Put an Extra Blanket on the Bed
Posted on December 28, 2008
Filed Under Political Rantings, Science Rantings | Leave a Comment
The Telegraph, a British daily paper with an online site, has an interesting article editorial entitled, "2008 was the Year Man-made Global Warming was Disproved" by Christopher Booker.
Easily one of the most important stories of 2008 has been all the evidence suggesting that this may be looked back on as the year when there was a turning point in the great worldwide panic over man-made global warming. Just when politicians in Europe and America have been adopting the most costly and damaging measures politicians have ever proposed, to combat this supposed menace, the tide has turned in three significant respects.
First, all over the world, temperatures have been dropping in a way wholly unpredicted by all those computer models which have been used as the main drivers of the scare. Last winter, as temperatures plummeted, many parts of the world had snowfalls on a scale not seen for decades. This winter, with the whole of Canada and half the US under snow, looks likely to be even worse. After several years flatlining, global temperatures have dropped sharply enough to cancel out much of their net rise in the 20th century.
Secondly, 2008 was the year when any pretence that there was a "scientific consensus" in favour of man-made global warming collapsed. At long last, as in the Manhattan Declaration last March, hundreds of proper scientists, including many of the world’s most eminent climate experts, have been rallying to pour scorn on that "consensus" which was only a politically engineered artefact, based on ever more blatantly manipulated data and computer models programmed to produce no more than convenient fictions.
Thirdly, as banks collapsed and the global economy plunged into its worst recession for decades, harsh reality at last began to break in on those self-deluding dreams which have for so long possessed almost every politician in the western world. As we saw in this month’s Poznan conference, when 10,000 politicians, officials and "environmentalists" gathered to plan next year’s "son of Kyoto" treaty in Copenhagen, panicking politicians are waking up to the fact that the world can no longer afford all those quixotic schemes for "combating climate change" with which they were so happy to indulge themselves in more comfortable times.
Recall that as recently as 1974, the liberal media hysteria centered on global cooling and the new Ice Age.
Telltale signs [of global cooling] are everywhere —from the unexpected persistence and thickness of pack ice in the waters around Iceland to the southward migration of a warmth-loving creature like the armadillo from the Midwest.Since the 1940s the mean global temperature has dropped about 2.7° F. Although that figure is at best an estimate, it is supported by other convincing data.
Same rhetoric, different crisis, different experts. Liberals need a cause. Crisis allows "experts" to assume power and in doing so, relieve us of some of our liberties. And this says nothing of the unintended consequences and countless resources that will be spend on the "climate change" issue. Remember the DDT crisis? Use of DDT was banded in the West because of environmental concerns. Western governments discouraged use [through political and economic strong-arming] of DDT by African and other endemic areas and since, millions of Africans have died of mosquito-born malaria.
We’ll see if some in the US have the guts to call out the environmental alarmists. Most sensible Americans know, however, that "the [environmental] emperor has no cloths."
Chesterton on Christmas
Posted on December 24, 2008
Filed Under Humerous Rantings | 1 Comment
Here is a bit of an essay by one of my favorites, G.K. Chesterton on Christmas. (H/T to Fr. V)
Of course, all this secrecy about Christmas is merely sentimental and ceremonial; if you do not like what is sentimental and ceremonial, do not celebrate Christmas at all. You will not be punished if you don’t; also, since we are no longer ruled by those sturdy Puritans who won for us civil and religious liberty, you will not even be punished if you do. But I cannot understand why any one should bother about a ceremonial except ceremonially. If a thing only exists in order to be graceful, do it gracefully or do not do it. If a thing only exists as something professing to be solemn, do it solemnly or do not do it. There is no sense in doing it slouchingly; nor is there even any liberty. I can understand the man who takes off his hat to a lady because it is the customary symbol. I can understand him, I say; in fact, I know him quite intimately. I can also understand the man who refuses to take off his hat to a lady, like the old Quakers, because he thinks that a symbol is superstition. But what point would there be in so performing an arbitrary form of respect that it was not a form of respect? We respect the gentleman who takes off his hat to the lady; we respect the fanatic who will not take off his hat to the lady. But what should we think of the man who kept his hands in his pockets and asked the lady to take his hat off for him because he felt tired?
This is combining insolence and superstition; and the modern world is full of the strange combination. There is no mark of the immense weak-mindedness of modernity that is more striking than this general disposition to keep up old forms, but to keep them up informally and feebly. Why take something which was only meant to be respectful and preserve it disrespectfully? Why take something which you could easily abolish as a superstition and carefully perpetuate it as a bore? There have been many instances of this half-witted compromise. Was it not true, for instance, that the other day some mad American was trying to buy Glastonbury Abbey and transfer it stone by stone to America? Such things are not only illogical, but idiotic. There is no particular reason why a pushing American financier should pay respect to Glastonbury Abbey at all. But if he is to pay respect to Glastonbury Abbey, he must pay respect to Glastonbury. If it is a matter of sentiment, why should he spoil the scene? If it is not a matter of sentiment, why should he ever have visited the scene? To call this kind of thing Vandalism is a very inadequate and unfair description. The Vandals were very sensible people. They did not believe in a religion, and so they insulted it; they did not see any use for certain buildings, and so they knocked them down. But they were not such fools as to encumber their march with the fragments of the edifice they had themselves spoilt. They were at least superior to the modern American mode of reasoning. They did not desecrate the stones because they held them sacred.
Does This Smell?
Posted on December 23, 2008
Filed Under Current Events, Political Rantings | Leave a Comment
Things may be heating up with the Obama transition team. It seems now that the president-elect’s (who promised transparency) team members were interviewed by federal prosecutors in early December regarding interactions with now disgraced Democratic Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich. Transparency demanded that the Obama team hold this in confidence.
President-elect Barack Obama and two of his top aides met last week with federal investigators building a corruption case against Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, accused of trying to swap Obama’s Senate seat for cash or a lucrative job.
The interviews with Obama, along with incoming chief of staff Rahm Emanuel and adviser Valerie Jarrett, were disclosed Tuesday in an internal report produced for Obama on contacts with Blagojevich. The report supported Obama’s insistence last week that there had been no inappropriate contact with the governor’s office by Obama or his staff.
Emanuel left for a long-planned family vacation in Africa on Tuesday and was not available for comment.
The report was released in Washington while Obama was vacationing in Hawaii. The president-elect did not make himself available for questions.
How many days are there until the inauguation? And Emauel, Obama’s right hand man goes on vacation to Africa? Bet he is someplace without phones.
Smells bad. Real bad.
Here’s What Inclusion, Diversity and Tolerance Means to Liberals
Posted on December 23, 2008
Filed Under Current Events, Political Rantings, Religious Rantings | 3 Comments
Here’s the secret. Liberals love to spew lots of nonsense about "tolerance, diversity and inclusion." Except when these liberal "virtues" may be extended to or applied to those that they disagree with. Take for example Obama’s including Rick Warren, an evangelical Christian and New York Times best selling author. Here’s how the news was received by gay activists and hard leftists.
CHICAGO — With his choice of the Rev. Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at his inauguration, President-elect Barack Obama has found himself enmeshed in a new controversy involving a pastor, facing criticism this time from liberal and gay rights groups outraged at the idea of including the evangelical pastor at a Democratic celebration.
Bishop Robinson (gay Episcopalian bishop in New Hampshire) had been an early public endorser of Mr. Obama’s candidacy, and said he had helped serve as a liaison between the campaign and the gay community. He said he had called officials who work for Mr. Obama to share his dismay, and been told that Mr. Obama was trying to reach out to conservatives and give everybody a seat at the table.
“I’m all for Rick Warren being at the table,” Bishop Robinson said, “but we’re not talking about a discussion, we’re talking about putting someone up front and center at what will be the most watched inauguration in history, and asking his blessing on the nation. And the God that he’s praying to is not the God that I know.” [Which gives you some insight into the god that Robinson has created]
Turn the tables. What would these people be saying if John McCain, had he won the election, asked Bishop Robinson to give the invocation?
It is a given that in this country, those that ask (and usually demand) the greatest tolerance of their fringe behavior, themselves are the least willing to tolerate those that they disagree with.
It’s No Joke, Franken is Stealing the Election
Posted on December 22, 2008
Filed Under Current Events, Political Rantings | Leave a Comment
Stuart Smalley would be proud of Al Franken. Because like Franken, Stuart professes, "I deserve good things. I am entitled to my share of happiness. I refuse to beat myself up. I am attractive person. I am fun to be with." I don’t know about the last three affirmations, but Franken clearly believes the first two. He is in a heated battle with incumbent US Senator, Norm Coleman in Minnesota. And as the votes are counted, you should see some of the fantastic "divining" of voter intent occurring (which just happens to favor Stuart…I mean Al.) Take a look at this ballot:
The rational among us might think that this voter intended to cast a vote for Coleman. According to the Canvassing Board recounting the ballots, this voter didn’t want to vote for Coleman.
Ok, then this ballot would be easy to count too:
Wrong, this voter WAS voting for Franken.
I certainly cannot imagine why Franken may take the lead through the recount, can you? For all the noise about how Bush supposedly "stole" the presidential election in a tight Florida vote (he didn’t by the way,) you would think that the press would have more to say about the Minnesota equivalent of the hanging chads. They don’t of course because when real election fraud is encountered, they first have to find out what the politics of the perpetrator is. Liberals get a pass. Always.
Dirty Harry
Posted on December 14, 2008
Filed Under Current Events, Political Rantings | 2 Comments
This post is a bit late, but I’ve been thinking about remarks that Harry Reid made about tourists to the nation’s capital. Here is the news article from Fox with quotes from Harry Reid.
"My staff has always said, ‘Don’t say this,’ but I’m going to say it again because it’s so descriptive because it’s true," Reid said.
He referenced House Minority Leader John Boehner’s comments about the long lines of tourists that stream into the Capitol complex, and said: "In the summertime, because (of) the high humidity and how hot it gets here, you could literally smell the tourists coming into the Capitol."
As the crowd laughed, Reid said, "And that may be descriptive but it’s true. Well, that is no longer going to be necessary."
First of all, he was warned by his staff not to say this because they recognized how absolutely disgraceful a statement it really is. But even with the warning, he felt compelled to say what was on his mind. It means that this was not one of those things that we all say once and again and immediately regret that the words were able to escape our lips. No, he really has contempt for us smelly tourists. We are not constituents or citizens or countrymen. We are beneath him. We are the little ones.
What a conceited fool.
This guy likely has not had to work up a sweat in his life. The folks in Utah should work up a sweat and recall this guy from the Senate.
Just In Time for Christmas
Posted on December 13, 2008
Filed Under Uncategorized | Leave a Comment
File Under: Media Bias
Posted on November 8, 2008
Filed Under Political Rantings | 1 Comment
What a surprise. The Pew Research Center finds that the press was bias in its reporting of this year’s media campaign. According to the report:
For Obama during this period, just over a third of the stories were clearly positive in tone (36%), while a similar number (35%) were neutral or mixed. A smaller number (29%) were negative.
For McCain, by comparison, nearly six in ten of the stories studied were decidedly negative in nature (57%), while fewer than two in ten (14%) were positive.
It is portrayed graphically:
Even the Washington Post pleads a mia culpa.
The Post provided a lot of good campaign coverage, but readers have been consistently critical of the lack of probing issues coverage and what they saw as a tilt toward Democrat Barack Obama. My surveys, which ended on Election Day, show that they are right on both counts.
Expect the mainstream media, relentless in its campaigning for Obama to exercise this type of self flagellation in the weeks ahead. It’s their way of acknowledging their shameless behavior. Just don’t think that public acknowledgement will lead to anything close to return to objectivity in their coverage of the "Chosen One."
Bishop Speaks About Life and Catholic Voting
Posted on October 24, 2008
Filed Under Political Rantings, Religious Rantings | Leave a Comment
Cardinal Justin Rigali, bishop of the Philadelphia Archdiocese has written a letter to the Catholic faithful regarding our responsibility in the upcoming election. The cardinal notes that the abortion issue is the prime issue facing us as voters.
The transcending issue of our day is the intentional destruction of innocent human life, as in abortion. We wish with all our hearts that no candidate and no party were advocating this heinous act against the human person. However, since it is a transcending issue, and even supported in its most extreme and horrific forms, we must proclaim time and time again that no intrinsic evil can ever be supported in any way, most especially when it concerns the gravest of all intrinsic evils: the taking of an innocent life.
We bishops of Pennsylvania quoted from the late Pope John Paul II’s Post Synodal Exhortation on the Vocation and Mission of the Lay Faithful and I quote him again here: “The inviolability of the person which is a reflection of the absolute inviolability of God, finds its primary and fundamental expression in the inviolability of human life. Above all, the common outcry, which is justly made on behalf of human rights — for example, the right to health, to home, to work, to family, to culture — is false and illusory if the right to life, the most basic and fundamental right and the condition for all other personal rights, is not defended with maximum determination” (Christifideles Laici, 38).At this moment in our country’s history, defense of innocent human life is a moral responsibility for all of us. The same God who thundered from Mount Sinai: “Thou shalt not kill,” thunders still. When life in the womb is destroyed, God thunders: “This is a child!” When by the most barbaric means, unworthy of any civilized people, the brain of a child is sucked out of his or her head by a vacuum, God thunders: “This is a child!” When a baby is left to die of exposure on a shelf because of a failed abortion, and this is considered a “right” by any leader, God, the Source of all law and authority, thunders: “This is a child!” When we are faced with every modern means of education and communication, in addition to the law placed in our hearts at creation, no one, and most especially, no Catholic, can ever say: “I did not know.”
The human dignity that we proclaim works two ways: it affords us a great privilege but it also demands a responsibility. The feeble defense “I did not know” cannot be used by any responsible person in our time when confronted with the reality of abortion. We do know. We know because we can reason and think and see. Along with this position, which is confirmed by modern science, comes a command: “Thou shalt not kill.” It is not a question of politics but a question of the gravest of intrinsic evils; and just as the reality of what it is cannot be explained away, neither can our responsibility.
Throughout our history, Catholics have earned their right to call themselves patriotic Americans. Faithful citizenship not only includes dying for one’s country or working towards its prosperity, it also includes being faithful to a law which is higher than the expediency of the moment with the same generosity of body and heart, and the same courage that is given on the battlefield and in the workplace. We remind ourselves of this as we continue to be called to faithful citizenship and respect for life in the “earthly city” without forgetting that we are ultimately called to live as citizens of heaven forever.
Something For Church Going Catholic Obama Supporters to Consider
Posted on October 15, 2008
Filed Under Political Rantings, Religious Rantings | 1 Comment
I was startled when I drove by the home of a Catholic family in my neighborhood and saw an Obama sign in their front yard. These people attend Mass regularly and send their kids to Catholic schools. "What’s happened to them?" was my immediate thought.
Abortion should be THE issue for Catholic voters this year. Of all the issues and positions of the candidates and their respective parties, abortion is the one that Holy Mother Church deems "intrinsically evil." That is, evil in every instance, for all people and at all times. One party platform promotes abortion and the other doesn’t. Same for the two candidates for the presidency. Catholics have to get this one right. Lives depend on it.
Robert P. George has authored an article that any faithful Catholic thinking of voting for Barack Obama must read. He objectively lays out the case against Obama and his unwavering support of unlimited abortion and beyond.
…he [Obama] supports legislation that would repeal the Hyde Amendment, which protects pro-life citizens from having to pay for abortions that are not necessary to save the life of the mother and are not the result of rape or incest. The abortion industry laments that this longstanding federal law, according to the pro-abortion group NARAL, ”forces about half the women who would otherwise have abortions to carry unintended pregnancies to term and bear children against their wishes instead.” In other words, a whole lot of people who are alive today would have been exterminated in utero were it not for the Hyde Amendment. Obama has promised to reverse the situation so that abortions that the industry complains are not happening (because the federal government is not subsidizing them) would happen. That is why people who profit from abortion love Obama even more than they do his running mate.
It gets worse. Obama, unlike even many ”pro-choice” legislators, opposed the ban on partial-birth abortions when he served in the Illinois legislature and condemned the Supreme Court decision that upheld legislation banning this heinous practice. He has referred to a baby conceived inadvertently by a young woman as a ”punishment” that she should not endure. He has stated that women’s equality requires access to abortion on demand. Appallingly, he wishes to strip federal funding from pro-life crisis pregnancy centers that provide alternatives to abortion for pregnant women in need. There is certainly nothing ”pro-choice” about that.
keep looking »We know that the federal and state pro-life laws and policies that Obama has promised to sweep away (and that John McCain would protect) save thousands of lives every year. Studies conducted by Professor Michael New and other social scientists have removed any doubt. Often enough, the abortion lobby itself confirms the truth of what these scholars have determined. Tom McClusky has observed that Planned Parenthood’s own statistics show that in each of the seven states that have FOCA-type legislation on the books, ”abortion rates have increased while the national rate has decreased.” In Maryland, where a bill similar to the one favored by Obama was enacted in 1991, he notes that ”abortion rates have increased by 8 percent while the overall national abortion rate decreased by 9 percent.” No one is really surprised. After all, the message clearly conveyed by policies such as those Obama favors is that abortion is a legitimate solution to the problem of unwanted pregnancies - so clearly legitimate that taxpayers should be forced to pay for it.
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Timeless Wisdom
"The act of defending any of the cardinal virtues has today all the exhilaration of a vice." - A Defense of Humilities, The Defendant, 1901.
