Could the Obamas Be The Most Angry Family in America?

Posted on May 8, 2008
Filed Under Current Events, Political Rantings | Leave a Comment

For all the audacity of hope that Barack espouses, these people seem very angry.  For twenty years, Barack was mentored in liberal black "theology" seemly based on continued anger toward whites for sins of slavery and discrimination.  How can someone like Barack , once community activist and now presidential contender, continue this kind of angry, hopeless rhetoric?  Take Michelle Obama’s recent speech (transcript at Hugh Hewitt’s site) in which she laments:

mobama But we’ve also learned something else this year, something that we’ve all sort of felt at some point in our life, that we’re still living in a nation, and in a time when the bar is set, I talk about this all the time, they set the bar. They say look, if you do these things, you can get to this bar, right? And then you work and you struggle, you do everything that they say, and you think you’re getting close to the bar and you’re working hard, and you’re sacrificing, and then you get to the bar, you’re right there, you’re reaching out for the bar, you think you have it, and then what happens? They move the bar. They raise it up. They shift it to the left and to the right. It’s always just quite out of reach. And that’s a little bit of what Barack has been experiencing. The bar is constantly changing for this man. Raise the money? Not enough. Build an organization? Not enough. Win a whole bunch of states? Not the right states. You got to win certain states. So the bar has been shifting and moving in this race, but the irony is, the sad irony is that that’s exactly what’s happening to most Americans in this country. The bar is shifting and moving on people all the time. And folks are struggling like never before, working harder than ever, believing that their hard work will lead to some reward, some payoff. But what they find is that they get there and the bar has changed, things are different, wasn’t enough. So you have to work even harder.

And see what happens when you live in a nation where the vast majority of Americans are struggling every day to reach an ever-shifting and moving bar, then what happens in that nation is that people do become isolated. They do live in a level of division, because see, when you’re that busy struggling all the time, which most people that you know and I know are, that you don’t have time to get to know your neighbor. You don’t have time to reach out and have conversations, to share stories. In fact, you feel very alone in your struggle, because you feel that somehow, it must be your fault that you’re struggling so hard. Everybody else must be doing okay. I must be doing something wrong, so you hide. You don’t realize that the struggles of that farmer in rural Iowa are the same as the struggles as a city worker in the south side of Chicago, because we don’t talk to each other. And when you live in a nation with a vast majority of Americans are struggling to reach an ever-shifting and moving bar, then naturally, people become cynical. They don’t believe that politics can do anything for them. So they fold their arms in disgust, and they say you know, I can’t be bothered voting, because it has never done anything for me before. So let me stay home, let me not bother. Naturally, we as a nation get cynical.

Struggling, isolated, cynical.  That’s the way she sees America.  No hope, no promise, no potential.  Not enough government programs to make people happy.  Not enough "diversity" and "tolerance" for us to really be happy. 

What’s so audacious about that?

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The Secular Media Has No Clue About Religion

Posted on April 16, 2008
Filed Under Current Events, Religious Rantings | 1 Comment

I’m rather amused by the secular media’s attempt to report on something that they generally have little knowledge of.  Take for instance the visit of Pope Benedict XVI to the US.  Even before the Holy Father has said a single word while in the US, the papers have things all figured out.  The Washington Post reports:

pope_350 To be sure, there are tangible goals: Ramp up frank interfaith dialogue. Return Catholics to regular, traditional worship that reminds them of their long history. But his biggest aspiration for his six-day trip is to encourage Christians to believe in Jesus — to really believe in him, not as a metaphor but as a real miracle meant to deliver human beings from misery and war. The challenge, experts say, is trying to sell this message in a culture dominated more by reason than faith.

What’s wrong with the above?  Returning to Mass is for the purpose of "reminding them of their long history?"  That’s what Mass is about?  Some nostalgic moment meant to foster memories from childhood?  Perhaps most of the "Christians" known to the media don’t "really" believe in Jesus.  Perhaps they just have some warm feelings about Jesus as a sage or nice, warm and wise man.  A "metaphor" (not a person in history) meant to deliver human beings from "misery and war?"  Did I miss something in the Gospels or did Jesus not come to redeem us from our sins?  And the last sentence.  A "culture dominated more by reason than faith."  Do these people ever get to leave the liberal ghettos and see the rest of the country?  Have they no clue that faith and reason are perfectly harmonious except to them and the secular left? 

And to quote one of the experts in the article:

This pope is a pope of rule books.

For goodness sakes, can’t they just hire one person of "real faith" to proof read this drivel?

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Getting (the) Green

Posted on April 15, 2008
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Ever wonder how "carbon credits" work?  I have. And what is it exactly that Al Gore purchases to offset his ulta-mega-supersized carbon footprint?  The answer is that Al purchases a "credit" for some amount of money (say $24) and this money is put to work in some third world country to fund a project that results in a cleaner world.  Sounds simple.  And ripe for potential profits for the middlemen.

Here’s a bit from the WSJ about one company involved in selling carbon credits and the money some have made.

footprint-sand …United Kingdom-based EcoSecurities Ltd., helps companies in the industrialized world meet their obligations to pollute less by selling them "credits" that fund clean-air projects in poorer nations. Last year, some $9.4 billion in these credits were traded, up from almost none four years earlier.

The market’s anything-goes early days now appear to be ending. United Nations officials who regulate the trade have started questioning scores of proposed projects, from hydroelectric plants in China to wind farms in India. The issue: whether they provide real environmental gains, or are just padding the pockets of middlemen like EcoSecurities.

One thorny issue: Who should vouch for the quality of clean-air projects? EcoSecurities says the U.N. scrutiny adds bureaucracy because it duplicates work already done by independent auditors who are hired to vet all projects. The U.N. panel should stick to an "executive and supervisory role," EcoSecurities says.

U.N. officials have questioned whether the auditors have been tough enough. The concern centers on whether auditors, who are hired by project developers, are adequately staffed to police the environmental legitimacy of the swelling number of projects. The auditors strenuously defend the quality of their oversight.

While that debate rages, EcoSecurities has been busy refocusing on projects less likely to raise red flags. For instance, it is shifting to projects to curb secondary greenhouse gases, such as nitrous oxide, produced in obscure industrial processes like nylon making. The problem, as EcoSecurities executives point out, is that targeting secondary gases does nothing to combat fossil-fuel use, which according to the U.N. is the primary man-made contributor to global warming.

But environmentalists need to make a decent living, don’t they?

Last July, with the stock near its peak, Mr. Stuart sold 2.2 million shares for about £8 million, or about $16 million, and Mr. Moura Costa sold 1.3 million shares for about £5 million as part of a secondary offering, according to financial filings. The two men remain the biggest shareholders with a 20% stake between them.

Having money was a big change for the two men, Mr. Stuart says, recalling that when EcoSecurities was young he routinely charged up thousands of dollars of debt on his credit card to help keep it operating. After the stock sale, Mr. Stuart traded his 1994 Mercury Sable for a $55,000 black Lexus hybrid sedan.

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Biofuel or Food?

Posted on April 14, 2008
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It has never seemed to me that biofuels, you know the creation of ethanol from corn and various grains and plants, makes much sense.  Sure, they are renewable, but the required acreage and the energy needed to create the ethanol may create a barrier too high in order for these fuels to become practical and competitive with oil.

There are a lot of statistics and facts regarding the conversion of corn to fuel. Consider:

…powering the average U.S. automobile for one year on ethanol (blended with gasoline) derived from corn would require 11 acres of farmland, the same space needed to grow a year’s supply of food for seven people. Adding up the energy costs of corn production and its conversion into ethanol, 131,000 BTUs are needed to make one gallon of ethanol. One gallon of ethanol has an energy value of only 77,000 BTUS. Thus, 70 percent more energy is required to produce ethanol than the energy that actually is in it. Every time you make one gallon of ethanol, there is a net energy loss of 54,000 BTUs.

And the ethanol venture removes corn from the world market.  And decreasing the supply or food results in increased food costs.  Even modest increases in food costs by American standards can destabilize a poor country.  Consider food riots that are occurring in the world.

Surging commodity prices have pushed up global food prices 83% in the past three years, according to the World Bank — putting huge stress on some of the world’s poorest nations. Even as the ministers met, Haiti’s Prime Minister Jacques Edouard Alexis was resigning after a week in which that tiny country’s capital was racked by rioting over higher prices for staples like rice and beans.

As food prices soar, protests are breaking out around the world, including this riot Saturday in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.

Rioting in response to soaring food prices recently has broken out in Egypt, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Senegal and Ethiopia. In Pakistan and Thailand, army troops have been deployed to deter food theft from fields and warehouses. World Bank President Robert Zoellick warned in a recent speech that 33 countries are at risk of social upheaval because of rising food prices. Those could include Indonesia, Yemen, Ghana, Uzbekistan and the Philippines. In countries where buying food requires half to three-quarters of a poor person’s income, “there is no margin for survival,” he said.

“Green” policies have consequences and the consequences may be more than a “warm fuzzy” feeling for people in other parts of the world. 

 

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Ted Turner with Turnips (and a Bit of Parsley)

Posted on April 7, 2008
Filed Under Current Events, Political Rantings, Science Rantings | Leave a Comment

That would be my recipe for Ted Turner’s corpse if I owned an cannibal restaurant.  Boil the whole mess for hours to make it tender and then serve with a side of fresh bread and butter (or "I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter" if I were worried about cholesterol.)

Is there anyone anywhere in the world that has more money and less intelligence than Ted Turner, the billionaire, pro-abortion, liberal nutcase?  Ted’s recent comments on the Charlie Rose show make Algore look downright reasonable on this whole global warming thing.  Take a look at the whole interview here.  Here are a few of Ted’s thoughts on the catastrophe that awaits us if we continue our current ways.

<b>Amount given:</b> about $1.3 billion The CNN founder and retired media mogul has focused his efforts on promoting security and the environment, and his most important gift was $1 billion in 1997 to establish the United Nations Foundation. In 1991 he founded the Turner Foundation, focused on preserving the environment, and six years later launched the Endangered Species Fund. In 2001, Turner co-founded the Nuclear Threat Initiative with former U.S. Senator Sam Nunn, with the goal of strengthening global security by reducing the use of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons, and preventing their spread. “I’ve not met anyone that is doing more about nuclear weapons than I am,” states Turner. The NTI recently announced that it would contribute $50 million to the International Atomic Energy Agency to help create a low enriched uranium stockpile to be owned and managed by the IAEA. Warren Buffett, an NTI adviser, is financially backing the NTI commitment. If steps aren’t taken to stem global warming, "We’ll be eight degrees hotter in 30 or 40 years and basically none of the crops will grow," Turner said during a wide-ranging, hour-long interview with PBS’s Charlie Rose that aired Tuesday.

"Most of the people will have died and the rest of us will be cannibals," said Turner, 69. "Civilization will have broken down. The few people left will be living in a failed state — like Somalia or Sudan — and living conditions will be intolerable."

I was unaware that they were eating each other in Somalia and Sudan.

Ted has a great self awareness and understands that in the past, he’s said some really dumb things…

Admitting that he’s "always suffered from foot-in-the-mouth disease," Turner added, "I’ve gotten a lot better, though. It’s been a long time since anybody caught me saying something stupid."

Amazing.  Really… just… amazing!

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Watch This (Unless You’re A Liberal)

Posted on March 10, 2008
Filed Under Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Ben Stein has a new movie.  He warns college professors and liberal intellectual elites not to watch, since the mere act of learning about another point of view could could cost them their tenure.  You do have to wonder why, if liberal elites are so confident in their beliefs, they harbor such disdain for competing views.

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Public Indoctrination

Posted on March 9, 2008
Filed Under "PC" Rantings, Political Rantings | Leave a Comment

California courts have ruled that home schooling violates state law and parents who home school their children could be criminally prosecuted.

homeSchooling_clo California parents without teaching credentials cannot legally home school their children, according to a recent state appellate court ruling.

The immediate impact of the ruling was not clear. Attorneys for the state Department of Education were reviewing the ruling, and home schooling organizations were lining up against it.

"Parents do not have a constitutional right to home school their children," Justice H. Walter Croskey wrote in a Feb. 28 opinion for the 2nd District Court of Appeal.

Noncompliance could lead to criminal complaints against the parents, Croskey said.

The decision was applauded by the teachers’ union since these parents compete with them in the "education" of the little ones.  Is there any doubt that the culture war in this country is waged in the courts?

The ruling was applauded by a director for the state’s largest teachers union.

"We’re happy," said Lloyd Porter, who is on the California Teachers Association board of directors. "We always think students should be taught by credentialed teachers, no matter what the setting."

"A primary purpose of the educational system is to train school children in good citizenship, patriotism and loyalty to the state and the nation as a means of protecting the public welfare," the judge wrote, quoting from a 1961 case on a similar issue.

Yea, right.  And don’t forget indoctrination of anti-Christian ethics and morals.  What the public system of education really resents in home schooling is that these children are immune from the liberal social engineering that the public schools work so hard to achieve.

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Obama, Darling of Planned Parenthood

Posted on February 29, 2008
Filed Under Political Rantings | Leave a Comment

How could such a nice looking, well spoken young man like Barack Obama endorse a group who do so much to devastate the black community?  Because he is a liberal and liberals tow the line on abortion regardless how many black (or white or Hispanic) kids are killed in the name of "choice."

Barack spoke to Planned Parenthood in the summer of 2007:

ObamaBarack Thanks to all of you at Planned Parenthood for all the work that you are doing for women all across the country and for families all across the country—and for men, who have enough sense to realize you are helping them, all across the country.

I have worked on these issues for decades now. I put Roe at the center of my lesson plan on reproductive freedom when I taught Constitutional Law. Not simply as a case about privacy but as part of the broader struggle for women’s equality. Steve and Pam will tell you that we fought together in the Illinois State Senate against restrictive choice legislation—laws just like the federal abortion laws, the federal abortion bans that are cropping up. I’ve stood up for the freedom of choice in the United States Senate and I stand by my votes against the confirmation of Judge Roberts and Samuel Alito.

So, you know where I stand. But this more is than just about standing our ground. It must be about more than protecting the gains of the past. We’re at a crossroads right now in America—and we have to move this country forward. This election is not just about playing defense, it’s also about playing offense. It’s not just about defending what is, it’s about creating what might be in this country. And that’s what we’ve got to work together on.

There will always be people, many of goodwill, who do not share my view on the issue of choice. On this fundamental issue, I will not yield and Planned Parenthood will not yield. But that doesn’t mean that we can’t find common ground. Because we know that what’s at stake is more than whether or not a woman can choose an abortion.

Choice is about how we lead our lives. It’s about our families and about our communities. It’s about our daughters and whether they’re going to have the same opportunities as our sons. There are those who want us to believe otherwise. They want us to believe that there’s nothing that unites us as Americans—there’s only what divides us. They’ll seek out the narrowest and most divisive ground. That is the strategy—to always argue small instead of looking at the big picture. They will stand in the way of any attempt to find common ground.

What is really amazing about this guy is the way he campaigns.  He insists that he will unite the country.  What issues will he compromise on to bring about this unity?  Will he abandon his support of abortion or any other liberal policy?  Nonsense.  When liberals speak of bringing people together, be sure they mean only on issues that they support.

There was time for questions and Brian asked:

Brian Howard: Um, you know that rights and access and rights and ability have to go hand in hand. [I have no idea what that means] Um, and we know that health care reform is an important part of your agenda. Could you talk—and give us some specifics about how reproductive health care and women’s health care is going to fit into and be a part of primary care for women in your health care reform plans and how Planned Parenthood, as a safety net provider, will continue to be a part of the health care safety net for women and families across the country.

Obama: Now, I know I’m limited on time but I just want to expand on that second part of your question which is role that organizations like Planned Parenthood play. Obviously, my hope under a universal health care system is that everybody’s got access to basic care and we have less of a patchwork quilt of services. That—I still believe that it is important for organizations like Planned Parenthood to be part of that system. Because, many young women, for example, may be much more comfortable when they are in college or universities or other places, going to Planned Parenthood clinics and services to get contraception, for example. So, my hope is that we still have non-profit participation under my plan.

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Liberal College Closes Doors

Posted on February 28, 2008
Filed Under "PC" Rantings, Current Events | Leave a Comment

I’ve posted on this one before.   The news for Antioch College continues to be bad and it now seems that the college will close at least for a year.  Here’s the latest news.

Antioch College is scheduled to close this summer for the 2008-09 academic year after trustees confimed (sic) a decision made last year.

The board of the Yellow Springs school said at a meeting in Los Angeles that it opted to suspend the college effective June 30 and close it for the 2008-09 academic year after it ran out of time to reach an agreement on the transfer of the college to an independent group called the Antioch College Continuation Corp. The board hopes to reopen for the 2009-10 academic year.

The board had decided in November to reverse a decision to close the financially troubled college after alumni raised millions of dollars and reached an agreement in principle with the board to halt the decision. In a statement Friday, the board said several large donors and members of the alumni board disputed the agreements and insisted on more authority for the proposed separate board of trustees and ultimately a full separation.

The decision will affect about 200 students and more than 120 faculty and staff, the university said.

The problem is that the campus became so liberally radical, that mainstream radical liberals became personae non gratae.

Don’t expect the college to reopen anytime soon.  Staff and students will leave and it’s hard for me to conceive of a scenario that would allow a quick recovery.  We’ll see.

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Global Warming…Never Mind.

Posted on February 27, 2008
Filed Under Current Events, Science Rantings | 1 Comment

Well you just can not count on anything anymore.  Just when AlGore & Co. declare the debate on global warming closed, new data emerges which may cause them to take pause (just kidding.)  Seems that we have had some cold weather this year and guess what?

temp Over the past year, anecdotal evidence for a cooling planet has exploded. China has its coldest winter in 100 years. Baghdad sees its first snow in all recorded history. North America has the most snowcover in 50 years, with places like Wisconsin the highest since record-keeping began. Record levels of Antarctic sea ice, record cold in Minnesota, Texas, Florida, Mexico, Australia, Iran, Greece, South Africa, Greenland, Argentina, Chile — the list goes on and on.

No more than anecdotal evidence, to be sure. But now, that evidence has been supplanted by hard scientific fact. All four major global temperature tracking outlets (Hadley, NASA’s GISS, UAH, RSS) have released updated data. All show that over the past year, global temperatures have dropped precipitously.

A compiled list of all the sources can be seen here.  The total amount of cooling ranges from 0.65C up to 0.75C — a value large enough to wipe out nearly all the warming recorded over the past 100 years. All in one year’s time. For all four sources, it’s the single fastest temperature change ever recorded, either up or down.

Even San Diego is digging out.

A surprise snowstorm left hundreds of motorists stranded overnight on a frozen stretch of Interstate 8 in the East County highlands, according to the California Highway Patrol.

The CHP shut down about 60 miles of the freeway late Thursday afternoon during heavy snowfall that blanketed areas as low as 2,000 feet above sea level.

The nearly 20-hour emergency closure between Willows Road in Alpine and the Imperial County line left as many as 500 vehicles stuck for a time in the frigid highlands east of San Diego, officials said.

I’m unconvinced about global warming generally and less convinced about the human factor as a role in it even if it is true.  But you’d think that the proponents would at least stop to scratch their heads when they see data like this.  However, when I see one of these proponent pundits on TV confronted with information contrary to the dogma of global warming, they just attribute the aberration to global warming anyway and go on with their rant.

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