Links and Minifeatures 08 04 Saturday

July set another new traffic record at 149,342 visits, for a running total of 1,960,932 visits. At this pace, the two millionth visit should hit sometime in the second week of August. 17 months for the first million, not quite 9 months for the second. I doubt I'm going to continue to see that pace of increase, but it's a good boost for the ego.



Thank you all for stopping by.

**********



Congressional Privilege 535, Accountability 0: Court: FBI violated Constitution in raid



**********



A visual rebuttal to those moonbats claiming the war in Iraq caused the bridge collapse in Minnesota.



National Defense: 19% of the national budget.

Entitlement Spending: 21+14+13+10= 58%



Not to mention a little thing like the bridge was known to be in need of upgrade before Kuwait was invaded in 1990, leaving a minimum of 12 years during which there was no Iraq invasion and nothing was done.



Don't get me wrong. I'm plenty upset that the bridge collapsed. I'm just not willing to blame it upon the scapegoat of the moment.



Entitlement spending is found nowhere in the Constitution as a power or responsibility of the federal government. I'm not saying repeal it, as many of those receiving it were forced to pay into the system their entire working lives and are counting upon it now that they can no longer work. But we can certainly work to trim a budgetary category that is three times the size of the much maligned defense budget.



Congress and the state legislatures have made other things a priority because infrastructure projects don't buy very many votes for their cost, unlike checks in the mailbox on the third of every month. For their part, corporate America hasn't exactly helped the situation. The whole thing is one more tragedy of the commons, and there's more than enough blame to go around to every single legislator and congresscritter of both major parties who has served in the last twenty years or so. I am angry and disgusted. But I won't let myself be distracted by a scapegoat. If the commerce clause of the constitution permits federal involvement in the construction of infrastructure, that and basic fiscal prudence require the performance of much cheaper maintenance once such infrastructure is in place.



**********



Ramona is back! No more three hours on the freeway just to drop off little Ramona and pick her up! I've even got a new article set for tomorrow!