There's a betting pool going on for when Gore will concede. There's nothing strange about that, of course. Some people will bet on anything. I would have picked the eleventh, but it was already taken. The strange part was two of the far-out bets. One person picked Good Friday and another Father's Day.

As part of Al Gore's quest to "count every vote," he has his liberal lawyers in court trying to toss out about 15,000 absentee votes. And, of course, there are still a few thousand military absentee votes the Democrats are keeping from being counted -- illegally, I might add. Count every "Democrat" vote is actually what Gore means.

And, did I hear correctly? Pregnant chads? This mess has been going on for quite a while, I know. But, are those ballots old enough to breed already?

That sounds stupid, huh. It's not, though. It's an outward sign of how the Democrats are using and abusing the language to grow votes for Gore. Pregnant chads, indeed!

Someone said the Supreme Court of the United States "punted" instead of deciding Bush's appeal of the flaky opinion by Florida's Supreme Court. That was no punt, though. What the U.S. Supreme Court told the Florida Supreme Court was to start paying attention and using a little law in their opinions. Actually, the problem was that the Florida Court allowed Al Gore's lawyer, David Boies, to write their opinion for them and he took a few "editorial liberties" with the law. Everything in that opinion was exactly wrong.

All the U.S. Supreme Court did was to write the Florida Court a little Cliff's Notes style primer of the applicable election law and ordered them to rewrite their opinion using only that law. In other words, the radical left Florida Supreme Court was told in polite terms to quit making stuff up to help Gore steal the election. Meanwhile, that original Florida Supreme Court opinion is null and void.

The media still keeps characterizing David Boies as some type of hotshot lawyer. He certainly didn't look that way last week. On this end, he seemed more like a common shyster with the patter of a grifter. The guy is, after all, trying to con the system out of more votes for Gore.

Most of the heroes last week were Bush's legal team. Not just because they won a lot, but also because they performed honorably. The liberal lawyers seem to whine a lot. Bush's team act like adults.

There was, however, one Democratic lawyer who originally came off sounding like a good old boy country judge, then surprised everyone. David Boies met Judge Sanders Sauls and found out Sauls is the type of judge who actually reads and understands the law. Therefore, when the verdict came down, Boies' was rejected on every point.

This means, of course, that the Clinton-Gore propagandists in the national media were immediately ordered to publicly crucify Judge Sauls. The far-left New York Times led the pack with an editorial followed by a disparaging hit-piece later in the week.

Anyway, the Gore team still wants a hand recount of the recount. So, Boies began saying that Judge Sauls failed to study the evidence: the ballots. That argument is about as silly as saying a judge may not convict a murder suspect unless the judge first physically examines the corpse. However, "failed to study the evidence" is presently at the top of the liberal's list of talking points.

Having lost most of their convoluted arguments to steal the election, Gore & company reverted back to their divide and conquer techniques. The Democratic Party paid Jesse Jackson to start race baiting again. So, Jesse rented a mob and started protests.

Someone must have paid Jackson a lot this time. Because, by the end of the week, Jackson had hired his own lawyers to start even more foolish cases in Florida courts.

Now they're saying there were 27,000 votes in Duval County that were not counted on Election Night -- including 16,000 from black inner city neighborhoods. In truth, it appears that Jackson is being used as the liberal's ace in the hole in case Bush gets the White House.

Jackson is being paid to stir up trouble. For now, it's just demonstrations and a few civil rights suits. They know those civil rights suits are all bogus and will be thrown out of court. That is exactly what they want to happen. Because, it appears they want the black communities stirred up enough to be ready to riot on command.

Such are the ways of Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Joe Lieberman, and the leaders of the far left. If they are not put in power, they will disrupt as much as possible until they can get in power.

Waiting until nearly the end of business on Friday afternoon, in a 4 to 3 decision, that far-left coo-koo's nest called the Florida Supreme Court again disobeyed federal law and laughed at the order of the U.S. Supreme Court by trying to throw the election for Gore. Within their new ruling, they ordered that all "undervotes" throughout the State be immediately counted and whatever stray votes that may be given to Gore (383 that we know about from partial hand counts) be credited.

Rather than a legal opinion, this action was little more than an intentional dirty trick by far-left judicial activists to ruin any chances George W. Bush will have in governing. Bush may still win via action in the U.S. Supreme Court and/or the Florida State Legislature. However, that activist Court has purposely thrown a very dark cloud over the Bush Presidency.

<http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment120900a.shtml>

Management sent a memo down to their over-paid workers concerning an upcoming merger. "As you know, this is a time for change here. ... In the coming weeks, we will consider the talent, skills and potential of each employee ... as we prepare for the future."

That, in itself, would be enough to make a few unhappy campers around the office. Add in the fact that sales figures have been in a steady decline and the people drawing large salaries started panicking.

In this case, we have to say that panic is very warranted, too. The company is CNN. The over-paid workers are the "on-air personalities" pushing their far-left opinion as news 24 hours a day. After all, that network is not popularly known as the "Clinton News Network" for nothing.

On air, they display far-left luminaries like Al Hunt and his wife Judy Woodruff, Bill Press, Bernard Shaw, Greta Van Susteren, Wolf Blitzer, Margaret Carlson, and a dozen liberal reporters presented as "experts" in national politics. Other than Bob Novak and Mary Matalin, there's nary a conservative allowed on the air.

Worse, other than an occasional comment by Novak, no one ever bothers to mention how the programs supported by national politicians relate to the functions actually authorized to the federal government by the Constitution. Rather, the "on-air" personalities at CNN tend to clearly support unconstitutional acts by the federal government.

So, it's true. CNN does need major reorganization. For national news, anyway, CNN needs to fire the complete stable of liberals -- on and off camera -- and start broadcasting what the American people want to see.

Other than a few hotbeds of liberalism around the country, Americans tend to be conservative. Not only that, Americans tend to desire a bit of honesty in their news, too.

Instead, CNN gives us a new program: "The Spin Room," hosted by Bill Press and Tucker Carlson. Wow, what a treat! A socialist and a liberal Republican hosting. Anyone wanting to hear the White House and/or Democratic Party's talking points for the day need only listen to Bill Press for a moment.

Now they want to give Greta Van Susteren her own show. Great! Another liberal lawyer promoting the far left. Just what the country needs on the air every evening.

CNN's parent company, Time Warner Inc., and its soon to be parent company, America Online Inc., must be out of their cotton pickin' minds. By not totally redoing the CNN national news team and going completely conservative, they're setting themselves up for a major loss.

After all, all Fox News had to do was to say that they planned to "tend" to be "more" conservative than other broadcasts and people flocked over there. That should be a very strong "hint" to the other newscasts as to what the American people want to see.

To be sure, Fox is better than all other television news broadcasts. But, that is still not the answer. More than just babble, people would like to learn a little with their news. That is, although lighthearted banter is good to keep the discussions friendly, there are dozens of important federal programs (both proposed and existing) that should be discussed completely. That discussion should include a cost/benefit analysis, who the program harms as well as who it helps, and how it fits in with the Constitutional scheme of things.

All that sounds dry and uninteresting. But, it need not be. There are plenty of experts around who can present that information in an easy to understand and interesting way. The job of the news programmers, then, would be to intersperse that information with videos and interviews with people on the street who are actually involved with the programs.

That would be useful "news." Most of what we get now is but political propaganda. And, those who continue to broadcast nothing but political propaganda will soon lose viewers to mediums like the Internet.

It looks, therefore, like CNN could be one of the first to go belly up.

Generally speaking, I don't have a dog in this fight because I sneeze every time I get just a whiff of the stuff. However, I am told, millions of Americans like using the substance from time to time, and I see no real reason they should not.

Marijuana is the name of the substance, of course. It grows wild around here, but my trusty weed- whacker and/or lawn mower makes it disappear quickly. Nonetheless, from time to time I do notice people walking down in those hard to get to areas of the woods by the river helping themselves to nature's bounty. When they come out with a bag, everyone around here knows they were not hunting mushrooms.

Last year, the Kentucky State Police actually found quite a few quality adult marijuana plants growing in the median of I-75. Apparently, the blue flowers gave the plants away so the cops had a harvesting party. No one knows exactly how it got there.

This year, Kentucky alone brags that it destroyed $750-million of the stuff being cultivated as a cash crop. Marijuana is Kentucky's largest cash crop, even exceeding tobacco in supporting some local economies.

Unfortunately, that weed also gets a lot of people sent to jail every year. The silliness of it all is astounding. But, that's the way it is nowadays.

Kentucky farmers need new cash crops. The last Kentucky General Assembly had a bill authorizing hemp growing. That would have been fantastic for many areas of the State, of course. Hemp has many uses and grows naturally in Kentucky. However, the police complained, saying it would be too difficult for them to tell the difference between industrial hemp and the smoking kind. Therefore, the welfare of Kentucky farmers was sacrificed to the convenience of the police.

As much as I dislike smelling marijuana burning, I must admit that it does have proven medicinal uses. Today, nine states have medical-marijuana laws either in place or pending: Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Maine, Oregon, Washington state, Nevada and Colorado. A majority of the people in a least a dozen other states would like such laws and there is really no reason marijuana should not be available to them.

The spinmeisters in Congress decided that marijuana has ''no currently accepted medical use.'' But, these same people regularly pass unconstitutional laws, so what do they know. Actually, all laws banning "illegal" drugs are unconstitutional. After all, we must remember that when Congress wanted to regulate and ban alcohol, they realized they had no Constitutional authority to do that and so passed an amendment to the Constitution giving themselves authority. There has been no such amendment regarding the regulation of drugs. The federal government has, therefore, passed laws with no founding legal authority.

The federal court system should throw out all unconstitutional laws. But, they do not. Today's federal judges go along to get along.

Well, now comes the case of U.S. vs. Oakland Cannabis Buyers' Cooperative (00-151). A California law, passed by the voters in 1996, authorized the possession and use of marijuana for medical purposes upon a doctor's recommendation. The group said it was formed "to provide seriously ill patients with safe access to necessary medicine so that these individuals do not have to resort to the streets." The problem is, the federal Controlled Substances Act makes the manufacture and distribution of marijuana illegal. So, along came the cops.

In January 1998, the federal government filed against the Oakland club, asking a judge to ban it from providing marijuana. The federal court agreed. On appeal, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed. The appeals court said the government had not disproved the club's evidence that medical-marijuana was "the only effective treatment for a large group of seriously ill individuals." And besides, there are more than two dozen organizations distributing marijuana for medical purposes in California, Alaska, Hawaii, Oregon and Washington. All these States are in the 9th Circuit's area, incidentally.

The government's only real argument was that distributing medical marijuana "threatens the government's ability to enforce the federal drug laws." The federal government does not care if the drug helps people. Their unconstitutional law is more important.

So, the government appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. Last August, the Supreme Court put the appeals court ruling on hold and barred the California club from distributing marijuana until the Supreme Court appeal was heard.

This could be an interesting case. By rights, the U.S. Supreme Court should use this case to strike down all unconstitutional drug laws. Because, if a power is not enumerated within the Constitution, the federal government does not have it. But, the Court is not likely to do any such thing. The Justices on the Supreme Court most likely to follow the original intent of the Constitution's authors are also the most authoritarian members of the court. So, the expediency of the police will again prevail.

Most interesting will be the way the Court dances around the Constitution to keep the drug laws in effect. That will require some fancy footwork. Look for the opinion to foreshadow just how much of the Constitution the Court is ready to allow the federal bureaucracy to ignore with impunity.

Our great grandparents used horses for transportation. Anyone want to bet what type of transportation our great-grandchildren will be using to zip down the highways? And no, they will not be roaring along the highways powered by oil-based fuel ignited by spark plugs. That is not very likely at all; and the reason has absolutely nothing to do with available oil reserves or environmental issues.

According to the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), "Fuel cells are clean, fuel efficient, and fuel flexible. Any hydrogen-rich material can serve as a potential fuel source for this developing technology. Possibilities include fossil-derived fuels, such as natural gas, petroleum distillates, liquid propane, and gasified coal, or renewable fuels, such as ethanol, methanol, or hydrogen."

Better yet, fuel cells are almost here in a size, cost and efficiency to power automobiles and homes. The problem to be worked out is not necessarily the fuel cell itself, but more how to power fuel cells with readily available fuel. Fuel cells run on hydrogen, which is very efficient and clean. However, unlike gas stations, there are no hydrogen stations on any street in the nation. So, the trick -- the current hold up, if you will -- is to get vehicle fuel cells designed to operate on readily available gasoline.

Developing efficient ways of turning gasoline into hydrogen on the fly will take another year or so. More attractive fuels would be methanol or ethanol. However, they are not currently available on a wide spread basis.

Nevertheless, all the automotive big-wigs were talking up hybrid vehicles and fuel cells at the last few International Auto Shows.

According to The Detroit Free Press, GM executives pledged a hybrid car would be ready for production in 2001, powered by a battery-powered electric motor and a small, high-mileage gasoline engine powering the generator. An exotic car powered by a fuel cell, which emits only water vapor from the tailpipe, will be ready for production by 2004.

One of the reasons we have made these commitments to a hybrid car in 2001 and a fuel cell car in 2004 is to set the pace on technology," Ken Baker, GM vice president for global research and development operations told the Detroit Free Press last year.

Their technical well is very deep," said David Cole, director of the Office for the Study of Automotive Transportation at the University of Michigan. "If I had to put my money on who has the leading-edge technology in the world, I'd say it's right here."

So would we. Chrysler and Ford are doing similar research on hybrids and fuel cells and will soon produce a full sized car that gets 80 miles per gallon and creates relatively no pollution.

Awhile back, Ballard Power Systems, Inc, Ford Motor Company and Daimler-Benz joined forces to develop fuel cell technology for vehicle use. They put up $600-million to get the job done. Later, Daimler-Benz merged with Chrysler.

Ballard reports that their fuel cells are clean and efficient electrochemical devices which convert a fuel into usable electricity, directly without combustion. Surrounding the fuel cell is a system which consists of a fuel processor, air supply, and control subsystems. An electric drive system consists of a traction inverter, electric motor, and transaxle which converts electricity generated from a fuel cell system or stored in batteries to tractive power for car, truck, bus or other vehicle. Quite a few busses and vans are already on the road and working well.

Ford Motor Company is also working with the Department of Energy and International Fuel Cells (IFC) on automotive fuel cell technology. DOE recently signed a cooperative agreement with IFC to design an automotive- scale, fuel-flexible fuel cell system that incorporates a fuel processor with a 50-kilowatt fuel cell stack to operate in an automobile.

Now, here's where things get very interesting. What if you could power your home, almost anywhere, with no external wires? Well, as it turns out, a company called Small-scale Fuel Cell Commercialization Group, Inc. is working on just that. Their fuel cells will run on natural gas, propane or methanol and be very competitive in price with the common generator -- minus the noise and mechanical repair costs. Other fuel cells under development will actually use biomass -- a boon to farmers and people living in isolated areas.

Fuel cells to power homes should start appearing in the market in about a year. Interestingly enough, the cost per KWH is about what we're paying power companies. So, what's not to like here?

The point is that all of this technology is beyond the dream stage. Busses, trucks, and even areas of an airport, are currently operated by power generated by fuel cells as you read this. Better yet, they are operating economically. And without noise or pollution.

For automotive information, see the Jeep Commander at: <http://www.car-truck.com/chryed/concept/command.htm>.

For fuel cell information, visit the Fuel Cells 2000 Web site at: <http://www.fuelcells.org/>.

For home use units, visit the Small-scale Fuel Cell page at: <http://www.oge.com/sfccg/> 

and Plug Power, Inc. at: <http://www.plugpower.com/home.cfm>.

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