Say Anything Blog

It may be hard to believe, but good public policy can actually be made.  Unfortunately, bad policy is generally made by gullible and naïve officials.  Party designation, however, has very little to do with this.

Fortunately, incumbents have a voting record we can look at to determine whether they are good at making public policy, or if they should try their hand at something else.

In the 2005 legislative session House Bill 1512 was put forth as a method of relieving the property tax burden that has hit every community in the state.  The premise of HB1512 was that the way to relieve the property tax burden was to slap a 33% increase on individual and corporate income tax, and raise the state sales tax from 5% and 7%. 

Fortunately Rich Wardner, and all but two members of the State Senate, saw this bad idea for what it was.  The same cannot be said for one of our Representatives, Nancy Johnson (District 37 - Dickinson). 

Her idea of property tax relief, apparently, is to raise taxes on businesses, workers, and consumers – it doesn’t sound like much relief to me.  And it certainly doesn’t sound like sound fiscal policy – or something a conservative Republican would support.

Nancy Johnson also voted against an excellent proposal (HB3004) that was co-sponsored by Rich Wardner to require a 60% majority to increase ALL taxes at the state level. The only conclusion we can make from these votes, as well as her vote to raise the wheat tax, is that Nancy Johnson is a tax and spend liberal – despite the “R” behind her name.

I have been involved in Republican politics as an activist, as Chairman of the DSU College Republicans, and as a party worker.  One thing that I have found to be true is that if the Republican option is not good on taxes, there really isn’t any reason to vote for that Republican. 

Combine this with the fact that Nancy Johnson was also one of only 13 Representatives to vote against HCR 3017 “a concurrent resolution urging Congress to pass a human life amendment to the Constitution of the United States.” I wonder if she supports partial-birth abortion too?

The Republican super-majority in the legislature will likely continue, but this is an opportunity to send a message to Republicans – “don’t get too comfortable in Bismarck” - and that we as Republicans are willing to clean up our own party once in a while.  Hopefully, with some luck, officials calling themselves “Republican” will get the message start acting like the Republicans they claim to be.

Till then, we should send people that will work with conservatives within our party, even if they are not Republican.  This is why I am supporting Stuart Savelkoul with my 2nd of my two votes for the North Dakota State House of Representatives.  I would rather send a message than plug my nose and vote for someone who pretends to be a Republican but really isn’t.

It’s time to show candidates calling themselves Republican when they really aren’t that we would rather have a young, up-and-coming Democrat, who is at least honest about what he believes and what he represents instead of a “Republican” that would be on the extreme left-wing of the Democratic Party if she was honest with herself, and the voters of District 37.

This is an easy way of putting money back into the pockets of North Dakotans. Eliminate the ND State Income Tax. Combine that with Gov. Hoeven’s plan of property tax relief, I think that you could really do some good for the taxpayers of North Dakota. You might have to increase the corporate tax a small percentage, but that is a small price to pay in order to give the working people of North Dakota lower taxes that stimulates the economy and allows more people to spend money.

In 2002, ND state income tax receipts to the state were just less than $200 Million. Now in 2007, we are estimating a $500 Million surplus. Estimate that the state income tax receipts have grown to $250 Million. The reason that I said that you might have to raise the corporate tax is because of the education dilemma the state is facing right now.

I had never paid state income taxes until I moved to North Dakota in 2000. Let me tell you, paying state income tax just sucks. Since ND is almost last for all wages concerning jobs in the state government, it would be great if they could keep more of the money that they do earn.

Examples:
The average annual salary for Medical and public health social workers in North Dakota was $33,270 per year.
The average annual salary for Medical and public health social workers in The United States was $42,250 per year.
Meaning that a social worker in North Dakota makes an average of $8,980 less than the U.S. average.

The average annual salary for Probation officers and correctional treatment specialists in The United States was $43,020 per year.
The average annual salary for Probation officers and correctional treatment specialists in North Dakota was $35,340 per year
A difference of $7,680.

Now, I know that there is less crime and people and other factors that makes being in North Dakota a positive, but shouldn’t we try to keep those professionals here that want to stay here? There are many people after college saying that they need to leave North Dakota because of the pay that they can expect here. I understand that we are only talking around $700 for each family on a typical social workers salary in North Dakota. However, that is about $60 a month. I know that there are many people that would take any type of tax cut to help them through this economy. It wouldn’t force small businesses to fire people because of minimum-wage increases. (A bogus argument according to 650 economists, including 5 Nobel Prize winners for economics). However, the people would keep more of their money. Another good byproduct of this is that the government could shrink. The state of North Dakota wouldn’t have to worry about income tax enforcement. That could get rid of a couple of government jobs. Remember, government shouldn’t be in the job creation business, according to some Republicans. Overall it would be a win for North Dakota. Now all we have to do is convince the Republican leaders in Bismarck of this.

Who ya gonna call: Newsbusters!

You have to hand it to the liberal media. The American government is prosecuting its first treason case in 50 years, but the press has managed to maintain its focus on more important issues. You know, like the Mark Foley email scandal. Such dedication in the face of silly distractions is truly admirable.

Reuters reporter James Vicini took a stand for truth in his article about the Adam Gadahn:

Justice Department officials denied the case was timed to deflect attention from the fallout over lewd computer messages sent by a former Republican congressman to young male aides, a scandal that may help Democrats seize control of Congress in the November 7 elections.

Aside from the moonbats I haven’t found anyone that cares about the Foley Follies.

Jeffrey Schmidt in The American Thinker:

Every pair of feet that cross the Rio Grande is a testament to the utter failure of the Mexican government.  It has failed to provide economic opportunity to millions of its people.  And those people are doing what comes naturally to the wretched: migrating to find better lives.  It so happens that the United States, with its freer economy, is a mighty engine of prosperity and a no-brainer lure to the downtrodden.

Of course, the Mexican government is delighted to push this migration and offload its poor on United States.  According to Steve H. Hanke, a Professor of Applied Economics at The Johns Hopkins University, over 27 percent of Mexico’s labor force works in the United States.  These workers are sending home $20 billion in remittances.  This sum equals one third of the total wage earnings in the formal sector of the Mexican economy and 10 percent of Mexico’s exports.

The United States is the proverbial safety valve for a government that has a storied history of incompetence and corruption.  One study, cited by William P. Kucewicz on NRO, estimates that

“corruption, a lack of financial transparency, an inferior legal system and other institutional inadequacies add 5 percent to the cost of doing business with Mexico versus the United States.”

Five percent is no small chunk of change when, collectively, transactions range in the billions of dollars. It is an unaffordable weight upon the economy. Imagine if the money were devoted to business investment or education.

Consider, too, that though privatization efforts began in the 1980s, the government still owns enough of the economy to make a difference, including Petroleos Mexicanos (PEMEX), the nation’s petroleum company, which has been letting its reserves of oil shrink.  Otherwise, it over-regulates and overtaxes the rest.  Politicians and bureaucrats make nice livings running this mess of an economy.  If you’re part of the government, or have strong ties to it, you won’t be splashing across the Rio Grande any time soon. Thanks to the ranks of the unemployed, servants are pretty cheap.

Fat and happy as they may be with the status quo, Mexico’s elites recognize a danger, a danger they’ve been exporting to the United States: millions of poor Mexicans.  Without the United States, the discontented masses are likely to erupt into political action, as was previewed in the recently disputed presidential election.  The contest between the establishment’s Felipe Calderon and leftist Andres Manual Lopez Obrador points to a future where the poor, desperate for change, coalesce behind leftists, given the lack of better alternatives.  After this year’s election, the elite will want more of the poor out of the country.

Should the leftists eventually win a presidential election, their policies will do nothing to improve the lot of the underclass, which is about half the country’s population, other than apply a few band-aids.  An economy that suffers from too much government already will suffer far worse under leftist control.

If the last century taught us anything, it is that statism kills economic growth.  Economies grow when producers keep most of what they earn.  Redistribution of wealth sounds good, but doesn’t mean much when there is little to redistribute.  Cuba is a fine example of this.  And Big Government and corruption go hand-in-hand. Under the left in Mexico, there will be less and less to distribute, aggravated by the anticipated decline of Pemex production.

The trick is to free Mexico’s economy, implement thorough reform of tax and regulation policies and put the government in its proper role of referee and provider of essential services, which includes education and skills training.  Privatize Pemex or at least allow foreign explorataion of Mexico’s oil reserves. And there needs to be a big campaign that sweeps corruption from the halls of government.

For the elite, reforma sounds nice tripping off their tongues, but enacting the systemic reforms that are necessary to free the Mexican economy and clean up government smacks a little too much of revolucion.  And a revolution that breaks the government’s grip on the economy, curtails power and dries up income for politicians and bureaucrats doesn’t make for the Good Life, Mexican style. Not for them.

The only way true reform will happen is if pressure is applied to Mexico’s elites.  That pressure can come in many ways, but one sure way is to keep Mexico’s poor in Mexico.  As long as the United States is Mexico’s safety value, enough pressure may be siphoned off to avert change.

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out why Mexico protests the construction of a fence along its border with the United States.  A fence, along with enhanced technology to monitor the border, and with a beefed up border patrol, means more illegals caught and turned back.  That means the United States isn’t playing nice, isn’t doing its part in helping Mexico’s elites avoid the hard choices and tough policy prescriptions that would mean so much to the nation’s poor.

Getting closer to sealing the border certainly helps the United States in the near term, and it forces Mexico to face its deep-seated problems.  But in the long haul, it is important for the United States that Mexicans want to stay in Mexico.  No border can be sealed entirely, and, over time, the costs of doing so may be burdensome.  And most human beings, equipped with ingenuity, will eventually find ways around obstacles.  Permanently staunching the flow of illegals depends on a free and growing Mexican economy and a largely corruption-free government.

[...]

Call this a variation on the Bush Doctrine.  If terrorism can’t end unless change occurs within societies that foster terrorism, than the same can be said of illegal immigration.

It’s time for Mexico to change.

Read the whole thing.

This makes more sense than anything else I have read on the illegal immigration problem.

(This post was not made by Marty. I somehow inherited it)

On September 29, the History Channel premiered a two-hour documentary on the Mexican-American War of 1846-48, which will air again on Friday, October 13.  Perhaps some of you have seen this episode.  I have not [I may be the only person on the planet that doesn’t have cable TV] but William R. Hawkins writing for FrontPageMagazine has and his review indicates the usual liberal ‘blame America for everything but don’t question my patriotism’ attitude amoung the historians providing expertise for this documentary.

The show featured “interviews with both Mexican and American historians to ensure accuracy from both nations’ points of view” but was not hosted by a scholar. 

The two Mexican professors, Jesus Velasco Marquez and Joselina Zoralda Vasquez, defend Mexico’s honor at every turn. The three American scholars, Associate Professor Brian Delay of the University of Colorado, Assoc. Prof. Sam W. Haynes of the Univ. of Texas-Arlington, and author Bruce Winders, were generally critical of U.S. policy. According to the show’s producer, Jim Lindsay, Haynes’ brief book James Polk and the Expansionist Impulse was the principle source for the documentary. Lindsey is also quoted as saying:

There are parallels between the war that’s going on today and the war in Mexico. There was certainly in the 1840s a rush to war, and afterwards a great deal of second-guessing on the part of Congress as to whether or not this was the right policy for the United States

To that, Hawkins has this to say

Not the right policy? Victory in the Mexican War gained for the United States all of Texas, California, and everything in between, comprising most of what is now New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, Colorado and Wyoming. Next to the War of Independence and the Union victory in the Civil War, the Mexican War was the most important conflict endowing the United States with, as Prof. Delay noted, “the wealth and security we enjoy today.” Yet, it is not much remembered because, according to Delay, “we want to believe we are a virtuous people who would not fight a war in this way” even though “we are happy with the results.”

Of course, from the Mexican perspective

Mexican textbooks claim that the American southwest was “stolen” and will someday be regained. Radical elements in the movement championing an “open border” between the U.S. and Mexico, and not just amnesty for the millions of illegal immigrants who have crossed the existing border, hope to someday fulfill this irredentist ambition.

In truth, the area ceded by the Mexicans to the United States was populated mostly by Americans because the Mexicans considered the environment too harsh for their tastes.

This is ironic because it was the influx of American settlers into California and Texas that lost these territories to Mexico in the first place. The History Channel program does not mention that from 1824 to 1830, promises of cheap land and tax breaks attracted Americans to settle in Texas on the condition they become Roman Catholic and swear allegiance to Mexico. But the number of American colonists alarmed the Mexican government, which prohibited future immigration and tried to coax its own people to move north in 1830. But American farmers, ranchers and merchants kept coming. In response to the repressive dictatorship of Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, the Texicans revolted in 1835. They declared their independence a year later and established it on the battlefield.

In December 1845, President Jose Herrera told his state governors that regaining Texas would be useless because not enough Mexicans could be persuaded to move there to hold it. The same could be said for California and the rest of the Northern Territory. As Prof. Vasquez notes, Mexico was ‘unpopulated in the north because conditions there were so difficult.”

The eventual war over the area was instigated by a border incursion that kill a number of Americans.

The Mexican-American War began when a U.S. patrol was ambushed north of the Rio Grande on April 25, 1846. Eleven U.S. soldiers were killed. (The attack is reenacted by the History Channel.) President Polk asked Congress to declare war on May 11, the day after word of the battle reached Washington. The House vote was 174-14, but the Senate passed the war proclamation by only one vote.

The History Channel does mention that the war was popular, noting that in Tennessee, 30,000 volunteers showed up wanting to enlist.

The program’s focus, however, is on the antiwar movement. Many Whigs were against expansion, and some Democrats were concerned about presidential power. The documentary opened by mentioning Congressman Abraham Lincoln had called the war unconstitutional. The Whigs were willing to accept Mexico’s claims to the border and denounced Polk, a Democrat, for sending U.S. troops into harm’s way to contest the issue.

In the conclusion of the History Channel documentary, Haynes again tries to indoctrinate the audience with left-wing morality. 

Polk does more than any other Chief Executive to make the United States a hemispheric power. That in and of itself is a remarkable accomplishment. But it is the means by which that was accomplished that has made many American historians rather uneasy. He does bully a weaker nation...This was a war of conquest.

In conclusion, Hawkins adds these comments

Haynes represents the liberal-left preference for placing abstract values above such concrete principles as American livelihood, let alone liberty. He says the war presented the U.S. with a “moral dilemma”: would America be a “good nation or a great nation?” To be “good” means to put the “self-determination of neighbors” ahead of “our own self-interest,” he asserts.

Which is why it is so dangerous to the “wealth and security” of the country to ever allow the Left to gain power. Going into the fall elections, the Democrats are making White House competence in Iraq and Afghanistan an issue. But history and ideology make it clear that the objective of left-wing policy is not to be more effective, but simply to promote a leftist agenda. Leftist criticism of the Mexican-American War shows just how far this self-defeating ideology can go. The History Channel inadvertently performed a valuable service: it showed how left-wing sentiments can imperil the United States during a war fought along its own borders, not to mention conflicts overseas.

Read the whole thing and watch the documentary Friday night.

45 Posts so far for DocDave’s latest. I think we can say the reader Blogs are catching on.

Have you heard this?

McCain was also criticized for his continued use of an ethnic slur in reference to his Vietnamese captors. He told reporters, “I hate the gooks.... I will hate them as long as I live."[7] At first, he stood by his use of the slur, saying that it was “the kindest, the kindest description I can give them.” [8] Amid heavy criticism[9], McCain later reversed his position and apologized. McCain would go on to win a few more primaries (Massachusetts, Arizona, Rhode Island, Connecticut and Vermont), but in a two-man contest he was unable to catch up. Though he apologized for his usage of the racial slur “gook,” he had aroused the ire of Asian Americans due to the delay of an apology for such an obvious transgression.[7] It is also speculated that this is the cause of McCain losing the California and New York primaries due to their large Asian American demographic.

You can trust if McCain makes it through the primaries this will be used endlessly against him in the general election.

Just one more reason NOT to support McCain in the Republican Primary.

(This post was not made by Marty. I somehow inherited it)

Here is a short list of what we can expect from a Democratic controlled Congress. 

-Amnesty for 12,000,000 illegal immigrants.

-A push to make homosexual marriage and polygamy legal in all 50 states.

-Only liberal judges will be appointed. They will create laws to implement the social agenda liberals cannot get passed through the legislative process.

-Liberals will make the killing of the unborn more difficult to stop.

-Liberals will continue to try to rid our society of Christian influence, including any reference to God in our Pledge and on our currency.

-A return to the “Fairness Doctrine” in broadcasting where opposing views must be given equal time. Every conservative talk show host will be forced to give a liberal equal time on every issue. The purpose of this rule will be to shut down conservative talk shows and could possibly affect blogs too.

-An increase in taxes to push new social programs.

-Passing a new “hate crimes” law making it illegal to refer to homosexuality in a negative manner.  We could expect similar legislature for muslim criticism too.

-Liberals will give terrorists from other countries who try to kill Americans the same rights American citizens enjoy under our constitution.  In addition there could be legislation prohibiting warrantless intelligence gathering.

-We will withdraw from Iraq, sending the message to the terrorists that if they will just be patient they can win and bring their terrorist acts to the USA.

All who are undecided on who they will vote for in November or whether they will vote at all should take heed of this possible consequences.

A Hero of our time:

A 14-year-old boy shot and killed a man who broke into his family’s home Monday and threatened to kill him and his mother, Police Chief Bryan Smith said.

Smith said the man, confronted a woman as she was carrying groceries into her home shortly before 1 p.m.  The man forced her inside and tied her and her son up. Smith said the woman was able to loosen the binding and free her son, who got his father’s revolver from a security box beneath a bed.

As the man tried to break into the room where the two were and threatened to kill them both, the teen fired a shot through the door and hit the intruder in the head, Smith said.

The Instapundit had this to say:

Not only was this tragedy averted, but if the guy had gotten away with it he almost certainly would have killed others. Not now.

Private citizens use firearms over two million times a year to defend themselves.  Of course the media doesn’t report that.  They only report the evil done with firearms, not the evil averted.

Now that I have in effect my own Blog (thanks Rob) I’ll try to highlight defensive uses of firearms.

Over the weekend Rob did a post on the AP doing a puff piece for Keith Olbermann.  Olbermann’s as moonbatty as they come and the AP apparently likes it.

In the comments Dave Miller expressed the thougght that Olbermann was upcoming and O’Reilly was shrinking. 

Well here’s the latest numbers.  I report and you decide. 

I still think that MSNBC benefitted from the Foley media event more Fox.

From Drudge:

CABLE NEWS RACE
MON. OCT., 9, 2006
VIEWERS

FOXNEWS O’REILLY 2,216,000
FNC SHEP SMITH 1,437,000
FNC HANNITY/COLMES 1,355,000
FNC GRETA 1,057,000
CNN KING 1,026,000
CNN DOBBS 813,000
CNN COOPER 767,000
CNN BLITZER 721,000
CNN ZAHN 697,000
MSNBC OLBERMANN 629,000
MSNBC HARDBALL 552,000

For reference these are the numbers that Dave linked to to make his point.
Here are the last quarters numbers to compare with.

(The following is a commentary performed by me for “The Collective,” a show on Comet Radio, the radio station for Mayville State University.)

Students,

You remember that term paper you wrote last semester? You know, that 10-page exegesis on “Finnegan’s Wake,” or your examination of the Algerian War of Independence?  Well depending on what class you had, far more than just your professor got that paper. If your professor uses a specific anti-plagiarism service, a small corporation in San Francisco currently keeps your feminist analysis of “Macbeth” in a large database of all submitted student papers. And what’s worse? They’re making money from this.

(more...)

Hearing some fiscal conservatives take about wild spending in out of control the states of North Dakota, South Dakota and Ohio came up.

What do these 3 states have in common?  They are all static in population for the last 40 years but in real dollars for the last 40 years state spending had increased radically per person.  Or to put it another way, more and more dollars are spent on the same or fewer people.

Then the question is, are people in these states living large because of this largesse?  I don’t think so.  It’s simply redistribution of income without results.  It’s also a continuation of the growth of government to provide jobs for people so they don’t have to compete in the private sector.

Make work, CCC camps with white collars, WPS.  All the same.  This is happening everywhere.  It becomes easier to understand when you start to break it down into bite sized pieces.

Let’s take a small look.  In the Biennium ending in 2005 the total expenditure according to the ND state website was $5,059,000,000.  The total for the biennium ending in 2007 is $5,752,000,000.  That means with a static 650,000 people in the state an additional $1076 was spent in this biennium on every man, woman and child.  The percentages allocated to various departments is about the same, it’s just bigger and getting larger all the time.  And, there is no inflation; the value of the money being spent is about the same.  So don’t blame it on that.

And there are shell games.  Money for nothing is supposedly coming from Tobacco settlements, money coming from Oil Tax, money coming from the federal government; All that money WAS/IS your money.  There are no spending or allocations in a vacuum. 

Bill Guy was Governor in 1966, 40 years ago, the year I got married.  I have tried like mad to find the equivalent number from the 1966 budget and convert it into today’s dollars.  No luck.  Google is worn out.  But if I do, I’ll bet the expenditures per capita in today’s dollars in 1966 were HALF what they are today.  That’s the point.  We DON’T have better government but it costs much more.

Surpluses or not, Government spending, all government spending, state and federal is out of control and must not be stopped, it must be rolled back.  CUT! Slashed! Eliminated!

I know there are those in State government who will say to me, “You don’t understand, you aren’t seeing the whole picture”.  OK, show me the money, It ain’t there.  We are being screwed to the wall.  This is just as bad in Illinois, but not as bad as North Dakota.  Illinois only gets back 77 cents for every dollar it sends to Washington.  North Dakota gets a buck and a quarter.  I’m ok with that, but what ya gonna do when the well runs dry?

This is killing me.  And YOU!

A co-blogger of mine at File it Under is raising money for breast cancer research via the Susan G Komen Breast Cancer Foundation.

So if breast cancer research is a cause dear to you, please consider donating.  More information here.

Thank you!

Yesterday one of our resident liberals made the contention that the “vast majority” of the public debt was held by foreign interests, especially China.  I asked for proof and he responded with a cut and paste that was useless.

That piqued my curiosity and I decided to do some research.

From the Bureau of Public Debt we find that our “total” debt is $8.5 Trillion. 

Much of the debt though is called “intergovernmental holdings"($3.6 Trillion).  Mostly that’s an accounting gimmick to give the idea that there is a Social Security trust fund.  It’s my opinion that this is not a “debt” as it will never be redeemed.  When Social Security needs it we’ll see new taxes or cuts in benefits.  Either way this is not a foreign held debt.

This leaves $4.8 Trillion dollars held by the public.

According to the US Treasury Department the total amount held by foreigners is $2.1 Trillion.  That amounts to 44% of our debt held by the public or 25% of the “total” debt. 

The economically challenged are afraid that China owns too much of our debt.  “They can call the shots.” Well the fact of the matter is that they only hold $332 Billion dollars of debt.  That’s 4% of our total debt.  It isn’t that scary.

Our national GDP is $12.36 Trillion.  So our total debt is 69% of income.  Our debt held by the public is 36% of our income.  And our debt owed to China is 2.6% of our income.

I don’t know about you, but if my household debt ratios were as low as that I’d be very happy.  If I had a credit card that was 2.6% of my income I wouldn’t worry about it at all. 

Plus the US economy is going to grow and grow.  It doesn’t have to save for it’s retirement.

I don’t like the debt, but it’s sure not worth the anguish that’s generated about it.  It’s part and parcel of the leftists wanting to scare everyone, including themselves.

From Noel Sheppard in The American Thinker:

David Broder and Dan Balz wrote a rather lengthy, front-page story for the Washington Post this morning with the cautionary headline “Poll Shows Strong Shift Of Support to Democrats.” However, Broder and Balz chose not to share some key information from this poll with their readers, the most important of which being the political breakdown of those questioned. In fact, the meager percentage of Republican respondents to this survey should have led the Post to headline this article “Poll Shows Strong Shift Of Questions to Democrats!”

The article began: “Democrats have regained a commanding position going into the final weeks of the midterm-election campaigns, with support eroding for Republicans on Iraq, ethics and presidential leadership, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll.”

Yet, nowhere did the authors let their readers know that 41 percent more Democrats were questioned for this survey than Republicans. That’s right. The breakdown was: 38 percent Democrats; 27 percent Republicans, and; 31 percent Independents. This was the largest skewing of Democrats to Republicans in a WaPo-ABC News poll since at least April. By contrast, in last month’s poll, the breakdown was 33 percent Democrats, 32 percent Republicans, and 30 percent Independents.

[...]

Forgive me, folks, but with four weeks to go before the midterm elections, it is absolutely shameful that any polling organization would do such a poor job of evenly distributing respondents by political affiliation.

Liberal media bias? What liberal media bias?

Indeed.  Read the whole thing.