Standing By

White House Blackmailing Senator to Vote for Socialized Medicine

2009-12-17T07:01:00.000-08:00

Per Theo Sparks, Glenn Beck has reported that Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE) has been threatened by the White House that if he doesn't toe the line on health care, then Offutt Air Force Base will be put on the Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) list. Offutt is the home of the Strategic Command, formerly the Stategic Air Command.

Beck claims to have three independent sources, and he has generally been quite accurate, so I take this seriously. As Beck says, if true, this sort of thing borders on treason. It is certainly disgusting and despicable to use our military, and the security of the United States as pawns to get an agenda through that now 60% of Americans do not want.

Meanwhile, to understand what it is about socialized medicine that so offends the average American you must read Why America Hates Universal Health Care: The Real Reason. The post is very un-PC, calling fat people...fat(!!). It says that we should all just grow up and take responsibility for our own lives. Apparently hell has finally frozen over, because someone is actually telling the truth:

Now, I really don’t care if you overeat, smoke like a chimney, hump like a bunny or forget to lock the safety mechanism on your pistol as you jam it in your waistband. Fine by me. And as a laissez-faire social-libertarian live-and-let-live kind of person, I would never under normal circumstances condemn anyone for any of the behaviors listed above. That is: Until the bill for your stupidity shows up in my mailbox. Then suddenly, I’m forced to care about what you do, because I’m being forced to pay for the consequences.

Of course, there are all the other reasons to oppose this bill: That it will drive up costs, ration care, and represents a massive power grab by a government that is already too powerful. But at it core, this is the reason most Americans recoil: Those who have worked hard, payed taxes, and played by the rules all their lives will now have to pay for some idiot who hasn't. That's just un-American.

Congress Irrelevent?

2009-12-16T23:42:00.000-08:00

Congress is making itself irrelevant if they don't watch out.

Congress is unlikely to pass Cap and Tax this year. Due, in part to Climategate, a binding agreement coming out of Hopenhagen appears also unlikely. In any case, the Senate would probably not ratify any such agreement. But still, the threat of massive regulation remains because of the Obama Doctrine: govern by decree. Henry P Wickham, Jr. has an article over at the American Thinker today that you must read about the EPA's finding that CO2 is a pollutant and must be regulated. Congress could still make itself relevant by putting a line in the EPA's appropriations bill to the effect that no funding could be used to regulate CO2 or carbon, but I doubt that will happen, considering that the House already passed Cap and Tax, and that all funding bills must originate in the House. The only way to reverse this is to get rid of those members of Congress who are not listening to the people in 2010.

If you want to know why all this is happening, please read On the brink by Victor Volsky at American Thinker today.

In fact, he had little choice. Obama came to power in no small measure thanks to an economic collapse. But it is this very recession that makes his window of opportunity extremely narrow, at most ‘til the beginning of the 2010 election campaign. Off-year elections nearly always deal a blow to the ruling party, most certainly during economic downturns. Come election time, Obama's honeymoon will be long since over and the electorate will be sure to take out its frustration and anger on his party, further undermining the president's clout. Just ask Bill Clinton after the 1994 electoral debacle of the Democrats.

Given the political landscape the left decided on a drastic approach: President Obama and his Congressional allies would take advantage of their temporary preponderance and go all in on their program to take control of three major sectors: health care, education and energy. Speed was of the essence; while the Republicans are in post-electoral disarray, attack, attack, attack, overwhelm the enemy's defenses, give him no time to regroup, and push through the coveted legislation. All the chips were placed on a blitzkrieg. Using a football analogy, the Democrats threw a Hail Mary pass into the enemy's end-zone, pinning all their hopes on one daring toss.

And the remedy?

The only hope of Obama and his allies is that the American people, unaccustomed as they are to prolonged activism, will soon get bored and go back to slumber. Will the enraged electorate have the stamina, the staying power to continue the fight to the bitter end, until the internal aggression is beaten back? If it does and the socialist conspiracy is decisively defeated, the radical left will be dealt a crushing blow from which it might take decades to recover. If not, America as we know it, in all likelihood will be finished.

Or, in simpler terms, the Democratic party has to go. Democratic Members of Congress must be replaced with people who are willing to follow the Constitution, and work to unburden government of the unconstitutional duties it has arrogated to itself.

Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton just announced that the Obama administration would be working hand in glove with the UN on the "Small Arms Treaty." John Bolton threw a monkey wrench into this treaty during the Bush administration, but with Obama now in office, the way seems clear for him to sign onto this abomination. Once again, the Senate is unlikely to ratify the treaty, but that won't prevent the administration from writing regulations in support of the treaty anyway, the Second Amendment be damned.

Election 2010!

When Do Climate Criminals Go To Jail?

2009-12-12T03:39:00.000-08:00

A great posting over at Watts Up With That! shows the dangers of looking too closely at recent global warming. The first graph does indeed show the "hockey stick" starting from around 1400 AD. But the next graph shows the time stretched out to 800 AD, and the MWP suddenly shows up. Clearly the MWP was greater than the present-and nothing happened! But wait, there's more. If we go back to 3000 BC, it becomes clear that the world was much warmer at around 1500 BC than even the MWP. What's going on? One of the things the IPCC has done is chose over what period of time to show you temperature data. It was part of the data manipulation that went on.

These records are taken from the NOAA Greenland Ice Core data, and have not been "corrected" or "adjusted." Any climate scientist would have been aware of this data all along. The earth has been much warmer, within historical times, than it is today, without human activity to drive the planetary warming. This makes climategate all the more criminal, as these scientists were aware of the information, but chose instead to push their phony hoax on the rest of us. And when I say criminal, I really mean that those who have pushed this hoax should be prosecuted and sent to jail, particularly the "scientists" who had to have known of the availability of this information, but ignored it.

I watched the new Stossel show the Fox Business Channel last night. Yes, I know it came on the night before, but I TIVOed it, so watched it last night. The show was about climate change. Stossel had some young people in the audience who claimed to be environment students of various stripes. What appalled me was that these students had apparently gotten the complete propaganda on the CO2 theory, but seemed unaware that there are other theories out there, or that there are other temperature records, such as ice cores from Greenland. Apparently the schools have turned away from teaching students how to think, and are just teaching them what to think.

The Left Takes Down U. S. Economy

2009-12-09T05:52:00.000-08:00

When I was assigned to by NAVFAC's "expert" on goofball wormening I said to my boss, "This is just an attempt to shackle our economic power and make Europe more competitive." At last, the cat is out of the bag, with an IBD Editorial published Monday entitled Greens' Real Target: U.S. Economy A quote:

What goes little commented on, however, is the reason for the vehemence of these calls for CO2 sacrifice on the part of the U.S.: a desire to take our economy down.

Having decisively lost the great debate between capitalism and socialism, the only way the global warming socialists can do this is by imposing restrictions on U.S. output in response to the ginned-up "emergency" of global warming.

It is childish, I know to say "I told you so." But sometimes, one needs that recognition.

Paul Valone on Self Defense

2009-12-09T04:43:00.000-08:00

Paul Valone, the Charlotte Gun Rights Examiner, has an excellent article up today entitled Guns and the Law: The Use of Deadly Force, Part 1. The article involves an interview with Thomas Faulk, author of Firearms Laws of North Carolina. If you are a gun owner, and routinely carry a gun, you should go read the article, and obtain a copy of the book. It could save your life, or keep you out of prison.

Paul is also the President of the group Grass Roots North Carolina that agitated for, and eventually got the North Carolina "Shall Issue" law in place. One of my own efforts is manning the table for the GRNC at the Raleigh gun shows.

As Evidence Crumbles, Warming Alarmists Double Down

2009-12-08T04:30:00.000-08:00

David Limbaugh has a piece on the Goofball Wormening front and the Copenhagen meeting at Townhall.com today entitled Defenseless Enviro-thugs Go On the Offensive. You should stop over and read it. It doesn't have much technical detail, but then you can go to Watts Up With That! for technical detail. Rather, this report summarizes why this is all happening:

As British columnist Christopher Booker says: "What has become arguably the most influential set of evidence used to support the case that the world faces unprecedented global warming, developed, copied and promoted hundreds of times, has now been as definitively kicked into touch as was (Michael) Mann's 'hockey stick' before it. Yet it is on a blind acceptance of this kind of evidence that 16,500 politicians, officials, scientists and environmental activists will be gathering in Copenhagen to discuss measures which ... would ... utterly (transform) the world economy."

Perhaps the culpability of many rank-and-file leftists should be understood in light of their mind-numbed credulity over the alarmists' claims and the Draconian solutions they offer to avert their mythical Armageddon. These leftist sheep seem engaged in a chimerical search for significance apart from God, whose existence their worldview rejects but for whom their hearts cry out in a self-muted cacophony.

Meanwhile, the EPA has now found out that CO2 is a pollutant. Go over and check out Atlas Shrugs for the details. A quote:

"CO2 for different people has different attractions. After all, what is it? - it’s not a pollutant, it’s a product of every living creature’s breathing, it’s the product of all plant respiration, it is essential for plant life and photosynthesis, it’s a product of all industrial burning, it’s a product of driving – I mean, if you ever wanted a leverage point to control everything from exhalation to driving, this would be a dream. So it has a kind of fundamental attractiveness to bureaucratic mentality." - Richard S. Lindzen, Ph.D. Professor of Atmospheric Science, MIT

What this means is that the Obama Administration is prepared to go forward with Cap and Tax whether the Congress gives him the legislation or not, or whether the Senate ratifies a treaty out of Copenhagen or not. The only way this can be stopped is if the Congress stops it. While there may not be the votes to pass Cap and Tax, there are also not the votes to stop EPA either.

"So, if it is not CO2 that is causing the climate to change, what is?", you might ask. Don Easterbrook, a retired Geology professor at Western Washington University has a theory that seems to correlate well over time, and explains the Medieval Warm Period, the Maunder Minimum, the warming of the last third of the 20th century, and the current cooling. Unfortunately, if Professor Easterbrook is correct, there really isn't anything we can do about it. Of course that means everyone can go about using fossil fuels as before. Indeed, there is no need to bring the industrial revolution to a halt and return mankind to primitive hunter-gatherers, living in grass huts. No need for a global governance. No need, in other words, for the leftists who have brought this silly idea to a head in Copenhagen.

One of the interesting things about our current standard of living is the built-in assumption that our time is worth more than things. Our society is a "disposable" society because "things" are worth less, and our time is worth considerably more. Cap and Tax would reverse that trend. Suddenly, the car you own now might be the last you buy, because to produce them is so expensive. All kinds of materials become recyclable because the energy to produce new is so expensive. You probably would go back to taking a bath maybe once a month (utility prices would skyrocket.) Clothes would be worn until they were really dirty, and then washed by hand. Because of the high cost of new clothes, someone in your family would have to figure out how to repair them until they could not be repair anymore. Does your wife know how to sew? Mine doesn't. Food would become a major part of your budget, because of the transportation costs to bring it to you, and your diet would necessarily get a lot simpler. Oranges might be a Christmas treat, rather than staples. Try to imaging the life of someone in your area living in 1875, but without the freedoms they enjoyed, and you pretty much have what your life, and that of your children will be like. If it were necessary, I wouldn't say a word, but it is not. The fact is that the world will warm, the world will cool, and we have nothing to do with it. All we can do is adapt when it happens.

Are you mad enough yet?

Day of Infamy

2009-12-07T02:42:00.000-08:00

Today is the anniversary of the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Like 9/11, today is a day we should never forget.

Understanding the Decline

2009-12-06T16:11:00.000-08:00

Marc Sheppard has an excellent article explaining in detail exactly what was at stake in the climategate emails at American Thinker entitled Understanding Climategate's Hidden Decline. A quote to give you a flavor of the report:

Remember, all of the temperatures prior to 1850 were estimated by computer algorithms and no actual readings exist to prove or disprove those figures. So a relatively short window of opportunity exists to test the programs against observations. Had 20th century measured temperatures continued to align with those recreated as smoothly after 1960 as they did previously, then the programmers could declare their code and hence their millennial temperatures sound. But the divergence, if allowed to stand, instead revealed serious design flaws in the proxy reconstructions. Which suggests that just as the decline was dealt with through trickery, so was the MWP.

And it seems that each time the trick was used, its involvement would be more deeply concealed.

So, this report is pretty technically oriented, telling us exactly what was done to what data to make the data say what was presupposed to have actually happened. In this case, the CRU "scientists" were trying to hide the Medieval Warm Period (MWP), and the Little Ice Age (LIA). But the more pressing problem was the MWP, because if this period in history was allowed to stand, the recent warming would be seen to be within normal limits. And it's hard to stampede the world into giving alarmists trillions of dollars for something that happens normally after all. That's what all this goofball wormening, cap and tax business is all about: transferring trillions of hard earned dollars from their rightful owners to cheats and liars, and kleptocrats at Goldman Sachs and other similar firms, and greedy third world kleptocrats.

The Earth's Next Last Chance

2009-12-06T04:34:00.000-08:00

George Will sums up the current status of the goofball wormening debate in The Earth's Next Last Chance at Townhall.com today. A quote:

Barack Obama, understanding the histrionics required in climate change debates, promises that U.S. emissions in 2050 will be 83 percent below 2005 levels. If so, 2050 emissions will equal those in 1910, when there were 92 million Americans. But there will be 420 million in 2050, so Obama's promise means that per capita emissions then will be about what they were in 1875. That. Will. Not. Happen.

So why threaten it? As cover for ObamaCare perhaps? Will doesn't say, but in any case sums things up nicely with:

Copenhagen is the culmination of the post-Kyoto maneuvering by people determined to fix the world's climate by breaking the world's -- especially America's -- population to the saddle of ever-more-minute supervision by governments. But Copenhagen also is prologue for the 2010 climate change summit in Mexico City, which will be planet Earth's last chance, until the next one.

Climategate Roundup Number 3

2009-12-05T03:33:00.000-08:00

Chris W. Bell has an article in today's American Thinker entitled Save the Planet by Banning Ice Cream. The article talks about the environmental movement, as illustrated by goofball wormening's true believers. But in reality, Bell is trying to show where the logic (or lack thereof) of goofball wormening leads, if taken to its illogical conclusion. Taken to its conclusion, goofball wormening leads us back to being primitive hunter gatherers. Forget the industrial revolution, forget the agricultural revolution that took place 10,000 years ago. A quote:

For now, the environmental movement is asking us to give up a small amount of our creature comforts so that our environment can be saved from global warming. I submit that we must project this movement to its logical end. If it is good to use energy-saving light bulbs, is it not better not to use light bulbs at all? If it is good to drive a small car, then it must be better to not drive a car at all. If we seek to eliminate unnecessary energy usage, why should we stop at light bulbs? If saving the environment by not burning fuel is your goal, then it is better to eat raw food than it is to eat cooked food because you save the energy required to cook your food.

The discretionary use of energy for things like vacations, music, frozen foods, and air conditioning, must, by the modern environmentalist standards, be eliminated. Imagine how much energy it takes to support ice cream. We must feed and water the cattle that are raised for the cream. We must supply the energy to make and freeze the ice cream, we must use energy to make the containers to pack the ice cream, and we must use energy to transport the ice cream from the dairy to the store. We must use energy to keep the ice cream frozen in the market, we must use energy to drive to the market, and we also use energy to power our freezers where we store the ice cream. Just think of the energy we could save if we just got rid of ice cream.

How can we sit by and watch ice cream being made if we believe its production is contributing to the doom of mankind? Every scoop pushes the hand of our doomsday clock that much closer to midnight. This reasoning can, and eventually will, be used to demonize virtually all of modern society. How can we justify watching a television show when the burning of the fuel that powers the TV is destroying our environment? How can we justify using energy to create a computer when that energy use will destroy us? How can we justify powering our air-conditioner when we could survive without it, as billions before us did?

Ben and Jerry, call your office!

Meanwhile, Clarice Feldman reports in AT that AWG not stopped yet by Climategate. I agree with her. The facts don't matter to people who believe the narrative. Indeed, in this case, the facts are so complicated, that it is just far easier to keep believing the narrative, even if the narrative was supposedly based on the facts.

C. Edmund Wright reports in AT that Sarah Palin weighs in on climategate. Good for her. Reading through her statement, she hits just the right notes, again.

Anthony Watts has a great post here. Read through the entirety and enormity of what the "climate scientist" commented. This is at the heart of the problem. This is why I get so frustrated with people who say that climategate doesn't matter. The whole premise if goofball wormening, of alarming the public, of scaring the children, is that science tells us so. But now if the science doesn't tell us anything of the sort, shouldn't goofball wormening swept into the dustbin of history, along with Piltdown Man?

I'd love to keep working here, but once again, I have to run.

Climate Gate Roundup Number 2

2009-12-04T02:24:00.000-08:00

Rosslyn Smith has an article in the American Thinker comparing Global Warming's New Clothes to the Emperor's New Clothes, penned by Hans Christian Andersen, ironically of Copenhagen. The metaphor is a perfect fit.

Clarice Feldman reports that Michael Mann is throwing CRU's Phil Jones Under the Bus.

Andrew Walden points out that there are other absurdities in the GHG movement, such as placement of Greenhouse Gas Observatories Downwind from Erupting Volcanoes.

In Assessing Pre-Blame for Climate Summit, Jonah Goldberg writes at Townhall.com that the wheels are coming off the car because of other nation's self interest, and speculates that any treaty coming out of Copenhagen will not be ratified by the US Senate. With due respect to Mr. Goldberg, lately, I have lost faith in the common sense of our so called "Representatives" in either House of Congress. If they can pass ObamaCare, I wouldn't put any destructive nightmare these guys.

David Harsanyi says that Sen. Boxer wants to change the subject in "We-don't-want-to-talk-about-it gate" at Townhall.com.

As usual, go read Watts Up With That and click on the video. The title says it all: "You wouldn't accept that from a grade 9 science fair."

Got to go to work. More tomorrow.

Climategate Roundup

2009-12-03T04:42:00.000-08:00

I have decided today to just do a roundup of the news on "climategate" as more and more folks get into the act. Perhaps I will do this for a few days, and see where it goes. But for now, here's the latest:

First up is Ann Coulter writing in today's Townhall.com entitled Do Smoking Guns Cause Global Warming Too? Ms. Coulter applies her usual acid wit to the climategate scandal. It's a must read.

Next up is Jonah Goldberg, also in today's Townhall.com in a piece called Groupthink and the Global Warming Industry. Goldberg is more cautious on calling the growing scandal a fraud, but I am not. Common sense says CO2 was never the "cause" of either global warming or cooling, and there is research now that makes the case that the rising and falling of CO2 levels was actually caused by the change in temperature, and not the other way around.

Larry Elder has a great takedown of National Public Radio (NPR) on Townhall.com today in a piece entitled Climategate: NPR Sees a Silver Lining. I can't help getting a smirk whenever I hear someone say they get all their news from NPR. These people have never reasoned through to see the conflict of interests that a government funded news source represents.

Jillian Bandes reports on some Senate committee in-fighting in Democrats Censor Climate Skeptics in Congress.

Representative John Linder (R-GA) has a article in the American Thinker entitled simply Climate Challenges in which he makes the point that Obama should not be going to Copenhagen, should not sign away our sovereignty, over a completely unproven "theory" that man is causing catastrophic global warming. It is a well written article. Incidentally, I did not know that the Nile river froze in 829 A.D.

Secrecy News reports on a little known Congressional Research Service report that a number of countries are making their GHG laws more stringent at a time when the argument for goofball wormening is falling apart.

William Zeranski reminds us in American Thinker that when government is involved science is ultimately corrupted. A point that bears repeating, perhaps by having each new Congresscritter write it on the blackboard 100 times.

Anthony Watts site Watts Up With That? provides an excellent round up of climate news on a daily basis. You should bookmark this site, and check in regularly, but this post is especially interesting. Christopher Monckton is the Thatcher advisor who warned the world what was at stake in Copenhagen last month.

The Washington Times reports Researcher: NASA Hiding Climate Data. The Washington Times reports that Chris Horner plans to sue if NASA doesn't come clean by the end of the year.

ObamaCare will not be Good for Gunowners

2009-12-03T03:49:00.000-08:00

Larry Pratt and the Gun Owners of America have a press release on the ObamaCare bill now being debated in the Senate here. As you read it, keep in mind that the outcomes he discusses are not necessarily those that will come about, but very well could if the bill passes, based on past experience with other laws at other times. What many people do not know is that laws are not just created by Congress, but also by Executive Branch regulators (such as the BATFE or any of the new bureaucracies created under the ObamaCare bill) or by courts. The courts make laws through the interpretation of existing law. The way that they have corrupted the law is fairly well understood. Less understood is the how regulators extend, and in some cases, completely stand the law on its head. That is what Pratt is discussing here. Everything he mentions is very possible with an administration hostile to gun rights, as this one is.

Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Thomas Sowell, and others, in different ways have been saying all along that ObamaCare is a huge grab at the liberty of the American people. Larry Pratt makes explicit what they have all implied. Rather than pass a law saying "turn in your guns or go to jail," they will use the various provisions of ObamaCare to make certain classes of people "prohibited persons." At first, the classifications of people would sound reasonable, if one didn't know the circumstances. For instance, just because a veteran suffers PTSD doesn't make him dangerous, or likely to "go off." Thousands of men, returning home from all the previous wars have also suffered what is now termed PTSD. That we now have counselling for these men is a great boon for returning soldiers, but it should not mean the loss of Constitutionally guaranteed liberties absent the actual commission of a felony. But soon more classifications will be made "prohibited" on various specious grounds. But the problem at that point is that we will not be arguing the basic principles of the law but nibbling around the edges hoping to keep our individual ox from being gored. You do not want to go there!

So, while you are checking out the latest presser, why not fill out the form, and send an email to your Senators again. It couldn't hurt, and who knows, if enough of us make our wishes known, they might just get the message to stop the madness.

So, "most people" believe in Goofball Wormening

2009-12-02T06:59:00.000-08:00

So, Obama is going to Copenhagen because "most people" do not dispute the existence of goofball wormening. What, is this guy in the fourth grade?

My mother would have had a saying for that. She would have asked "So, if most of the kids were jumping off a cliff, would you do it too?"

By the way, most of the people do not want the government to involve itself in health care, but that is not stopping The One from pushing that horrible idea. When did he ever care what "most people" want?

A Trio on Goofball Wormening

2009-12-02T05:23:00.000-08:00

I have been keeping what little track of the expanding scandal that is the Hadley Climate Research Unit's hacked e-mails as I can over the holidays and into this week. The American Thinker has had several good articles on that scandal over the last several days. First up is James Lewis, writing yesterday, in a piece entitled Obama and the CRUddites of Britain. Likening the CRU to the 18th century Luddites, who tried to destroy the most advanced technology at the time, he takes a whack at the CRUddites. But the juicy parts are where Lewis brings Algore, Phil Jones, Michael Mann, James Hansen, the BBC, the Guardian the Times, the Daily Mail and Obama himself under the lens, then backs off and lets the sun do the sizzling. The most remarkable has been Obama. Why would he decide to go to Copenhagen after the scandal broke, and he could see that the jig was up? According to Lewis, it is because he has ties to the folks in Chicago who stand to make billions of dollars from Cap 'n Tax. But this is sheer lunacy, and he has to know that he is committing political suicide, or does he? Go read the whole thing, though, for the fantastic number of ways Lewis uses to describe "fraudulent."

All that aside, Peter Landesman has an article explaining why the climate models are fundamentally flawed, and it has to do with the Mathematics of Global Warming. Anyone who has ever watched the television show "Numbers" no doubt has an exaggerated view of what can be done with mathematics. What isn't shown, or is glossed over, is the simplifying assumptions that have to be made to solve many of the problems in the time necessary to catch the miscreant du jour. It's all very entertaining television, and I like it because it puts mathematics in a starring role instead of the usual brute force types. But as you will see in Landesman's piece, there really are mathematical problems that are beyond our ability to solve, and forecasting global climate is one. When I first read about climate models predicting that our world would heat up, my first reaction was to ask what they had used to verify that the models worked? I asked how they explained previous warming when no one was about, much less driving SUVs? I was told that I was asking the wrong questions (and of course that the sciences was settled, and I should just sit down and shut up.) I never learned what were the "right" questions, so I continued to ask. Turns out, I was asking the right questions.

Then there is Bruce Walker's The Ghost of Lysenko to remind us all of what happens when ideology is used to determine evidence, rather than letting the evidence inform our ideology. Just go read the whole thing. It isn't that long.

The War on Guns: Chicago Gun Case Brief Shows Prohibitionists Unreasonable

2009-11-29T08:24:00.000-08:00

The War on Guns: Chicago Gun Case Brief Shows Prohibitionists Unreasonable

The Brady Bunch is at it again in the Chicago case, claiming there is no difference between "shall not be infringed" and a total ban. At least the Joyce Foundation recognized defeat and withdrew funding for Saul Cornell's OSU 2nd Amendment Center. But of course, the Bradys are dedicated to subverting our Constitutionally guaranteed rights, and will never stop trying.

The Global Warming Fraud Destroys Science

2009-11-29T06:44:00.000-08:00

J. R. Dunn has an excellent think piece on what the ramifications of the Global Warming Fraud and the Future of Science in today's American Thinker. It is long, but well worth the read, and then contemplate for yourself what you think this will mean for future scientific endeavors. A quote to give you a flavor of the article:

As Paul Johnson has pointed out, a technological breakout appeared imminent at a number of points in the past millennium. Consider the anonymous Hussite engineer of the 15th century who left a notebook even more breathtaking than that of Leonardo, or the revolutionary English Levelers of the 17th century who dreamed of flying machines and factories. If a breakout had occurred at those times, the consequences would have been unimaginable. But the Hussites were destroyed by the German princes, the Levelers by the reestablishment of the English crown. It required the birth of a true democratic republic in the late 18th century to provide the setting for a serious scientific-technical takeoff, one that after 200 years has brought us to where we stand today, gazing out at the galaxies beyond the galaxies with the secret of life itself within reach.

It is this, and no less, that scientific fraud threatens. This is no trivial matter; it involves one of the basic elements of modern Western life. When scientific figures lie, they lie to all of us. If they foment serious distrust of the scientific endeavor -- as they are doing -- they are creating a schism in the heart of our culture, a wound that in the long run could prove even more deadly than the Jihadi terrorists.

J. R. Dunn asserts in the article that our democratic republic, and free scientific inquiry go hand in hand, and that to destroy one of these pillars is to seriously weaken the other. When stated explicitly, one recognizes that what he is saying must be true. Our democratic republic was designed to give men the maximum freedom to make of their lives what they would. Some of these men had a talent for, and chose to become great captains of industry. But other men had a talent for, and chose to delve into science and technology, from which we all have benefited. If we lose that, who knows what great improvements to our lives will be lost to this generation?

Dunn also points to the real problem, which is not scientific inquiry, but government funding of scientific research for ideological reasons. It seems so benevolent: government gives grants for scientific research to scientists and all they expect in return is results. Except, of course, that if the results matched up with their own preconceived notions, wouldn't that be truly nifty? It is only a short distance from that attitude to attempting to control the outcome by giving research grants if the results match preconceived notions, and withholding those grants if they do not. Like so many areas in which government gets involved, it soon corrupts the process, and if it continues, eventually will kill the victim. Like everything else, the answer lies in returning to Constitutional principles, and concentrate on those specific areas granted by the people as government functions.

RNC Proposes Conservative Litmus Test

2009-11-26T05:39:00.000-08:00

Jillian Bandes reports on a proposal that represents a pretty good start in today's Townhall.com. The start? The GOP is proposing a conservative litmus test for candidates to receive party funding.

The right to keep and bear arms is number 10 on the list. That is fine as far as it goes, but as David Codrea has pointed out, even Obama supports the "right to keep and bear arms" while his policies would deny arms to almost every American. What is needed is further probing to determine such things as what Unconstitutional laws would a candidate be willing to work to repeal? Still, I am happy to see at last that the RNC has decided it wants our votes after all, even if we are an embarrassment.

The True Agenda of the Green Movement

2009-11-25T07:22:00.000-08:00

Time for one more, again from today's American Thinker. J.R. Dunn takes a look at
Climate Fraud and the Environmental Agenda. In the process, he says explicitly what few others have been willing to point out so boldly. Namely that the real goals of the Environmental Agenda are a lot fewer human beings on the planet. But let Dunn tell it:

Environmentalism is a revolutionary ideology, deriving much of its thinking, rhetoric, and practice from the left. Like other left-wing cults, it is explicitly anti-capitalist. But environmentalism goes one step further -- while the left wishes to remake industrial society according to the Marxist model, the Greens wish to simply abolish it and return to a mythical "natural" state. What easier way to accomplish that then to cut the West's energy lifeline?

Or this juicy bit:

The Greens like to reverse the formula, speaking instead of what the optimal human population of earth might be. The numbers vary -- a billion, half a billion, a 100 million, or a little over 1% of the current world population. There's even a Voluntary Human Extinction movement, which holds that the human race is an evolutionary failure that would be better off extinct.

But the impulse is the same. The question remains on how to reach the goal. In the past, Greens have spoken of outside forces doing the job for them, of population crashes caused by overpopulation, pollution, resource depletion, or lately, by global warming. But there has always been a more typical leftist undercurrent as well, common among Earth First! and ecofascist groups, that if nature fails, the Greens should step in. Such concepts as tailored viruses designed to cut the population through sterilization or more final effects have been discussed in Green circles with considerable seriousness.

Classy guys, those Greens. As we get together with our families and friends this Thanksgiving, let us pray that this nihilistic philosophy be finally shown to people for what it is, and that there is a spiritual reawakening as a result.

Goofball Wormening Fraud Gets No Coverage

2009-11-25T05:11:00.000-08:00

Brent Bozell makes a very good point in Townhall.com today in an article entitled When the Press Favors Secrecy. Bozell is asking where are all the press reports about the documents released from the Hadley Climate Research Unit, since these are so damaging to the Goofball Wormening crowd. A quote:

The e-mails prove just how dishonest this left-wing global warming agenda truly is. And now suddenly, The New York Times has found religion and won't publish these private e-mails. Environmental reporter Andrew Revkin, who's more global warming lobbyist than reporter, quoted -- sparsely -- from the e-mails, but declared he would not post these texts on his "Dot Earth" blog on the Times website: "The documents appear to have been acquired illegally and contain all manner of private information and statements that were never intended for the public eye, so they won't be posted here."

That rule didn't apply to things like the disclosure of the SWIFT global bank monitoring program against terrorists.

The hypocrisy of the New York Times here is breathtaking. Who doesn't think that if a bunch of secret e-mails revealing fraud and deception were to be hacked from a anti-global warming group, that these would be trumpeted far and wide. Yet, there have been no stories out of any of the networks. Only Fox has covered this stuff. But this is an important story. Oh, not the fact that the pushers of goofball wormening are petty and small. No, what is important is that goofball wormening now has been shown to be a fraud, perpetrated on the world by leftists Gaia worshipers for money. They really should be prosecuted and spend many years behind bars! The NYT can not hide behind its editorial sense of what is and is not news here. Neither can the networks or the cable "news" channels.

Here's the other thing that goes down with this story. The illusion of scientific integrity. Science was, at one time, pretty much nonpartisan. Scientists used to report their findings. Others try to replicate those findings, and if they can, help prove a theory, or if they can't, cast doubt on it. Scientific data was freely exchanged to help this process along. Science didn't care who's ox got gored, and scientists were supposedly searching for the Truth. All that goes away. Most of the things the movement environmentalists have been pushing also goes away. After all, who knows what other lies they have been perpetrating on us?

Update: Marc Sheppard, in today's American Thinker gives us some technical information on
CRU's Source Code: Climategate Uncovered. Sheppard points to specific fraudulent data manipulations in the Climate Research Unit's released papers. Gotcha!

Cloward-Piven and the Governmental "Crises"

2009-11-24T04:46:00.000-08:00

James Simpson has an excellent expose of the Cloward-Piven strategy in action as wielded by the Obama administration and current Congress, at the American Thinker today. You wonder why you feel you are not being represented anywhere in government? Read the article. A quote:

It should be clear to anyone with a mind and two eyes that this president and this Congress do not have our interests at heart. They are implementing this strategy on an unprecedented scale by flooding America with a tidal wave of poisonous initiatives, orders, regulations, and laws. As Rahm Emmanuel said, "A crisis is a terrible thing to waste."

The real goal of "health care" legislation, the real goal of "cap-and-trade," and the real goal of the "stimulus" is to rip the guts out of our private economy and transfer wide swaths of it over to the government to control. Do not be deluded by the propaganda. These initiatives are vehicles for change. They are not goals in and of themselves except in their ability to deliver power. They and will make matters much worse, for that is their design.

This time, in addition to overwhelming the government with demands for services, Obama and the Democrats are overwhelming political opposition to their plans with a flood of apocalyptic legislation. Their ultimate goal is to leave us so discouraged, demoralized, and exhausted that we throw our hands up in defeat. As Barney Frank said, "the middle class will be too distracted to fight."

We must regain the political power to stop this, or to repeal it if it passes. Otherwise, our children, and grandchildren will be slaves. Do you really want to be known as the generation that gave up freedom in America? I don't advocate abandoning principles, but sometimes fire has to be fought with fire. We need to learn, and fast, to turn leftists methods against them. Polls show we are in the majority, and if we all work together, we can make this happen, before it is too late.

Universal Helathcare as Good as a Done Deal

2009-11-22T11:38:00.000-08:00

Jillian Bandes has the scoop on last night's vote to for cloture in the Senate at Townhall.com today.

Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu's vote in favor of Obamacare was purchased for $300 million on Saturday, giving Democrats the 60-vote supermajority that will, barring a miracle, pass health care reform that will possibly include a public option and abortion coverage.

The emphasis is mine. I would note that passage will be over the objections of the majority of Americans. We have no representation in Congress any more. None. Instead, those being represented are Big Labor like SEIU. Those bought off include Big Pharma, and evidently Mary Landrieu. I would note that inflation has firmly taken hold. At one time such betrayal only cost 30 pieces of silver.

Judging by this administrations incompetence in such things, Mary Landrieu will be lucky to get a pittance of what was promised. Big Pharma will find that sooner or later, they will be eaten too. Only Big Labor will get what they paid for.

Goofball Wormening going down (I hope)

2009-11-22T05:09:00.000-08:00

This post will conclude my Sunday blogging. The Curmudgeon Emeritus over at Eternity Road has a great post on The Leak.

The Goofball Wormening crowd has been dealt a disastrous blow by the leaking of internal documents from England's Hadley Research Unit. Go take a peak. I've got to get ready for Church.

The War on Guns: Holder Tells Senate Committee Justice Department Supports More 'Gun Control'

2009-11-22T04:57:00.000-08:00

The War on Guns: Holder Tells Senate Committee Justice Department Supports More 'Gun Control'

Go and check out this story. This is scary stuff. The NRA, for all their compromising and playing games, has long opposed this sort of thing, and for good reason. Wherever gun registration has occurred, gun confiscation has followed within a few years.

When you realise that few criminals obtain their guns through legal channels, then you have to wonder just who the gun registration is supposed to catch? If you concluded it is law abiding gun owners, you are correct. That means that the future confiscation will be of guns owned by law abiding gun owners, the real target, and not those using weapons illegally.

Now do you see why there has been a huge run on guns since Obama took office?

Light Blogging Ahead

2009-11-22T04:11:00.000-08:00

I apologize for the light blogging in advance. The Holiday season is rapidly upon us. We will be having family in this week. My daughter is expecting her second child this week, and there will be many other demands on my time during the next 4-6 weeks or so. I will try to keep in touch in any case, but if I don't, you'll understand.