IRAN PUSHINGTHEIR LUCK

Iran continues to play games regarding these British sailors they took hostage in Iraqi waters the other day. These were our allies operating in a war led by the United States. Is it time for a showdown? Is it time for Bush should give Tehran 24 hours to return them without a scratch...or else?

The Islamic fascists are going to continue to push until they find that magic point where we push back. Evidently kidnapping soldiers off the high seas isn't that point. Our response should be no different than if Iran took a group of U.S. Marines hostage from international waters. So what are we doing about all of this? Not much. How about the Brits? Well, not much either.

Tony Blair says they're taking Iran's actions seriously. Yeah! That ought to show them! This is why Iran does the things that it does...because it knows it can get away with it. Ahmadinejad knows he can exploit the weakness of the politically correct Islamic appeasers in Europe. He rightly calculated that he could draw attention to himself by capturing these soldiers and perhaps arranging a prisoner swap. No one is standing up to him thus far. So, perched atop his phone book in Tehran, he continues his nuclear weapons program and has now taken these prisoners.

Britain is an ally and this was an act of war. Why not give them what they seem to want? Reagan wouldn't have put up with this. And just to be bipartisan about it, neither would Harry Truman or Franklin Roosevelt. How long do we wait until we push these dangerous people back?

WHO'S GETTING THE GOODIES...AND WHO'S PAYING THE TAB!

The Tax Foundation has issued a new report entitled "Who Pays America's Tax Burden, and Who Gets the Most Government Spending". You can read the report for yourself right here, though I suspect you already know the answers to the questions.

As you might now, economists and government bureaucrats divide us into quintiles. There's the highest income one-fifth, the lowest income one-fifth, and the three-fifths in the middle. The Tax Foundation study shows that the lowest-earning one-fifth of households in America get about $8.21 in federal, state and local government spending for every dollar they paid in taxes in 2004. If you're in the middle one-fifth, you got about $1.30 in spending for every dollar in taxes. Now, can you guess what happens if you're in the top one-fifth? Right. You get raped. You get about 41 cents in government spending for every dollar you pay in taxes.

Those of you out there who so ardently hate the rich might want to rethink things. Looks to me like you need them to cover your cost of living. Pity you can't care for yourselves. Maybe that's where the hatred comes in. The dependence that those in the lower income brackets have on government handouts breed resentment .. and that resentment is aimed at those who have more. Perhaps instead of resentment these people might want to think in terms of gratitude. Thank goodness there are people out there who do go the extra mile, make the extra effort, work the extra hours to get themselves into those higher brackets. Who is going to create all of this wealth that gets redistributed if they don't? The government?