Brutally Honest

He's so... like... true...

You know what I'm saying?

With... like... kudos... to In the Agora.

John McCain is a shirk

He is apparently swilling the kool-aid:

Republican John McCain, reaching out to both independents and green-minded social conservatives, argues that global warming is undeniable and the country must take steps to bring it under control while adhering to free-market principles.

In remarks prepared for delivery Monday at a Portland, Ore., wind turbine manufacturer, the presidential contender says expanded nuclear power must be considered to reduce carbon-fuel emissions. He also sets a goal that by 2050, the country will reduce carbon emissions to a level 60 percent below that emitted in 1990.

"For all of the last century, the profit motive basically led in one direction - toward machines, methods and industries that used oil and gas," said McCain. "Enormous good came from that industrial growth, and we are all the beneficiaries of the national prosperity it built. But there were costs we weren't counting, and often hardly noticed. And these terrible costs have added up now, in the atmosphere, in the oceans and all across the natural world."

The Arizona senator promised to challenge China and India, two economic rivals who are fueling their challenge to U.S. market supremacy with heavily polluting fuels such as coal, gas and oil.

"For all of its historical disregard of environmental standards, it cannot have escaped the attention of the Chinese regime that China's skies are dangerously polluted, its beautiful rivers are dying, its grasslands vanishing, its coastlines receding and its own glaciers melting," said McCain.

He also took a swipe at President Bush, who balked at the beginning of its term at signing the Kyoto global warming protocols. McCain said he would return to the negotiating table.

"I will not shirk the mantle of leadership that the United States bears. I will not permit eight long years to pass without serious action on serious challenges. I will not accept the same dead-end of failed diplomacy that claimed Kyoto. The United States will lead and will lead with a different approach - an approach that speaks to the interests and obligations of every nation," he said.

It is going to be oh so damned hard to vote for this guy.

Political peer pressure

Or how the cool people are playing the fool people.  Via the brilliant Gerard Vanderleun:

Amazing as it may seem, many Democrats are actually feasting on this steaming and reeking Jello pie and saying it is "lip-smacking good! Pass the catsup!"

To dredge these ideas up out of the night-soil compost heap of decrepit ideologies, and then sell it to all the Democrats, is the coolest bit of race hustling done to date by any Americans. But the cool kids' clique of the Dems has done it and, no surprise, lots of Democrats are coming back for seconds. and demanding a doggie bag to boot.

The coolest thing of all is that the black guy has served this up to the Dems by seeming not to touch it at all; by not even going into the diner that he now owns. That's because the black guy is more than just cool, he's really smart. He knows how dumb the Democrats, white and black, really are. He knows that the best way to get all the cool kids to say "the race is not about race" is for him say that "the race is about race."

Yes, he's just that cool when it comes to manipulating people who religiously believe in deeply stupid ideas. He didn't sit in those church pews listening to his pastor suck money out of the credulous for 20 years for nothing. Black Liberation Theology's got nothing on Black Empowerment Theology. Where the former raises thousands the latter rakes in millions. Can you say "ka-ching!?"

You see, the black guy has made a careful study of the cool Democrats, especially the white ones. He knows to a certainty that they will do anything and pay anything, absolutely anything, to keep anyone anywhere at any time from thinking they even think about race. Unless....

Don't miss a word of the rest of it.  Not a word.

Now can we question their patriotism?

Hell yea:

Have We Learned Nothing from History?

During WWII, the Japanese were searching for a way to demoralize the American forces that they faced. The Japanese psychological warfare experts came up with a message that they thought would work well. They gave the script to their famous broadcaster "Tokyo Rose" and everyday she would broadcast this same message packaged in various ways hoping to have an impact on American GI morale. What was the message? It had three main points:

1. Your President is lying to you.

2. This war is wrong and illegal.

3. You cannot win the war.

Sound familiar? Maybe it's because the U.S. mainstream media and the Democrat Party has picked up the same message and is broadcasting it to our troops. The only difference is that they claim to support our troops before they demoralize them.

Morgan gets the kudos for this one and I love his substantive answer to the sound familiar question:

Yes, it does sound familiar.

 

Against the Machine

by guest blogger BroKen

I need your help.

Aliza Shvarts performance art turned my stomach. But Gerard Vanderluen's bittersweet response has turned my head. He concludes his wonderful piece with thoughts of his own performance art killing those who promote social decadence. That was hyperbole, right?

For me, the issue is protection of the weak and innocent; speaking for those who have no voice. I know the country (and some art) is moving in the pro-life direction. Movies like Juno and Knocked Up express the value of the unborn. The recent Horton Hears a Who, while not as good as the book or the cartoon of my childhood, trumpets the elephant's wisdom: "A person's a person no matter how small!" This gives hope.

But I'm scared. The next president could appoint three judges to the Supreme Court. If Clinton or Obama make those appointments we will probably have Roe v Wade for another 35 years. If McCain loses, even a popular majority against abortion will not sway the court. We will allow abortion on demand for essentially the rest of my life. Please, tell me this analysis is wrong. Otherwise, my rage compels me.

Murderers like Griffin and Hill have not helped the cause with their angry gunshots. The devil laughs when righteous indignation turns one confused human against another confused human. We wrestle not against flesh and blood but against spiritual wickedness. We don't fight people but the evil behind them. Yet those people use tools and machines to perform evil. You don't have to kill a dangerous lunatic if you can disable him.

What if "rage" was turned on the machine that sucks the life out of the womb? What if the rear window of every car in a "clinic" parking lot was etched with this simple, Kilroy-like image; the driver haunted each time he looks over his shoulder? What if the image were sprayed on manicured lawns in vinegar; dead grass speaking for dead babies? What if the plumbing of a "clinic" was clogged so that tiny arms and legs, dismembered and flushed into the sewer, bubble back up in sinks and toilets; little hands and feet carry sickening bacteria making it unhealthy; like it always is to its innocent victims?

Let those who profit from abortion be afraid. Let their insurance rates rise. Let landlords terminate their leases. Let their neighbors be ashamed of what is going on next door. Let them fear, not for their lives, but for their property. This art would require discipline limiting the destruction to just the machine; never any person. Bombs are out of the question, as is arson. Still, this project, artfully implemented, would likely earn the artist a government grant of room and board for several years.

Four years ago, Alec Baldwin promised to move to Canada if Bush won the election. Baldwin didn't follow through. Perhaps he was using hyperbole. Maybe I am, too. But if McCain loses in November, I just might go to jail.

Please, convince me that I shouldn't.

Paging Tom Flake

Regulars might remember guest blogger Tom's opining that oil won't last forever:

Whether you believe the planet is 7000 years old or 4 billion, you have to believe that there is a finite amount of everything, oil, coal, tuna, everything. There is no evidence that God is, for instance, keeping the Dodo Bird (man’s actions) or Mammoth (nature’s actions) from extinction. Therefore there is no reason to believe he will prevent tuna or coal from exhaustion. It is important to note though, that some resources replace themselves on a timescale that humans can appreciate (tuna), while others (oil for instance) well, who really knows? Saudi Arabia estimates their reserves at about 264 billion barrels. The rest of the world is about four times that in proven reserves about 1.3 trillion barrels. Take a stab that there are unproven/unfound reserves of twice that factoring in improved recovery techniques and you arrive at about 2.6 trillion barrels. This sounds like a fantastical amount, the world is swimming in oil, right? Problem is, that's all there is, and it has to last FOREVER.

With 6 Billion people on the planet that's 433 barrels per person. Good for your lifetime? Probably. Good for your 2.3 children's lifetime? Possibly. Good for your grandchildren? Unlikely. So as an outside estimate, the world’s oil at the current rate of consumption runs out in 200 years and that, is far less than FOREVER.

In steps FrontPage Magazine with a counter:

A recent survey on the environment found that seventy percent of people worldwide think that the planet is running out oil. Only less than one quarter believe that there is enough of it to keep it as a primary source of energy. Petro pessimism runs especially high in the United States where a full two thirds think that the point of depletion is within sight.

Here are some hard facts.

According the Energy Information Administration as of January 2007 there was more than 1.3 trillion barrels of proved crude oil on earth. Even if this were all the oil on the planet there would be no immediate danger of shortages, because at the current rate of consumption – roughly 85 million barrels a day – this supply would last for more than 40 years.

But the 1.3 trillion in these so-called proved reserves refers only to a tiny fraction of earth’s oil, designating only that portion which can be extracted under current ‘economic and operating conditions.’ As it happens, this figure grows with each decade and usually dramatically so.

In 1882, for instance, there were 95 million barrels of proved petroleum reserves. This number jumped to 4.5 billion in 1926 and then to 10 billion in 1932. In 1944 the quantity stood at 20 billion. In 1950 it leaped to 100 billion and in 1980 it was 648 billion. In 1993 the world’s proved reserves grew to 999 billion, and today they stand at 1.3 trillion barrels.

These figures show that our ever-increasing consumption has not over the years reduced the pool of available oil. In fact, the exact opposite is the case – each successive year we have more of it than ever before. Contrary to the conventional wisdom, mankind’s oil supplies are not getting depleted, but they keep continually expanding.

There are several reasons for this. New exploration and advancements in surveying techniques in particular result in fresh finds almost every year.

We have seen a dramatic instance of this at the end of last year when a massive reservoir was discovered in the Tupi sector off the coast of Brazil. Estimated to hold some 8 billion barrels of recoverable crude it was the second largest find in the last 20 years. Two months later an even greater deposit was located nearby which may hold as much as 30 billion barrels. If confirmed, the field would be the third biggest on the planet, behind only the Ghawar in Saudi Arabia and the Burgan in Kuwait. Many scientists are now convinced that intense exploration fuelled by high prices will yield comparable discoveries in other places of the globe.

Adding appreciably to the proved reserves is the continual perfecting of drilling techniques. This makes it possible to tap deposits which because of their depth or geological environment were off limits only a few years ago. Today’s equipment can perform mind-boggling feats of horizontal drilling and there are oil rigs capable of reaching 35,000 feet under the surface, about double of what the previous generation could do.

Rising prices also make available oil which was previously considered unrecoverable commercially, because for whatever reason the extraction cost per barrel exceeded the price it could fetch on the market. With every jump in price, however, more and more of such oil is brought up as its production becomes profitable.

Finally, improvements in extraction processes make it possible to more fully utilize currently harvested reservoirs. Due to technical and economic limitations, normally only a portion of an oilfield can be recovered (it is this part that is referred to as the ‘proved’ reserve). A few decades ago the average oil recovery rate from reservoirs was 20%, but thanks to technological progress this rate is nearing 40% today.

It is the combination of these factors that accounts for the fact that more and more is added every year to mankind’s stock of crude oil. This in turn results in a seemingly paradoxical outcome. Even as our consumption increases with each passing year, the projected depletion point keeps moving further out into the future.

Thoughts anyone?

Mother's Day Pathology

Sick, sick, sick:

"You can help with a gift to Planned Parenthood Federation of America today in honor of your mother or daughter, and on behalf of all the women," she added.

Pro-life blogger Jill Stanek called Richard's exploitation of Mother's Day for pro-abortion money-making purposes "grotesque" and said she couldn't believe Richards would stoop to "using her dead mother and daughter as props."

"This pathetic woman is so psychologically and emotionally invested in abortion she has no semblance of conscience left," Stanek said. "If and when she has grandchildren, I'm sure she'll use them too."

Richards said passing on her pro-abortion mantra to her daughter Hannah and her younger children Lily and Daniel is "the best gift any mother can give her children."

"My mom did that for me and my siblings. And I've worked to do that for [my children]," she wrote.

In the email, Richards also admitted that promoting abortion was more important to her mother than even promoting equal rights for African-Americans.

"In all of my mother's activism — from the civil rights movement to the ERA — nothing meant more to her," she said.

"I'm proud that, as the leader of Planned Parenthood, I get the opportunity every day to carry forward work that honors her and honors all who came before her," Richards concluded.

"And, I'm proud that my own children carry on that legacy. That's what it's all about, isn't it?"

Stanek said abortion advocates can leave no legacy to children and grandchildren because they've been responsible for the deaths of 50 million of them.

H/T to Michelle for bringing us yet more evidence of the sickness that so dominates today's progressive mindset.

Religious Left think Bush is worst president ever...

... while praising the Presidency of LBJ:

I don't think I'm going to be alive to witness George Bush II's inauguration as one of America's top pick presidents. I don't think the next few dozen generations after me will live to see it, either. Of course,
there is the possibility that we could come up with worse ones which would make him shine like a rusty penny among rocks, but somehow I think maybe we've learned our lesson.

No, I don't believe history is going to do much to polish Georgie's image, especially for those of us who lived through his tenure.

LBJ is remembered for Vietnam and other fiascos, but he is also remembered for a war on poverty which was very much needed in the
1960's. I am grateful for a president who didn't sit in his lush surroundings and ho-hum his way around the dilemmas of the poor. He at least tried. I remember him for that.

- The Least Reverend Glen.

And:

I'm not sure anybody has "won" the war on poverty. I'm just saying it started during Johnson's term of office. BTW, so did civil rights for blacks.
So, at least this person appreciates much of what was at least started in the LBJ years. He was not, IMO, one of the worst in history.

As much as I loathed Richard Nixon, I still remember that he was the one in charge when the POW's came home in 1973. I will always have a soft spot in my heart for him for that reason no matter what else went on.

I'm trying to think what I might have nice to say about the past 8 years....

- The Least Reverend Glen.

Thankfully, a voice of reason stands in the darkness on that site:

Johnson was a national disaster. 58,000 plus service men and women killed in Viet Nam. Not to mention the hundreds of thousands wounded and mentally impaired.

Nixon tried to first win, bombing Hanoi and mining the supply harbor to Hanoi. Our congress made him stop the bombs and pull the mines. Jeremiah Denton was the ranking pow in the Hanoi Hilton. The day our congress make Nixon stop the aggression toward the north the talk around Hanoi was that they were three days away from surrendering...3 days. That was written by Denton as a US Senator from Alabama in the late 70's. Title of the book was, When Hell Was in Session.  It was never refuted by a single soul anywhere in the world.

- The Most Reverend and Reasonable Chuckels.

It's a fascinating look into the liberal mind isn't it?  Bush is anathema because of the Iraq war.  LBJ is a hero despite The Vietnam War.

I'll never understand it.

Never.

Great tits not impacted by global warming

I kid you not:

At least one of Britain's birds appears to be coping well as climate change alters the availability of a key food.

Researchers found that great tits are laying eggs earlier in the spring than they used to, keeping step with the earlier emergence of caterpillars.

Writing in the journal Science, they point out that the same birds in the Netherlands have not managed to adjust.

Understanding why some species in some places are affected more than others by climatic shifts is vital, they say.

The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) commented that other species are likely to fare much worse than great tits as temperatures rise.

I've always thought they did pretty well in the cold too.

I'm just saying.

H/T Larwyn.

 

57 + 2 + 1 = United States of America

The 'sphere is ablaze with this Obama gaffe:

The aptly named Suitably Flip came up with the flag lapel pin Obama should be wearing to display his patriotism:

With thanks to Larwyn.

Moral Bankruptcy

If there's one regret in my life that stands alone, one regret that haunts me daily, a regret that I'll take to the grave with some shame, it's the regret of never having served in the military.  Setting aside for the moment the reality that it shatters the chickenhawk labelers with one fell swoop, the bigger reason is really pretty simple.

I've tasted camaraderie.  I've felt that sense of belonging, if only for a moment or two, that comes with hanging out with like-minded people who'll put it all on the line for another.  But more vividly, I've heard others tell the tale, and of course I've read lots of material on the subject.  Reading and hearing about it however is one thing.  Experiencing it is another.

My brother this weekend pulls his summer duty with the Coast Guard reserve.  He's tasted what I probably never have.  He's told me a tale or two or three about it.  And as a cop on the beat daily, he gets his fill.  He's not well paid and that's another story but he loves what he does and I completely understand why that is.

So with that as background, that as the cloth upon which to paint a picture, I'm linking to Celestial Junk's piece that points to the moral bankruptcy of a particular progressive in Canada (and by extension, all myopic leftists) while singing the praises of one who has also understood that which I've only read and heard about:

So it is, that Canada has lost another soldier in Afghanistan ... a soldier doing exactly what Jack Layton wanted him to be doing ... reaching out and helping ordinary Afghans. He was a medic, a volunteer in the purist sense because he was a reservist; and reservists DO NOT serve in Afghanistan unless they volunteer specifically for the mission. He was a helper, not a killer; he was a volunteer, not a victim; and he was extending a loving hand to some of the world’s poorest people.

His death stands as a stark reminder of the loathsome barbarians who would retake Afghanistan and plunge it once again into hell on earth. They kill anyone, anything, man, women, child, aid worker … and medic, who gets between them and their wet dream of Muhammad’s hell hole on earth. Yet, Jack would sit and bargain and cuddle up to these very same barbarians; not even waiting for them to come to the table from a position of defeat. Jack would negotiate what? Beheading rights? The size of sticks to beat women with? Whether or not females get medical care … and by whom?

“Progressives” are apparently all about helping the down-trodden of this world … yet, for the life of them, they can’t grasp the nobility of what our Canadian men and women in uniform are doing in Afghanistan. "Progressives" can't move themselves to feel pride ... least of all gratitude, for our soldiers. They spew shameful rhetoric, like, "I support our troops ... so bring'em home", without ever considering that our soldiers WANT to be there and they WANT to hold back the barbarins. The meer thought of such heroism, is beyond the "progressive" mind.

I prepared the following slide show to try and contrast the two divergent roles our soldiers play in Afghanistan. I tried to demonstrate that which Jack Layton can’t grasp … that our mission is noble, that its focus is the people of Afghanistan. I also wanted to show that the mission is ugly at times because Canadians put their bodies between barbarians and innocent Afghans. Canadians kill barbarians before they can wreak more havoc.


... we start in basic training:

Do yourself a favor and listen to that song... perhaps a number of times.

With props and praise to small dead animals.

Hillary boo boo?

Some would say yes:

Hillary Rodham Clinton vowed Wednesday to continue her quest for the Democratic nomination, arguing she would be the stronger nominee because she appeals to a wider coalition of voters — including whites who have not supported Barack Obama in recent contests.

"I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on," she said in an interview with USA TODAY. As evidence, Clinton cited an Associated Press article "that found how Sen. Obama's support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me."

"There's a pattern emerging here," she said.

Clinton's blunt remarks about race came a day after primaries in Indiana and North Carolina dealt symbolic and mathematical blows to her White House ambitions.

...

Larry Sabato, head of the University of Virginia Center for Politics, said Clinton's comment was a "poorly worded" variation on the way analysts have been "slicing and dicing the vote in racial terms."

Expect fallout in 3... 2... 1...

Change and Hope

Doug Ross has a pictorial perspective worth checking out.

Conservatives are just plain mean

And happy about it.

'Science' sez it's true and so it must be:

Regardless of marital status, income or church attendance, right-wing individuals reported greater life satisfaction and well-being than left-wingers, the new study found. Conservatives also scored highest on measures of rationalization, which gauge a person's tendency to justify, or explain away, inequalities.

The rationalization measure included statements such as: "It is not really that big a problem if some people have more of a chance in life than others," and "This country would be better off if we worried less about how equal people are."

To justify economic inequalities, a person could support the idea of meritocracy, in which people supposedly move up their economic status in society based on hard work and good performance. In that way, one's social class attainment, whether upper, middle or lower, would be perceived as totally fair and justified.

If your beliefs don't justify gaps in status, you could be left frustrated and disheartened, according to the researchers, Jaime Napier and John Jost of New York University. They conducted a U.S.-centric survey and a more internationally focused one to arrive at the findings.

"Our research suggests that inequality takes a greater psychological toll on liberals than on conservatives," the researchers write in the June issue of the journal Psychological Science, "apparently because liberals lack ideological rationalizations that would help them frame inequality in a positive (or at least neutral) light."

The results support and further explain a Pew Research Center survey from 2006, in which 47 percent of conservative Republicans in the U.S. described themselves as "very happy," while only 28 percent of liberal Democrats indicated such cheer.

The same rationalizing phenomena could apply to personal situations as well.

"There is no reason to think that the effects we have identified here are unique to economic forms of inequality," the researchers write. "Research suggests that highly egalitarian women are less happy in their marriages compared with their more traditional counterparts, apparently because they are more troubled by disparities in domestic labor."

The current study was funded by the National Science Foundation.

There you have it. 

And to add to the scientific substantiation, there's plenty of anecdotal evidence on display by simply perusing my Religious Left blogroll.  Those folks seem seriously unable to rationalize away inequality and seem so guilt-ridden, dare I say unhappy, about it.  In fact, I'd say the only way they'd become happier is if all of us were equally as unhappy and miserable as they are.

H/T to Ace of Spades who concludes brilliantly:

When a difference between conservatives and liberals is found, a very unsupportable value judgment is read into that difference, and the conservative tendency is described unscientifically as base and inferior, while the liberal tendency is described unscientifically as elevated and superior. They never quite get around to providing the data set to prove that; it's assumed.  And everyone knows in science you're allowed to assume all the unsupported moral judgments you like. 

So here we go again. Conservatives are found to be, as was of course expected, to be not as bothered by income inequality as liberals. That part of the study is well supported, but rather obvious and hardly worthy of a headline; it's not like we didn't know liberals pretend to be all worried about income inequality as they sip their lattes and drive their Volvos while not giving to charity.

But the social "scientists" here decide, by fiat, that a liberal-level of pretend-concern about income inequality is the "right" level of such concern and, ergo, any deviation from that is "wrong."

Of course.  Seems rationally equitable.

Bush as Worst President Ever?

H/T to Morgan, the most underrated  blogger in the 'sphere. If he's not near the top of your blog reading list, you're seriously new to the whole bloggin' thang.

This just in...

... the sky is blue, grass is green, water is wet and Al Gore is calling the Myanmar cyclone a 'consequence' of global warming:

Using tragedy to advance an agenda has been a strategy for many global warming activists, and it was just a matter of time before someone found a way to tie the recent Myanmar cyclone to global warming.

Former Vice President Al Gore in an interview on NPR’s May 6 “Fresh Air” broadcast did just that. He was interviewed by “Fresh Air” host Terry Gross about the release of his book, “The Assault on Reason,” in paperback.

“And as we’re talking today, Terry, the death count in Myanmar from the cyclone that hit there yesterday has been rising from 15,000 to way on up there to much higher numbers now being speculated,” Gore said. “And last year a catastrophic storm from last fall hit Bangladesh. The year before, the strongest cyclone in more than 50 years hit China – and we’re seeing consequences that scientists have long predicted might be associated with continued global warming.”

In the mean-time, there are now reports, not widely disseminated (imagine that), of global sea ice reaching unprecedented levels:

Don’t expect to hear this reported on the your evening newscast, but according to new data, sea ice levels in the Southern Hemisphere are at 25-year highs.

“On a global basis, world sea ice in April 2008 reached levels that were ‘unprecedented’ for the month of April in over 25 years,” Steve McIntyre wrote on Climateaudit.org on May 4. “Levels are the third highest (for April) since the commencement of records in 1979, exceeded only by levels in 1979 and 1982.”

Hey Al... who's playing on fears?

 

Garbage in, gospel out

Investor's Business Daily has an interesting commentary up that's worthy of our time... unless you're one who believes in the gospel according to The Church of Chicken Little:

According to the greenies, the Earth is supposed to warm continuously and disastrously without taking any rest breaks. Yet after taking actual data from the Labrador Sea where the Gulf Stream gives up its warmth before sinking and returning southward and projecting forward, the Kiel team says the Atlantic currents will keep rising temperatures in check around the world, much as the warming and cooling associated with El Nino and La Nina in the Pacific affect global temperatures.

Howard Hayden, physics professor emeritus at the University of Connecticut, has described the machinery of the computer models used by the IPCC and others to predict imminent and cataclysmic climate change as ones that take "garbage in" and spit "gospel out."

In a study published last August in the journal Science, U.K. researchers said:

"A common criticism of global climate models . . . has been that they only include factors such as solar radiation, atmospheric aerosols and greenhouse gases, which are affected by changes outside the climate system (while neglecting) internal climate change variability that arises from natural changes from within the system, like El Nino, fluctuations in ocean circulation and anomalies in ocean heat content."

Understanding the ocean's effect on climate took a quantum leap forward in 2003 when the first of 3,000 new automated ocean buoys were deployed, a significant improvement over earlier buoys that took their measurements mostly at the ocean's surface.

The new buoys, known as Argos, drift along the world's oceans at a depth of about 6,000 feet constantly monitoring the temperature, salinity, and speed of ocean currents. Every 10 days or so a bladder inflates, bringing them to the surface as they take their readings at various depths.

Once on the surface, they transmit their readings to satellites that retransmit them to land-based computers.

The Argos buoys have disappointed global warming alarmists in that they have failed to detect any signs of imminent climate change. As Dr. Josh Willis noted in an interview with National Public Radio, "there has been a very slight cooling" over the buoy's five years of observation.

Actual observations trump computer models and as we learn more about the Earth we start to realize how puny and irrelevant man's contribution to climate change really is.

While irresponsible environmentalists panic over warming, the Earth cools and goes with the ocean flow.

This of course correlates with what NASA is finding according to The American Thinker:

On April 21^st, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory confirmed that an impending phase shift in a natural climate event would likely bring colder temperatures for as many as the next 20-30 years, noting that:

"The shift in the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, with its widespread Pacific Ocean temperature changes, will have significant implications for global climate. It can affect Pacific and Atlantic hurricane activity, droughts and flooding around the Pacific basin, marine ecosystems and global land temperature patterns."

Of course they go on to defend global warming and The American Thinker deals with that fully but the bottom line is that the more we seek the truth about global warming the more we find how inconvenient it really is for Al Gore and his sycophantic Church of Chicken Little.

ID and Evolution: Summing it up...

... quite nicely:

H/T to Cartago Delenda Est.

Christ-less Christianity

Alice the Camel has surfaced from her promised hiatus long enough to take us to yet another interesting post, this one put up by Deborah Gyapong:

This story in today's National Post headlined Christianity without Christ is more distressing than all the posts on Jihadwatch on any given day.

Though an ordained minister, she [Gretta Vosper] does not like the title of reverend. It is one of those symbols that hold the church back from breaking into the future -- to a time "when the label Christian won't even exist" and the Church will be freed of the burdens of the past. To balance out those symbols of the past inside West Hill, there is a giant, non-religious rainbow tapestry just behind the altar and multi-coloured streamers hang from the ceiling.

"The central story of Christianity will fade away," she explained. "The story about Jesus as the symbol of everything that Christianity is will fade away."

The head of the United Church of Canada, David Giuliano, who went to divinity school with Ms. Vosper 20 years ago, said if he felt the way that she does, he would not be a minister. But it is not his job to condemn, he said, and the church is structured in such a way that complaints have to come from the congregation before any action can be taken. And so far there have been no complaints. He also sees the United Church, considered the most liberal of the mainline Protestant churches, as broad enough to encompass a wide range of theologies.

Even Rev. Giuliano agrees that the name Christian -- which carries the baggage of colonialism and other ills -- should probably be phased out. Instead, he would replace "Christian" with "Follower of the Way" or "Follower of Jesus."

This story is a sign of our civilizational suicide. What's worse? Having a "minister" like this inside a once Christian church? Or having a church designed to the glory of the Christian God and paid for by faithful believers in Jesus as God the Son turn into a mosque or a community centre that holds jazz concerts and art exhibits. Or a condo development for aging Baby Boomers. I doubt she will be able to attract people who are hungry for a real, personal relationship with the living God through Jesus Christ.

Her kind of religion is, to borrow some words of a priest friend of mine,  "spiritual euthanasia."

But we have adopted the political correctness mush, and the suicide cocktail of multiculturalism and relativism of our own accord. We are chucking out all the things that made our societies the envy of the world and living on the inheritance, without a clue that the capital is being spent now and rapidly disappearing.

No surprise that the foreword to the book is written by none other than Bishop John Shelby Spong, the by most measures atheist Episcopalian priest known for skewering every traditional aspect of Christian belief out there.

What I simply don't understand is why folks like this continue to stay in Christian churches and more importantly, why some would succumb to being served by an apostate pastor.   Here's her take on why she remains a Christian minister:

"I could leave the Church because I don't hold those orthodox understandings," she said.

"[But] I think that in a generation or so we might stop using the term Christian, and I hope, perhaps we will stop using labels for every religious tradition. There is nothing wrong with a faith tradition evolving.

"And I believe that's what we're doing. It's been evolving for a long time but we're afraid to acknowledge that so this is merely the next iteration of what Christianity needs to be."

She envisions a time when there is no religious divisions and everyone shares in their common values and their only differences are cultural. Still, she said there is no conflict with this and being in the church.

"The church is extremely important because it can be a transformative element in individuals' lives and communities," she said. "And that was the root of what the Christian Church was about: transforming the way people see themselves in relation

to the communities around them and in relation to each other and about living that in community. Christianity took over that story and manipulated it into a very different story."

Ms. Vosper believes most liberal ministers do not really believe in orthodoxy and see things like the Resurrection or the miracles as metaphors, not real events. She is also chair of a group called the Canadian Centre For Progressive Christianity, which also espouses a vague form of religious belief, in which they offer a challenge to the church to do a "complete overhaul of the beliefs it has been carrying about for the last several hundred years.

"It's not that we're trying to do something new. It's that we're trying to catch up on a thousand years of backlogged progress files that have yet to be inputted into the 21st century."

...

For all of this, she still feels rooted in the church. She still loves the stories, metaphors though they may be. And she still measures her life against the meaning of those metaphors.

The focus of her "spiritual" life is love. And since love is the common bond between all people, it is really the only thing worth believing in.

"Here in the context of seeking out harmony with all things, the purest understanding of those values that enhance and sanctify life becomes the foremost spiritual practice," she writes.

"We call it love, radically inclusive love. It is here, in the caring, challenging, prophetic role with which it is so familiar that the church can really shine."

There you have it folks.  Someone who holds beliefs antithetical to orthodox, traditional Christianity attempting to, in effect, change her from within. 

Vosper is an insurgent, pure and simple.  She's out to destroy traditional belief and take the Church with her. And too many, motivated by some wishy washy definition of love and respect, are allowing it.

And many think the Religious Right are what's wrong with Christianity today.  At least they're recognizable in an easily caricature-able way.  The Religious Left are more covert, dare I say, more sinister.

And in mainline denominations, a growing force apparently.

I end with where many of us might want to start:

"11-13"I am the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd puts the sheep before himself, sacrifices himself if necessary. A hired man is not a real shepherd. The sheep mean nothing to him. He sees a wolf come and runs for it, leaving the sheep to be ravaged and scattered by the wolf. He's only in it for the money. The sheep don't matter to him."

 

More CO2... please...

Via MarineCorpVet, an intriguing commentary from... horrors... the principal research scientist at the Global Hydrology and Climate Center of the National Space Science and Technology Center in Huntsville, Alabama:

I think it is time for scientists to consider the possibility that more CO2 in the atmosphere might, on the whole, be good for life on Earth. Oh, I’m sure there will be some species which are hurt more than helped, but this is true of any change in nature. There are always winners and losers.

For instance, during a strong El Niño event, trillions of animals in the ocean die as the usual patterns of ocean temperature are disrupted. When Mother Nature does something like this it is considered natural. Yet, if humans were to do such a thing, it would be considered an environmental catastrophe. Does anyone else see something wrong with this picture?

The view that nature was in some sort of preferred, yet fragile, state of balance before humans came along is arbitrary and philosophical — even religious. It is entirely possible that there are other, more preferable states of balance in nature which are more robust and less fragile than whatever the state of nature was before we came along.

You would think that science is the last place you would find such religious opinions, yet they dominate the worldview of scientists. Natural scientists tend to worship nature, and they then teach others to worship nature, too . . . all under the guise of “science.”

And to the extent that this view is religious, then making environmental laws based upon that view could be considered a violation of the establishment of religion clause of the First Amendment to the Constitution.

The automatic assumption that mankind’s production of CO2 by burning of fossil fuels is bad for the environment needs to be critically examined. Unfortunately, scientists who question that point of view are immediately branded as shills for Big Oil.

But since I am already accused of this (falsely, I might add), I really don’t mind being one of the first scientists to raise the issue.

Do read it all.

Global warming causing shark attacks

I kid you not:

Three decades have passed since the movie Jaws sent terrified bathers scrambling out of the ocean. But as any beach lifeguard knows, there's still nothing like a gory shark attack to stoke public hysteria and paranoia.

Two deaths in the waters off California and Mexico last week and a spate of shark-inflicted injuries to surfers off Florida's Atlantic coast have left beachgoers seeking an explanation for a sudden surge in the number of strikes.

In the first four months of this year, there were four fatal shark attacks worldwide, compared with one in the whole of 2007, according to the International Shark Attack File at the Florida Museum of Natural History in Gainesville.

'The one thing that's affecting shark attacks more than anything else is human activity,' said Dr George Burgess of Florida University, a shark expert who maintains the database. 'As the population continues to rise, so does the number of people in the water for recreation. And as long as we have an increase in human hours in the water, we will have an increase in shark bites.'

Some experts suggest that an abundance of seals has attracted high numbers of sharks, while others believe that overfishing has hit their food chain. 'I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but it's a convenient excuse,' Burgess said. Another contributory factor to the location of shark attacks could be global warming and rising sea temperatures. 'You'll find that some species will begin to appear in places they didn't in the past with some regularity,' he said.

You know... this morning, I woke up with some back stiffness and a sore butt... never mind that yesterday, the missus and I spent nearly 8 hours on our Harleys as we rode to and from D.C. to have dinner with our oldest... I'm thinking my physical condition has everything to do with global warming...  and I think some of you people who read this blog are to blame... so I think those people should send me money so that I can further study the ill-effects, determine how best to let the world know from whence comes stiff backs and sore butts, and so that I can best determine how to milk your gullible asses for more.

Sigh.

Clash of ideas

From Mike, a stalwart member of the Religious Left, a blast against capitalism, as usual, as he posts the following video:

And from the most aptly named Copious Dissent, a counter:

The gentleman sticking it to the Left's Phil Donahue is none other than Milton Friedman.

Isn't it odd that the left, especially the Religious Left, are so quick to impugn that which most counters what they deem to abhor and yet they embrace that which most leads to what they deem to abhor.

Odd?

Or intentional?

"Barack Obama lacks the integrity of character to be President"

Matteo takes us to this American Thinker piece that makes a point difficult to counter:

We, the people, now have indisputable evidence that Barack Obama lacks the integrity of character to be President.

To some, that might seem a bit extreme.  However, writing as the mother of grown children, I have seen some pretty sorry excuses for incorrigible behavior, but I haven't witnessed many as morally repugnant as those offered by Barack Obama concerning his decades-long, close association with Jeremiah Wright.

The words, "morally repugnant," are strong and I use them carefully.

With Obama's Philadelphia-speech, hedging and squirming around specifics, and now with his final, "unequivocal," outright disowning of Jeremiah Wright this week, I have more evidence than I need to conclude that Barack Obama is either one of two things:

Behind Door #1:  He is a reprehensible liar, who privately still believes, and has always believed, in the philosophy espoused by his long-time pastor, spiritual mentor and "uncle" figure, Jeremiah Wright, but for opportunistic motives, now publicly disavows his own true beliefs; or

Behind Door #2:  He is a man of no integrity whatsoever, who has partaken of another man's friendship and political help for nearly 20 years, who has now publicly dumped and disgraced this benefactor for personal gain.  Jeremiah Wright is not some flunky that Obama hired last week out of a far-left think tank or fresh from the halls of Harvard.  The two men were close, like family, by the candidate's own pronouncements.

Whether the real Obama is behind Door #1 or Door #2, only Barack Obama now knows for certain.  But either way, he has disgraced himself in the eyes of many Americans, and if he offered his hand, some of us older-timers would decline to shake it.

If he truly believes the philosophy of his chosen church, and now denies it because he sees that it is a small-minority view, he defines himself as a wimpy scoundrel, unworthy of being Commander in Chief.

Having the courage of one's convictions is something I would hope my twelve year old would have, and if he didn't, I would be deeply ashamed and know myself to have been a very bad parent.  Barack Obama was nearly 30 years old when he first met and befriended Jeremiah Wright, and upon their very first meeting, the Reverend Wright informed Obama that his "fellow clergy" considered him "too radical."  He was warned by Wright himself.  Obama was no innocent waif, as he now contends.

On the other hand, if Barack Obama vehemently disagrees with the tenets of Wright's philosophy and worldview, but stayed with the man, respected him enough to have him perform a wedding and baptisms, and  gave thousands of dollars of his own money to support the black liberation cause, and garnered prestige and political clout from his association with Wright, then Obama demonstrates that he is a man without a well-formed conscience.  An unabashed user of another for personal gain.

I'd like to hear a cogent argument against this.  I would.

Any takers?

Michael Moore: Disconnected from reality...

... and blinded by ideology.

H/T to Verum Serum who has lots to say about it all and all of it most cogent.

Bush Derangement Syndrome outbreak at Southern Methodist University

Think Progress has details:

President Bush’s presidential library, which is set to be housed at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, has received significant criticism because of an attached institute — independent of the university — that will sponsor programs designed to “promote the vision of the president” and “celebrate” Bush’s presidency. The library will even “rely chiefly” on a design firm, rather than historians, to showcase Bush’s tenure.

While SMU faculty have previously criticized and spoken out against the library, the United Methodist Church (UMC) may be following suit. At yesterday’s 2008 Quadrennial General Conference, the UMC’s governing body voted overwhelmingly — 844 to 20 — to refer a petition “for the library’s rejection to the South Central jurisdiction of the church which owns the university property.” The petition reads:

SMU Bush Presidential Library Rejection (80089-MH-NonDis)

I hereby petition the UMC General Conference to prevent leasing, selling, or otherwise participating in or supporting the presidential library for George W. Bush at Southern Methodist University.

Rationale

We should support separation of church and state and if the Bush library goes on the SMU campus or property it will appear to the country and the world as an endorsement of that president by the United Methodist Church. Texas is a big state; surely there are other venues…

Opposition to the library centers around the the partisan nature of the attached institute. Former Bush adviser Karl Rove has even signed on to advise the project because he is said to be a “critical resource” of administration history. One minister and SMU grad specifically objected to the Bush administration’s use of torture:

“Many are offended by the contempt shown by the administration in areas like torture,” says Rev. Andrew J. Weaver, Ph.D. a minister and psychologist in Brooklyn, New York. “Torture is not a value of the Methodist church.” Rev. Weaver is a graduate of SMU’s Perkins School of Theology, and told Dallas South that torture in today’s terms would be the moral equivalent of slavery.

The local UMC jurisdiction will vote on the petition this July in Dallas.

I love it when the Godly exhibit their Godliness, especially when it comes to showing respect, tolerance and the like (something they demand of those who critique and oppose their ideology).

Here's a sampling of reaction (and clear ignorance) from card carrying members of the Religious Left:

George has a library     I was doubting he could read.........   

-The Least and not Very Reverend Glen.

His books are pop up books with pictures. 

-The Least and not Very Reverend Susan in Ca.

Watch that thread folks because it's guaranteed to produce more brilliance and wit from our resident progressive dim-bulbs and dim-witted.

They are so holy, so godly, so virtuous and pristine.  Those who sit in their pews should sit up, take notice and emulate the behavior of their shepherds. 

What a better place the world would be.

Everything you wanted to know about Superdelegates...

... in about 4 minutes:

H/T.

Zing

 

Wright to Offer Prayer Rebuttal at Democrat Convention

By Scott Ott

(2008-05-01) — The Democrat National Committee (DNC) announced today it would allow the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the Official Disavowed Pastor of the Obama for America campaign, to deliver the “invocation rebuttal” at the party’s convention in Denver this August.

“After the traditional opening prayer and the singing of ‘God Bless America’,” said an unnamed DNC source, “the Rev. Wright will have five minutes to call on the Almighty to reject our plea for blessing, refuse to shed his grace on us, and to give our nation what it really deserves.”

 

Sen. Barack Obama, who this week rejected his pastor’s racially-charged preaching, protested the DNC move, noting, “I would sooner wish to see my racist, white grandmother on the convention stage doing a minstrel show routine, than to allow that bigoted America-hater even one more minute in my spotlight.”

That's what some might call a serious b*tch-slap.

 

You'd like to think it's the thin air...

... but actually all thinking persons will know that it's simply more typical leftist stupidity and vapidness:

Colorado College has denied student Chris Robinson's appeal of its finding that he and another student violated the school's "violence" policy for posting a flyer that parodied a flyer of the Feminist and Gender Studies program. The school also has decided not to remove any letters about the case from the students' files until after graduation. The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) is assisting Robinson in his case against the school.   

"First, Colorado College trampled over Chris Robinson's right to engage in an obvious parody, and now the school has further embarrassed itself by denying his appeal," FIRE President Greg Lukianoff said. "The judicial procedure was a joke: the same administrator who found Robinson guilty in the first place was the final judge of his appeal. FIRE calls on Colorado College to remove this guilty finding once and for all from the students' records. As long as they are deemed guilty for engaging in satire, the school's extensive promises of free expression are brazen misrepresentations."

In early 2008, Colorado  College's "Feminist and Gender Studies Interns" distributed a flyer called "The Monthly Rag," which included a reference to "male castration," an announcement about a lecture on "feminist porn," and an explanation of "packing" (pretending to have a phallus). As a parody of "The Monthly Rag," Robinson and a second student, who wishes to remain anonymous, distributed a flyer in February called "The Monthly Bag" under the pseudonym "The Coalition of Some Dudes." The flyer included references to "tough guy wisdom," "chainsaw etiquette," the shooting range of a sniper rifle, and a quotation about "female violence and abuse" of men from the website batteredmen.com.

Shortly thereafter, Colorado College President Richard F. Celeste sent out a campus-wide e-mail declaring that "The Monthly Bag" included