More Church Stuff

Paul Mero has a great article on the flat tax in Utah and the LDS Church in today's Wall Street Journal. Very positive, clear look at Utah politics and religion.

Nominate Pedro

Blogger Demosthenes relays several reasons why this man (on the left) is the best replacement for Miers as the Supreme Court nominee.

Part-time politics, Full-time results

Instapundit's porkbusters updates have been basically negative on the responses from politicians, frustratingly formed form letters, ignorance or just plain ignoring of the issue, you know the washington two-step.

One elected official, however, shines above the rest as an in touch and genuine representative of the people thanks to this post on the Edgar A Guest Forum, which was picked up by blogging giant Glenn Reynolds (Instapundit).

BoxMart?

While I don't agree with all the anti Wal-Mart sentiment out there, the JibJab guys are always very funny -- so take a look at their latest work here.

On the record, I am not happy about the way that Wal-Mart will change our small community, and I have voted against Wal-Mart in our town every time I have had the chance. However, there is a lot of mis-representation on both sides of the issue and I believe that Wal-Mart and others do a lot of good work too.

The fact is that we live in a global economy, and we are not going back to the inefficient small town mainstreet stores of the 1960s. Why should Wal-Mart be penalized because they figured out how to run a more efficient supply chain than everyone else?

In a slightly more serious vein...

Here are some of my favorites:

To be conservative.....is to prefer the familiar to the unknown, to prefer the tried to the untried, fact to mystery, the actual to the possible, the limited to the unbounded, the near to the distant, the sufficient to the superabundant, the convenient to the perfect, present laughter to utopian bliss.
-Michael Oakeshott

The government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.
-Ronald Reagan

Never give in--never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.
-Winston Churchill

If you join government, calmly make your contribution and move on. Don't go along to get along; do your best and when you have to - and you will - leave, and be something else.
-Peggy Noonan

But persuading one’s fellow citizens is one thing, and imposing one’s views in absence of democratic majority will is something else.
-Antonin Scalia

…[T]he office of government is not to impose other beliefs and activities upon its subjects, not to tutor or to educate them, not to make them better or happier in another way, not to direct them, to galvanize them into action, to lead them or to coordinate their activities so that no occasion of conflict shall occur; the office of government is merely to rule. This is a specific and limited activity, easily corrupted when it is combined with any other, and, in the circumstances, indispensable. The image of the ruler is the umpire whose business is to administer the rules of the game, or the chairman who governs the debate according to known rules but does not himself participate in it.
-Michael Oakeshott

Political Quotes

"Politicians are like babies, they should be changed regularly" Mayor Mike Deamer

"Democracy is being allowed to vote for the candidate you dislike least." Robert Byrne.

"The President has kept all the promises he intended to keep." Clinton aide George Stephanopolous.

"I don't make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts." Will Rogers.

"I do not belong to any organised political party: I'm a democrat." Will Rogers.

"Politics is the art of choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable." John Galbraith.