Oh So Sure Consensus, eh?

Not quite.

New Survey

(ok it was new, now it's old news.)

Competency Test

I like this idea of a presidential game show of sorts to test a candidate's ability to actually be president.

I think the comments are more to the point (as is sometimes the case) and they present better features than the original post.

My ideal presidential game show would include at least these two features: the knowledge test jeopardy, containing questions on the american founding, constitution, laws, basic economic savvy, stuff everyone should know. This was suggested on the site by poster "Christina":

Since Celebrity Jeopardy routinely humiliates its participants by exposing their ignorance on basic knowledge, I think a kind of Presidential Jeopardy would be equally useful.

Ha, guess who would lose that round?

and a war game as suggested by a "PH":

A virtual war game. Make them play-out one of those Pentagon war game scenario games in front of the public, and then be questioned on their decisions.

Maybe Matthew Broderick could provide some occasional voice-over play-by-play from the a room in the back - like in Celebrity Poker. Each week you could have a guest co-host: Schwarzkopf, Powell and Berger etc...

Much more entertaining and enlightening then lame debates. Can you imagine Democrats fighting a war game? Me neither. They'd try negotiating with enemy tanks. Not like some of the Republican front-runners would pass the economic questions either.

"It's not that liberals are ignorant, it's what they know that is wrong."

A short clip and a cartoon for your entertainment and enlightenment:

Romney on why liberal philosophy has got it all wrong. (click on "Romney: Philosophy of strength")

Obama As President
Most people I know would make a better president than this guy.
And I love how Castro is on life support and Kim Mentally Unstable Jong II is uber short.

I know I have been remiss in posting but as the school year commences, posts may be few and far between.
I think the site will take a new format: one post a week. This way I will organize my thoughts better, and give you a more quality post. We'll see how that works for a while and go from there.

Coming up:
- A series on global warming/climate change as I have just discovered notes from a conference I went on the issue. Very interesting stuff, prepare for a solid challenge to the conventional wisdom (which is almost always wrong, it's pretty safe to assume that).
- An update on my PBS exploits.

A Headline You'll Never See

Citizens oust terrorists from mosque, help uncover weapons cache

This is as news worthy as 4 Americans Killed in Bombings...

In fact I think it is more news worthy because lives being lost in a war is not really news.

Now do not get me wrong, I am not minimizing the sacrifice made by our servicemen and women, or downgrading the seriousness of an American death.
What I am criticizing is the media's ardent dedication to spewing bad news only from Iraq, painting their ideological picture of a civil war, rather than the very real occurences of increasing stability and terrorists on the run.

Crumbling Logic

Ex-Clinton Official Ties Minneapolis Bridge Collapse to Global Warming

This is hysterical. The global warming hype has reached new levels if we are now tacking bridge collapses to tempature increases. Increases that have always occurred and are hardly a new phenomena.

Read the comments on that article, quite funny. A few people suggested selling the gullible government heat resitant paint to protect the bridges. Here's one comment's take:

Painting the bridge? I dunno, that sounds like an awful lot of work. Wouldn't be easier to just blame it on climate change and spend billions of dollars trying to make it 1 degree cooler over the next century?

Here is another favorite:

Common sense 1 if "climate change" brought this bridge down why are not the 4 other bridges like it or the thousands across Minnesota older not falling into the creeks.

Common sense 2 if "climate change" brought down the bridge why is it other much older buildings in Minnesota from Court Houses to historic homes are not falling down.......as you know bridges do not have the extremes houses do in being 80 degress inside while it is 20 below outside.

Common sense 3, Paul Douglas is the resident WCCO weather boy and contrary to the the NTSB, Minnesota in Minneapolis has been very mild the past years. It has been quite balmy in fact with Douglas last year whining about no snow for his snowmobile. Minneapolis does not get that cold like the Canadian border regions.

Common sense 4, this bridge when it fell HAD BOTH MAIN STRUCTURES COLLAPSE. It fell evenly and there is no logical reason for it to have behaved perfectly. It should have twisted and sagged and yet one side dropped and the other end of this section dropped only at a slightly higher angle. That is not infrastructure nor climate change. That is something man made.

And since we are discussing climate change, one cannot continue without mentioning the great High Priest of the Environmentalist Religion: Al Gore.
Here's an interesting list of Inconvenient Facts Mr. Gore must have a hard time explaining:

An Inconvenient Fact - Occidental Petroleum & the Gore Family go way back!

An Inconvenient Fact - Gore owns a company that sells carbon offsets to suckers who believe his lies.

An Inconvenient Fact – Gore drives a Cadillac Escalade and not a Prius. Gore's daughter drives a v12 Lamborghini.

An Inconvenient Fact – Gore’s 10,000 square foot estate in Tennessee with an indoor swimming pool uses more energy per month than you do in one year. His other two homes use lots of energy too!

An Inconvenient Fact – Gore flies in private jets, lecturing us to reduce our carbon footprints by flying and driving less.

An Inconvenient Fact – Gore’s home in Carthage, Tennessee sits on a zinc mine receiving $20,000 a year in royalties from Pasminco Zinc – a company that pollutes the nearby Caney Fork River.

An Inconvenient Fact – Mars and Pluto are also warming up without any SUV’s and crude oil.

An Inconvenient Fact – Gore served endangered Chilean Sea Bass at his daughter’s wedding last month in Beverly Hills. He demanded a recount of the fish to learn if they really are endangered. Florida surfer Dude “Hangin’ Chad” is in charge of the recount. Then Gore bought “fish offsets” to feel less guilty from the company that sells “carbon offsets” – the one he himself owns.

An Inconvenient Fact – Gore dropped out of Divinity school, Journalism school and Law school – but he is now an expert in environmental studies with no degree?

Hm, it seems as if someone's green halo is a bit tarnished. Any more digging into his personal habits and we just might expose the presidential loser for the farce that he is.

Absolute Relativism

On the way to work today I overheard a conversation on the train that was rather bothersome. No I really don't make it a habit to listen to other people's conversations but these were the only people speaking in the whole train (it was like 7:30 after all) and they were right next to me.

So now that I've justified my eavesdropping, here's what they were talking about. One was decrying the Louvre (famous art museum in France) saying they would never go there, but oh the glories of the Centre Pompidou! So in one sentence they slammed some of the greatest works of art (Mona Lisa, housed in the Louvre) while showing deep appreciation for the utter crap in the Centre Pompidou.

Ok, ok, bear with me, I know discussing French museums is slightly uncharacteristic but really, elevating the Centre Pompidou over the Louvre? If you haven't seen the Centre, look up some pictures. Not only does it look absurd, but its contents are equally ridiculous.

Modern art is based on the contradictory presumption of absolute relativism. That is, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Ok maybe you don't think this picture of two colored dots that took zero talent to produce isn't beautiful, but I do. So there is no absolute standard in the light of which art is evaluated, except for that of relativism. Anything is allowed except for some antique notion of quality criteria.
Throw it all out the window and put a urinal on display and call it art.

Ridiculous.

In other (unrelated...well maybe not) news, my favorite green, wet-behind-the-ears Democrat is severely damaging our reputation abroad. My man Obama is now calling for an invasion of our ally, Pakistan. This shows he knows absolutely nothing about a) conducting a war, especially the current one, and b) how to not tick of a sovereign country, especially if we allied with them.

The balance is delicate enough with members of Congress calling for military strikes in someone's backyard because of what you think you know. As this article describes and critiques, we already do that Mr. Obama. In fact recently we have taken out several top Al-Qaeda leadership.

Here is Pakistan's response, effectively putting the ignorant senator in his place. Not my favorite country, but they do a nice job of putting Dems in their place.

This is simply a taste of the incompetency we would experience with a Democrat in office. The perceived diplomatic failures of President Bush will pale in comparison.

We Fund Our Own Demise

So you know all those evil countries out there, Iran, Sudan, North Korea? I know I am being simplistic like the President by calling them evil but let us be real here: they hate Americans, they hate freedom, they hate liberty, they love power. Iran and NK would jump in a moment if they had the opportunity to obliterate the US, and all 300 million of its inhabitants. Call me simplistic if you want but that sounds evil.

But these despotic states get their support from somewhere and despite supposed sanctions from the UN and international pressure to behave, they continue their belligerent quest for nuclear weapons and spit on any notion of behavior standards by kidnapping sailors, hosting terrorists and the like.

So where does this support come from you ask? Well surprise surprise some of it comes from the pockets of Americans. How? Because the companies we invest in have ties with terror sponsors.

That is why there is a movement to divest in terror sponsoring countries and thus cut off their lifeline, sending a clear signal that we mean business (literally) and they need to get in line.

Michael O'Brien from NRO writes about this new terror divestment phenomenon.

And Candace de Russy also writes on the new push for terror-free funds.

Check out this 'Dirty Dozen' list of top companies embroiled in supporting terror-coddling and genocidal regimes. Recognize any of those names? Hyundai? Siemens? Bad folk.

But how does this apply to the everday American? Or say the college student?
Well, college endowments represent a significant segment of the market, $340 billion to be exact (in 2006, according to that NRO article). And:

The top 20 of these campuses represent close to 50 percent of the total of all reporting institutions.
...
The magnitude of these 20 endowment funds is such that a large percentage of them, like pension funds seeking broad diversification, are almost certainly investing, to some greater or lesser degree, in firms benefiting the Iranian regime (and the other states on the terror watch lists).

It is imperative for these universities to re-evaluate their investment policies and in the light of the threats facing this nation, eliminate all companies that have ties to terror-sponsoring nations. It's not hard: they are the bad guys so we shouldn't be putting money in their back pockets while our troops are giving their lives to fight them.
Doubt the connection between Iran and terrorism? Don't be naive.

While universities may be demonstrating resistance to reforming their investment policies, they cave relatively easily. All it takes is some public outcry. Once they realize the parents, students, alumni, and donors are all calling for terror divestment they will be forced to make adjustments, or risk losing endowment dollars: a terrifying prospect.

So all those student groups out there protesting Darfur and genocide and Faces for Darfur and all that, even those protests about the loss of life caused by the American invasion of Iraq (which pales in comparison to a single action by a single one of these terrorist regimes), should all shift their focus to their own backyard and a university endowment that in many cases directly supports such evil.

"Here's my strategy on the Iraq War: We win, they lose."

(Ok I borrowed that from Reagan, and he actually said Cold War...)

Pandora Radio - Listen to Free Internet Radio, Find New Music

I highly reccomend this website, very handy for lots of free streaming music. No downloads, no lag.

Here are some good bullet points from a New York Post article on why we are winning in Iraq. All of these advances are examples of how we are throwing our enemies off balance. It is up to Congress to decide whether or not we will finish the job. Seems like a simple decision but apparently not for politicians.
Observe the facts and decide for yourself:

* Al Qaeda lost the support of Iraq's Sunni Arabs. The fanatics over-reached: They murdered popular sheiks, kidnapped tribal women for forced marriages, tried to outlaw any form of joy and (perhaps most fatally, given Iraqi habits) banned smoking. In response, the Arab version of the Marlboro Man rose up and started cutting terrorist throats.

* Since the tribes who once were fighting against us turned on al Qaeda, our troops not only captured the senior Iraqi in the organization - which made brief headlines - but also killed the three al Turki brothers, major-league pinch-hitters al Qaeda sent into Iraq to save the game.

* Al Qaeda has been pushed right across Anbar, from the once Wild West to the province's eastern fringes. The terrorists are still dug in elsewhere, from the Diyala River Valley to a few Baghdad neighborhoods - but, to quote that senior officer again, "our forces have been taking out their leaders faster than they can find qualified replacements."

* It isn't only al Qaeda taking serious hits. After briefly showing the flag, Muqtada al-Sadr fled back to Iran again, trailed by his senior deputies. Mookie's No. 2 even moved his family to Iran. Why? Though he's been weak in the past, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is now green-lighting Iraqi operations against the Jaish al Mahdi, the Mookster's "Mahdi Army."
In Mosul, Iraqi army and police units stuck to their guns through a series of tough combat engagements, with the result that massive arms caches were seized from the terrorists and insurgents. In Kirkuk, Iraqi police reacted promptly to last week's gruesome car-bombing - in time to stop two other car bombs from reaching their intended targets.

* In Baghdad, the surge isn't only about American successes - Iraqi security and intelligence forces conducted a series of hard-hitting operations against both al Qaeda and Iran-backed Special Group terrorists.

This is also an excellent perspective, even if it is a retired general. This article discusses the differences between this year and last year and how that indicates that we are poised for success in Iraq.

Leave it to Congress to screw it up though.

Clinton: Confused.

Cliche title, I know, it kind of goes without saying. But its a topic that should be stressed, especially with an important election coming up next year. The topic being how Democrats cannot be trusted with our national security. At least most Americans realize this, as they consistently rate Republicans higher then Dems when it comes to defending our country.

Go figure: Pelosi pretends she's president and arranged meetings with foreign heads of state. Ok maybe Congressional leadership is allowed to do that but they are NOT allowed to convey false messages and attempt to broker peace deals. Read about it here.

So the latest example is Clinton forgetting what she said a couple months ago. Once she forgets what she said, she says the opposite. Who can blame her? It's hard to keep your opinions straight when your busy sliding across the spectrum depending on who you are addressing. Hillbillary even has the strange ability to change race at will.

Ok, what happened you ask? Well these two links were on the Drudge Report, and they looked something like this:

April: Clinton calls for US to meet with enemies

I think it is a terrible mistake for our president to say he will not talk with bad people. You don't make peace with your friends -- you have to do the hard work of dealing with people you don't agree with.

June: Clinton criticizes Obama for suggesting US meet with enemies

Certainly, we're not going to just have our president meet with Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez and you know, the president of North Korea, Iran and Syria, until we know better what the way forward would be.

Nice work Billary. (ya I cant really decide on a nickname) You really have to hand it to her, she presents a solid, united front to the voters. No one really doubts where she stands. Hopefully this is true, hopefully everyone realizes she is an extreme leftist socialist who should be marginalized if not removed from the political landscape for her ridiculous assertions.
Like this one.
She says: "We have no idea of how these people think, we have no contact with them" Really Senator? We have no idea what our enemies are thinking? Maybe you dont because you are too busy oscillating political opinions and attempting to be all sorts of things that you are not.
But for the rest of America it is clear what our enemies think, that is why they are our enemies! She is incredibly naive to think we can talk with insane despots such as Ahmadinejad and Chavez. They deserve nothing less than a bunker buster to the face, and people that insist otherwise forget the lessons of the last century.

It looks like we will have to learn all over again with Iran anyway. The danger signs are clear: crazy ideology, check (repeated calls for the annihilation of a sovereign nation), expressed desire to kill us (great satan etc), actions toward both of those goals (the Lebanon war last year, their support of insurgents and Al Queda in Iraq, kidnapping of British sailors), and pursuit of nuclear technology and weaponry.
How much clearer does it need to be?

And this woman wants to be president? What kind of a leader would she be if she has to send envoys to our known enemies to figure out their intentions?

In this age of terror, vibrant terror networks, rogue extremist states pursuing nukes, and an extremely important war in which our troops are valiantly fighting, we need a solid President who has a grasp of what our enemies intend to do: inflict harm. And a solid President who knows what to do to confront such an enemy. You dont send diplomats to Nazi Germany, you send battalions. You dont send envoys to an extremist Iranian regime almost armed with nukes, you send stealth bombers. A President that understands that will be able to effectively lead the country.

Abstinence Kills

"...for us to leave them in ignorance is potentially consigning them to illness, pregnancy, poverty, and in some cases, death." - Obama

Yet again, the Democratic party comes up with stellar presidential candidates. Read the article, the man actually supports sex ed in a kindergarten classroom. The insanity of the world in which we live never ceases to amaze me, but the source being Democratic candidates is never surprising.
Ok, I have to include the disclaimer that his campaign rushed to explain. Obama only wants education to be medically accurate ("science based"). So when a little tike asks where babies come from youre not allowed to say "Um, a stork, go back to your coloring." So what do you say? An anatomically correct explanation of reproduction?? Did this guy talk to his kids at all? Too busy coming up with ridiculous amendments about retreating from a war we're winning...

Here it is: a post on a social issue. [Although who cares whats being taught in the classroom if jihadists are running around outside.]

I particularly like Obama's association with abstinence (or "leaving them in ignorance" as he puts it) as a cause of death. And pregnancy (!?).

But let's back up. The debate is over whether we should teach kids abstinence (ie abstaining from sexual activity) or if we should base education on the statistically proven inevitable fact that half of teenagers are gonna get nasty and teach them how to do it safely.
I like that argument, it's like if stats say a third of all teenagers will try drugs, then we should have school-sponsored drug forums where everyone tries whatever they want in a safe, controlled environment. You know, where the needles are clean.
And since 3/4s (ok I made that up) of all teenagers drink, schools should have chaperoned booze-fests in which children can safely and responsible try adult beverages. Great idea.

Look, I'm all for educating on the dangers of sexual activity. The problem I have is the assumption that they're going to do it anyway so let's resign to that fact and base our policies on the bad decisions of teenagers.

What kids really need to know is that condoms are terribly ineffective and completely unable to prevent the transmission of several very dangerous diseases. They are far from the perfect preventive that they are touted as being.

That's why I like the "play with fire you get burnt" approach, ie DONT DO IT. Too simplistic I know.
I like how Obama attributes such a policy with causing pregnancy, illness, poverty (hm? oh, expensive abortions, right), and death.
The real cause of such things would be failing to communicate the ineffectiveness of preventative measures.

Nothing is as effective as abstinence.

Can We Win Please?

U.S. General in Iraq Speaks Strongly Against Troop Pullout - New York Times

Yes I was surprised to see this kind of article in the Times, but even they can run from the truth for only so long.

This article contains direct testimony from a Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch about the effectiveness of the surge strategy and the increasing cooperation of the local Iraqis. As stated at the end of the article, the fear of our commanders in Iraq is not whether we will win or lose but rather the threat that political fickleness in Washington poses to our troops. By demanding a change in policy according to weekend casualty numbers, Congress demonstrates that they can be intimidated into demanding retreat. Our generals fear a concentrated attack by the terrorists because Al Queda knows that if they can make the situation look worse than it is, they can repeat Vietnam: a pullout after victory.

Our politicians need to shut up and listen to actual military commanders, who are professionally capable of correctly evaluating combat situations, determing how many soldiers are necessary for a particular mission (ie securing a country), and whose end goal is complete victory. Those are the only people that should be making decisions. Not a bunch of suits with an agenda and an upcoming election year to worry about.

The effects of the outcome in Iraq are simple, two possible scenarios:
1) We retreat and lose: American credibility tanks, our military is demoralized, Iraq crumbles into a terrorist cesspool and becomes fodder for Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Turkey. Iran scores against the great satan. Republicans look really bad and lose the next election.
2) By some miracle, Congress cedes to reality, allows the surge to work, terrorists are routed out of Iraq by the already revolting population, and Iraqi army brigades and security forces permanently maintain control of previous Al Queda redoubts, allowing American forces to be drawn down without creating a vacuum. This is the picture of victory. When a secure nation is coupled with political gains and compromises, a free Iraq becomes possible. Ideally, this would begin to occur next spring and into the summer, painting a successful future for Iraq and spurring Republicans to victory in the fall elections because the Democrats were revealed to be the cheerleaders of American defeat that they are.

Peter Brookes sums it up well here:

So, let me get this right: Al Qaeda’s reaching into the United Kingdom, centering us in the crosshairs, reconstituting in Pakistan, and fighting us tooth and nail in Iraq — and some in Congress are sounding the trumpet for retreat?

Yup, pretty much.

Stop Feeding Beans to Cows

Move to cut methane emissions by changing cows' diet Climate change Guardian Unlimited Environment

It's about time someone recognizes that cattle pose a more serious threat to 'global warming' then cars. But a concert about cow flatulence doesn't quite have the same appeal I suppose.

Starbucks: +1 point

So I got my morning cup of caramel machiato and skeptically looked at the side of the cup, expecting to see some form of hippie propaganda as is usually found in the "The Way I See It" section on Starbucks cups.

But I was pleasantly surprised to see this excellent quote that I shall share with you:

"Darwinism's impact on traditional social values has not been as benign as its advocates would like us to believe. Despite the efforts of its modern defenders to distance themselves from its baleful social consequences, Darwinism's connection with eugenics, abortion, and racism is a matter of historical record. And the record is not pretty."

-Dr. Jonathan Wells, Biologist and author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design

Live Earth

A few words on Albert Gore's latest attempt to convince everyone that his dangerous and scientifically dubious climate change ideology is the pre-eminent issue facing mankind.

The obvious critique is the humorous fact that while this concert is supposed to promote climate change awareness and the necessity of emissions reductions and one-square-of-toilet-paper usage and all that jazz, it has a rather large environmental footprint. Think of all the power usage consumed by such an event and the immeasurable damage this must be causing our fragile, ancient planet. Of course, in an attempt to avoid this criticism, the planners of the event sought to make it as environmentally friendly as possible.

The problem with that attempt in part lies with the claim of offsetting impacts with these carbon credits. These "credits" have all kinds of problems, the least of which is the tree planting thing: trees take decades to grow and any impact they may have is therefore delayed. So if the crisis is as imminent as Albert would have us believe, the earth won't exist (or at least New York City) by the time these trees are able to absord any real amount of carbon dioxide.

More on this subject when I dig up my notes on a global warming conference I attended.

Next Post: A reporter/journalist researches Christianity and weighs the truthfulness of the Gospels with an interesting 8 part test. This is from Lee Strobel's Case For Christ that I have just picked up, excellent book. Well, so far.

Welcome

Hello all: Thanks for visiting my new blog.

I'm not exactly sure what the mission of this is blog will be yet, but bear with me. Right now it is a vent for my pent up opinion: take it for what it's worth. Or value it at the price you paid to read this. Either way, enjoy, comment civilly, or shoot me an email (to be posted soon).

Let me know what you think of the title. Ok so it is mostly inspired by me just seeing the movie, but it's a loaded statement and i like it.