Two good weekend reads from two of my favorites, Gary North and Ron Paul.

Gary North scores it Katrina 1 and Fema 0, as he gives his take on the disaster and the disaster that is FEMA (or most other (all?) government agencies. This quote by the sheriff on Wal-Mart takes the cake.

Yesterday – yesterday – FEMA comes in and cuts all of our emergency communication lines. They cut them without notice. Our sheriff, Harry Lee, goes back in, he reconnects the line. He posts armed guards on our line and says, "No one is getting near these lines." Sheriff Harry Lee said that if America – American government would have responded like Wal-Mart has responded, we wouldn't be in this crisis.

Paul tackles the Iraq operation, offers a summary of the situation and takes a historical view of other middle east oil projects (British) and why we should walk away now instead of continuing to throw good money after bad. Paul's column is called "Why We Fight" and he does a great job of showing why we should not fight. The primary reason, which people never take into consideration is ECONOMICS, ECONOMICS and ECONOMICS. Higlights include...

Changing our policy of meddling in the affairs of others won’t come quickly or easily. But a few signals to indicate a change in our attitude would go a long way to bringing peace to a troubled land.

1. We must soon, and Congress can do this through the budget process, stop the construction of all permanent bases in Iraq and any other Muslim country in the region. Think of how we would react if the Chinese had the military edge on us and laid claims to the Gulf of Mexico, building bases within the U.S. in order to promote their superior way of life. Isn’t it ironic that we close down bases here at home while building new ones overseas? Domestic bases might well promote security, while bases in Muslim nations only elicit more hatred toward us.
2. The plans for the biggest U.S. embassy in the world, costing nearly 1 billion dollars, must be canceled. This structure in Baghdad sends a message, like the military bases being built, that we expect to be in Iraq and running Iraq for a long time to come.
3. All military forces, especially on the Arabian Peninsula, must be moved offshore at the earliest time possible. All responsibility for security and control of the oil must be transferred to the Iraqis from the United States as soon as possible, within months not years.

The time will come when our policies dealing with foreign affairs will change for the better. But that will be because we can no longer afford the extravagance of war. This will occur when the American people realize that war causes too much suffering here at home, and the benefits of peace again become attractive to us all. Part of this recognition will involve a big drop in the value of the dollar, higher interest rates, and rampant price inflation.