Get me away from the sexist Democrats

Hillary is now widely complaining that she has been the victim of misogynists in her bid for the nomination in the dem primary contest. Large numbers of the democrat voters are sexist, she claims. At the same time, she claims that she is better able than Obama to defeat McCain next Fall. This seems to suggest that the contest in November would favor her because the voters who are Republican or who may be independent with no party affiliation would overlook her sex and vote on the issues she feels favor her.

I am not sure she would agree with the BestView conclusion, but it seems that Hillary should consider joining the Republican party since it is apparently not as populated with sexists.

Religion of Peace

Just wondering

When will the liberal media and pundits start using the word "gravitas" in the same sentence with BHO?

Obama Nonsense

Here is a direct quote of BHO's most recent nonsense. This is tired liberal drivel from academia that most of the electorate will accept without thinking.... mostly because they can't. Who is going to ask the electorate to consider whether a robust industrialized economy is going to consume more energy than a backward country in Africa whose population is still living in grass huts? Boy, this is depressing.

We can’t drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times, whether we’re living in a desert, or living in the tundra, and then just expect that every other country’s going to say okay, you guys just go ahead and keep on using 25% of the world’s energy, even though you only account for 3% of the population.

The Abortion Effect

The BestView theory of this election holds that many, if not most, of the liberals who are giving Obama the nomination are not comfortable with him. As his inexperience and lack of thought about international circumstances become painfully evident, they will in the end stick with him for one reason. They will risk the possibility of catastrophic international consequences from Obama's pursuit of Jimmy Carter's second term in order to preserve a woman's right to kill her babies.

Kennedy vs. Khrushchev

Obama,who is either "history-challenged" or even more devious and naive than most believe, has cited the Kennedy and Khrushchev meeting as something that ratifies his suggested meeting with all despots "without preconditions". The following account in the New York Times, of all places, puts the record straight for Obama and other Kool-Aide sippers in his camp.
Historical evidence suggests Kennedy knew immediately that he had made a mistake and the erection of the Berlin Wall two months later and the installation of missiles in Cuba within a year confirmed how big a mistake it was to send an inexperienced idealistic liberal to the White House. Read the whole article.

Good thing he is a liberal

Obama on Sunday:

“I mean, think about it. Iran, Cuba, Venezuela — these countries are tiny compared to the Soviet Union. They don’t pose a serious threat to us the way the Soviet Union posed a threat to us. And yet we were willing to talk to the Soviet Union at the time when they were saying, ‘We’re going to wipe you off the planet.’ ”

Obama on this past Tuesday after McCain and others challenged him:

Iran is a grave threat. It has an illicit nuclear program. It supports terrorism across the region and militias in Iraq. It threatens Israel's existence. It denies the Holocaust," he said. "The reason Iran is so much more powerful than it was a few years ago is because of the Bush-McCain policy of fighting in Iraq and refusing to pursue direct diplomacy with Iran. They're the ones who have not dealt with Iran wisely.

Another bullseye from Coulter

Calling the fight against terrorism "the defining challenge of our time" -- which already confused liberals who think the defining struggle of our time is against Wal-Mart -- Bush said:

"Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along. We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: 'Lord, if I could only have talked to Hitler, all this might have been avoided.' We have an obligation to call this what it is -- the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history."

The way liberals squealed, you'd think someone had mentioned Obama's ears.

Read the whole thing here.

Georgia Breaks New Ground

There has been a major development in the State of Georgia yet the so-called mainstream media has completely ignored it and even the alternative media hardly has covered it. This past week Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue signed into law the most expansive school-choice program in the nation.

Unlike similar programs in other States, this program has no demographic restriction. All students are eligible for private school scholarships. The State Legislature set the cost of the school choice budget at $50 million. If the demand is similar in other States that amount likely will rise considerably. All pupils K-12 are eligible.

Read the whole thing here.

Dream Dinner Party

If I were to give a dinner party for 10 people, who would I invite? Assuming the guests were not family or politicians, the following 10, in no particular order, would be my choice. Anyone wanting to offer a competing list is welcome to post a comment here on BestView.

Stephen Hawking--I am sure he could get me to understand the universe by the time dessert is served.
Boone Pickens--A Texan who has given millions to Oklahoma State and has a continuous stream of investment ideas for how to make more. Surely he would share some with me.
Camille Paglia--What other woman could better represent all womanhood at this dinner party?
Tom Wolfe--He would need to be seated by Camille with a hidden recorder needed to preserve their conversation.
Tiger Woods--Maybe he could help with my game, but if not, he would probably be the most widely respected person in the room.
John Bolton--the former U.N. Ambassador has a world view that I admire and more common sense than anyone observing the world scene.
Billy Graham--someone needs to bless this meal and he probably has a better line of communication to God than anyone else.
Terry Fator--Another Texan. Any dinner party needs an entertainer and he is the most talented one I have ever seen or heard.
Antonin Scalia--a brilliant man I would have sitting to my right so I could readily get his take on whatever came up in the various conversations.
Doyle Brunson--a Texan who has been playing poker successfully for 50 years. It would be fun to watch him correctly size up the dinner participants in the first 10 minutes.

Life is good down on the farm

The farm bill going through Congress is such a boondoggle, it would take much of the day to document all of the obscenities included therein. Let's start with this. The bill continues the practice instituted after Katrina whereby farmers are allowed to lock in price support payments at the lowest possible price, sell at the highest possible price and then pocket the difference. This means you and I are paying twice for the same bushel of wheat.
Bush wanted to cap these benefits at an annual income of $200,000, but Congress will have none of that and went instead for $750,000. This in itself is a mirage since it doesn't include loan programs or disaster payments and it allows spouses to qualify for payments too. With clever accountants, it has been calculated that a farmer can have an income of up to $2.5 million and still get a handout.
BestView can't go on. It is too depressing.

Don't test me!

The New York teachers unions have successfully managed to prevent student performance from being considered in tenure decisions. This, like most aspects of modern education, violates common sense. As with all other liberals, teachers feel we should be content to assume their good intentions are sufficient to keep them in failing positions for life.

Obscene Profits

Liberals like those running for President think it would just be a dandy idea to impose an additional tax on oil companies since their profits are obscene and the cause of high gas prices--even though neither is the case. However, if their profits are indeed so extravagant, maybe we should also consider those of the grain farmers who are beneficiaries of the increased price of corn and other grains from the idiotic conversion of our food into fuel for automobiles instead of people.

Beware of racists

This article in the Washington Post is like the first robin of spring. We can now look forward to steady efforts by the main stream media to promptly brand anyone who is not voting for BHO a racist and a bigot.

Prediction

Before this is over, Michelle Obama is going to make the dems wish for Teresa Heinz Kerry back.

Here is a recent quote of hers:

Well see, his mother had a lot of nerve on her own, right? She thought that she could be something special, even though she grew up in a little town in Kansas.

No recession here

We have spent the past 2 days at a casino in Mississippi and from what I see, there is no recession here. The poor and the blacks which the liberals seem to worry so much about seem to have plenty of gambling money. Surely they are only risking money which is well beyond that which is needed for daily expenses, I assume.

These three will undoubtedly fix things

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Thursday that he may try to force undecided superdelegates to make their decisions in the Democratic presidential race if it stretches into June.

Reid said he would consider writing a joint letter with Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) demanding that superdelegates make their endorsements public.

Sunspots

BestView is convinced that liberals usually find themselves taking actions which produce the exact opposite of intended, or stated, objectives. Many examples offer themselves, like the Great Society which was going to help poor people and instead gave us several generations of decadent dependents. Then there is the claim that if we just raise the tax on capital gains we can take money from the filthy rich and do more good things with the government spigot. Of course, the fact is a lowered capital gains tax increases revenue--and vice versa.

This brings us to global warming which the liberals (some of which are Republicans) claim is anthropogenic and can be corrected by reducing carbon dioxide emissions. Ignored in all the current blather about man's pitiful contribution to climate change is the sun. Sunspot activity has been at minimal levels now for over a year and this has always produced climate cooling--often of remarkable magnitude. Napolean's winter in Moscow has been associated with low sunspot activity, for example. Now the snow in Baghdad last winter for the first time in centuries and the extent of Antarctic ice development, which is greater than any time since the place was discovered in 1770, plus other observations suggest that we could once again be faced with the opposite result of liberal contentions. With Al Gore calling for global warming, we should instead prepare for the big chill.

McCain's Pension

The liberals are out early in their attacks on McCain. The Los Angeles Times is questioning the disability pension McCain got for injuries received while imprisoned in North Viet Nam. Their thesis seems to be that the permanent damage to his arms and legs which qualified him for a pension somehow disqualifies him to be President. Aside from the fact that these same liberals would swoon if anyone suggested Roosevelt was too disabled to serve or if there was no government pension system for our veterans with service-related health problems, their decision to play this card now against McCain shows how concerned they must be at the alternative this country will have.

Can't we just get along?

CAIRO, Egypt (AP) - Osama bin Laden's chief deputy in an audiotape Tuesday accused Shiite Iran of trying to discredit the Sunni al-Qaida terror network by spreading the conspiracy theory that Israel was behind the Sept. 11 attacks...

One of the questioners asked about the theory that has circulated in the Middle East and elsewhere that Israel was behind the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Al-Zawahri accused Hezbollah's Al-Manar television of starting the rumor.

"The purpose of this lie is clear—(to suggest) that there are no heroes among the Sunnis who can hurt America as no else did in history. Iranian media snapped up this lie and repeated it," he said.

Probably a bookkeeping error

From Power Line.


The Los Angeles Times' campaign finance expert Dan Morain has found Obama campaign records reporting a $50 donation by Roy Scheider, who lists his occupation as actor and his home as Sag Harbor, N.Y. Remember him from many great movies including "The French Connection" and "Jaws" and the immortal line: "You're gonna need a bigger boat"?

According to the campaign records, Scheider made the donation on March 10 last month.

Trouble is, Scheider died exactly one month before that, on Feb. 10 at the age of 75.

Malcolm adds: "Scheider was unavailable for comment. "

The good ship is listing left

The New York Times Company, the parent of The New York Times, posted a $335,000 loss in the first quarter — one of the worst periods the company and the newspaper industry have seen — falling far short of both analysts’ expectations and its $23.9 million profit in the quarter a year earlier.

Beware of Obama Gun Control

When Obama says he "supports" the 2nd Amendment, warning lights should flash. There are several examples of actions which belie his statements. In 1996 Obama said he favored a complete ban on all handguns. In this campaign, he says an aide filled out the questionnaire and he had no knowledge of it despite his hand writing on the document.

In 1999 Obama urged enactment of a federal law prohibiting the operation of a gun store within 5 miles of a school or park. This would eliminate gun sales in any urban area in the U.S.

Obama voted against legislation to stop mayors from suing gun manufacturers and gun store owners because of gun crime--even when they had complied with all laws regarding manufacture and sale of guns.

Don't think Hillary would be better. She has repeatedly voter for anti-gun proposals and co-sponsored many of them.

Pig to Man Infectious Process?

BestView is often skeptical about science article in the press, but this one seems to have some basis for concern. There are known animal prions which can affect the nervous system of man and none of them are something you want to contract.

Hillary Explains Bosnia

This is great. In the debate Hillary had last night with Obama, she was asked about why she lied about her landing in Bosnia. After a lot of hooey, she apologized and said she "was not as accurate as she has been in the past". She didn't add that neither was she more inaccurate than she has been in the past, but maybe her time was up.

Obama's lapel decisions

After 9/11/2001, Barack Obama, like most politicians wore an American flag in his lapel as a symbol of patriotism and sympathy for the victims. When he stopped wearing it, a reporter asked him about it. Here is his reply:

"You know, the truth is that right after 9/11, I had a pin. Shortly after 9/11, particularly because as we're talking about the Iraq War, that became a substitute for, I think, true patriotism, which is speaking out on issues that are of importance to our national security, I decided I won't wear that pin on my chest.

Well, arrogant dismissal of regular folks in the dems electorate seems to have Obama in sufficient angst to bring it back. He once said that his patriotism speaks for itself, but now, he must figure he needs flags to bolster that.

I wonder how long it is going to take for the poor ignorant voters to discover that Obama is as big a phony as most other politicians?

The Bush Legacy

In the previous offering, BestView chided historians for declaring the Bush presidency a failure. Now it is fair to suggest they may not be wrong in two important aspects. First, the administration seems to be shrinking from what was once a commendable insistence that North Korea permit verification of its nuclear activities. The stance now seems to be we will take the word of a country which has lied to everyone about everything. Utter nonsense.
A second problem seems to be one where Bush continues to utter cluck-clucks about the activities of Iran in Iraq, but nothing gets done to see that this stop. Lord help us if Bush passes this problem off to someone like Obama or Clinton.
Ironically, the liberals like the aforementioned historians will not see these two major deficiencies as part of the problem with the Bush legacy.

History in Reverse

I was reading this morning that 98% of 109 history professors surveyed by the History News Network adjudged the Bush presidency to be a failure. This seems a trifle early for such a pronouncement, but they are a liberal lot and probably can't resist. A survey in 2003 found the Democrat to Republican ratio of history professors to be about 9.5:1.0. As a scientist, I have never really been convinced historians differed greatly from modern-day property assessors. The work product of both depends largely on what they start out to look for.

Finally, historical evaluations such as this remind me of meteorological predictions of our climate decades into the future when we have little to no idea what the weather will be like next week. Liberal historians do it in reverse.

Thomas Sowell gets it right again

"Senator John McCain could never get me to vote for him. Only Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama can cause me to vote for McCain."

"The same people who have gone ballistic when some prominent figure is found to belong to some all-male social club are full of excuses for why Barack Obama remained a member of a racist and anti-American church for 20 years."

Senatorial Disgrace

Sen. Jay Rockefeller who was born to wealth and has spent his adulthood being a politician without ever finding military service to be part of his plan has issued a slur on John McCain's service. He said McCain dropped laser-guided bombs on innocent people in Viet Nam and gave no thought to the consequences. Ergo, McCain cares nothing about the lives of people.

This is such a despicable case of slander that even some liberals who also hate the military are taking notice. Aside from being untrue (laser guided missiles were not available before McCain got shot down) it is also idiotic. Does Rockefeller also feel this way about those thousands of pilots in World War II who flew missions over places like Guadalcanal?

Rockefeller came forth with an "apology" for "an inaccurate and wrong analogy". What he said was not an analogy. It was a specific reference to actual acts --McCain's service to his country.

It is really disturbing that this man is the Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Vagina Warriors?

The existence of this group is news to BestView. Where do I get one of those lollipops? Read the whole thing here.

Watch out, New Orleans: “Vagina Warriors” are headed your way. This weekend V-Day will celebrate its 10th anniversary with a two-day festival in New Orleans, or “the vagina of America,” as V-Day board member and actress Rosario Dawson called it at the luncheon announcing the festivities. Why New Orleans? V-Day’s website says, “We need to celebrate New Orleans, cherish it, protect it, just as we do our vaginas, and make sure it goes on and on.”

Celebrities, including mega-stars Katie Holmes and Oprah Winfrey, have signed on in droves to attend the vagina festival, but one wonders if they know what they are really supporting. V-Day’s mission is to end violence against women, surely a noble cause. But when you look at the activities done in the name of V-Day, it’s clear that this about more than just ending violence. On campus, V-Day groups sell vagina-shaped lollipops, chocolates, and t-shirts with slogans like “I love Vagina” and “A vagina by any other name would smell just as sweet.” They parade around campus in vagina costumes, or in the case of the George Washington University, have a four-foot-tall “living vagina” named Joan on display.

Crooked Porkster, Rare Reporter

Congressman Jack Murtha is one of the most influential powerbrokers in Washington.

According to an estimate by Taxpayers for Common Sense, he's steered more than $600 million in earmarks to his Pennsylvania district in the past four years and $2 billion since 1992. But what's been good for Murtha and his district is not always good for taxpayers.

The fact that Congress is full of crooked appropriators using ear marks is not really news. Neither is the fact that John Murtha is one of the bigger abusers of ear marks. The bigger story here is that CBS is reporting the scandal by one of their liberal kin-folks. That is amazing.

My favorite Hillary Picture

BestView has published some very unflattering pictures of Hillary and it is time to offer balance. So here is my favorite picture of her which is not entirely fair since Natalie Portman is also in there, but ....

Scientific Frontiers

The Hadron Collider is the largest collaborative scientific effort in history. It involves more than 2000 scientists from 34 countries as well as hundreds of universities and laboratories. It has taken 14 years to build at a cost of $8 billion and is scheduled to begin serious research work later this year.

And that work is mindboggling. The Collider seeks to accomplish nothing less than giving us a view of what the universe was like about one trillionth of a second after the Big Bang when the 4 fundamental forces in the universe – electromagnetism, the strong and weak nuclear forces, and gravitation – first split apart. By sending particle beams in opposite directions along a 17 mile underground circular track and accelerating them to near light speed while directing the particles with superconducting magnets to points where they are likely to collide, scientists hope to unravel some of the basic mysteries of the universe. Dark matter, extra dimensions, the nature of gravity, perhaps the fate of the universe itself could be revealed by these collisions and the subatomic particles they leave behind.

That is all good, right? Well, some aren't 100% convinced that we know what will happen. The whole story is given here, but this is a sample of what some worry about. The risk is probably small that the earth will be consumed, but......

" the colliding protons will recreate energies and conditions last seen a trillionth of a second after the Big Bang. Researchers will sift the debris from these primordial recreations for clues to the nature of mass and new forces and symmetries of nature.

Walter L. Wagner and Luis Sancho contend that scientists at the European Center for Nuclear Research, or CERN, have played down the chances that the collider could produce, among other horrors, a tiny black hole, which, they say, could eat the Earth. Or it could spit out something called a “strangelet” that would convert our planet to a shrunken dense dead lump of something called “strange matter.” Their suit also says CERN has failed to provide an environmental impact statement as required under the National Environmental Policy Act.

Although it sounds bizarre, the case touches on a serious issue that has bothered scholars and scientists in recent years — namely how to estimate the risk of new groundbreaking experiments and who gets to decide whether or not to go ahead.

Dubious Science

BestView has tried to point out scientific malfeasance when it is featured in the media and there is an article I ran across this weekend which deserves our skepticism. It comes out of Europe, but our press will pick it up because it is so sensational. Cell phones cause brain tumors is the claim, but the evidence is not there and the evidence which has been gathered leads to the opposite conclusion. Rather than simply claiming that the small amount of radiation associated with cell phone usage could theoretically produce cancer, the author claims the danger exceeds that of asbestos and smoking. That is almost surely patent nonsense. The greater problem is our school systems have failed us so completely that few will be educated to the point where the claim can be even questioned correctly.

Sir Hillary reprise

Mark Steyn remembers the naming of Hillary.

Hmm. Edmund Hillary reached the top of Everest in 1953. Hillary Rodham was born in 1947, when Sir Edmund was an obscure New Zealand beekeeper and a somewhat unlikely inspiration for two young parents in the Chicago suburbs. If any of the bigshot U.S. newspaper correspondents on the trip noticed this inconsistency, they kept it to themselves. I mentioned it in Britain’s Sunday Telegraph at the time, but like so many other improbabilities in the Clinton record it sailed on indestructibly for years. By 2004 it was preserved for the ages in Bill Clinton’s autobiography, on page (gulp) 870: “Sir Edmund Hillary, who had explored the South Pole in the 1950s, was the first man to reach the top of Mount Everest and, most important, was the man Chelsea’s mother had been named for.”

Eventually, when it was noticed that Hillary was born six years before the ascent of Everest, Clinton aides tried assuring skeptics that her parents had seen a press interview with Sir Edmund in his beekeeping days, Mr. and Mrs. Rodham apparently being the only Illinois subscribers to The New Zealand Apiarist. Then, in the early days of her presidential campaign, Senator Clinton quietly withdrew the story, by which time the damage was done. Edmund Hillary passed away a couple of months back, and, as I recall, the New York Times headline read: “New Zealander For Whom Senator Clinton Named Dies; Also First Man To Climb Everest. Senator Clinton Was At The Summit To Greet Him, After Landing Under Heavy Sniper Fire From The Abominable Snowman.”

More on charity

As a follow-up to the BestView comment on Obama's charity contributions, Betsy uses George Will's commentary today to highlight the liberals giving of their own money, blood, and time. Read it here.

Liberal Charity

A few years ago some note was made of the fact that Al Gore gave a total of some $275 to charity as reported on his income of several hundred thousand dollars. This did not surprise those of us who hold the view that liberals are much more generous with the money they take from us than their own. Those who are constantly wanting to raise taxes to give to someone else are notably reluctant to just write a check to the IRS to increase their contribution to the effort. At any rate, the Obama tax returns were just made public and Hillary is once again promising hers will be released one of these days. I am sure we can take her at her word.

Obama is a pretty typical liberal in his giving. Last year he was most generous and gave 6.1% of his income to charity and in 2001 and 2002, the level of giving was about 0.4-0.5%. Evidently, the anti-American sermons of his friend the Reverend Wright did not cover tithing.

Hillary challenges the English language

BestView enjoys few things more than watching the dem candidates wallow in the muck during this extended campaign. The latest is Hillary's claim that Bill found Bosnia too dangerous for him to visit so he sent his wife and only child. As the plane landed there was such heavy sniper fire that nobody could recollect it except Hillary and the CBS cameras failed to confirm her ducking and bobbing for cover upon landing. So, we have a problem. How does the campaign control the damage of this revelation? First, they said she "misspoke". This claim has the unfortunate problem of ignoring that the tale was not just spoken, but also included in a book someone wrote for Hillary. Oops. We need other language to replace the fact that she lied about something other than sex. Others with greater facility in the English language have come forth with suggestions. Some have been used before like she "confused her facts". She "misremembered". Some one said her account of the Bosnian trip simply lacked the virtue of being true. Whatever.

Hillary Not Happy?

Mark Steyn's Grandma Analysis

Asked about the sin of racism beating within Gran’ma’s breast, Obama said on TV that “she’s a typical white person.”

Which doesn’t sound like the sort of thing the supposed “post-racial” candidate ought to be saying, but let that pass. How “typically white” is Obama’s grandmother? She is the woman who raised him — that’s to say, she brought up a black grandchild and loved him unconditionally. Burning deep down inside, she may nurse a secret desire to be Simon Legree or Bull Connor, but it doesn’t seem very likely. She does then, in her own flawed way, represent a post-racial America. But what of her equivalent (as Obama’s speech had it)? Is Jeremiah Wright a “typical black person”? One would hope not. A century and a half after the Civil War, two generations after the Civil Rights Act, the Reverend Wright promotes victimization theses more insane than anything promulgated at the height of slavery or the Jim Crow era. You can understand why Obama is so anxious to meet with President Ahmadinejad, a man who denies the last Holocaust even as he plans the next one. Such a summit would be easy listening after the more robust sermons of Jeremiah Wright.

It doesn't get any better than Mark Steyn. Read his entire column here.

Liberal Euphemisms

This comes from Reason Magazine.

To soothe the bruised egos of educators and children in lackluster schools, Massachusetts officials are now pushing for kinder, gentler euphemisms for failure.

Instead of calling these schools "underperforming," the Board of Education is considering labeling them as "Commonwealth priority," to avoid poisoning teacher and student morale.

Schools in the direst straits, now known as "chronically underperforming," would get the more urgent but still vague label of "priority one."

The board has spent parts of more than three meetings in recent months debating the linguistic merits and tone set by the terms after a handful of superintendents from across the state complained that the label underperforming unfairly casts blame on educators, hinders the recruitment of talented teachers, and erodes students' self-esteem.

At a December meeting on how to improve struggling schools in Holyoke, Lawrence, and Springfield, superintendents implored members not to stick them with a label of "chronically underperforming."

"For our teachers, it's a blow," said Wilfredo Laboy, Lawrence superintendent. "It demoralizes staff completely."

Joseph Burke, Springfield superintendent, said that while he is not crazy about any label, he would prefer "priority one," because "It sounds nicer."

Facts are stubborn things

Last Monday - on ABC Radio National, of all places - there was a tipping point of a different kind in the debate on climate change. It was a remarkable interview involving the co-host of Counterpoint, Michael Duffy and Jennifer Marohasy, a biologist and senior fellow of Melbourne-based think tank the Institute of Public Affairs. Anyone in public life who takes a position on the greenhouse gas hypothesis will ignore it at their peril.

Duffy asked Marohasy: "Is the Earth stillwarming?"

She replied: "No, actually, there has been cooling, if you take 1998 as your point of reference. If you take 2002 as your point of reference, then temperatures have plateaued. This is certainly not what you'd expect if carbon dioxide is driving temperature because carbon dioxide levels have been increasing but temperatures have actually been coming down over the last 10 years."

Read it all here.

Divisive Gun Laws

Consider this lead paragraph in the USA Today:


WASHINGTON — Guns, and questions about how much power the government has to keep people from owning them, are at the core of one of the most divisive topics in American politics.

How divisive is the gun question? Here is the 3rd paragraph from this story:

Nearly three out of four Americans — 73% — believe the Second Amendment spells out an individual right to own a firearm, according to a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll of 1,016 adults taken Feb. 8-10.

Maybe gun laws are divisive when liberal newspapers disagree with the people.

Spelling

One of my sisters sometimes finds it necessary to correct my punctuation in this blog, but I got all of these spelling questions right. See how you do. Just click on the link below to take the test.

Your Spelling is Perfect

You got 10/10 correct. Your spelling is excellent. You also have a great memory and eye for detail.

How's Your Spelling?

How sweet it is!!

Obama says his Grandmother is a "typical white person", leery of blacks and Bill Clinton says the country needs an election between two candidates who love America---like Hillary and McCain. The DNC imposes penalties on Florida and Michigan it can't afford to stick with or back off from. Conservatives will lose in the Fall, but right now all is well.

Hillary tossed off cliff by leftist loonies

The following is from the kooky leftist blogger Markos Moulitsas. Read the whole thing here.
I wonder what he has in mind when he says she must be "dealt with appropriately"?

It is Clinton, with no reasonable chance of victory, who is fomenting civil war in order to overturn the will of the Democratic electorate. As such, as far as I’m concerned, she doesn’t deserve “fairness” on this site. All sexist attacks will be dealt with — those will never be acceptable. But otherwise, Clinton has set an inevitably divisive course and must be dealt with appropriately.

Obama is lucky??

Geraldine Ferraro, one of Hillary's fundraisers and the 1984 vice presidential candidate, told the Daily Breeze of Torrance, Calif.: "If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman (of any color) he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept."

There was no mention of the likelihood that Hillary would be in her position if she weren't the wronged wife of Bubba.

Getting pretty predictable

In lead stories Monday night about New York Governor Eliot Spitzer being linked to a prostitution ring, neither ABC's World News nor the NBC Nightly News verbally identified Spitzer's political party. Must mean he's a liberal Democrat -- and he is.

Musings

There are several amusing items which have found their way onto the internet related to recent news events. Here are three of them:In re the Eliot Spitzer "matter", this one is pretty good.

“Prostitute Admits Link to Elliott Spitzer; Resigns From Escort Service in Disgrace”


In another case, there was disappointment after the Spitzer appearance with his wife yesterday that some reporter didn't ask Silda Spitzer if this meant she would be running for Senator from New York.

In the new item where Obama's advisor said Hillary was a monster and had to resign, there is this:

Sen. Obama, fighting for the Democrat nomination, said, “I categorically reject Ms. Powers’ use of the term ‘monster’ to describe my opponent.”

Holding aloft a dictionary, the presidential front runner said, “A monster is an imaginary creature that is typically large, ugly and frightening. But I assure you that Sen. Clinton is no imaginary creature.”

Sushi Anyone??

Ali Howell is a massage therapist and a college student. But on Saturday night, the 26-year-old brunette was a human sushi platter.

Naked under two roses and a large daisy placed you-know-where, she lay still for more than an hour as people plucked raw fish off her body at Temple, the downtown Minneapolis restaurant that held its inaugural naked sushi party this weekend. Read it all here.

How sweet it is

One of my favorite things in life is real-time confirmation of my long held beliefs about liberals in general and dems in particular. This election season is giving me lots of examples. For example, the state democrat parties of Florida and Michigan thought that moving their primaries up would give them a greater voice than if they waited. The national party geniuses could not abide such free-lancing, so they imposed penalties on the states which the candidates all rushed to endorse and now they have a mess which one could have predicted simply because liberals usually find that their results are opposite stated intentions. Late primaries are now having more influence than early ones, the party punishment of Florida and Michigan is far worse than the transgression demanded, and there is no pain-free remedy of the situation. Just delicious.

Equal opportunity baby killing

There were nebulous accounts out there that Obama had opposed a bill which would have protected a baby which survived an abortion attempt. There is a federal law which bans the practice of simply throwing the baby in a trash can to die or actively killing it. The logic of opposing this law by Obama has finally been explained. So, if the following is accurate, Barack Obama thinks that if it is legal to kill one child it is legal to kill them all and vice versa.

In March 2001, Obama was the sole speaker in opposition to the bill on the floor of the Illinois Senate. He said: "We're saying they are persons entitled to the kinds of protections provided to a child, a 9-month child delivered to term. I mean, it would essentially bar abortions, because the equal-protection clause does not allow somebody to kill a child." So according to Obama, "they," babies who survive abortions or any other preterm newborns, should be permitted to be killed because giving legal protection to preterm newborns would have the effect of banning all abortions.

Oops!!!

Who uttered the following sage voter advice? Senator Obama? No. It was Bill Clinton in 2004.

“… if one candidate is trying to scare you, and the other one is trying to make you think, if one candidate’s appealing to your fears, and the other one’s appealing to your hopes. You better vote for the person who wants you to think and hope.”

Another Quiz

Here is an article reporting that the former Mayor of Newark, NJ is going on trial for fraud and stuff like that.

This is an open book quiz. Read the article very carefully and then decide which political party Mayor James belongs to.

Bad Science, Worse Politics

At a town hall meeting Friday in Texas, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., declared that "there’s strong evidence" that thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative that was once in many childhood vaccines, is responsible for the increased diagnoses of autism in the U.S. -- a position in stark contrast with the view of the medical establishment.

McCain said, per ABC News' Bret Hovell, that "It’s indisputable that (autism) is on the rise amongst children, the question is what’s causing it. And we go back and forth and there’s strong evidence that indicates that it’s got to do with a preservative in vaccines."

Overwhelmingly the "credible scientists," at least as the government and the medical establishment so ordain them, side against McCain's view.

Moreover, those scientists and organizations fear that powerful people lending credence to the thimerosal theory could dissuade parents from getting their children immunized -- which in their view would lead to a very real health crisis.

By 2001, thimerosal had been removed from all childhood vaccinations. If thimerosal in vaccines had been a significant cause of autism, the effects of the removal in the form of diminished diagnoses would have been evident by now. There is no such diminution.

You have to remember that McCain has also bought into anthropogenic influence on global warming. Really sad.

Civilians in Gaza

The news this week has several reports on the Israeli response to rockets being fired from this Hamas area into the towns of Israel. For many months these rocket attacks have been directed at a strictly civilian target---namely citizens in these towns. Because the rockets are not very accurate, the actual effectiveness of them is not great as of yet. However, Israel has finally decided to retaliate and has launched an offensive directed at those who are firing the rockets. The news reports, however, are focused on the fact that there have been many casualties and many of these are "civilians". Even children. This is obvious liberal bias since none of the stories seem to be able to mention that if the terrorists in Gaza would stop firing rockets at civilians in Israel, their own civilians would not be killed. To these liberals, it is simply not fair that Jewish reprisals are more efficient than the initial attacks. The idiocy continues.

A female assessment of women

This is one of the more interesting essays I have run across in a long time. The fact that it is written about and by a woman makes it interesting and there is no way I am going to be jumping in and trying to improve on her analysis. Here is just a bit of Ms. Allen's thoughts on woman-kind.

"He did not flinch when women screamed as he was in mid-sentence, and even broke off once to answer a female's cry of 'I love you, Obama!' with a reassuring 'I love you back.' " Women screamed? What was this, the Beatles tour of 1964? And when they weren't screaming, the fair-sex Obama fans who dominated the rally of 16,000 were saying things like: "Every time I hear him speak, I become more hopeful." Huh?

"Women 'Falling for Obama,' " the story's headline read. Elsewhere around the country, women were falling for the presidential candidate literally. Connecticut radio talk show host Jim Vicevich has counted five separate instances in which women fainted at Obama rallies since last September. And I thought such fainting was supposed to be a relic of the sexist past, when patriarchs forced their wives and daughters to lace themselves into corsets that cut off their oxygen.

More rain on the fire

There is no evidence that evidence to the contrary will ever be dispositive for the ignorant who have accepted the global warming nonsense, but here is more data to consider.

Angry White Men

Aspen Times Opinion

In election 2008, don’t forget Angry White Man

Gary Hubbell
February 9, 2008

There is a great amount of interest in this year’s presidential elections, as everybody seems to recognize that our next president has to be a lot better than George Bush. The Democrats are riding high with two groundbreaking candidates — a woman and an African-American — while the conservative Republicans are in a quandary about their party’s nod to a quasi-liberal maverick, John McCain.

Each candidate is carefully pandering to a smorgasbord of special-interest groups, ranging from gay, lesbian and transgender people to children of illegal immigrants to working mothers to evangelical Christians.

There is one group no one has recognized, and it is the group that will decide the election: the Angry White Man. The Angry White Man comes from all economic backgrounds, from dirt-poor to filthy rich. He represents all geographic areas in America, from urban sophisticate to rural redneck, deep South to mountain West, left Coast to Eastern Seaboard.

His common traits are that he isn’t looking for anything from anyone — just the promise to be able to make his own way on a level playing field. In many cases, he is an independent businessman and employs several people. He pays more than his share of taxes and works hard.

The victimhood syndrome buzzwords — “disenfranchised,” “marginalized” and “voiceless” — don’t resonate with him. “Press ‘one’ for English” is a curse-word to him. He’s used to picking up the tab, whether it’s the company Christmas party, three sets of braces, three college educations or a beautiful wedding.

He believes the Constitution is to be interpreted literally, not as a “living document” open to the whims and vagaries of a panel of judges who have never worked an honest day in their lives.

The Angry White Man owns firearms, and he’s willing to pick up a gun to defend his home and his country. He is willing to lay down his life to defend the freedom and safety of others, and the thought of killing someone who needs killing really doesn’t bother him.

The Angry White Man is not a metrosexual, a homosexual or a victim. Nobody like him drowned in Hurricane Katrina — he got his people together and got the hell out, then went back in to rescue those too helpless and stupid to help themselves, often as a police officer, a National Guard soldier or a volunteer firefighter.

His last name and religion don’t matter. His background might be Italian, English, Polish, German, Slavic, Irish, or Russian, and he might have Cherokee, Mexican, or Puerto Rican mixed in, but he considers himself a white American.

He’s a man’s man, the kind of guy who likes to play poker, watch football, hunt white-tailed deer, call turkeys, play golf, spend a few bucks at a strip club once in a blue moon, change his own oil and build things. He coaches baseball, soccer and football teams and doesn’t ask for a penny. He’s the kind of guy who can put an addition on his house with a couple of friends, drill an oil well, weld a new bumper for his truck, design a factory and publish books. He can fill a train with 100,000 tons of coal and get it to the power plant on time so that you keep the lights on and never know what it took to flip that light switch.

Women either love him or hate him, but they know he’s a man, not a dishrag. If they’re looking for someone to walk all over, they’ve got the wrong guy. He stands up straight, opens doors for women and says “Yes, sir” and “No, ma’am.”

He might be a Republican and he might be a Democrat; he might be a Libertarian or a Green. He knows that his wife is more emotional than rational, and he guides the family in a rational manner.

He’s not a racist, but he is annoyed and disappointed when people of certain backgrounds exhibit behavior that typifies the worst stereotypes of their race. He’s willing to give everybody a fair chance if they work hard, play by the rules and learn English.

Most important, the Angry White Man is pissed off. When his job site becomes flooded with illegal workers who don’t pay taxes and his wages drop like a stone, he gets righteously angry. When his job gets shipped overseas, and he has to speak to some incomprehensible idiot in India for tech support, he simmers. When Al Sharpton comes on TV, leading some rally for reparations for slavery or some such nonsense, he bites his tongue and he remembers. When a child gets charged with carrying a concealed weapon for mistakenly bringing a penknife to school, he takes note of who the local idiots are in education and law enforcement.

He also votes, and the Angry White Man loathes Hillary Clinton. Her voice reminds him of a shovel scraping a rock. He recoils at the mere sight of her on television. Her very image disgusts him, and he cannot fathom why anyone would want her as their leader. It’s not that she is a woman. It’s that she is who she is. It’s the liberal victim groups she panders to, the “poor me” attitude that she represents, her inability to give a straight answer to an honest question, his tax dollars that she wants to give to people who refuse to do anything for themselves.

There are many millions of Angry White Men. Four million Angry White Men are members of the National Rifle Association, and all of them will vote against Hillary Clinton, just as the great majority of them voted for George Bush.

He hopes that she will be the Democratic nominee for president in 2008, and he will make sure that she gets beaten like a drum.

Gary Hubbell is a regular columnist with the Aspen Times Weekly.

Obama the Messiah?

Here is an interesting web site for those who wonder about the Obama phenomenon and want to appreciate the political problem Hillary faces. Republicans have to hope that a fire that burns so brightly will fade fast---at least before the November elections.

Hillary Health

This article is instructive to those who think Hillary is just brilliant for proposing a single payer health care system. The Labour Party in the U.K. decided that the people were right about excessively long wait times in emergency rooms, so they pledged that if they were elected, the wait time would be cut to just 4 hours. Evidently that sounded like a great deal to the voters there. At any rate, we now have a situation where ambulances are left parked outside of the hospital for hours with the patients inside so much of the wait time will not be counted against the Labour pledge. This, folks is what you get when you follow liberals down the road that sounds good.

Another political quiz

It is difficult for a former Professor to give up quizzing, so here is a question for today. "Which minority group does Hillary think is important in the coming Texas primary?"

Tears

So far in this election season, Obama's speeches have brought his listeners to tears. McCain has done the same thing to conservatives, but in a different way. Hillary has simply brought herself to tears. It is all pretty sad.

Crying redux

Since Hillary lost everything on Tuesday, it is fair to say that her crying didn't help this time so we probably won't see that again until the final blow to Clinton term no. 3 is administered.

Obama and the National Anthem

We need to learn more of this response to the National Anthem by Obama as he moves closer and closer to eliminating Hillary from another Clinton term. A campaign against him by McCain could be fun.

Best of plans won't always work out

For the most part, this conservative finds the current political situation fairly depressing. About the only bright spot is the ironic problems facing the dems. They very cleverly attempted to set up rules to grease the slope for Hillary. First, they moved the primaries up where they would be over and thereby let her spend months on the general election campaign. They added super delegates to block another McGovern or Carter nomination, punished Florida and Michigan for their primary decisions, and now all of these actions are biting them in the rear.

The early primaries are mostly helping the Republicans who will have a nominee early and thus more time to try to bring unity to the election. Clinton and Obama are tied and will remain so for a long time, it looks like. The super delegates represent 20% of the total delegates and there is a chance they will be put in the position of going against the wishes of the voters. Clinton wants the delegates from Michigan and Florida counted even though there was no contest in either state and this unbiased observer is hoping the issue winds up in court with the lawyers from the Gore campaign of 2000 getting back in the fray.

Howard Dean says he will impose some resolution on the situation before it becomes serious, and that could be the most delicious of the many bizarre aspects of this election. The Mother of all unintended consequences.

Can this work again?

This is Hillary wiping a tear yesterday; a day when she lost all caucuses and primary elections. Crying must have polled well with women.

Liberals strike out again

Almost all biofuels used today cause more greenhouse gas emissions than conventional fuels if the full emissions costs of producing these “green” fuels are taken into account, two studies being published Thursday have concluded. The benefits of biofuels have come under increasing attack in recent months, as scientists took a closer look at the global environmental cost of their production. These latest studies, published in the prestigious journal Science, are likely to add to the controversy.

Once again, the liberals have failed to move beyond the surface "feels good/sounds right" conclusion and backed something that makes a contrived problem worse. Read it all here.

Climate Change and Common Sense

Canadian scientists are seeking funds to expand their research on their clues that the activity of the sun may be presaging a rather long period of global cooling. Yes, they are deviating from the dogma of such well-respected climatologists as Al Gore and John McCain, but they at least have common sense on their side. The Canadian scientists are wanting to look at the sun for evidence of increased sunspot activity. Solar activity fluctuates in an 11 year cycle, but so far in this cycle the sun has had very little activity. This lack of solar activity could be the signal that we may be starting what is known as the Maunder Minimum, an event which occurs every couple of centuries and can last as long as a century. Such an event last occurred in the 17th century. There was solar inactivity which corresponded to a period of bitter cold starting in about 1650 and lasted, with brief periods of warming, until 1715. Frigid winters and cold summers led to massive crop failures, famine, and death in Northern Europe.
The Canadians have been using a 60 year old radio telescope to monitor solar activity and want newer instruments to better monitor the sun. Since all of us aren't climate scientists, we need to fall back on our common sense. Here is the question: Which is more likely to have an effect on earth's climate---the sun or man? After you answer that, you need to ask if you really believe that man can do anything to influence in any way that which the sun hath wrought?

This is just a start

Muslim medical students are refusing to obey hygiene rules brought in to stop the spread of deadly superbugs, because they say it is against their religion.

Women training in several hospitals in England have raised objections to removing their arm coverings in theatre and to rolling up their sleeves when washing their hands, because it is regarded as immodest in Islam

Universities and NHS trusts fear many more will refuse to co-operate with new Department of Health guidance, introduced this month, which stipulates that all doctors must be "bare below the elbow".

The measure is deemed necessary to stop the spread of infections such as MRSA and Clostridium difficile, which have killed hundreds.

Minutes of a clinical academics' meeting at Liverpool University revealed that female Muslim students at Alder Hey children's hospital had objected to rolling up their sleeves to wear gowns.

Similar concerns have been raised at Leicester University. Minutes from a medical school committee said that "a number of Muslim females had difficulty in complying with the procedures to roll up sleeves to the elbow for appropriate handwashing".

Sheffield University also reported a case of a Muslim medic who refused to "scrub" as this left her forearms exposed.

Documents from Birmingham University reveal that some students would prefer to quit the course rather than expose their arms, and warn that it could leave trusts open to legal action.

American Politics for Dummies

From P. J. o'Rourk:

Here are some of the better items used by P.J. O'Rourk to explain our politics to Europeans.

The question of race in America is supposed to be a matter of what one looks like. But it is difficult to comprehend how a political interest group that contains both Al Sharpton and Halle Berry could be based on looks.

Mitt Romney is supposed to be my own type of candidate, a true conservative. But Mitt was governor of Massachusetts. This is like applying to be pope and listing your prior job experience as "Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem."

Incidentally, there's a balanced position that all of America's presidential candidates could take on the controversial abortion issue. If they want votes they shouldn't campaign to make abortion illegal or legal. They should campaign to make it retroactive. If a kid reaches 25 and he or she is still jobless, feckless, and sitting around Starbucks acting like a--no offense--European, then whack.

It is getting nasty out there

As is evident from this blog, the dirt on John McCain is out there and according to conventional wisdom the Clinton's will use it. The main claim that McCain is unstable seems most believable and the charge that he cracked while a POW is not too surprising and has been whispered for a long time. My objections to McCain are based on his record, but many voters would be swayed by more tawdry revelations that would help one to overlook the Clinton's slimy past.

A Brilliant Idea

It is not often that something is published in a blog that is as brilliant as the following essay:

A Modest Proposal for Middle East Peace
The U.N. need only take five simple steps.

By Victor Davis Hanson

It can be read here.

Call Al Gore

Three weeks of crippling snow storms across China have inflicted $7.5 billion in damages, the government said Friday, as it announced a $700 million relief fund for farmers.

The freakish weather -- the country's worst in five decades -- has paralyzed China's densely populated central and eastern regions just as tens of millions of travelers were seeking to board trains and buses to return home for this month's Lunar New Year.

The storms have killed at least 60 people, closed roads, disabled the rail system, destroyed crops and exacerbated a coal shortage, forcing power plants to shut down and factories to cut production.

At a news conference to discuss the government's response to the storms, Zou Ming, deputy director of the Ministry of Civil Affairs, said the storms had caused $7.5 billion in damages.

The kiss of death

The biggest worry Obama has right now is that Al Gore will endorse him.

Proposition

I got this from Lucianne.com. There are a lot of witty people out there with Photo Shop, it seems.

More on vouchers for students

This is a pretty comprehensive essay on vouchers as employed in public schools. The whole thing is worth reading, but it depressed me to learn as reported in the following paragraph that we are not seeing the expected improvement in public schools that competition is supposed to provide. Liberals, of course, will take this conclusion and argue that rather than expand vouchers to broaden the positive, we should abandon them, take the money, expand funding for failed programs and teachers, and sink all students equally.

Fifteen years into the most expansive school choice program tried in any urban school district in the country, Milwaukee’s public schools still suffer from low achievement and miserable graduation rates, with test scores flattening in recent years. Violence and disorder throughout the system seem as serious as ever. Most voucher students are still benefiting, true; but no “Milwaukee miracle,” no transformation of the public schools, has taken place. One of the Milwaukee voucher program’s founders, African-American educator Howard Fuller, recently told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, “I think that any honest assessment would have to say that there hasn’t been the deep, wholesale improvement in MPS [Milwaukee Public Schools] that we would have thought.” And the lead author of one of the Milwaukee voucher studies, Harvard political scientist Paul Peterson, told me: “The research on school choice programs clearly shows that low-income students benefit academically. It’s less clear that the presence of choice in a community motivates public schools to improve.”

Kenya

The folks in Kenya don't seem to be getting along and playing nice lately. I guess I need to look into what is going on there. I suspect it is a tribal thing similar to what we have been facing in Iraq. More later.

Waterboarding

I have never really understood exactly what waterboarding was and how it was conducted, but I had decided that it is not torture if it is merely psychological and not painful or long-lasting (since the recipient gives up almost immediately). There is a very good article in today's Wall Street Journal which describes the technique in detail. It makes a good read.

I remain convinced it is not torture and I want no part of it.

"Universal" Health Care Rationing

In London doctors are barring some patients from operations they need. This includes the smokers, heavy drinkers, the obese and the elderly. So, for Britons, health care rationing is a reality. The logic is that persons who made bad choices should be the ones who do not get scarce resources. The situation should be instrumental for us as we listen to the liberals who cry at full throat for universal health care. It can never be universal if by that we expect anything for everyone. At some point, the gatekeepers will impose rationing since there is not enough money to treat everyone for everything always. So, those inclined to follow the Hillary universal plan can look forward to bureaucrats rationing care and the providers will be civil servants who will remind you of the employees at the Department of Motor Vehicles.

Pell Grants for kids

There is nothing the liberals like more than giving away money. Pell grants are very popular when given to poor students so they can take the money to any college---public or private --to help pay college expenses. It will be fun to watch the hypocrits in Congress jump through their rear denouncing a Bush proposal to give Pell grants to poor students to attend school in K-12. The education establishment will not let them disturb their failed system. This, of course, is vouchers by another name and will be rejected.

If there were Republicans worth their salt, they would insist that the next appropriation for Pell grant money be expanded to all students or cut out entirely.

Why not the Sandy Berger Sentence?

Joseph Romito spotted an original, four-page letter earlier this month from antebellum Vice President John Calhoun being offered on eBay by seller "Idd1863," did a quick check in a specialty reference text, and discovered that it was supposed to be part of the official New York State Library collection.

"When I saw that the document was being sold by someone who listed his address as Rensselaer and then I saw that was right near Albany, I believed something was amiss here," Romito told The Post.

"I called the library the next morning, told them of my suspicions, and they said they'd look into it," added Romito, a 59-year-old litigation and estate-planning specialist from Richmond.

The next thing Romito knew, investigators from Attorney General Andrew Cuomo's office were handling the case, bidding on eBay until they eventually "bought" the purloined document for $1,802.77.

The sticky-fingered state archivist and eBay merchandiser, identified by Cuomo's office as Daniel Lorello, 54 - a 30-year employee paid $72,000 annually - was arrested late last week on multiple felony charges, including grand larceny, criminal possession of stolen property, and first-degree scheme to defraud.

He faces up to seven years in prison.

As Betsy asks, why is this so much more harsh than the one Sandy Berger got for stealing and destroying documents.

Whither now, Bill

The chattering out of the liberal press holds to the view that Bill cost Hillary in South Carolina and he needs to be diverted to other, less polarizing activities. One line of speculation holds that he will now get sick and have to get off the campaign trail for a while. This will allow Hillary to soldier on despite this heavy burden and even cry a few times at the thought of poor Bill's declining health. Seems plausible to me.

Out of it

I am way over the hill, I guess. Heath Ledger's death seems to have captivated the news on TV and even in the print media. I am sure it is a stunning news event, but I had never heard of him and even after endless recounts of his career, the only movie I knew of was "Brokeback Mountain". I gotta get out more.

Obama rediscovers the wheel

The following quote from Senator Obama is kinda funny. He seems to have just discovered that a convicted perjurer doesn't tell the truth.

Bill 'has taken his advocacy on behalf of his wife to a level that I think is pretty troubling. He continues to make statements that are not supported by the facts. Whether it's about my record of opposition to the war in Iraq or our approach to organizing in Las Vegas. This has become a habit and one of the things that we're gonnna have to do is to directly confront Bill Clinton when he's making statements that are not factually accurate'..

It is Bush's fault

Read in the paper this morning that Israel test fired a long range missle that could probably be used to carry nuclear warheads. Iran is not happy and Ahmadinejad said Bush just came to the mid-east and incited confrontation. Makes sense to me. There wasn't any before Bush's time.

George Will's characterization of John McCain

This is great summary of why John McCain should not be elected---and why BestView has come to view Romney as the best alternative to the dangerous dems if Thompson can't be nominated. At one time I flirted with the idea that we could live with McCain, but I finally became completely disabused of that notion. I think it was a form of mental illness.

When McCain and Joe Lieberman introduced legislation empowering Congress to comprehensively regulate U.S. industries' emissions of greenhouse gases in order to "prevent catastrophic global warming," they co-authored an op-ed column that radiated McCainian intolerance of disagreement. It said that a U.N. panel's report "puts the final nail in denial's coffin about the problem of global warming." Concerning the question of whether human activity is causing catastrophic warming, they said, "the debate has ended."

Interesting, is it not, that no one considers it necessary to insist that "the debate has ended" about whether the Earth is round. People only insist that a debate stop when they are afraid of what might be learned if it continues.

Mortgage Problems

This is probably too arcane for most people, but if you are reading and hearing about the problems in the home mortgage market, most of what you read is about the sub-prime mortgages. In these, the bankers lent money to people who did not have the income or credit scores which should have been required before the mortgage was approved. On the other end there are prime mortgages which were taken out by borrowers with good credit and good income so they have been judged to be great credit risks. Most people do not realize that there are problems there as well. Here is what has happened in markets where home values have dropped (Florida and California, for example): Some of these great credit risks have taken out lines of credit with their homes as collateral. These are called home equity loans and many people use them to live beyond their means. Now some of these home owners are falling behind on these loans because they have interest rates which go up to levels which crimp the ability to pay. When this happens, the bank has a problem. Do they foreclose or not. In many cases, the bank owns the 2nd mortgage and someone else owns the first mortgage. So, if the homeowner does not make payments on the home equity loan, the lender in many cases decides to just let it go rather than try to take your house because if they did, the holder of the original mortgage would come first and the house in many cases could not be sold for the amount owed. If you are an investor in the bank, you should realize that they are carrying the value of this home equity loan on their books as an asset and it is in fact worthless unless some time in the far future the house happens to sell for enough for the loan to be paid. I would not consider that an asset and you should not either when considering whether to own shares in a bank.

Thompson supports BestView on energy

Appearing on CNN, Thompson was asked whether, as president, he would turn to Saudi Arabia for help as Bush did.

Thompson, a former Tennessee senator, said the problem was a "little bigger" than Saudi Arabia.

"It's not in the United States' long-term interest to go hat in hand begging people to do things that in the end we know they're not going to do," Thompson said.

"What we need to concentrate on is diversifying our own energy sources here in this country and opening up what oil reserves that we have here ... using nuclear more, using clean coal technology more and all the other things that we can do," Thompson said.

Energy Depression

Actually, the problem isn't energy depression, but BestView depression because of the sorry situation we find ourselves in with respect to our energy policy. It is depressing to see our President in Saudi Arabia begging the sheiks to increase the supply of their oil instead of fighting to increase our exploration for oil here at home. The American people bitch about paying $3.00 for a gallon of gas and yet won't let our elected official drill for oil off our coasts or in ANWAR. At the same time, we are allowing 20% of our corn crop to be diverted to ethanol production which increases the cost of food. This diversion makes up only 4% of the fuel our cars burn, but the government continues to place a $0.54/gallon import tax on Brazilian ethanol so it is not economical to use their ethanol instead of subsidizing our corporate farmers to the tune of billions per year. Don't look for the pitiful politicians currently running for President to change the situation, either.

Congressional Progress

Newly ascendant Democrats may have hit roadblocks on Iraq and fiscal issues, but they have revamped congressional menus, replacing fatty, pre-made foods with healthier, gourmet alternatives. The once dreary congressional cafeterias now abound with haute cuisine.

The menu transformation is part of Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s “Greening the Capitol” plan to make the House campus more environmentally friendly and socially progressive.

Gay Sex

As confirmed by this article, gay sex is not healthy.

Political Stalemate

The democrats in the U.S. Congress say the surge in Iraq has not worked because the Baghdad legislative body has not accomplished anything in the past year which would bring the Sunni and Shiites together. BestView can't think of a group more qualified to recognize legislative incompetence.

More on light bulbs

In a previous offering, BestView commented on the governmental decision to make us change light bulbs from the carbon filament to the fluorescent bulbs which don't actually put out much light, but they make up for it by costing a lot more and contain mercury. This is the same government that made us give up thermometers which contain mercury and mandated that our toilets use so much less water that we now have to flush twice and use more water. This is the idiocy you get when we elect idiots and send them to Washington.

Eye-opening data

A friend sent me a Congressional Research Service report as of April this past year which contained some interesting information on military deaths of all causes since 1980. Here is the link to the report.

If you only read the newspapers, you would certainly expect that the war in Iraq since 2003 and the earlier invasion of Iraq in 1990-1991 would have lead to higher than normal military deaths among those on active duty. The data belie that conclusion. Table 4 on page 10 of the congressional report show that there were more military deaths in 1980, the last year of the Carter administration than any year of Bush's. Further analysis of the data shows that there were more deaths during the Clinton administration than Bush's---some 14,000.

Of course, there have been more deaths from hostile action in past 6 years, but accidental deaths and deaths due to homicide and illness are way less than in previous years. Any loss of our service men and women is too high, but a balanced reporting of the issue has not been presented.

Health Care Mandates

If you want to know what Hillary has in mind for you with regard to health care, consider the situation in her state. New York spent $48 billion on Medicaid last year and this is about $2,100 for every man, woman and child in the state. Despite this, 13.5% of the state's population still lacks health insurance. In neighboring Pennsylvania, $1,300 was spent on each resident and the uninsured rate was 10.5%. One reason for this disparity is the mandates which New York imposes on insurance companies that raises rates to levels which are unaffordable. For a policy not purchased through an employer, New Yorkers have to pay about $1,400 per month for a family policy. This is about twice the national average because of mandates. Here are some examples of New York style health care.

1. Insurers have to sell a policy to anyone who will pay for it regardless of health status. The result is the really sick wait until they need it to buy and this elevates the cost to levels which prevent the healthy from buying policies. Why pay when you are healthy when you can simply wait until you are sick.

2. Every state requires policies to cover basic care, but New York requires insurers to cover such things a chiropractic , fertility, and mental health services which, of course, drives up the cost of a "basic" policy. There are a total of 52 such services mandated by the home state of the smartest woman in America who is also it's Senator and wants to devise a plan for you.

3. If you are a young, healthy adult in good health, there are policies in other states which can meet your needs for about $100-$200/month depending on age and gender. In New York, the young people are too smart to participate in the liberal concoction of health care being advanced by their Senator Clinton. The problem faced by the young people in the U.S. is any effort to provide health care for everyone will require young healthy people to subsidize the older, sicker part of our population. No other way.

McCain's failing memory

McCain maintains that anyone who says he supported amnesty is "lying." From National Review.

"'There are jobs that American workers simply won't do,' McCain said. 'As long as there's a demand for workers, workers are going to come across.' An amnesty program is vital to any immigration legislation that includes a guest-worker program, he said. 'Amnesty has to be an important part because there are people who have lived in this country for 20, 30 or 40 years, who have raised children here and pay taxes here and are not citizens. That has to be a component of it,' he said. 'How can we have a temporary worker program if we're not allowing people who have been here for 30 years to hold jobs here?'" (C. T. Revere, "McCain Pushes Amnesty, Guest-Worker Program," Tucson Citizen, 5/29/03)

Depression

This field of Republican candidates is really just depressing. All are so flawed from a conservative point of view that the only hope for a decent candidate is a brokered convention. McCain lost me for good last night during the debates when he said there was enough evidence for him to conclude that man was contributing materially to global warming. This is just so idiotic that even the liberal dems aren't mentioning it. Thompson says all the right things, but he reminds me of myself at the end of my career as a lecturer....I was tired of hearing myself talk and knew the audience felt that same lack of enthusiasm. Romney is almost as phony as Edwards, Huckabee is evolving but not there yet and might even be a bigger risk in foreign policy than Obama. Giuliani is New York liberal and would act as one if elected. His ethical baggage is elephantine. Woe is me.

Iowa Results

Evidently Iowans really don't like Hillary. Not all that surprising.