Dr. Paul Broun's election and first House of Representatives vote is the best political news I've had since 9:47PM, Nov. 7th, 2004.

He voted for prohibiting federal funds from being used to prosecute federal drug offenders in states where the alleged use has been legalized by the state in question.

The vote reflects Broun's promise to apply these tests to legislation:

Is it constitutional and a proper function of government? Is it morally correct? Is it something we really need? Is it something we can afford?

I'd like about 235 more Repesentatives like him, about 65 Senators, and a like President, please.

Dave Barbee is the chair of the Republican effort in the district Broun represents. He is quoted as saying,

"Either you're with the team or you're separate from the team," said Barbee, who backed Broun's opponent in the runoff. "If he doesn't follow the [conservative] mantra he campaigned on, he'll be called home."

Sounds like he voted just the way he said he would to me.

A genuinely conservative vote--hacking at a mouldered branch.

Polywell gets funding.

Probably.

Hat Tip to Instapundit. Dr. Bussard's Polywell reactor may get funding. I've mentioned before that this sounds a good thing.

Fully private investment would be better, but the potential payoff to cost ratio is so high, and in terms of California's budge, the cost so low, this will do.

If supporting any sort of government funding for such a thing sounds to you like an inconsistent thing for a libertarian to do, I would like to suggest you consider that prudence is a virtue, and that the perfect should not be the enemy of the good.

Update, July 29th, 2007.
This was a hoax. The guvernator never heard anything about it. The hoaxter posted the "news" by GoDaddy to stay anonymous.

Pasta with lamb, with a vaguely Milanese sauce

4 lb lamb chops
2 cups chianti
2 cups diced* onion
2 cups diced* celery
2 cups diced* carrot
(add diced bell peppers, mushrooms, hearts of palm, whatever)
*small dice, say 1/4inch a side, tops
4 to 8 cups diced tomatoes, canned is fine.
How much do you like tomatoes?
8 to 16 oz tomato paste
1.5 to 3 tbsp minced garlic
1 tbsp beef base
1 tbsp chicken base
1 lb pasta of choice

water
olive oil
salt
rosemary
thyme
oregano
basil
black pepper
hot pepper
honey (I’m not kidding!)
parmesan cheese
I use Mrs. Dash a lot
eh, whatever

time (about 1.5 - 2 hours)

1 large, heavy skillet
1 deep baking pan, large enough to hold all ingredients combined.
1 sauce pan for a all liquid and vegetable ingredients.
1 slotted spoon
1 pair kitchen tongs
1 cooling rack

Wash and pat dry the lamb chops quite dry. Place in fridge on plate.

Preheat the oven to 375degF.

Put the tomatoes and paste to simmer in the sauce pan.

Pat the chops quite dry again. Dry like the Mojave, or you’ll regret it.

Drop oven temp to 350degF.

Put oil to cover the bottom of the skillet, and
bring just to smoking. Then add the chops slowly with tongs. Turn them to brown heavily on all sides. Do in two batches if you need to, keep the oil hot.

Place browned chops into the baking pan with the bones standing. Place this into the oven foil covered. Brown the next batch of chops if you need to.

Oil the skillet again. Brown the carrots, onions, and celery a bit. Once browned, add the chianti.

Bring to a simmer, then add to the sauce pan. Add spices to taste and remaining ingredients.

Once it has simmered for about 15 minutes and you are confident of your seasoning, remove the baking pan from the oven and rack it.

Ladle the sauce over the chops, filling the baking pan. Place it back into the oven, uncovered.

Let cook at least one hour, 2 might be better—depends on the stringyness of your lamb, mine was fine in around 1 hr 30 min.

Cook the pasta in the usual way.

This serves around 4 quite well, and the leftover sauce will be even better the next day.

If you are a legal resident of Virginia, please sign this petition. It's about the new and draconianly confiscatory revenue measure the legislature dreamed up, "abusive driver fees".

It will not catch merely unwary, it will catch the unlucky--on top of the fine and court costs, $333.00 dollars a year for three years. It is openly admitted it a revenue measure, although they claim significant improvement in the other states that the them. As for whether it will only catch bad drivers, Bullshi!t. On the 55mpg road I drive home on, you can stay in the leftlane at 65mph and never have to slow down or pass a vehicle. Traveling 55 is posing a traffic hazard. I think about 30,000 people a day use that road, and about 80% would be subject to this law.

Well, ******** the state prosecutors association refused to carry out prosecutions that might 8trigger the Michigan version of the law, let's see if Virginia's Commonwealth's Attorney's have as much of a sense of decency.

******** I can't find a link for which state this was, I'll update when I'm able.

I believe general purposes like the roads should be funded from the general revenue, and that even if such huge fines were to be levied, they should be indexed against income so as to be neither progressive nor regressive--not per capita incident fees.

And there is the appearance of certain conflict of interest about the law as well.

The sponsor of the law, David Albo, is a partner in one of Virginia's largest law firms; one of its specialties is traffic cases.

Also, I believe to avoid commerce clause/federalism problems, the new laws affect on VA residents, they do not affect non-residents no matter how often they get ticketed.

This law is morally wrong, and must change.

Mead Blogging.

It started on the first large batch weekend before last.

20# Dutch Gold honey.
4# Buckwheat honey (stuff looked like road tar, it was that dark and thick).
1.5# Turbinado sugar
5 gallons worth yeast nutrient
1.5 tbsp Mixed Acids, Malic, Citric, and Tartaric
Water to make up 5 gallons, with 1/2 gallon batches added to aerate at later times to make up 6 gallons.

I first pitched some Red Star Pasteur Champagne I had left from other batches, as well as salvaged yeast from other brews. Evidently, it's time was passed, as N O T H I N G happened for the first 36 hours, although the date was DEC08. Slightly panicked, I went and got some Lalvin EC-1118.

Following the directions exactly, I pitched that into the still must. Twenty four hours later, I was concerned the water in the lock might leave it...

A first taste sees a very sweet, yeasty but in all ways promising batch.

Next is racking to two other carboys, and raising the volume to 8 gallons total.

I'm shooting for a sweet wine with lots of oak and whiskey notes, and a bit sparkling, most likely by dry ice addition (3 to 5 grams) after stabilizing the wine.

A quick word about Fred Thompson and his vote for McCain-Feingold.

As far as I know, he has repented and is forgiven.

The Influence Peddler says attacks on Fred Thompson are crawling out from under a really, really deep rock.

I agree.

Here's a topic for discussion.

The Polywell Fusion Reactor.

In this surge of earmarks, why can't Bussard catch the cash to at least see if a dodecahedron will work significantly better than a cubic configuration. The man needs about 10 million for that.

Seems cheap at the price to confirm the idea and improve the base design.

A great many people seem to be interested in reducing our consumption of energy and increasing the domestically supplied fraction of the energy used*. They seem not to realize the fight for the future is to drastically increase the per capita horsepower we have available, or we're stuck on this planet and will go extinct with it.

I want the Arthur C Clarke quote:

"If man survives for as long as the least successful of the dinosaurs—those creatures whom we often deride as nature's failures—then we may be certain of this: For all but a vanishingly brief instant near the dawn of history, the word 'ship' will mean—'spaceship.'"

To be true. Faster please.

*If Instapundit's views mimic a great many people's and I suspect his do.

From the QandO blog.

A Surge Of Facts.

Godspeed and good luck Mr. Snow. You've got about 60 days to turn the public perception of Iraq around. The first 15% gain in understanding that we are actually winning now in the minimum time possible will be easy. That only gets you to 45%, and you need 50% plus a good, loud margin in the states with Republican Senators who are flipping to make it through 2008. After that our success should be undeniable and celebrated even by the NYT.

It's no surprise that LewRockwell.Com is still beating on Lincoln.

But this linked review is a cut below even their usual 'we're pro-Confederacy yet still insist we're libertarian' nuttiness.

A quick glance shows a fatal flaw in the very first paragraph.

It is well known that, in an effort to promote compromise, a constitutional amendment was proposed in Congress that forever forbade interference with slavery in states where it already existed. Lincoln referred to the proposal, the Corwin Amendment, in his First Inaugural, stating that he was not opposed to the amendment, since it merely made explicit the existing constitutional arrangement regarding slavery. Of course, Lincoln was here characteristically mendacious; nothing in the constitution prior to the amendment prohibited amendments to end slavery.

There is no mendaciousness or even obfuscation to be found here on Lincoln's part. Lincoln never said the Constitution permitted the federal government to end slavery- absent an amendment to so empower it, and he points out that the Corwin amendment makes that explicit. Is the writer unaware of the fact the Constitution did at the the time prohibit the national government from interfering with the institution of slavery within a state?

And Lincoln made repetitively clear that of the two goals, ending slavery and preserving the Union, that preserving the Union was of more importance to him. He acted in accordance with both those goals and their stated relative importance to him. Where does this person imagine they find an inconsistency? They'll find none related in the quote above.

Generally, if it involves either Lincoln or the Confederacy, the thinking found on LewRockwell.Com is of like poor quality.

Nobel Peace Prize Winner wants to kill Bush non-violently.

Which makes about as much sense as this statement of hers, "The Muslim world right now is suffering beyond belief." To the limited extent that is a sufficient description of world events, a full and sufficient response of like sophistication is, "They've pissed in their own bed and ours, or let their co-religionists do it, so screw 'em."