"Don't hurt people and don't take their stuff" - Matt Kibbe

11/30/09

A Visit to the Climate Change Garbage Dump

It may just be middle age paranoia, but I seem to be getting more forgetful all the time. I can never seem to find my car keys anymore and the location of the TV remote is as baffling as Jimmy Hoffa's current address.

I could blame ole Buddy for wolfing down the Nissan keys if my old friend hadn't already departed for doggie heaven to dig a hole in my future back yard. But unlike my glasses or keys, my important information, like the title to my home and such is secured in the only place still reliable at most banks, the safe deposit box. Some documents and information are clearly too important to leave to the Swiss cheese memory bank of my mind, a place even riskier than a Fannie Mae mortgage closing. And it certainly is too important to be "dumped" purposely.

So I'd be befuddled concerning the missing data upon which Professor Phil Jones (of pilfered global warming e-mail infamy) bases his assertion that alleged temperature rises are “unequivocally linked to greenhouse gas emissions generated by humans", if of course he didn't already admit that it doesn't exist. At least not anymore, because it was "dumped" in the 1980s.

It's a curious thing to do with the data upon which, as a scientist, you base your entire ideology of man made catastrophic climate change. One might usually imagine a certain chagrin on the part of a scientist who based his work on data which he later discovered had been discarded by others. A fairly inconvenient  circumstance for fact checkers I'd say, but rather fortunate for fact muddlers.

Can you imagine a doctor telling you he could absolutely cure you of a malady he was "unequivocally" certain you had, based on the test results, but that he had pitched those results after gleaning the relevant information from them? I'm guessing you might be somewhat hesitant to go for the unbelievably expensive treatment after discovering that little tidbit. Particularly if he only admitted it after a lawsuit and a thousand or so hacked e-mails surfaced which showed him conferring with other doctors about the best way to fudge the results and keep people from discovering it.
Try another analogy substituting a car repair shop for the doctor or the climatologist and see if a different reaction occurs to you. I'm guessing it won't.

Given the absolute disregard the current Cap'n Control crowd has for how they are perceived after uttering other preposterous claims, I'm actually kind of surprised that they didn't opt for a "dog ate my homework" explanation for the missing data. With so many people dining on the garbage they have been shoveling out for decades, they could reasonably expect most "non-deniers" to swallow that story along with the rest.

"Hmmm, now where on earth did I leave that warming research? I don't see that darn dog around here either. Ya think maybe? ......Nah."

11/25/09

The American Suicide Bombers

The hardest enemies to fight have always been the suicidal. Those maniacs who are resigned to death in the quest to attain their goals, in the past and now, have something in common with each other, delusional visions of post mortem glory.

The Kamikaze pilots during what may ultimately prove to be a futile war against those who would change our way of life thought they would gain glory with the Emperor and their deceased relatives shortly after their fiery demise. They may have been the most effective weapons employed against us in that struggle.

The delusional Islamo-Facists who were merely copycats of that effort flew our own airliners into American buildings in an attempt to destroy freedom here with the idea that they would be rewarded with sexual adventures with numerous underage girls in some bizarre fantasy "heaven" for their sacrifice.

And now in our own country we have a group of legislators who, like the Bushido Japanese back then, see that they are about to lose their political lives and are willing to go out in a blaze of glory under the also delusional fantasy that their legacy will be the undying future admiration of millions upon millions of grateful recipients of government largesse who are delighted to have turned over the decisions about their own health to government employees. The "leaders" now feel so close to the ultimate goal of control for which they have striven for a century or more, that not even the prospect of political unemployment matters any longer.

Unless they are even crazier than I think, they now know that the orgasmic "twenty-somethings" and the mentally unhealed hippies of the sixties who voted them in while the "thrill was still going up their legs" have returned to less exciting pass-times like mourning Michael Jackson. Most have lost interest in going to the polls in hopes of change. Maybe the thrill has lessened along with their prospects for useful work.
The neo-socialists in congress and the White House are probably about to be "un-elected" in the face of actual 17% unemployment, and 34.5% unemployment among young black males. It's too late to turn back, so they have decided to blow themselves up with the nationalized health insurance bomb instead of merely dropping it on Americans.

With support dropping to 38% for the two thousand page monstrosity that none of them have read, and outright opposition going up faster than the price of gold, no rational person could deduce that Americans want this shoved down their throats. Even those who admire socialism conceptually (due to their belief that everyone must be as stupid as them and thus the government needs to "do something") are getting uncomfortable with the idea that a game-changing shift in national direction should be forced on the citizens with anything close to an even split. This isn't some tax policy or traffic law where a simple majority is sufficient. This is a fundamental change in that quaint old notion of the "American way."  And this one is opposed by more than a majority.

If you are entertaining the notion that everyone will fall in line in support of this after it’s rammed through, try that theory out by forcing a huge new change on your social club or church congregation with the support of 51% of the membership and see what happens the next year. Here’s a hint, it won’t be harmony, and it might be revolt.

The only thing we can do now is what our brave sailors did to the kamikaze crazies at the end of WWII -- help them along in their quest for oblivion, even if it means we have to temporarily re-elect the nitwit Republicans for a term or two in 2010 until a new way to select our representatives emerges.

To do anything else would be to commit national suicide.

11/16/09

A Question for my Generation

Did our parents defeat these foreign threats to our freedom, 










So we could surrender it to these domestic threats?









Government Ownership/Control of Healthcare
Government Ownership/Control of Auto Manufacturers
Government Ownership/Control of Banks
Government Ownership/Control of Insurance Companies (AIG)
Government Devaluation of our Currency
Government Control over Compensation
Government Backed home loans which cannot be repaid
Government Paying people to buy homes
Government Buying cars only to crush them
Trillions upon Trillions in Debt which cannot be repaid except with worthless dollars
Two Political Parties which are really just different branchs of the same one

Osama bin Laden could only dream of doing to us what we are doing to ourselves.

What will our grandchildren say about us if we let this happen?


11/13/09

The Oddity of my Odious Extremism

I have just discovered that many of you, and certainly me, are Odious. And inexplicably, also Jewish extremists. How my jewish-ness got past me I'll never know. But I'm extremely frightened by the direction our country is moving so I plead guilty to being an extremist in that regard.

The above reference is to the description of any of us who even entertain the notion that the murderous army Major Nidal Hassan might have possibly, maybe, potentially been influenced by his interpretation of Islam to commit treason while shouting a jihadist slogan during his homicidal execution of thirteen fellow soldiers and attempt to kill scores more.

The description was given by Joe Klein of  Time Magazine when he wrote about, "odious attempts by Jewish extremists . .. to argue that the massacre perpetrated by Nidal Hasan was somehow a direct consequence of his Islamic beliefs."

I must confess that I think it possibly was "somehow a direct consequence of his Islamic beliefs."

Therefore, the list of things I (and possibly you) have become in the eyes of the leftist literary elite has thus expanded from racists (for opposing the 2000 page unread two trillion dollar healthscare reform recently passed by the U S House in the dead of the night) and "tea bag" people, to these new heights. Or depths, if you prefer.

It would be comforting on some level to merely believe that this demented imbecile went "postal" because, well, just because that sometimes happens. Then we could wait for the new season of "Snapped" on cable TV to find out what made him do it and why he deserves our sympathy in spite of what he has done.
Comfort with uncomfortable events and their consequences, seems to be the national goal in the last few decades, but I never have "been with the program" in that regard, so perhaps I'm just a slow learner.

Regular readers of the columns of Dr. Charles Krauthammer either have read or will soon read his piece concerning the motives/causes of the perpetrator of the attack and that column was the inspiration for this commentary. It is titled "Tales Of Woe No Excuse For Mass Murder"  You may read it here.  I highly recommend it.
In the mean time, you might calculate the happiness/regret ratio on your Time magazine subscription depending upon your tolerance for being insulted by the writers found there.

According to Casey, my personal book reviewer and brewed beverage expert, we live in a time when there is "a lot of awful" out there. And someone just added a heap of it to the pile. Your own perspective on the passing scene will inform you about whether it increased more by the addition of our "odious-ness", or by the quality of the writing and thinking by folks like Klein.

11/10/09

Upside Down Republicanism

When Ben Franklin was once asked a question concerning the type of government we ended up with after all the wrangling was finally done, he famously answered, "A republic, if you can keep it".  Well Ben, it looks like your fear/prediction has at least begun to come true. And I'm guessing the outcome from this point on will be, "not keeping it". It seems enough people would rather adore Obama and his socialism than heed Ben's most famous admonition, "Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both."

In the original version of our republican form of government, we select the people who will represent us, tell them what to do, and they go and do their best to see that the job is done.
In today's version, the perpetually re-elected decide what their agenda is, and then jam it down the throats of the sheeple. They invent the problems, sell us on the need for a solution, and then proceed to their goal of control.  They pit one group against another, vilify a faceless "enemy", use the politics of envy and class warfare, and then brag about their "accomplishments" in righting all the wrongs.

Perhaps my memory is failing faster then the number of the currently employed, but I don't recall having a conversation with anyone in the past about the coming catastrophy of a baked earth before Al Gore and a few other opportunists put that loaf in the oven to see if it would rise, along with their incomes. And I never heard anyone complaining about not having access to hip replacements or MRIs or even hospitalization itself. Or not being able to have sufficient choices in doctors or places to have myriad diagnostic tests performed.

What I did hear was grousing about how much their insurance cost and how quickly the mean old hospital administrators in cahoots with the cheapo insurers kicked them out of bed after surgery or childbirth. And in a disturbing trend of the last several decades, if people think something costs more than they wish to pay, they promise to vote for the first person who promises to intervene.

But back to the elected few who decide on our life choices for us. It would seem that in the system devised by our founders, any legislation that is being proposed would be properly disclosed to everyone, in all it's details, and then after comments by our representitives, they would return to the people who elected them, inform them properly of the contents, state their preference, and return to debate the issue with their opponents and only then vote yea or nay.

Instead, they purposely obfuscate, confer in private, then make the bill so long and unreadable for normal folks that it discourages all but the truly focused from understanding the ramifications or making their preferences known. Then they sneak a vote on it late at night on a weekend immediately after introducing it, without reading it themselves. Somehow, I don't think that is what old Ben Franklin had in mind.

The system has been turned on it's head and if they really wanted to "reform" something which is broken, they would drop the stuff no one asked them to do (except themselves and the socialists) and change the way things are done in Congress.

I propose a new law. (something I almost never do) Here's how it would go;

Congress shall pass no law without its having been presented in writing, in it's final form, for sixty days after the bill has been formally presented to the floor, to allow the people to inform their representative of their preference for or against it.

Think that will get out of committee?  Not even if you stand on your head.

11/6/09

A Little Protest Here and There


Protests by "Tea Party" people who want to be left alone in America as they "storm" the capitol a few days ago. Notice the middle aged radicals and violent behavior of these gangsters who are asking for nothing.








Protests in France by mild mannered peaceful citizens in Paris who opposed the recent election of perceived center/right President Sarkozy. Notice how the peace loving leftists have refrained from using the guillotine this time around and merely burned three hundred and fifty cars, hurled stones and other objects at police and bared their backsides at riot officers. Only a few firebombs were targeted at schools and police stations.
These people were afraid they would get less stuff that was taken from other people.


Just some contrasts to ponder.

11/4/09

Political Indigestion


You can always tell in advance which side thinks they will lose a nearby election by the way they distance themselves from the results before the votes are even cast. The political doctors must have thought the dosage on our gullibility pills was increased recently if they thought we would swallow the reports from the White House that the President wasn't going to watch for the results of the elections in Virginia, New Jersey and New York last night.

The idea that he had only a passing interest in the political climate is as preposterous as Al Madoff Gore's passing interest in the value of his "green" investments in the global climate scam. He (Obama) had no time in the last week or so to decide what he is going to do in Afghanistan because he was in New Jersey campaigning for one of the Goldman Sachs "combine" - not to be confused with the "Illinois combine" of John Kass fame- Jon Corzine. Jon will soon be moving out of Dumbthwacket, where a long list of big government/small achievement politicians have rested their empty heads in the past.

But the point isn't about Corzine or any of the rest of the people who got elected or unelected yesterday, but whether or not we can draw any conclusions about where the country is headed on government run health insurance or trillion dollar deficits or "scrap and trade" buddy list enrichment schemes.

An Op/Ed I perused in my morning paper, penned by a columnist named Ruth Marcus, was titled "Take Election Analyses With A Grain of Salt". I read her stuff from time to time in the "on The Left" section of the Investors Business Daily to make sure I'm not crazy to oppose leftist dogma but I use a slightly higher dosage of sodium when I do, usually a shaker-full. I have concluded that I'm not crazy, at least about that. In her column she cautions not to "over interpret" the results during the "orgy of analysis" that is sure to follow the losses on the left. I am not inclined to participate in orgies, but I guess I'm guilty now that I felt this topic worthy of comment. She goes on to make her case that all might still be well with the leftward lurch, but I'll leave it to you to decide if your salt intake needs adjustment.

In any case, it's my opinion that the Tea Partiers, those rational citizens of both parties and no parties, have decided to visit the polls for their own reasons, and marked an X in the "I have electoral indigestion" box.

It all leads me to conclude that the coming elections in this country will be different than the past now that both parties have shown that they cannot be trusted to run things while we root for political personalities or stay fixated on sports results and the like. The way we select candidates to stand for election and the way we decide who serves will change in the same way that we receive our news did. That is to say, radically. It's an age of instant communications with e-mail, facebook, twitter, web pages and self published columnists like myself. That is, not one columnist with many readers, but many columnists with a few readers, which we share with one another, if and when they make sense.

It is now apparent that the consequences of the status quo in that process have become such a danger to our liberty that they threaten to become a disaster instead of merely a distraction. I have several ideas concerning what that process might look like and I plan on sharing them soon. I bet you can hardly wait.