Global warming and chaos theory

Here’s the latest headline from the global warming front:

UN climate change panel based claims on student dissertation and magazine article [Link]

I remember when I first heard of chaos theory that what grabbed my interest was the “butterfly effect” hypothesis that a wind current generated by the flap of a butterfly’s wing could set off a chain reaction resulting in a hurricane. It was a fascinating idea, but today I think it’s about as silly as the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) wanting to reorder the world economic system based on anecdotal evidence from one student’s science paper and a couple of mountain climbers.  That certainly is a formula for chaos!

 

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Obama administration is considering several steps that would review the legality of the controversial Bowl Championship Series. [Link]
I know…what business does the US government have interfering with college football?  Yes, I know, I know!!!  But maybe, just maybe His Majesty will stay so busy screwing up something as harmless as the BCS then he won’t have time to screw up health care, the environment, and the economy.

Think of it as Tinker Toys for half-wits.

 

This just keeps getting better and better.  The London TimesOnline, referring to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report that won a Nobel prize in 2007, said today that at least five “glaring errors” have been found. 

The error that started it all was the one about the Himalyan glaciers melting by 2035.  Syed Hasnain, the Indian glaciologist who was erroneously quoted about the melting glaciers, said he first noticed the mistake in 2008. But he didn’t mention it because he wasn’t working for the IPCC at the time—even though his boss, Dr. Rajenda Pachauri, was the head of the panel.

“I was keeping quiet as I was working here. My job is not to point out mistakes.”

I wonder whose job it is?  Must be a union thing.

 

John Stossel on free markets

Watching John Stossel's reports is a much needed antidote to the non-education provided by our public schools and colleges. Here are links to a report (in 6 parts) on Ayn Rand's novel "Atlas Shrugged" that soon morphs into a seminar in free market principles.

1. Atlas Shrugged (part 1)
2. Atlas Shrugged (part 2)
3. Atlas Shrugged (part 3)
4. Atlas Shrugged (part 4)
5. Atlas Shrugged (part 5)
6. Atlas Shrugged (part 6)

backlash!

Here’s an excerpt from Victor Davis Hanson’s excellent column today:

 

Voters are sick and tired of a terrible year of big spending and big deficits — especially the sight of Obama and his congressional allies almost daily talking breezily about spending what we do not have.

Voters went for the hope-and-change Obama in part because he promised fiscal sobriety after the Bush $500 billion deficit. Instead, in utterly cynical fashion, Obama trumped that red ink four times over. In the process, he developed a terrible habit of promising favored constituencies a hundred billion here, a hundred billion there as if it were all paper money — rather than real borrowed currency that will have to be confiscated in the future from the beleaguered taxpayer. It only makes it worse than the more the administration borrowed, printed, and spent, the higher unemployment rose and the lower economic activity plummeted.

Most have had enough of pie-in-the-sky talk of massive new health-care entitlements, cap-and-trade taxes and regulation, more stimulus, and more takeovers of private enterprise. The country is broke and the people want to pay off, not incur more, crushing debt. What got us into the mess was too much borrowing, skyrocketing debt, and reckless spending — not too many balanced budgets and too much lean government.

 

"crony capitalism"

John Stossel’s expose on “crony capitalism” was on Fox Business Network last night and will be repeated tonight at 9 PM Central.

Everyone in this country over the age of 12 should be required to watch it.

Take your blood pressure medicine first.

 

 

Can BO tell a lie?

You be the judge.

Thousands protest global warming!!!

Review of the movie Avatar

Review of the movie Avatar, by Cliff Raymond.

Caution! This review may contain ‘spoilers’. (I hope so, anyway.)

Remember the Alamo!

Remember Pearl Harbor!!

Remember 9/11!!!

Remember Tree Home!

Tree Home? Oh. Yeah, that’s the giant tree those evil Marine mercenaries knocked down for that evil corporation from Earth. You know—where the only good Marines are dead, captured or traitorous Marines. That peaceful tribe of tree-hugging Bambi lovers was about to get their tail shoved up their collective blue butt until Corporal Jake Tully, USMC, decided to become Tarzan of the Na’vi. The only thing missing was the Tarzan yell that told all the ferociously precious creatures on planet Paradox to attack and kill Jarheads! But never mind, he just got down on his knees and asked the Tree of Souls to do it for him. And boy, did he/she/it/Gaia come through. Those poor unsuspecting blue-baby-killers never had a chance against Mother Nature, Tully, his red flying steed and blue hissing girlfriend. (Not to mention a couple of well-placed grenades.)

If you’ve ever seen Tarzan, Gunfight at the OK Corral, and Dancing with Wolves, then you’ve seen this movie. Except for the special effects, Johnny Weissmuller did it better.

Remember when Hollywood made movies that actually made you proud of your country?

I do.

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President Chavez brought the house down.

When he said the process in Copenhagen was “not democratic, it is not inclusive, but isn’t that the reality of our world, the world is really an imperial dictatorship…down with imperial dictatorships” he got a rousing round of applause.

When he said there was a “silent and terrible ghost in the room” and that ghost was called capitalism, the applause was deafening.

But then he wound up to his grand conclusion – 20 minutes after his 5 minute speaking time was supposed to have ended and after quoting everyone from Karl Marx to Jesus Christ - “our revolution seeks to help all people…socialism, the other ghost that is probably wandering around this room, that’s the way to save the planet, capitalism is the road to hell....let’s fight against capitalism and make it obey us.” He won a standing ovation. [link]

---

These are the people who are trying to determine my future. And yours. And your children’s.

And they’re giving this Venezuelan thug a standing ovation.

Does any sane person really not understand that America is under attack?

Recession? What recession?

For feds, more get 6-figure salaries

Average pay $30,000 over private sector

By Dennis Cauchon
USA TODAY 

The number of federal workers earning six-figure salaries has exploded during the recession, according to a USA TODAY analysis of federal salary data.

Federal employees making salaries of $100,000 or more jumped from 14% to 19% of civil servants during the recession's first 18 months — and that's before overtime pay and bonuses are counted.

Federal workers are enjoying an extraordinary boom time — in pay and hiring — during a recession that has cost 7.3 million jobs in the private sector.

The highest-paid federal employees are doing best of all on salary increases. Defense Department civilian employees earning $150,000 or more increased from 1,868 in December 2007 to 10,100 in June 2009, the most recent figure available.

When the recession started, the Transportation Department had only one person earning a salary of $170,000 or more. Eighteen months later, 1,690 employees had salaries above $170,000.   [Link to full story]

The Manhattan Declaration

Remember the Alamo, when Col. William Travis drew a line in the sand with his sword?

The Manhattan Declaration—“a call of Christian conscience”—is such a line. Here’s the final paragraph:

Because we honor justice and the common good, we will not comply with any edict that purports to compel our institutions to participate in abortions, embryo-destructive research, assisted suicide and euthanasia, or any other anti-life act; nor will we bend to any rule purporting to force us to bless immoral sexual partnerships, treat them as marriages or the equivalent, or refrain from proclaiming the truth, as we know it, about morality and immorality and marriage and the family. We will fully and ungrudgingly render to Caesar what is Caesar’s. But under no circumstances will we render to Caesar what is God’s.

The full text is at http://manhattandeclaration.org/images/content/ManhattanDeclaration.pdf .

If you wish to sign the statement you can join me and over 228,000 other Christians at http://manhattandeclaration.org/.

---

Manmade warming is REAL (at UEA)

This just in from www.TimesOnline.co.uk:

SCIENTISTS at the University of East Anglia (UEA) have admitted throwing away much of the raw temperature data on which their predictions of global warming are based. It means that other academics are not able to check basic calculations said to show a long-term rise in temperature over the past 150 years. The UEA’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU) was forced to reveal the loss following requests for the data under Freedom of Information legislation. [Link]

Is anybody surprised? One thing for sure: the atmosphere at UEA is definitely getting warmer!

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global con job

Kimberly Strassel in today’s Wall Street Journal writes

The more than 3,000 emails and documents from the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit (CRU) that have found their way to the Internet have blown the lid off the "science" of manmade global warming. [Link]

Here’s a direct quote from one of the released emails:

OH **** THIS. It's Sunday evening, I've worked all weekend, and just when I thought it was done I'm hitting yet another problem that's based on the hopeless state of our databases. There is no uniform data integrity, it's just a catalogue of issues that continues to grow as they're found. [Link]

And another:

But what are all those monthly files? DON'T KNOW, UNDOCUMENTED. Wherever I look, there are data files, no info about what they are other than their names. And that's useless.. take the above example, the filenames in the _mon and _ann directories are identical, but the contents are not. And the only difference is that one directory is apparently 'monthly' and the other 'annual' – yet both contain monthly files.[Link]

Why would a real scientist refuse to release his original data? What else can you do if have no clue about the source of the data you’re feeding into your (admittedly buggy) climate models. This is the “science” that Al Gore claims is settled! I saw on another site that some wag is calling this CRUdgate.

This stuff is going to make an awful lot of Very Important People look Very Foolish. And that’s being kind.

For over two and a half years I’ve been posting anti-global-warming articles on this blog—at least 32 of them by my count (including this one). Please forgive my gloat.

---

How you say "IOU" in Chinese?

Charles Krauthammer explains the problem with the House and Senate health care bills so clearly that even Dimocrats should be able to understand it.  [Link]

I particularly like this suggestion:

The bill is irredeemable. It should not only be defeated. It should be immolated, its ashes scattered over the Senate swimming pool.

 

My GI grandson !

Clay Hammer, my grandson, in boot camp!

sex in 'Po City

From GMANEWS.TV in the Philippines comes this new rationale for the world’s oldest profession:

Effects of climate change have driven women in communities in coastal areas in poor countries like the Philippines to risk dangerous jobs, and sometimes even into the flesh trade. Suneeta Mukherjee, country representative of the United Nations Food Population Fund (UNFPA), said women in the Philippines are the most vulnerable to the effects of climate change in the country.

In the Philippines, small brothels usually pop out near the coastal areas where many women do sexual services to transient seafarers.

Who knew? When I was a Marine at Subic Bay in 1972 I thought all those girls in Olongapo City were just doing it for the money! If I had know it was only because of climate change maybe I probably might have given my girlfriend almost my whole paycheck and sent her packing. (As it was she took most of it anyway.) Too bad Algore wasn’t there to enlighten me; I guess he was busy inventing the Internet.

Anyway, It’s good to see on their website that Olongapo City is now a much more respectable town. I’m glad.

Win7

I just upgraded from Vista to Win7. It was just semi-painful, which is a lot better than I expected. There are plenty of aggravations, of course. Like when they "recommended" that I uninstall ZoneAlarm and Norton Ghost. Me being so computer literate, naturally I ignored their advice...until I got to the part where Win7 won't install at all as long as those bad boys are around. Maybe I'll send a dictionary to Microsoft with the words "recommended" and "required" marked. Oh well, at least it's done, and the problems I was having with Vista seem to be gone...for now.

Veterans Day

Here’s a thought for the Republicans:  Introduce a bill to make Veterans Day a holiday for ALL veterans (and not just those that work for the Post Office).

Do it before the Dimocrats realize it’s a cheap way to make themselves look more patriotic than Republicans.

Semper Fi to all vets!

 

If you think health care is expensive now, wait till it's free.

Today, Ranking Member of the House Ways and Means Committee Dave Camp (R-MI) released a letter from the non-partisan Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) confirming that the failure to comply with the individual mandate to buy health insurance contained in the Pelosi health care bill (H.R. 3962, as amended) could land people in jail.  The JCT letter  makes clear that Americans who do not maintain “acceptable health insurance coverage” and who choose not to pay the bill’s new individual mandate tax (generally 2.5% of income), are subject to numerous civil and criminal penalties, including criminal fines of up to $250,000 and imprisonment of up to five years. [Link]

 

Three Strikes against Obamacare

From NationalReview.com:

 

“If Democrats succeed, Americans will lose their insurance,  be subject to rationing, and be charged $1.3 trillion for the privilege.”  [read full article]

 

 

New movie about global warming

(I mean 'climate change')

If you don't read the newspaper, you are uninformed; if you do read the newspaper, you are misinformed.

–Mark Twain

 

(And that’s why I read National Review!)

Our tax dollars at work...

The Cato Institute's Chris Edwards commenting on the institute's Web site about a new report on federal employee pay levels from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis:

The George W. Bush years were very lucrative for federal workers. In 2000, the average compensation (wages and benefits) of federal workers was 66% higher than the average compensation in the U.S. private sector. The new data show that average federal compensation is now more than double the average in the private sector. . . . It's time to put a stop to this. Federal wages should be frozen for a period of years, at least until the private-sector economy has recovered and average workers start seeing some wage gains of their own. At the same time, gold-plated federal benefit packages should be scaled back as unaffordable given today's massive budget deficits. There are many qualitative benefits of government work—such as extremely high job security—so taxpayers should not have to pay for such lavish government pay packages.

SUPPORT TERM LIMITS!!!

One of my favorite signs from the 9/12 Tea Party in DC:

 

Politicians are like diapers…

…they both need to be changed regularly, and for the same reason!

 

Demeauxcrats

Everyone is always telling Boudreaux and Thibodeaux jokes, implying that Cajun's aren't smart.
But anybody who would build a city 10 feet below sea level, in a hurricane zone, and fill it with Democrats...is a genius!

 

Brain-dead

An elderly man suffered a massive heart attack. The family drove wildly to get him to the hospital emergency room! After what seemed like an eternity, the ER Doctor appeared, wearing his scrubs and a long face. Sadly, he said, "I'm afraid he is brain-dead, but his heart is still beating." "Oh, Dear God," cried his wife, her hands clasped against her cheeks with shock! "We've never had a Democrat in the family before!"

National Review made an interesting point about Obama’s speech last night.

I forget, though…

Did he denounce the use of “scare tactics” before or after he warned that “failure to go along with his plans would cause people to die.”

 

I also noticed a lot of angst over Joe Wilson (R-SC) calling Obama a liar in the middle of the speech.  No one mentions that Obama had several times accused his opponents of not telling the truth.  I believe that’s the same thing, isn’t it?  And while the “lack of decorum” charge is probably reasonable, don’t forget that the Democrats booed Bush during his State of the Union speech in (I think) 2008.  But it’s true, I suppose, that Republicans should have more class than Democrats.

Too bad it's not "just" $9 Trillion.

This is the opening paragraph of a Wall Street Journal interview with David Walker, former head of the Government Accountability Office:

David Walker sounds like a modern-day Paul Revere as he warns about the country's perilous future. "We suffer from a fiscal cancer," he tells a meeting of the National Taxpayers Union, the nation's oldest anti-tax lobby. "Our off balance sheet obligations associated with Social Security and Medicare put us in a $56 trillion financial hole—and that's before the recession was officially declared last year. America now owes more than Americans are worth—and the gap is growing!"

Let’s do the math again, still assuming a million dollar daily pay down of the debt:

$56,000,000,000,000 / $365,000,000

= 153,424 years

Yes, the government can

More proof...

…that the only thing worse than many Republicans is any Democrat.

"I recognize that all of you have an obligation to ask questions knowing that there's none of you smart enough to frame it in such a way that I'm going to respond."

--Charlie Rangel (D-NY) , responding to press queries about his failure to report “over $1 million in outside income and $3 million in business transactions”. [link]

The White House itself is projecting a $9 Trillion (yes that’s a ‘T’) deficit over the next 10 years. I heard a Republican congressman describe how much that really is, but didn’t believe him till I ran the numbers myself.

If we pay a million dollars a day ($365 million a year) on this deficit, how long will it take to pay it off? Grab your socks:

$9,000,000,000,000 / 365,000,000 =

24,657 years…and 6 months.

And that assumes Congress can balance the budget for the next 246 centuries.

U.S. moves toward formal cut off of aid to Honduras

U.S. moves toward formal cut off of aid to Honduras

WASHINGTON, Aug 27 (Reuters) - U.S. State Department staff have recommended that the ouster of Honduran President Manuel Zelaya be declared a "military coup," a U.S. official said on Thursday, a step that could cut off as much as $150 million in U.S. funding to the impoverished Central American nation.

 

This is shameful.  The Supreme Court of Honduras ordered the army to remove Zelaya from power because he was unconstitutionally attempting to seize power the same way Chavez did in Venezuela. The vice president of the same political party—not a general—immediately assumed the presidency, again with the full support of Zelaya’s own party! 

What coup?

I frankly can’t believe Obama and the Democrats are too dumb to understand this, but the alternative explanation is even more apalling.

This one is serious.

This is hard to watch, but if you’ve ever thought about texting or dialing while driving, please watch this. I guarantee it will make you think twice.

(As a side note, this PSA is one of the most effective uses of tax dollars--or pounds, in this case--that I've ever seen.)

obamadocs in action

Here are two headlines from The Drudge Report about the National Health Service in England:

• UK HEALTH SYSTEM: Babies born in hospital corridors: Bed shortage forces 4,000 mothers to give birth in lifts, offices and hospital toilets...
  
• Man collapses with ruptured appendix... three weeks after NHS doctors 'took it out'..

I just can’t wait for Obama to make health care a “right” so I can get it for free! Let’s all go to London when we get sick. Even with airfare it’s probably cheaper than the Houston Medical Center.

President Obama said yesterday,  'I don't want the folks who created the mess to do a lot of talking. I want them to get out of the way so we can clean up the mess'...

Gosh, those are the first harsh words he’s had for Barney Frank, Chuck Schumer and Chris Todd.   ‘Bout time!

Ce qu'on voit et ce qu'on ne voit pas

What’s wrong with the Cash for Clunkers program? 

Jonah Goldberg’s column on National Review explains the problem very clearly—and in English!  [Link]

Cash for Clunkers

There was a story in the Wall Street Journal this morning about how they’re destroying car engines using sodium silicate, and that’s when it struck me what the Democrats are all about: destroying wealth. At least for everyone but themselves and their friends.

 

It just isn’t right. Our generation was raised to build and fix stuff, and only the military was supposed to kill people and break things. The Democrats have it upside down as usual. They’re all about destroying babies and old cars (and soon old people), and would prefer to turn the Marines into a “meal-on-wheels” outfit.

HR 3200

If you've got a strong stomach here's a link to the Democrat health care bill that's being debated in Congress. At the very least the plan could save a bundle on anesthesia. While you're reading that 1000+ page document you might want to remember the 10th Amendment to the Constitution:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

How they voted

If you want to know how your Senators and Congressman voted on a bill, or what’s coming up on the Congressional calendar, there’s a website at http://www.congress.org/congressorg/megavote/ that will send a weekly summary to your email address.  This is one of those rare occasions when Congress did something right (I think).

 

 

the "food crisis"

Sometimes Ann Coulter, besides being a funny lady, has a way of putting things into perspective.  The “food crisis” for example:

 

Isn't food important? Why not "universal food coverage"? If politicians and employers had guaranteed us "free" food 50 years ago, today Democrats would be wailing about the "food crisis" in America, and you'd be on the phone with your food care provider arguing about whether or not a Reuben sandwich with fries was covered under your plan.

 

Here’s a link to her full column, which is excellent.

Portrait of a boondoggle

When I first saw this chart I thought it was a joke. After studying it for a few minutes and "googling" some of the box titles it started getting a little less funny. Now I understand that the Democrats are preventing Republicans from mailing the chart to constituents, claiming that it's inaccurate (link). Let me think...who should I believe?

It's not too late to sign the petition!
http://www.freeourhealthcarenow.com/form.php

ObamaCare music video

This is amazing! I just watched Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” video for the first time in years, and the resemblance to the Democrat health care proposals now working their way through Congress is incredible! Thriller must have been filmed in Chicago. Where else will you find so many Democratic voters dancing in the street? Check it out at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgnlZs3uB2Q .

By the way, if you haven’t signed the petition to stop these zombies from taking over the health care system, stop wasting time and get over to http://www.freeourhealthcarenow.com/form.php . We need to deliver a million signatures to Washington.

We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but rather we have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do.

Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.          --Aristotle

 

EMP part 2

I neglected to mention in my last post that the “33 minute” missile flight time from Iran or North Korea is an unlikely scenario.  That’s actually much more warning than we’d really get, plus it would allow us to immediately retaliate against our attackers.  Much more likely is the scenario in “One Second After”—a shorter-range missile launched from a freighter in the Gulf of Mexico.  That would give us maybe 10 minutes, and no one to retaliate against.

 

 

EMP

We’ve all seen films and pictures of the horrific devastation caused by the detonation of atomic bombs in Hioshima and Nagasaki that ended World War II. Could the explosion of a single bomb—one that results in absolutely no blast damage—actually be worse?

I just finished reading the novel “One Second After”, by William Forstchen, about an EMP attack on the United States. EMP refers to the electromagnetic pulse that would be generated by a high-altitude nuclear explosion. The book has been reviewed by nuclear experts and is technically accurate.

It’s hard to imagine the impact of such a strike, but you don’t have to—Forstchen has done it for you. The stark estimates are that up to 90% of the US population would be dead within a year.

The Heritage Foundation has released a documentary called “33 Minutes”, which refers to the flight time of a missile from Iran or North Korea. You can see an excerpt at http://www.heritage.org/33-minutes/. EMP is also mentioned here.

Still not sure? The first and most vital duty of the Federal government is to "provide for the common defense". In 2001 Congress authorized “The Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack”. Their report was issued in April 2008. Since that time, though, Congress has done nothing about this threat. In fact, they have reduced spending on missile defense systems!

This is a huge vulnerability. And our enemies know about it.

“Congressional hearing to barbeque Wall Street executives are as fun as a circus, but with more clowns.”    

--Alan Reynolds (Cato Institute)  [link]

Isn't this the way Hugo Chavez operates?

Justice Department political appointees overruled career lawyers and ended a civil complaint accusing three members of the New Black Panther Party for Self-Defense of wielding a nightstick and intimidating voters at a Philadelphia polling place last Election Day, according to documents and interviews.  The incident - which gained national attention when it was captured on videotape and distributed on YouTube - had prompted the government to sue the men, saying they violated the 1965 Voting Rights Act by scaring would-be voters with the weapon, racial slurs and military-style uniforms. [Link]

 

"I do see this opportunity for climate change to be ... a game-changer."

"Every aspect of our lives must be subjected to an inventory ... of how we are taking responsibility."

-- Nancy Pelosi (D-Ca), speaking at Beijing's Tsinghua University, May 28, 2009 [Link]

 

 

Supreme Court nominee

—To oppose a nominee because of his or her sex, race, ethnicity, or background is to act on bad reasons.  Why then is it acting on good reasons to confirm a judge on such grounds—or to nominate one in the first place?

—The Republicans should thus do Judge Sotomayor the great honor of taking her thinking seriously, after the irresistibly ritual celebration of her story and background.  She has been a judge for years, and judges think for a living—so the focus should be kept on what she has done and said that gives us an inkling of her thinking.

Matthew J. Franck on NRO

http://bench.nationalreview.com/

Taking Chance

We just finished watching “Taking Chance”, an HBO movie about PFC Chance Phelps, USMC, who was killed in Iraq on April 9, 2004. The movie is based on the notes of the Marine officer who escorted the body home.  (If you want to read the original notes, click here.)

I’m not normally a fan of HBO, but Taking Chance is a perfect movie for Memorial Day. 

 

Nola

I sure do love playing the piano! Listening as my hands move over the keyboard I am always amazed that I can make such beautiful music. On occasion, of course, I accidentally hear a real pianist and am jerked unceremoniously back to reality. Still, I do have my aspirations. My new goal is to be either the best untalented pianist in Sugar Land, or the worst with even a modicum of talent. Either one would be, for me, a miraculous achievment!

Nola was written in 1915 by Felix Arndt for his fiancee. It could be the happiest piano tune ever written! Mister Arndt died at age 29, in 1918 during the flu epidemic.

Here's Richard Dowling playing 'Nola'.

Captialism

“The Heads of State and Government of Bolivia, Cuba, Dominica, Honduras, Nicaragua and Venezuela” have issued The Declaration of Cumaná [Link].

The first three points are:

1. 1. Capitalism is leading humanity and the planet to extinction.

2. 2. Capitalism has caused the environmental crisis, by submitting the necessary conditions for life in the planet, to the predominance of market and profit.

3. 3. The global economic crisis, climate change, the food crisis and the energy crisis are the result of the decay of capitalism, which threatens to end life and the planet.

Since capitalism is the economic foundation of freedom, the only thing that surprises me is that Obama, Pelosi, Reed and Gore haven’t signed on yet.

That Americans generally don’t understand the difference between Socialism and Capitalism isn’t surprising, either. Who’s going to teach them…government schools?

Black liquor

Here’s a fascinating story by Kimberly Strassel in the Wall Street Journal about the wisdom of Congress.

 

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123993344387627879.html

 

Tea Party!!!!

• CARACAS -- Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez moved to jail a prominent opposition figure for the second time in recent weeks, an apparent bid to tighten his grip on power amid a sharp downturn in economic growth. [Link]

The Dimocrats could learn something from this guy!

• The Justice Department moved to dismiss former Sen. Ted Stevens' indictment on Wednesday, effectively voiding his Oct. 27 conviction on seven counts of filing false statements on his Senate financial disclosure forms. Stevens, who is 85, lost a close re-election bid in November to the former Anchorage mayor, Democrat Mark Begich. [Link]

Oh….never mind.

Believe in global warming...or else

 

James Hansen, a climate modeller with Nasa, told the Guardian today that corporate lobbying has undermined democratic attempts to curb carbon pollution. "The democratic process doesn't quite seem to be working," he said. [link]

 

 

B. O.'s Neighborhood

 

Broken Fences—A Stimulus Story

 

Three contractors are bidding to fix a broken fence at the White House.  One is from Minnesota, another is from Tennessee, and the third is from Chicago.  All three go with a White House official to examine the fence.

 

The Minnesota contractor takes out a tape measure and does some measuring, then works some figures with a pencil.  "Well," he says, "I figure the job will run about $900: $400 for materials, $400 for my crew and $100 profit for me."

 

The Tennessee contractor also does some measuring and figuring, then says, "I can do this job for $700: $300 for materials, $300 for my crew and $100 profit for me."

 

The Chicago contractor doesn't measure or figure, but leans over to the White House official and whispers, "$2,700."

 

The official, incredulous, says, "You didn't even measure like the other guys!  How did you come up with such a high figure?"

 

The Chicago contractor whispers back, "$1000 for me, $1000 for you, and we hire the guy from Tennessee to fix the fence."

 

"Done!" replies the government official.

 

And that, my friends, is “hope” and “change”.

 

Obama's definition of success

Charles Krauthammer nails it in his column today:

…with our financial house on fire, Obama makes clear both in his speech and his budget that the essence of his presidency will be the transformation of health care, education and energy. Four months after winning the election, six weeks after his swearing in, Obama has yet to unveil a plan to deal with the banking crisis.

What's going on? "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste," said Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. "This crisis provides the opportunity for us to do things that you could not do before.”

Things. Now we know what they are. The markets' recent precipitous decline is a reaction not just to the absence of any plausible bank rescue plan, but also to the suspicion that Obama sees the continuing financial crisis as usefully creating the psychological conditions -- the sense of crisis bordering on fear-itself panic -- for enacting his "Big Bang" agenda to federalize and/or socialize health care, education and energy, the commanding heights of post-industrial society.

Clever politics, but intellectually dishonest to the core. Health, education and energy -- worthy and weighty as they may be -- are not the cause of our financial collapse. And they are not the cure. The fraudulent claim that they are both cause and cure is the rhetorical device by which an ambitious president intends to enact the most radical agenda of social transformation seen in our lifetime.

Read the full article here è [link]

 

 

 

 

This makes me proud to be a Legionaire!!!

Legion post donates $2 million to Fisher House
Thursday, February 26, 2009

The Fisher House Foundation and Department of Veterans Affairs dedicated the 43rd Fisher House in Brentwood, Calif., earlier this month. American Legion Pacific Palisades Post 283 donated more than $2 million to the project.

The American Legion Pacific Palisades Post 283 ... donated $2.125 million to us," said Jim Weiskopf, Fisher House Foundations executive vice president of communications. After placing a call to The American Legion's National Headquarters, Weiskopf learned the amount was the largest single donation ever made by an American Legion post.
"We're the veterans of past wars, and we know what our young people and their families are going through," Cozolino said. "That's the reason I and my members love The American Legion. We really are vets helping vets."

more stimuli

Yeah...and Dimocrats, too.

…and another thing: The Republicans keep complaining about how most of that $789,000,000,000 isn’t really a stimulus because so much of it won’t be spent for several years.

SHUT UP, already!

The Dimocrats rammed this thing through before anyone had a chance to read the dirty details, and we’ll have over a year to pick it apart and lay the whole stinkin’ thing at their feet. Then we take back the Congress and repeal this mess before our kids get stuck with the tab.

Patriotus stimulare

One legitimate criticism of George Bush' conduct of the war is that he did not ask the majority of Americans to sacrifice anything to achieve victory. All we had to do to insure the defeat of terrorism was to "go shopping". By way of contrast, the homefront during World War II was caught up in war bond drives, converting civilian industry to building war materials, collecting metal for tanks, making patriotic (some say 'propaganda') movies and so forth.

During last year's political campaign, Vice President Biden may have stumbled onto something when he said that it is every American's patriotic duty to pay taxes. The stimulus plan just passed by Congress has been rightly criticized from almost every angle. Really, though, to make it more palatable could be as simple as pointing out how much the current economic situation has hurt the likes of OPEC, Russia, Iran and Venezuela. Sure it's a sacrifice for Americans to watch their retirement savings disappear, but if it helps marginalize nasty tyrants like Putin, Chavez and the others, maybe it's worth it!

I'd feel better about it, though, if most of those IOU's weren't going to be held by China and Saudi Arabia.

"Stimulus"

“Stimulus” comes from the verb stimulare, which is Latin for “transfer massive sums of money from what remains of the dynamic sector of the economy to the special interests of the Democratic Party.”   --Mark Steyn on National Review Online

Talk to me, Al!

I don’t suppose Algore, the “inventor of the Internet”—who apparently also invented global warming—has an explanation for any of this.

·         At December's U.N. Global Warming conference in Poznan, Poland, 650 of the world's top climatologists stood up and said man-made global warming is a media generated myth without basis.

·         …the University of Illinois' Arctic Climate Research Center released conclusive satellite photos showing that Arctic ice is back to 1979 levels. What's more, measurements of Antarctic ice now show that its accumulation is up 5 percent since 1980.

·         …a massive study, just released by the Russian Government, contains overwhelming evidence that earth is on the verge of another Ice Age.

·         Dr. Kunihiko, Chancellor of Japan's Institute of Science and Technology said this: "CO2 emissions make absolutely no difference one way or the other ... every scientist knows this, but it doesn't pay to say so."

[link]

 

 

Waxman promises quick action on climate

WASHINGTON (AP) - The chairman of a key House committee said Thursday he will move "quickly and decisively" to push legislation curbing greenhouse gases with a goal of passing climate legislation out of his committee before Memorial Day. [link]

(Hurry, before everyone realizes what a scam the “global warming” crowd is working!)

In other news:

La Grange, IL - A new record was set Wednesday when Chicago had its ninth consecutive day of measurable snowfall, according to the National Weather Service. The previous record was eight consecutive days set from Dec. 13 to 20, 1973. Snowfall records in Chicago date back to 1884. [link]

GENESEE COUNTY, Michigan -- Flint broke a 95-year-old record early Wednesday morning when the temperature plummeted to a frigid 19 below zero. The previous record? Minus 10, set in 1914, according to the National Weather Service. [link]

PRAVDA—The earth is now on the brink of entering another Ice Age, according to a large and compelling body of evidence from within the field of climate science. Many sources of data which provide our knowledge base of long-term climate change indicate that the warm, twelve thousand year-long Holocene period will rather soon be coming to an end, and then the earth will return to Ice Age conditions for the next 100,000 years. [link]

Pravda???

"Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts."
~ Alfred Einstein

 

Happy New Year

The object of a New Year is not that we should have a new year. It is that we should have a new soul and a new nose; new feet, a new backbone, new ears, and new eyes. Unless a particular man made New Year resolutions, he would make no resolutions. Unless a man starts afresh about things, he will certainly do nothing effective. Unless a man starts on the strange assumption that he has never existed before, it is quite certain that he will never exist afterwards. Unless a man be born again, he shall by no means enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.

G. K. Chesterton

 

Is that ink? Or blood?

The Primary Problem

I live in Texas, the second largest state in both area and population (first in common sense), and my vote had zero influence on the Republican presidential nomination.  By the time the Texas presidential primary was held on March 4^th, I had been effectively disenfranchised.  Iowa (30^th in population), New Hampshire (41^st), Michigan (8^th), Nevada (36^th), South Carolina (24^th), and Hawaii (42^nd) combined are smaller than Texas, but the horse race promoted by the news media had already eliminated many of the best candidates. 

 

This primary system is an abomination.  It makes the process way too long because these silly little states keep moving their primaries/caucuses/abortions forward so they can be “first”, and the hell with my vote.  Good God, what a stupid way to do things!  Did you notice that, of the states listed above, only South Carolina went to McCain?

 

Obviously the GOP can’t control when the various states hold their primaries.  They could, however, make one simple ironclad rule:

 

Results of any primary or caucus held before March of the election year WILL NOT BE COUNTED AT THE CONVENTION!

 

In fact, all states should be strongly encouraged to hold the Republican primary on the same day.  Let all Republicans participate in narrowing the field down...not just the states that probably won’t vote for our nominee anyway. 

Thanksgiving

I frequently sat down to my meat with thankfulness, and admired the hand of God's providence, which had thus spread my table in the wilderness. I learned to look more upon the bright side of my condition, and less upon the dark side; and to consider what I enjoyed rather than what I wanted; and this gave me sometimes such secret comforts that I cannot express them; and which I take notice of here, to put those discontented people in mind of it who cannot enjoy comfortably what God has given them, because they see and covet something that he has not given them. All our discontents about what we want appeared to me to spring from the want of thankfulness for what we have.

From Robinson Crusoe, by Daniel Defoe (pub.1719)

Global warming scam...more proof

The world has never seen such freezing heat

By Christopher Booker

Last Updated: 12:01am GMT 16/11/2008

A surreal scientific blunder last week raised a huge question mark about the temperature records that underpin the worldwide alarm over global warming. On Monday, Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), which is run by Al Gore's chief scientific ally, Dr James Hansen, and is one of four bodies responsible for monitoring global temperatures, announced that last month was the hottest October on record.

This was startling. Across the world there were reports of unseasonal snow and plummeting temperatures last month, from the American Great Plains to China, and from the Alps to New Zealand. China's official news agency reported that Tibet had suffered its "worst snowstorm ever". In the US, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration registered 63 local snowfall records and 115 lowest-ever temperatures for the month, and ranked it as only the 70th-warmest October in 114 years.

So what explained the anomaly? GISS's computerised temperature maps seemed to show readings across a large part of Russia had been up to 10 degrees higher than normal. But when expert readers of the two leading warming-sceptic blogs, Watts Up With That and Climate Audit, began detailed analysis of the GISS data they made an astonishing discovery. The reason for the freak figures was that scores of temperature records from Russia and elsewhere were not based on October readings at all. Figures from the previous month had simply been carried over and repeated two months running.

The error was so glaring that when it was reported on the two blogs - run by the US meteorologist Anthony Watts and Steve McIntyre, the Canadian computer analyst who won fame for his expert debunking of the notorious "hockey stick" graph - GISS began hastily revising its figures. This only made the confusion worse because, to compensate for the lowered temperatures in Russia, GISS claimed to have discovered a new "hotspot" in the Arctic - in a month when satellite images were showing Arctic sea-ice recovering so fast from its summer melt that three weeks ago it was 30 per cent more extensive than at the same time last year.

A GISS spokesman lamely explained that the reason for the error in the Russian figures was that they were obtained from another body, and that GISS did not have resources to exercise proper quality control over the data it was supplied with. This is an astonishing admission: the figures published by Dr Hansen's institute are not only one of the four data sets that the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) relies on to promote its case for global warming, but they are the most widely quoted, since they consistently show higher temperatures than the others.

If there is one scientist more responsible than any other for the alarm over global warming it is Dr Hansen, who set the whole scare in train back in 1988 with his testimony to a US Senate committee chaired by Al Gore. Again and again, Dr Hansen has been to the fore in making extreme claims over the dangers of climate change.   [Link to full article]

 

Sarah Palin’s father spoke very briefly before Palin and expressed his pride and projected confidence as it turns Election Day on the East Coast.

“I’m just so proud to be Sarah’s father.” Heath said smiling, “Years ago I taught Sarah how to field dress a moose. But tomorrow I want you to see her field dress a donkey.”

[Link: FoxNews]

VOTE!

Concise explanation of the $700B bailout plan

Ma and Pa Kettle not only explain the bailout plan, but now I understand how Obama plans to give taxcuts to 95% of Americans even though 40% don't pay any taxes!
How could I have been so blind?

One vote

The comprehensive argument against Barack Obama

This website ignores all the rumors and innuendos about Obama, and concentrates only on provable facts. 

 

http://hotair.com/archives/2008/10/21/the-comprehensive-argument-against-barack-obama/

 

 

 

Orson Scott Card essay

I just heard Rush Limbaugh read this letter by Orson Scott Card, one of my favorite authors—who just happens to be a Democrat.  Talk about speaking truth to power!

In a democracy we get the government we deserve.

God help us if we deserve Barack Obama.

--Michael Master

Nobel Prize for economics

It was announced today that Paul Krugman, the leftist columnist for the New York Times, has won the Nobel Prize for economics.  This is almost as much a howler as Gore winning the Peace price last year.   Donald Luskin at National Review has a good suggestion:

 

Whatever the [Nobel] committee was thinking, the only remaining question is what the living Paul Krugman will do with his $1.4 million prize. Will he pay taxes on it at the low rates established in 2003 by George W. Bush, a president and a policy that Krugman has worked so assiduously to discredit? Or will he voluntarily pay at the higher rates he advocates?

Missing questions...

There have been two presidential debates so far, and John J. Pitney Jr. (at NationalReview.com) is curious why none of the following controversial subjects have been raised:

 

·        Abortion

·        Stem Cells

·        Cloning

·        School Prayer

·        Evolution

·        Gun control

·        Supreme Court

·        Illegal immigration

·        Affirmative action

 

Is it possible that Gwen Ifil and Tom Brokaw didn’t think anyone still cares about these issues?  Or maybe they’re afraid that the American people might learn something unpleasant about one of the candidates?

We’ll just have to wait and see what Bob Schieffer thinks we need to know.

 

What Is a 'Right'?

What Is a Right and How Do We Know?
from National Review Online

By Bill Whittle

During the presidential debate Tuesday night, Barack Obama was asked if he thought health care was a “right.”
He said he thought it was a right. Well, if you accept that premise, I think you can ask some logical follow-up questions: Food is more important than health care. You die pretty quickly without food. Do we have a “right” to food in America? What about shelter? Do we have a “right” to housing? And if we do have a right to housing, what standard of housing do we have a right to? And if it is a right, due to all Americans, wouldn’t that mean that no one should have to accept any housing, or health care, which is inferior to anyone else’s… since it’s a right?

 

sand and rock

At the end of the Sermon on the Mount, our Lord speaks to us of the two possible ways of constructing the edifice of one’s life: building on sand or building on solid ground. He who builds on sand is the one who builds only on the foundation of visible and tangible things: success, one’s career, money. As if these were the true realities. But one day all of these things will pass away. We see that now in the crash of the great banks: all this money disappears; it’s nothing. And in like fashion all these things, which would appear to be the true reality to count on, are only second-order realities. Whoever builds his life on these realities, on material things, on success, on appearances, builds on sand.                   Pope Benedict XVI, Oct. 6, 2008

 

Root of the problem

For the Democrats to blame President Bush for the economic problem is the height of hypocrisy and dishonesty. Everyone needs to know what really happened. Please watch this video!

The Patriot Tax

“Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden said Thursday that paying more in taxes is the patriotic thing to do for wealthier Americans.” [link]
The top 1% of Americans already pay 40% of all Federal income taxes. How patriodic do they have to be? [link]
The bottom 50% of Americans pay just 3% of the taxes. Couldn’t they be just a little more patriotic?

It's all in how you look at it...

National Review Online gets it right in this article by John J. Pitney Jr.:

 

[Sarah Palin’s] perspective is different from that of other national politicians. For Barack Obama, Wal-Mart is a symbol of worker exploitation. For Hillary Clinton, it’s a former source of corporate-director fees. For Sarah Palin, it’s a place where you buy stuff.

 

And that’s why we love her!

The experience factor

The Democrats continue to make pointed references to Sarah Palin’s lack of experience and say she isn’t qualified to be President. Never mind that Barack Obama is even less qualified, and that he’s at the top of his party's ticket.

Certainly if something should happen to President John McCain, Sarah Palin would need the help and wise counsel of a lot of people—including Democrats. She would be able to count on that…wouldn’t she?

This is the 2012 election!

John McCain and Sarah Palin will be elected in November because Americans found out in 2008 who they want to be president in 2012. John McCain will get to be president for four years because he proved once again that he cares deeply about America’s future. And Sarah Palin will be elected the first female president in 2012 because she deserves to be, we need her, and we all know it!

Congress's Finest Hour

from the Wall Street Journal

 

August 21, 2008; Page A12

As the 110th Congress continues its August recess, the big legislative news is that it has passed fewer laws than any Congress in the last two decades. An outfit known as Taxpayers for Common Sense reports that the fighting 110th has passed a mere 294 laws, while nonetheless finding time to consider 1,932 resolutions favoring such causes as National Watermelon Month. This is apparently supposed to be a matter of public consternation because Congress should be accomplishing more.

Sorry, but that's the best thing we've heard about this Congress. What a relief to discover the destruction could have been so much worse. With rare exceptions -- free-trade deals, money for the troops -- we wish the Members would spend every minute of every day passing resolutions. They'd have less time to do tangible harm.

Even we -- fated by bad career advice to write about this stuff -- haven't the foggiest idea what is in most of those 294 laws. The mayhem we know about is bad enough. There was that "reform" that blew up the student loan market and has led to Uncle Sam being America's college lender of first resort. This will be the Fannie Mae of the future. And don't forget the mortgage bailout, which puts taxpayers on the hook for as much as $300 billion in bad home loans.

Come to think of it, we'd feel safer if the whole crowd decided not to come back at all after Labor Day. Just stay home, or, even better, spend the rest of the year traveling on Congressional junkets. Sure, taxpayers would have to pay the airfare and hotel bills, but that's a bargain compared to what taxpayers will owe if Congress tries to solve any more problems.

 

Copyright 2008 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved

 

A Catholic Case Against Barack

There are many things about Pat Buchanan that have disappointed me over the past 8 years, but this column is not one of them.

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=27992

 

 

92-year-old witness

Congressional Warming

Contribute to Congressional Warming!!!   Put the heat on Congress to lift the ban on offshore drilling before they recess for the summer.

 

Contact information for all Senators and Congressmen can be found at http://www.congress.org/congressorg/directory/congdir.tt.

 

People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don't believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can't find them, make them.
- -- George Bernard Shaw

Who does he think he is?

“Americans are beginning to notice Obama’s elevated opinion of himself. There’s nothing new about narcissism in politics. Every senator looks in the mirror and sees a president. Nonetheless, has there ever been a presidential nominee with a wider gap between his estimation of himself and the sum total of his lifetime achievements?”

“His most memorable work is a biography of his favorite subject: himself.”

This is a great column by Charles Krauthammer. [Link]

Good old Al

John had several hundred young hens, or 'pullets,' and ten roosters to fertilize the eggs. He kept meticulous records, and any rooster not performing went into the soup pot and was replaced. This took a lot of time, so he bought some tiny bells and attached them to his roosters. Each bell had a different tone, so he could tell from a distance which rooster was performing. Now he could sit on the porch and fill out an efficiency report by just listening to the bells.

John's favorite rooster, old Al, was a very fine specimen but this morning he noticed old Al's bell hadn't rung at all! When he went to investigate, he saw the other roosters were busy chasing pullets--bells-a-ringing--but the pullets, hearing the roosters coming, would run for cover. To John's amazement, old Al had his bell in his beak so it couldn't ring. He'd sneak up on a pullet, do his job and walk on to the next one.

John was so proud of old Al he entered him in the Renfrew County Fair, and he became an overnight sensation among the judges. The result was the judges not only awarded old Al the No Bell Piece Prize but they also awarded him the Pullet-surprise as well.

Clearly old Al was a politician. Who else could figure out how to win two of the most highly coveted awards on our planet by being the best at sneaking up on the populace and screwing them when they weren't paying attention?

Vote carefully this year, the bells are not always audible.

(author unknown)

salmonella prevention

In today’s world our communications are much more sophisticated than our perspective.  The recent tomato scare is a case in point.  According to the CDC about 940 people have been sickened since May with Salmonella saintpaul poisoning that was initially attributed to uncooked tomatoes.  The news was instantly flashed throughout North America and the ‘red menace’ almost immediately began disappearing from salads, sandwiches and salsas.  By June 10 Florida’s tomato industry was in “complete collapse” (Reuters).  Mexico, already strained by the sharp corn (not to mention oil) price increases, must now contend with tons of produce rotting in warehouses.

Now comes word that maybe it wasn’t tomatoes after all.  Jalapeno peppers (and possibly cilantro) are the latest suspect, so everybody stay away from Mexican restaurants!

Nahhhh…..in fact I ate an excellent meal just last night in Houston at Little Pappasitos, and I’m fat and happy.  Of course it’s possible my margarita neutralized the salmonella, but that’s a precaution I always take at Mexican restaurants! (Sometimes I take two large doses of that medicine, just to be on the safe side!)

Okay let’s run some numbers and assume (very conservatively) that only 25% of the US population regularly eats tomatoes.  That’s about 75 million people, so if 1000 get sick that puts my chances at 1 in 75,000, about the same as the odds of my getting a hole-in-one in golf—before I drink the margaritas.

More chips and salsa, waiter….and bring me another ‘rita.

 

God I miss Ronald Reagan!

I just ran across a wonderful Reagan story in vol.2 of Bill Bennett’s great history, “America the Last Best Hope”:

 

Reagan…and the Queen [Elizabeth II] were both avid riders.  Reagan’s men were especially eager to get “visuals” of the president and the Queen riding at the royal estate at Windsor.  As the two heads of state galloped up a steep hill, however, the Queen’s horse let out a long, loud blast of gas.

“Oh, I’m so sorry, Mr. President,” the Queen said.

Without hesitation, Reagan responded: “It’s alright, Your Majesty; I thought it was the horse.”

 

Obama and the monkey god

I thought this was a joke when I first saw it at The Times of India website. Then I googled “Obama Lord Hanuman” and got a bunch of hits. It probably would be counterproductive to make too much of Obama’s lucky charm, but a story about his “faith” in a golden monkey idol of is just too good to ignore.

 

10 Concerns about Barack Obama

Bill Bennett has put together a two page summary of 10 Concerns about Barack Obama  that’s very well thought out.  He talked about it yesterday on his radio show (5-8am at 1070 AM).  I could make a similar list of problems I have with McCain, but on every one of them Obama is even worse.

 

The sky is falling!

“James Hansen, one of the world's leading climate scientists, will today call for the chief executives of large fossil fuel companies to be put on trial for high crimes against humanity and nature, accusing them of actively spreading doubt about global warming…” [Link]

======<<<<>>>>======

I suppose pointing Mr. Hansen to the first amendment’s guarantee of free speech would be too much to ask of him, and do little good anyway. He would just point out that it doesn’t give us the right to yell “fire” in a crowded theater. On the other hand, just who is it that’s yelling “fire”?

Question of the day

Just curious…..How long have the Dimocrats been saying that drilling new wells won’t help reduce the price of gasoline because it takes 10 years to get it into production?

Also, if it’s true that ‘speculators’ are one of the culprits behind the recent price increase, doesn’t it follow that futures markets would react quickly if the U.S. announced an aggressive energy policy?

 

Just another broken promise

Obama Breaks Earlier Pledge on Public Financing
[Wall Street Journal]
Barack Obama announced today that he will not accept roughly $85 million in public funds for the general election, breaking his earlier pledge to do so if his Republican rival John McCain opted in to the system.

Global Warming and the Price of a Gallon of Gas

by John Coleman
(founder and former President of The Weather Channel)

You may want to give credit where credit is due to Al Gore and his global warming campaign the next time you fill your car with gasoline, because there is a direct connection between Global Warming and four dollar a gallon gas.  It is shocking, but true, to learn that the entire Global Warming frenzy is based on the environmentalist’s attack on fossil fuels, particularly gasoline.  All this big time science, international meetings, thick research papers, dire threats for the future; all of it, comes down to their claim that the carbon dioxide in the exhaust from your car and in the smoke stacks from our power plants is destroying the climate of planet Earth.  What an amazing fraud; what a scam.

[full text of speech]

 

$4 Gasbags

Wall Street Journal - June 12, 2008; Page A16

Anyone wondering why U.S. energy policy is so dysfunctional need only review Congress's recent antics. Members have debated ideas ranging from suing OPEC to the Senate's carbon tax-and-regulation monstrosity, to a windfall profits tax on oil companies, to new punishments for "price gouging" – everything except expanding domestic energy supplies.

Amid $135 oil, it ought to be an easy, bipartisan victory to lift the political restrictions on energy exploration and production. Record-high fuel costs are hitting consumers and business like a huge tax increase. Yet the U.S. remains one of the only countries in the world that chooses as a matter of policy to lock up its natural resources. The Chinese think we're insane and self-destructive, while the Saudis laugh all the way to the bank.  [link to full article]

Mallard nails it!

Dimocrats

Earmarks After Dark
Wall Street Journal - May 31, 2008; Page A10

Remember those Congressional pledges of earmark reform? Democrats are hoping you don't, as they try to pull a fast one and evade President Bush's pledge to block these special-interest spending projects slipped into legislation without scrutiny.

The battle is over the $601 billion defense authorization bill, which the House passed last week, 384-23. Earmarks are supposed to be included in the text of legislation. Instead, the Members have "airdropped," in Beltway parlance, a huge number of them into the conference report that accompanies the bill. And, to ensure that the money is spent on these dark-of-night additions, the Members have included language insisting that federal agencies do so.

This is a blatant attempt to override Mr. Bush's executive order earlier this year on earmarks. That order took direct aim at "airdropped" earmarks on grounds that they lack the force of law. If Members think their projects are defensible, then put them into actual legislation and vote on them. But because this can be politically embarrassing – think "bridge to nowhere" – Members prefer to slip their pork into the conference reports that offer instructions on implementation. These reports are written by staff members, aren't debated or voted on by Members, and aren't signed by the President. [full editorial]

---

One more proof (as if we needed it) that the only thing worse than a Republican is a Democrat.

Promises, promises.

Susan Sarandon vows move to Italy or Canada if McCain elected...[link]

 

Didn’t Alec Baldwin promise the same thing 8 years ago?  Has he left yet?

POLITICAL CORRECTNESS

The following is the winning entry from an annual contest at Texas A&M University calling for the most appropriate definition of a contemporary term. This year's term was 'Political Correctness'.

The winner wrote:

'Political Correctness is a doctrine fostered by a delusional, illogical minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end.'

Operation Chaos

John Kerry said today that "Rush Limbaugh was tampering with the primary."

 

Sometimes I wonder if Kerry (and the other Dimocrats) are as much worried about terrorists as they are Limbaugh.

 

Service to America

"Every challenge is an opportunity to
measure one's strength of character."
--John McCain

John McCain's Service to America speech in Meridian, Mississipi on March 31 offers some excellent insights into his own strength of character, and how it was forged. We need to enthusiastically support this man. He may not be right on every issue, but he clearly understands the most important ones.
Remember what the Good Book says:

Whatever is true,
whatever is noble,
whatever is right,
whatever is pure,
whatever is lovely,
whatever is admirable—
if anything is excellent
or praiseworthy—
think about such things.
--Philippians 4:8

Global Warming Takes a Holiday

Ocean Cooling to Briefly Halt Global Warming, Researchers Say

by Jim Efstathiou Jr. on Bloomberg

April 30 (Bloomberg) -- Parts of North America and Europe may cool naturally over the next decade, as shifting ocean currents temporarily blunt the global-warming effect caused by mankind, Germany's Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences said.

``Those natural climate variations could be stronger than the global-warming trend over the next 10-year period,'' Wood said in an interview. ``Without knowing that, you might erroneously think there's no global warming going on.''

``If we don't experience warming over the next 10 years, it doesn't mean that greenhouse-gas warming is not with us,'' Keenlyside said in an interview. ``There can be natural fluctuations that may mask climate change in the short term.''

- - - - - - - - - - - -

 

Gosh, I’m sure glad they told me!  I might have ‘erroneously’ concluded that natural fluctuations in the solar cycle might have something to do with it.

America

The consequence of our common humanity is our responsibility to one another, to our fellow Americans foremost, but also to every child of God. It is an obligation which is fulfilled by Americans every day, here and across the globe, without regard to creed or race or nationality.

Americans acknowledge that liberty is a gift of God, not an indulgence of government. No people in the history of the world have sacrificed as much for liberty. The lives of hundreds of thousands of America’s sons and daughters were laid down during the last century to preserve freedom, for us and for freedom loving people throughout the world. America took nothing from that Century’s terrible wars — no land from Germany or Japan or Korea; no treasure; no oath of fealty. America’s resolve in the defense of liberty has been tested time and again. It has not been found wanting, nor must it ever be. America must never falter in holding high the banner of freedom.

Mitt Romney at College Station, Texas, 12/6/2007

 

Why are we even bothering to hold an election? 
On one side, we have a bitch who is a lawyer and is married to a lawyer, 
campaigning against a lawyer who is married to a bitch who is also a lawyer.
On the other side we have a war hero married to a  

woman with a huge chest who owns a beer distributorship. 

What was the question? 

 

Science

In the space of one hundred and seventy-six years the Lower Mississippi has shortened itself two hundred and forty-two miles. That is an average of a trifle over one mile and a third per year. Therefore, any calm person, who is not blind or idiotic, can see that in the Old Oolitic Silurian Period, just a million years ago next November, the Lower Mississippi River was upwards of one million three hundred thousand miles long, and stuck out over the Gulf of Mexico like a fishing-rod. And by the same token any person can see that seven hundred and forty-two years from now the Lower Mississippi will be only a mile and three-quarters long, and Cairo and New Orleans will have joined their streets together, and be plodding comfortably along under a single mayor and a mutual board of aldermen. There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.

- Mark Twain, from Life on the Mississippi

 

Is this really an Oboma-nation?

 

Obama baby

Sen. Barack Hussein Obama, speaking of his daughters, said, if they “make a mistake, I don’t want them punished with a baby.”

I suppose it’s true that one woman’s blessing might be another’s curse, but it does shed new light on a mindset that supports partial birth abortions.

 

Poor, poor pitiful me...

John McCain says “Americans are hurting today.”

Barack Obama says Americans are “bitter.”

 

Why do these politicians think it’s good strategy to make us feel sorry for ourselves?  What makes them think stroking my self-pity will make me want to vote for them?

 

Irrelevant or irreverent?

Hillary Clinton said Sunday a query about the last time she fired a gun or attended church services "is not a relevant question in this debate”.

 

Let's 'Surge' Some More

This is an excerpt from an outstanding article.

---

Let's 'Surge' Some More

By MICHAEL YON
April 11, 2008

It is said that generals always fight the last war. But when David Petraeus came to town it was senators – on both sides of the aisle – who battled over the Iraq war of 2004-2006. That war has little in common with the war we are fighting today.

I may well have spent more time embedded with combat units in Iraq than any other journalist alive. I have seen this war – and our part in it – at its brutal worst. And I say the transformation over the last 14 months is little short of miraculous.

The change goes far beyond the statistical decline in casualties or incidents of violence. A young Iraqi translator, wounded in battle and fearing death, asked an American commander to bury his heart in America. Iraqi special forces units took to the streets to track down terrorists who killed American soldiers. The U.S. military is the most respected institution in Iraq, and many Iraqi boys dream of becoming American soldiers. Yes, young Iraqi boys know about "GoArmy.com."

As the outrages of Abu Ghraib faded in memory – and paled in comparison to al Qaeda's brutalities – and our soldiers under the Petraeus strategy got off their big bases and out of their tanks and deeper into the neighborhoods, American values began to win the war.

Iraqis came to respect American soldiers as warriors who would protect them from terror gangs. But Iraqis also discovered that these great warriors are even happier helping rebuild a clinic, school or a neighborhood. They learned that the American soldier is not only the most dangerous enemy in the world, but one of the best friends a neighborhood can have.    [full article]

 

Happine$$

Barack Obama said Friday that many working-class Americans are angry and bitter over economic inequalities.
And it's his job, I suppose--nay, his duty--to fan the flames and make them feel even worse?

Here's a question and a thought experiment for all those angry, bitter people:

QUESTION: Can money buy happiness?

THOUGHT EXPERIMENT: What if there were two doors...

• Behind door #1 is $1,000,000...tax free...guaranteed.
  
• Behind door #2 is happiness...for a lifetime!...guaranteed.

It's your choice--pick a door.

Why Iraq Matters

This is an excerpt from a great article by a former professor of military history at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.  It demolishes every argument put forward by the Defeatocrats.

 

Unless the advocates of defeat can show, as they have not yet done, that the consequences of losing are very likely to be small not simply the day after the last American leaves Iraq, but over the next five, ten, and 50 years, then what they are really selling is short-term relief in exchange for long-term pain. As drug addicts can attest, this kind of instant-gratification temptation is very seductive — it’s what keeps drug dealers in business despite the terrible damage their products do to their customers. “Just end the pain now and deal with the future when it gets here” is as bad a strategy for a great nation as it is for a teenager.  

 

From Why Iraq Matters   [Link]
by Frederick W. Kagan on NationalReview.com

 

 

Bad to the bone!

On April 18, coming to a theater near you:

Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed.

Dimocrat dishonesty

Just three minutes long.
http://www.bercasio.com/movies/dems-wmd-before-iraq.wmv

The REAL political spectrum

The left-right political spectrum as it is generally understood today is essentially meaningless. However, if we define the left side as "absolute government control" and the right side as "Anarchy" (no government), it suddenly begins to make sense. The diagram below is a simple exercise that may make the world a little easier to understand. Just move the various words and concepts to their appropriate place on the spectrum.

Re: Recycle or go to Hell, warns Vatican

As usual, the mainstream media wrote some misleading headlines that were picked up by lazy journalists all over the world.
The real story is on the Catholic World News website.

Ethanol--the hoax

Walter E. Williams has posted a great article about the Big Corn and Ethanol Hoax on Townhall.com.

The whole concept of mortal sin may have just been dealt a mortal blow.

 

Recycle or go to Hell, warns Vatican

By Malcolm Moore in Rome

Last Updated: 12:01am GMT 10/03/2008

 

Failing to recycle plastic bags could find you spending eternity in Hell, the Vatican said after drawing up a list of seven deadly sins for our times.

The seven, which include polluting the environment, were announced by Monsignor Gianfranco Girotti, a close ally of the Pope and the head of the Apostolic Penitentiary, one of the Roman Curia's main court.

The "sins of yesteryear" - sloth, envy, gluttony, greed, lust, wrath and pride - have a "rather individualistic dimension", he told the Osservatore Romano, the official Vatican newspaper.

The new seven deadly, or mortal, sins are designed to make worshippers realise that their vices have an effect on others as well.

"The sins of today have a social resonance as well as an individual one," said Mgr Girotti. "In effect, it is more important than ever to pay attention to your sins."

According to Roman Catholic doctrine, mortal sins are a "grave violation of God's law" and bring about "eternal death" if unrepented by the act of confession.

They are far more serious than venial sins, which impede a soul's progress in the exercise of virtue and moral good.

Mgr Girotti said genetic modification, carrying out experiments on humans, polluting the environment, causing social injustice, causing poverty, becoming obscenely wealthy and taking drugs were all mortal sins.  [Link]

Vaclav (is not Santa) Klaus

You've probably never heard of Vaclav Klaus, but he's President of the Czech Republic. He grew up in Soviet communist-dominated Czechoslovakia, and his Wall Street Journal article (by BRIAN M. CARNEY, March 8, 2008; Page A9) offers a unique perspective to the "global warming crisis". Here's just one of several points he makes:

He likens global-warming alarmism to communism, which he experienced first-hand in Cold War Czechoslovakia, then a Soviet satellite. While the communists argued that we must all sacrifice some freedom in pursuit of "equality," the "warmists," as Mr. Klaus calls them, want us to sacrifice liberty -- especially economic liberty -- to prevent a change in climate. In both cases, in Mr. Klaus's view, the costs of achieving the goal, and the impossibility of truly doing so, argue strongly against paying a price of freedom.
Furthermore, the fact that there has been some warming over so many years does not, by itself, prove to him that this trend will continue indefinitely. "Undoubtedly there is some warming," Mr. Klaus allows. "But there has never been no change in climate, no change in global temperatures." [Italics mine.]

Here's another:

Cost-benefit analysis and the precautionary principle "are two different methodologies, two different approaches, two different ways of thinking," he says. The less desirable precautionary principle "as used by Al Gore and all his fellow travelers" says that "if you are afraid that there are risks to something, you may prohibit everything." He continues: "This is for me absolutely unacceptable to think about."

Some of his other opinions are a bit disconcerting but, as I said, he does have a different perspective. One very telling point he makes is that "Russia is more free now than in any time in its 2,000 years of history. So to speak about dictatorship is misusing the terminology, devaluing the terms that we use." I'm not sure I completely agree with that, but his is very definitely a non-American (but not anti-American) perspective. Interesting!
--Cliff

HillorObamaCare

Anyone who thinks they want the "single-payer" health care system advocated by Hillary Clinton or B. Hussein Obama needs to watch this 5-minute video.

Zombies

"The most wasted of all days is one without laughter." 
                                                            ~ e.e.cummings

Loch Ness Monster--victim of global warming

Gosh darn it!  I just knew it had to be global warming!

 

Legendary Nessie hunter Robert Rines is giving up his search for the monster after 37 years.   The 85-year-old American will make one last trip in a bid to find the elusive beast.   After almost four decades of fruitless expeditions, he admitted: "Unfortunately, I'm running out of age."

World War II veteran Robert has devoted almost half his life to scouring Loch Ness.  He started in 1971. The following year, he watched a 25ft-long hump with the texture of elephant skin gliding through the water.  His original trip was to help another monster hunter with sonar equipment and quickly identified large moving targets.  He was smitten and returned the next year, which is when, he says: "I had the misfortune of seeing one of these things with my own eyes."   Since then, he has been obsessed with tracking down the creature with a staggering array of hi-tech equipment. It was this gear that took the famous "flipper" picture that year which created a stir around the world.

Despite having hundreds of sonar contacts over the years, the trail has since gone cold and Rines believes that Nessie may be dead, a victim of global warming.

[link]

 

 

McCain for President!!!

A lot of my favorite conservatives are acting like improvised explosive devices because John McCain will apparently be the Republican nominee for president. Some are threatening to sit out the election--or even vote for Hillary--because of their hatred for McCain. To paraphrase a 1795 protest against John Jay, they want to

Damn John McCain! Damn everyone that won't damn John McCain! Damn every one that won't put lights in his window and sit up all night damning John McCain!

Two months ago I might have felt the same way about sitting out this election, but as the big day looms I'm returning to my senses. The big difference here is that in 1795 we weren't threatened with a Hillary Rodham Clinton or Barack Hussein Obama presidency. With Barack or Hillary there's no hope they'd get anything right, and in 4 or (God forbid) 8 years they could damage the country permanently.

McCain isn't always wrong, and there's at least some chance that he'll do a few good, big, things...like veto some spending bills, nominate decent judges, cut taxes, and (most importantly) win the war.

John McCain isn't the problem. The problem is a primary system that eliminates most of the candidates before most of the country even gets a chance to vote. I'd like to see a class-action lawsuit against Iowa, New Hampshire and Florida. By moving their primaries ahead of "Super Tuesday" they effectively disenfranchised over 90% of the population. Now that's who we need to be mad at! Where's a good lawyer when you need one?

McCain for President!!!

Sen. Kerry Blames Tornados on Global Warming

Former Democratic presidential nominee blames 'intense storms' that have killed more than 50 on climate change. [Link]

ç================<=>==============è

I’ve heard that the unusually colder weather much of the world is experiencing is also due to global warming. I suppose the lower than usual hurricane activity last season also was due to global warming, just as the higher than usual activity was the previous year. Talk about convenient! It doesn’t matter what happens, just blame it on global warming!

Character

Some day, in years to come, you will be wrestling with the great temptation, or trembling under the great sorrow of your life. But the real struggle is here, now, in these quiet weeks. Now it is being decided whether, in the day of your supreme sorrow or temptation, you shall miserably fail or gloriously conquer. Character cannot be made except by a steady, long continued process.

- Phillips Brooks (1835 –1893), noted clergyman and author

Republican debate

I hate to say it, but in my opinion Huckabee easily won the debate tonight.  Part of that was due to McCain dragging Romney down into a stupid argument about "timetables".  Lois almost came unglued.  I think she'll vote for Hillary now before she'd ever vote for McCain.  Even Ron Paul came off better than McCain, except for his dumb isolationism.  Huckabee definitely had the best (smoothest?) answers, but I'm afraid all he's going to do is split the conservative vote with Romney and hand the nomination to McCain. 

Sex: work vs. pleasure

The Commanding Officer of a Marine regiment was about to start the morning briefing to his staff and Battalion and Company Commanders. While waiting for the coffee machine to finish it's brewing, he decided to pose a question to all assembled. He explained that his wife had been a bit frisky the night before and he failed to get his usual amount of sound sleep. He posed the question of just how much of sex was "work" and how much of it was "pleasure"?

The X.O. chimed in with 75% vs. 25% in favor of work.

A Captain said it was 50 – 50%.

The Colonel's Aide, a Lt., responded with a 25-75% in favor of pleasure, depending on his state of "inebriation" at the time.

There being no consensus, the Colonel turned to the PFC who was in charge of making the coffee. What was HIS opinion?

With no hesitation, the very young PFC responded: "Sir, it has to be 100% pleasure".

The Colonel was surprised and asked why?

"Well, Sir," began the PFC, "if there was any work involved the Officers would have me doing it for them."



God Bless the United States Marine Corps.

Gas pipeline rupture

This picture shows what happens when a 30" natural gas pipeline, operating at over 900 psi, ruptures and ingnites. It happened on I-20 near Delhi, Louisiana, on Dec.14, 2007. It's interesting to me because as a Gas Controller about 20 years ago I operated this line. Fifty years ago my Dad helped build it.

photo by Clay Cooper III