdered in cold blood, would you be more angry to find out it was because he/she was gay as opposed to just a botched robbery attempt? Would the end result not be the same?

The only thing this proposed law would do is give gay people more protection under the law than straight people get. It clearly treats gay people differently than others. But the biggest problem with the proposed legislation is how broadly it is worded. "Hate crime" has been defined so as to include verbal abuse or insults. That means, anytime a pastor gets in the pulpit and preaches on what the Bible says about homosexuality and someone gets offended, the pastor could be charged with a hate crime. That would clearly be a violation of the pastor's freedoms of speech and religion. This is already happening in other countries. Pastors in several countries have already been imprisoned and/or fined for preaching the Bible on this topic.

Even more scary is the fact that it's already happening in the US as well. 11 people were arrested and charged with "hate crimes" in 2004 in Philadelphia for witnessing at a gay pride event! Apparently the legal term for this is "harassment by communication." If that's not a blatant violation of the 1st Amendment, I don't know what is.

Clearly this legislation is intended to open the door to creating more and more rights for homosexuals. However, in the process, it limits the freedoms of others. The current state criminal codes are sufficient to protect homosexuals just as much as they protect heterosexuals and, therefore, "hate crime" legislation is superfluous at best and dangerous at worst.

Intolerance: A One Way Street?

I will probably never understand this concept, but it seems to me that the people who use the word "intolerance" the most, are the most intolerant people of all. I ran across this article today on the Drudge Report:

Obama defends choice of evangelical pastor

Obama has chosen Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at his inauguration and the gays are furious. Never mind that Mr. Obama has the most liberal voting record of any current senator (including Ted Kennedy). Never mind that he has advocated for gay rights. Apparently all that means nothing to these people.

But, setting aside the absurdity of their protest, one clip from the article is particularly interesting:

The Human Rights Campaign, the nation's largest gay rights organization, said Warren's opposition to gay marriage is a sign of intolerance.

What exactly is the definition of "intolerance"? Dictionary.com defines it as an unwillingness or refusal to tolerate or respect contrary opinions or beliefs, persons of different races or backgrounds, etc. In that vein, I'll agree that any true Christian would be "intolerant" of the act of homosexuality (not to be confused with intolerance of homosexuals). The Bible calls homosexuality an abomination; not exactly an ambiguous term. However, are gays any less "intolerant" of Christians than Christians are of homosexuality?

There are all kinds of special interest groups, gays likely being the most vocal, who scream "INTOLERANCE" at the top of their lungs any time someone disagrees with their view point. But I wonder if they'll ever catch on to the fact that they're living a double standard. The fact of the matter is that the world is an extremely diverse place. We all have differences of opinion based on differences of background, culture, ideology, theology, etc. There is no way we are all going to agree on everything. So, either we learn to live with a certain level of "intolerance", or we continue to scream and shout in pursuit of something that will never happen.

Racist or Not Racist: You Decide

FACT: You have one kid named JoyceLynn Aryan Nation Campbell and another kid named Adolf Hitler Campbell.

QUESTION: Are you a racist?

Unfortunately, this question is based on a true story.

3-year-old Hitler can't get name on cake

The really strange thing about this article is this guy says he doesn't understand why people are so upset. If he thinks they're upset, just wait until his kids get old enough to understand what their names mean!

Protesters are Getting Dumber by the Minute

My friend Mark sent me this article today and I couldn't pass up the opportunity to publish this stupidity. I also couldn't pass up the opportunity to put a different spin on my recent "passing gas" themes.

Greek police run out of tear gas as rioting continues for a seventh day


As some of you may know, protesters have been running wild in Greece for about a week now because a policeman shot and killed a 15 year old boy. These people have been burning banks and businesses to the ground, as well as numerous other acts of unnecessary violence. However, the protesting is not really the point of this post.

After firing 4,600 tear gas canisters at the protesters, the Greek police have asked Israel and Germany to send in more canisters. Apparently the canisters the Greek police were using were from the early 1980's. The following is a direct quote from one of the protesters:

“We found tear gas canister dated from 1981,” said one demonstrator, calling himself only GK. “The old chemicals make us sick, people have fainted and have trouble breathing,” he said.

Seriously?!? In the words of my friend, Mark:

"What do you think tear gas is supposed to do, smell like cherries and make everyone feel happy? Here’s a hint… Stop rioting. Stop throwing rocks and whatever else you guys are doing. Stay at home, or better yet, go to work. Productive members of society don’t have time for protests because they are too busy at work making money."

Amen, Mark!

That's a Painful Victory

I got my verdict search update email today and the first case I pulled up was the following:

Premises Liability - Florida
Teen struck by baseball in batting cage awarded $1.16M

A teenager whose testicle was fractured when he was struck by a 60-mph baseball fired from a pitching machine at a batting cage was awarded $1.16 million. Lhyann Felipe, then 19, underwent surgery to repair his testicle. He claimed that a Sluggers of Miami employee asked him to kick balls toward the pitching machine area after a pitching cycle ended. Since the warning light was off, Felipe thought he was safe to walk throughout the cage. Plaintiff's counsel argued that Sluggers didn't have any written maintenance log, checklist, manuals or safety rules in place. Plus, Sluggers knew the machines sometimes pitched balls when the light wasn't on.

Felipe v. Sluggers of Miami Inc.

First of all, let me just say I never want to know what it's like to get hit in the testicles by a 60 mph fast ball. With that said, this news provokes a few questions from me.

1. How in the world did the young man's attorney keep a straight face while saying the word "testicle" probably a thousand times during the course of this trial?

2. How did the jury arrive at a valuation of $1.16 million for the young man's testicle? I did a quick search on eBay to try to find the true valuation, but had no luck.

3. If he had fractured the other testicle too, would he have won $2.32 million?

I guess some things will always remain a mystery.

A New Level of Absurdity

I was perusing the Drudge Report today and came across the following article:

Calling in 'gay' to work is latest form of protest

Does anyone out there still not understand why the gay and lesbian community is not taken seriously? Let's break this down a little bit.

First, the protest is modeled after the work stoppages by supporters of illegal immigration we have seen over the past year. Am I missing something--I haven't heard anyone saying gays should be deported or should not be allowed to work. The article talks about doing this because gays are still not allowed to marry in some states. Last I checked, private employers cannot hand out marriage licenses. I'm simply at a loss for how skipping work has any relation to the cause.

Second, why do they think it is so important to demonstrate their spending power, and exactly how will skipping work bolster that point? The idea was dreamed up by some guy as a way to protest California's ban on gay marriages. Are they trying to say the prevention of gay marriages somehow discourages them from participating in the economy?

Finally, is anyone else disturbed by the fact that the gay teachers who are participating in this nonsense are going to use the day to "discuss ways to introduce gay issues to their students." I don't have any kids yet, but it's things like that that make me 99.999999999% certain my kid(s) will NEVER attend a public school.

Message to the gay and lesbian community...you're not helping yourself with stupid protests that make no sense in light of your cause. Next time, spend just a little bit of time thinking about what you want to accomplish and come up with an idea that makes the point. Geez!

The Economy: My Take

Ok, here's my take on why the economy is in the state it's in. This is going to be a long one, so bear with me.

First of all, all markets cycle. The Dow Jones ran up to over 14,000 points before it came crashing down. If you look back at the 100 year history of the Dow Jones, you'll see that it has never, and will never sustain growth indefinitely without corrections. After a major run up, it must correct in order to charge itself for the next run up. So, after the run up from 7591.93 in mid-2002 to over 14,000 earlier this year, it was time for a downward correction.

Just in time for the needed correction, as one of the commenters to my last post astutely pointed out, there was something called "subprime lending" going on. This is where banks were making loans to people who couldn't possibly afford to pay such loans back. The greed that fueled the subprime lending mess is no different than the greed that fueled and sparked the dot com bust. In that case, people were pouring money into stocks of companies who had never seen a profit. When people finally started to figure out just how over-valued those companies were, it sparked a huge sell off (see Enron for further evidence of how this works).

But, before we place full and sole responsibility on the banks for causing this mess (and they do deserve a big portion of the blame), let's take a look at some other factors that were in play. In 1977 (Carter administration), Congress enacted the Community Reinvestment Act ("CRA") which "encouraged" banks to meet the credit needs of those living in the communities in which the banks took deposits. Click here for a good article explaining what happened. I put "encouraged" in parentheses because federal banking regulators could delay or prevent banks from merging, opening up new branches, and most other business-growth oriented tasks if it was found the banks were not making enough CRA loans. The reasoning behind the CRA was to prevent or discourage discriminatory practices in lending. Who else, besides me, thinks it's absurd that a bank would pass up a profitable lending opportunity simply because of race, ethnicity, etc? Banks typically pass on such "opportunities" because they are too risky.

So anyway, suddenly the world of home-ownership was opened up to millions of people who didn't have access to such large loans before,and for good reason. Banks began making the loans, but in order to protect themselves, would create loan terms that were not very favorable to the borrower, such as Adjustable Rate Mortgages ("ARM"). This allowed a borrower to borrow money at a low rate, only to see that rate fluctuate with the market. It also allowed the borrower to borrow a heck of a lot more money that he or she could afford. When the rates starting moving up, these people could no longer afford their mortgages and didn't have enough equity in their homes to refinance on more favorable terms.

Now with millions more potential homeowners out there, development and construction took off. Builders were selling homes quicker than they could build them. All the while, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were bundling these subprime loans into investment packages and selling them off to investors. With essentially no obstacles to the ability to borrow money, housing prices skyrocketed creating what you hear on the news every day--a housing bubble. Any time you hear the word bubble in connection with the world of finance, it usually indicates that something's value is severely overblown. (see also "tech-bubble").

What do bubbles do when the get too big--they burst. When millions of people began defaulting on 10s of billions of dollars in home loans, banks began going out of business because the homes securing those mortgages were not worth as much as the outstanding loan principals. Investors who bought the loan packages began going out of business because their investments were worthless. Companies (Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) who made a large percentage of their money selling the loans found themselves without buyers, and therefore without a market in which to sell their crappy loans. So, in comes the government with $700 billion to rescue everyone...or at least the ones it wants to rescue. Can you explain to me why the government bailed out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, but let Lehman Brothers go bankrupt? Hmmm....

So, now there are lots of businesses out there that can't borrow money because the banks don't have any money to lend. Some businesses, especially small businesses, rely on lines of credit in order to maintain payroll and keep inventory rolling through their businesses. Want to venture a guess as to what type of large expense a business will cut when it needs to shore up cash flow? That's right, payroll! So all of a sudden, thousands upon thousands of people start losing their jobs.

So, if you want my opinion on who or what is responsible for this financial crisis, here you go (in no particular order):

1. The federal government forced banks to make loans to subprime borrowers based on the mantra that everyone deserves to own a home, regardless of whether you can actually afford it.

2. Banks were somewhat forced to make bad loans, but let their own greed fuel the fire, causing an explosion no one can control.

3. People agreed to loans so large that even a 5th grader would know it wouldn't be paid back. If you make $400 a week, you should know you can't afford a $200,000 loan, even if the bank agrees to lend you that much.

4. Investors who allocated large percentages of their portfolios to buying these risky loans have gone belly up.

Who is left holding the bag with no hope of being "bailed out"? All of us who are responsible with credit and are paying off our mortgages on time. We continue with the same obligations we agreed to while those who were grossly irresponsible are either bailed out by the government or by the bankruptcy process. How's that for encouraging responsibility?

The Economy: Your Take

I'm so tired of hearing people, who know absolutely nothing about economics, spout off about how President Bush has ruined our economy. I'm equally tired of no one asking these people to explain WHY they think President Bush is responsible. I'm opening this post up to the masses (or the 4 people who actually read this) to comment about what you think has caused our recent economic woes. Who do you think is to blame, and what needs to be done to fix it? I'll come back later with my take on things.

This is Getting Ridiculous!

Ok, the earlier post was intended to be a break from my serious posts, but the criminal farting stories are getting out of hand.

Florida Boy Arrested for Gas Attack

I'm only going to say this one more time--farting is not a criminal offense! In fact, disrupting school classes, unless accomplished by some criminal act, is not in and of itself a criminal act. What ever happened to getting swats or detention for acting up in class? Holy cow!

I promise this is not going to become a blog about passing gas. I just had to get it out of my system (pun fully intended).

Battery? Seriously!?!

Ok, this was just way too funny to not write about. I was playing around on the web and ran across this article from back in September of this year.

Man Farts on Cops

I clicked on the link thinking this is going to be hilarious, and it didn't disappoint. But strangely enough, a man farting on cops was not the funniest part. The funniest part was that in addition to charging him for drunk driving, they also charged him with battery of a police officer! WHAT???

Was it the fact that he moved his chair closer to them and raised his leg, or was it that he fanned it in their direction? Or, maybe it because his fart was especially odorous? I guess we'll never know.

The moral of this story--be very careful about who you fan your farts toward. While delivery provides the most humor, it can also get you in a lot of trouble!

Dumbest Protest Ever

Let me go ahead and say this from the start--I am not against protesting. I think very few protests are effective as they are more akin to hissy fits and temper tantrums than anything else. But protesting is a free speech right. However, some protests go too far.

I ran across this headline yesterday on the Drudge Report. Take a moment to read it and then come back to this post.

PETA plans nude protests against Houma circus

Wow...where to start...

Let's start with the quote by one of the protesters that nudity is just one way that the organization attempts to draw attention to animal abuse. Let's see a show of hands from all the guys out there that have ever seen a naked woman and immediately thought about the horrors of animal abuse. I don't see any hands. That's because God did not wire men in such a way that the female body would trigger sympathy for circus animals. Women, I will let you comment if you think such tactics have a more focused effect on women. I kind of doubt that it does.

You know what would make this even more entertaining...if the National Organization for Women (NOW) would show up and protest against PETA for putting a naked woman in a cage. Of course, NOW would first have to interview the naked lady to make sure she voted for Obama before advocating for her rights. Then they could protest by putting a really fat, hairy, naked guy in a cage. Now that would be funny!

On one final note, I would like to point out the small blurb about the ACLU suing the City of Shreveport and 6 of its police officers for arresting these naked women at a similar demonstration. Apparently the idiot lawyers for the ACLU don't understand the concept that free speech is not without limits. I'll save my rants about the ACLU for other posts.

The moral of this post--make sure your protest activities have some relevance to what you're protesting. It really is that simple.

Windfall Profits Tax--Part 2

In my last post, I explained what the Windfall Profits Tax is and how the oil industry is unfairly punished and demonized for being such successful market participants. In this post, I will explain who really reaps a windfall profit at the pump. I apologize for such a long post, but there's a lot that needs to be said, so bear with me.

I've done some internet research on how much profit ExxonMobil makes per gallon of gasoline, and it's somewhere between $0.05 and $0.08 per gallon. The trouble with calculating profit per gallon of gas is that a barrel of oil is used to produce more than just gasoline. The basic premise for this calculation is to convert barrels to gallons and then divide the total after-tax profit by the number of gallons produced. For purposes of this discussion, we'll just assume the higher number--Exxon makes $0.08 profit per gallon of gas. I will give the disclaimer now that Exxon made less than $0.08/gallon over the last 2 quarters when it set 2 new records for quarterly profit because the price of crude oil, which amounts to about 70% of the cost of production, has been MUCH higher over the last 2 quarters than a year ago. With crude coming back down, Exxon's profit margins should go back up a little.

So, moving on...

There are some per gallon numbers that are definitive and not in dispute--TAXES. The federal government takes $0.184 per gallon right off the top. On average, state governments take $0.22 per gallon off the top. The state of Texas charges a $0.20 tax per gallon. So, if you live in Texas, for every gallon of gas you pump into your vehicle, you pay $0.384 to the government. Click on this link if you want to see how much tax other states pay. These taxes don't include other fees such as environmental and underground storage fees.

The math from this point on is pretty simple. As a reward for pulling oil out of the ground, processing and refining it, shipping it to downstream retailers, and creating thousands of jobs for Americans, Exxon makes $0.08 per gallon in profit. As a reward for doing absolutely nothing, the government makes $0.384 per gallon in profit.

However, it doesn't stop there. Not only are liberals ok with the government making $0.30 more per gallon of gasoline than the companies responsible for all the work involved in getting it to the pump, some of them want to sit in their lofty positions and take pot shots at the oil companies. For your reading pleasure, I have posted a few quotes below:

"Arlen Specter says Congress should consider taxing the windfall profits being reaped by the oil companies, which I think is a no-brainer. These guys aren’t entrepreneurs — they are pirates."
— Geraldo Rivera on Fox’s Geraldo at Large.

"The estimates are that the six large U.S. [oil] companies will have a total of $135 billion in profits for the year 2006. Don’t consumers have a right to be angry?"
"The public looks at a total of $135 billion over the year, that’s larger than the gross domestic product of Israel, and says isn’t that an obscene amount?"
— Co-host Charles Gibson to ConocoPhillips Chairman James Mulva on ABC’s Good Morning America.

No, Mr. Gibson, the profit made by state and federal governments for doing absolutely nothing is what is obscene. And, while we're at it, how many people do you know use the gross domestic product of Israel as a benchmark for what is or is not a lot of money? Ridiculous!

But, this one is my favorite. For all the cracks people take a George W. Bush for being a stupid moron, why didn't this clip get more press?



For all the talk about oil companies and executives being so greedy, as explained by Maxine Waters, the federal government isn't happy with ONLY making $0.184/gallon. They want to run the whole show.

Now, I don't want this post to be misleading. Theoretically, state and federal governments use these tax dollars to build and maintain roads and transportation infrastructure. Of course, we all know some of this money gets diverted to pet projects (what we call "pork-barrel spending"). But, it's not like legislators are taking these dollars and sticking them in their collective pockets. However, they would like you to believe that oil company executives are doing that, when in fact, profits are used for a variety of purposes such as reinvesting in oil producing assets, maintaining refining infrastructure, creating new jobs, and rewarding investors who purchase stock in oil companies. If anyone should have a problem with oil company executives getting paid too much, it's the stockholders. So, I'm not sure how Big Oil's reinvestment of profits is any different from the government spending tax dollars on improving transportation infrastructure.

Let's do one more math exercise before I end this post. Let's assume you're paying $2.00 for a gallon of gas right now. If the oil company cuts it's profit per gallon in half, you pay $1.96/gallon. On a 20 gallon fill up, you save a whopping $0.80! Now, if both the state and federal government cut their profits in half, you pay $1.80/gallon and save $3.84.

I hope this all makes sense. In conclusion, oil companies make large profits because they work hard, take risks and go through a lot of trouble to produce a product everyone needs. Government makes large profits because it lies to people about oil companies being greedy. So, who is receiving a windfall profit on gas? I'll let you answer that one.

Windfall Profits Tax

In the last 6-9 months we've heard a lot about a "windfall profits tax" that a lot of democrats want to impose on large oil companies. As the public was paying nearly $4 for a gallon of gas, a lot of people shouted their approval of sticking it to Big Oil (translate, ExxonMobil) for pillaging the wallets of the common "Joe" at the pump. But, have you ever thought about the effect an additional tax would have on the price at the pump?

First, let's clear up exactly what the windfall profits tax (WPT) is. It's not actually a tax on profit margins at all. It's an excise tax on the difference between the market price of crude oil and a base price created by federal statute. It was originally enacted in 1980 (passed during Jimmy Carter's administration, but didn't take effect until the next year) to steal (there's no nicer term for it) profits oil companies were making due to crude oil price increases caused by the OPEC oil embargo. That's right...the federal government thought it was deplorable that a company would pull oil out of the ground and actually try to sell it for market price, even though that high market price was not created by the oil companies. Anyway, the tax was repealed in 1988 during Ronald Reagan's administration because it produced only about 20% of the federal tax revenue that was anticipated, and because the tax only affected domestically produced crude oil, and therefore increased dependence on foreign oil exports.

No legislation has been introduced to revive the tax since 1988. However, according to a Wall Street Journal article, in 2007, 51 senators voted to impose a 25% WPT on any oil companies whose profits grew by more than 10% in a single year. Can you figure out which political party most of these votes came from without me telling you? I'll give you a hint--it's the party that has made a platform out of redistributing wealth. To quote Senate democrat Dick Durbin, "The oil companies need to know that there is a limit on how much profit they can take in this economy." If comments like that don't scare you, you need to wake up and shake the cobwebs out of your brain!

So, back to the question...what effect would a WPT have on what consumers pay at the pump? Based upon what you hear in the mainstream media, these oil companies would be forced to pay this tax for making too much money, which would have a deterrent effect causing the price of a gallon of gas to go down. WRONG! An additional tax is an additional expense that gets passed on to the consumer just like every other expense.

Let's look at a simpler example that everyone should be familiar with--the state sales tax. When you go to a store and buy a shirt for $7.99, you actually pay (in Texas) $8.65 ($7.99 + 8.25% sales tax). What you may not understand is that the great state of Texas imposes the sales tax on SELLERS, not BUYERS. It's the seller that passes the cost of that tax onto you, the consumer. See how that works?

Now, back to oil companies. Quiz Time: The federal government imposes a tax on oil companies. Who do you think is going to pay that tax? That's right! You are.

See how simple these things are when you apply a little logic. Now, next time you hear a congressman (or woman) spouting off about imposing a windfall profits tax on big oil to protect you, send them an email or give them a call to let them know you're not as big of an idiot as they think you are.

My Entry Into the Blogosphere

Well, I'm finally taking the plunge. This election has made me realize that there are lots of things I want to say, most of which people probably either don't want to hear or don't care about, but that need to be said. I don't pretend to know everything, or even very much, but some things can be explained or refuted with simple logic. I'm realizing more and more every day that people are abandoning logic for emotion. I don't think most of these people are stupid; they just haven't had much logic presented to them. And since people are inherently lazy, they become convinced of the truth of whatever they are told most often or with the most repetition instead of thinking for themselves.

In that vein, this blog will be mostly devoted to explaining how I see things from a logical point of view. Most posts will be arguments against things that I see in the media or hear coming from the mouths of politicians that simply don't make sense when any degree of logic is applied. In an effort to make full disclosure of things in my life that may color how I view things, I am one of those evil "evangelical" Christians that people hate so much. Since I believe the Bible is the Word of God and constitutes a user's manual and road map for my life, obviously the truths of the Scriptures will influence how I think. So, now you know.

Posts will not come every day because I simply don't have time blog every day. But I'll try to maintain a steady supply of posts for your reading pleasure. My first substantive post will be coming soon!