Is the U.S. actually "addicted" to Middle Eastern oil? Who do we import the bulk of our oil from?

Q: I recently read natural gas is cheap in relation to oil... How does this work and what does it mean?

A: Since natural gas and oil both provide energy and are found together in wells, the industry uses a simple conversion metric to value those resources... and the companies that own them.

Natural gas is usually priced in units of 1,000 cubic feet (aka MCF). "MCF" is simply a measuring unit – like an "ounce" of silver or a "bushel" of corn. And as you know, oil is usually priced by the barrel.

One barrel of oil produces about the same amount of energy as 6,000 cubic feet of natural gas. So six MCF of natural gas should cost about the same as one barrel of oil (a 6-to-1 ratio). When the ratio climbs to 10-to-1, oil is expensive relative to natural gas. When the ratio dips down to 4-to-1, it means oil is cheap relative to natural gas. The relationship is like a rubber band... When prices move too far beyond the 6-to-1 ratio, they're likely to snap back into place.

Right now, one barrel of oil costs about $90, while one MCF of natural gas costs about $8. This puts our ratio around 11-to-1. Either natural gas is exceptionally cheap, or oil is expensive. I'm guessing in 2008, oil will retrace some of its gains to come closer in line with its energy cousin.

Q: I noticed platinum hit a record high this month... What's driving the rise?

A: In addition to being a popular material used in jewelry, platinum is a "green" metal. About 50% of world platinum demand comes from catalytic converters, which reduce toxic auto emissions. In this pollution-conscious world, demand for catalytic converters is as close to guaranteed as it gets.

Platinum prices are being driven in part by decreased supply. An eight-year run of supply growth ended last year. Production in South Africa (by far the world's largest producer) fell in 2007. That came as a shock, as analysts had predicted the supply of platinum would continue to grow.

In contrast to slowing production, demand is increasing. More people are interested in platinum as an investment, and the world's growing auto fleet needs catalytic converters. It's a setup for elevated platinum prices for at least the next few years.

But that doesn't necessarily mean that it's a great time to buy platinum miners. We aren't the first investors to notice the run in platinum.

Q: Is the U.S. actually "addicted" to Middle Eastern oil? Who do we import the bulk of our oil from?

A: I love this question, because our own president bowed to the uninformed public's pressure (what a surprise). In a speech on January 31, 2006, the president announced that the nation was addicted to oil. He didn't name the Middle East per se, but said we import our oil from "...unstable parts of the world."

I think the general public assumes that the Middle East is the source of our imported oil. But that assumption is wrong...

We produce 40% of the oil we consume right here in the U.S. And as far as being addicted to Middle East oil, look at this breakdown of U.S. oil imports:

Country % of Oil Imports Canada 18% Persian Gulf 16% Saudi Arabia 11% Mexico 11% Venezuela 10% Nigeria 8% Algeria 5%

As you can see, we import more oil from Canada than we do from all the Persian Gulf states. It's the Canadians' fault, eh? Both Mexico and Venezuela are on par with the amount we import from Saudi Arabia.

OPEC oil makes up not quite half our imports, but much of that OPEC oil comes from the African members Angola, Algeria, and Nigeria, not the Middle East. Still, like in 1980s Hollywood, Middle Easterners are the scapegoats.

And truthfully, I don't agree with the idea that we're "addicted" to oil. Saying we're addicted to oil is like saying we're addicted to electricity or copper. Oil is a commodity that has elevated our society. Without oil, you have no airplanes, no Google, no Indy 500... you get the picture.

If you really want to do something meaningful about our oil imports, forget the idea of a substitute for oil. It's not about ethanol or biodiesel... That's just trading crack for heroin. Reduce your gasoline consumption. Fifty percent of the oil we consume is to produce gasoline for our cars.

Sorry to break the news to you, but that's it, that's the solution. There is no pill or patch to make it any easier. Become a one-car family... take the bus... get a fuel-efficient vehicle instead of an SUV troop carrier.

Since I'm a pretty good judge of human behavior, I'm going to continue to invest in oil companies. That is until my neighbor sells one of his Chevy Tahoes and buys a Prius.

Good investing,

Matt Badiali

an official condemnation that held John McCain and his peers responsible for spearheading this illegal land seizure,

Native Americans: Navaho Indians are the targets of brutal genocide right here in Arizona, USA ...by Sen. John McCain & a few greedy Senators

SYNOPSIS: A Massachusetts / West Virginia coal company working directly with John McCain as point man, backed by John Kerry, Ted Kennedy, Bill Clinton, Al Gore and Jay Rockefeller assembled (Navaho Resettlement Act and Navaho Accommodation Agreement) illegal enactments designed to force Native American Navaho of the Dineh Band off their Arizona lands, moving them onto a Nuclear Waste Dump site, Church's Hill in Nevada, depriving them of lands they've owned since 1500 AD. so that a Rockefeller Coal Company can exploit their lands for personal gain? This lead to the deaths of thousands and massive radiation based deformities among newborn Navaho children and youngsters. Thuggery and theft of property, fencing out of rangelands, cattle seizures, water well cappings and beatings and other indignity has led to the death of thousands of elder grandfathers and mothers of the Navaho Di'neh Nation, a birth defect rate twice the national average has led to UN & EU condemnations! Navaho are full US citizens! Over the past decade, McCain's illegal activities have led to the very first UN Human Rights condemnation of the USA: an official condemnation that held John McCain and his peers responsible for spearheading this illegal land seizure, coal seizure without payment of licensing rights, and rape of the land. A very hypocritical group of Senators along with Bill Clinton were also mentioned in the Condemnation in addition to McCain, but McCain was the principal party responsible for the Human Rights Violation! A paid media blackout has followed! We must keep this story alive! It is extremely similar to what the Rockefeller Oil interests tried to perpetrate in Iraq, but were blocked by the Bush Administration. Don't let Rockefeller Coal or Oil Interests continue to victimize civilian populations inside and outside the United States. During WWII they gave Adolph Hitler the Censuses taken by IBM in Europe: providing Hitler a roadmap to finding every Jew, Gypsy and Catholic throughout Europe, in exchange for oil agreements, creating the Holocaust. Lyndon Johnson fabricated the Gulf of Tonkin incident for the Rockefellers' so that the Vietnam War would innundate North and South Vietnam, eventually bankrupting them so they couldn't develop and sell their Tonkin Gulf Natural Gas Reserves to China, today Rockefeller's Conoco is exploiting it, owns the concession. Likewise, the Rockefellers financed Che Guevera and Fidel Castro's takeover of Cuba and Russian military involvement, to keep the drillers away from Cuba's vast petroleum resources off it's coast, today being exploited by Conoco and Texaco, both Rockefeller companies. And today, to block the timely development of pipelines in Russia to India across Afghanistan, until the Rockefellers could extort ownership of Russia's oil fields (in 2006) from Putin, we have Rockefeller Sponsorship for 9/11's attacks. David Rockefeller knew, he sold the WTC to Larry Silverstein just 9 months before 9/11! And that's far from the entire picture! Support a Constitutional Initiative to limit their rights to acquire and service energy distribution, resource exploitation and mining/well digging without responsibility for the ecological consequences or human rights and property rights of the owners of these precious national resources! Make the Rockefellers pay to replace the lost resources that are leading to global warming! And where others have died at their hands in mass murder: prosecute them for crimes against Humanity. Look what they and a single senator: John McCain, perpetrated against an entire people, the Navaho Dineh, in America in the past decade! Horrifying and Tragic!

" fp-style="fp-btn: Embossed Rectangle 8; fp-font: Arial; fp-font-style: Bold; fp-font-size: 18; fp-font-color-normal: #000080; fp-font-color-hover: #0000FF; fp-font-color-press: #008080; fp-bgcolor: #000000; fp-proportional: 0" fp-title="CLICK HERE>" onmouseover="FP_swapImg(1,0,/*id*/'img1',/*url*/'buttons/button10.jpg')" onmouseout="FP_swapImg(0,0,/*id*/'img1',/*url*/'buttons/button11.jpg')" onmousedown="FP_swapImg(1,0,/*id*/'img1',/*url*/'buttons/buttonA.jpg')" onmouseup="FP_swapImg(0,0,/*id*/'img1',/*url*/'buttons/button10.jpg')" border="0" height="32" width="170"> TO ENTER: "AM I MY BROTHER's KEEPER?"

Republican cowboy

Not to share this would be a crime...

Subject: Republican cowboy


A Republican cowboy from Texas goes to a social function where Hillary
Clinton is trying to gather more support for her nomination. Once she
discovers the cowboy is a Republican, she starts to belittle him by
talking in a southern drawl and single syllable words.

As she was doing that, she kept swatting at some flies that were buzzing
around her head. The cowboy says, "Y'all havin' some problem with them
circle flies?"

She stopped talking and said, "Well yes, if that's what they're called.
But I've never heard of circle flies."

"Well ma'am," the cowboy replies, "circle flies hang around ranches.
They're called circle flies because they're almost always found circling
around the back end of a horse."

"Oh," Hillary replies as she goes back to rambling. But, a moment later
she stops and bluntly asks, "Are you calling me a horse's ass?"

"No, ma'am," the cowboy replies, "I have too much respect for citizens
of New York to call their Senator a horse's ass."

"That's a good thing," she responds and begins rambling on once more.

After a long pause, the cowboy, in his best Texas drawl says, . . .
"Hard to fool them flies though !"

McCain is a Geraldo Rivera Republican

Not all of us have forgotten how the short-fused Arizona senator cursed good-faith opponents in his own party ("F**k you!" and "Chickensh*t" were the choice words he had for Texas GOP Sen. John Cornyn during a spat over enforcement provisions). Not all of us have forgotten that he voted against barring felons from receiving amnesty benefits under his plan. Not all of us have forgotten the underhanded, debate-sabotaging manner in which McCain/Kennedy/Lindsey Graham/Harry Reid conspired to ram their package down voters' throats.
*******************
Geraldo Rivera Republican
Americans should remember John McCain's open-borders demagoguery.

By Michelle Malkin
After spearheading a disastrous, security-undermining illegal alien amnesty bill last year with Teddy Kennedy, "straight-talking" GOP Sen. John McCain claims he has seen the light. In TV appearances, he vows to put immigration enforcement first. On the campaign trail, he offers a perfunctory promise to strengthen border security and emphasizes the need to restore Americans' trust in their government's ability to defend the homeland.

"I got the message," he told voters in South Carolina. "We will secure the borders first."

But how can McCain cure citizens' distrust when his own credibility on the issue remains fatally damaged? He doesn't believe his own election-year spin. And he knows we know it. This is cynicism on steroids with a speedball chaser.

His admission of the shamnesty failure is grudging and bitter. While he now tells conservative voters what they want to hear about the need to build the southern border fence, he takes a contemptuous tone toward physical barriers when talking to businessmen. "By the way, I think the fence is least effective," he told executives in Milwaukee, according to a recent Vanity Fair profile. "But I'll build the goddamned fence if they want it." Straight talk? Try hate talk.

For all his supposed newfound enlightenment about what most Americans want -- protection against invasion, commitment to the rule of law, meaningful employer sanctions, an end to sanctuary cities, enforcement-by-attrition plus deportation reform, and an end to special illegal alien benefits that invite more law-breaking -- The Maverick remains a Geraldo Rivera Republican. Like the ethnocentric cable TV host who can't string a sentence about immigration together without drowning in demagoguery, McCain naturally resorts to open-borders platitudes when pressed for enforcement specifics.

Instead of emphasizing the need for local and state cooperation with federal immigration authorities to prevent the release of illegal alien criminals or discussing 100 percent preventable crimes by illegal alien thugs who should never have been on American soil in the first place, McCain harps on open-borders sob stories. Several times over the past year, in response to citizen questioners who have expressed frustration with the lack of accountability for immigration law-breakers, McCain has responded: "I am not going to call up a soldier and tell him I am deporting his mother. ... I'm not going to do it. You can do it."

But what if that mother had stolen an American citizen's Social Security number to work here illegally? What if she had been previously deported, re-entered illegally, and had been convicted of previous crimes? What if she were part of a human smuggling ring? What if she had been working in a sensitive area -- airport security, a military base, a port? Would he still refuse to abide by his constitutional obligation to provide for the common defense and secure the blessings of liberty for law-abiding Americans?

If McCain refuses to enforce immigration law against illegal alien parents of soldiers, what about illegal alien soldiers who used stolen or fake identification to get into the military? And why only illegal alien parents of soldiers? Why not illegal alien parents of police officers, teachers, doctors and store owners? McCain's selective enforcement policy is the exact recipe for immigration anarchy that we have today.

The hothead has succeeded in intimidating voters and eluding tough questions from the press by playing his rhetorical violin. There is a reason so many liberals in the media and the Democratic Party want John McCain to be the GOP presidential nominee. He gives them cover to continue smearing grassroots conservatives.

In Michigan, the illegal alien parent-of-a-soldier story was met with boos. McCain's cheerleaders at The New York Times and other press outlets attempted to depict the detractors as insensitive and racist boors -- just as they did during last year's ill-fated shamnesty campaign.

McCain has learned nothing. What about us? What have we learned... anything?

McCain's Lazarus Routine

McCain's Lazarus Routine
Posted by Chuck Muth
January 14, 2008 at 1:44 pm


Many conservatives thought - hoped - that John McCain’s presidential campaign was dead beyond
revival last summer as, indeed, it appeared. Alas, his win in New Hampshire last week has resurrected his campaign corpse, so it’s time to remind everyone why nominating McCain, for conservatives anyway, would be the next worst thing to nominating Mike Huckabee.

In a Washington Post column yesterday, McCain adviser John Weaver had this to say about opposition to McCain’s candidacy by various conservative leaders such as our good friend and best friend of the American taxpayer, Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform:

“Here's who John McCain has angered: self-described conservative lobbyists who basically represent special interests. They're angry at him because he has put the national interest in front of their special interests.”

No, John McCain has put John McCain’s interests before the national interests of freedom and a
strictly-limited federal government.
McCain’s sole interest is in washing away the historical memory of his role in the Keating Five
scandal by replacing it with a presidential term or two.

The “special interests” which “conservative lobbyists” who oppose McCain advocate for include
those who value free speech, which was muzzled by the abominable McCain-Feingold law, those
who value gun rights and the constitutional right of self-defense, those who don’t think terrorists planning to kill millions of Americans should enjoy American constitutional rights, those who don’t buy into the hooey of Al Gore’s global warming hysteria, those who supported the Bush tax cuts which McCain voted against, those who don’t think it’s the federal government’s role to regulate professional boxing, and those who object to extending amnesty to illegal aliens.

In other words: conservatives.

Another McCain adviser, Charlie Black, told the Post that “In three or four weeks, everybody
will be for McCain.”

I can’t speak for the rest of you, but I won’t be. No way. No how.

If you really want to blow up the Republican Party, nominate McCain for president and have him
tap Huckabee for Veep. Then turn out the lights, because the party will be over.

Murtha takes home the bacon

Murtha Led Congress in Earmarks

Monday, January 14, 2008 12:31 PM


Democratic Rep. John Murtha led all House members in earmarks last year, procuring $162 million in “pork” for his congressional district.

Murtha — an outspoken critic of the Iraq war and powerful chairman of the House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee — secured earmarks in the defense budget for 26 beneficiaries. Every one of them has contributed to his campaign, giving a total of $413,250, according to the newspaper Roll Call.

That is “a gross example of quid pro quo Washington,” the New York Times states in an editorial.

The Times cites one example of Murtha’s largesse. In 1991, he used a $5 million earmark to create the National Defense Center for Environmental Excellence in Johnstown, the largest city in his district. The company was set up to develop anti-pollution technology for the military.

Since then, it has received more than $670 million in contracts and earmarks. But an investigation by the Washington Post, found that little of the center's work has been widely used or deployed by the Defense Department.

The Center is managed by another contractor Murtha helped to create, Concurrent Technologies, a research firm that was allowed to be set up as a tax-exempt charity, according to the Post. Concurrent now has annual revenue of nearly $250 million, and the salaries of its top three executives average $462,000 a year.

The Times observes that Murtha’s “universe” is a “costly creation of interlocking contractors who continue to feed at the public trough despite reviews questioning their performance.”

Rush Limbaugh on Fred Thompson

THOMPSON: Governor Huckabee's campaign manager said it accurately in terms of what they believe. They believe that it is over. This is a battle for the heart and soul of the Republican Party and its future. On the one hand, you have a Reagan revolution; you have the Reagan coalition of limited government, and strong national security. On the other hand, you have the direction that Governor Huckabee would take us in. He would be a Christian leader, but he would also bring about liberal economic policies, liberal foreign policies.

RUSH: And, you know, now, this was unique. This has not happened to date in Republican debates with a Republican calling another Republican a liberal. And this is why Fred was considered to be on fire. He continued.

THOMPSON: He believes we have an arrogant foreign policy in the tradition of blame-America first. He believes that Guantanamo should be closed down and those enemy combatants brought here to the United States to find their way into the court system eventually. He believes in taxpayer funded programs for illegals, as he did in Arkansas. He has the endorsement of the National Education Association, and the NEA said it was because of his opposition to vouchers. He said he would sign a bill that banned smoking nationwide. So much for federalism, so much for state's rights, so much for individual rights. That's not the model of the Reagan coalition. That's the model of the Democratic Party.

RUSH: Where has this been? Everybody is asking, "Where has this been," besides on this program? Where has this been in the context of the Republican debates? When I got home from dinner last night and started checking e-mail both from friends and just others, it was just shy of orgasmic -- there was so much excitement and happiness, and people were also frustrated, where's this been? Fred's finally come alive. This is an annunciation of the conservative agenda that has not been present in their debates before, and everybody has known, a lot of people have known it's there. It just hasn't surfaced. So now, because of Fred's stellar performance last night -- I should say Senator Thompson's stellar performance, guess what's happening? It's predictable. The Drive-Bys, media commentators, the pundits who ought to be so ashamed of blowing New Hampshire as badly as they did, they shouldn't be able to show their face, they suffer no embarrassment whatsoever, they are saying it's too little, too late. We had two states. We had the Hawkeye Cauci; we've had New Hampshire. We had two states. It's too late? Fred doesn't have a chance? Just wait 'til we get to these states where there are full-fledged conservative Republicans, not like New Hampshire, where McCain won the election with Democrats and independents. Mitt Romney got a majority of the Republican vote in New Hampshire. But the Republicans, in a Republican primary, were outnumbered by Democrats and independents.
Speaking of New Hampshire, Dennis Kucinich wants a recount, not because of him. He thinks something's really strange here. He thinks these polls are not that wrong, he thinks there's something astray, something wrong, and he wants an investigation. Precisely because he wants one is why we won't get one. The Drive-Bys are never going to do a story on Democrat voter fraud, even if it happened, they're never going to do that. It will stoke up the kooks. I mean the kooks are demanding it on Democrat Underground and so forth. The Drive-Bys are trying to write off our good guys, and they're going to have to be stopped. They're trying to write off genuine conservatives and prop up those who are not genuine conservatives on the Republican side. They are trying to tell us who will win South Carolina, who's going to win Michigan. They already got it on the books. And when that happens, it's the end of Romney, it's the end of Fred, probably the end of Rudy, leaving us with McCain and Huckabee before we even get to states with genuine conservative Republican voters. The Drive-By Media, all these pundits, are trying to dictate the terms of this election and ultimately back their guy on our side, and their guy on our side is the guy they think will be most easily beaten by their real guy on the Democrat side, or girl, depending on how it ends up.

And I frankly, folks, I don't think even you, and you in this audience are among the most engaged, you are the most informed and the most knowledgeable of all broadcast media, according to the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. I think even some people in this audience don't realize the extent to which the media is attempting to dictate the terms of our primary elections. They're using phony polls; the nonstop commentary trying to demoralize conservatives; the media's unwillingness to actually report, for example, on Senator McCain's record. They have their techniques, and they are in full use right now. It's plain as day for me to see. The Drive-Bys are not just trying to help the Democrats. They helped the Democrats by hurting us. They will always tell you, the Drive-By Media will always tell us, ladies and gentlemen, just who is and who isn't a conservative on the Republican side. Brit Hume said, "Governor Huckabee, did the American commander in the Strait of Hormuz yesterday make the right decision by responding passively when approached aggressively by the Iranian fast books believed to be from the Revolutionary Guards? He also received a warning that said the American ships might be about to blow up, did he make the correct call, sir?"

HUCKABEE: I'm going to trust that the president, with the information that he had and that those commanders had, made the right decision. I think we need to make it very clear, not just to the Iranians, but to anybody, that if you think you're going to engage the United States military, be prepared not simply to have a battle. Be prepared, first, to put your sights on the American vessel. And then be prepared that the next thing you see will be the gates of Hell, for that is exactly what you will see after that.

RUSH: Oh, yeah, right on, right on, right on, people got all excited about that. I have a question. Sorry, ladies and gentlemen, I have a question. We've gone from, "We need to treat the enemies of the United States, terrorists and so forth, with the Golden Rule, do unto them as we would have them do unto us," whatever it is, vice-versa. Apparently that's not playing well, because now if you're one of our enemies, and you target our military, you better be ready for the gates of hell from Governor Huckabee. So we're getting a, how do we say, a more strident tone here. Sometimes it's tough to keep up, even for somebody like me.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: A few more sound bites from the Republican debate last night. Brit Hume said, "Senator Thompson, did the commander on the ground make the correct call in not blowing the Iranian ships out of the water?"

THOMPSON: You can't take the judgment like that out of the hands of the officers on the ground there. I think one more step, you know, and they would have been introduced to those virgins that they're looking forward to seeing.

AUDIENCE: (laughter)

RUSH: Wendell Goler of Fox News asked Senator Thompson, "Would your administration continue to back Pakistani President Musharraf despite polls that show two-thirds of the Pakistani people want him to resign?"

THOMPSON: Oh, my goodness, go against a poll?

AUDIENCE: (laughter)

THOMPSON: How can anybody ever do that? In the first place, you can tell that the news is good news coming out of Iraq because you read so little about it in the New York Times.

AUDIENCE: (laughter and wild applause)

RUSH: Where has this stuff been? I'm trying to race through this. It speaks for itself. But Fred really scored some exciting points himself last night. It was fascinating, too. I went to a bunch of different websites, and the evangelicals thought that Huckabee just owned the night. Look, I learned in '92: You're not going to talk people who have an emotional connection to anything about it. You may be able to emotion them out of it, but I don't have that ability. You're not going to be able to talk 'em out of it. Chris Wallace said, "Governor Huckabee, in your ten years running Arkansas, you raised taxes. They were higher at the end of your ten years than they were at the beginning by hundreds of millions of dollars, and you increased the size of government. Is that your idea of change, to be a Big Government Republican president?"

HUCKABEE: My idea of government is to get the job done and make sure that you balance your budget, that you respond to the needs of your people. I don't think the federal government needs any more money. That's why I've signed a pledge that I would not raise taxes as president. Let me tell you what I raised, Chris. I raised hope. I raised expectations of the kids in my state who didn't have a decent education, and our courts ordered us to put more money into it. And rather than just act about my political future, I acted about the future of those kids. I raised the quality of life by making sure that education and health and highways, were accessible to every kid in that state.

RUSH: Well... That's a first: Making highways accessible to kids? Was that Obama? Can I ask you, was that Obama speaking? That was Huckabee? It says here on my sound bite audio roster that that was Huckabee. You know, my hearing is such that sometimes I can't distinguish voices. Was that Obama? Tell me! (interruption) That was Huckabee, using Obama's lines. "Highways are accessible to every kid in the state." "I raised hope." "I didn't raise taxes, I raised hope." Raising taxes, increasing taxes equals increasing hope or raising hope? Boy, Obama, what an orator! What a soaring guy. Rudy Giuliani said this about the concept of "change."
GIULIANI: Change is either good or bad, and when you just say "change," if the change that you're talking about is raising taxes, if the change that you're talking about is pulling out of Iraq precipitously, if the change that you're talking about is socialized medicine, these are definitely changes, but they're changes in the wrong direction. If the change is in the direction of lower taxes, less spending, giving parents choice over education, energy independence, these are things that are going to make a brighter future and a better America. But just the word "change" doesn't connote good or bad. You've gotta get one step beyond that and start looking at the changes.

RUSH: Here is Wendell Goler of Fox News: "Senator Thompson, the governor says that 12 million people would be looked at individually. How would you find them," this is an immigration question, "and can you do it faster than he would, sir?"

THOMPSON: We would be a nation of high fences and wide gates, and we get to decide when to open the gate and when to close it. It's not just 12 million people. We have to be concerned about another 12 million people. I disagree with my friend John McCain on the bill that they proposed last year. I disagree with my friend Governor Huckabee when he supported in-state tuition for illegal immigrants, when he fought the legislature when they tried to impose verification requirements (Bing! Bing!) before a person could vote so you could determine they were American citizen. I think that we have got to enforce the border, crack down on employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants, and stop sanctuary cities and policies that encourage people to continue across the border while we claim to be trying to enforce the border.

RUSH: Well, it was a long time coming, but there it is: Some actual conservatism in the Republican debate last night. Now, one thing you might have noticed if you watched the debate last night: Nobody went after McCain. What you just heard Thompson say (Thompson impression), "I disagree with my friend John McCain on that immigration bill he proposed," and then he launched into Huckabee. Now, Thompson spent most of the time going after Huckabee, which is understandable. He and Huckabee might be vying for the same voters in South Carolina. (sigh) I'm not a campaign strategerist, but I think the Thompson campaign has gotta go after everybody, and especially has to go after McCain. Nobody went after McCain last night. I mentioned this earlier. Nobody on that panel, and McCain is s the anointed front-runner by the Drive-Bys, and everybody (interruption). Yeah, immigration came up at the end, but they're still a little -- not a little, they're a lot -- afraid to go after McCain here. By the way, can I ask you a question? No matter how McCain does, nobody is saying he has to win this state or has to win that state or get out and he's finished. Nobody. Same with Huckabee. Only Thompson, only Romney, and only Giuliani are the Drive-Bys saying, "If Romney doesn't win Iowa, he's finished! If he doesn't win New Hampshire, he's finished. If he doesn't win Michigan, he's done."

"If Rudy can't put that machine back together real fast, Florida is going to come too late. He's done, too! He doesn't have a chance."

"Thompson? Why, it's a joke? Why, Thompson doesn't have enough time! He got in too late!"

But they never say, "Huckabee needs to win this race, or he's fini," or, "if McCain loses this state where he's so up, if he loses, oh, it's over."

They're not saying that.

U.S. Seeks to Force Suspect to Reveal Password to Computer Files

In Child Porn Case, a Digital Dilemma
U.S. Seeks to Force Suspect to Reveal Password to Computer Files

By Ellen Nakashima
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, January 16, 2008; Page A01

The federal government is asking a U.S. District Court in Vermont to order a man to type a password that would unlock files on his computer, despite his claim that doing so would constitute self-incrimination.

The case, believed to be the first of its kind to reach this level, raises a uniquely digital-age question about how to balance privacy and civil liberties against the government's responsibility to protect the public.

The case, which involves suspected possession of child pornography, comes as more Americans turn to encryption to protect the privacy and security of files on their laptops and thumb drives. FBI and Justice Department officials, meanwhile, have said that encryption is allowing terrorists and criminals to communicate their plots covertly.

Criminals and terrorists are using "relatively inexpensive, off-the-shelf encryption products," said John Miller, the FBI's assistant director of public affairs. "When the intent . . . is purely to hide evidence of a crime . . . there needs to be a logical and constitutionally sound way for the courts" to allow law enforcement access to the evidence, he said.

On Nov. 29, Magistrate Judge Jerome J. Niedermeier ruled that compelling Sebastien Boucher, a 30-year-old drywall installer who lives in Vermont, to enter his password into his laptop would violate his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. "If Boucher does know the password, he would be faced with the forbidden trilemma: incriminate himself, lie under oath, or find himself in contempt of court," the judge said.

The government has appealed, and the case is being investigated by a grand jury, said Boucher's attorney, James Boudreau of Boston. He said it would be "inappropriate" to comment while the case is pending. Justice Department officials also declined to comment.

But the ruling has caused controversy.

"The consequence of this decision being upheld is that the government would have to find other methods to get this information," said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center. "But that's as it should be. That's what the Fifth Amendment is intended to protect."

Mark D. Rasch, a privacy and technology expert with FTI Consulting and a former federal prosecutor, said the ruling was "dangerous" for law enforcement. "If it stands, it means that if you encrypt your documents, the government cannot force you to decrypt them," he said. "So you're going to see drug dealers and pedophiles encrypting their documents, secure in the knowledge that the police can't get at them."

The case began Dec. 17, 2006, when Boucher, a Canadian citizen with legal residency in the United States, was driving from Canada into Vermont when he was stopped at the border by a U.S. Customs and Border Protection inspector. The inspector searched Boucher's car and found a laptop in the back seat, according to an affidavit filed with the court by Mark Curtis, a special agent with Immigration and Customs Enforcement who was called in by the inspector.

Boucher said the laptop was his, according to the affidavit. When the inspector saw files with titles such as "Two-year-old being raped during diaper change," he asked Boucher if the laptop contained child pornography. Boucher said he did not know because he was not able to check his temporary Internet files, according to the affidavit.

Curtis asked Boucher "to use the computer" to show him the files he downloads. Curtis reviewed the video files, observing one that appeared to be a preteen undressing and performing a sexual act, among other graphic images, the affidavit says.

Boucher was arrested and charged with transportation of child pornography in interstate or foreign commerce, which can carry a sentence of up to 20 years in prison for a first offense.

The agents seized the laptop, and a Vermont Department of Corrections investigator copied its contents. But the investigator could not get access to the drive Z content because it was protected by Pretty Good Privacy, a form of encryption software used by intelligence agencies in the United States and around the world that is widely available online. PGP, like all encryption algorithms, requires a password for decryption.

For more than a year, the government has been unable to view drive Z.

A government computer forensics expert testified that it is "nearly impossible" to access the files without the password, the judge wrote. "There are no 'back doors' or secret entrances to access the files," he wrote. "The only way to get access without the password is to use an automated system which repeatedly guesses passwords. According to the government, the process to unlock drive Z could take years . . . "

In his ruling, Niedermeier said forcing Boucher to enter his password would be like asking him to reveal the combination to a safe. The government can force a person to give up the key to a safe because a key is physical, not in a person's mind. But a person cannot be compelled to give up a safe combination because that would "convey the contents of one's mind,'' which is a "testimonial" act protected by the Fifth Amendment, Niedermeier said .

In a phone interview, Boucher said that he likes to download Japanese cartoons and occasionally adult pornography, but that he does not seek to view child porn. He sometimes inadvertently receives images of child pornography when he downloads the other material, but reviews what he downloads to "clean out" the child porn, he said. It is not illegal to possess animated child porn.

He said that he agreed to show the agents where he downloaded his files "because I was sure that there was nothing bad in those files." He also said that he felt coerced: "I felt like they really want to force me to do it, like I have no choice."

Asked whether he typed in a password to unlock the drive so the agents could view it, he replied: "I prefer not to answer that one."

Boucher added the encryption software to protect the rest of his computer from viruses that might accompany the downloaded files, he said.

Orin S. Kerr, an expert in computer crime law at George Washington University, said that Boucher lost his Fifth Amendment privilege when he admitted that it was his computer and that he stored images in the encrypted part of the hard drive. "If you admit something to the government, you give up the right against self-incrimination later on," said Kerr, a former federal prosecutor.

Lee Tien, senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil liberties group, said encryption is one of the few ways people can protect what they write, read and watch online. "The last line of defense really is you holding your own password," he said. "That's what's at stake here."

Staff researcher Magda Jean-Louis contributed to this report.

McCain's Record

According to Mark Levin, the following is McCain's Record in Congress: Please read carefully

January 11, 2008 12:00 PM

The Real McCain Record
Obstacles in the way of conservative support.

By Mark R. Levin

There’s a reason some of John McCain's conservative supporters avoid discussing his record. They want to talk about his personal story, his position on the surge, his supposed electability. But whenever the rest of his career comes up, the knee-jerk reply is to characterize the inquiries as attacks.

The McCain domestic record is a disaster. To say he fought spending, most particularly earmarks, is to nibble around the edges and miss the heart of the matter. For starters, consider:

McCain-Feingold — the most brazen frontal assault on political speech since Buckley v. Valeo.

McCain-Kennedy — the most far-reaching amnesty program in American history.

McCain-Lieberman — the most onerous and intrusive attack on American industry — through reporting, regulating, and taxing authority of greenhouse gases — in American history.

McCain-Kennedy-Edwards — the biggest boon to the trial bar since the tobacco settlement, under the rubric of a patients’ bill of rights.

McCain-Reimportantion of Drugs — a significant blow to pharmaceutical research and development, not to mention consumer safety (hey Rudy, pay attention, see link).

And McCain’s stated opposition to the Bush 2001 and 2003 tax cuts was largely based on socialist, class-warfare rhetoric — tax cuts for the rich, not for the middle class. The public record is full of these statements. Today, he recalls only his insistence on accompanying spending cuts.

As chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, McCain was consistently hostile to American enterprise, from media and pharmaceutical companies to technology and energy companies.

McCain also led the Gang of 14, which prevented the Republican leadership in the Senate from mounting a rule change that would have ended the systematic use (actual and threatened) of the filibuster to prevent majority approval of judicial nominees.

And then there’s the McCain defense record.

His supporters point to essentially one policy strength, McCain’s early support for a surge and counterinsurgency. It has now evolved into McCain taking credit for forcing the president to adopt General David Petreaus’s strategy. Where’s the evidence to support such a claim?

Moreover, Iraq is an important battle in our war against the Islamo-fascist threat. But the war is a global war, and it most certainly includes the continental United States, which, after all, was struck on 9/11. How does McCain fare in that regard?

McCain-ACLU — the unprecedented granting of due-process rights to unlawful enemy combatants (terrorists).

McCain has repeatedly called for the immediate closing of Guantanamo Bay and the introduction of al-Qaeda terrorists into our own prisons — despite the legal rights they would immediately gain and the burdens of managing such a dangerous population.

While McCain proudly and repeatedly points to his battles with Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who had to rebuild the U.S. military and fight a complex war, where was McCain in the lead-up to the war — when the military was being dangerously downsized by the Clinton administration and McCain’s friend, former Secretary of Defense Bill Cohen? Where was McCain when the CIA was in desperate need of attention? Also, McCain was apparently in the dark about al-Qaeda like most of Washington, despite a decade of warnings.

My fingers are crossed that at the next debate, either Fred Thompson or Mitt Romney will find a way to address McCain’s record. (Mike Huckabee won’t, as he is apparently in the tank for him.)

— Mark R. Levin served as chief of staff to Attorney General Edwin Meese in the Reagan administration, and he is a nationally syndicated radio talk show host.

Congratulations Texas Aggie!

At Texas A & M the winning entry in a contest calling for the most

appropriate definition of a comtemporary term, this year's being

Political Correctness.

"Political Correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional,

illogical, liberal minority and rabidly promoted by an

unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition

that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end."

Yessiree!

OH! WoW! Bill Clinton keys Obama's car

By Andy Borowitz

Shocking show of anger from former president

In what political observers called a shocking display of anger from a former President of the United States, Bill Clinton today keyed the car of Illinois Senator Barack Obama.


Mr. Clinton's attacks on Senator Obama have become more scathing in recent days, but few Democratic insiders expected his rhetorical attacks to turn into outright vandalism.


That is precisely what happened, however, in the parking lot of a Dunkin' Donuts in Nashua, New Hampshire, where Mr. Obama and his aides had stopped for an early morning campaign appearance.


Spotting the Illinois senator's car in the lot, a wild-eyed Mr. Clinton pulled out his key ring and "started twirling it on his finger like a six-shooter," according to one eyewitness.


Saying he was "damned sick and tired" of everything going Mr. Obama's way, the former President dragged his keys across the length of the senator's car, creating a deep gash in the paint job that experts said would cost hundreds of dollars to repair.


As news of Mr. Clinton's attack on Mr. Obama's automobile spread like wildfire across New Hampshire, political insiders branded the former president's move as a tactical mistake that could turn off Democratic voters.


"Keying another candidate's car is really beneath the dignity of a former President of the United States," said Carol M. Foyler, a longtime media advisor to Democratic candidates. "That's the kind of thing you want surrogates to do."


For his part, Mr. Clinton was unrepentant, telling reporters "you ain't seen nothing yet."


"Where does he live?" Mr. Clinton shouted at the press corps. "I'ma go[ing] [to] TP that bastard's front yard."

Obama's Church.. United Church of Christ

“We are a congregation which is unashamedly black and unapologetically Christian,” says the Trinity United Church of Christ’s website in Chicago. “We are an African people and remain true to our native land, the mother continent, the cradle of civilization.”

Seems to me he is saying their loyalty and allegiance is to some unknown country in Africa, not the United States of America.

The church has a “non-negotiable commitment to Africa,” according to its website, and its pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr. subscribes to what is called the Black Value System.

A pledge of allegiance to “all black leadership who espouse and embrace the Black Value System.”

In sermons and interviews, Dr. Wright has equated Zionism with racism and Israel with South Africa under its previous policy of apartheid.

“In the 21st century, white America got a wake-up call after 9/11/01,” Wright wrote in a church-affiliated magazine. “White America and the western world came to realize that people of color had not gone away, faded into the woodwork or just ‘disappeared’ as the Great White West kept on its merry way of ignoring black concerns.”

Is he saying here there is no difference in Arabs and the blacks of Africa? They sure don't look alike to me. What I see are blacks adopting the Arabs religion and calling it Christianity instead of Islam.

As for Israel, “The Israelis have illegally occupied Palestinian territories for over 40 years now,” Wright has said. “Divestment has now hit the table again as a strategy to wake the business community and wake up Americans concerning the injustice and the racism under which the Palestinians have lived because of Zionism.”

Obama says he found religion and Jesus Christ through Wright, whom he met in the mid-1980s. He has been attending Wright’s church regularly since 1988.

So, what was Obama's religion before he found Mr. Wright? Muslim? Atheist? Couldn't be Christian if he just found Jesus in 1991 when he officially joined the church.

Magnets Increase Blood Flow, Reduce Swelling

Magnets have been touted for their healing properties since ancient Greece. Magnetic therapy is still widely used today as an alternative method for treating a number of conditions, from arthritis to depression, but there hasn’t been scientific proof that magnets can heal.

Lack of regulation and widespread public acceptance have turned magnetic therapy into a $5 billion world market. Hopeful consumers buy bracelets, knee braces, shoe inserts, mattresses, and other products that are embedded with magnets based on anecdotal evidence, hoping for a non-invasive and drug-free cure to what ails them.

“The FDA regulates specific claims of medical efficacy, but in general static magnetic fields are viewed as safe,” notes Thomas Skalak, professor and chair of biomedical engineering at U.Va.

Skalak has been carefully studying magnets for a number of years in order to develop real scientific evidence about the effectiveness of magnetic therapy.

Skalak’s lab leads the field in the area of microcirculation research—the study of blood flow through the body’s tiniest blood vessels. With a five-year, $875,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health’s National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, Skalak and Cassandra Morris, former Ph.D. student in biomedical engineering, set out to investigate the effect of magnetic therapy on microcirculation. Initially, they sought to examine a major claim made by companies that sell magnets: that magnets increase blood flow.

The researchers first found evidence to support this claim through research with laboratory rats. In their initial study, magnets of 70 milliTesla (mT) field strength—about 10 times the strength of the common refrigerator variety—were placed near the rat’s blood vessels. Quantitative measurements of blood vessel diameter were taken both before and after exposure to the static magnetic fields—the force created by the magnets. Morris and Skalak found that the force had a significant effect: the vessels that had been dilated constricted, and the constricted vessels dilated, implying that the magnetic field could induce vessel relaxation in tissues with constrained blood supply, ultimately increasing blood flow.

Dilation of blood vessels is often a major cause of swelling at sites of trauma to soft tissues such as muscles or ligaments. The prior results on vessel constriction led Morris and Skalak to look closer at whether magnets, by limiting blood flow in such cases, would also reduce swelling. Their most recent research, published in the November 2007 issue of the American Journal of Physiology, yielded affirmative results.

In this study, the hind paws of anesthetized rats were treated with inflammatory agents in order to simulate tissue injury. Magnetic therapy was then applied to the paws. The research results indicate that magnets can significantly reduce swelling if applied immediately after tissue trauma.

Since muscle bruising and joint sprains are the most common injuries worldwide, this discovery has significant implications. “If an injury doesn’t swell, it will heal faster—and the person will experience less pain and better mobility,” says Skalak. This means that magnets could be used much the way ice packs and compression are now used for everyday sprains, bumps, and bruises, but with more beneficial results. The ready availability and low cost of this treatment could produce huge gains in worker productivity and quality of life.

Skalak envisions the magnets being particularly useful to high school, college, and professional sports teams, as well as school nurses and retirement communities. He has plans to continue testing the effectiveness of magnets through clinical trials and testing in elite athletes. A key to the success of magnetic therapy for tissue swelling is careful engineering of the proper field strength at the tissue location, a challenge in which most currently available commercial magnet systems fall short. The new research should allow Skalak’s biomedical engineering group to design field strengths that provide real benefit for specific injuries and parts of the body.

“We now hope to implement a series of steps, including private investment partners and eventually a major corporate partner, to realize these very widespread applications that will make a positive difference for human health,” says Skalak.

Iowa Predix By Mike Long

Iowa Predix
By Mike Long

1. Obama
2. Edwards
3. Hillary

Iowa Dems are hard-left. Edwards is more liberal/populist than Obama and would win any other time, but Obama provides an opportunity to vent some white guilt. Hillary recovers in New Hampshire and it’s all over after that. (Translation, tonight doesn’t matter.)

1. Huckabee
2. Romney
3. Thompson
4. McCain

Huckabee has the organization behind him of the organized Christian Right, and that counts in the caucus process. Romney will make it close tho as Christian Rs realize that Huck isn’t really a conservative. Thompson is the beneficiary.

Why I don't live in Iowa, besides the weather

Maybe this won't reach as many people as Al's blog will, but it will reach a few and if you missed it.. Here it is.. Interesting even if confusing..

Al's Morning Meeting

New Year's Day Edition: An Iowa Caucus Primer

By Al Tompkins The Iowa Caucuses are a messy way to start the presidential selection process. NPR's political director describes the caucus experience: Caucuses are like a neighborhood party that last for hours. In Iowa, they begin at 7 p.m. sharp. They take place in a church or a gymnasium or a school or in someone's living room. You're there with your neighbors. You discuss issues, such as Iraq or ethanol or Social Security. And you also discuss candidates. Unlike a primary -- where your vote is private -- in a caucus, you declare your support for a candidate in plain view of everyone around you. Candidate Smith's supporters go to this corner of the room, candidate Jones' that corner, and so on. If no candidate at a particular caucus site receives the support of 15 percent of the attendees, his or her supporters need to form a coalition with another candidate's supporters to reach the vaunted 15 percent threshold. Otherwise, the candidate ends up with no support at all. The candidates spend so much time there, some would be eligible to vote in the state. The Democratic caucus takes place in public over several hours, in 1,784 precincts. Republicans choose the winner by popular vote. They scribble their candidate's name on a piece of paper and drop it in a box. More on the difference between the Republican and Democratic caucuses below. First, the rules. The caucus rules are 72 pages long. As mentioned above, if you support a candidate who has less than 15 percent support at your caucus location, you either have to join another candidate's group or leave. Your vote for your first choice doesn't amount to squat and is not recorded. The caucus process is so complicated the candidates have created instructional videos and put them on YouTube. Here is a Huckabee video. The Edwards campaign has a particularly clever instructional video. The Obama campaign has a citizen's guide to the caucuses. The Obama YouTube video includes a simulated caucus meeting. (Notice how diverse the actors are in the video.) The State Historical Society has an interesting film about the caucuses on YouTube. How's this for an open election? The popular vote is not released, just the delegate count. The New York Times explains in a guest op-ed: The one-person, one-vote results from each caucus are snail-mailed to party headquarters and placed in a database, never disclosed to the press or made available for inspection. Instead, the Democratic Party releases the percentage of "delegate equivalents" won by each candidate. The percentage broadcast on the networks and reported in the newspapers is the candidate's share of the 2,500 delegates the party apportions across Iowa's 99 counties, based on Democratic voter turnout in each of the 1,784 precincts in the two most recent general elections. So, the turnout for a candidate in a precinct caucus could be huge, yet the candidate's share of the delegate pie could be quite small -- if that precinct had low voter turnout in 2004 and 2006. Under the formulas used to apportion delegates, it is possible that the candidate with the highest percentage of delegate equivalents -- that is, the headline "winner" -- did not really lead in the "popular vote" at the caucuses. Further, it is possible that a second or third-tier candidate could garner a surprising 10 percent or 12 percent of the popular vote statewide and get zero delegates. (That's because to be in the running for a delegate a candidate must have support from at least 15 percent of the people at a precinct caucus.) He or she may have done two or three times as well as expected among Iowa's Democratic voters and get no recognition for it. Republicans keep it simple in Iowa: Iowa Republicans do not go through this rigamarole. Early in their caucuses they take a straightforward count of how many people support each candidate. The tabulations are reported promptly to the news media. The caucuses then go on to choose delegates to county conventions. Little or no attention is paid to the Republican delegate count, which the press does not even bother to report. The caucuses are held in the dead of winter and at night, when lots of people simply cannot get out. But there is no early voting or absentee voting. The Secretary of State's office told me that even members of the military risking their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan cannot vote. You have to be present to vote. Now, you know the voting age in the United States is 18. But, in Iowa you don't have to be 18 to vote in the caucuses. You just have to turn 18 by Election Day in November. For more information about Rock the Caucus, the Iowa effort to involve young voters, visit www.rockthevote.com/rockthecaucus and http://www.iowapirgstudents.org/. A caucus vote is not really for a candidate, it is for a representative to another meeting, who goes to another meeting, who goes to another meeting. Oh, and by the way, in four of the last nine presidential elections, the Democrat who won the Iowa Caucuses did not win the nomination. (See the list below.) And yet out of this morass, the media crowns a winner and political fortunes rise and fall. The leadership of the most powerful country in the world hangs in the balance. And, just so voters don't get confused, Iowa holds a primary election for congressional races in June. The DesMoines Register provides exhaustive coverage. The New York Times also has a deep multimedia site. Iowa does not look like the rest of the country. It's a small, mostly rural, mostly white state. And still, there are some who argue that holding the first vote in a small state like Iowa forces grassroots activism and discussions that tend to center on issues. Iowa jealously defends its "First in the Nation" position, partly because it pumps tons of money into the state and into the state's media and is a giant commercial for the state. It is not an election, it is an industry. Iowa economist Harvey Siegelman estimated that the economic impact of the 2004 Iowa Caucus was approximately $50 to $60 million. The 2008 Iowa Caucuses will be tens of millions greater than that. It is the one time every four years when the state gets free advertising for its economic development recruiting. HowStuffWorks.com explains how all of this nonsense started: Federal law doesn't dictate how states choose their delegates, so individual states decide what system to use. Most states use the primary system -- where voters statewide simply cast a vote for the candidate they support -- but some use the older caucus system. The term caucus apparently comes from an Algonquin word meaning "gathering of tribal chiefs," and the main crux of the caucus system today is indeed a series of meetings. To see how this works, let's look at the Iowa caucuses -- the first "voting event" of the presidential election year. In Iowa, the caucuses themselves are local party precinct meetings where registered Republicans and Democrats gather, discuss the candidates and vote for their candidate of choice for their party's nomination (Iowa caucuses actually occur every two years -- in non-presidential-election years, participants generally discuss party platform issues). In both parties, the purpose of the caucus vote is to select delegates to attend a county convention -- each caucus sends a certain number of delegates, based on the population it represents. The delegates at the county convention in turn select delegates to go to the congressional district state convention, and those delegates choose the delegates that go to the national convention. The Republican caucus voting system in Iowa is relatively straightforward: You come in, you vote, typically through secret ballot, and the percentages of the group supporting each candidate decides what delegates will go on to the county convention. The Democrats have a more complex system -- in fact, it's one of the most complex pieces of the entire presidential election. In a typical caucus, registered democrats gather at the precinct meeting places, ... supporters for each candidate have a chance to make their case, and then the participants gather into groups supporting particular candidates (undecided voters also cluster into a group). In order for a particular group to be viable, they must have a certain percentage of all the caucus participants. If they don't have enough people, the group disbands, and its members go to another group. The percentage cut-off is determined by the number of delegates assigned to the precinct. It breaks down like this: · If the precinct has only one delegate, the group with the most people wins the delegate vote, and that's it. · If the precinct has only two delegates, each group needs 25 percent to be viable. · If the precinct has only three delegates, each group needs one-sixth of the caucus participants. · If the precinct has four or more delegates, each group needs at least 15 percent of the caucus participants. Once the groups are settled, the next order of business is to figure out how many of that precinct's delegates each group (and by extension, each candidate) should win. Here's the formula: (Number of people in the group * number of delegates)/ number of caucus participants For example, say a precinct has four delegates, 200 caucus participants, and 100 people support John Doe. To figure out how many delegates you assign to John Doe, you would multiply 100 by four, to get 400. You divide 400 by 200 and get 2. So John Doe gets two of the four delegates. The media reports the "winner," based on the percentage of delegates going to each candidate. This isn't exactly accurate, since it's actually the state convention that decides what delegates go to the national convention, but more often than not, there's a clear statewide winner after the caucuses. The convoluted caucus system dates back to 1796, when American political parties emerged, and it hasn't changed a whole lot since then. Most states eventually replaced this system, because as political parties became more centralized and sophisticated in the early twentieth century, party leaders or "bosses" were perceived as exerting too much control over choosing a nominee. To give individual voters more influence over the nomination process, party leaders created the presidential primary system. Florida held the first primary in 1901 marking the beginning of the presidential primary we know today. Dramatic caucus reforms and rules that the Democratic Party instituted at the state level in the 1970s changed the system significantly. Designed to improve and open up caucuses to all party members, the requirements actually made caucuses more difficult to manage and inadvertently led to the rise of primaries. To help states coordinate the election days of both parties, the Republicans also changed their system. Here's a history of who won the caucuses from Answers.com: Bolded candidates eventually won their party's nomination. Candidates with an asterisk (*) subsequently won the presidency. Democrats · 2004 - John Kerry (38%) defeated John Edwards (32%), Howard Dean (18%), Richard Gephardt (11%) and Dennis Kucinich (1%) · 2000 - Al Gore (63%) defeated Bill Bradley (37%) · 1996 - Bill Clinton* (unopposed) · 1992 - Tom Harkin (76%) defeated Paul Tsongas (4%), Bill Clinton* (3%), Bob Kerrey (2%) and Jerry Brown (2%) · 1988 - Richard Gephardt (31%) defeated Paul Simon (27%), Michael Dukakis (22%) and Bruce Babbitt (6%) · 1984 - Walter Mondale (49%) defeated Gary Hart (17%), George McGovern (10%), Alan Cranston (7%), John Glenn (4%), Rueben Askew (3%) and Jesse Jackson (2%) · 1980 - Jimmy Carter (59%) defeated Ted Kennedy (31%) · 1976 - "Uncommitted" (37%) defeated Jimmy Carter* (28%) Birch Bayh (13%), Fred R. Harris (10%), Morris Udall (6%), Sargent Shriver (3%) and Henry M. Jackson (1%) · 1972 - Edmund Muskie (36%) defeated George McGovern (23%), Hubert Humphrey (2%), Eugene McCarthy (1%), Shirley Chisholm (1%) and Henry M. Jackson (1%) Republicans · 2004 - George W. Bush* (unopposed) · 2000 - George W. Bush* (41%) defeated Steve Forbes (30%), Alan Keyes (14%), Gary Bauer (9%), John McCain (5%) and Orrin Hatch (1%) · 1996 - Bob Dole (26%) defeated Pat Buchanan (23%), Lamar Alexander (18%), Steve Forbes (10%), Phil Gramm (9%), Alan Keyes (7%), Richard Lugar (4%) and Morry Taylor (1%) · 1992 - George H. W. Bush (unopposed) · 1988 - Bob Dole (37%) defeated Pat Robertson (25%), George H. W. Bush* (19%), Jack Kemp (11%) and Pete DuPont (7%) · 1984 - Ronald Reagan* (unopposed) · 1980 - George H. W. Bush (32%) defeated Ronald Reagan* (30%), Howard Baker (15%), John Connally (9%), Phil Crane (7%), John B. Anderson (4%) and Bob Dole (2%) · 1976 - Gerald Ford defeated Ronald Reagan How will exit polling work? Click here for a Q & A. Here are some interesting links: Iowa Caucus experts, including phone numbers Media Concierge Services for the 2008 Iowa Caucuses http://www.caucusiowa.com/ Iowa Department of Economic Development's Caucus page http://www.iowacaucus.org/ Iowa Secretary of State's 2008 Iowa Student Caucus page http://www.sos.state.ia.us/StudentYouth/StudentCaucus/index.html PBS NewsHour Extra: Lesson -- The Presidential Nominating System Project Vote Smart - How Does the Primary Process Work? The American Journalism Review -- The Crowded Bus Rock the Vote The Democratic National Committee The Republican National Committee National election calendar Communication in the Presidential Primaries: Candidates and the Media 1912-2000 Encyclopedia Americana: The American Presidency The Des Moines Register is urging Iowans to make and send in their own videos of the caucus experience. TV crews needing help finding standup locations should check here. Click here to compare the candidates on issues. .