Friday's links and comments

This is a scary thought and a predictable result of an abhorrent and immoral government policy, China facing major gender imbalance.

China will have 30 million more men of marriageable age than women in less than 15 years as a gender imbalance resulting in part from the country's tough one-child policy becomes more pronounced, state media reported Friday. Traditional preferences for sons has led to the widespread - but illegal - practice of women aborting babies if an early term sonogram shows it is a girl.

A couple weeks ago I listed the various politicians running or considering a run for president. Here are two more, neither of which should be taken seriously.
Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) - Paul has run previously as a Libertarian garnering around 400,000 votes in 1988.
Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) - Dodd's campaign is off to a rough start as he chose to announce his intentions on the Imus in the Morning radio only to have Don Imus rip into him for being disloyal to Joe Lieberman last year. Then there is this poll which may or may not be satirical (ouch).

National Review Online conducted a quick survey of average Americans to guage the public's response to the news that Senator Dodd is running for president.

Who? 74%

Chris Dodd is alive? 9%

President of what? 6%

Aw, that's cute. 4%

Has he been hitting the bars with Teddy K. again? 2%

No, seriously? 2%

Sweet, Bush can run for a third term and beat that guy. 2%

Yes! Yes! Yes! He's the answer to America's problems! And, he's a great kisser. Less than 1%

Anyone need a new definition of hypocrisy? Try this one:

Phoenix Republican Congressman John Shadegg is criticizing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other Democrats for exempting American Samoa and its tuna canneries from the House of Representatives' recently passed minimum wage increase. Del Monte Foods Co. (NYSE:DLM) subsidiary Starkist Tuna employs three-fourths of the work force in American Samoa. Del Monte is based in San Francisco, Pelosi's home district.

The minimum wage is $3.62 per hour in American Samoa, and would remain so under the bill, Shadegg said. The House bill, which would raise the U.S. minimum wage from $5.15 per hour to $7.25 per hour, did include the Northern Marana Islands.

Shadegg said the Samoan/Starkist exemption is fishy.

Here is an article rightly titled: "The Berger Fiasco." This high level Clinton appointee stole and destroyed classified documents from the National Archives to ensure they wouldn't be reviewed by the 911 Commission and only received a fine and suspended sentence. Many in government service have had their careers destroyed for merely failing to properly safeguard classified material. I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but there is a lot more to this story than we are being told and a lot of unanswered questions. Why did he steal and destroy the documents? Did he merely destroy evidence of embarrassing inaction or something worse. he merely Why did he receive such leniency? Who authorized the leniency?