I don't think it's prudent - or advisable - at this point to encourage competing currencies like gold and silver, although I do think the current monetary policy and Federal Reserve system need to be overhauled. I also think we should be in Iraq and have foreign bases but at the same time cut aid to foreign countries. On the flip side, I hate illegal immigration and Paul's old party - the Libertarians - have excoriated him on this. I tend to be Libertarian, but they really screw the pooch on stuff like that.

The Republicans don't do themselves any favours when they bully their own people and railroad the party. McCain has the delegate count for a number of reasons: there was a crowded GOP field; GOP leaning pundits hated people like Paul and Romney; and Romney dropping out too early are a few of them. But then the GOP has to further destroy confidence by interfering in the system.

When Mr. Man and I went to the caucus, we met many people who were voting for McCain because they were told - by pundits, by insiders - that McCain was going to win anyway, and it hurt the party to show disunity. So people we spoke to - many of them Romney supporters, a few Huckabee ones - voted for McCain, sealing the deal. We voted our conscience and the lone Paul supporter from our district did too, refusing to vote for McCain.

Now the party has taken it one step further and stepped beyond spreading FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt) about McCain alternatives; they've actually cut a state convention short to prevent Paul delegates from getting elected.

When the Nevada GOP convention convened last month and it looked as if several Paul delegates would be elected to go to national, the state convention chair abruptly closed proceedings.

As much as I have reservations about some of Paul's policies, as I've stated above, he's right on many things and the GOP needs to move more in his direction on several issues. We need to stop pork and earmark spending, we need to lower taxes (corporate and individual both), and we need to use the Constitution as our guiding light. The GOP instead has been moving left and as I complained about in a previous post, refused to pledge no earmarks, despite the urging of several leading Congressional GOP figures. When 'contrarians' are blocked in the way Paulites were in Nevada, it really hurts the party and just furthers the feeling among many of us, that it's all a show and the party is just going to shove things down our throat whether we want them or not (the illegal immigration bill last summer was another such example).

We shouldn't be a party that fears poking, prodding and challenges. If we're strong and true, we will come out stronger and if we're not, we'll be forced to correct and re-examine. It's win-win, with the downside being the continued loss of confidence in us that the American people seem to be expressing.

Early polling and tallies show that she is set to lose NC by a large margin, but probably win Indiana.

Unbelievably, despite radical Ayer's ties to Obama and his close friendship with a black supremacist, Obama will probably pull out a large victory tonight. Mr. Man and I got a taste of the obscene and sick rationalisation that Obama supporters practice when we were out last night. We were running an errand and decided to have dinner at a nearby restaurant. Two booths back, we could easily hear a woman and her mental contortions as she explained her support of Obama to a like minded friend.

Struggling to remember the name, she asked her friend "What was Cheney's company?" to which the other replied 'Halliburton'. So suddenly Cheney owns, runs and is responsible for Halliburton today? I could make out parts of the conversation here and there about 'oil' and 'war'.

Then she talked about Obama and laughingly (and snottily) asked what was the last time you agreed with your pastor on everything? Ha ha! was her lighthearted response to her own question.

So on the one hand you have the Vice-President, who was CEO of Halliburton from 1995 - 2000 but isn't part of their business dealings now, and you have Obama, who counts as a close friend a preacher filled with hate who thinks America created the AIDS virus to kill blacks (stand in line... many gays still blame it on the GOP and Reagan) and somehow, in his 20 years of attendance at the church this pastor preached at, Obama heard nothing that made an alarm bell go off. Naive, a liar or bad judgment; none of them good traits in a President. Marry that to friendships with members of the Weather Underground and known communists and agitators, and you begin to see a pattern of extremism on the part of Obama, particularly when he labels people like Ayers as 'mainstream'.

But somehow Miss Angry Liberal doesn't see a problem with that and goes through all sorts of gymnastics to downplay the seriousness of these associations, but tags Halliburton as 'Cheney's company' 8 years after he stepped down and puts all sorts of blame and responsibility on his doorstep for what Halliburton has (or hasn't) done. A big stretch, wouldn't you say?

This willful ignorance about Obama is one of the more frightening things about his candidacy and is one reason why I prefer Hillary get the nod. At least if she ended up beating McCain, the GOP would rally and harangue her to keep her in line. Obama is a player, a dresser, a smooth political customer and is capable of ANYTHING, whereas Hillary at least sniffs the political winds and adjusts her sails accordingly, which could be a good thing in this instance.

It looks as if it will be Obama getting the nod and God help this country if he wins.

For so long the left has tried to spread FUD - Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt - about our suspicions that enemies of the United States, regardless of their background, would come together and unite against their common foe.

We've learned now that Syria was nearing completion on a nuclear power plant when Israel bombed it to oblivion and they were building it with the aid of North Korea.

It's only the latest in a litany of deadly collaborations amongst our foes and despite it, the left still is willing to proffer up the tale that Shiite and Sunni can't get along so how could they get their act together and unite against America? With each incident it becomes harder to deny, but it's difficult to not worry that the damage is done. Hatred of President Bush and constant pummeling of our efforts in Iraq does a lot to confuse the mix and distract from the core of the problem which is in effect, the old adage: "The enemy of my enemy is my friend" and Shia and Sunni, Communist dictator and Muslim extremist can and DO join forces against America.

Michelle Obama's education has helped her have a very lucrative career, most notably as the Vice President for Community Affairs at University of Chicago Hospitals. Even she admits that her grades didn't warrant admission to the universities she attended, but she managed to get in anyway. How? Affirmative action.

The Wall Street Journal has a very enlightening piece about how the ABA pushes affirmative action standards on universities, and they are forced to comply lest they lose accreditation. This means that people like Michelle Obama, who otherwise wouldn't have received an Ivy League education, get to reap the benefits while students with better academic credentials but apparently not the right racial mix are denied.

What irks me about this is how ungrateful Michelle Obama is; she got a shot at an education at a university that has such cachet as to almost guarantee a lucrative career and yet she isn't proud of America and wrote her thesis whining about how she felt like an interloper, despite the amazing Gumby-worthy bending that went on to allow her to attend. She pulls in about $300,000 a year in salary and yet she goes around talking about how bad America is today, how its hard to juggle piano lessons and activities and how expensive (and inconvenient) it is to buy fresh fruit.

Not only is she out of touch with your average American, but she looks down on them (could you think of a more condescending discussion... fruit, for goodness sake?) and has disdain for the country that gave her a benefit and denied a worthier academic candidate in order to do it. It's amazing that her husband - equally out of touch, equally elitist - is still in the running. I never thought I'd see a candidate that made Hillary Clinton look good. God help us.

A closing tidbit; not surprisingly, China exercises the death penalty more than any other country in the world. Don't look for Amnesty International or similar organisations to focus their efforts there, however. I periodically get unsolicited mail from self styled 'human rights' organisations and their literature usually discusses American transgressions - they try to use Guantanamo as an example - and manages to side step the Congo and China. For goodness sake guys, whatever you do don't go toe to toe with the real bad guys in the world! Instead go after the soft targets, like guilt ridden Americans who only fear they are somehow grossly unfair instead of actually massacring on a large scale.

A few things have occupied most of my time, but things seem to be getting back to normal.

We've had some maintenance done on our house, despite this weird weather!

I joined the fray at Hot Air on the side of evolution (against intelligent design) in a debate stemming from Captain Ed's review of Ben Stein's movie Expelled!. You can read the thread (all 24 pages of it) here. My main contributions have come on pages 23 & 24, for what it's worth.

I really appreciate that religion is (unfairly) being excised from America's fabric, but going about and challenging evolution along with discoveries in other fields of science that support evolution (paleontology and anthropology to name but two), is really not going to make any inroads. Their arguments for ID - things like irreducible complexity - are to me, silly, and don't pass muster. You can't prove a negative, as I pointed out (as in 'an eye could not have evolved except through an intelligent desinger'), and hypothetical situations without any evidence or research to back it up is not acceptable as a challenge to evolution.

Some of the arguments, by so called leading ID proponents, are just plain uneducated; they use the existence of short term isotopes as a support for young Earth, yet ignore the fact that Thorium-230 (one of their examples) is an intermediate decay product of long lived U-238 and that nucleotides that have a half life shorter than 80 million years are not found in nature unless they are being produced as an intermediate decay product.

This has consumed my time and I've read up on science that I haven't seen since high school, really. Fascinating stuff. Which brings me to my last bit of news...

I'm finally going back to school to finish my degree!

I've tried taking classes since I moved here, but working full time definitely limited my progress. Mr. Man, however, is a great cheerleader and earlier this week I met with an academic adviser at a local Community College. CC's here are interesting; they're not like the CC's back east, which tend to be more trade school-ish. Although there is some of that here, all of the larger ones have two year transfer programmes into the local universities such as the University of Washington and Pacific Lutheran University, both of which are excellent schools. Summer quarter starts registration in a few weeks, so I'm trying to get my act together and pick some classes and see about placement and CLEP. I'm still not 100% certain what I'll get my degree in; I love History and have always done well in English classes, but I love science too. Right now I'm just trying to pick a few classes that I could potentially use in either case, that sound interesting to me, so I can get my feet wet and hopefully have a better idea of what path to choose. If all works out well, I'll ease into school this summer and be, in essence, a full time student come fall.

Yikes!

It snowed last night - enough for a good size dusting on our neighbour's roof, and its been snowing off and on this morning. It seems as if what has stuck is melting now, but there were flakes coming down until about 10 minutes ago; obviously there is some really cold air up there!

It looks as if the Dems may be getting closer to a nominee, and it appears as if it might be Obama. I think Hillary is an easier candidate to beat - she even turns Democrats off with her shrill voice and her husband's 'legacy' - but considering I don't like John McCain and trust him about as far as I can throw him, this isn't something I'm depressed about either. None of the remaining candidates are ideal leaders although, about 25% of the time, I agree with McCain and I've only agreed with Hillary on one thing - her initial vote to go to war.

I heard a woman on Sean Hannity's show call in yesterday saying she liked Obama and claiming he 'walked the walk' and was positive.

I was driving and it was nearly 3PM, time for Sean's show to be over, or I would have been tempted to call in.

I want to know why people who like Obama think he is so 'hopeful' and 'positive'. Is it positive to engage in class warfare and try to pit people against each other? How is Obama 'walking the walk' when he surrounds himself with such negative people? Jeremiah Wright hate monger, Michelle Obama, negative on America... how are these people a good influence and how does this prove Obama is a good choice? How is Obama 'bridge building' and 'setting a new tone' when he denigrates middle America by saying they're xenophobic and clinging to their Bibles and guns out of bitterness? How do his words exemplify what he claims to believe in? He sounds like just another politician to me, perhaps just a bit craftier than most.

It's funny how the left hate Ronald Reagan but he was one of the most positive, forward looking Presidents this great country has ever had, yet now they're touting Obama's message of 'hope'. America's best days ahead of us, a 'shining city on a hill'... THAT is hopeful, affirmative and that was Ronald Reagan. Telling people the rich don't pay enough, that they don't care; implying that if you're wealthy you've somehow stolen it from someone else or deprived another person. All these things are woven into Obama's speeches about how the wealthy are getting away with things because capital gains is too low, for example. It's more explicit when Michelle Obama opens her mouth, saying that this is the first time in her adult life she's been proud of America.

The government takes in more revenue than any Fortune 500 company, yet Obama talks about how gouging corporate profits are to the little man while in the same breath he talks about higher taxes to increase government revenue. Who is being hypocritical here?

If you listen - just listen - to what Obama is really saying about America and her people, you'll realise what he is saying is profoundly negative. He's saying we're to blame for Iran's nuclear programme, he's saying on the whole, Americans aren't generous enough, that the majority of us are bigoted, uneducated and frightened of people who aren't like us; basically that we're gun toting racists who have to be forced to be generous to our fellow man.

Obama has no confidence in the average American; only with HIS leadership and HIS tutelage, can we become decent world citizens - that's his message. He doesn't talk about America's potential or promise, her gifts, blessings and kindness, but of how flawed we are and only his election as President can save us.

This elitism is obviously why he is a liberal. Liberals tend to think that only they are intelligent enough and sufficiently equipped to make weighty decisions. This is why they want more government involvement, more control because they really think you're not up to it, that you won't do the right things so government has to FORCE you to do the right things.

Nice, huh?

So forget all the 'hope' and 'change' rhetoric; anyone can bandy those words about. Talk is cheap; the truth lies beyond the catchy slogans and mottos.

Interesting read:
BET founder says Obama wouldn't be where he is if he was white

Jimmy Carter, former peanut farmer, has proved that he is just plain nuts. His recent visit to the Palestinian territories included the laying of a wreath on Yasser Arafat's grave. How lovely that Carter honoured a terrorist who has done more to cause strife and death in the Middle East than anyone else.

What is perhaps even more worrying is that we are giving the Palestinians $500 million US dollars to build houses in the West Bank.

There don't appear to be any strings attached either; no cutting back on children's programmes that glorify suicide bombings, no moratorium on shows that call for the destruction of Israel. Nope. It's just, "here, we found this spare money lying about and wanted you to have it". Mr. Man and I can't get a bloody 'incentive' cheque for the taxes we've paid because we're supposedly so wealthy we're using greenbacks for hand towels, but our government will send that money abroad to the Palestinians instead. Wonderful! I'm sure none of it will line the pockets of officials, just as all our previous years of aid didn't go to making Yasser Arafat a billionaire.

I'm really sick of everyone else being entitled to our money - except for us. The Palestinians, the corrupt money lenders, people who are financially irresponsible, Congressmen, non-taxpaying citizens, illegals... the list is endless. They all get first swipe at our hard earned dough and our reward is that we get to fund everyone else's lifestyle; we should feel honoured.

Every tax day I am more bitter; bitter at how much it costs us to do our taxes, angry at how complicated it is, frustrated that each year it seems to get more complicated, resentful that when money-lending related PACs threaten to withhold cash from Congressional candidates, we suddenly see a housing rescue bill emerge from Congress.

All this talk from Obama and Hillary about changing things begins at one place - in their own backyard. Stop pandering to PACs, stop bailing out your buddies, stop throwing business the way of your pals, stop handing out money to every Tom, Yasser and Fannie Mae... just STOP. Practice what you preach; clean up your own bloody house before you have the temerity to come and tell me to rearrange mine.

I hope a change is coming; I hope that this bloody Democrat process has laid bare all their dirty secrets, their clandestine deals, their self-serving schemes, their hypocrisy. I believe in miracles, I believe it can happen; it HAS to happen if we are to ever really be free, to cast off this yoke of politician's making and shake free of their shackles. Both parties need to clean house mind you, but the most egregious transgressors by far are the Democrats and they must be challenged on their stupid tricks, their duplicity, their double speak.

I know tax day is painful for most Americans; remember that pain. Put it on the shelf temporarily but take it with you to meetings, caucuses, party conferences, to social events and for Heaven's sake, bring it with you to the voting booth in November.

While it's true that some students apparently stole her sign from her - and those that did are serving an in school suspension - she scratched her own face to make it appear as if they attacked her as well.

I am glad she wasn't beaten as she says she was, but obviously sad that she lied. I feel very sorry for her parents, who were obviously concerned about her, worried that she had been threatened and now have to deal with the fact that she lied.

The kids that stole her sign shouldn't have, but that in no way condones Melanie making up a story in an attempt to get them into serious trouble. Very disappointing. This kind of 'help' doesn't do anything to further the anti-illegal immigrant crowd's arguments.

I don't like posting an "Oops", but it's the right thing to do. There was no way to know that she was lying; immigration causes temps to run a little hot.

I want to end on a light note, so in honour of Obamessiah's latest gaffe, here's a humourous poster courtesy of Imageshack.

Her parents are understandably upset. I don't know which I find more upsetting, the fact that they told her to go back to class and not call her parents, or that a school official wasn't horrified and moved to action by her story. I'm sure if she had hit someone for whatever reason there would have been talk of whether or not it was a hate crime and racially motivated. Of course, everyone knows a white American can't be the victim of a hate crime, right? Threatening to rape and kill a pre-teen because she opposes illegal immigration - it's against the law, that's why it's called illegal by the way - is going to be tolerated because obviously her inflammatory sign hurt someone's feelings. This is how sick and twisted this issue has become; where we defend lawbreakers and anyone who points out how wrong their actions are is fair game and is threatened or called a racist.

If you think justice will be done in this case, raise your hand. I have my doubts.

Absolut is pulling an advertisement showing North America pre Mexican-American war. The ad, showing what is now California, New Mexico, Arizona and Texas as parts of Mexico has angered Americans. Absolut, predictably, pulled the ad with a feeble explanation that it was not meant to make a statement, etc etc.

The Mexican-American War was of Mexico's own making. It allowed English speakers into the Texas territories because the area was only sparsely populated, but the settlers became disillusioned with Mexico's government. Despite overtures from the United States to buy Texas (Mexico refused), and Texan's growing frustration with the situation - many members of the military were felons who opted for service over jail time and their capital city was 500 miles away, which many believed only fed local corruption - initially most English speaking residents wanted to stay part of Mexico. As problems compounded however - a requirement to pledge adherence to Roman Catholicism, the government dictating what crops you could plant and new rights that allowed the President of Mexico to suspend Congress and the judiciary - several states, including Texas, rebelled.

Mexico still hasn't learned its lesson, nearly 160 years after the war; corruption and oppression leads to unrest. There is one way that the government HAS become smarter. Preying on many American's fear that they are somehow responsible for all the world's ills, Mexico has helped its restless and deprived lower classes illegally immigrate into America, thereby alleviating the cauldron of malcontent that could potentially result in an uprising or action. Americans, so ready to believe in the absolute moral bankruptcy of their own country, have welcomed this as our 'penance' for interference in Mexico's affairs and as a worthy expenditure that wealthy Americans should endure.

The good news of the day is that the Olympic torch relay has been repeatedly interrupted by pro-Tibetan protesters.

I don't agree with pelting the torch bearers with fruit and empty bottles, but I do applaud the protesting otherwise. Ancient Greece was one of the birthplaces of democracy and it's a travesty that the Olympic Committee awarded China the games. Its suppression of Tibetan culture and threats against the Dalai Lama, it's sabre-rattling towards Taiwan, abysmal human rights record, oppression of its own people, imprisonment and execution of political dissidents make it the antithesis of democratic principles. Having the games in China tries to put lipstick on a pig; China has an ugly government and no amount of Olympic kum-ba-ya will change that.

Now comes this little tidbit from The Smoking Gun: Democrat Senator Debbie Stabenow's husband paid a hooker for oral sex and was nabbed while coming out of the hotel room.

This is amusing to me because these are the same Democrats who say that so called 'rich' Americans don't do enough to help their fellow man. They vilify businesses (aka 'employers'), and saunter about as if bestowed with some great moral authority yet many can't even keep their promises to spouses, (Spitzer and Patterson), their lives are rife with troubles and in many cases, they violate their promises in ways that at best can be described as 'seedy'.

The American people need to realise they have bought into this moral authority BS unknowingly by thinking that a politician, by virtue of being elected to public office, is somehow granted status as final moral arbiter. Government also has been personified, as in "the government needs to help people", as you might say "a parent needs to help their child", yet government is a non-living entity composed of very flawed people. Government should no more take control of your life than you would let a random person control it, because that's all a politician is; a random person who managed to get elected and who in all likelihood, you will never meet.

I know we all make mistakes - heck, I've kissed more toads than princes - but that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about politicians who go about wagging their finger at people and claiming a moral authority over others while trying to shame them into ceding their independence away. I'm talking about politicians who have the temerity to lecture me about my success while they are married to lobbyists, rake in money, and look forward to a cushy retirement courtesy of Jack and Jill Taxpayer. Many Congressmen have relatives with ties to businesses that benefit from the very earmarks that they craft, while others retire and not only receive their Congressional pension, but obtain lucrative jobs with the very companies that had lobbied Congress during their years there.

There is no wealth of morality or decency in Washington politics; rather there is a dearth of it. Politicians, on the whole, are hypocrites who enjoy wealth and connections but chose to deny opportunities to Americans, claiming we need to have a 'collective' goal and urging us to cast aside our personal aspirations for the betterment of our 'community'. The same groups that scream about choice for women want to take away YOUR ability to chose how to spend your money, who to spend your time with, how to educate your child and how to protect yourself.

Don't surrender what you know is right to an unfeeling, bureaucratic government, America. Americans on the whole are good, decent people; we help others when they are truly in need and we are capable of sweeping kindness. Don't allow your sense of worth and decency be determined by a group of self-serving politicians in Washington; they can hardly claim to be the paragons of propriety.

Addendum:
Salary history in the Senate
Clinton Tax Returns
Obama's Tax Returns

That's what your safety and security are worth... 10 years. We have to basically strip at an airport every time we fly, regardless of who you are and God help you if your piercings should set off a metal detector, but if you're actually guilty of a crime against your country, you get a slap on the wrist. Wow, that just makes so much... sense.

Mr. Man brought up a good point a few weeks ago that is timely; that Obama, with his ties to Alinksy and Wright, would not get a Top Secret clearance. Mr. Man worked in the defence business for a while, and in order to get clearances the FBI can do anything from check your bank statements to interview neighbours, childhood friends; if you're dating someone who is a foreign national you have to end the relationship (even if they're from Britain or Canada or another ally). At a specialised level, you apparently have to endure even MORE invasive examination of your life and background.

So how is it we've had a spate of traitors discovered? A foreigner working in the Navy try to pass sub secrets to China? A Pentagon employee who also passed secrets on to China?

Mr. Man's biggest point though is that someone who has ties to known communists like Saul Alinsky would never get a clearance.

So why are Hillary and Obama even options for Americans? If we prohibit foreign nationals from becoming President for security reasons why do we let Americans with questionable pasts access to the most sensitive and high tech intelligence on the planet?

Wednesday evening it snowed; Thursday AM it was still on the ground but eventually melted, even though the temperature was still pretty cold. Yesterday it snowed off and on all day and today it snowed AGAIN.

Granted we live on a hill, but with an elevation of only 1200 feet, that's still a pretty low snow level!

Yesterday we upgraded our bandwidth. Unfortunately, it resulted in this site being down and unbeknown to us, our email server decided to act up. However, everything is working as expected now, and as you may have noticed, I recently added a contact email in the upper left hand corner. I look forward to hearing your opinions and suggestions on how I can improve my site.

In Wright news, a eulogy from December 2007 that he wrote for Asa Hillard contained slurs again Italians. In speaking about Jesus in the eulogy, he said, "...The Italians for the most part looked down their garlic noses at the Galileans." The piece - which has some poorly constructed sentences and sounds more like a rant than a eulogy - also refers to Christ's crucifixion as "... public lynching, Italian style".

Wright complains how government controls everything, yet he's supporting a man who want to enshrine nanny-stateism in our government. Wright won't pass any critical thinking tests, methinks. Actually, I find his attitude and opinions utterly reprehensible and vile. How could a man so steeped in hate that it leeches out of his pores and even into a eulogy have hidden his feelings from close friends Michelle and Barack Obama for twenty years?

As if you needed any more proof that the government is not the servant of the people but dictatorial instead, comes this Rasmussen poll that shows Americans not only disapprove of the bank bailout, but the homeowner bailout as well.

These are the same Americans who pay the taxes that Congress and the President are so cavalier in showering on irresponsible banks; the same people who government claims this bailout if meant to help, 'lest economic panic ensue'.

In reality, it's just an opportunity to win points with the financial sector ahead of elections and redistribute wealth. What else can you call the government giving ' tax rebates' to people who haven't paid taxes?

Things really have to change in government. The natural inclination of the state of things is to move toward a state of entropy, deterioration. It is easier to accede than it is to fight; it is simpler to give up and accept than it is to continue to wage battle against government encroachment.

The right thing to do, however, is to fight.

"No compromise with the main purpose, no peace till victory, no pact with unrepentant wrong."
~Winston Churchill

The Government Printing Office (GPO), has begun to outsource the printing of American passports.

The Washington Times uncovered this, along with the alarming fact that one of the companies now working on the passports is based in Thailand and was targeted by Chinese espionage efforts. The GPO also has been charging the State Department more than is required to print these passports, in contravention to the charter that set up the GPO in the first place, which required that costs billed to agencies using them would only be sufficient to cover the cost of printing, and not result in profit for the GPO.

Mr. Man and I ran out and got sandwiches and sat in the truck listening to Sean Hannity. Sean said something terrific, which sums up what we feel with regard to government. It was good to hear him say it and I know I won't do him justice, but he said it as well as I've ever heard it.

A black woman called the show and said that people like Wright are hypocrites; she was obviously unhappy with what he and Pastor Manning had said. She pointed out that they claim there is injustice and yet they live in these nice homes and lead successful lives while they are preaching all this. Sean went on to expound on this and went further, transitioning into a dialogue on government in our lives.

To paraphrase, he said government should be simple and easy. Fight the people who want to kill Americans; they don't care about race, but about killing members of the American family. Keeping our country safe, securing the borders, cut taxes, free market solutions to healthcare and energy independence and that's it. He said "Tell the politicians to take a vacation". Maybe it's just me, he reiterated, but government should be that simple.

It should. There are a few things the Federal government should do but it takes more licence than it is entitled to. The GPO trying to make a profit on passports is just one more example of a government gone mad with agencies and organisations. One year I got a PJ O'Rourke tear off calendar and it has 365 days of wasteful government programmes; some small (a few million), others quite large. Subsidies, studies, grants, matching funding... and for what? So that someone can barter the favour of that business or funding for personal gain. We subsidise farmers and the government claims if we don't that it's the end of the American farm, but the cost of complying with onerous government regulations coupled with imports from other countries that don't have the regulations we do sure doesn't help. Unions jack up the cost of manufacturing so things go over seas; permits that companies have to apply for and high taxes they must pay hurt burgeoning businesses. The way government can solve this problem is not by doling out money but by having sensible regulations and not onerous ones.

I'm not talking about going back to the Victorian days of a Tonic salesman on every corner, but what we have now is a lumbering bureaucracy, not a well oiled machine and THAT - more than anything - is an impediment to greater success for the American businessman. Tax season is coming up and we've sent our taxes off to the accountant and I'm sure we'll see another 15 page return. With a few investments, 401k and now the Jersey house, there are so many worksheets (if you have funds that invest in foreign based corporations that is one two page form there), its maddening. Why do we do this? Probably so some school in upstate New York gets Federal money so it can pay for a film student to go to the Sundance film festival next year, or so some politician's home state will get money for the national Fly Fishing Museum. This is the kind of stupidity that no citizen oversight of government breeds.

Before I get too wound up, I should post my promised humour item.

There is a small software game company called Stardock that has published some pretty decent titles like 'Galactic Civilizations II'. Not crazy stuff like EA's Command & Conquer with voice acting by Tricia Helfer (of Battlestar Galactica fame), or Sid Meier's Civilization IV featuring Leonard Nimoy, but a company that makes titles with good gameplay and are very responsive to fans.

They're working on 'Political Machine 2008' where you get to run the campaign of a Presidential Candidate. Run ads, get funds, use intimidation... the whole she-bang is going to be there.

The forums for Political Machine is here while the dedicated game site is here.

I particularly liked this forum comment by dogfish10:

Can you create fictional scenarios like Hillary Clinton running around Bosnia while under sniper fire?

Enjoy!

After all, despite enormous evidence, some people still don't believe we landed on the moon! Never mind that any 'fraud' would necessitate thousands of people being involved (astronauts, families, NASA staff); some people still stubbornly believe that the moon landings were hoaxes. People will believe what they want to believe, as the saying goes.

The way the left tries to squelch a difference of opinion is by trying to demonise it, so that few people dare to challenge the norms they have put forth. Global warming is just the most recent example of this practice.

When I was a kid during the 70's, I remember the articles about global cooling and how there was general agreement that we had perhaps another 10 years worth of oil left. Thirty years later, we're consuming more fossil fuels then ever, and the left is now beating the global warming drum. It's like the boy who cried wolf; how many times before you refuse to be taken in? Of course in that fairy tale the boy eventually DID encounter a wolf, but how can I believe the global warming nutters when they threaten people with differing opinions? Whether the threat comes from a country or the scientists and leaders who support global warming hysteria, it threatens to cut off sane, logical discussion and replace it with panic and regulations which will ruin industries, careers and runs the risk of causing a severe economic downturn.

Data that don't support the notion that global warming is man made get scarcely the popular press that the global warming disciples do. A recent article in The Australian discusses the shocking findings of the NASA Aqua satellite, which collected detailed information on not only temperature but cloud cover and water vapour.The Aqua satellite shows that the dire predictions of the global warming pushers is incorrect and that the earth is capable of adjusting to changing conditions very effectively, while showing that the seasonal arctic ice has rebounded from last year's warm spell.

The earth is a large and complex planet. It has survived over 4.5 billion years of impacts and seen species come and go. It is arrogant to think that half a century of widespread and concerted use of fossil fuels could irreparably harm the planet. What is really happening has little to do with earth concerns and more to do with money concerns. From Al Gore to business, people and companies can make a killing on government mandates and restrictions on consumers. If you read the linked article in the preceding sentence, you'll see that during a seminar sponsored by the Wall Street Journal, environmentalists and corporate leaders willfully ignored slides and presentations that threw cold water on the notion that CO2 levels and climate temperatures are closely linked. In other words, they didn't want to know that even as CO2 levels seem to creep higher, global temperatures don't. (I've added one of the slides below).

View image

Before we turn the world on its head, global warming needs to be sanely discussed and critics questions addressed. What about concerns that true statistical modeling hasn't been used and has resulted in numbers that are fault-ridden but appear alarming? What about the blacklisting of people who raise scientific questions about things like the sun's active cycle and what effect it has on our climate? Some claim the dire predictions are the result of cherry picking numbers that seem shocking, but equally valid data from the same time period that contradicts those assertions are ignored. Why?

People should pause for a minute and look at this critically; a politician, without a science degree, is influencing opinion on a topic of science that even climatologists have difficulty with (weather patterns are notoriously hard to predict due to the number of factors involved). Adherents are out of hand dismissing concrete data that doesn't support their doom and gloom scenario, in a blatant broach of scientific ethics and much of the mainstream media is complicit in this. Where's the rage at this?

More reading:
Blog Critics
Ace of Spades
NASA's Aqua satellite
Junk Science
Kobayashi Maru (blog)
Hot Air

His disdain for the common man can't be hidden behind his finely turned phrases and ornate rhetoric and his slogan of 'change' is empty and meaningless. To me, he's not particularly erudite, his style is stiff and his delivery to me is one of someone who 'deigns' (as Michelle Obama put it), to honour us with a run at the White House.

I knew of Jeremiah Wright and his hate speech months ago - Sean Hannity interviewed him then - so it's about time the MSM got around to talking about him; grudgingly at that. Wright is a hate monger, a racist and an agitator. Mr. Man and I have talked about this at length over the past week or so; how if a white candidate went to a church that hurled this invective it would be crushing (doubly so if it was a Republican... look at the lashing Lott got for his Strom Thurmond comment), how we can't believe a man of the cloth would use God's name in vain at the pulpit, particularly knowing that children are present.

It strains credulity that in twenty years of close association, the Obama's didn't have a tip-off as to Wright's extremism. Close friends and mentors share and say things they would not say to mere acquaintances, and if Wright could say such horrible things in church, I have to wonder what he says in private to good friends like to Obamas. Last week while we were in Utah driving to the hospital, we had a chance to listen to Sean Hannity's show briefly. Jack Kemp was on and claimed that Obama shouldn't be judged guilty by association, but said there is no way he would associate with someone like Wright. If there's no 'guilt' there, Jack, then why not associate? It's because knowing that someone is so virulent is a turn off to anyone, yet the Obamas continued to be attendees of the church.

Obama's speech, as far as I am concerned, was terrible. I read it, granted; perhaps there was some 'magic' in his delivery, but I'm fresh out of Kool-Aid, so I don't think so. The speech meandered from (what I perceive) as a light admonishment of Wright, evolved into a string of excuses, then into a story about a girl whose mother had cancer, but who chose not to blame "blacks who were on welfare and too lazy to work, or Hispanics who were coming into the country illegally". Somehow, it seems, her mother's cancer was someone's fault and she "She sought out allies in her fight against injustice". I'm sorry a young girl's mother had cancer, but what on earth are you talking about, Obama?

The speech was meant to show how kind and in touch Obama is, how he couldn't possibly be guilty of harbouring any reverse racism or secret hatred of America. It was intended to deflect criticism of his poor judgment into an indictment of America today. He tried to excuse the inexcusable behaviour of Pastor Wright by painting a difficult childhood scarred by racism, yet during the desegregation movement, Wright was in an already desegregated school (Michelle Malkin spoke about this with John Gibson). Dr. Martin Luther King managed to try and mend the racial divide without cursing out America and lashing out at whites, so it's ridiculous to use the defence that Wright was wounded as a child by segregation; you can rise above injustices. Wright is an adult and should be mature enough to appreciate, recognise and commend the improvement in race relations over the past several decades, yet he doesn't and instead used bile laced rhetoric in his sermons. In other words, somewhere along the way Wright chose to be a divider and demagogue and Obama chose to stick with him, even after being exposed to some comments 'people might deem controversial'.

It's all about choice, Obama, and you chose. You chose to stick it out with an angry, hate-mongering pastor even with your two children in the congregation; the same girls you were concerned would be wounded by Imus' 'toxic' "nappy headed 'ho" comment. You knew Wright was a bad seed, because rather than have him do an invocation for you during your campaign announcement last year, you realised how damaging his comments would be to you and you chose to not have him lead the prayer.

This is why I say YOUR chickens are coming home to roost; the consequences of your decision to stay and support a racist, black-supremicist pastor are now manifest. Your veneer is truly cracked; your claims of healing racial divide echo hollow; your craven attempt to gain 'black' cred is shown for what it is... a calculated political gain. Either you believe in what Pastor Wright says, or you turned a blind eye to it; neither speaks well of your judgment, discernment or sense.

Mr. Man said something wise the other night; he said if you want to be President you should love America with all your heart. I have this to say to Barack Obama - your feeble response to Wright's condemnation of America tells me you don't. You don't like putting your hand over your heart during our national anthem, you never invoke God's blessings for our country, and you didn't address Wright's abominable speech after 9/11 and unequivocally condemn it. I don't believe you love America, Barack; you love what it can give you - power, wealth, control, but you don't love it. You don't see all that's good in it; you only see bad. There is no shining city on the hill for you; only an opportunity for Barack Obama. Everything needs to be changed; for you even the most fundamental concepts upon which this country is founded upon need to be altered; the right to self-determination, to the pursuit of happiness, with little meddling in personal affairs. All of that needs to be wiped aside and replaced with government. Great, unyielding, unimaginative and inflexible government, where every person's problems are standardised and offered an expensive and useless 'programme' as a solution.

You are absolutely everything that is wrong with politicians today; self-aggrandising, shallow, self-obsessed, conceited; you want to remake America - 'do over' - so she ceases to be a country that is agile and light and becomes a hulking welfare state where you and your ilk control the strings. Enthroned in your ivory tower, you would remark on how much of a favour you are doing the proletariat, with their inadequate intelligence and discernment to deal with weighty issues that intimately affect their own lives.

Perhaps people will truly appreciate the depth of your duplicity now, but that requires an open mind, which I fear many don't have. They like the idea of you; a young black man being elected President would truly show we have built a sturdy bridge across the great racial divide, many reason.

I don't; I see you for what you are, a political opportunist, and there's nothing novel - or healing - in that.

More reads:

Ace of Spades
Michelle Malkin
Hot Air

I specifically abhor communism, socialism, collectivism, totalitarianism or whatever amalgam of those beliefs happens to manifest itself in the world.

We find ourself with China about to host the Olympic Games this year, and the feeble IOC pleading "Don't boycott!" even as China wields a heavy hand in Tibet, (also here).

There is no dearth of excuses: China is better with regard to human rights than it was; poor Tibet would be badly off without China. They are all that, just excuses; excuses concocted to soothe the troubled minds of self-described human-rights activists who can't bring themselves to face the horror of China's oppression. Dissidents in labour camps, young girls working illegally long hours with the government turning a blind eye to terrible conditions, toxic toys being dispersed to all reaches of the globe, priced tantilisingly low; these are the more benign practices of the communist Chinese government, alongside the more horrifying organ culling and murder of those who have the temerity to speak out against the oppression.

Yet the IOC is more concerned with the appearance of athletic and global unity that the games supposedly signify than with decency. The fact of the matter is, China should never have been allowed to host the games.

They are now caught, as if between the fabled Scylla and Charibdes; squelch the Tibetan protests and demonstrations and remind the world of the truth that lies behind the carefully constructed Olympics facade or allow it to foment and risk losing control of Tibet.

I, for one, am looking forward to China squirming on the hot seat as I pray for the people of Tibet.