Saudi Arabia bans women from Beijing Olympics?

How to reconcile these 2 quite different viewpoints on women's rights:

A. Women are equal to men in every way, and to treat them any differently (except for obstetrics) is sexist, repressive and patronizing.

B. Women are physically inferior to men in every regard, to the point where the most able female athlete has no chance whatever of placement in a field open to both sexes. Therefore creating a separate class of incompetents (from which all men are barred regardless of age, strength, past history) is the only means by which women may excel. Professionally coached female athletes with unlimited time and resources for equipment, practice etc. must be protected at all cost against competition from 70 year old, senile, arthritic male amputees.

Does not endorsement of "A" as absolute truth, and law, not require endorsement of "not B"?

The state of the financial market

Somehow, Bernanke, the Federal Reserve, the media, etc. have differed only as to whom blame should be assigned, the extent of the problem, etc.
What's missing?
The fact that the current problem is not a single entity, but an unfortunate confluence of three separate factors, all of which were necessary elements. However, the applicable moral and legal standards are quite different.
The first is the acceptable interest rate. I commented 50 years ago that "usury was whatever rate banks were not permitted to charge", meaning there is no specific limit below which regular commerce functions and above which only criminal behavior exists. The interest rate, however unpleasant to the borrowers, should be a filter through which only stable and solvent applicants could pass to borrow money. The rate in and of itself did not cause the current state of affairs, and correcting it (absent other measures) will not affect a successful cure.
A greater fault lies with the perception that the value of residential housing will invariably rise, and that this concept is sufficient motivation for borrowers properly to manage their finances. This is a complete fantasy, since one need merely hark back 30 years to see a more realistic price for the same property, and that enough fluctuation may occur during the term of the loan to destroy any equity.
The final error is the illusion that people need not be protected from bad choices, are capable of acting in their own interest, will work to avoid the consequences of an error.

Capitalism Adjusted

    There is a fundamental flaw in capitalism as a theoretical financial concept. The basic premises:
1. capitalism is (so far) the best method for bringing new projects, industries, and inventions to market.
2. capitalism no longer exists when the owner of the business does not require capital (i.e., has enough money that more investors are superfluous).
3. since investing always involves some risk, and since failed businesses are frequently complete losses to investors, it is reasonable to allow profit to the investors (owners of common stock) if the business succeeds.
    However:
    Only the original investor (the common stock owner) took a risk. If the stock is sold or inherited, the next owner did not make the same decision, and by definition their exposure to loss is less - because the stock is worth something at the time of the sale (which was not true at the point of the original investment).
    Why do the successive owners of the same share of stock receive the same benefits as the original investor?
    Continued trading and dividends on existing stock REDUCES incentive for the capitalization of new businesses.
    This could be "adjusted" by re-arranging the capital gains tax as a sliding scale. The first 1,000% return (10 times the initial risk) on investment (after sale of stock) ISN'T TAXED AT ALL. The next 1,000% is taxed at 25% of its income, the next 1,000% at 50%, etc. so that (as the investor is more and more distant from the original decision, which is the introduction of the stock and product into the market, and any real risk) the return is more heavily taxed.
    This will instantly make new issues of stock more attractive than existing, funding new jobs, durable goods spending, research, etc.
    The ZERO capital gains on the first 1,000%, which is only taxed as ordinary income, means that middle income investors will make more real money on this than the wealthy - whose tax bracket is higher.

A feminist icon under the microscope of history

Margaret Sanger, the sacrosanct founder of Planned Parenthood, has not been quite so pristine as her current acolytes profess.
She spoke at a Ku Klux Klan rally in 1926. Her comments included "nigger" in reference to blacks, and Aboriginal Australians as "the lowest known species of the human family, just a step higher than the chimpanzee in brain development".
She also addressed the New York legislature: "Jewish people and Italian families, who are filling the insane asylums, who are filling the hospitals and filling our feeble-minded institutions, these are the ones the tax payers have to pay for the upkeep of, and they are increasing the budget of the State, the enormous expense of the State is increasing because of the multiplication of the unfit in this country and in the State."

Perhaps Hillary's response would be of interest, but who among the media would dare bell the cat?

"Student" protests: is there a solution?

The media's patience with anyone professing to be a student is evidently unlimited, especially if the subject of their righteous indignation is illegal immigration or terrorism (more closely related than readily apparent).

But, is there some action that can be taken, legally, to deal with this?
Of course - only the will is lacking (or should we say, the financial and political influences of Mexico and Saudi Arabia are still present).

If there actually were a State Department (instead of a sorry assortment of paid lobbyists for special interests) the following steps would already have been taken:
1. a video of the demonstrators and a list of members of these organizations would be examined
2. U.S. citizens separated out (Group 1)
3. legal residents (visa, green card) separated out (Group 2)
4. illegals separated out: visa over-stayers, "students" not registered at or attending school, those with criminal history but not yet deported, those with unpaid student loans, fraudulent references, etc. (Group 3)

Group 1: their name, home address, school, and photo are sent to their local newspaper and police department, their names go on the no-fly list, all their phone calls are monitored, the IRS audits their tax returns permanently, their bank records are examined for transfers to foreign agents, passports reviewed for visits to terrorist states, videos rented, books read, etc.

Group 2: is summoned to appear at an INS hearing in 3 days to explain why they should not be deported. Failure to appear results in an arrest warrant, seizure of any tuition paid, expulsion from school, any class credits or degrees voided, eviction from campus housing, revocation of driver's license, closure of bank account and credit cards, passport warning sent to Homeland Security and all airlines.

Group 3: Homeland Security SWAT raid on campus in full regalia (black uniforms with face masks, body armor, automatic weapons, stun grenades), forcibly arrested, every measure in Group 2 applied, then deported to Iraq regardless of country of origin.

The only question is whether we act in time (yesterday would be better than today, today is better than tomorrow), or do we get to "analyze the problem" after it's too late (as in the UK, where the terrorist threat is native-born citizens).

There are only 2 possible endgames here:

1. they will kill us
2. we will kill them

The "Sub-prime crisis" cured

The "remedy" that has been applied is:
1. the infusion of more worthless currency into the economy (speed up the Federal printing press)
2. lowering the prime rate.

Both encourage promiscuous lending practices, and destroy conservative investments.

This will end very badly.
And it could all be fixed with a few lines in the tax code - if anyone were interested.
1. home mortgage interest becomes only deductible up to X times the prime rate, or simply X (to be set by the Fed). This will kill off future speculation, and is beyond the reach of local rabble-rousing populist demagogues.
2. tax on income derived from writing and servicing home mortgages becomes a function of the average mortgage rate over the life of the loan - (prime rate × 2). Example: mortgage rate 10, prime rate 2.5, difference 5, tax is based on 5 times the commission.

Reverend Wright's feat of superhuman strength

Somehow, no one in the media noticed that Wright's historical comments have done something previously only believed possible through plate tectonics: he has moved Israel into Africa ("on what continent did everything in the Bible from Genesis to Malachi take place?").

To what may we attribute this minor error:
Is he an idiot, or at best, illiterate?
Is his afro-centric education entirely of this poor quality?
Is he aware of his error, but arrogance causes him to lie to gain a political advantage over those who foolishly look to him for guidance?