Political Lesson

The boondoggle immigration bill is dead and it is a great day for America. Voters shut down the Senate phone system, but they got the message anyway.

Ridiculous enough for you yet?

Scientist Implicates Worms in Global Warming

Jim Frederickson, the research director at the Composting Association has called for data on worms and composting to be re-examined after a German study found that worms produce greenhouse gases 290 times more potent than carbon dioxide. Worms are being used commercially to compost organic material and is in preference to putting it into the landfill. The German government wants 45% of all waste to be composted by 2015. "Everybody... thinks they can do no harm but they contribute to global warming. People are looking into alternative waste treatments but we have to make sure that we are not jumping from the frying pan into the fire," said Frederickson.

Need Cash?

I was just watching a program on my DVR and a commercial came on offering to lend you money with a phone call. Then as I quickly raced through the commercial as I always do, the small print disclosure which always goes past too fast to actually read caught my eye and I backed up and paused to read it. The company is Cash Call and it says if you borrow a typical $2600 and pay them back with 42 monthly payments of $216.55, the APR for the loan is 99.25%. That is accurate.

If you want to get in on this great deal, call 877-890-CASH or call me and I will only charge you $200/month.

Another Iraq Report from Michael Yon

These reports from the front lines in Iraq are unique. I just sent him a contribution since that is his only source of support.

Gay Pride?

I just saw on the news that this is "Gay Pride " month. Every month has to be something, I guess, but I am confused by this one. I thought one took pride in something accomplished, usually through admirable effort and/or perseverence. Since one is supposedly gay by accident of birth and gene assortment, it seems strange to be proud of sexuality. That seems no more a feat than being red headed.

CNN finds al Qaeda

I just ran across this little story from CNN. Before long the loony leftists in the Dem party are going to have to drop their call for us to get out of Iraq because we need to go where the terrorists are.

Iraq war being waged----at last

Here is a timely report on the war in Iraq.

Another Boring Interview?

A Contrary View

For those who are interested in the religion which is known as "global warming", here is a scientifically based article which summarizes a contrary view and warns of global cooling by 2020.

No surprise

When D.A. Nifong charged the 3 Duke athletes with rape the New York Times had their pictures on the front page and a damning editorial at the ready. When Nifong was disbarred for unethical behavior the article was on page 16.

Delayed Gratification

The older I get the more often I see that what passes for life's success and failures or deficiencies is ultimately based on choices, but many times the choice is between doing something now or some better time in the future. There are lots of examples. Sex at the wrong time and with the wrong person, for example. Getting an education through applied studying and due diligence can obviously affect how successful one is. Having fun in college is great unless it prevents you from accomplishing what you should be there for. You can have a lot of fun later if you have a good job and money coming in every month. Family timing is important. Have a family too soon and there can be a profound and lingering effect on subsequent financial health. Retirement is just a whole lot more fun and a lot less stressful if you have delayed some gratification by saving enough money to spend later in life. These are the big examples, but there are a lot of smaller ones as well. Some big time athletes get huge contracts and lots of money to go with minimal common sense and risk it all by deciding for example that despite contracts to the contrary they have to buy a motorcycle. Ben Rothlisberger, for example. Several professional golfers have lost irreplaceable productive months and years from injuries while skiing and snow-boarding. Ernie Els and Chris DiMarco come to mind here.

I guess the other side of the argument is one should have it all now because tomorrow may not come. If wrong, however, you wind up repenting in leisure.

Energy Legislation

The Alaska pipeline started sending oil down to the lower 48 on June 20, 1977. This pipeline from Prudhoe Bay was criticized by the looney left in the Democrat party at the time as a boondoggle which would bring us just 6 months of oil and devastate our planet for all time with its ecological damage. This is the same drivel that they are offering us now with regard to Anwar oil. The truth, however, is that we have realized 15 billion gallons of oil from the pipeline and there has been no ecological damage whatsoever. The liberal line never changes, however, as can easily be seen by the current legislation being debated in the Senate. There is no provision for new production, no way to encourage new refineries to be built, no encouragement for nuclear power production, but there is a proposal for new taxes on the energy companies which they restrict from meeting our energy demand. As a result, there will be no energy bill this year.

Interesting Statistic

I just ran across an interesting statistic in a Wall Street Journal article this morning. There are currently over 632,000 known fugitive aliens in the U.S. These are persons who have illegally come into the U.S., committed a crime, been found guilty and been released pending appeal of an order that they be deported.

Another one. Of the 15,000 illegal immigrants arrested last year for some criminal infraction, 10,000 were fugitives from deportation orders as described above.

What are we doing about this situation? Well, according to the article, since last October the feds have captured and deported 537 of these fugitives. Here is the math. The number has been reduced to 632,189 from 632,726. That probably doesn't convince you that the promised attention to the illegal fugitive matter in the proposed legislation being promulgated by Bush and Teddy Kennedy will be delivered in fact.

Take your pick

I am reading in the news today that Mike Bloomberg, the liberal mayor of New York City has renounced his voter affilliation and is now unaffiliated rather than a Republican. There is growing expectations that the billionaire may decide to spend some of that money to run for President. This could give us the once in a lifetime opportunity to choose which New York liberal we want to vote for. Take your pick: Clinton, Guiliani, or Bloomberg. Beam me up, Scottie.

Another snippet from Mark Steyn

This is just a small part of another great essay by Mark Steyn. Read it all.

There are immigration laws on the books right now, aren't there? Why not try enforcing them? The same people who say that government is a mighty power for good that can extinguish every cigarette butt and detoxify every cheeseburger and even change the very climate of the planet back to some Edenic state so that the water that falleth from heaven will land as ice and snow, and polar bears on distant continents will frolic as they did in days of yore, the very same people say: Building a border fence? Enforcing deportation orders? Can't be done, old boy. Pie-in-the-sky.

The proper intellectual level

I just read that some 4th graders have now issued a global warming report.

That is about the same level of scientific sophistication that I have seen in similar analyses of the subject.

Homework

Here is a research project for the coming weeks. As you read the reports from the Mid-east and the civil war involving Hamas and Fatah, pay attention to the way it is described by the looney left in the nation's largest newspapers and wire services. If you pay close attention you will notice the casualties are described as "people". Once you have established that nobody in specific terms is affected by the war, go back and read the recent reports from the Israel incursion into Lebanon. There, you will find, the casualties are babies, civilians, women and children, non-combatants and the buildings affected were schools and hospitals as well as the houses of poor peasants.

If your results are as I suspect, you will find there are no innocent victims of the carnage being wrought by Iran's surrogates in Gaza and the West Bank as they fight Fatah. If Israel decides it doesn't want and can't tolerate an enemy state on its border in Gaza and takes retaliatory measures to counter rocket fire into its cities, the result will be reported as a form of genocide by the heartless Jews.

Trust me

1. Of course I will respect you in the morning.

2. The check is in the mail.

3. Islam is a religion of peace.

4. We will really enforce border security this time.

I thought mine was the worst

I just ran across an article which purports to list the 10 worst jobs in science. After checking to see if Microbiology Professor in a medical school was listed, I read about some which really do seem to be pretty sorry. Here is the worst according to the article which you can read here.

“The worst was at a factory pig farm,” says Steven M. Barsky, the author of Diving in High-Risk Environments, the industry bible for hazardous-materials divers. “A guy had driven his truck into the waste lagoon and drowned. Not only was it full of urine and liquid pig feces, the farmer had dumped all the needles used to inject the pigs with antibiotics and hormones in there.” Someone had to recover the body, and the task fell to commercial hazmat divers.

The Coburn Solution

When the Dems were campaigning last Fall in congressional races across the country, they rightly pointed to the corruption by Republicans in Congress and the need to clean up practices such as earmarks which allowed funding for "bridges to nowhere" in Alaska. Nancy Pelosi pledged to "make this the most honest, ethical and open Congress in history." Well, after only 6 months that seems to be an empty promise--- similar to the pledge to work 5 days a week. With regard to earmarks, David Obey, the Chairman of the Appropriations Committee has decided that the membership has no need to actually know about and vote on those special little projects inserted into spending bills. He will now take all 32,000 of them and decide later which ones will be funded. As we consider this, we should remember that the crooked Republicans were thrown out for funding 14,000 of these earmarks. Anyway, congressional spending practices seem to be the same or worse than when the Dems were elected last Fall. While we wait for Nancy Pelosi to decide whether she wants to honor her word or impose discipline on her legislative body, we can watch Tom Coburn in the Senate. Senator Coburn says that unless something is done about earmarks we should remember that any one member of the Senate can prevent spending bills from going to conference to resolve differences in the House and Senate. If there is anyone in America who doesn't think that there is one member who will excercise his perogative in this regard, they don't know Senator Coburn. This should be fun.

In a related development, there is a paper pledge in the House with enough Republicans signed on to sustain any veto by President Bush of a spending bill which exceeds his budget. This is a shaky proposition since the Republicans could go wobbly if one of their pet boondoggles is threatened, but it may help some.