Great quote from Nancy Pelosi:

“If freedom loving people throughout the world do not speak out against China’s oppression and China and Tibet, we have lost all moral authority to speak on behalf of human rights anywhere in the world,” said Mrs. Pelosi, a Democrat.

I must give the good speaker credit when due.  I wouldn’t expect Denny Hastert to be visiting the Dalai Lama.  George W Bush, who has talked a good game about spreading democracy, has been much more ambivalent on his approach to China, and the upcoming olympic games.  For shame, Mr. President.  It is sad to see that on an issue of such importance he is outflanked on the right by Nancy Pelosi, of all people.

Now why would anyone think that the NY Times has an opinion on the matter?

A closer look at who’s running

Also in Politics:

• Where the candidates stand on the issues
• Election results to date
• Continuous coverage of the 2008 election

So Hillary looks twenty years younger than she is, Obama looks proud and somber, and McCain looks like a raving mad lunatic. No slant here at all. LOL. This is just too much.

My inner libertarian takes a backseat to my outer scientist. If anyone is willing to propose a model of funding research that doesn’t require the federal government that is feasible, I’m all ears. Until then, I can justify my egregious begging thus: I am currently working on a computer that was built in 1998, for crying out loud. We’re almost to the point where we’re recycling ethanol at the lab! This is money better spent on research rather than bank bailouts. The first paragraph is mine, the rest is for members of the Society for Neuroscience.

Mr Culberson,

I know that after years of irresponsible spending at the federal level, it is tempting to tighten the belt on things like the NIH budget. Please consider that the NIH budget has remained flat for the last 6 years. As a republican, I remember the initiative taken by the GOP in 1998 under Newt Gingrich to double NIH funding. This spending is not a “bridge to nowhere” such as the one in Alaska, as it provides tangible benefits and a profitable ROI for our nation and the world. Also, and perhaps more germane, it benefits the Baylor College of Medicine where I and many of my colleagues are employed. The medical center is the largest source of employment for the city of Houston, a fact you should consider when reading this letter and voting on NIH funding.

As a constituent and a member of the Society for Neuroscience, I urge you to sign a letter being circulated by Representatives Edward Markey (D-MA), David Reichert (R-WA), and others, to Appropriations Chair David Obey (D-WI) and Ranking Member Jerry Lewis (R-CA) that requests an increase for the NIH of $1.9 billion or 6.5 percent in FY2009. NIH is the world’s leading medical research enterprise, and without strong Congressional support it will not be able to sustain the pace of recent discoveries that are saving lives, improving health and promoting economic development in your district and across the nation.

With over 38,000 members, SfN is the world’s largest organization of basic scientists and physicians who study the brain and nervous system. Neuroscience includes the study of brain development, sensation and perception, learning and memory, movement, sleep, stress, aging, and neurological and psychiatric disorders. It also includes study of the molecules, cells, and genes responsible for nervous system functioning.

I urge you to help ensure that NIH has sufficient funding to help solve the many public health challenges in our nation by signing this letter. To sign on, please contact Josh Lumbley in Rep. Markey’s office at <joshua.lumbley@mail.house.gov> or (202) 225-2836, or Jason Edgar in Rep. Reichert’s office <jason.edgar@mail.house.gov> or (202) 225-7761.

Thank you in advance for your support.

Democrats wish to raise them.

As families across Southwest Louisiana struggle to pay higher prices at the pump, rising mortgage rates and escalating healthcare costs, the House Democratic leadership approved the largest tax hike in American history. Their budget will raise taxes on families and individuals, old and young, rich and poor- all to pay for wasteful Washington spending. Taxpayers in Louisiana face average tax increases of $2,642, and small businesses face an additional $4,000 on average. It is simply irresponsible.

Each year, Congress debates a budget for the coming year. The budget should be an outline of priorities. Growing our economy, helping American entrepreneurs and allowing families to keep more of their money are what a responsible budget should accomplish. This Democratic budget is simply a wasteful tax hike on working families. We need a budget that will lead to American prosperity, not bigger government.

The Democratic budget proposal includes a massive $683 billion tax increase over five years in order to finance Washington spending according to the Congressional Budget Office. The Associated Press reported, “[b]oth houses of Congress endorsed the idea of tax increases for millions of Americans Thursday as Democrats pressed ahead with budget plans that would allow some or all of President Bush’s reductions to die after he leaves office.” While failing to address growing entitlement programs, House Democrats are proposing tens of billions more in new federal spending facilitated by the tax increase.

Extra money for tax hikes might be in the family budget for people in San Francisco, but families in Southwest Louisiana do not have extra room in their checkbooks. I am committed to responsible spending and low taxes to keep the economy growing. Americans should be allowed to keep more of their hard-earned money. You earned it.

 The bottom line is that the GOP has spent a lot of money domestically and abroad.  By being so reckless and irresponsible with the spending, particularly with the domestic pork, it opened the door for the democrats to raise taxes, creating a vicious cycle.

Now I can understand technically that this might be the first time in our nation’s history that the right to bear arms has been “embraced” (possibly) by the Supreme Court, but what is so new about the right to bear arms?

The reason it hasn’t been “embraced” by the Supreme Court is because it hasn’t needed to be. What’s SHOCKING is that it took this long for someone in the District to appeal this obvious constitutional infringement. Let’s take a look at it, shall we?

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Hmmm…what part of that is not clear? A well-regulated militia, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. First of all, there is a difference between a standing army and a militia, and even the National Guard fits the former definition better than the latter. A militia is by its definition ARMED individuals prepared to defend their community from whatever force it feels is infringing upon its community. For a Solicitor General to make this argument:

…Mr. Dellinger asserted that at the time the Second Amendment was drafted, “the people” and “the militia” were essentially synonymous; therefore, he said, the amendment, its two clauses properly interpreted, gave people the right to own weapons only in connection with their militia service….Mr. Dellinger, a former acting solicitor general, {stated} that the focus should be on “the scope and nature of the right that the people have.” He added, “It is a right to participate in the common defense.”

And how are people to participate in the common defense if they are unarmed? And what is “common”? The country? State? Neighborhood?

And what about the handgun violence in D.C. today? The Boston Globe calls it a mystery that the gun ban in DC hasn’t “accomplished everything that mayor and council of that era wanted it to.”

Really? But for a real groan, read this:

Justice Stephen G. Breyer, late in the argument, made an effort to save the statute by a similar historical analogy. Firearms were regulated in the country’s early years for the sake of safety, he noted, describing a Massachusetts law that prohibited keeping loaded weapons in the home because of the risk of fire. “So today, roughly, you can say no handguns in the city because of the risk of crime,” Justice Breyer said. “Things change.”

What? Risk of crime? So guns are at risk of just jumping up and committing crimes all on their own? I’m amazed at this twisted sort of logic. At least he didn’t cite “International Law.” If he did he might have done a little research on the UK gun ban in 1996-7.

If this case goes where I hope it’s going, this will be the most fortunate turn of events for the people of DC in decades.

Dr. Boustany advocates labor relief for Louisana:

Local economies across the United States are facing an immediate labor crisis. Seasonal jobs that have been filled for years by temporary H-2B workers are vacant. Sugar cane is not being processed, rice crops can’t be sorted or bagged, and crawfish and crabs are being turned away by processors who simply don’t have the workers to clean and pick the fishermen’s catch.  

The H-2B visa program provides the small and seasonal businesses that drive many of our nation’s regional economies with legal, seasonal workers. The FY 2008 cap of 66,000 H-2B workers was met this year on January 2. In past years, Congress acted responsibly and allowed certain returning workers to be exempt from the H-2B cap in order to help meet the needs of the many seasonal businesses that rely on these workers. Unfortunately, Congress allowed the returning worker provision to expire last year, and thousands of small businesses nationwide face critical job shortages. 

The bipartisan returning worker provision is now being held as a political hostage. While American business owners suffer, legislation to fill this need sits idle. In response to the lack of action, I introduced H.Res.1025 to call up, for immediate consideration, Congressman Bart Stupak’s H.R.1843, the Save Our Small and Seasonal Businesses Act. This bipartisan measure reauthorizes the returning worker program, supplying small businesses with their essential workforce. It is my sincere hope that with my colleagues’ help we can find a quick resolution to the crisis occurring in local communities around our nation. 

If you have any questions, please visit my website or feel free to contact my Washington, D.C. office at (202) 225-2031. This is an important small business and economic issue, and I look forward to working towards a solution.

Me:  The 7th district is a small world, and I know some of the people he’s talking about.  I talked with my Uncle who is a big proponent of the George Bush/John McCain immigration policy.  Just get some foolproof ID cards for the H2B holders and the labor shortage is solved, right?  Sounds good but living in Houston opens your eyes to the reality of open borders and the often adverse consequences of such policy over the long run.  Flaunting of the law doesn’t stop with crossing the border.

The key points of the latest press release, which can be found here, followed by my insta-reactions.

Louisiana must be a place where businesses can startup and thrive, where employers can put down roots, and where families can count on good careers.

That’s a big boat to turn around. There are many, many Louisiana ex-pats throughout the country.

That is why I am proposing that we dedicate monies that come from vehicle and licensing fees to what they are intended for — transportation needs, instead of disappearing in the general fund. I am also proposing that we invest hundreds of millions of dollars to improve roads and bridges, as well as for expanding interstates and major highways throughout the state, such as I-12, I-49, and LA-28.

Sounds good to me. I like to play a game where I don’t read signs as I enter or leave Louisiana to see if I can tell the difference in states by the pothole frequency.

We must also invest $50 million in Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, a worldwide leader in nutrition research. Currently, the University of Alabama-Birmingham receives more federal research funding than all of Louisiana’s public universities combined. This cannot continue.

This one hits home. Now I’m in the Baylor College of Medicine, and I was just talking with the Jordanian about how once you leave Houston the best places to do research is Dallas, then Austin, then Birmingham. I love to see when yankees have to come down to Birmingham just because they have to follow the money. Pennington will never surpass Baylor or Southwestern, but if Birmingham can attract yankees and federal money why not Baton Rouge.

It may seem at odds against my inner libertarian, but Newt Gingrich once said that it is fiscally conservative to have a populace that lives longer, and is more healthy and able to work throughout their longer lives. The research in Pennington, or Baylor, contributes to the findings that extends lives and improves the quality of life of American citizens.

Update:  Good news!  Finally, we have provided a $50 million capital investment in Pennington Biomedical Research Center, one of the world’s leading nutrition research centers. This will provide for a new clinical research building, new high-tech equipment, and recruitment of faculty who are worldwide leaders in their fields. This will also bring more than 1,100 new jobs, and provide an economic impact of more than $110 million annually.

(That’s good news, but Bob McNair donated $100 million out of his pocket to Baylor College of Medicine.)

I get emails from the congressman representing the 7th district of Louisiana, Charles Boustany, M.D. He doesn’t have his own blog so I’m posting his updates.

Two weeks have passed since our national security community lost the ability to track valuable intelligence without going through slow and burdensome bureaucratic hurdles. That’s more than two weeks of terrorist communications that cannot be recovered. Yet, the Democratic House leadership under Speaker Nancy Pelosi refuses to debate a bi-partisan Senate bill, which would give intelligence officials expanded authority to track terrorists outside of the United States. Since August, a temporary set of new laws authorized this program, but it expired on February 15, 2008.

Violent extremists operating around the world have one aim- kill Americans. I am committed to providing responsible and appropriate tools to our intelligence community to protect and defend Americans at home and abroad. It is no coincidence that the U.S. has been free from attack at home since September 11, 2001. American intelligence officers protected us, and Congress must provide the tools and techniques they need to meet the long-term challenges that remain. Those standing on the frontlines battling these terrorists must have the ability to quickly intercept foreign communications to stop terrorists.

The Democratic leadership in the House has said, “there is no urgency” on updating our nation’s intelligence laws. I vehemently disagree; allowing this law to expire is completely irresponsible. I will continue to stand up for our men and women who defend us against future terrorist attacks. If you have questions about this debate or any other issue before Congress, please visit my website to learn where I stand and to send me your thoughts.

Sincerely,

Charles W. Boustany, Jr. M.D.
Member of Congress

So Geraldine Ferraro stepped down from her role in the Clinton campaign because she said this obviously bigoted and racist comment:

“If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman, he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept,” she said.

Anyone else see this as just a little scary? Read it again…is it POSSIBLE she has a point? There’s an equal chance she’s WAY off. Quite possibly Obama’s popularity isn’t at ALL attached to his skin color…but in what way is having the opinion that race is a powerful force behind his popularity off-limits?

Has the political correctness gotten so intense, Geraldine Ferraro can’t have an opinion about the role of skin color in a Presidential campaign?

The Democratic party is slowly losing its mind.

Turns out Clinton bought stock footage from 10 years ago for the TV ad of a little girl sleeping soundly in bed while Hillary answers the phone and keeps her safe.

Obviously the girl didn’t even know about it until her brother noticed on Jon Stewart’s show last Thursday. She prefers Obama’s “positive view of the future” to Clinton’s “fear-mongering”:

Knowles, a high school senior at Bonney Lake, Wash., turns 18 next month. She has been campaigning for Obama and attended his rally at Seattle’s KeyArena on Feb. 8. Her mother, Pam, told The News Tribune of Tacoma that Casey cried and trembled after shaking the candidate’s hand.

At least she didn’t faint: