Now There’s simple logic if I have ever heard it.
Nancy Pelosi said, “But we have to pass the [health care ] bill so that you can find out what is in it.”
Filed under: 111th Congress, America (USA), Conniving Politicians, Democrats, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Liberals, Lily-Livered Liberals, Limp-Wrist Liberals, Political Prostitutes, Politics, Power Hungry, Propaganda, Spine Donor Politicians Tagged: Health Care Reform Bill, Obamacare, ObamaCare Catastrophe, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) 
Newly arrived Republican Sen. Scott Brown of Massachusetts accused President Barack Obama and Democrats of a “bitter, destructive and endless” drive to pass health overhaul legislation that Brown warned would be disastrous. (March 13) Near the end of this clip Brown says it all perfectly with this, “Somehow, the greater the public opposition to the Health Care Bill, the more determined they seem to force it on us anyway.”
Filed under: 111th Congress, America (USA), Barry Soetoro (aka Barack Hussein Obama), Blundering Bureaucrats, Conniving Politicians, Democrats, Liberals, Lily-Livered Liberals, Limp-Wrist Liberals, Political Prostitutes, Politics, Power Hungry, Propaganda, Public Opinion, Spine Donor Politicians Tagged: Health Care Reform Bill, Obamacare, ObamaCare Catastrophe, Sen. Scott Brown (R MA) 
By Noel Sheppard
Two prominent current and former Democrat pollsters are accusing media of deceiving themselves about healthcare reform being popular.
“Nothing has been more disconcerting than to watch Democratic politicians and their media supporters deceive themselves into believing that the public favors the Democrats’ current health-care plan.”
So wrote Pat Caddell and Doug Schoen in an op-ed published at the Washington Post Friday:
Yes, most Americans believe, as we do, that real health-care reform is needed. And yes, certain proposals in the plan are supported by the public.
However, a solid majority of Americans opposes the massive health-reform plan. Four-fifths of those who oppose the plan strongly oppose it, according to Rasmussen polling this week, while only half of those who support the plan do so strongly. Many more Americans believe the legislation will worsen their health care, cost them more personally and add significantly to the national deficit.
Yet, in their view, this is not what the media have been presenting to the public: “Never in our experience as pollsters can we recall such self-deluding misconstruction of survey data.”
Indeed, as despite these poll numbers, news outlets across the fruited plain have regularly given readers, viewers, and listeners the impression that pending healthcare legislation is popular.
As Caddell and Schoen accurately noted, the public want healthcare reform, and support some of what is in the bills currently before Congress.
But taken as a whole, the overwhelming majority of Americans oppose what is presently on the table, and media have not only been deceiving themselves about this inconvenient truth, they’ve also been deceiving the citizenry.
Noel Sheppard is the Associate Editor of NewsBusters
Read more Great Articles at NewsBusters
Filed under: 111th Congress, America (USA), Blundering Bureaucrats, Conniving Politicians, Democrats, Liberals, Lily-Livered Liberals, Limp-Wrist Liberals, Medicine, Political Prostitutes, Politics, Power Hungry, Propaganda, Public Opinion, Spine Donor Politicians Tagged: Democrat Polling, Health Care Reform Bill, NewsBusters, Obamacare, ObamaCare Catastrophe, Tony 
By Sammy Benoit
Just when you thought that all of the IPCC screw-ups have been accounted for a brand new one springs up.
The IPCC reported that that up to 40% of the Amazonian forests could react drastically from the slightest reduction of rainfall to be replaced by savannas. The UN Climate gurus based their claim on a World Wildlife Fund study.
A new study fielded by NASA showed the WWF report to be wrong.
“The way that the WWF report calculated this 40% was totally wrong, while [the new] calculations are by far more reliable and correct,” said Dr. Jose Marengo, a Brazilian National Institute for Space Research climate scientist and member of the IPCC.
This new NASA-funded study concluded that Amazon rain forests were unaffected in the face of the 2005 “Drought of the Century” The rain forests did not die (or flourish) which runs contra to claims by the IPCC. …
“We found no big differences in the greenness level of these forests between drought and non-drought years, which suggests that these forests may be more tolerant of droughts than we previously thought,” said Arindam Samanta, the study’s lead author from Boston University.
The comprehensive study published in the current issue of the scientific journal Geophysical Research Letters [and embedded below] used the latest version of the NASA MODIS satellite data to measure the greenness of these vast pristine forests over the past decade.
A study published in the journal Science in 2007 claimed that these forests actually thrive from drought because of more sunshine under cloud-less skies typical of drought conditions. The new study found that those results were flawed and not reproducible.
“This new study brings some clarity to our muddled understanding of how these forests, with their rich source of biodiversity, would fare in the future in the face of twin pressures from logging and changing climate,” said Boston University Prof. Ranga Myneni, senior author of the new study.
“Our results certainly do not indicate such extreme sensitivity to reductions in rainfall,” said Sangram Ganguly, an author on the new study, from the Bay Area Environmental Research Institute affiliated with NASA Ames Research Center in California.
“The way that the WWF report calculated this 40% was totally wrong, while [the new] calculations are by far more reliable and correct,” said Dr. Jose Marengo, a Brazilian National Institute for Space Research climate scientist and member of the IPCC.
Sorry Al Gore, but that little nest egg you were building based on the Global Warming Hoax is about to get fried.
The Full report is at this link
Read more Great Posts at The Lid
Filed under: America (USA), Blundering Bureaucrats, Climate Alarmists, Climate Change, Environment, Environmental activists, Fanatics, Fear-mongering, Fraud/Waste, Global Warming, Liberals, Lily-Livered Liberals, Limp-Wrist Liberals, Politics, Power Hungry, Propaganda Tagged: Amazon Jungle, Climate Change Fraud, Climate Change Religion, Global Warming Alarmism, Global Warming Hype, The Lid, Tony, UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), World Wildlife Fund (WWF) 
This week’s Pennsylvania Newsmakers features a discussion of higher education programs, focusing on the nation’s oldest black college with Cheyney University President Dr. Michelle Howard-Vital, and Provost and Vice President of Academic Affairs Dr. Ivan Banks. Then, joining host Terry Madonna is Tim Potts, Co-Founder & President of Democracy Rising PA, with his take on legislative reform in the state.
Video streaming of the entire program will be available at: http://www.newsmakerstv.com/archive.php?id=420 .
Airing on the following stations:
Contact:
Susan Bowyer, CEO
Newsmakers Productions, Inc.
412.751.8603 office
412.302.6727 cell
www.newsmakerstv.com
[email protected]
Filed under: Conniving Politicians, PA Legislative Branch, Pennsylvania Tagged: Democracy Rising PA, Ed 
By Andrew Bolt
Hypocrisy is cheaper:
The Australian federal government’s Department of Climate Change … has told a parliamentary committee that its Canberra headquarters achieved only a 2½-star rating on the five-star National Australian Built Environment Rating System and did not comply with the government’s policy on energy efficiency in its own operations.
As a result, it is seeking approval to spend $20.5 million fitting out a new building which will have ‘’state of the art’’ green features …
Once that’s done, they can bully everyone else into five-star ratings. That is, every one else who doesn’t have taxpayers to cough up the millions needed.
Andrew Bolt is a journalist and columnist writing for The Herald Sun in Melbourne Victoria Australia.
Read more excellent articles from Andrew Bolt’s Blog
Filed under: Australia, Climate Alarmists, Climate Change, Environment, Fanatics, Fraud/Waste, Global Warming, Liberals, Lily-Livered Liberals, Limp-Wrist Liberals, Power Hungry, Propaganda Tagged: Andrew Bolt, Climate Change Fraud, Climate Change Religion, Global Warming Alarmism, Global Warming Hype, Green Buildings, Tony 
By William Warren
See more Cartoons by William Warren, and Great Articles at NetRight Nation Blog
Filed under: 111th Congress, America (USA), Blundering Bureaucrats, Cartoons, Conniving Politicians, Democracy, Democrats, Humor, Liberals, Lily-Livered Liberals, Limp-Wrist Liberals, Medicine, Political Prostitutes, Politics, Power Hungry, Propaganda, Satire, Spine Donor Politicians Tagged: Health Care Reform Bill, NetRight Nation Blog, Obamacare, ObamaCare Catastrophe, Political Cartoons, Political Humor, Political Satire, Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY), Tony, William Warren 
What other dirt does Emanuel have on Democrats?
The Patriot Post Digest
“[A] good moral character is the first essential in a man.” –George Washington
Former Rep. Eric Massa (D-NY) is currently the star of an ongoing ethics scandal that presents quite the dilemma for political analysts. The question is: What are Democrats up to while Massa tries to convince us to believe his story?
The congressman resigned Monday in the wake of an investigation by the House Ethics Committee for inappropriate comments he made to a male staffer on New Year’s Eve, along with allegations of similar misconduct over the last year. Given that he’s been in Congress for only a year, that’s not a great report card. For his part, Massa claims he’s merely the victim of political warfare by Democrat leaders who wanted him ousted before he could register the “deciding vote” on health care reform.
If Massa’s claim is even partially true, it signals a redoubling of “Chicago-style” political assassination efforts … by the Obama administration to ensure passage of their holy grail, health care legislation. Massa claimed that Rahm Emanuel, the Anointed One’s Chief of Staff and left-hand arm-twister, accosted him in the showers of the congressional gym last November. “I’m sitting there showering, naked as a jaybird,” he recounted, “and here comes Rahm Emanuel, not even with a towel wrapped around his tush, poking his finger in my chest, yelling at me because I wasn’t gonna vote for the president’s budget.” While we wouldn’t put such an act past Emanuel, we also note that, mercifully, there were no witnesses to the alleged encounter. Predictably, the White House denied the allegation.
Massa asked, “Do you know how awkward it is to have a political argument with a naked man?” No, we honestly don’t know. Then again, we also don’t know about tickle fights among (supposedly) grown men.
Our take is that Massa is both a liar and a creep, notwithstanding the administration’s goals, which are even creepier. Certainly, one less “no” vote on ObamaCare doesn’t hurt, as far as the executive branch is concerned. No doubt House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Frutopia) is also pleased. However, such potential skullduggery does lead us to wonder what other sorts of dirt Obamanites have on other “undecided” Democrats should they fail to cooperate.
The downside of this strategy, however, is that the Dem-wits really can’t afford many more high-vis scandals. Over the course of just the last two weeks, for example, three prominent Democrats have managed to rain considerable shame upon their party. In addition to Massa’s disgrace, New York Gov. David Paterson, under scrutiny for interfering in a domestic violence investigation, announced that he would end his re-election campaign, and veteran Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY) was forced to resign as chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee because of numerous ethics violations. Add these to the stack of sleaze amassed by the Demos just since the Chosen One assumed office, and it amounts to a dismal track record for a party that claimed it would “clean up corruption” and stop “business as usual” in Washington.
Democrats won the House from Republicans in 2006 in large part by highlighting GOP scandals. Evidently, what went around appears to be coming back around … and how!
“[W]e have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it, away from the fog of the controversy.” –House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), confirming that too much Botox can kill brain cells
Don’t believe us? See the video.
On Monday, Barack Obama declared, “Our cost-cutting measures mirror most of the proposals in the current Senate bill, which reduces most people’s premiums.”
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) disagreed, albeit indirectly: “Anyone who would stand before you and say, ‘Well, if you pass health care reform next year’s health care premiums are going down,’ I don’t think is telling the truth.”
See the video.
Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) stunned his Republican colleagues by working with Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd (D-CT) this week to breathe new life into Democrats’ financial “reform” package. Feeling pressure from his right, however, Corker has since pulled out of the deal, which Dodd is now pushing without him.
The House version of the bill, crafted by Massachusetts liberal Barney Frank, was recently considered dead in the Senate, and for good reason. It included a $4 trillion bailout provision for rickety financial institutions that would make TARP the official policy of the federal government. No more bankruptcies, no more survival of the fittest — both characteristics of a free market. Instead, the government would be allowed to manipulate the markets on the backs of taxpayers. This bill would also create the Consumer Financial Protection Agency (CFPA), a massive new federal bureaucracy that would have the power to oversee and ultimately regulate not only financial institutions, but also virtually any organization that deals with consumers.
Corker, a freshman senator with an American Conservative Union rating of 83, should have joined his colleagues in the first place and let the bill die in negotiations. Instead, he worked with Dodd to keep the CFPA alive. His office stated that he doesn’t support the bailout provision, but he did in fact vote for the TARP-bank bailout in 2008. Wall Street likes the bailout provision, because it coats big firms with Teflon to keep them from failing under almost any circumstances. It’s a good thing that Corker, who has received $3 million in campaign funds from the finance industry since taking office in 2007, reconsidered when he did. Still, he shouldn’t have put himself in that position in the first place.
Senate Democrats want to attach a provision to the health care reconciliation bill that would allow the government essentially to take over all student loan lending in the country. Democrats are having enough problems passing health care on its own, and this latest parliamentary trick could shake up the delicate vote balance. The student-lending bill would federalize all higher education lending and would thus cause the loss of tens of thousands of private sector jobs. Senators representing states where those jobs stand to be lost are now wavering on whether they can support health care with this completely unrelated provision attached to it. What a shame.
The student-lending bill doesn’t stand much chance of passage on its own. The $67 billion that the White House claims will be saved by the legislation is more than offset by $77 billion in new costs. That figure is a lowball estimate as it doesn’t take into account the rate of student loan defaults or accurately figure new spending increases over time. Worst of all, virtually no one in the Senate has seen this bill, and the public isn’t aware of the details, let alone the fact that it may become law without much debate.
In related news, according to Roll Call, “The Senate Parliamentarian has ruled that President Barack Obama must sign Congress’ original health care reform bill before the Senate can act on a companion reconciliation package.” We’ll soon see how Democrats plan to work around this legal obstacle.
Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick (D-AZ) announced a measure that would cut Congress’s salary by 5 percent in 2011. It has 21 cosponsors so far, and, if passed, it would save taxpayers $4.7 million. Granted, that’s a drop in the bucket considering the deficits we’re facing these days, but it would be an important symbolic step for Congress to recognize the economic woes being felt in the private sector. The House voted against an automatic pay raise in 2009 and 2010, but it hasn’t taken an actual cut in pay since 1933.
The Senate voted 62-36 Wednesday to extend jobless benefits and temporary business tax breaks. Six Republicans and all but Democrat Ben Nelson of Nebraska voted for the bill, which will add about $130 billion to the deficit over the next 18 months. The GOP “yes” votes were mostly the usual suspects, Christopher Bond (MO), Susan Collins (ME), Lisa Murkowski (AK), Olympia Snowe (ME), David Vitter (LA) and George Voinovich (OH).
Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) proposed an amendment last week to block the White House’s arbitrary seizure of over 10 million acres of land in nine Western states. The land was designated as “monuments” under a questionable application of the Antiquities Act of 1906, in order to prevent resources development. DeMint pointed out that during times of economic stress, the government should be freeing up resources for development, not locking them up. Unfortunately, most of his colleagues disagreed. His amendment was defeated 58-38.
Sens. John McCain (R-AZ) and Joe Lieberman (I-CT) introduced the “Enemy Belligerent, Interrogation, Detention, and Prosecution Act of 2010,” which would provide for military, rather than civilian, detention of terrorism suspects. The bill is ostensibly a response to the Christmas Day undi-bomber incident, in which the perpetrator was read his Miranda rights. It permits detentions based on “the potential intelligence value of the individual,” or “such other matters as the President considers appropriate.” That’s a lot of uncomfortable leeway. Furthermore, the military would have the power to detain high-value detainees indefinitely “without criminal charges and without trial for the duration of hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners in which the individual has engaged, or which the individual has purposely and materially supported.” Given that Obama’s Homeland Security team views right-wingers as threats, one wonders just where this could lead. With “friends” like McCain…
Finally, in a bid to put their big-spending past behind them (or at least make a good campaign statement), the House GOP adopted a unilateral one-year ban on earmarks Thursday. To paraphrase Ben Franklin, that’s a good promise … if you can keep it.
As the Long War continues, both expected and unexpected targets were picked off by various American and allied forces this week. In Pakistan, Interior Minister Rehman Malik said that Maulana Faqir Mohammed, a top Pakistani Taliban commander, was probably killed last weekend after helicopters hit a building in Pakistan’s Mohmand region, killing at least 16 Taliban militants. Although Malik could not confirm Mohammed’s death, he was quoted as saying, “We had real-time intelligence that Faqir Mohammad was in a meeting with another commander, Qari Zia-ur-Rehman, in the hideout at the time of the attack.” If true, we got two jihadis for the price of one. Meanwhile, the good hunting continued on Wednesday as U.S. missile strikes killed at least 12 militants near Pakistan’s Afghan border.
Also this week, Pakistani officials claimed that an American, Adam Gadahn, a 31-year-old who has appeared in al-Qa’ida videos urging jihad against the West, had been captured. U.S. defense officials said they had received no indication of any such arrest, and by Friday, Pakistani officials were backing away from the story. Gadahn, who grew up in Riverside County, California, before converting to Islam at a nearby Orange County mosque is the first American charged with treason since 1952, and the U.S. government is offering $1 million for information leading to his capture.
Finally, on Monday, a Pennsylvania woman named Colleen LaRose, but known to authorities as “Jihad Jane” (not to be confused with Hanoi Jane), was charged in federal court with using the Internet to recruit jihadis to carry out murders and other violent attacks overseas. One of her targets was Lars Vilks, an artist who had exercised his free speech rights by drawing a cartoon of the “prophet” Muhammad. The indictment alleges that LaRose received orders to murder someone in Sweden, and to do so in such a way that it would frighten “the whole Kufar [non-believer] world.” It also states that LaRose agreed to commit the murder, and that her appearance and American citizenship would help her blend in and carry it out.
Nearly 14 months in, the Obama administration still lacks a leader at the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). After months of dithering, back in September Obama first selected Errol Southers to head the agency, but Southers withdrew in January after Republicans threatened to continue a hold on his nomination. Republicans’ biggest issues with Southers were his lying to Congress about having unlawfully accessed FBI records to spy on his ex-wife’s boyfriend and his unyielding stance on unionizing TSA employees, a move that could have impeded flexibility in a time of national crisis. Southers also drew fire for his categorization of “Christian identity oriented” groups as the largest threat to our national security.
On Monday, however, Obama nominated retired Army Maj. Gen. Robert A. Harding for the post. Harding, a former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, brings a 33-year military career to the table. The president was “confident that Bob’s talent and expertise will make him a tremendous asset” to the TSA. So far Republicans are receptive, which makes us wonder why Obama didn’t pick Harding in the first place.
Ackerman
On November 10, 2004, then-2nd Lt. Elliot Ackerman of the United States Marine Corps led a platoon into Fallujah — at that time, still a hotbed of insurgent activity. The platoon’s mission was to establish a foothold from which the battalion would then clear the city. As the Marines pushed into the city, enemy fighters attacked from all sides. Twice in the early fighting, Ackerman risked himself to pull wounded Marines to safety, and then organized their evacuation. As the battle raged, however, the vehicle sent to evacuate the wounded couldn’t find their position, so Ackerman again headed into the open and risked what his citation called a “gauntlet of deadly enemy fire” to direct the vehicle to the Marines.
Later in the battle, Ackerman and his team were working to clear a building when he saw some of his Marines exposed on a rooftop. He ordered them down, but took their place to mark targets for American tanks. Under a barrage of enemy fire, he suffered shrapnel wounds in his leg but continued to direct both the attack and four medical evacuations. For his bravery and leadership, Ackerman was awarded the Silver Star. Semper Fi!
Executive salaries reach $500,000, hourly fees top $600, and millions of your dollars are propping it all up. Welcome to the underworld of the environmental industry. According to Richard Pollock of Pajamas Media, “environmental activist groups have surreptitiously received at least $37 million from the federal government for questionable ‘attorney fees’” related to lawsuits that “had nothing to do with environmental protection or improvement.”
Since 2000, nine national environmental groups have filed the astounding number of 3,300 lawsuits, most based on “alleged procedural failings of federal agencies” rather than “substance or science.” Not only has Uncle Sam doled out the millions, but Washington has “neither tracked nor accounted for” any of the outgo. Wyoming attorney Karen Budd-Falen, who helped uncover the fraud, says the $37 million is just the “tip of the iceberg,” estimating the actual number is in the hundreds of millions.
Interestingly, according to the Washington Examiner, compensation for the top 10 paid environmental executives ranges from $308,000 to $496,000. Pajamas Media notes that of the $3.4 million that environmental PACs have given in federal campaign contributions since 2000, approximately 87 percent was to Democrats. Coincidence? We think not.
Eco-activists aren’t the only ones greening themselves with your money. It seems Wake Forest University is using a $71,623 federal “we must rescue the economy now” stimu-less grant to study the effects of cocaine on a specific neurotransmitter in addicted monkeys. The economic benefit? Apparently a job “saved.” For the record, we believe taxpayer dollars already fund too much monkey business in Washington; there’s certainly no need to fund it anywhere else.
As monkeys and tree-huggers eat at the government trough, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) predicts that Barack Obama’s proposed budget will hike the national debt by more than the mind-numbing sum of $9.7 trillion over the next 10 years — far more than the already astounding $8.5 trillion the White House predicts. Naturally, the Democrat-led CBO blames the ballooning deficit on the Bush tax cuts while simultaneously claiming the proposed health care takeover will be deficit-neutral.
Let’s get this straight: passing a trillion-dollar government-run and taxpayer-funded health care plan won’t add to the deficit, but restoring to Americans trillions of dollars in saving, investing and spending power somehow did? Whose money is it, anyway?
USA Today recently conducted a survey comparing average salaries of private sector employees to those of federal employees. Guess who did better? If you said the public sector worker, go to the front of the class.
First of all, many federal workers are covered by civil service rules, making them nearly impossible to fire and difficult to layoff. On top of that, based on 2008 data, the typical federal worker is paid 20 percent more than one in the private sector in the same occupation. The median salary for a federal employee is $66,591, while that of a private sector employee is $55,500, a difference of $11,091 — before adding benefits such as medical insurance, sick days and holidays, pensions and the like. According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, benefits averaged $40,785 per federal employee versus $9,882 per private worker. Add these to the USA Today figures and the average in total compensation for each is $107,376 versus $65,382, a whopping 64 percent difference of $41,994.
The difference in salaries is greatest in the public relations occupations. The widest spread, $44,169, was for public relations managers, with the federal employee receiving $132,410, compared to $88,241 for his private sector counterpart. The next largest difference was $41,045 for broadcast technicians.
So if you want a job that pays well, has great benefits and offers little chance of being laid off, the federal government is the employer for you — that is, until it runs out of other people’s money.
The Obama administration plans to force mortgage lenders to allow homeowners behind on their payments to sell for less than they owe. Known as short sales, these transactions are — or used to be — few and far between for one obvious reason: the lender loses money. In this election year, however, the administration is more concerned with garnering the votes of the five million households at risk of foreclosure.
Under the plan, real estate agents would assess the value of the property, which would not be disclosed to the homeowner. If the homeowner receives an offer equal to or greater than that value, the lender must accept. In addition, the lender will receive $1,000 and the homeowner will pocket $1,500 for “relocation assistance.” One of the stated benefits of the program is that these woe-is-me homeowners — people who willingly borrowed well beyond their means (yes, we understand this isn’t always the case) — would suffer a lesser blow to their credit than if they had lived through foreclosure. Of course, that will come at the expense of taxpayers.
In 2008, then-Senator Barack Obama risked the ire of his leftist comrades when he championed offshore drilling as an opportunity to free America from dependence on foreign oil; he shrewdly hedged his bets in order to lure centrists and other undecideds into his camp. However, as with so many other issues, Obama’s campaign promises are proving worthless.
Despite the fact that Americans favor offshore drilling by a 2 to 1 margin, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar has used every tool in his bureaucratic box to hinder it, including extending the public comment period before beginning the drilling program, voiding existing contracts for onshore drilling in Utah and announcing the delay of the offshore program until 2012. This program would have created 1.2 million real jobs per year and not doing it will cost the U.S. $2.36 trillion over the next 20 years. Surprise! Economic recovery is not the real agenda of this administration.
The one thing we can count on from Census 2010 is controversy. What began 220 years ago as a constitutionally mandated count for proportional representation has morphed over time into a method for divvying out federal funds targeted to specific groups based on the information asked as part of our decennial census.
The 10 questions asked on this year’s short form certainly do more than just account for the number of citizens. Citizens are asked about age, race, gender, whether we own or rent our homes, and personal identifying information such as name and telephone number.
Ironically, accounting for race made sense only because the nation once counted certain residents as 3/5 of a person — a compromise wrought to balance Northern and Southern interests over the question of numbering slaves. While the 14th Amendment ended that practice, the question remains as a vestige of a society not quite colorblind. In response, some plan to answer the race question with “American.”
Factor in the advertising campaign which suggests people should reply to get “their fair share” of federal goodies, and the possibility of same-sex couples identifying themselves as married regardless of whether the state they live in allows same-sex marriage, and it’s clear that the Census is becoming less about proportion and more about politics.
“A federal appeals court in San Francisco has ruled that the phrase “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance is constitutional,” reports the Associated Press. Atheist Michael Newdow had filed suit in 2004, claiming his daughter shouldn’t be required to say the Pledge at school. However, his daughter and her mother, from whom Newdow is separated, are Christians who don’t object to the Pledge, and the U.S. Supreme Court threw out the case saying Newdow didn’t have standing. He refiled on behalf of other parents, but, in a 2-1 ruling, a Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel rejected his argument that the phrase “under God” violates the separation of church and state. Yes, the Ninth Circuit. Amazing, isn’t it?
“China and India formally agreed Tuesday to join the international climate change agreement reached in December in Copenhagen, the last two major economies to sign up,” The New York Times reports. Though Xie Zhenhua, vice-chairman of the powerful National Development and Reform Commission, admitted that there are disagreements over the cause of warming, he said, “As far as governments around the world are concerned, as the existence and long term development of climate change will cause great damage to mankind, it is better to believe that it is happening than that it isn’t.” He added, “We should take scientific measures to avoid these problems happening.” Shoot first, ask questions later.
More than 100 countries have signed the accord, which calls for limiting the rise in global temperatures to no more than 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit beyond pre-industrial levels. It sounds so easy — if we can all just agree that the temperature shouldn’t get any higher, we’ll save the planet.
Meanwhile, Reuters reports, “Loopholes in the United Nations climate treaties could actually amount to an increase in global climate-warming emissions, and the chance to rein in temperatures may be slipping away, a draft European Union report showed.” Bummer.
“I guess what we all underestimated was the degree, the depths of dishonesty, and dirtiness, and cynicism to which the climate change denial movement would be willing to stoop to advance their agenda.” –Michael Mann, author of the dirty, dishonest and cynical “hockey stick” graph showing a recent spike in warming
Federal authorities at the ATF recently intercepted a large shipment of rifles labeled “toys” in Tacoma, Washington, that it claimed “could have had far-reaching and potentially devastating ramifications if they had gotten into the hands of individuals who wanted to do harm in the American population.” Could the weapons seizure have prevented a shooting rampage across the nation? Perhaps — except for one problem. The guns actually were toys.
Apparently, the ATF thought there was no limit to the widespread damage these mostly plastic Airsoft BB guns could have inflicted upon hapless Americans. The lightweight plastic BB ordnance fired by such heavy artillery may actually sting or leave welts on bare skin if fired at close range. Undeterred by such an obvious blunder, the agency justified its seizure by declaring the toy BB guns could be converted into real, fully automatic machine guns — which is true, if virtually all of the toy’s parts were replaced with real machine gun parts from a real weapon. The same holds true for any other toy being converted to the real thing from scratch, like toy pickups or spaceships. The old adage never to attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity continues to be true, especially when it comes to bureaucratic bungling. Perhaps in the future, the ATF could refer to Guns for Dummies to help them identify real weaponry.
A burglar had the surprise of his life when he broke into a soon-to-be Marine’s home in Delhi Township, Ohio. In the middle of the night, Kevin Boyle noticed that his door had been opened and quickly confronted the suspect. After warning him not to move, Boyle noticed him pull out what appeared to be a gun and raise it towards him. Fortunately, he had his own .45 caliber handgun ready.
Boyle fired two shots at the suspect and ran to get behind the corner wall for protection. He immediately called the police for help. The suspect took off to escape in the woods. It appears a car was waiting to pick him up. He remains on the run, and there is no evidence that he was struck by the bullets.
“I’m glad no one got hurt, including him. He probably thought he could get in for a quick little burglary and luckily I was ready to keep myself safe,” said Boyle, who is two months away from leaving for Marine training camp. We’d call that successful early training.
One of the biggest questions on Capitol Hill these days is whether the Democrats have the votes to pass health care legislation. Speaker Nancy Pelosi claims she does, but political analyst Michael Barone, for one, doubts it. One bit of evidence supporting his conclusion is reported by National Journal’s Congress Daily: “House Rules Chairwoman Louise Slaughter is prepping to help usher the healthcare overhaul through the House and potentially avoid a direct vote on the Senate overhaul bill, the chairwoman said Tuesday. Slaughter is weighing preparing a rule that would consider the Senate bill passed once the House approves a corrections bill that would make changes to the Senate version.” In other words, House members would vote for a rule, not a bill, which, to a party that thinks the American people are behind them, makes perfect sense.
Slaughter is the congresswoman who, two weeks ago, told the sad tale of a woman wearing her dead sister’s dentures, which she interpreted as a call for Congress to commit a hostile takeover of one-sixth of the economy. It was a bit of a leap, we know.
As to her current machinations, House Republican Leader John Boehner’s office came up with a clever moniker: “The Slaughter Solution.” Indeed, not only would this “solution” slaughter the checks and balances provided by the Constitution, but it would almost guarantee that Democrats get slaughtered at the polls in November. And wouldn’t that be a shame!
Read more excellent articles at The Patriot Post
Filed under: 111th Congress, Barry Soetoro (aka Barack Hussein Obama), Conniving Politicians, Demo-gogues, Liberals, Marxists, News and Views, Political Prostitutes, Politicians for the Destruction of America Tagged: Annie, The Patriot Post 
By Alan Caruba
President Obama is discovering what presidents going back to Eisenhower in the modern era and Jefferson in the earliest days of the nation learned. The Middle East responds best to the point of a bayonet because its primary faith, Islam, was spread by the sword and its holy book is essentially a battle plan to conquer the entire world.
Whatever else you read about the United States and Israel, keep in mind that we have been the closest of allies since it was founded in 1948 and was, of course, immediately attacked by the Arabs from nations around it.
As for those “Palestinian” refugees you keep hearing about, most simply fled during the first war against Israel and now several generations later they remain in United Nations refugee “camps” or as the unwelcome guests in the surrounding Arab nations that will not extend citizenship.
It remains a mystery to me why American presidents, Nixon, Carter, Reagan, Clinton, the two Bushes, and now Obama even bother to push for a two-state “solution” when the record shows that Arafat and his successors have fled from any negotiations that would actually accomplish that. The so-called Palestinians only want the annihilation of the Jews as does the rest of the region.
Israel, sacred to Jews and Christians, is a rebuke to their claims of holy hegemony.
The United States always looks like an idiot whenever it suggests that Israel (a) give back land won in the various wars against it and (b) should stop building settlements on that land.
A look at the map demonstrates that Israel is a very tiny nation and the building of housing and infrastructure for its population is no less essential to them than it is for any other nation. Is there a strategic objective to the settlements? Yes. They say this is our land and we have a right to live here.
Along with other Middle East nations, Israel is among the oldest in history, dating back some 3,500 years. When it builds new housing in Jerusalem, it is doing so in the capital of Israel that was established by King David of biblical times.
The Muslim “claim” to Israel as its holy land is based entirely on military conquest in the pre-Crusades era and to the fantasy story that Muhammad journeyed to Heaven on a horse from the site of the Dome of the Rock, built from 688 to 691 AD.
The rock, by the way, is one of the most holy sites in Judaism, believed to be the place where Abraham was stayed from the sacrifice of his son, thus biblically prohibiting the sacrifice of one’s child; known as the Temple Mount. Jesus preached there.
There is no record that Muhammad ever stepped foot outside of Arabia though it is known that he originally commanded the early adherents of Islam to face Jerusalem to say their daily prayers. After Jewish tribes in Arabia refused to convert to Islam and declared him a charlatan, he had one tribe slaughtered and its women and children sold into slavery. After that he told early Muslims to face Mecca instead.
In sharp contrast to slaying one’s own children, Muslims cheer when one of theirs commits suicide for the purpose of killing Jews in Israel and, it turns out, fellow Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Vice President Biden has recently been to Israel pledging America’s support in one breath and demanding the end to new settlements in the other. This is old stuff to Israelis who are busy continuing to create a modern state in the midst of those still mired in events that occurred a thousand years ago.
For more than six decades, the Israelis have wandered back and forth in a quest for peace with their neighbors, concluding after several wars, the abandonment of a security zone in Lebanon and the entire area of Gaza, that the so-called Palestinians do not want peace.
Why American presidents and this current administration even bother to seek negotiations to secure peace is a diplomatic charade they feel compelled to stage to placate the Arab nations. Meanwhile, the Israelis and their counterparts in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and even Egypt meet secretly to discuss the real problem in the Middle East, a nuclear-armed Iran.
The Obama administration sends mixed signals because it is a good way to keep all the parties involved distracted from the reality that Israel is here to stay. Sacred to Jews and Christians, Muslims have slim reason to lay claim to it.
The irony in this, seemingly missed by everyone involved, is that the United States has had a huge military commitment of men and arms in the Middle East ever since 9/11 required that we degrade both al Qaeda and the Taliban movements. We have fought several wars there in the last decade and why we would not join in a new one to put an end to the threat the Iranian regime represents is a mystery. Or a well-kept secret.
If jihad is a holy war that must continue until a global caliphate is established, what is the fuss all about if we assist the Iranian people in their quest to overthrow their oppressive government or, if necessary, to destroy their military threat to the region? Why would we hand off this necessary war to the Israelis? Unless, of course, we don’t want our fingerprints all over it?
© Alan Caruba, 2010
Alan Caruba writes a daily post at Warning Signs. A business and science writer, he is the founder of The National Anxiety Center.
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Filed under: America (USA), Arabs, Barry Soetoro (aka Barack Hussein Obama), Conniving Politicians, Democrats, Fanatics, Israel, Israeli, Jerusalem, Liberals, Lily-Livered Liberals, Limp-Wrist Liberals, Middle East, Palestinian, Political Prostitutes, Politics, Propaganda, Spine Donor Politicians, Vice President Joe Biden Tagged: Alan Caruba, Arab “Palestine” state, Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Jerusalem, Tony, Two State Solution, Vice President Joe Biden, Warning Signs 
By William Warren
See more Cartoons by William Warren, and Great Articles at NetRight Nation Blog
Filed under: 111th Congress, America (USA), Barry Soetoro (aka Barack Hussein Obama), Cartoons, Conniving Politicians, Democrats, Humor, Liberals, Lily-Livered Liberals, Limp-Wrist Liberals, Political Prostitutes, Politics, Power Hungry, Propaganda, Public Opinion, Satire, Spine Donor Politicians Tagged: Health Care Reform Bill, NetRight Nation Blog, Obamacare, ObamaCare Catastrophe, Political Cartoons, Political Humor, Political Satire, President Obama, William Warren 
By Marlo Lewis
Gallup’s annual update of Americans’ attitudes on things environmental found that 48% of Americans believe the seriousness of global warming is generally exaggerated, up from 41% in 2009, and 31% in 1997, when Gallup first posed the question.
Similarly, the percentage of those who believe global warming is going to affect them or their way of life in their lifetimes has dropped from 40% in 2008 to 32% today.
Among the causes for these changes in opinion, Gallup mentions, “publicity surrounding allegations of scientific fraud relating to global warming evidence.” I’d like to propose another, related factor: humor.
Marlo Lewis, Jr. is a Senior Fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, where he writes on global warming, energy policy, and other public policy issues.
Read more Great Articles at cei.org
Filed under: America (USA), Cartoons, Climate Alarmists, Climate Change, Environment, Environmental activists, Fear-mongering, Global Warming, Humor, Liberals, Opinion Poll, Propaganda, Public Opinion, Satire Tagged: CEI (Competitive Enterprise Institute), Climate Change Humor, Climate Change Religion, Global Warming Alarmism, Global Warming Humor, Global Warming Hype, Open Market, Tony 
According to the Sydney Morning Herald:
“The Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, was set to withdraw from all peace talks with Israel last night after the announcement this week that 1600 apartments would be added to Jewish settlements in occupied East Jerusalem.
The announcement enraged the visiting US Vice-President, Joe Biden, who has told the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, that it was liable to ‘’set the Middle East on fire”.
Mr Biden blames Mr Netanyahu for the decision, telling officials on Wednesday that the United States’ close relationship with Israel was jeopardising its other bilateral relationships across the region.
”This is starting to get dangerous for us,” he reportedly castigated Israeli officials. ”What you’re doing here undermines the security of our troops who are fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. That endangers us and it endangers regional peace.” -more
Read More Dry Bones by Yaakov Kirschen
Filed under: America (USA), Cartoons, Democrats, Humor, Israel, Jerusalem, Liberals, Lily-Livered Liberals, Limp-Wrist Liberals, Middle East, Palestinian, Political Prostitutes, Politics, Propaganda, Satire, Spine Donor Politicians, Vice President Joe Biden Tagged: Dry Bones, East Jerusalem, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Political Cartoons, Political Satire, Tony, Vice President Joe Biden 
By Andrew Bolt
TonyfromOz prefaces …..
For my comments on this, see at the bottom of the post.
Professor Mark Perry skewers another alarmist, this time Paul Ehrlich:
Earth Day (April 22) is only six weeks away, and I just noticed that the (US) EPA recently updated air quality data for 2008 and thought it was worth featuring now in anticipation of the 40th anniversary of Earth Day:
The following predictions made around the time of the first Earth Day in 1970:
“Air pollution is certainly going to take hundreds of thousands of lives in the next few years alone,” Paul Ehrlich in an interview in Mademoiselle magazine, April 1970. Ehrlich also predicted that in 1973, 200,000 Americans would die from air pollution, and that by 1980 the life expectancy of Americans would be 42 years.
“By 1985, air pollution will have reduced the amount of sunlight reaching earth by one half…” Life magazine, January 1970.
“Man must stop pollution and conserve his resources, not merely to enhance existence but to save the race from the intolerable deteriorations and possible extinction,” The New York Times editorial, April 20, 1970.
The world will be “…eleven degrees colder in the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice age,” Kenneth Watt, speaking at Swarthmore University, April 19, 1970….
Here we are 40 years later, the U.S. population has increased by more than 50%, traffic volume (miles driven) in the U.S. has increased 160%, and real GDP has increased 204%; and yet air quality in the U.S. is better than ever – nitrous dioxide, sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide and lead have all decreased between 46% and 92% between 1980 and 2008 (see chart).
Erlich, incidentally is the author of the wrong-wrong-wrong The Population Bomb, and is now a warming worrier.
TonyfromOz adds …..
I want you to read again those predictions made in 1970, some of them by a person who now supports man made Global Warming, and I want you to consider them with some logical thinking, not on what he said then, but on the Science aspect itself.
These predictions were considered to be Science at the time, and going on today’s attitudes of belief, where if something is said by a Scientist, then it must be right, because after all, that is the job they are (or were then) trained to do, and they should know, and we should then trust them to know.
Look at the statements, (not hypothetical guesses, but quoted as statements of fact) on life expectancy, reduction in sunlight, then on extinction, and then on the cooling temperature driving us into an Ice Age, all caused by air pollution.
Now scroll forwards 40 years, and none of those things have transpired, and in fact have been proved to be 100% wrong. Now, however, we are told that the man made emissions of CO2 are causing the World to inexorably heat up. Should we not be asking questions, raising doubts, and not just accepting blindly that it must be true. If what they said then has proven to be (patently and astoundingly) wrong, then what makes what they say now 100% correct?
Andrew Bolt is a journalist and columnist writing for The Herald Sun in Melbourne Victoria Australia.
Read more excellent articles from Andrew Bolt’s Blog
Filed under: America (USA), Climate Alarmists, Climate Change, Environment, Environmental activists, Fanatics, Fear-mongering, Global Warming, Power Hungry, Propaganda, Public Opinion Tagged: Air Pollution, Andrew Bolt, Climate Change Religion, Climate Change Scaremongering, Earth Day, Environmental protection Agency (EPA), Global Warming Alarmism, Global Warming Hype, Tony 
“On every question of construction, carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed.” –Thomas Jefferson
There are only two rules you need to know when debating a liberal.
Rule Number One: You must define the debate in terms of First Principles, which is to say, you must be able to articulate those principles. (Read Essential Liberty for more.)
Conservatives subscribe to the fundamental doctrine of Essential Liberty as enumerated by our Founders in the Declaration of Independence and our Constitution. We understand that individual responsibility is the foundation of a free society. We advocate for the restoration of constitutional limits on government and the judiciary. We promote free enterprise, national defense and traditional American values.
In short, conservatives endeavor to conserve Rule of Law as our guiding principle, and any legitimate policy debate must start there.
Liberals, on the other hand, subscribe to principles du jour; whatever solution feels best for the day’s most popular, fashionable, or prominent cause célèbre. …
In short, they believe that the feel-good solution (a.k.a. “rule of man”) supersedes Rule of Law.
For the most part, today’s liberals are a case study in hypocrisy, the antithesis of the once noble Democrat Party, the party of Thomas Jefferson.
Liberals speak of unity, but they incessantly foment disunity, appealing to the worst in human nature by dividing Americans into constituent dependencies. They speak of freedom of thought — except when your thought doesn’t comport with theirs. They assert First Amendment rights — except when it comes to religion or speech that doesn’t agree with theirs. They promote tolerance — except while practicing intolerance and seeking to silence dissenters.
Liberals deride moral clarity because they can’t survive its scrutiny. They protest for the preservation of natural order while advocating homosexuality. They denounce capital punishment for the most heinous of criminals while ardently supporting the killing of the most helpless and innocent among us — the unborn, the infirm and the aged.
Liberals loathe individual responsibility and advocate statism. They eschew private initiative and enterprise while promoting all manner of government control and regulation.
Now, I’m not suggesting that everything liberals believe or support is wrong, but their underlying philosophical doctrine surely undermines our “unalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” as established by “the laws of nature and nature’s God.”
As Ronald Reagan observed, “The trouble with our liberal friends is not that they’re ignorant; it’s just that they know so much that isn’t so.”
Thus, don’t be snookered into defending or denouncing the merits of any issue as framed in liberal terms. Such deliberations are rarely resolved and tend to end in gridlock, or worse, deadlock. (If congressional Republicans really want to end gridlock, they too need to control the debate in terms of First Principles.)
One means of taking control of a debate is to inquire whether an opponent has ever taken an oath to “support and defend” our Constitution. (If you have not, or wish to reaffirm your oath, then we invite you to do so by registering with The Essential Liberty Project.
If your opponent answers “yes,” then inquire as to which constitution — the one upon which our nation was founded, or the so-called “living constitution” adulterated by generations of legislative and judicial diktat.
Of course, you must be prepared to explain the difference — to explain that only one of these constitutions exists in written form, while the other is a mere fabrication. This can be best accomplished by presenting your copy of the Essential Liberty Guide.
Another means of framing the debate is to ask your opponent to articulate the difference between constitutional Rule of Law and the rule of men. Again, you must be prepared to explain the difference.
You may also start by asking your opponent what “liberal” means. Most liberals will define “liberal” in terms of the issues they support, so ask your opponent if those issues comport with our Constitution.
Once you’ve framed the debate in terms of First Principles, give your liberal opponent a recess, and a copy of the Essential Liberty Guide.
Principled liberals (admittedly an oxymoron) will remain satisfied that what they feel is equivalent to, or even supersedes, Rule of Law. These poor souls are on their way to becoming über liberals, or Leftists, and are probably beyond any logical redemption.
But if you use your Essential Liberty Guide as an education tool rather than a hammer, some liberals may actually start to come around, and this conversion should be your primary objective.
Further, if confronted by your opponent with a challenge to provide a constitutional defense for some Republican legislation, don’t bite. Most Republican legislation, though it may be more in line with our Constitution, rarely comports with the plain language of Rule of Law. Don’t let your opponent frame you as a hypocrite. Remember: You are, first and foremost, a constitutional conservative, not a tool of any political party.
Alas, selective interpretation of our Constitution has expanded its meaning beyond any semblance of its original intent, and it will take time and discipline to contract its meaning through due process to restore its original intent.
Finally…
Rule Number Two: You must distinguish between liberals and Leftists. The former subscribe to a plethora of contemporaneous solutions, while the latter are bona fide “useful idiots,” those Western apologists for socialist political and economic agendas that terminate with the institution of Marxist-Leninist-Maoist collectivism masquerading as regulation and taxation.
When it comes to debating Leftists, the outcome is utterly dependent on who has superior firepower.
Read more excellent articles at The Patriot Post
Filed under: Conservatives, Constitution, Declaration of Independence, Liberals, Liberty, Marxists, News and Views, US Government Tagged: Annie, Constitutional Conservative, Leftists, The Patriot Post 
A Pennsylvania woman, known as Jihad Jane has been charged with terrorism offences. Colleen LaRose is accused of recruiting jihadist fighters. Robert Nisbet reports.
What can you say?
TonyfromOz adds …..
If the sound on the video ’seems’ to be not working, click on the small volume speaker icon there and adjust the volume marker up.
Filed under: America (USA), Breaking News, Fanatics, Muslim Tagged: Jihad Jane, Muslim Extremism 
By Robert Felix
“Almost all of the ice-covered regions of the Earth are melting — and seas are rising,” said Al Gore -in an op-ed piece in the New York Times on February 27.
Both parts of Gore’s statement are false.
Never mind that Mr. Gore makes only passing reference to the IPCC’s fraudulent claims that the Himalayan glaciers will all melt by 2035. (“A flawed overestimate,” he explains.)
Never mind that Mr. Gore dismisses the IPCC’s fraudulent claims that the oceans are rising precipitously. (“Partly inaccurate,” he huffs.)
Never mind that Mr. Gore completely ignores the admission by the CRU’s disgraced former director Phil Jones that global temperatures have essentially remained unchanged for the past 15 years.
I’ll let someone else dissect Gore’s lawye ring comments, and concentrate on just the one sentence about melting ice, because neither part of that sentence is true.
Contrary to Gore’s assertions, almost all of the ice-covered regions of the Earth are growing, not melting — and the seas are not rising.
Let’s look at the facts.
If you click on the words “are melting” in Gore’s article, you’re taken to a paper by Michael Zemp at the University of Zurich. Mr. Zemp begins his paper by warning that “glaciers around the globe continue to melt at high rates.”
However, if you bother to actually read the paper, you learn that Zemp’s conclusion is based on measurements of “more than 80 glaciers.”
Considering that the Himalayas boast more than 15,000 glaciers, a study of “more than 80 glaciers” hardly seems sufficient to warrant such a catastrophic pronouncement.
Especially when you learn that of those 80 glaciers, several are growing.
Growing. Not melting.
“In Norway, many maritime glaciers were able to gain mass,” Zemp concedes. (“Able to gain mass” means growing.)
In North America, Zemp also concedes, “some positive values were reported from the North Cascade Mountains and the Juneau Ice Field.” (“Displaying positive values” means growing.)
Remember, we’re still coming out of the last ice age. Ice is supposed to melt as we come out of an ice age. The ice has been melting for 11,000 years. Why should today be any different? I’m guessing that most Canadians and Northern Europeans are very happy that the ice has been melting.
Unfortunately, that millenniums-long melting trend now appears to be changing. No matter how assiduously Mr. Gore tries to ignore it, almost all of the ice-covered regions of the Earth are now gaining mass. (Or, displaying positive values, if you will.)
For starters, let’s look at those Himalayan glaciers. In a great article, entitled “World misled over Himalayan glacier meltdown,” Jonathan Leake and Chris Hastings show that the IPCC’s fraudulent claims were based on “speculation” and “not supported by any formal research.”
As a matter of fact, many Himalayan glaciers are growing. In a defiant act of political incorrectness, some 230 glaciers in the western Himalayas – including Mount Everest, K2 and Nanga Parbat – are actually growing.
“These are the biggest mid-latitude glaciers in the world,” says John Shroder of the University of Nebraska-Omaha. “And all of them are either holding still, or advancing.”
And get this. Eighty seven of the glaciers have surged forward since the 1960s.
So much for Mr. Gore’s “more than 80 glaciers.”
(I don’t know how many Himalayan glaciers are being monitored, but my guess would be fewer than a thousand, so it’s possible that hundreds more are growing. There aren’t enough glaciologists in the world to monitor them all.)
But we don’t need to look to the Himalayas for growing glaciers. Glaciers are growing in the United States.
Yes, glaciers are growing in the United States.
Look at Washington State. The Nisqually Glacier on Mt. Rainier is growing. The Emmons Glacier on Mt. Rainier is growing. Glaciers on Glacier Peak in northern Washington are growing. And Crater Glacier on Mt. Saint Helens is now larger than it was before the 1980 eruption. (I don’t think all of the glaciers in Washington or Alaska are being monitored either.)
Or look at California. All seven glaciers on California’s Mount Shasta are growing. This includes three-mile-long Whitney glacier, the state’s largest. Three of Mount Shasta’s glaciers have doubled in size since 1950.
Or look at Alaska. Glaciers are growing in Alaska for the first time in 250 years. In May of last year, Alaska’s Hubbard Glacier was advancing at the rate of seven feet (two meters) per day – more than half-a-mile per year. And in Icy Bay, at least three glaciers advanced a third of a mile (one half kilometer) in one year.
Oh, by the way. The Juneau Icefield, with its “positive values,” covers 1,505 square miles (3,900 sq km) and is the fifth-largest ice field in the Western Hemisphere. Rather interesting to know that Gore’s own source admits that the fifth-largest ice field in the Western Hemisphere is growing, don’t you think?
But this mere handful of growing glaciers is just an anomaly, the erstwhile Mr. Gore would have you believe.
Well, let’s look at a few other countries.
But this is nothing. These glaciers are babies when you look at our planet’s largest ice masses, namely, the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets.
Contrary to what you may have heard, both of those huge ice sheets are growing.
In 2007, Antarctica set a new record for most ice extent since 1979, says meteorologist Joe D’Aleo. While the Antarctic Peninsula area has warmed in recent years, and ice near it diminished during the summer, the interior of Antarctica has been colder and the ice extent greater.
Antarctic sea ice is also increasing. According to Australian Antarctic Division glaciology program head Ian Allison, sea ice losses in west Antarctica over the past 30 years have been more than offset by increases in the Ross Sea region, just one sector of east Antarctica.
The Antarctic Peninsula, where the ice has been melting, is only about 1/50th the size of east Antarctica, where the ice has been growing. Saying that all of Antarctica is melting is like looking at the climate of Oregon and saying that this applies to the entire United States.
There was not any evidence of significant change in the mass of ice shelves in east Antarctica nor any indication that its ice cap was melting, says Dr. Allison. “The only significant calvings in Antarctica have been in the west.” And he cautioned that calvings of the magnitude seen recently in west Antarctica might not be unusual.
“A paper to be published soon by the British Antarctic Survey in the journal Geophysical Research Letters is expected to confirm that over the past 30 years, the area of sea ice around the continent has expanded.”
What about Greenland?
Greenland’s ice-cap has thickened slightly in recent years despite wide predictions of a thaw triggered by global warming, said a team of scientists in October 2005.
The 3,000-meter (9,842-feet) thick ice-cap is a key concern in debates about climate change because a total melt would raise world sea levels by about 7 meters.
But satellite measurements show that more snow is falling and thickening the ice-cap, especially at high altitudes, according to the report in the journal Science.
The overall ice thickness changes are approximately plus 5 cm (1.9 inches) per year or 54 cm (21.26 inches) over 11 years, according to the experts at Norwegian, Russian and U.S. institutes led by Ola Johannessen at the Mohn Sverdrup center for Global Ocean Studies and Operational Oceanography in Norway.
Not overwhelming growth, certainly, but a far cry from the catastrophic melting that we’ve been lead to believe.
Think about that.
The Antarctic Ice Sheet is almost twice as big as the contiguous United States.
Put the Antarctic and Greenland Ice Sheets together, and they’re one hundred times bigger than all of the rest of the world’s glaciers combined.
More than 90 percent of the world’s glaciers are growing, in other words, and all we hear about are the ones that are shrinking.
But if so many of the world’s glaciers are growing, how can sea levels remain the same?
They can’t. The sea level models are wrong.
During the last ice age, sea levels stood some 370 feet (100 meters) lower than today. That’s where all of the moisture came from to create those two-mile-high sheets of ice that covered so much of the north.
And just as the ice has been melting for 11,000 years, so too were sea levels rising during those same years.
But the rising has stopped.
Forget those IPCC claims. Sea levels are not rising, says Dr. Nils-Axel Mörner, one-time expert reviewer for the IPCC.
Dr. Mörner, who received his PhD in geology in 1969, is one of the greatest – if not the greatest – sea level experts in the world today. He has worked with sea level problems for 40 years in areas scattered all over the globe.
“There is no change,” says Mörner. “Sea level is not changing in any way.”
“There is absolutely no sea-level rise in Tuvalo,” Mörner insists. “There is no change here, and there is zero sea-level rise in Bangladesh. If anything, sea levels have lowered in Bangladesh.”
“We do not need to fear sea-level rise,” says Mörner. “(But) we should have a fear of those people who fooled us.”
So there you have it. More falsehoods from Al Gore, the multimillionaire businessman who some say is set to become the world’s first carbon billionaire.
Our glaciers are growing, not melting — and the seas are not rising.
I agree with Dr. Mörner, but I’d make it a tad stronger. We should have a fear of those people who have conned us.
Robert W. Felix is author of Not by Fire but by Ice, and publisher of www.iceagenow.com
Filed under: America (USA), Climate Alarmists, Climate Change, Environment, Environmental activists, Fanatics, Fear-mongering, Fraud/Waste, Global Warming, Liberals, Lily-Livered Liberals, Limp-Wrist Liberals, News and Views, Power Hungry, Propaganda, Public Opinion Tagged: Al Gore, Alaskan Glaciers, Antarctic Sea Ice, Antarctica, Climate Change Fraud, Climate Change Religion, Climategate, Global Warming Alarmism, Global Warming Hype, Himalayan Glaciers, Melting Glaciers, Rising Sea Levels, Robert Felix, Tony, UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 
By Alan Caruba
With a hat tip to Rasmussen Reports, here is the latest score on Obama’s job performance approval/disapproval polling. I think that squiggly line heading down means a lot of people disapprove.
It’s not just Americans who think he is the worst President in the modern era (Jimmy Carter is so relieved that he can’t stop smiling) but lots of leaders in other nations. That is, however, bad news for Americans because that kind of thing emboldens bad guys.
Alan Caruba writes a daily post at Warning Signs. A business and science writer, he is the founder of The National Anxiety Center.
Read more thought provoking articles at Warning Signs
Filed under: 111th Congress, Barry Soetoro (aka Barack Hussein Obama), Liberals, Lily-Livered Liberals, Limp-Wrist Liberals, Opinion Poll, Politics, Power Hungry, Propaganda, Public Opinion, Spine Donor Politicians Tagged: Alan Caruba, Obama Approval Rating, President Obama, Tony, Warning Signs 
By David M. Huntwork
In less than a year well over a thousand independent groups have sprung up around the nation to organize and demonstrate against the attempted government takeover of entire industries, high taxes, crippling debt, and the agenda of President Barack Obama. While many have ridiculed and guffawed about the “teabaggers,” these motivated and angry voters have very quickly shown the ability to raise millions of dollars, target specific political races, grab headlines and media exposure, stage large rallies, and mobilize volunteers.
The Tea (Taxed Enough Already) movement has been defined as populist, conservative, and libertarian in tone. It is a movement diverse in leadership and organization but united in its defense of liberty and the constitution. Its members are technologically savvy and able to mobilize in a moments notice. It is anti-elitist, anti-big government, and anti-big business. It is a revulsion and revolt against perceived corruption and politics as usual. And it the most recent public face of the Liberty Movement that resides on the right side of the ideological spectrum.
It is the winning combination of the common sense principles of less government, fiscal responsibility, lower taxes, state’s rights, and strong national security that is uniting the Tea Party into an effective force to be reckoned with. The mad as hell Teaparticans are the modern-day serfs smashing down the castle gate in an attempt to overthrow their feudal overlords. It is a popular uprising against the political establishment.
The members of the Tea Party first came to national attention when they crashed townhall meetings and held spontaneous rallies and protests around the nation. Couched in terms like “the second Revolution” and “the uprising,” while touting the imagery of the American Revolution, the Tea Party movement is really just a vast amalgamation of factions and independent groups acting outside the old party establishments and organized everywhere from facebook to the fellowship hall in the basement of the church on the corner. But they are mad as hell, and history shows that righteous indignation and the howling mob can definitely threaten entrenched interests and the ruling elite. Whether that energy and drive can be wielded effectively and wisely still remains to be seen.
Those who jeered and poked fun at the 9-12 and Tea party groups just a few months ago now greatly worry about these shock troops of an aroused and angry conservative movement that has dedicated itself to practicing “guerilla conservatism” and challenge the progressive ideology that seeks to regulate, tax, and control nearly every aspect of your daily life. The fainting, worshipful Obamanite crowds of a year ago have been replaced in the street by those who have had enough of a government, and governing party, that is out of control.
With their sea of signs and Revolutionary War flags this particular face of the larger Liberty Movement descended onto Washington D.C. in the hundreds of thousands this past summer (the Million Mob March). It was the announcement to a corrupt establishment that a movement, not a party, was here to contest the agenda, power, and business as usual of the entrenched rich and corrupt that infest both Wall Street and Capitol Hill. It is a movement equally disgusted with corporate bail outs and the socialization of medicine. And in many ways it is not just the Right against the Left, but the little guy against the big guy, the average American against the elite, and the lover of liberty against those who seek to replace it with authoritarian regulation.
The real influence of the Tea Party movement, despite all the media coverage, is yet to be seen. There is a major and nation wide effort to prepare to mount a conservative takeover of the Republican primary and caucus process. Few show up to these important but often neglected grassroots meetings and the fired up and angry rank and file are not just here to oppose the Democratic Party but to make serious inroads into the Republican Party. A third political party is not seen as a viable option at this particular point in time but the takeover of one of the existing ones is seen as possible.
The country club elite and RINO (Republicans In Name Only) who have held sway in the GOP and controlled much of the party apparatus and candidate selection process has no idea how to harness, control, or otherwise exert much pressure on this grassroots uprising against politics as usual. The conservative resurgence is happening despite the GOP, not because of it. Hopefully a rising tide will lift all boats. It was not the conservative movement that lost in November but perceived Bush Republicanism with its poor prosecution of two wars and own policies of big government and big spending. And the Republican presidential nominee was no conservative but in fact the embodiment of traditional party politics and seen as the poster boy of those who sacrifice principle for the sake of expediency and political power.
It will be interesting to see if the momentum fueled by the Tea Party has already peaked or if we are seeing the birth of a long-standing, broad-based, and truly influential phenomenon in the American political process or just a short-lived outburst of frustration with Barack Obama.
The 9-12 Project and Tea Party groups are still in their political infancy but have shown they do have some staying power, the ability to raise millions of dollars to target specific races, and now the attention of both political parties. Not bad for just some ordinary citizens using the internet to organize some rallies and “crash” some townhall meetings on health care. Good for them. I’m glad someone, anyone, is standing up and saying the kind of things that need to be said. One can continue to wallow in ignorance and blind faith in the agenda of the government or one can boldly stand in opposition and declare such things unacceptable for a free people.
There have been complaints that the members of the Tea Party movement are mostly white. Does it matter? Is perceived “diversity” now the only benchmark by which we measure legitimacy of a cause? The movement is an uprising of the ignored middle class. They are the ones who have the most to lose under Obama. All races are welcome in the Liberty movement. You just have to be willing to detach yourself from the teat of government handouts and dependency to be a member.
If anything, the Tea Party rebellion is more about class, not race. In the Great Recession it was the middle class that took a huge hit with severe job losses and foreclosures in the millions. The middle class is the heart and soul of the nation and when it feels ignored and betrayed it will strike out at those who it sees as having abandoned it. It is they who are feeling the greatest effects of both the recession and government policies. The rich will always be rich, and the poor will be poor, (but not too much poorer due to the wide social safety net we have constructed), but it is the middle class who have watched big government bail out big business with their money even as they lost their jobs, their savings, their retirement, and their homes. At the same time they see a massive grab for power by a government who sees them as little more than someone to be taxed and controlled. And occupying the oval office is the most leftist and radical president to every hold the office. It is upon such fertile ground that the message of the Tea Party and 9-12 groups has fallen with amazing results. Their anger at Washington, big business, and big government has provided a third force in politics, at least for the time being, that scares the Left and challenges the political class and politics as usual.
Stunned by the virtual overnight mobilization and organization of an angry, high-tech, middle class, right-wing uprising against Obama’s rapid march towards European socialism, the Left has crashed from its hopey-changey high to find itself faced with some serious problems. Progressivism is an ideology of continual movement and motion. It is protest speeches and gatherings, lesbian brown bag lunches, and marches about “the struggle” for (insert favorite pet cause here – no blood for oil, civil rights, gay rights, animal rights, gender equality, nuclear disarmament, saving the polar bears etc). With the pinnacle finally reached by what they saw as the election of one of their own they seemed to have finally collapsed from exhaustion as they declared a paradigm shift, the exile of anyone to the right of Hillary to wander in the political wilderness for a generation, and the much heralded thousand-year reign of He who would slow the rising of the oceans.
They seemed to have passed the mantle of energy, rebellion against the status quo, and anti-establishment anger to the peasants who had been toiling in the fields and serving as the backbone of the state even while the agitators agitated and the community organizers organized. The Tea Party types have emerged from their “exile” in the political wilderness with a righteous indignation that has frightened the ruling classes and shaken the corrupt cabal that controls the capitol. Armed with tweets and facebook, pitchfork and torch, they are the most visible image of the uprising of the Right against those who would force us down the road to serfdom.
Latecomers, politicians, and opportunists attempt to glob onto any movement but that doesn’t diminish the validity of their anger, the righteousness of their outrage, or the power of their principles. The Tea Party movement is now a vast amalgamation of political novices and virgin activists working side by side with professional opinion setters and grizzled conservative veterans of the culture wars. The question really is whether or not it is all “too little, too late” or a popular outrage and uprising that is “just in nick of time.” That answer is not yet known and remains to be seen.
David Huntwork is a conservative activist and independent columnist in Northern Colorado where he lives with his wife and three young daughters. He is the author of the book No Apologies: In Defense of Common Sense and the Conservative Ideology which can be purchased at http://stores.lulu.com/store.php?fAcctID=3576295
You may also view his bio and past columns at The Conservative Citizen
Filed under: America (USA), Conservatives, Democracy, Liberty, Patriotism, Politics, Public Opinion, Republicans Tagged: David Huntwork, TEA Party Movement, TEA Party Protests, Tony, Townhall Meetings 
By William Warren
See more Cartoons by William Warren, and Great Articles at NetRight Nation Blog
Filed under: 111th Congress, America (USA), Barry Soetoro (aka Barack Hussein Obama), Cartoons, Democrats, Humor, Liberals, Lily-Livered Liberals, Limp-Wrist Liberals, News and Views, Political Prostitutes, Politics, Power Hungry, Propaganda, Public Opinion, Satire, Spine Donor Politicians Tagged: NetRight Nation Blog, Political Cartoons, Political Humor, Political Satire, President Obama, Tony, William Warren 
By Andrew Bolt
See Andrew’s UPDATE below regarding the arrest of ‘Jihad Jane’. —TonyfromOz
It’s madness, this lethal intolerance – and the ideology and Iranian Government which foster it:
Irish police arrested seven Muslims suspected of conspiracy to murder Tuesday over an alleged plot to kill a Swedish cartoonist who drew the Prophet Mohammed with the body of a dog, they said.
The four men and three women were arrested in the southern Irish towns of Cork and Waterford following an international operation.
A police source confirmed press reports that they were Muslims arrested over an alleged plot to assassinate Swedish cartoonist Lars Vilks [pictured at right], who has a A$110,000 bounty on his head from an Al-Qaeda-linked group.
Why would seven people who are allegedly so violently against a fundamental freedom of Western society then choose to live in that freedom’s air – and why on earth were they allowed to?: …
The seven people arrested range in age from mid 20s to late 40s, Irish police said, while state broadcaster RTE reported that they were originally from Morocco and Yemen, but were all legally in Ireland.
UPDATE
An American is charged:
The self-dubbed “Jihad Jane” who thought her blond, all-American profile would help mask her plan to kill a Swedish cartoonist is a rare case of a U.S. woman inciting foreign terrorism and shows the latest evolution of the global threat, authorities say.
The suburban Philadelphia woman, Colleen R. LaRose, was accused in Tuesday’s indictment of trying to recruit jihadist fighters, and pledging to murder the artist, marry a terrorism suspect so he could move to Europe and martyr herself if necessary…
The indictment paints a picture of a woman whose devotion to the cause grew as she prowled the Internet and conversed with a loose band of terrorist suspects in Europe and South Asia. She eventually agreed to try killing Swedish artist Lars Vilks, who had angered Muslims by depicting the Prophet Muhammad with the body of a dog…
LaRose had targeted Vilks and had online discussions about her plans with at least one of several suspects apprehended over that plot Tuesday in Ireland, according to the U.S. official.
Even more important that we all stand by the right of Vilks to draw the world as he sees it, and to defy those who seek to impose their faith or strictures by terror. After all, it is merely for this that Vilks must die:
Zombietime provides the context:
In the nation of Sweden there is a contemporary urban folk custom of placing in the center of “roundabouts” (the circular traffic islands in the middle of major intersections) whimsical homemade sculptures representing pet dogs. The sculptures, which are fairly commonplace in Sweden, are called “roundabout dogs” (rondellhund in Swedish). In the summer of 2007, Swedish artist Lars Vilks made some paintings of Mohammed as a roundabout dog; after they were rejected by two art galleries wary of controversy, a sketch based on one of the paintings ended up being published in a small local Swedish newspaper, Nerikes Allehanda. Incredibly, this ignited an international furor, with protests, diplomatic quarrels, and threats of violence. The original sketch, seen above, was also posted on Vilk’s blog.
Andrew Bolt is a journalist and columnist writing for The Herald Sun in Melbourne Victoria Australia.
Read more excellent articles from Andrew Bolt’s Blog
Filed under: America (USA), Fanatics, Islam, Politically Correct Tagged: Andrew Bolt, Jihad Jane, Lars Vilks, Muslim Tensions, Tony 
