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

Whose abortion "rights"?

MANCHESTER, N.H. (AP) - Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton criticizes rival Barack Obama's record on abortion rights in a mailing sent to New Hampshire voters.

The mailer says that seven times during his time in the Illinois state Senate, Obama declined to take a position on abortion bills, while Clinton has been a defender of abortion rights.

During his eight years in the legislature, Obama cast a number of votes on abortion and received a 100 percent rating from the Illinois Planned Parenthood Council for his support of abortion rights, family planning services and health insurance coverage for female contraceptives. He voted against requiring medical care for aborted fetuses who survive, a vote that especially riled abortion opponents. [link]

Read that last line one more time...Barack Obama "voted against requiring medical care for aborted fetuses who survive."

And Hillary Clinton is criticizing his record on "abortion rights." How could anyone vote for either one of these people?

Cold spell soon to replace global warming

MOSCOW. (Oleg Sorokhtin for RIA Novosti) – Stock up on fur coats and felt boots! This is my paradoxical advice to the warm world.   Earth is now at the peak of one of its passing warm spells. It started in the 17th century when there was no industrial influence on the climate to speak of and no such thing as the hothouse effect. The current warming is evidently a natural process and utterly independent of hothouse gases.
…Carbon dioxide is not to blame for global climate change. Solar activity is many times more powerful than the energy produced by the whole of humankind. Man’s influence on nature is a drop in the ocean.  [link]

Dr. Oleg Sorokhtin, Merited Scientist of Russia and fellow of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, is staff researcher of the Oceanology Institute.

 

Make yourself an honest man, and then you may be sure that there is one less scoundrel in the world.
- Thomas Carlyle

SecDef Christmas message

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates yesterday sent out a holiday message urging all Pentagon and military workers "to remember our many blessings as Americans — perhaps chief among them are the dedicated soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines who protect our nation."

The troop surge in Iraq reduced violence sharply and Afghanistan operations "inflicted heavy losses on the Taliban, launched a comprehensive, nationwide reconstruction effort, and strengthened civic institutions," he said.

"We are in our seventh year of war — the first sustained combat with an all-volunteer force since our nation's inception," Mr. Gates said.

"Our troops and their families — active, guard, and reserve — are giving so much. This holiday season, many of those in uniform are on repeat deployments or have had their tours extended. Many will miss midnight Mass or have already missed Hanukkah's Festival of Lights. Many will not hear the squeals of delight from their children on Christmas morning. Many will sing neither carols nor hymns. Instead, they serve halfway around the world to honor a pledge they made to the country they love. Please keep our troops in your thoughts and may God forever bless them and this wonderful nation we call home."

 

Scientists doubt climate change

by S.A. Miller
December 21, 2007

 

More than 400 scientists challenge claims by former Vice President Al Gore and the United Nations about the threat of man-made global warming, a new Senate minority report says.  The scientists — many of whom are current or former members of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that shares the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with Mr. Gore for publicizing a climate crisis — cast doubt on the "scientific consensus" that man-made global warming imperils the planet. [more]

 

Seasons Greetings

To  My Democratic Friends:
Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, my best wishes  for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low-stress,  non-addictive, gender-neutral celebration of the winter solstice  holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious  persuasion of your choice, or secular practices of your choice, with  respect for the religious/secular persuasion and/or traditions of  others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions  at all. I also wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling and  medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally  accepted calendar year 2008, but not without due respect for the  calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society  have helped make America great. Not to imply that America is necessarily  greater than any other country nor the only America in the Western  Hemisphere. Also, this wish is made without regard to the race, creed,  color, age, physical ability, religious faith or sexual preference of  the wish.

To My Republican Friends:
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Huckaboo

"American foreign policy needs to change its tone and attitude, open up, and reach out," Huckabee said. "The Bush administration's arrogant bunker mentality has been counterproductive at home and abroad. My administration will recognize that the United States' main fight today does not pit us against the world but pits the world against the terrorists." [link]

I disagree with Bush on lots of things, but it takes a special kind of arrogance for a Monday morning quarterback in Little Rock to second guess war decisions made five years ago. Bush-bashing is a Dimocrat sport.  I was already having serious doubts about him, and now Mike Huckabee has lost any possibility of my support.

The Trouble with Celebrity Endorsements

Oprah and Obama combine forces to destroy us all.
by Mark Hemingway, at www.nationalreview.com

Oprah [has given] high-profile support of The Secret, a pernicious self-help phenomenon that tells people they can physically realize their dreams by merely wishing for them...Naturally, like most everything else Oprah touches, The Secret is nothing more than one big marketing scheme. Except unlike her other marketing schemes, instead of squeezing cash out of a desire to lose weight or improve one’s marriage — this one actually sucks her audience’s bank accounts dry by exploiting the actual process of hoping and dreaming, leaving a consumerist sack of meat where a person with a soul once was.

Perhaps you doubt my doubt about the power of The Secret. So I propose an experiment. Obama supporters should follow Oprah’s advice and spend the rest of the election cycle doing nothing else but wishing Obama into the Oval Office. Don’t write any checks, don’t volunteer, and for heaven’s sake don’t vote.   [link to full article]

Pope condemns climate change prophets of doom

by SIMON CALDWELL - updated at 14:48pm on 12th December 2007

Attack: Pope Benedict criticised climate-change prophets of doom

Pope Benedict XVI has launched a surprise attack on climate change prophets of doom, warning them that any solutions to global warming must be based on firm evidence and not on dubious ideology.

The leader of more than a billion Roman Catholics suggested that fears over man-made emissions melting the ice caps and causing a wave of unprecedented disasters were nothing more than scare-mongering. [link]

 

Good movies

We saw two really good movies this weekend, and what's most unusual is that both are great for kids, too! Enchanted is a tongue-firmly-embedded-in-cheek fairy tale, and the funniest movie I've seen in a long time. The presence of Susan Sarandon is the only downer in the film, but even she couldn't ruin it (though she tries).

If you love music--and can suspend your disbelief long enough to forgive a whole series of impossible coincidences--August Rush is a wonderful tribute to the power of music. It's gotten mixed reviews, but I think the bad ones are from those who don't hear the music.

It's about time Hollywood started making good movies again.

It's "selfish" to have babies

Meet the women who won't have babies - because they're not eco friendly

.....At the age of 27 this young woman at the height of her reproductive years was sterilised to "protect the planet".

 

Now isn't this the best idea since zippers!  I'm beginning to think maybe Darwin was right...these folks are naturally selecting themselves right out of the gene pool.  Fantastic!!!

editor generals

"We made a great mistake...in the beginning of our struggle, and I fear, in spite of all we can do, it will prove to be a fatal mistake. In the beginning we appointed all our worst generals to command the armies, and all our best generals to edit the newspapers. As you know, I have planned some campaigns and quite a number of battles. I have given the work all the care and thought I could, and sometimes, when my plans were completed, as far as I could see, they seemed to be perfect. But when I have fought them through, I have discovered defects and occasionally wondered I did not see some of the defects in advance. When it was all over, I found by reading a newspaper that these best editor generals saw all the defects plainly from the start. Unfortunately, they did not communicate their knowledge to me until it was too late."

attributed to Gen. Robert E. Lee

Global warming scam

It is the greatest scam in history. I am amazed, appalled and highly offended by it. Global Warming; It is a SCAM. ……I have read dozens of scientific papers. I have talked with numerous scientists. I have studied. I have thought about it. I know I am correct. There is no run away climate change. The impact of humans on climate is not catastrophic. Our planet is not in peril. I am incensed by the incredible media glamour, the politically correct silliness and rude dismissal of counter arguments by the high priest of Global Warming. [Link]

--John Coleman, founder of The Weather Channel

Jailed Terrorist: "I Want My Walkman"

Convicted al-Qaeda murderer complains about life in federal prison

NOVEMBER 6--An al-Qaeda operative serving life in prison for his role in the bombing of American embassies in Africa contends that his rights are being violated by U.S. jailers who have denied him access to Arabic publications and religious books, limited his mail privileges, and no longer allow him to use a Walkman.

The Osama bin Laden disciple and three codefendants were convicted in 2001 for their roles in simultaneous car bomb attacks at U.S. embassies in Nairobi and Tanzania. Those blasts killed a total of 224 people and injured thousands of other victims. [Link]

 

Philadelphia punishes Boy Scouts

The city of Philadelphia has decided to punish the Boy Scouts of America because it will not allow homosexuals to serve as Scout Leaders. City officials said they will charge the Cradle of Liberty Scouts Council $200,000 a year to use the city-owned headquarters. The Council was paying $1 per year (since 1928). The city owns the land on which the Council's 1928 Beaux Arts building sits.

Chernobyl gorenobel

...one of the world's foremost meteorologists called the theory that helped Al Gore win a share of the Nobel prize the product of "people who don't understand how the atmosphere works".

Dr William Gray, a pioneer in the science of seasonal hurricane forecasts, spoke to a packed lecture hall at the University of North Carolina and said humans were not responsible for global warming.

"We're brainwashing our children," said Gray, 78, a longtime professor at Colorado State University. "They're going to the Gore movie and being fed all this. It's ridiculous."