On Monday, the Star published an editorial entitled, "Irene makes the case for government" in which the paper contrasted government performance in the face of the unusual northeast hurricane with general criticism from small-government conservatives.

Those who believe big government can do no right kept silent when big government swung into action. The much-derided Federal Emergency Management Agency prepositioned 18 disaster-response teams on the East Coast and stockpiled food, water and communications equipment.

The editorial continued to detail the preparations of various public agencies, and noted that hurricane expert Max Mayfield praised the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Mr. Mayfield praised the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for spending the extra money -- Gasp! Federal spending! -- on additional surveillance flights and weather balloons that paid off in better forecasts.

Republican Presidential Candidate Michelle Bachmann was criticized for joking that hurricanes and earthquakes were divine wrath.

Campaigning in Florida, GOP Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota said the hurricane, by then reduced to a middling tropical storm, and the East Coast earthquake days earlier were warnings from God about the evils of federal spending.

The editorial board apparently thought she was stone-cold serious even though she was smiled and her audience laughed when she said it. The editorial closed by recommending that conservatives stop talking about downsizing government until hurricane season is over.

The small-government types should hold off on their calls to downsize government. Hurricane season has three more months to run.

The article's premise--that small-government conservatives believe "government can do no right" is false. It assumes that because conservatives oppose big government, they must oppose all government.

I see the fallacy frequently, usually involving infrastructure. It goes like this:

"Oh you don't like big government? So you don't want roads then, huh?"

It's the logical equivalent of asking a drowning man if he drinks water occasionally. "You drink water every day; what's your problem with drowning?"

At the center of the fallacy is the assumption that you can't oppose something in degrees. I like water, I just don't want so much of it I drown in it. A little "Gasp!--Federal spending!" is OK by me, I just don't want to drown in public debt.

The fact that small-government conservatives oppose government in degrees is in our name. We aren't called "no-government conservatives." We want a little government, but not too much.

So when is a good time for government to get involved? If it protects us, and it works, then I think small-government types like myself are OK with it. In fact, conservatives tend to be the strongest supporters of police and the military, even though both are sizable arms of government.

You don't see Tea Partiers on street corners saying no to police and soldiers (but you do see that on the progressive left, interestingly). Nor will you see a lot of Tea Partiers--the fringe right, according to Democrats--opposing the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration. How much does the NOAA cost--.000000000000001% of the budget? There are few who care  about that, and the Tea Party did not originate over alarm at the NOAA's encroachment into our lives.

Small-government conservatives DO care when government involves itself in places it should not be or if its involvement does not work.  You don't get to $14 trillion in debt and a $1.3 trillion budget deficit with efficient government, so, believe it or not, there is room to criticize government.

When it becomes expensive, conservatives speak up.

Five of the top six largest federal budget items are progressive sacred cows, totaling two-thirds of all federal spending. If you want to cut back spending on any of those items, why you must oppose roads as well. A real good argument, right? It distorts any attempt to reduce spending or waste.

After Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans in 2005, FEMA started handing out money like it was candy, leading to millions of lost taxpayer dollars and widespread fraud. According to the liberal Huffington Post:

But that allowed thousands of improper and fraudulent payments. FEMA employees awarded money without interviewing applicants or inspecting property and made errors that ranged from recording incorrect banking information to failing to check whether insurance had already covered damage, according to congressional testimony.

HuffPo reported that FEMA is reviewing $600 million it distributed in aid to hurricane victims, and has already asked people to  pay back more than $22 million. Hundreds were convicted for fraud.

If we use the progressive fallacy that if you oppose an excess of something then you must oppose all of it, then if anyone finds it alarming that FEMA wasted millions or hundreds of millions of our dollars, then you must oppose all disaster response efforts.

In the final analysis, "Irene makes the case for government" inadvertently sets up a straw man--a conservative straw man who apparently is making the case for the elimination of all government--and knocks it down with an avalanche of praise for the feds in an attempt to diminish the arguments of those, particularly in the Tea Party, who took upon themselves the abandoned--but crucial--role of government watchdog.

The Star ran a story Saturday about the boom in business at local gold-buying stores. The stores are paying cash to people who bring in gold jewelry, but why has the price of gold increased? The article offers an explanation:

Unnerved by stock markets' wild swings of late, many investors have flocked to gold and silver, which -- at least until Wednesday's steep fall -- they view as safer investments.

The price of gold was also increasing when the stock market was doing well prior to its wild swings of late, so factors must be at play other than a volatile stock market.

When we attempt to quantify the value of something, we often price it in terms of dollars, as if the value of dollars (or euros or any other currency) is fixed. Currency values are not fixed, however. If the dollar lost value, then everything we price in terms of dollars will increase accordingly.

In fact, the devaluation of the dollar is not something that happened by accident. It's government policy. The United States has amassed so much debt, the only way it can "afford" to keep spending money is by destroying the dollar, that is, by inflation.

Inflation is a time-honored government tradition. Medieval kings would shave metal off of coins so that their face value did not match their actual value, and they hoped they would still be exchanged as if they still had their original value. People soon caught on. Similarly, modern governments simply print more dollar bills when they start to realize they are in financial trouble. The more money is in circulation, however, the less valuable it is, and the more units of that currency are needed to buy goods and services, like gold.

Rocks fell off the National Cathedral and the Washington Monument was closed indefinitely following Tuesday's once-in-a-century East Coast earthquake.

While Californians yawned at the 5.8 magnitude earthquake, the rest of the country freaked out.

Earthquake or earthquake-related searches dominated Google Trends, which measures search terms that suddenly spike in popularity. Every single top 20 hot search was earthquake related except for a few searches for "CBS News" and "ABC News," which also may be earthquake-related.

The earthquake also yielded the best political joke of the year so far.

"President Obama will address the nation tonight to explain that the DC earthquake was caused by a little-known fault line under Virginia known as Bush's Fault."

Holding signs that read "Don't Starve Kids," 70 protesters from the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights demonstrated outside of the Ventura Youth Correctional Facility in Camarillo Sunday. From the Star:

"We're not going to stop until every one of these facilities is shut down!" shouted Laura Brady, a member of the Ella Baker Center's campaign called "Families for Books not Bars."

Lead organizer Owen Li said the protesters were there for three reasons: To end solitary confinement, to stop the violence and to make sure the youths get adequate food.

What is the Ella Baker Center?

The center was formed in 1996 by far-left agitator-turned-presidential-advisor Van Jones. Jones, a self-proclaimed communist and 9-11 Truther,  ran the group from 1996 until joining the Obama Administration, and during that time it received several hundred thousand dollars in funding from George Soros.  

The rhetoric of the protestors might sound nice--who would want to "starve kids"--but adding context around who exactly is protesting should raise the question of just what are they up to? 

Only the progressive media could look at you straight in the face and tell you that a man who is putting his money--and his  life--on the line to stand in solidarity with Jews in Israel, is anti-Semitic.

Glenn Beck, whose rally last year in Washington, D.C. catapulted him from conservative talking head to the spearhead of an entire movement, took the world by surprise when he announced the sequel would take place in Jerusalem. Jews--along with conservative Americans--are being set up to be the 1930s-style scapegoats for a coming global economic collapse, according to Beck.

As he did in last year's Restoring Honor rally, Beck assembled a diverse group of religious leaders representing the world's major faiths to demonstrate that yes, we can all work together in peace to preserve human freedom. Israel is the canary in the coal mine, and considering that, like most Christians, the devout Beck believes Jews are God's chosen people, he elected to hold the Restoring Courage rally at the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.

That move shocked the Left, who always seem to be two steps behind the conservative firebrand. While they treated him like a talk-radio nut when he was on CNN, he was busy predicting the financial collapse of 2007-2008. When he moved to Fox News in 2009 (and quickly rose to the top of President Obama's enemies list) the Left painted the weepy Beck as an unhinged madman who fooled people into buying gold and who imagined socialists everywhere he went (even as the price of gold doubled and a top presidential advisor turned out to be a self-confessed Marxist). Beck outflanked them again with a tribute to Martin Luther King on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on the anniversary of his "I Have a Dream" speech. And after he departed Fox News this summer, the Left celebrated his demise even as Beck went global.

In Tempe, a pro-Israel student group is holding a Restoring Courage rally and viewing party at ASU with Rabbi Arthur Lavinsky and Pastor Eddy Paul Morris. Morris is the Arizona director of Christians United for Israel. The viewing party will be one of a thousand or so that are planned around the world. One wouldn't expect either man to support a blatantly anti-Semitic event.

However, that's just what the progressive Left is labeling Restoring Courage.

Media Matters noted that 400 George Soros-funded rabbis wrote an open letter criticizing Beck for cheapening the Holocaust by pointing out that Nazis were national socialists, and for suggesting the Soros collaborated with the Nazis (he did as a fourteen-year-old boy, something that Beck went out of his way to excuse).

Beck is also accused of exploiting Israel to "get back on top," and the Restoring Courage moniker is twisted to say that Beck believes Jews aren't courageous.  Some even are predicting he'll trigger a global calamity by holding his event during Ramadan celebrations. If so, it's curious why the mainstream media is doing their best to ignore the event.

Warren Buffett knows a good investment when he sees one.  That's the only reason I can think of why he's so supportive of Barack Obama's anti-business economic policies.

"It's nice to have friends in high places," Buffett tellingly wrote in a widely distributed op-ed in the New York Times, in which he trumpeted higher taxes on rich people like himself.

The op-ed piece, the latest in a series of favors the Oracle has done for Obama, was conveniently timed to coincide with the president's "blame Republicans" bus tour. In it, Buffett suggested raising taxes on the rich, something that Obama has been heard to utter once or twice.

Why do him this political favor or others, like endorsing Obama in the 2008 presidential campaign? Why validate the economic policies of a financial lightweight with his considerable reputation as a visionary businessman, and lend himself out as an amulet of normalcy?

Perhaps Buffett is one of the shrinking number of people who thinks Obama is a good president.  Maybe it's that he believes in far-left's vision of social justice. Or maybe it's because he's doing a relative a solid. Or he wanted a Presidential Medal of Freedom.

It's more likely that Buffett, more than anybody else on the planet, knows how to profit from an exchange of things of value. Obama desperately needs his endorsement, his stamp of approval, or his advice. What does Buffett want in return?

Well, it certainly helps to get the ear of the most powerful man in the world, who is operating the economic levers of the nation. After all, nowadays, the market is less driven by what businesses are doing than by what Washington is doing.

During his investing heyday, Buffett would do his homework on the individuals who ran the companies from which he considered buying stocks. Now that Obama is in control of large sectors of the economy, the eager beneficiary of a hundred years of growing government, Buffett may realize that it's far more profitable to anticipate Obama's moves than those of some CEO of Coca-Cola.

And the friendlier he is with Obama, the less likely Obama is going to make him guess on important matters affecting the economy--and Buffett's business. Of course, nobody would ever admit that this would give Buffett an unfair investing advantage, but as Buffett tells us, it's nice to have friends in high places. Or does the phrase go, "it pays to have friends in high places."

How else can you explain Buffett's ridiculous assertions lately, that the United States should have a AAAA credit rating because it can devalue its currency to pay its debts. That's like saying that a counterfeiter is a good investment for a bank because the counterfeiter can pay back the loan by printing some funny money.

In the New York Times op-ed, Buffett argued that it's unfair that the capital gains tax is lower than some income tax brackets, reiterating his famous line that he pays a lower tax rate than his secretary. I'm all for lowering his secretary's tax rate to 15 percent, but if we raise the capital gains tax than investors lose incentives to invest, hurting the economy. Buffett said that he never met an investor that would turn down an investment because the tax was 40 percent instead of 15 percent--after all it's still a profit--but he forgets the rather obvious implication that in the his scenario 25 percent of the would-be profit goes to the government instead of being reinvested into the economy and negatively impacting job creation.

His empty rhetoric sounds more like a politician stumping for reelection than a nonpartisan businessman.

But in the end, being a politician--or rather, cozying up to politicians--makes business sense when politicians have unprecedented control over the landscape on which businessmen must operate. 

The Oracle from Omaha is prophesying for us that the death of capitalism in the United States has fundamentally changed its nature; the real power now resides in the government-- business owners seeking profit have been replaced by politicians seeking political favors.

There are gophers in my yard, and I want to get rid of them. A few options are available to me--the varmints can be shot, trapped or poisoned, their lairs fogged or flooded, or I can even buy a device that emits a gopher-in-distress chirp that supposedly scares them away.

The packaging on the various gopher cures vary with the method used to dispatch them. The chirping device emphasizes the humaneness of the approach, it's environmentally sensitive, etc. After all, would you want to shoot or poison something that looks like this?

On the other end of the spectrum, the packaging for the poison contains the meanest, most vicious gopher you've ever seen .

You take one look at this and wonder if the gophers are going to break into your house and eat your children. Look at those claws!

Clearly, the poison-making company does not want you to think of the gopher as a cuddly animal and the chirp-device manufacturer doesn't want you to think of the gopher as a murderous RoUS. So they choose a picture that best advances whatever they want you to think.

Same goes for the leftist media; they want you to buy into a political ideology that liberals are cute and cuddly and conservatives are vicious and evil.

Covers for left-leaning magazines like Newsweek or Time are perfect examples. If you're a conservative, these publications will either a) completely ignore you, b) put the most embarrassing photo of you they can find on the cover, c) put an unflattering caption next to your photo, or d) options B and C.

Most recently, Michelle Bachmann fell victim to Newsweek's cover editors. She got the "embarrassing photo plus unflattering caption" treatment. Regardless of whether you agree with her policies or not, she's usually pretty photogenic. However, Newsweek chose a "crazy eyes" photo of her for the cover which fit perfectly with the caption, "The Queen of Rage." Subtle.

While that was predictable, what surprised me was that NOW came to Bachmann's defense and said the cover was sexist. I think that argument is nonsense (although I am impressed that NOW came to her defense and didn't ignore her like they did to Meg Whitman).

"It's sexist," NOW president Terry O'Neill told TheDC. "Casting her in that expression and then adding 'The Queen of Rage' I think [it is]. Gloria Steinem has a very simple test: If this were done to a man or would it ever be done to a man - has it ever been done to a man? Surely this has never been done to a man."

It took about two seconds of Googling to prove NOW wrong and so we arrive at our second example of biased magazine covers. Yes, Terry O'Neill, the liberal media does this to conservative men as well.

In this Time cover, we see a clownish Glenn Beck with the caption "Mad Man" and the "angry style of American politics." Not exactly flattering.

If you really want to see unflattering, here's Newsweeks Rush Limbaugh cover. He's so angry is head is about to explode. Are conservatives starting to resemble angry gophers yet?

Time did a treatment of Ann Coulter, who looked more like a daddy long-legs than a conservative pundit.

Rick Perry looked Good on Newsweek's cover, but the caption ruins it by telling us he's "hard-right." Are you going to see a liberal on the cover who's "hard left?" Doubt it.

The magazine isn't above firing up Photoshop and simultaneously humiliating a presidential candidate and an entire religion.

Would they have put him in some stereotypical Muslim garb, or cast a Jew in some stereotypical pose?

Probably not. Time, Newsweek, etc. are nice to you if you are one of the "good guys." Take the Obamas for example. Barack Obama is liberal. Michelle Obama is liberal. Newsweek and Time are liberal. What happens when all these liberals get together for a photo shoot? Nice looking pictures of liberals!

Michelle Obama is his "rock". Awww. And she just wants to feed our children well.

 Her husband looks presidential in every shot.

Gaffe-a-minute Joe Biden even comes across as presidential, or at least vice-presidential.

Al Sharpton looks great.

See a pattern here? Newsweek could have easily gone with mom-jeans Obama on his little-girl bike. But they chose him looking cool, confident, and in charge, because they want you to think he's cool, confident, and in charge. They want you to vote for him, because he advances the liberal ideology they espouse.

To do that, they have to lie a little bit with pictures. Both sides do it, incidentally. We just need to be aware of it, and realize that political figures can't be categorized as either cute and cuddly or vicious and rabid.

The stock market crash of 1929 is inexorably linked to the Great Depression--in many people's minds they are one and the same. In reality, the sudden crash on October 24, 1929 merely signaled the beginning of twelve years of depression; the market's low point wouldn't happen for another three-plus years.

After an interim low in mid-November, stocks came roaring back over the next six months and values grew by an unbelievable 50 percent.

Similarly, six months after the stock market crashed in the fall of 2008, the Dow Jones surged 41 percent, and it kept climbing.

The "sucker rally" 80 years ago was short-lived. By mid-1930, the market steadily declined before bottoming out in 1932.

In the last month, the Dow shed 15% of its value, including a 634-point drop on Monday. Is this the end of the sucker rally, where we begin a long slide into a depression? Maybe, maybe not.

But it is important to note that the stock market during the Great Depression didn't reach its bottom overnight, and there were even periods where it rallied. We tend to think of it as a sudden drop to the bottom where we stayed for a decade. However, the market went down, it went up, it went down again, before finally resting at the bottom.

As Rep. Gabrielle Giffords dramatically returned to Capitol Hill on Monday, we were reminded of the Tucson shooting tragedy that spurred both parties to briefly come together to condemn violent rhetoric.

Maybe this wasn't the best time for Joe Biden and other top Democrats to call Tea Partiers "terrorists" and "arsonists," who have no problem with "blowing up" the economy.

Politico reported Monday that its sources said Democratic Congressman Mike Doyle likened Tea Partiers to terrorists in a closed-door meeting with the vice-president.

"We have negotiated with terrorists," an angry Doyle said, according to sources in the room. "This small group of terrorists have made it impossible to spend any money."

Biden reportedly responded, "They have acted like terrorists." His office denied the remarks. Politico also reports:

Earlier in the day, Biden told Senate Democrats that Republican leaders have "guns to their heads" in trying to negotiate deals.

He also said the Tea Party figuratively possesses a "weapon of mass destruction."

Doyle added that "they have no compunction of about blowing up the economy to get what they want."

Rep. Luis Gutierrez called the Tea Partiers arsonists.

Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) called seemed to enjoy the heat analogy, saying: "the Tea Partiers and the GOP have made their slash and burn lunacy clear, and while I do not love this compromise, my vote is a hose to stop the burning. The arsonists must be stopped.

Within hours of the Tucson shooting, Democratic politicians rushed to blame Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh for causing the shooting with their so-called violent rhetoric, even though there is no evidence the shooter followed any conservative pundits.

Biden and others' violent rhetoric is proof that their outrage after the shooting was manufactured to try to shut down voices of people they didn't like. They didn't care about civility; they wanted to use the tragedy as a political cudgel to beat Republicans over the head with, even though they had nothing to do with the shooting. They seem to have quickly forgot the pro-civility movement from earlier this year, but I guess it's easy to forget principles you never held in the first place.