"For unto you is born this day, in the City of David, a Savior, which is Christ the Lord" Luke 2:11.
As the Savior, Jesus frees us from the evil that man had brought into the world. Being now free, he expects us to use our freedom to free others. Let us ponder on this, and see if we can not make everday a Christmas in the coming year.
May God bless and keep each of you,
PolyKahr
Sunday, December 25, 2011
Thursday, December 22, 2011
Another Reason to End the EPA
Funny how articles on a topic seem to run in batches. Apropos of yesterday's post, Way Up North has a link to Borepatch's article on the Climategate 2.0 email dump. Go read the whole thing, including the embedded links.
Does Gringrich's and Romney's embrace of "man made global warming" make sense now? Unfortunately, there is no way to know who all may be involved. Some of the politicians may be running under the radar, while one may make a good guess about others. The EPA has been in the thick of it though, since before the original Kyoto Protocol was negotiated, with AlGore leading the charge in Kyoto. Bush took a neutral position on the issue, so I don't think he was directly involved. But the Massachusetts vs. EPA (2007) case "forcing" the EPA to regulate green house gases happened on his watch. The point is, who can be trusted to do the right thing by the American people?
I recommend we all pray about who we should vote for in the coming elections.
Does Gringrich's and Romney's embrace of "man made global warming" make sense now? Unfortunately, there is no way to know who all may be involved. Some of the politicians may be running under the radar, while one may make a good guess about others. The EPA has been in the thick of it though, since before the original Kyoto Protocol was negotiated, with AlGore leading the charge in Kyoto. Bush took a neutral position on the issue, so I don't think he was directly involved. But the Massachusetts vs. EPA (2007) case "forcing" the EPA to regulate green house gases happened on his watch. The point is, who can be trusted to do the right thing by the American people?
I recommend we all pray about who we should vote for in the coming elections.
The EPA Needs to Go
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has long preferred totalitarian approaches to its functions, instead of taking market based approaches that encourage people to see doing the "right thing" as being in their own self interests. The EPA simply doesn't believe in the free market, or that doing things for selfish reasons can be moral in any sense of the word. After pondering this strange dilemma for a long time, I came to the conclusion that this problem stems from the fact that many environmentalists are communists, and "green" is the new way to impose a drag on the United States so it doesn't out compete Communist countries. The most recent manifestation of the wretched attack of the EPA on the American economy can be seen in the EPA's Unconscionable War on Fracking over at the American Thinker by Jeffrey Folks.
A quote of a few paragraphs will give you a flavor of the article:
When the Constitution, and the rule of law, is ignored, or openly flouted, it is hard not to conclude that we are no longer living in the United States, but in a tyrannical country located in the place of what used to be the United States. That this has gone on for decades, under both Republican and Democrat administrations, and has only gotten worse tells me that both parties are to blame.
The EPA has been involved in chicanery and skulduggery since its inception in 1970 under (Republican) President Richard Nixon. The first "victory" of the environmental movement under William Ruckelshaus was the virtual banning of DDT. While I admit that the use of DDT was too frequent, and it was used in too many situations, it none the less is true that before DDT, malaria was endemic in the United States. By the end of WWII, it was virtually eradicated from CONUS. However, one of the most notorious cases involves the Hooker Chemical Company and the Love Canal. Reason Magazine did an expose in 1981 in Love Canal: The Truth Seeps Out by Eric Zuesse. It is a long article, but an instructive read on the way the EPA operates. In this case, they used public ignorance, due in part to misreporting by the MSM, to try to lay the blame at the feet of Hooker Chemical. But Hooker took extraordinary measures to bury their wastes in a landfill that far exceeded the state of the art, and to warn the Board of Education that the property was unsuitable for any use other than a park. Indeed, it was the City of Niagara Falls itself, who penetrated the clay cell walls while building a sewer and precipitated the release of the chemical wastes that led to people being evacuated from their homes. None of that mattered to EPA. In their way of looking at the world, Hooker Chemical was to blame for making chemicals that have made every body's lives better, and worse, making a profit doing so.
Folks concludes his article:
A quote of a few paragraphs will give you a flavor of the article:
But it's not just that the EPA has a habit of releasing incomplete reports based on inadequate research. Those draft reports are not just incomplete. It seems that they contain scientific errors and apparent fabrications that raise serious doubts about the ability of the agency to do its job. The Pavillion fracking case is a good example.
While charging the drillers in question with contaminating groundwater, the EPA suppressed information in a manner that would compel any court of law to dismiss the case and issue a serious reprimand, if not bring charges of contempt, against the prosecution. Surely, the EPA was aware, or should have been aware, of the fact that well water in Pavillion has been "contaminated" with polluting chemicals for half a century. This natural "pollution" is not the consequence of fracking, as the EPA charges, but of natural contamination.
Not only did the EPA report suppress this evidence -- evidence that argues strongly against contamination on the part of drilling company -- but it failed to address further scientific evidence that would rule out contamination. Not only were Pavillion's water wells already polluted decades before drilling began, but the pollution that the EPA says entered the system from drilling involved chemicals never used in fracking. (They are, however, used in the construction of water wells of the kind that might be found in Pavillion, not in oil and gas wells.) And yet the EPA persisted with its charges, knowing that the very chemical it discovered in well water could not have entered the wells in the manner suggested.
When the Constitution, and the rule of law, is ignored, or openly flouted, it is hard not to conclude that we are no longer living in the United States, but in a tyrannical country located in the place of what used to be the United States. That this has gone on for decades, under both Republican and Democrat administrations, and has only gotten worse tells me that both parties are to blame.
The EPA has been involved in chicanery and skulduggery since its inception in 1970 under (Republican) President Richard Nixon. The first "victory" of the environmental movement under William Ruckelshaus was the virtual banning of DDT. While I admit that the use of DDT was too frequent, and it was used in too many situations, it none the less is true that before DDT, malaria was endemic in the United States. By the end of WWII, it was virtually eradicated from CONUS. However, one of the most notorious cases involves the Hooker Chemical Company and the Love Canal. Reason Magazine did an expose in 1981 in Love Canal: The Truth Seeps Out by Eric Zuesse. It is a long article, but an instructive read on the way the EPA operates. In this case, they used public ignorance, due in part to misreporting by the MSM, to try to lay the blame at the feet of Hooker Chemical. But Hooker took extraordinary measures to bury their wastes in a landfill that far exceeded the state of the art, and to warn the Board of Education that the property was unsuitable for any use other than a park. Indeed, it was the City of Niagara Falls itself, who penetrated the clay cell walls while building a sewer and precipitated the release of the chemical wastes that led to people being evacuated from their homes. None of that mattered to EPA. In their way of looking at the world, Hooker Chemical was to blame for making chemicals that have made every body's lives better, and worse, making a profit doing so.
Folks concludes his article:
When federal agencies begin to wield power in an unconstitutional manner, depriving citizens and corporations of property in the most callous manner imaginable, one of our fundamental liberties has been lost. It is time for the EPA to be not only reined in, but eliminated, and for whatever legitimate functions it has to be handed over to more responsible departments of government at the state level.Breaking up the EPA would be a great start for a new President and Congress. Will they have the guts to do it?
When an agency begins to attack private citizens with no regard for the law, there is no limit to the damage that can result. Today it may "only" be the property of oil and gas companies that are at stake. Tomorrow it will be not just the property, but the life and liberty of all Americans. If the extralegal activity of federal agencies like the EPA is not curtailed, all Americans will soon be at risk of imprisonment at the whim of any one of the president's czars. That is the attitude toward law that exists in a totalitarian state, not in a democracy.
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
The Shroud of Turin Likely Authentic
I am taking a break today from the all bad news all the time format that this blog has become to report something interesting. The Huffington Puffington Post is reporting that the Shroud of Turin is likely authentic according to a team of scientists based on their most recent findings. Go and read.
As a Christian, I don't really know how I feel about the Shroud. On the one hand, if it is indeed the Shroud that Jesus wore when he was buried, and the image was somehow burned into the cloth at the moment of his rising, I am awed again by the power of God to perform such miracles. On the other hand, if the the Shroud is not the cloth worn by Jesus when he was buried, and the image, presumably of someone else, was made by still unexplained means, there remain the Gospels and the Letters. One either has faith, or one does not.
I saw a piece, I think it was on the History channel, but I could be wrong, where Peter M. Schumacher was demonstrating his discovery of a thee dimensional image in the cloth, and his supposition that it was because the shroud was wrapped around the body. Schumacher's paper can be found here at www.shroud.com. Interestingly, what we see today is a flat image that was once three dimensional. When that is taken into account, one can see the actual image of the person buried in the Shroud. But again, the question of just who was buried in the Shroud remains a matter of faith. You either believe it was Jesus, or you don't.
So here is the great mystery. If knowing that the Shroud is special, different, and likely the result of a great miracle helps you believe and strengthens your faith, then that is a good thing. But even if the Shroud is eventually shown not to be the cloth Jesus was buried in, that doesn't falsify the Gospels or the Letters. In the end, you must have faith to believe. There will never be enough positive proof if you do not. It has been so for 2011 years.
Merry Christmas!
Update: Meanwhile it appears that Frankincense may be endangered according to a report at USA Today. Frankincense was one of the three gifts of the Magi to the child Jesus. The tree, from which frankincense is harvested grows in small pockets, and the tree doesn't reproduce itself prolifically.
As a Christian, I don't really know how I feel about the Shroud. On the one hand, if it is indeed the Shroud that Jesus wore when he was buried, and the image was somehow burned into the cloth at the moment of his rising, I am awed again by the power of God to perform such miracles. On the other hand, if the the Shroud is not the cloth worn by Jesus when he was buried, and the image, presumably of someone else, was made by still unexplained means, there remain the Gospels and the Letters. One either has faith, or one does not.
I saw a piece, I think it was on the History channel, but I could be wrong, where Peter M. Schumacher was demonstrating his discovery of a thee dimensional image in the cloth, and his supposition that it was because the shroud was wrapped around the body. Schumacher's paper can be found here at www.shroud.com. Interestingly, what we see today is a flat image that was once three dimensional. When that is taken into account, one can see the actual image of the person buried in the Shroud. But again, the question of just who was buried in the Shroud remains a matter of faith. You either believe it was Jesus, or you don't.
So here is the great mystery. If knowing that the Shroud is special, different, and likely the result of a great miracle helps you believe and strengthens your faith, then that is a good thing. But even if the Shroud is eventually shown not to be the cloth Jesus was buried in, that doesn't falsify the Gospels or the Letters. In the end, you must have faith to believe. There will never be enough positive proof if you do not. It has been so for 2011 years.
Merry Christmas!
Update: Meanwhile it appears that Frankincense may be endangered according to a report at USA Today. Frankincense was one of the three gifts of the Magi to the child Jesus. The tree, from which frankincense is harvested grows in small pockets, and the tree doesn't reproduce itself prolifically.
Sunday, December 18, 2011
Back in the USSR
I tend to think of myself as a realist. I see trends, and follow those trends to their logical conclusions. Then I look at what societal and cultural circumstances might limit those trends. I read news stories, probably too many, and I follow blogs, again probably too many. I also talk to people and try to find out what they are thinking. Now, Mrs. PolyKahr thinks I am pessimistic. Certainly if one looks at trends today, one sees no end to, what for me and many of those I talk to, the bad news. Our rights are being taken by governments at all levels, while our responsibilities and legal liabilities only grow. Witness We have crossed the Rubicon by Eric Peters over at Lew Rockwell. Does Peters sound a little paranoid? Well, maybe, but then after witnessing what has happened over the last two decades, I can't help being just a little paranoid.
For example, a friend the other day happened to mention a hypothetical to try out on me. (Now remember, this was sprung on me, and it is not a complete analysis.) My friend wondered whether he could keep his gun on his person in a flight from Raleigh to Charlotte where he was to purchase a car for the return trip. He would, he pointed out, have no baggage to carry since he intended to return that day. He would not be going to another State so his North Carolina permit would be good for the entire trip. I pointed out that in any case, the State authority that owns the Raleigh-Durham airport doesn't permit guns anywhere on the grounds of the airport. Beside that, the Federal Government has carved out little Federal Reservations at each airport where, we are told without any apparent irony, we don't have any Constitutionally protected rights. At that point, another friend who had been listening pointed out that in the old days we used to carry guns on the plane and nobody thought anything about it. In a mere 40 years we have gone from carrying on planes with no paperwork, to having enough regulation to at least cause you a little bit of concern. Now, the responsibility to know at all times where one's gun is has not been relieved for any of us that carry. If our gun is used in a crime, we will surely be questioned at the least, and may face prosecution. But the best way to know where one's gun is, is to have it secured in a holster on the hip. Government has made that impossible.
While self defense is a fundamental right that has been pared away over time, we have been losing our rights to property, and our liberty a slice at a time for decades. In most urban areas today, a tree can not cut down on your own property without a permit. Do you actually own that tree, or does the government? You must pay taxes on any income you earn for working. So who owns the fruits of your labor, you or the government? The debate the regime is waging right now over how much of his income a wealthy individual should pay would indicate that the government assumes it does. And if the government owns the product of our labor, it must think it owns us too.
A piece at the American Thinker today, entitled We Need Not Repeat 1776, by Deane Waldman paints a picture that seems to be too pollyannaish about our prospects, at least to the realist in me. Waldman makes essentially the same point in his article that I made in the previous post that the Founders gave us a way to hold a bloodless revolution whenever our government did not meet our needs. What he didn't point out is how the will of the majority of the people is being subverted at every turn by collectivists in an effort to get some new voters.
One of the most infamous attempts to disenfranchise large numbers of North Carolina voters comes in the form of the NAACP and the NC Democrat Party suing the leaders of the House and Senate to overturn the new voting districts, which resulted from the 2010 census and the election of a Republican controlled Legislature. What they hope to do is get a court to invalidate the results of the 2010 election. And instead of throwing these rascals out on their ear, it appears that the court is entertaining the case!
I can't help but feel like I have been taken Back in the USSR. Merry Christmas all!
Update: Over at the American Thinker today is The Hitman Cometh: America to be a 'War Zone' touching on similar topics. It is a good read.
For example, a friend the other day happened to mention a hypothetical to try out on me. (Now remember, this was sprung on me, and it is not a complete analysis.) My friend wondered whether he could keep his gun on his person in a flight from Raleigh to Charlotte where he was to purchase a car for the return trip. He would, he pointed out, have no baggage to carry since he intended to return that day. He would not be going to another State so his North Carolina permit would be good for the entire trip. I pointed out that in any case, the State authority that owns the Raleigh-Durham airport doesn't permit guns anywhere on the grounds of the airport. Beside that, the Federal Government has carved out little Federal Reservations at each airport where, we are told without any apparent irony, we don't have any Constitutionally protected rights. At that point, another friend who had been listening pointed out that in the old days we used to carry guns on the plane and nobody thought anything about it. In a mere 40 years we have gone from carrying on planes with no paperwork, to having enough regulation to at least cause you a little bit of concern. Now, the responsibility to know at all times where one's gun is has not been relieved for any of us that carry. If our gun is used in a crime, we will surely be questioned at the least, and may face prosecution. But the best way to know where one's gun is, is to have it secured in a holster on the hip. Government has made that impossible.
While self defense is a fundamental right that has been pared away over time, we have been losing our rights to property, and our liberty a slice at a time for decades. In most urban areas today, a tree can not cut down on your own property without a permit. Do you actually own that tree, or does the government? You must pay taxes on any income you earn for working. So who owns the fruits of your labor, you or the government? The debate the regime is waging right now over how much of his income a wealthy individual should pay would indicate that the government assumes it does. And if the government owns the product of our labor, it must think it owns us too.
A piece at the American Thinker today, entitled We Need Not Repeat 1776, by Deane Waldman paints a picture that seems to be too pollyannaish about our prospects, at least to the realist in me. Waldman makes essentially the same point in his article that I made in the previous post that the Founders gave us a way to hold a bloodless revolution whenever our government did not meet our needs. What he didn't point out is how the will of the majority of the people is being subverted at every turn by collectivists in an effort to get some new voters.
One of the most infamous attempts to disenfranchise large numbers of North Carolina voters comes in the form of the NAACP and the NC Democrat Party suing the leaders of the House and Senate to overturn the new voting districts, which resulted from the 2010 census and the election of a Republican controlled Legislature. What they hope to do is get a court to invalidate the results of the 2010 election. And instead of throwing these rascals out on their ear, it appears that the court is entertaining the case!
I can't help but feel like I have been taken Back in the USSR. Merry Christmas all!
Update: Over at the American Thinker today is The Hitman Cometh: America to be a 'War Zone' touching on similar topics. It is a good read.
Thursday, December 15, 2011
Don't Like the Outcome of Elections-Get New Voters
For years now, I have heard that there is some poor schmuck out there somewhere who is a legitimate citizen, but who can not show valid photo identification of himself. Should this person be denied the right to vote just because (fill in the emotional tag line here)? I ask who that person is? The only response is a vague reference to even more vaguely oppressed minorities. Whoever this person is, he doesn't drive so no need for a driver's license. Obviously he doesn't travel to foreign countries, at least not legally, so no need for a passport. But, since you are asked to identify yourself at seemingly ever turn, what is so hard about going down to your local DMV and getting a free identification card with a photo? Who can't manage that? Show me the individual, and then let's talk.
Ray Hartwell has a great piece on the issue over at Pajamas Media entitled Plain and Simple, the DNC Wants Voter Fraud. Mr. Hartwell:
When I read articles like this from Hot Air, I have to think that Hartwell is right. The Democrat politicians want voter fraud. There can be no other explanation for the lame excuse making taking place in Wisconsin. The next conclusion is also pretty clear: they, more than Republicans, believe they benefit when people take the admonition to "vote early, vote often" quite literally. To the degree that it happens, and they get away with it, what does that say about the legitimacy of the laws the politicians are making? The legitimacy of our form of government is that the people's representatives make the laws under which we live. What if that weren't true?
Recall that the Democrats passed ObamaCare on a party line vote and against the will of the majority of the people in this country. Recall that polls indicate that that majority has only grown in the years since that vote. Yet the Democrats felt invulnerable enough to thumb their noses at the voters and go ahead with this horrible monstrosity. They weren't falling on their swords for the good of the Republic, but hoping to steal yet more liberty from the American people They felt little fear that the people would rise up. Why is that?
The Founders gave the American people a way to hold a bloodless revolution every two years. The Constitution provides a framework to carry out the words of the Declaration of Independence:
Voter fraud essentially disenfranchises the legitimate majority of voters by deciding for them which politician shall represent them in the making of laws. It is, I believe, for that reason that the Democrats did not fear the voters over ObamaCare. They have in essence, gotten rid of their legitimate voters and have instead gotten new voters, ones to their liking, and they are loathe to give them up.
Ray Hartwell has a great piece on the issue over at Pajamas Media entitled Plain and Simple, the DNC Wants Voter Fraud. Mr. Hartwell:
And so, when I think about the DNC’s concern about the implications of voter ID laws “for real people,” I have to wonder if their concern isn’t really more about people who are not “real” – i.e., the dead and imaginary voters who have turned out for decades now in Chicago and other Democratic strongholds across the country.
Certainly the activities of ACORN and its allies in 2008, which are being cranked up again for 2012, belie any DNC profession of concern about the integrity of elections. The same can be said for the Department of Justice’s refusal to take action to clean up voter rolls – they will not force local authorities to comply with federal voting laws by removing dead people and others who are ineligible from the rolls.
When I read articles like this from Hot Air, I have to think that Hartwell is right. The Democrat politicians want voter fraud. There can be no other explanation for the lame excuse making taking place in Wisconsin. The next conclusion is also pretty clear: they, more than Republicans, believe they benefit when people take the admonition to "vote early, vote often" quite literally. To the degree that it happens, and they get away with it, what does that say about the legitimacy of the laws the politicians are making? The legitimacy of our form of government is that the people's representatives make the laws under which we live. What if that weren't true?
Recall that the Democrats passed ObamaCare on a party line vote and against the will of the majority of the people in this country. Recall that polls indicate that that majority has only grown in the years since that vote. Yet the Democrats felt invulnerable enough to thumb their noses at the voters and go ahead with this horrible monstrosity. They weren't falling on their swords for the good of the Republic, but hoping to steal yet more liberty from the American people They felt little fear that the people would rise up. Why is that?
The Founders gave the American people a way to hold a bloodless revolution every two years. The Constitution provides a framework to carry out the words of the Declaration of Independence:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness...
Voter fraud essentially disenfranchises the legitimate majority of voters by deciding for them which politician shall represent them in the making of laws. It is, I believe, for that reason that the Democrats did not fear the voters over ObamaCare. They have in essence, gotten rid of their legitimate voters and have instead gotten new voters, ones to their liking, and they are loathe to give them up.
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Sharia is coming, Sharia is coming!
What is it with Leftist and Islamists? Pamela Geller reports on a Shameful State Department Initiative over at the American Thinker. Go and read.
She is right in every particular. The "religion of peace" is not a religion at all, but a brutal political system. It is notoriously intolerant, yet asks for tolerance. It is incompatible with personal liberty and freedom.
Pamela doesn't mention this, but the same government that has been waging a misguided war on Christianity under the idea that the establishment clause forbids all references to God and Jesus, somehow justifies cozying up to Islam? Does that mean they don't see it as a religion either?
She is right in every particular. The "religion of peace" is not a religion at all, but a brutal political system. It is notoriously intolerant, yet asks for tolerance. It is incompatible with personal liberty and freedom.
Pamela doesn't mention this, but the same government that has been waging a misguided war on Christianity under the idea that the establishment clause forbids all references to God and Jesus, somehow justifies cozying up to Islam? Does that mean they don't see it as a religion either?
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