The financial unraveling of California currently on display in Sacramento has prompted a long overdue debate on what caused the seeming demise of the once most prosperous state of the union.

Outrageous retirement and health care demands on the taxpayer by public employees, and sabotaging the economy through ever more onerous regulations and pie-in-the-sky environmental fantasies like renewable energy, have run against the limits of abuse the system can take and must be sharply scaled down one way or another if California is to remain economically viable.

Unfortunately, there is yet another problem that presents an even greater systemic threat to California, even if the ones above were to be somehow fixed. A problem known to all that neither the state's mercenary political establishment nor its politically correct media dare even mention. 

It is the irreparable damage to California's human capital potential that nearly 30 years of unrestrained illegal immigration has done.

"Ted Turner Offers To Commit Suicide To End Global Warming."

That should have been the headline for this story, in which the founder of CNN declared:

"We're too many people; that's why we have global warming."

The HFR couldn't agree more with you on this, Ted - with one caveat.  What we actually have is too many people like you.  Anyone who believes there are too many people inhabiting the earth has only one moral and consistent path of action to take:

Start reducing the human population by starting with themselves, i.e., commit suicide.

The world really will be much better off without you, Ted.  Trust us on this.  We don't care how you do it - slit your wrists, drink Draino, whatever - just don't take anyone else along with you unless it's Jane Fonda.

In the meantime, the HFR thanks you for so clearly reminding everyone what an incredible idiot you are, and how every time you open your mouth, you do grave damage to the credibility of the commie causes you mindlessly espouse.

Is there something inherent in Islam that has resulted in most Moslems living in poor countries, with the exception of the relatively few who live in the oil rich states? This was just one of the questions a group of American and Islamic scholars and experts were trying to answer in Doha, Qatar, last week.

Qatar has the world's second largest gas reserves (after Russia) along with considerable oil, yet it only has about 200,000 citizens (and 600,000 foreign workers). The city of Doha, where roughly half of the population lives, gives the appearance of being the world's largest and most modern and luxurious conference center.

The reality for most Moslems is radically different. There about 1.3 billion Moslems (21 percent of the world's population), contrasted with 2.1 billion Christians (about 33 percent of the world's population).

While Christians are disproportionately rich, Moslems are disproportionately poor.

Our troops in Afghanistan are performing heroically, doing everything we ask of them. But we shouldn't ask them to die without a purpose.

We're floundering in Afghanistan -- confusing techniques with strategy. Not one senior official, political or military, has explained convincingly why we're still there.

Despicable as they are, the Taliban didn't attack our homeland.  We're fighting the wrong enemy, in the wrong place, in the wrong way. And sending more troops won't fix it.  The Taliban can't defeat us, but we can't win if we set ourselves absurd goals. Is an endless stalemate in a wasteland worth it?

My TTP readers know I believe in killing our enemies wherever we can find them. But I don't believe in killing our own troops because our leaders duck fundamental questions.

One of the coolest guys on the planet has been a friend of mine for thirty years - Col. Robert K. Brown, publisher of Soldier of Fortune Magazine.  We've had various adventures together, like being shot at by Soviets in Afghanistan, and please don't ask him how he got the nickname "Bob Ka-bab," or else he'll tell you about "Snuffy Jack."

Thus the first item on the HFR agenda this week is to tell you how you can participate in Bob's Stir The Chicom Pot Contest...

... If done right, efforts to sabotage the Chicom Olympics may reach a "tipping point," turning them, as the Washington Post just noted, into a "politically toxic showcase of repression."  Another tipping point was reached this week in the debate on "climate change"...

... Additional happy news on the enviro front comes from the Bush Administration...

... And we can be more than half-full grateful that the Roberts Court this week decided 6-3 for American sovereignty, humiliating Condi Rice in the process...

What is a "hedge fund"?

If you have trouble answering the question, you are not alone, because the term is commonly used to describe many types of pooled investments that may have little in common with each other.

Yet despite the lack of agreement about what exactly are hedge funds, a host of politicians, commentators and financial regulators now advocate more regulation of them.  I am sure you are just so surprised.

Last week, 4,000 US Marines launched a major operation in Helmand, the poppy-queen province in southern Afghanistan. The Marines performed magnificently, reaching their objectives with minimal casualties -- mostly from the 110-degree heat.

But something important was missing: Afghans in uniform.  A few hundred Afghan players showed up in the backfield. But the village elders saw only American guns.

The Marine mission is to provide security for villagers, build trust and instill confidence in the Kabul government. This would all be far easier if the Afghan military and police were competent, trustworthy and present. They're not.

What's the problem? Why haven't years of effort and billions of dollars, coupled with our training expertise, forged fully reliable military units and constabularies? The answer lies in...

We should call the HFR this week The Toast Report, because that's what so many folks on the dark side have become in the last few days.

Let's start with Obambi.  This is going to be like watching one of those spectacular crash-explosion movie disaster scenes shot in agonizingly slow motion.  One month from tomorrow (April 22) is the Dem primary in Pennsylvania. 

Obambi's worshippers in the media will be the guys in the movie scene reaching out in slo-mo and shouting noooooo!, knowing all the while they can't prevent the inevitable.  He is going to be destroyed by Mrs. Clinton in PA.  Blue-collar Budweiser Democrats will not vote for someone who takes his kids to a church that goddamns America.

The same is going to happen to him in the North Carolina primary on May 6, except for his winning the huge black vote there.  Then it becomes obvious the Clinton-Obama race is about nothing but race, with Obambi only having the black vote.  At that point, the Dems realize they are truly, truly - in Daniel Henninger's delightful term - Mamet-worded.

If Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez deliberately intended to sabotage his nation's economy, he would be hard-pressed to do anything different from what he is now doing to his country.

It has been widely reported that Mr. Chavez has been increasingly taking control of the oil, telecommunications and energy sectors, as well as the media. What has not been reported is the full extent of the corruption in Venezuela and how this ultimately will destroy the economy.

The financial scandal taking place there is far bigger than Enron, and may ultimately even exceed the U.N. "oil-for-food" scandal, the biggest financial disgrace of all time.

Venezuela has had a rapidly growing economy for the last few years, due to high oil prices, but the house of cards is about to collapse.

Obama went to Moscow desperate for the appearance of a foreign-policy success. He got that illusion -- at a substantial cost to America's security.

The series of signing ceremonies in a grand Kremlin hall and the litany of agreements, accords and frameworks implied that the United States benefited from all the fuss. We didn't.

We got nothing of real importance. But the government of puppet-master Vladimir Putin (nominally just prime minister) got virtually all it wanted. In Moscow, this was Christmas in July.

That's because we just agreed to the disarmament position of the American Communist Party of the 1950s.