Are you absolutely sure you paid the exact amount of income tax you owed last year -- not too much and not too little?

I am willing to bet the vast majority of those reading this paid either too much or too little -- not because they intended to but because the tax code is so complex it is almost impossible to know precisely the right number.

As Americans sit down to file their taxes before the infamous April 15 deadline, most will feel some anxiety and many will feel trapped - trapped in a system they cannot understand, nor can they obtain the help that will fairly represent them against the government or protect them against having their hard earned monies misspent.

At this moment, some in Congress are on a rant about the unsupported claim that more than $300 billion in taxes due last year were not collected, and demanding even more coercive measures.

Why is there not equal outrage in Congress about all the Americans who pay too much each year because they cannot understand, or the IRS has made it too costly to obtain, the deductions to which they are legally entitled?

In Iraq on Monday (8/24), Islamist terrorists staged massive suicide bombings in Baghdad. Over a hundred Iraqis died, with more than a thousand wounded. The foreign and finance ministries lie in rubble. The Iraqi government is reeling.

Our president went to the beach.

In Afghanistan, the Taliban crippled the national elections so severely that the eventual "winner" won't have much of a mandate. Despite madcap ballot-box stuffing, the final tally will probably show that less than half of the eligible population voted -- fewer than one in five in the crucial south.   On Sunday (8/23), Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, admitted that the Afghan situation is "serious and deteriorating."

That's what happens when, instead of killing our enemies, we try hugs.

Why do non-Americans so dislike Americans or, at least, the American government?  Could part of the reason be because the U.S. State Department appears to think its mission is to be rude, insulting and condescending?

This month, the State Department has set a new record by managing to insult the citizens of 123 different lands at one time in the International Narcotics Control Strategy Report: Volume II, Money Laundering and Financial Crimes.

The 450-page report discusses what other countries are doing to reduce money laundering and financial crimes, which is fine. But then the authors go on gratuitously lecturing each of the countries by name about how they could do things "better."

The Report, produced by the global nannies and nags at State, is filled with endless demands that other countries do a better job enforcing their laws, pass more laws, sign more international treaties and engage in some practices that would be illegal and unconstitutional in the U.S.   

Some examples:

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.