What would you think if members of Congress voted to require the U.S. military to forgo purchases of most of Canada's oil and thus be forced to increase their dependency on Saudi Arabian produced oil? As bizarre as it may seem, this is not a hypothetical question.  It is precisely what Congress did in passing the falsely named Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007. Chairman Henry Waxman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee wrote a letter to Chairman Jeff Bingaman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on March 17 of this year, detailing the "proper interpretation" of the Act. Mr. Waxman's interpretation makes one wonder if his purpose is to cause as much damage to the US economy as possible.

This week we shall explore some of the research that is being undertaken for a variety of maladies. Also research that includes further understanding of the human genome and physiology generally. First is the new research of malaria taking place. With the help of x-ray microscopy at Berkeley's Advanced Light Source lab, one of the world's oldest diseases has a map of how the plasmodium parasite infects the body.  The brilliant detective work being done by these researchers is so remarkable it may finally "tame the ancient beast" of malaria that still kills millions of people every year. Then there's my friend who works at Broad Institute in Cambridge, MA. Some of the current research taking place here is taking a deeper look at diabetes.  Broad's scientists have discovered the genes linked to height.  And, in a step towards personalized prevention, Broad has a panel of genetic variants found to predict both cholesterol and heart disease risk.

If Barack Hussein Obama, Jr. read Karl Marx less and Arthur Brooks more, he might not be in such hot water. Barack's now-infamous comments in San Francisco reek of the watered down Marxism that passes for thought on college campuses these days.  "Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the sentiment of a heartless world, and the soul of a soulless condition.  It is the opium of the people," Marx wrote in 1843. Barack and his apologists in the news media focused on his description of rural Pennsylvanians as "bitter" because that was the least offensive element of what he had said.  Most of those who were upset by his remarks were upset by his notion they "cling to" religion out of economic frustration.  Arthur Brooks could have told Barack the people he described as "bitter" likely are a good deal happier than most of his supporters are, or his wife seems to be.  Dr. Brooks, a professor of business & government policy at Syracuse University, demonstrates, through the wealth of statistics in his new book, Gross National Happiness, that conservatives are much happier than liberals.  It's urban liberals who are bitter, not small town folks.

Senator Barack Hussein Obama, Jr. wants to talk to our Middle Eastern enemies, notably Iran. He can't imagine a happy resolution of the war without such talks. And he seems to think this desire is something new, maybe even revolutionary. He apparently does not know that it is not at all new, and certainly not revolutionary. It is instead the fully tested "policy" of the United States for the past thirty years, ever since the seizure of power by the mullahs in 1979. We have had high-level and low-level talks, public and private talks, talks conducted by diplomats, by spooks, and by a colorful array of intermediaries. All failed.  We tried everything. The Iranians were not interested. It reminds me of that great scene from Goldfinger, with Sean Connery as James Bond spread-eagled on a sheet of gold, and a laser beam slicing through it, headed for his private parts.   "Do you expect me talk, Goldfinger?" he asks. "No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die." That's Iran. The mullahs want us to die.  Mr. Obama won't allow himself to understand this.  Perhaps his book should have been entitled The Audacity of Naïveté.

As the Obama rocket flames out and plummets back to earth, it is useful to recall how extraordinary it has been. Before the Iowa caucuses,  almost everyone thought Hillary Clinton would win the nomination easily.  She had the support of blue collar workers and most party insiders, and an enormous war chest.  If ever there were a prohibitive favorite, it was she. But until "Bittergate" erupted last weekend, she was  losing the nomination to a tyro senator whose most important resumé tic was that back in school he'd been president of the Harvard Law Review.  It took many missteps by the Clinton campaign to make this possible.  But for Barack to have been on the verge of besting Hillary is nothing short of phenomenal. What fueled the Obama rocket was that he was able to bring together two rarely united factions within the Democratic party: blacks and latte liberals.

It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress. - Mark Twain (1897) Twain's humorous quip, unfortunately, is all too close to the current reality. "Willful misconduct," a criminal offense, is legally defined as "intentionally doing that which should not be done or intentionally failing to do that which should be done, when knowing that injury to a person will probably result, or recklessly disregarding the possibility that injury to a person may result." Congress, by failing to act in the case of a clear and present danger to parts of the American financial system, could reasonably be considered engaging in "willful misconduct." And here is why.