After reading Jim Robinson's post history, I'm not so sad that he banned me from Free Republic. His posts sound like a ranting John Bircher. Since more candy assed RINOs like me started getting on his nerves, JimRob has been posting a lot more often. His posts are disturbing to say the least -- he's not only gulping large quantities of Palin's bong water, he's also busy bashing gays and telling people to stock up on ammo and prepare for revolution.
A sampling of JimRob's ranting:
Thursday, December 24, 2009 2:24:00 PM · 109 of 149
Jim Robinson to Irisshlass
Amen. But we’re kind of handicapped here in California with a girlyman goobernator and a homosexual dominated legislature. Afraid our state government is balless. Guess it’ll be up to we the people. Stock up on ammo! If ObamaCare is upheld, it means we have no constitution and therefore an unlawful government. This will not stand!!
------------
Friday, December 25, 2009 4:19:27 PM · 54 of 225
Jim Robinson to EBH
If this [health care] bill becomes law then the treacherous usurpers must be impeached by the people and forcibly run out of town on a rail and their treasonous nonsense must be physically ripped from the congressional register and off the books, or our freedom is forever doomed!
This is outright tyranny and treason by the majority of the senate and must not be allowed to stand!
It’s getting awful close to the point where testing the second amendment as the final defense of the constitution and the continuation of the Republic and our God-given Liberty will be required.
All patriots must prepare to choose which side you will defend. Our God-given Liberty or treasonous tyranny!
Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God!
I know where I stand.
------------
Monday, December 28, 2009 12:29:15 PM · 72 of 195
Jim Robinson to fallingwater
Eff the abortionist Mitt Romney and the socialist horse he rode it on.
------------
Monday, December 28, 2009 12:36:22 PM · 24 of 187
Jim Robinson to Bigtigermike; stockpirate
Mitt Romney is statist scum. He’d have a long way to grow just to become a RINO. Eff the statist political whore!
------------
And then my personal favorite... JimRob's endorsement of Sarah Palin -- the reason I got banned from Free Republic:
Sarah Palin IS this Tea Partier's cup of Tea!!
12/02/2009 | Jim Robinson
Posted on Wednesday, December 02, 2009 12:02:15 PM by Jim Robinson
Being as how I'm a God, Country, Family, small government, traditional American values, Life & Liberty patriotic kind of guy, Sarah Palin IS my cup of tea. My cup runneth over!
I pray she runs.
------------
Why tea party patriots should support Sarah Palin should she decide to run
11/28/2009 | Jim Robinson
Posted on Saturday, November 28, 2009 12:28:57 PM by Jim Robinson
She's a God[dude.. seriously you should have stopped right there and gone back to lapping Palin's bong water], Country, Family, small government, no nonsense traditional Christian conservative. She's an outsider not corrupted by business as usual Washington politics. They hate her. She's pro defense. An army mom. She's pro-gun. Hunts, fishes and enjoys the great outdoors. She eats corrupt office holders and wasteful spenders for lunch. She drills for oil. She's a fighter. A winner! [You forgot her "special needs" baby that she totes around like a stage prop -- she sure knows how to bait the Religious Right into hero worship!]
She's the exact opposite to Obama in all respects. She's an American patriot!
In short, she's exactly what we the grassroots tea party patriots are looking for.
------------
So JimRob can have his gay bashing, abortion obsessed, Sarah Palin cult hero worship society. I'm not going to drink Palin's bong water and I'm not going to conform to their narrow view of what constitutes a conservative.
T-Paw, the governor who kept his job instead of going rogue, is on TV pushing a balanced budget amendment both in his state of Minnesota and on the federal level.
Eight-year-old Virginia O'Hanlon wrote a letter to the editor of New York's Sun, and the quick response was printed as an unsigned editorial Sept. 21, 1897. The work of veteran newsman Francis Pharcellus Church has since become history's most reprinted newspaper editorial, appearing in part or whole in dozens of languages in books, movies, and other editorials, and on posters and stamps.
"DEAR EDITOR: I am 8 years old.
"Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus.
"Papa says, 'If you see it in THE SUN it's so.'
"Please tell me the truth; is there a Santa Claus?
"VIRGINIA O'HANLON.
"115 WEST NINETY-FIFTH STREET."
VIRGINIA, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except [what] they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men's or children's, are little. In this great universe of ours man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.
Yes, VIRGINIA, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus. It would be as dreary as if there were no VIRGINIAS. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.
Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies! You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if they did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that's no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.
You may tear apart the baby's rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, VIRGINIA, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.
No Santa Claus! Thank God! he lives, and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.
"We must not permit criticisms for improvement to stigmatize Israel," Mr. Carter said in the letter, which was first sent to JTA, a wire service for Jewish newspapers, and provided Wednesday to the Associated Press. "As I would have noted at Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, but which is appropriate at any time of the year, I offer an Al Het for any words or deeds of mine that may have done so."
Since Chuckles is now making a career out of tarring and feathering all right wingers using the cherrypicked comments of a few extremists, I think I'll start doing the same with outrageous comments on left wing blogs that Chuckles conveniently ignores.
Yesterday, the Kos kids used vulgar language and fun epithets like "woman hater" against fellow Democrats.
It's gut check time. Obama, Reid and Pelosi have the power to pass HCR with a public option or expanded Medicare ... Don't tell me we have to accept this watered down piece of Senate s*** because of Lieberman or Nelson. We don't need their votes. F*** 'em.
As a face saving sop to the Stupak/Nelson woman haters, the bill contains a provision that says insurance companies in the exchange that offer abortion coverage will have to set aside an actuarially justifiable percentage of the premium into a fund that can only be drawn on to pay abortion claims. This miniscule percentage would undoubtedly be less than any subsidy a policy holder may be receiving. Ergo, no federal funds are being used to pay for abortions.
Because the conference bill is substantially similar to the bill the House has already passed, it passes again. (Stupak is told to say 10 Hail Marys and three Our Fathers and shut the f*** up.)
Yup... Catholics who oppose public funding of abortion -- who oppose forcing people to pay for something they believe is immoral and on par with murder -- are woman haters who need to shut the f*** up. Nice talk from the Kos kids. Because you must hate women if you tell them to find someone else to pay for their abortion. Just like every parent who doesn't buy their child every gift they demand for Christmas must hate their child. More proof that Kos kids will never grow up.
Of course, Kos himself is far more diplomatic but essentially argues that the public option and other liberal pipe dreams are far from dead:
Once we have a final bill, and things are set in stone, then we can re-examine that bill. But right now, things can still change. To stop fighting for that change, to me, is patently ridiculous.
Any positive change from here on out is going to be because we keep pushing from the left not because we say, "Good enough. Let’s pass it."
Fortunately, Stupak ain't done fighting either. He is the only hope left in a Democratic Party where principles are negotiable and any vote can be bought for the right price.
After watching the Senate’s health-care debate, Rep. Bart Stupak (D., Mich.) tells NRO that he has one message for President Obama and House speaker Nancy Pelosi: “You don’t buy me off.”
Stupak tells us that he’s disappointed that Democratic leaders have offered him legislative favors in exchange for supporting Obamacare. “This shouldn’t be a bill where you use hush money,” says Stupak. “This isn’t an appropriations bill where you try to get the best projects for your state.”
“In the House, we need to bring equity back into the process,” says Stupak. “We need to cut out those sweetheart deals.” If the deals in question are not removed, Stupak will vote against the bill. In the meantime, he says, “my reservations are growing.”
“I’ve spoken with a half-dozen members in the last 48 hours, and they’re all really concerned with the Senate bill,” says Stupak. “We all agree: We’ve lost our objective with health care. Where you live should have nothing to do with the quality or cost of your coverage.”
On abortion, Stupak says that the language of the health-care bill must be crystal clear. “There cannot be, in any way, public funding for abortion,” says Stupak.
“‘Folks on the right, and frankly I’m one of them in terms of voting record, have to yield to the world as it is and not necessarily how they wish it would be,’ Cornyn told Reuters for a story about centrist Rep. Mike Castle’s (R) bid for Senate next year in Delaware...
“With tea party activists increasingly dictating the party’s agenda, moderate Republicans are getting eaten by their own, and it didn’t take long for some of Graham’s once loyal supporters to turn on him. The Charleston County Republican Party voted unanimously last month to censure Graham on a litany of complaints. They claimed that South Carolina’s senior senator ‘in the name of bipartisanship continues to weaken the Republican brand and tarnish the ideals of freedom, rule of law, and fiscal conservatism.’ The group, closely aligned with the Tea Party movement, accused Graham of holding the GOP ‘hostage’ for engaging on global warming and even lambasted him for having ’stated on many occasions that his primary concern is to ‘be relevant.”
“Make no mistake, Graham’s conservative credentials are rock solid. He has a 90% rating from the American Conservative Union. The only difference is he’s willing to look for compromise. ‘Two senators from opposite parties sat down today and discussed solving a problem,’ Graham says with a wry shake of his head, ‘the fact that that’s news is sad. That’s where we’ve come as a country. That’s why the [approval rating of] Congress is at 25%.’”
Why is this relevant? Because the GOP can not win every election without including some moderates in the big tent. The Democrats surely know this and the defection of Alabama Democrat Parker Griffith shows that they are vulnerable.
Just look at the Gallup numbers... America is a center right nation but neither party can win without moderates and independents!
Nebraska’s Republican governor has a stern message for Ben Nelson, the senior Democratic senator from his state: we don’t want Washington to cover all the costs of the proposed expansion of Medicaid under health care legislation.
“The last few days have made Nebraskans so angry that now it’s a matter of principle,” Gov. David Heineman told POLITICO. “The federal government can keep that money.”
Of course, Louisiana's governor, Bobby Jindal won't be having a similar news conference because Mary Landrieu was merely responding to requests from Jindal's administration. Jindal's secretary of the Department of Health and Hospitals Alan Levine traveled to Washington D.C. more than 10 times in the span of three months, lobbying for more than one billion dollars in Medicaid help.
Even better... he said it while talking to Vermont's very own Socialist Senator, Bernie Sanders.
CHRIS MATTHEWS, HOST: Well, to reach back to one of our heroes from the past, from the `60s, Saul Alinsky once said that even though both sides have flaws in their arguments and you can always find something nuanced about your own side you don`t like and it`s never perfect, you have to act in the end like there`s simple black and white clarity between your side and the other side or you don`t get anything done. I always try to remind myself of Saul Alinsky when I get confused.
Rob Arnott, who always does terrific research, wrote in his recent report that "at all levels, federal, state, local and GSEs, the total public debt is now at 141% of GDP. That puts the United States in some elite company--only Japan, Lebanon and Zimbabwe are higher. That's only the start. Add household debt (highest in the world at 99% of GDP) and corporate debt (highest in the world at 317% of GDP, not even counting off-balance-sheet swaps and derivatives) and our total debt is 557% of GDP. Less than three years ago our total indebtedness crossed 500% of GDP for the first time."
Add the unfunded portion of entitlement programs and we're at 840% of GDP.
Depressed yet? This is exactly the kind of news that had me feeling completely helpless back in August.
Japan's recession is now 19 years old. It has the highest debt-to-GDP level (227%) of any industrialized country. The Fitch rating agency is talking about a potential downgrade of Japan's debt. Japan's stock market is still down 75% from the high in 1990. We predict it will make new bear market lows next year. That will make it a 20-year-long bear market on the way to 25 years. The bulls in the U.S. should consider that possibility in the formerly great United States of America.
Dugg on Forbes.com
I do not believe the bullish theory that the U.S. situation is different than Japan's. Ours is so much worse.
I again leave you with the eternal wisdom of Thomas Jefferson:
"I place economy among the first and most important virtues, and public debt as the greatest of dangers to be feared. To preserve our independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. If we run into such debts, we must be taxed in our meat and drink, in our necessities and in our comforts, in our labor and in our amusements. If we can prevent the government from wasting the labor of the people, under the pretense of caring for them, they will be happy."
So say the Kiwis who wrote a book entitled "Time to Eat the Dog: The Real Guide to Sustainable Living". The authors, New Zealanders Robert and Brenda Vale, are specialists in sustainable living at Victoria University of Wellington.
Funny. There was a news story earlier this year from Auckland about a Tongan family that barbecued the family dog in their backyard imu. Dogs are considered little different from pigs in many Asian and Polynesian cultures. Well, the local Kiwis in Auckland and the ASPCA were not amused.
Combine the land required to generate its food and a "medium" sized dog has an annual footprint of 0.84 hectares (2.07 acres) -- around twice the 0.41 hectares required by a 4x4 driving 10,000 kilometres (6,200 miles) a year, including energy to build the car.
Whoa... now there's some looney utilitarian logic for you! Your dog, neutered or not, is like driving a SUV! You must eat Fido at once to save the planet! Or if you can't part with Fido, sacrifice Grandma on the altar of green living. Or you can sterilize all your children and yourself.
Because once you start rationalizing eating the dog in the name of sustainability, it isn't much of a leap to sterilizing humans or outright prematurely terminating their lives. It's rather easy with dogs and cats and if the extremists have their way it won't be long before people are on a equal footing with the family dog or cat. Grandma's medical bills are too high? Off to the shelter she goes... if no one else wants to adopt her, then they can put her to sleep.
Of course, I'm being just as outrageous as these loons proposing you eat your dog. Jonathan Swift went to extremes to make his points, but then again that was satire. I have a bad feeling that Robert and Brenda Vale are quite serious about putting your dog down in the name of sustainability. I kind of doubt their book on sustainability is even remotely satirical. Which is a real tragedy when you think of all the animals waiting to be adopted by loving families. Any concern about their carbon footprint could easily be resolved by doing the responsible thing by having your pet spayed or neutured.
As to myself, I'm a proud owner of one dog and one cat. The dog is a black lab mix that came to us from the Humane Society, where he stayed for a month before we adopted him. He was almost 2 when we found him and we have no idea about his previous whereabouts. We only know that he loves us and we love him.
Our cat was a free black and white domestic shorthair kitten given to me by irresponsible neighbors who didn't have my cat's mother fixed. He is also quite happy to live under our roof and we like having a feline companion, ornery though he is.
Both of our boys are fixed and are the end of their respective lines. They are spoiled rotten but they are involuntarily celibate. We do not support breeders or pet shops as there are plenty of animals in need of adoption to loving homes. We regret that we can't adopt more, but I think we're more than doing our part by providing love, shelter and food to the two pets that we have.
So don't eat the dog. Instead, adopt one into your home and be a responsible pet owner. Help end petlessness. They make a great Christmas present and you'll never have to worry about them having a kegger at the house while you're away on vacation.
Speaking of vacation...the wife and I had a lovely two week holiday in New Zealand last April. Along the way, we met many cats and dogs at the various pubs and bed and breakfasts we stayed and dined at. EnZed is a nation with a lot of pet lovers. I'd love to hear some Kiwi pet lovers' reactions to the ludicrous suggestion by their fellow Kiwis that they eat the dog to save the planet. I can't imagine they are any more amused than I am.
Palin was spotted on a Hawaii beach wearing a blue visor with the McCain logo blacked out with permanent ink. TMZ has the pictures to prove it.
Sorry if I don't buy Sarah's sorry excuse for why she couldn't find a different hat to wear or how blacking out McCain's name made her "incognito". Sounds like more sour grapes from the bitter, whiny victim named Sarah Palin.
So Palin -- who wears many hats -- would have us believe A) the visor could transform her into an ordinary, anonymous soccer mom as she frolicked with her now-famous family in Hawaii and B) blacking out the name of the Presidential running mate whose campaign staff trashed her was an innocent gesture, devoid of motive.
Sarah, if you really want to be incognito, go back to Alaska and kindly shut up. If it weren't for John McCain, you'd still be governor and the national media wouldn't care who you are. Instead, everyone knows who you are (and boy do we regret it!) and instead of staying home, you've gone rogue.
I wish I could say this was a story from the Onion. Someone needs to forward this to Stewart or Colbert.
Prior to the grand opening of COP15 and the Climate Summit for Mayors, hundreds of hotels, delegates and journalists received a letter from Copenhagen’s mayor, along with a stack of postcards proclaiming, “Be sustainable: Don’t buy sex!”
The postcards were part of a campaign launched by the City Council urging the international delegates and press to refrain from buying sex during their stay in Copenhagen.
BUT the postcards caused a prompt reaction from a sex worker organization (SIO), recommending its members offer free sex to delegates who are able to show their accreditation and a copy of the postcard.
But seriously, is there anything the alarmists won't target as an evil, carbon generating activity? Better yet, how many college kids are jealous that they could get FREE sex just for flying to Copenhagen and attending Climatepalooza? I'm sure free sex would counter any carbon indulging guilt that a climate evangelist might feel.
Very bad week so far for Obama... here at home, Howard Dean and other liberals are calling to kill the health care bill and now he's found trouble in Copenhagen.
So what happened in Copenhagen? First, India and China walked out.
India and China have taken a united stand and walked out of the climate summit as Copenhagen talks fail.
Then, the reaction to his speech by those to Obama's left was not kind:
Hugo Chávez, the president of Venezuela, described Obama’s speech as “ridiculous” and the US’s initial offer of a $10bn fund for poor countries in the draft text as “a joke”.
Tim Jones, a spokesman for the World Development Movement, said: “The president said he came to act, but showed little evidence of doing so. He showed no awareness of the inequality and injustice of climate change. If America has really made its choice, it is a choice that condemns hundreds of millions of people to climate change disaster.”
Friends of the Earth said in a statement, “Obama has deeply disappointed not only those listening to his speech at the UN talks, he has disappointed the whole world.”
The World Wildlife Fund said Obama had let down the international community by failing to commit to pushing for action in Congress: “The only way the world can be sure the US is standing behind its commitments is for the president to clearly state that climate change will be his next top legislative priority.”
I've always thought that Al Gore should sail around the world on a wooden sailing ship like the Mayflower or perhaps the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria. Instead, he and all the other hypocrites jet set around the world and buy carbon offset indulgences. It reminds me of the hypocrisy of modern televangelists or the medieval Catholic Church.
The Copenhagen summit, supposed to produce an agreement limiting greenhouse gases, has, according to experts, the same carbon footprint as a medium-sized African country such as Malawi.
There are an amazing 34,000 delegates attending the event, and the grander among them are forced, says my colleague Robert Hardman in Copenhagen, to park their private jets in Norway because Denmark has run out of Tarmac, and to procure their gas-guzzling limousines from Germany.
Show me a climate control zealot and I can often show you a hypocrite, and a hypocrite, moreover, who speaks in apocalyptic terms about the world coming to an end - at a time not long hence and usually implausibly specific - if the rest of us do not immediately curb our lifestyles so as to produce fewer greenhouse gases.
The double standards and the grotesque exaggeration go hand in hand.
Some, at least, of the zealots do not really, honestly believe that things are as bad as they say. If they did, they might not go on serenely generating carbon emissions on such a scale.
They are trying to shock us into action by employing emotive language and invoking terrible dangers. In other words, they are treating us as fools.
Politicians shamelessly twist the facts to scare us witless. There has been an appalling case in Copenhagen this week.
Former U.S. Vice-President and climate change zealot Al Gore attributed to Dr Wieslaw Maslowski, an eminent climate change scientist, the belief 'that there is a 75 per cent chance that the entire north polar ice cap, during the summer months, could be completely ice-free within five to seven years'.
Dr Maslowski promptly denied that he would ever 'try to estimate likelihood at anything as exact as that'.
Seven years left in which we can tackle the problem. Fifty days to save the world. The North Pole melted within a few years.
Such outrageous claims, repeated by hundreds of politicians, and amplified by uncritical journalists whose brains have been captured by the climate change lobby, not a few of whom are to be found at the BBC, are bound to foster growing doubts in the public mind.
What's worse... the alarmists are giving Hugo Chavez all the ammunition he needs to spread his gospel of socialism today, socialism tomorrow, socialism forever. No wonder Chavez was such a huge hit this week in Copenhagen.
MATTHEWS: I don’t consider them Democrats, I consider them netroots, and they’re different. And if I see that they vote in every election or most elections, I’ll be worried. But I’m not sure that they’re regular grown-up Democrats. I think that a lot of those people are troublemakers who love to sit in the backseat and complain. They’re not interested in governing this country. They never ran for office, they’re not interested in working for somebody in public office. They get their giggles from sitting in the backseat and bitching.
You know, nutroots like Daily Kos contributor and fellow MSNBC talking head Keith Olbermann. Hmm... come to think of it, Howard Dean attended YearlyKos and Dean employed Kos as a technical advisor in 2003. So Chris Matthews may be on to something... maybe it is just the nutty netroots on the Left (led by Howard Dean) who think Obama is a traitor to liberal causes.
Now, here's the really funny part. Some of the Kos kids actually agree with Chris Matthews!
I couldn't agree more! That is EXACTLY what is going on around here lately. Sitting in the back seat bitching. A lot of you people threatening to take you ball and go home (ie. not vote) are not the types that show up for elections anyways.
In a way, it's fitting that Matthews referred in the same video clip to his service as Jimmy Carter's speechwriter -- one day after fellow MSNBC pundit Ed Schultz referred to Obama as "Jimmy Carter on steroids" as a deragotory way of saying Obama tries far too hard to play nice with his adversaries and archenemies.
I am a conservative Republican, but I believe in democracy and the separation of church and state. The conservative movement is founded on the simple tenet that people have the right to live life as they please, as long as they don’t hurt anyone else in the process.No one has ever shown me how being gay or lesbian harms anyone else. Even the 1992 Republican platform affirms the principle that "bigotry has no place in our society".
I am proud that the Republican Party has always stood for individual rights and liberties. The positive role of limited government has always been the defense of these fundamental principles. Our party has led the way in the fight for freedom and a free market economy, a society where competition and the Constitution matter—and sexual orientation shouldn’t.
Now some in our ranks want to extinguish this torch. The radical right has nearly ruined our party. Its members do not care enough about the Constitution, and they are the ones making all the noise.
In the climate change debate, I fall squarely in the agnostic camp. Agnostic, as in I don't deny warming has occurred, but I remain unconvinced that anthropogenic forcing influences the climate as much as the alarmists like Al Gore say it does -- but I freely acknowledge that man does have some impact on the climate.
I was an agnostic on Christianity for 35 years until I was able to eliminate all other religions by process of elimination and convince myself that the Gospel is the most logical, reasonable example of what love is and more importantly, how to love. For that, I have Pope Benedict and my wife to thank for opening my mind in ways no one else had before.
So I have a tremendous amount of respect for agnostics. Agnostics are open minded people who are willing to entertain (and reject or accept) any argument if it is logical and rational. Agnostics don't like to be proselytized to and therefore I don't like to proselytize either. I might try to persuade someone about the merits of love, but I'd never badger anybody into taking the leap of faith to believe that God IS love. So I really resent climate alarmists telling me to accept the data and the models when I haven't seen enough proof to make that leap of faith. No matter how much you laugh and tease, I won't join you until you make a persuasive, bulletproof argument.
You can believe in love without believing that God sent His only son to walk among us as surely as you can believe in energy conservation and developing renewable, sustainable, clean energy sources without believing in man made global warming Armageddon theories. Christians would be better served to talk about love than how sinners are going to hell just as global warming alarmists would be better served to talk about sustainable, renewable energy instead of how the seas will boil over and drown us all. Scare tactics do nothing to win over converts and in the end scare tactics never work.
On both sides of the climate debate, you have religious (and yes, I mean RELIGIOUS) extremes. Let's call one side the atheists, aka the deniers, who are convinced that anthropogenic forces have no impact on climate. On the other side you have the religious zealots, aka the alarmists, who tell us Armageddon is upon us and it's all our fault due to our burning of fossil fuels.
So I think these headlines are quite appropriate given the religiosity embodied by both the deniers and the alarmists:
"Climate change is a religion for them, so there was no way they were going to miss this," said one top GOP aide. "This is their Hajj."
Religion, for sure. And both sides are guilty. Meanwhile, we could be having a real conversation about energy resources. We won't, but we really, really should.
Monbiot thinks Obama can inspire America and the world to respond to climate change the way that FDR inspired America and the free world to fight fascism and Nazism national socialism.
From the speech Monbiot has prepared for Obama:
I hereby commit the United States to cutting greenhouse gases by 50% against our 1990 levels by 2020. I commit to this cut regardless of what other nations might do, but I urge you to compete with me to exceed it. We should be striving to outbid each other, not to undercut each other.
How you say? Monbiot (in the voice of Obama) replies:
"These policies will present the United States with a formidable challenge. But my country, with its great wealth and deep reserves of ingenuity and enterprise, is better placed to respond than any other. When the United States entered the second world war, it was unprepared for the challenge presented by its enemies. But within six months we turned the economy around to meet it. By the middle of 1942, more than 1,000 automobile plants in the United States had been converted to manufacture weapons. Ford was soon turning out a B24 bomber every 63 minutes, GM took just 90 days from a standing start to begin the mass production of amphibious vehicles."
"Today a similar technological revolution is required. Just as in 1941, we can rise to it, but, with the benefit of modern methods and materials, even more quickly. No longer will the United States, which has long been in the forefront of every one of the world's technological revolutions, be left behind in the most important race of all."
Monbiot's definitely a dreamer. Obama can't even get his own party to agree on a health reform package. What makes Monbiot think Obama could persuade Americans (let alone Congress) to overhaul our entire energy supply and infrastructure by 2020? Or is this something the czars will carry out?
In related climate news, I highly recommend reading Dr. Roy Spencer's blog post on his presentation in San Francisco to the American Geophysical Union.
Andrew Lacis, who works climate modeling with Jim Hansen, came up and said he agreed with me that, in general, the feedback problem is more difficult than people have been assuming. In a talk after mine, Graeme Stephens gave me a backhanded compliment when he agreed with at least my basic message that the way in which we assume the climate system functions (in my terms, what-causes-what to happen) IS important to how we then deduce how sensitive the climate is to such things as our carbon dioxide emissions.
Spencer's research is very important if we're to learn the truth about climate sensitivity (to natural and anthropogenic forcings) and feedbacks. Especially, when (as Spencer notes) scientists quietly acknowledge off the record that the sensitivity and feedbacks are not as well understood as they've led us to believe.
"Continuation of the ocean temperature and altimetry measurements is needed to confirm that the energy imbalance is not a fluctuation and determine the net climate forcing acting on the planet."
As Spencer reports from the AGU conference in San Francisco:
But most of the talks presented followed the recipe that has become all too common in recent years: analyze the output of climate models that predict substantial global warming, and simply assume the models are somewhere near correct.
There seems to be great reluctance to consider the possibility that these computerized prophets of doom, which have required so many scientists and so much money and so many years to develop, could be wrong. I come along with an extremely simple climate model that explains the behavior of the satellite data in details that are beyond even what has been done with the complex climate models…and then the more complex models are STILL believed because…well…they’re more complex.
So if Hansen et al were serious about continuing to evaluate the observed measurements against the computer models, why such reluctance on the part of so many scientists to question the models? Wouldn't they rather have a complete understanding of the natural and anthropogenic forcings rather than assume the black box models are accurate? Instead of attacking folks like Dr. Spencer who are researching a more complete answer, they shout them down and insist all the science is settled and no further questions remain. Science is all about asking questions! Further inquiry should be encouraged, not discouraged! How else are we supposed to acquire more knowledge through observations if we refuse to explore other possibilities?
Or you can just go Monbiot's route and proclaim the following as Gospel truth:
Even the most ambitious cuts the wealthy nations have proposed cannot meet our goal. They are likely instead to deliver three or four degrees of warming, threatening many of the world's people.
Scare tactics work so much better than the truth in this age of mass media. The truth will leak out in the end, but will it be too little, too late?
Why is it when I hear leaders like Chavez and Ahmedinutjob speak I feel like I'm watching newsreels from the 1930s?
President Chavez brought the house down.
When he said the process in Copenhagen was “not democratic, it is not inclusive, but isn’t that the reality of our world, the world is really and imperial dictatorship…down with imperial dictatorships” he got a rousing round of applause.
When he said there was a “silent and terrible ghost in the room” and that ghost was called capitalism, the applause was deafening.
But then he wound up to his grand conclusion – 20 minutes after his 5 minute speaking time was supposed to have ended and after quoting everyone from Karl Marx to Jesus Christ - “our revolution seeks to help all people…socialism, the other ghost that is probably wandering around this room, that’s the way to save the planet, capitalism is the road to hell....let’s fight against capitalism and make it obey us.” He won a standing ovation.
Those oh so friendly and tolerant social conservatives are throwing a tizzy of GOProud's (former Log Cabin Republicans) sponsorship of CPAC.
Funny, I actually agree with all of GOProud's stated legislative priorities, including these two:
4 – DON’T ASK, DON’T TELL REPEAL – Repeal of the military’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy.
I agree... and I (somewhat tongue in cheek) argued as much earlier this year. Naturally, I got a barrage of homophobic feedback from the Freepers for agreeing with Barry Goldwater that you don't have to be straight to shoot straight. Barry and I are candy-assed RINOs, don't you know?
7 – DEFENDING OUR CONSTITUTION – Opposing any anti-gay federal marriage amendment.
I also agree that gay marriage should not be a federal issue. It is a state and local issue as most all moral and social issues should be under the framework our founding fathers thought they put in place with the US Constitution and Bill of Rights. Not that anyone today cares what those racist old white geezers thought...
Closing commentary:
Memo to social conservatives, you had your President. His name was George W. Bush and he was a fiscal trainwreck. We fiscal conservatives are a little tired of being told that abortion and gay marriage matter more than balancing budgets and stopping the runaway entitlement gravy train. I'm not putting a gun to anyone's head and telling them to have an abortion or engage in sexual relations (straight, gay or otherwise). It's their choice and their life.
But Congress is pointing a big gun (in the form of future taxation) at my unborn grandchildren. That is a far greater tragedy than whether someone independently decides to have an abortion or marry their gay partner. Sorry, I don't buy your kooky social conservative theories about how the homosexual, pro-abort agenda is a huge threat to America and will doom us all to hell. I've never felt threatened by any gay person or by the pro-choice crowd any more than Jesus felt threatened by prostitutes and tax collectors (the most reviled occupation in his day). They've never forced me to do anything. But every two weeks, the government forcibly takes money from my paycheck to pay for tons of things I object to. If I fail to pay those taxes, I will go to jail.
If Steve marries Sam, it has no effect on my life. If Sarah aborts her unborn child, it is a tragic loss to Sarah but has no effect on my life. In both cases, those individuals are making a choice about their own lives. So long as they don't ask for my blessing or my money, it is not my place to inject myself into a private decision.
Which is precisely the problem with social conservatives... they believe it is their business to inject themselves into your life, as they did with the Teri Schiavo case (federalism be damned). And once you justify intrusion into people's personal choices and matters of conscience, it's a slippery slope that leads to justifying just about any intrusion. Before you know it, you're advocating for society to make to intrude into food, housing, health care and every other aspect of private citizen's lives and well being. If it's moral and just to stop Susie from aborting her unborn child, then surely it's moral and just to pay for Susie and her baby's health care, food and housing.
I am not and will never be a social conservative. I am a strong fiscal conservative and a libertarian on social issues and do not overly concern myself with other people's private choices so long as they do not ask for my blessing or my money to fund their private choices. This does not make me a RINO. Far from it, for I base my values on principles firmly rooted in Judeo-Christian theology -- namely the Gospel.
If you can find me the verses in the Gospel where Jesus lobbies Caesar for anti-gay, anti-abortion legislation, I'm all ears. But I highly doubt a loving God who gave us all a free conscience (free to love or reject him) would advocate for a socially conservative government.
As I argued back in August, it is an issue of coercion versus conscience. I believe that a loving God errs on the side of conscience, not coercion. Love does not persuade with coercion, love persuades with reason and logic. The Religious Right disagrees. And I so miss the days when John McCain called them the "agents of intolerance". How right he was...
I caught a few minutes of Ed Schultz's radio show today on Portland's KPOJ (the progressive liberal talk station). Ed made the observation that Obama is like "Jimmy Carter on steroids" while he sobbed to a fellow from the Huffington Post about how Obama is too nice in negotiations with conservaDems like Lieberman.
When liberals start negatively comparing Obama to Jimmy Carter, you know the liberal base ain't happy. Well, I'm not happy about George W. Bush's entitlement programs or deficits so join the club and don't say you weren't warned...
At first it annoyed me, then I laughed at the sheer self-satisfied stupidity of the prank, and then I admired it as emblematic of the flame-war level of discourse between the two sides. Monckton himself broke Godwin’s law the other day when confronting a few disciples of Gaia, and of course we’ve seen scientists from East Anglia call skeptics A-holes on British national television, so why not take it in the direction of “kick me” signs on people’s backs? Exit question: How should Monckton retaliate? With water balloons, or the old “order 50 pizzas to their house” gag?
What's worse... Monckton was actually giving them serious answers to their questions, but they weren't listening to anything he said and instead frequently and rudely interrupted him and pursued their childish game of tagging signs on the back of his suit. So this is what passes for debate among the 350 youth. Lovely.
One of Monckton's main points (which I recently raised here) is that ocean temperatures and sea levels are the best barometers we have for measuring climate change. Everyone, skeptic or not, ought to be able to agree on that much. Instead of having an honest and open debate on the ocean metrics which could be very helpful in persuading the public, the climate Chicken Littles would rather suppress any discussions or data that might create doubt about their hypothesis.
Skeptics like myself are not DENIERS, agnostics would be more proper term for us. We just demand an open discussion about the science and metrics because what we've seen so far has not convinced us that anthropogenic causes are the primary driver in recent climate change. We do not deny that warming occurred in the 20th century or that greenhouse gases are partly to blame. What we debate is what percentage is due to anthropogenic causes as opposed to natural causes. What we debate is how well the climate models reflect the natural feedbacks. This is what people like Bob Tisdale, Roy Spencer and Lord Monckton want to debate.
Supporters of AGW should be happy to entertain the debate and make the case why they are right. So far, I remain unpersuaded by their arguments. For 35 years, I was an agnostic on religious matter until I converted to Catholicism last Easter. I am always open minded, but I refuse to be bullied into accepting something as Gospel when I have not been presented with logical, bulletproof evidence to support the hypothesis. Unlike the 350 youth, I won't be accepting Al Gore's Gospel as an article of faith. Make your case and quit playing childish games.
Kathleen Parker at WaPo has the story on Firedoglake's campaign against Joe Lieberman's wife. Can't put it any better than she did:
In that light, the attack on Hadassah Lieberman has been fantastically anti-feminist. In what American century is a wife's job in jeopardy because of her husband's politics?
"It's been surprising to me as an old feminist to watch this kind of cheap attack," Mrs. Lieberman told me. "The reality of many women is that many of us have careers and ideas and thoughts that preceded our marriages."
This reminds me a little of Hillary Clinton's 2008 Democratic primary campaign. I always thought it was a bit unfair to Hillary to ask her about her husband -- though to be fair, she made it fair game by involving Bill in the campaign. All the same, I'll bet more than a few women empathized with Hillary when she gave this flippant reply to a foreign reporter's question about "what does Bill think about [fill in the blank subject]?"
What's next, a campaign against Todd Palin? The targeting of spouses is abominable. It's one thing when spouses are part of the campaign and actively making speeches in support of their spouses (as was the case with Bill Clinton and Michelle Obama -- despite Obama's protests to the contrary), but when the spouse in question has their own career and their own agenda, it's highly in appropriate to attack them merely because of their spouse's politics.
It's doubly more inappropriate when the spouse under attack is a female. We need to celebrate and recognize women who independently pursue their own careers (whether in the workplace or nurturing a family at home), not attack them because of their husband's politics.
When the attack comes from liberal progressive women, it's even more heinous and hypocritical.
Who am I kidding... I can't stop blogging for Advent. Guess I picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue...
I've been a little obsessed with climate change as of late, looking for real data (charts) to get closer to the truth. Sadly, neither the deniers or the alarmists have that smoking gun that convinces me one way or another. I remain a skeptical fence sitter. I'm not a scientist but even I know that the observations must either support or reject the theory.
But I did find a super article at Watts Up With That that encapsulates what I have come to believe:
Despite a consensus among scientists on the use of ocean heat as a robust metric for AGW, near-surface air temperature (referred to as “surface temperature”) is generally employed to gauge global warming. The media and popular culture have certainly equated the two.
...
The highly publicized, monthly global surface temperature has become an icon of the AGW projections made by the IPCC.
However, use of surface air temperature as a metric has weak scientific support, except, perhaps, on a multi-decadal or century time-scale. Surface temperature may not register the accumulation of heat in the climate system from year to year.
Bingo. So I pretty much ignore any graphs or data that use land based temperature readings. Air temperature is a very poor indicator of changes in global heat. Anthropogenic global warming (AGW) is ultimately a theory about heat and the ability of greenhouse gases to prevent heat from escaping back into space. To gauge the real impact, you must go to where excess heat is stored, which is in the oceans and not the atmosphere.
Water is a more appropriate metric for heat accumulation than air because of its ability to store heat. For this reason, it is also a more robust metric for assessing global warming and cooling.
For any given area on the ocean’s surface, the upper 2.6m of water has the same heat capacity as the entire atmosphere above it! Considering the enormous depth and global surface area of the ocean (70.5%), it is apparent that its heat capacity is greater than the atmosphere by many orders of magnitude. Consequently, as Hansen, et. al. have concluded, the ocean must be regarded as the main reservoir of atmospheric heat and the primary driver of climate fluctuations.
So far, these quotes are establishing that ocean heat is the best metric and saying nothing about whether man-made greenhouse gases are responsible for warming. Instead, the author is clearly establishing the soundest metric for scientists to observe in order to prove or disprove AGW. Reasonable people should be able to agree with everything to this point, whether you are an alarmist or a skeptic.
Writing in 2005, Hansen, Willis, Schmidt et al. suggested that GISS model projections had been verified by a solid decade of increasing ocean heat (1993 to 2003). This was regarded as further confirmation the IPCC’s AGW hypothesis. Their expectation was that the earth’s climate system would continue accumulating heat more or less monotonically. Now that heat accumulation has stopped (and perhaps even reversed), the tables have turned. The same criteria used to support their hypothesis, is now being used to falsify it.
It is evident that the AGW hypothesis, as it now stands, is either false or fundamentally inadequate. One may argue that projections for global warming are measured in decades rather than months or years, so not enough time has elapsed to falsify this hypothesis. This would be true if it were not for the enormous deficit of heat we have observed. In other words, no matter how much time has elapsed, if a projection misses its target by such a large magnitude (6x to 8x), we can safely assume that it is either false or seriously flawed.
Assuming the hypothesis is not false, its proponents must now address the failure to skillfully project heat accumulation. Theories pass through stages of development as they are tested against observations. It is possible that the AGW hypothesis is not false, but merely oversimplified.
...Whether the anthropogenic global warning hypothesis is invalid or merely incomplete, the time has come for serious debate and reanalysis. Since Dr. Pielke first published his challenge in 2007, no critical attempts have been made to explain these failed projections. His blogs have been greeted by the chirping of crickets. In the mean time costly political agendas focused on carbon mitigation continue to move forward, oblivious to recent empirical evidence. Open and honest debate has been marginalized by appeals to consensus. But as history has often shown, consensus is the last refuge of poor science.
To be balanced, I also read a rebuttal at Skeptical Science that acknowledges a few of the above points.
Over the past 40 years, global ocean heat content has shown a long term warming trend. However, the warming hasn't been monotonic. There are periods where ocean heat drops for several years before the warming trend resumes. On several occasions, this is due to large volcanic eruptions which cause a drop in global temperatures. On other occasions, upper ocean heat drops with no volcanic activity.
Globally, upper ocean heat has dropped since mid-2007. However, if one focuses on one piece of the puzzle without understanding the broader picture of the physical mechanisms involved, it can lead to the erroneous conclusion that the long term warming has ended. By recognising that La Niña causes short term cooling in upper ocean waters and that we've been in La Niña conditions since mid-2007, we see that current ocean cooling is a case of internal variability imposed upon the long term trend.
I'm of the belief that we haven't had enough observation yet to clearly tell us one way or another who is right. I believe that greenhouse gases certainly trap some heat and that the increase in manmade greenhouse gases has contributed to some increase in the planet's retained heat. But I don't believe that scientists yet have a full grasp of all the natural forcings at play and their models do not yet accurately reflect what is a very, very complex system.
Understanding and measuring the oceans is the surest way to find the truth. That our popular culture and media remain focused on air temperatures is largely the fault of the alarmists who undermine their efforts by latching onto any metric that seems to support their case. In a perfect world, all of us would be focused like a laser beam on debating and understanding the changes in ocean heat content.
Not a great tourist promotion for Livingston Parish, but pretty funny all the same. My favorite part is at the 0:48 mark when Bubba emerges from the pickup truck with a case of Bud and a lit cigarette dangling from his lip.
I'm a recent convert to Catholicism and something the priest said about politics in this morning's homily really hit home. Politics, while entertaining and a vital discussion for our nation, matters very little inside the walls of the church. The times change, the economy waxes and wanes, but God's perfect example of love and God's law remain constant.
As I've written more than a few times (see my conversation with Archbishop Chaput), I think people of faith go too far when we try to use government to push our values and morality on our neighbors. I don't share the Archbishop's conviction that politics is a noble cause for Catholics to pursue. I'd much rather see Christians follow Christ's example of direct love and service to our neighbors than resorting to the forceful hand of government.
So in that spirit, I'm going to leave politics alone for the rest of Advent and reflect on how I can more directly serve. I've been slowly working my way through Thomas a Kempis' Imitation of Christ, so I'll make it my mission to finish it by Christmas. It's a tough read, meant for the monasterial life, but the constant theme is one of turning to God and away from the ways of the world. Lent and Advent are perfect seasons for doing just that. Christmas has become so commercial that few of us can reflect on much of anything during this busy season, but Advent has always been designed as a time to reflect on and celebrate the incredible gifts of love from neighbors, family and most of all, Christ.
So to everyone I say have a Merry Christmas and even if you aren't a Christian, I hope you'll use this holiday season to reflect on all the love you've been blessed to receive in your life.
"In the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make." -- John Lennon
Any sane minded person who believes that Barack Obama was not born in Hawaii needs to read this article from the Honolulu Advertiser. To believe Obama wasn't born in Hawaii, you've got to believe that everything in the article is a lie and part of a grand conspiracy hatched in 1961 (long before anyone knew Obama would become President 48 years later) by the Dunhams, Obamas, the state of Hawaii (Department of Health), the Honolulu Advertiser and Kapiolani Medical Center. If you believe they were all involved in some grand conspiracy, then I've got a movie studio to show you where they filmed the Apollo moon landings.
Please, please stop parroting birther rumors or giving any creedence to those who do (that would be YOU, Sarah Palin). It insults the intelligence of the rest of us. I have nothing further to say about birthers.
Well, apparently there are a few more sane Freepers out there who realize that my dislike of Palin didn't warrant banning me from Free Republic:
I didn’t read every single post, but I did read all those by the original poster. Any idea what was the cause of the kitty call? That may well be true, but this thread has proved one point. The level of Palin hysteria is over the top. I hope it doesn’t become self destructive. I’d hate to see real debate become an endangered species because of mob mentality. 243 posted on Saturday, December 05, 2009 6:27:51 PM by Pan_Yan
That may well be true, but this thread has proved one point. The level of Palin hysteria is over the top. I hope it doesn’t become self destructive. I’d hate to see real debate become an endangered species because of mob mentality. 248 posted on Saturday, December 05, 2009 7:29:54 PM by Pan_Yan
And then this:
Personally, I think that some of us Freepers reach for the zot button way too quickly. Just because you’re wrong about the lovely and gracious Mrs. Palin doesn’t mean you should be treated like a troll. After all we’re not the Daily Kos that zots people after 1 disagreeable post. We’re supposed to be much bigger than that.
...
Still, not many people can say they were responsible for over 250 replies to a first time post, so congratulations are in order for that hugh accomplishment.
So, thanks for providing a full days’ entertainment. I mean that seriesly. [bad spelling is theirs -- not mine!] 256 posted on Saturday, December 05, 2009 10:01:21 PM by jjr153
Does opposing a conservative [Palin] make me less of a conservative? For some, the answer is yes.
In which case, I would say they are cultists rather than conservatives. If you think opposing a personality determines one’s adherence to conservative principles, might I suggest you get ready because the Mother Ship is close now and you don’t have much time.
Indeed.
I'm sorry that Freepers find themselves so sucked into Palinmania that they've become a Palin cultist echo chamber. Come 2012, when Saint Sarah doesn't get the GOP nomination, it will be very, very awkward to be a Freeper. Of course, they're so certain that I'm wrong that the thought of someone other than Palin winning the GOP nomination hasn't even crossed their mind. Until 2012, enjoy the ride and au revoir, Freepers.
I saw "Flags of our Fathers" for the first time last night and found this exchange all too poignant:
Bud Gerber: You know what they're calling this bond drive? The Mighty Seventh. They might've called it the "We're Flat F***ing Broke And Can't Even Afford Bullets So We're Begging For Your Pennies" bond drive, but it didn't have quite the ring. They could've called it that, though, because the last four bond drives came up so short we just printed money instead. Ask any smart boy on Wall Street, he'll tell you our dollar is next to worthless, we've borrowed so much. And nobody is lending any more. Ships aren't being built, tanks aren't being built, machine guns, bazookas, hand grenades, zip. You think this is a farce? You want to go back to your buddies? Well stuff some rocks in your pockets before you get on the plane, because that's all we got left to throw at the Japanese. And don't be surprised if your plane doesn't make it off the runway, because the fuel dumps are empty. And our good friends, the Arabs, are only taking bullion.
Update 12/5/09 1:53 pm: I reposted this over at Free Republic and after much flaming, I got myself banned as a troll. Unlike when trigger-happy madman Chuckles banned me, I got up to 185 responses before I got banned. I'm a little dissapointed that I got banned as I generally like the rambling discussions on Free Republic but the Palinistas are actively purging dissenters and that's just the way it is. But I did make a new friend, who more or less agrees with me and has a great blog... read his opinion on Palin's cult hero worship here.
Sarah's explanation of why she legitimized the birther conspiracy theorists feeds right into her victimhood storyline:
Voters have every right to ask candidates for information if they so choose. I’ve pointed out that it was seemingly fair game during the 2008 election for many on the left to badger my doctor and lawyer for proof that Trig is in fact my child. Conspiracy-minded reporters and voters had a right to ask … which they have repeatedly.
Ah yes... Palin was a victim of a massive left wing conspiracy that forced her to courageously step down as Alaska's governor. So it's only fair (to her mind) that Obama be hounded by an equally loony right wing conspiracy -- the birthers. Well, you just can't argue with logic like that!
Rick Moran at Pajamas Media takes Palin to task and then some. Here's a sample:
I note that some Palin fans are trying to spin the fact that she never called on the president to produce his birth certificate or questioned his citizenship. They are missing the point. Sarah Palin has said that these questions are legitimate, that voters have a right to know, and that “a lot” of citizens are concerned about it.
She didn’t say what any rational person on the right or left believes: that questions about the president’s birth have been settled by the state of Hawaii, that only a very small group of citizens are even concerned about the issue, and that an equally small number of people were even aware of the ridiculous controversy over Trig’s origins.
Moran continues:
Those who are tempted to say that Sarah Palin’s attempt to legitimize the birther movement will destroy her campaign should forget it. It will never happen. She is immunized against such career-ending gaffes by her loyal followers who don’t want to listen to anyone when they criticize, laugh, or beat their heads against a wall over the latest evidence that as presidential material Palin would make a good candidate for the mayor of Wasilla.
The problem is, unless the GOP — and that includes Rush Limbaugh and the other cotton candy conservatives who wield a lot of influence — stand up and denounce her in no uncertain terms, birtherism will have gone completely mainstream in the Republican Party. If that happens, you might want to forget about any significant gains at the polls for the GOP in 2010.
By her stupidity, she is now going to force every GOP candidate for the House and Senate to come out and declare whether they are birther nuts or not.
The only reason I bother these days to post anything about Palin is merely to declare that I rue the day McCain ever picked her as his running mate (stupidest decision of his adult life) and pray that someday soon she will return to Alaska and disappear. Palin is the poison pill that threatens to sink the entire GOP and I refuse to take that pill and go down with her.
I'm not going to hold my nose and vote for Palin. I can not go to my grave with that vote on my conscience. It was bad enough holding my nose and voting for her to be one heartbeat away from the Presidency. If she is our nominee in 2012 or 2016 or 20xx, I will vote for a third party or none of the above. If she's all we got, then we deserve to lose. It's that simple.
Now some might call me hypocritical for supporting Palin while she was the nominee. True enough... but I'll leave it to Chuckles Johnson to offer up an explanation for anything I wrote in support of Palin last year:
Says Chuckles: "I was skeptical of her, but I was ready to defend her, because it was hyper-partisan time."
On that much, I'll agree with Chuckles -- and I agree with little Chuckles has to say these days. In hyper-partisan mode, I too said a lot of things to defend Palin. I swallowed hard and praised her just as I know it pained others to praise McCain during the campaign.
But once the election was over, I pulled few punches with Palin. Just as every RINO hating social conservative wasted no time in spouting their hatred for McCain once the election was over. I was always a McCain supporter (and wish he'd beat Bush in 2000), but never liked Palin for anything other than her ability to regurgitate sound bites (more like bait) to appeal to the base.
I always preferred Pawlenty and think McCain would have been far better served to lose with honor with Pawlenty at his side than to throw a Hail Mary with Palin and unknowingly launch the career of the all but certain destructor of the modern day GOP. In the end, the shadow of Sarah Palin may well drawf all the good McCain accomplished in the US Senate.
Dude, every college kid is jealous that they didn't ask Obama this question. This may eclipse "Boxers or briefs?" as the funniest question ever posed to a President.
Yes, more VICE is the answer to all our problems! Allah has some humorous commentary on the video.
As a side note, prostitution and gambling are a win-win for the Greenpeace crowd as none of our evil capitalist consumerist dollars will be wasted on more stuff. Prostitutes sell sex (renewable and sustainable!) and casinos just take your money and leave you with no stuff to take home. Both leave consumers with less money to buy real stuff! No wonder all the hippies in California want to legalize every vice under the sun! It's an ingenious plan to destroy consumersism and therefore capitalism!
There is hypocrisy here, but it’s coming from the AARP and its Democratic Party allies, who routinely used the “Republicans want to cut your Medicare benefits” scare on seniors in every election cycle since LBJ.
Perhaps it's time for the people of Virginia to secede again.
90 year-old Colonel Van Barfoot has until Friday to remove the flagpole from his yard.
Since this saga began, it's been played out on the radio from Washington D.C. to Boston, but many believe what is happening to this true American hero is tarnishing the image of Richmond.
Barfoot lives in the Sussex Square community in western Henrico County. He moved there in July, and was ordered to remove the flagpole from his front lawn when he flew the flag on Labor Day, and again on Veterans Day.
The homeowner's association doesn't explicitly forbid flagpoles but they must be "aesthetically appropriate". Short flags are allowed on porches, but Barfoot says that's not the way he was raised to respect the flag.
"First of all, it's not dignified, and it shows you got it in the half mast position... you can walk around here and I'll bet you the American flag is hanging out in the rain, nobody ever checks it", says Barfoot.
Family members say he's the most decorated American combat veteran alive. Barfoot has been awared more than 20 medals, including the Medal of Honor, The Silver Star, the Legion of Merit, The Bronze Star, and three Purple Hearts.
Wounded in combat three times, Barfoot fought in World War II and in Vietnam.
And he has the support of a lot of people, including Senator Mark Warner. Warner says he's outraged Barfoot's neighborhood association wants him to remove the flagpole from his yard.
Barfoot says he will take it to court.
Meanwhile, the Sussex Square Homeowner's Association issued a statement saying in part, "This is not about the American flag. This is about a flagpole... We are a neighborhood of patriotic Americans, many of whom have served our country in the military as Col. Barfoot has done.."
The homeowner's association also says Barfoot knew from the beginning that he wasn't supposed to have a flagpole without permission.
Legally speaking, the homeowner's association is probably going to win. And that's a shame. Because you see, Colonel Barfoot's neighbors could burn 100 American flags in their driveway every day and it would be protected as free speech as defined by the United States Supreme Court. But put that same American flag on a flagpole and honor and respect that flag with proper care and observance of the flag code and you could have that flag removed by court order due to homeowner's association rules. Or if you rent, your apartment manager could force you to remove the flag or face eviction.
Burn a flag, it's free speech. Fly the flag and pay the price. What a country.
I've written little this year about my own personal views on climate change. Truth be told, I've been doing a lot of thinking and reflecting and wasn't ready to speak out again. But I've spoken out on this topic quite a bit in the past as evidenced by previous blog posts on climate change here.
I've concluded that the oceans are the best gauge we have for telling us if climate change is anthropogenic or not. The oceans are where the planet stores surface heat and it takes time for the oceans to store that heat. Thus hurricane season begins in June and not March and ends in November, not September.
Land is a very poor medium for storing heat, while the oceans can store vast quantities of heat. Anyone who has spent a winter night camping in the high desert knows how rapidly heat loss occurs on land. But the oceans lose and gain heat very slowly and aren't subject to urban heat islands and other erratic variables found on land. Anyone who has read Michael Crichton's "State of Fear" knows how unreliable land temperature readings are. Therefore, the oceans are a much better barometer of overall trends in climate.
So what do the oceans tell us? There are two primary ways to gauge the oceans: sea surface temperatures (SSTs) and sea level.
The rate of sea level rise and its causes are topics of active debate. Here we use a delayed response statistical model to attribute the past 1000 years of sea level variability to various natural (volcanic and solar radiative) and anthropogenic (greenhouse gases and aerosols) forcings. We show that until 1800 the main drivers of sea level change are volcanic and solar radiative forcings. For the past 200 years sea level rise is mostly associated with anthropogenic factors. Only 4 ± 1.5 cm (25% of total sea level rise) during the 20th century is attributed to natural forcings, the remaining 14 ± 1.5 cm are due to a rapid increase in CO2 and other greenhouse gases.
So the abstract acknowledges that some warming and sea level rise is due to natural forcing (solar radiation balanced by volcanic forcings) but theorizes that athropogenic forcings (fossil fuels and deforestation) are to blame for 75% of the warming and sea level rise.
Looks pretty convincing doesn't it?
Then you've got folks like Bob Tisdale, who does a great job analyzing Sea Surface Temperatures and discussing his theory about how El Nino and the Southern Oscillation (ENSO) drive global climate and sea level rise. Bob has some of the most detailed analysis I've seen and his blog is a gold mine of data and discussion about climate.
It's all a fascinating discussion, but so far I've read nothing from either the alarmists or the skeptics that I've found truly persuasive.
But I still come back to Ruddiman. A while back, I read William Ruddiman's theories on anthropogenic forces and solar radiation. I have written many previous blog posts on Ruddiman's writings.He closed his book with a chapter on resources. Ruddiman's warning is every bit as prescient as Ike's multiple warnings in his farewell address.
"Distortions come from both extremes of the global-change debate (chapter 18). Environmental extremists are mostly prone to alarmist exaggerations, while pro-industry extremists systematically attack or even deny basic knowledge coming from mainstream science. In my opinion, these trends are reaching the point where they may do damage to the integrity of climate-science research. [My comment: Wow... can you say Climategate???]
Placed withing the larger framework of environmental and resource concerns (chapter 19), global science change does not rank as the largest problem facing humanity, even though the challenges are likely to be large. In the short term, many other environmental concerns are already more worrisome, especially major ecological changes. Over the longer term, humanity's concerns will probably shift to the gradual depletion of irreplaceable "gifts" that Earth has freely provided, including fossil fuels, groundwater, and topsoil."
Following up on Ruddiman's comments, here's what I wrote back in June 2008 with some editorial updating added today:
Our climate has always changed and man has always adapted to these changes.
But as Ruddiman points out in Chapter 19, dedicated entirely to discussing man's consumption of Earth's natural resources, we have a long history of exhausting resources faster than they can be naturally replinished. It's not well known that deforestation and Rome's thrist for wood led to Rome's need to continually expand its borders and eventually to the fall of empire. 2000 years ago, long before chainsaws, man was quite proficient at felling forests on a large scale. Resource exhaustion is not a new problem but now it is an increasingly global problem that threatens to lead to mass famine and resource wars.
It's time we grow up and realize that climate change is far from our biggest worry. Carbon is not evil. We can't be grateful enough for all the good things that have resulted from energy derived from fossil fuels. I don't know about you, but I'd rather not return to pre-1850 technology and I'm pretty sure we don't want to relive that part of the Old South. My grandfather was quite happy with John Deere and International Harvester equipment and never once wished he could farm the way his grandfather had to.
We're going to need energy in whatever from we can get it in the short term and in the long term we must move to sustainable sources of energy. Getting there will not be easy and will likely require a sacrifice by many, if not all of us. But it can be done... if we are willing to own up to the problem at hand and take a hard look at ALL the options on the table.
Indeed. Time will tell who is right about climate change. In the meantime, we have 9 billion people on this planet who all hunger for food, energy, shelter and a quality life. The energy diet liberals want to put us on is a sure path to famine. But the head in the sand attitude of many conservatives is likely to have the same result, albeit on a different timeline.
Neither side seems to have any real plan to develop sustainable resource consumption policies. It's not just energy at stake, it's food, water and all the other resources that have made our standard of living possible. But we could start by stopping all this nonsense about carbon and having a real discussion about resources and national security.
It is a tragic irony that the nation that provoked the Japanese into declaring war on us by embargoing oil shipments (back when America was an oil exporter) now finds itself at the mercy of Islamic regimes that control 40% of the world's supply of crude. The Strait of Hormuz is all that stands between peace and prosperity and the collapse of the greatest economic and military power the world has ever known. Sadly, it will likely take another Pearl Harbor event to wake up Americans to action on energy. It's just human nature, I suppose. No getting around it...
The Profoundly Dishonest Brett Kimberlin
-
‘Speedway Bomber’ Brett Kimberlin was sentenced to 50 years in 1981 FROM AN
UNDISCLOSED LOCATION While researching further background material, I
happened ...
The Ultimate War on Women
-
Republicans played politics with the abortion issue last week, putting to
an unsuccessful vote a law that would have criminalized sex-selection
abortions.....
Shocking Globull Warming News...well, not really
-
Warning - this post contains 'Climate Denial' - if it will offend your
sensibilities, you have been warned.
As we posted here, we deny man-made global war...
