Franklin, Kirk, Moses — they’re all the same

If you've ever held a political opinion, you've probably had a disagreement. On almost any issue, whether it's abortion rights, taxes or war, about a third of the people are for it, a third are against it and a third don't care. It's been true for centuries.

Communism also hates science

How do we know what causes what? Areas with more crime tend to have more police, but it's probably not the case that doubling the number of cops in Fairfield County would double the amount of crime. We like to think such things have "natural" causes — crimes increase first, then we get more cops to deal with it.

There is something magical about this time of year. Birds are chirping. Flowers are blooming. What a great time to collect some taxes!

Is it a coincidence that Easter, Passover and Tax Day all happen right around this time? Chocolate bunnies, hidden eggs, slain firstborns and taxes. Sounds about right.

This past Wednesday, I was granted a unique opportunity to interview the President of the United States. His press people came to my house before dawn and had a bag over my head so quickly I couldn't even thank them for not waking the children. We rode in silence and in darkness, but with a great new car smell.

Big government has robbed us all of a cris-atunity!

When Homer Simpson got banned from Moe's bar, Lisa tried to console him. "Look on the bright side, Dad," she said. "Did you know that the Chinese use the same word for 'crisis' as they do for 'opportunity?'"

By vocation, Peter Schiff is the president of brokerage firm Euro Pacific Capital, and as we chatted in his Darien office, he had the occasional client meeting or other business to attend to — and he also had a radio show, a Forbes interview and a CNN show booked for the afternoon. We even paused our conversation for him to do a 10-minute radio interview over the phone.

2009 will be the first calendar year in a long time to include three Friday the 13ths. We had our first in February, we're due for a second next week, and the third will come in November.

The last time this happened? 1998.

People speak of the recent financial turmoil as "much worse than 1998." That year brought a default on domestic debt by a large sovereign nation (Russia), leading to massive losses for a hedge fund, Long Term Capital Management. LTCM was eventually bailed out by a consortium of banks in a meeting hosted by the Federal Reserve.