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/.

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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!

---

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