dprin339's Blog

William D. Zeranski
Michigan went to Obama, and so did Illinois, as did a number of other states which are home to car making. I was wondering how the Big Three's manufacturing facilities layout over the electoral map.  A few links are available, which offer a rough outline of where Ford and GM plants are located.

I couldn't find one for Chrysler, but Chrysler has its base in what is known as the DaimlerChrysler Auburn Hills Complex headquartered in Michigan, and again, we know which way those 17 Electoral College votes will go. 
So, how does helping bailout the Big Three help the GOP?   Recently the Big Three and the United Auto Workers union president walked, hand in hand, up to a Democrat-controlled Congress, with their two free hands out, looking for money:
The three car firm bosses -- who will be joined by the president of the United Auto Workers union -- are facing a furious fight to sway Republican support for their request. Democrats have set the stage for a pivotal Senate vote on Wednesday on a plan that combines the $25bn with a $6bn extension of unemployment benefits for laid-off US workers.
They're looking for a lot of money, and the Republicans may not be interested in being associated with another multi-billion dollar deal, which could easily turn into another bailout debacle.
When it comes to the rank and file union member, no one knows how the average worker votes, but the safe bet is the majority generally pull the ‘D' lever.  That was true before the election and after, and there's no reason to believe that will change. 
The United Auto Workers union is part of the Democrat base.  GOP knows that.  The union president knows that.  If the Big Three must cut their workforce to survive, that's a reality the Democrats have to face.  The mid-term elections will come fast and furious and unemployed union workers will scare them more than the Republicans. 

It needs to be said, even as we look ahead to an Obama Administration that has pledged, whatever the cost, to begin a draw down in Iraq: It was smart to go to war in Iraq; it was courageous to go to war; but most of all -- even though there are few things as horrific as war -- it was necessary to go to war against Iraq.  Had we not gone to war against Iraq in 2003, it almost certainly would have been another Arab country at another time, and all in less advantageous circumstances.
Iraq was the right time, right place, right war.
We had to go to war, because the only sure way to ensure our national security is to drain the swamp of terrorism: to finally begin the process of wrenching the Arab world from a culture of backwardness, oppression and hatred toward the West.
And as the war seems finally to show some hope of success, it isn't time to leave.  We need to finish the job as we remind ourselves why we are there.
Too many forget that there was massive support for the war in 2003: from left to right, Democrats and Republicans; and if many of our European allies did not support going to war in early 2003, their intelligence services were supporting the views of our own multi-agency analyses: that Saddam had WMDs, a belief Saddam almost undoubtedly nurtured in order to overawe his Iranian neighbors.
WMDs were only ONE of the reasons the UN Security Council authorized war.  Others include Saddam's  genocidal campaign against the Kurds and his infringement of the no-fly zone, which violated the armistice that had halted the fighting in 1991 and gave the Powers opposing him the legal right under international law to resume hostilities.
In fact, there is reason to believe that even if A. Gore had been elected President in 2000 that we would have gone to war; perhaps a bit later, after an additional UN resolution or two, but at some point we would have done so. 
And so the War came.
Came with all its brutality and horror and mistakes, most notably in the occupation.  But that's no reason now to decry our involvement.  It's easy to favorably compare"what might have been" but the reality is that all wars are filled with unpleasant surprises.
Adults normally understand and accept that -- as they accepted during the Civil War such setbacks as Fredericksburg or during World War II the disaster of Kasserine Pass or the horrific early losses in our early daylight strategic bombing campaign. 
No matter how the occupation was handled, there would have been difficulties.  There's no way of telling whether other choices would have been better than the choices that were made.  The great advantage of the choices we didn't make is that they exist as pristine "what ifs," unsullied by . . . reality.
The reality is that Saddam would have had to have been removed at some point, and the decrepit state he held together by terror was bound to blow apart.  Better sooner than later to get a head start on taking on a country at the heart of the Arab world and Arab mythology that had been fomenting terrorism, oppressing its people and otherwise helping to sustain a collective Arab culture that was a petri dish for terrorism.
We have urged our Arab "friends" to make changes that would discourage terrorism.  We've cajoled, pressed, implored and begged them.  We've bribed, demanded and threatened.  But nothing worked.  We finally had to take the most vile offender by the scruff of its neck and force it to change. 
Contemporary Iraq is not a paradise; even our best hopes for it remain far short of what we in the West would regard as a humane, tolerant and decent society.  But there seems to be progress toward that goal, and more than any Arab country today Iraq has a chance to create a pluralistic society that does not oppress its people, that offers hope for the future and that opposes terrorism; and in becoming this kind of state offers a model to the rest of the Arab world.
Having taken on Saddam in 2003, we have five years of experience in counterinsurgency in the center of the Arab world, and we're five years closer to winning the War for the Free World in the only way possible: by draining the swamp that allows terrorism to survive and flourish. 
Had we waited, the war would have been more difficult and the stakes much greater. 
Now that things seem to be moving in the right direction is not the time to pull out according to an artificial time table driven not only by ignorance of the facts on the ground but the exigencies of party politics or promises made by President-elect Obama early in the primaries. 
Now is the time to reap the benefits of the sacrifice of money, national prestige and most important of all, the lives of some of our best young people.  It is not the time to retreat and reveal to all and sundry that we are a shredded paper tiger. 
Those who support surrender say that there would be peace.  And there would be peace.  But a counterfeit peace: the fallacy of the false alternative: peace for a week, a month, a year, but what of two or ten or fifty years, the world of our children and grandchildren?
To leave without victory would be to return to the beginning, and we would have to do it all over again in a few years.  Understood or not, it was the world's good fortune that we were able to take on Saddam when we did:  It was the right time, right place, right war.
That's why we fight.

Barack Obama managed to say all the wrong things at this week's Governors Global Climate Summit in Los Angeles -- without even showing up.  The President-elect appeared to the green faithful on Tuesday in the form of a mammoth video image, and opened his pre-recorded pledge to "take the lead" in addressing global warming with these eerily familiar words:

"Few challenges facing America -- and the world -- are more urgent than combating climate change. The science is beyond dispute and the facts are clear. Sea levels are rising. Coastlines are shrinking. We've seen record drought, spreading famine and storms that are growing stronger with each passing hurricane season."
Now from whom have we heard such an arrogant concentration of misinformed alarmist hokum before?  Of course - the man that Obama promised "will be at the table and play a central part in us figuring out how we solve this problem."  The Delphic Goracle himself.
And just as we have been compelled to do with the teacher, so must we with the heir apparent student.  Let's dissect this opening bit of twaddle.
"Few challenges facing America -- and the world -- are more urgent than combating climate change"
Stop right there! Waging a Don Quixote style battle against the very forces of nature trumps all but a few challenges?  Do these happen to include the immediate issue of collapsing international markets and their very real potential to spark a worldwide depression? Or assuring the denial of weapons of mass destruction to terrorists and rogue nations?  Or evading the strangle hold our dependency on oil allows those same factions and governments to leverage over us?  Or our deteriorating confidence in the safe stewardship of a nuclear weapons arsenal already in the hands of an Islamic State of dubious intent and political cohesion?  Or the successful outcomes of wars currently waging in Iraq and Afghanistan?  Or resolving our increasingly tenuous relationship with Russia?  Or the "poorly secured nuclear material in the former Soviet Union or secrets from a scientist in Pakistan [that] could help build a bomb that detonates in Paris" Obama himself spoke of in his July "fellow citizen of the world" speech in Berlin?
Or, for that matter, any of countless bona fide and resolvable dangers the planet actually faces in the immediate future?
"The science is beyond dispute and the facts are clear"
Of course, no science is beyond dispute.  Furthermore, one in its infancy, as is climatology, literally depends upon disagreement to light its path to maturity. And considering the thousands of media-ignored-or-demeaned scientists disputing AGW dogma each and every day, Obama diminishes any credibility he might have on the subject by uttering words lifted directly from Gore's devious playbook.
He is, on the other hand, quite correct in stating that the facts are clear. Although, not as he sees them.  To name but a few of contextual note:
Warming stopped in 1998 and the planet has been cooling for over a year now while atmospheric CO2 levels continue to rise. In fact, the 2009 Old Farmer's Almanac includes an article by IceCap editor Joe D'Aleo making the case in its subtitle that "Some scientists believe that an extreme cooling episode, potentially a mini-ice age, is imminent. Others think that it may already be under way."Over long time periods, global temperature anomalies appear correlative not to CO2 levels, but rather a combination of natural forces -- particularly solar activity and sea surface temperatures. Bad Supreme Court decisions notwithstanding, CO2 is not a pollutant but a gas as essential to the flora as O2 is to us fauna. Global climate has always and will always change -- independent of the actions of man.Policy makers would do well to realize that entities such as the IPCC - from which their "scientific" beliefs emanate -- are commissioned to deal exclusively with human influence on the climate and have no motivation to find any natural explanations.
Meanwhile, as falling temperatures continue to topple their AGW house of cards along with public acceptance of furthering existing economic anxieties by adding fruitless green-burdens, it's the alarmists that deny the facts.  Just last month, IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri told a large group at NSW University that "we're at a stage where warming is taking place at a much faster rate [than before]".  And at a Brussels Climate Conference just last week, Johan Rockström, executive director of the Stockholm Environment Institute, took it a step further, warning that "the world is in even ‘more dire straits' than the worst predictions set out by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPPC)."  Imagine the audacity of such hopelessness. 
Sorry, Mr. President-elect, but the science is in active dispute and your side is working overtime to maintain cloud-cover over the facts.
"Sea levels are rising."
Yawn.
Sea levels have been rising at varying rates since the end of the last ice age -- over 10,000 years ago.  And, despite Monday's proclamation by NBC's Meredith Vieira that "if [Icelandic glaciers] were to melt, the oceans could rise at least 200 feet," and Al Gore's map-redrawing 20 feet by the year 2100, the worst case scenario of the equally alarmist IPCC is less than 3 feet.
Even if true -- Somehow an atomic Iran seems the more imminent threat.
"Coastlines are shrinking."
When Obama dropped this idiom in Berlin, it was meant to be synonymous with "rising sea levels."  Now, I like effect as much as the next fellow, but if our next president intentionally used redundant expressions merely as a scare tactic, then I'm going to cry foul and count them individually nonetheless. If, on the other hand, these were separate observations, then Obama must be referring to beach erosion, which has a multitude of non-AGW causes, chiefly storms, which we'll address later.
"We've seen record drought, spreading famine"
Record drought?  Where?  Certainly not here.  Even the media-hyped June 2008 U.S. Climate Change Science Program assessment report disagreed with that propaganda:
"Averaged over the continental U.S. and southern Canada the most severe droughts occurred in the 1930s and there is no indication of an overall trend in the observational record, which dates back to 1895."
And what's this about spreading famine?  Where?  Yes, there have been scare-stories of future warming-induced famine in Africa, Philippines and other areas rich in poverty photo-op potential.  But as none has materialized yet, no one not blessed with precognitive vision has ever "seen" it.
In any event, there have also been predictions of crops becoming more bountiful during longer growing seasons of warmer (and even carbon rich) air and increased rainfall.  In fact, according to a peer-reviewed report in Quaternary Science Reviews, floods, storms, droughts and famines are more frequently associated with cold periods than warm periods.  That's right, it just might turn out that global warming is a good thing.
Nice try, Barack.  And now, speaking of storms, you said:
"Storms that are growing stronger with each passing hurricane season."
Assuming he's referring to North Atlantic hurricanes, he's all wet once again.  Obama has likely heard alarmists use estimated property damage costs to conclude that we're about to close the second most destructive season on record.  But applying instead the widely accepted Accumulated Cyclone Energy (ACE) metric - an amalgam of storm frequency, intensity, and duration -- paints a different picture entirely.  This chart from the Center for Ocean-Atmospheric Prediction Studies shows 2008 to be, indeed, above average, but the 10th highest since 1978, not the 2nd.  And between it and the worst year ever -- 2005, which included Katrina and 6 other major hurricanes -- sat 2 extremely quiet years.
Bottom line: As clearly depicted by the COAPS's up and down annual trends, storms most definitely are not growing stronger with each passing hurricane system.
Wrong as Gore - But Possessing Perilous Power and Personality
In all, it took Obama but 50 words to craft 8 material mistruths and misrepresentations.  At just over 6 average words per green lie (AWPGL), the brilliant orator displayed a bravo sierra talent almost twice that of the reigning King of greenhouse gasbags himself.  Indeed, during Gore's Deceptive Rolling Stone Interview, the hitherto undisputed Globaloney Champion of the World managed a paltry 5 deceptions and took 58 words to squeeze them out, for an AWPGL of nearly 12.
But Obama's out-Goring Gore transcends dishing underhanded hyperbole.   
During Tuesday's sermon on the mounted flat-panel, Obama promised that his presidency "will mark a new chapter in America's leadership on climate change," starting with a federal cap and trade system:
"We will establish strong annual targets that set us on a course to reduce emissions to their 1990 levels by 2020 and reduce them an additional 80 percent by 2050."
And those Kyotoesque words aroused much rejoicing.  
But the green fable of Obama as eco-savior is based largely on the lie that it was George Bush who blocked American Kyoto compliance.  Non Obama-bots (nee Gore-bots) know damned well it was the Senate that unanimously rejected the accord back in 1997 for fear of its adverse impact on our economy and CO2 abatement futility in its exemption of China and India.  And that was during what Democrats are quick to point out were prosperous times.
These, of course, are not.  And a majority of Kyoto-abiding nations, including Japan, Italy and Australia, are still releasing so much more "greenhouse-gas pollution" than they agreed to that they face a combined 36 billion euros ($46 billion) in penalties.  Japan's emissions reached record levels of 1.37 billion tons in 2007 -- 8 percent above 1990 target levels and 15 percent above last year's national reduction target.  It seems all but impossible that even Kyoto's host country, which ratified over 6 years ago, will even approach its 2012 goals.
Australia is facing similar problems, where leaders fear the country's emissions trading scheme (ETS) will push industry overseas.  In England, EU anti-pollution directives demanding one third of all electricity be generated from wind turbines and other renewables by 2020 and austere green taxes are destroying the country's ability to meet energy demands.  As with their Aussie allies, an uncertain green tax future is causing companies to flee the island in droves.  Other EU nations are revolting, demanding developing states like China and India "contribute adequately" to emissions reduction - a demand that cannot possibly be met, given their booming economies and consequent unquenchable thirst for energy.
In short, Obama promised his flock he'd leverage the Democrats' majority in both houses to inflict policies -- which Congress kiboshed in June and have proven disastrously ineffectual on every level in every country -- upon an economy in the most precarious state of his lifetime.  To the loud cheers of simple drones who thought they had died and gone to green-heaven, the new Green Messiah promised immediate rapture:
"Now is the time to confront this challenge once and for all. Delay is no longer an option. Denial is no longer an acceptable response."
Wrong again. Were there a genuine long-term threat, now would be the worst time imaginable to address it; delay would be our only viable option.  And it is the alarmists and their obedient minions who remain in denial, many of whom truly believe drastic and immediate measures our only hope to save a planet not in peril.  Obama's sermon climaxed:
"The stakes are too high. The consequences -- too serious."
On the surface, the beloved next leader of the free world espouses unequivocally fallacious ideas toward both the problem and its solutions.  Given his glaring facility for subterfuge, we can only hope that deep down -- he's no more serious than the consequences he preaches. 
Particularly about the timing.

LOL

Before Election Day, national media handwringers forged a wildly popular narrative: The right was, in the words of New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, gripped by "insane rage." Outbreaks of incivility (some real, but mostly imagined) were proof positive of the extremist takeover of the Republican Party. The cluck-cluckers and tut-tutters shook with fear.

But when the GOP took a beating on Nov. 4, no mass protests ensued; no nationwide boycotts erupted. Conservatives took their lumps and began the peaceful post-defeat process of self-flagellation, self-analysis and self-autopsy.

In fact, in the wake of campaign 2008 there's only one angry mob gripped by "insane rage": left-wing same-sex marriage activists incensed at their defeat in California. Voters there approved Proposition 8, a traditional marriage initiative, by 52 percent to 48 percent.

Instead of introspection and self-criticism, however, the sore losers who opposed Prop. 8 responded with threats, fists and blacklists.

That's right. Activists have published on the Internet an "Anti-Gay Blacklist" of Prop. 8 donors. If the tables were turned and Prop. 8 proponents created such an enemies list, everyone in Hollywood would be screaming "McCarthyism" faster than you could count to eight.

A Los Angeles restaurant whose manager made a small donation to the Prop. 8 campaign has been besieged nightly by hordes of protesters who have disrupted business, intimidated patrons and brought employees to tears. Out of fear for their jobs and their lives, workers at El Coyote Mexican Cafe pooled together $500 to pay off the bullies.

Scott Eckern, the beleaguered artistic director of California Musical Theatre in Sacramento, was forced to resign over his $1,000 donation to the Prop. 8 campaign. Rich Raddon, director of the Los Angeles Film Festival, is next on the chopping block after the anti-Prop. 8 mob discovered that he had also contributed to the "Yes on 8" campaign. Calls have been pouring in for his firing.

Over the last two weeks, anti-Prop. 8 organizers have targeted Mormon, Catholic and evangelical churches. Sentiments like this one, found on the anti-Prop.8 website "JoeMyGod," are common across the left-wing blogosphere: "Burn their f---ing churches to the ground, and then tax the charred timbers."

Thousands of gay-rights demonstrators stood in front of the Mormon temple in Los Angeles shouting "Mormon scum." The Mormon headquarters in Salt Lake City received threatening letters containing an unidentified powder. Religion-bashing protesters filled with hate decried the "hate" at Rick Warren's Saddleback Church in Orange County, Calif. Vandals defaced the Calvary Chapel in Chino Hills, Calif., because church members had collected Prop. 8 petitions. One worshiper's car was keyed with the slogans "Gay sex is love" and "SEX." Another car's antenna and windshield wipers were broken.

In Carlsbad, Calif., a man was charged with punching his elderly neighbors over their pro-Prop. 8 signs. In Palm Springs, Calif., a videographer filmed unhinged anti-Prop. 8 marchers who yanked a large cross from the hands of 69-year-old Phyllis Burgess and stomped on it.

In San Francisco, Christians evangelizing in the Castro District needed police protection after the same-sex marriage mob got physical and hounded them off the streets. Enthusiastically shooting themselves in the foot, anti-Prop. 8 boycotters are now going after the left-wing Sundance Film Festival because it does business in Mormon-friendly Utah.

Also targeted: Cinemark Theaters across the country. The company's CEO, Alan Stock, donated just under $10,000 to the traditional marriage measure. Never mind that Cinemark theaters are hosting the new biopic about gay icon Harvey Milk. They must pay for the sins of the company head who dared to exercise his political free speech.

Corporate honchos, church leaders and small donors alike are in the same-sex marriage mob's crosshairs, all unfairly demonized as hate-filled bigots by bona fide hate-filled bigots who have abandoned decency in pursuit of "equal rights." One wonders where Barack Obama -- himself an opponent of Proposition 8 -- is as this insane rage rages on. Soul-Fixer, Nation-Healer, where art thou?

It is amazing how one election can make a bunch of America-hating liberals patriotic all of a sudden. Now that their Chosen One has been elected, they are giddy with the anticipation of unrestrained power. Of course, the only thing that will restrain a liberal/socialist spending spree is that our national bank account is empty, our credit cards are maxed out, and we are all out of Hello Kitty checks. So now that they need our money (that is, the money of regular folks who work for a living), now they want to be friends.

  I keep hearing this nonsense: “C’mon guys. We’re all Americans. We’re all one country. We need to pull together to get through the problems our country is having. Only by working together can we solve America’s problems. We need to put the divisiveness of the campaign behind us and unite. We need you guys to be on board and be team players. We need our red state friends.” This is basically what Obama said in his victory speech as well.
  Well, I for one don’t need to be reminded what it means to love my country or what it means to be an American, especially not by the likes of liberal loonies. I don’t want to be friends with people who have spent the last 8 years attacking President Bush and calling conservatives like me a Fascist, Nazi, racist, bigot, homophobe, religious fanatic, gun nut, and a lot of other names that this web site won’t let me type.   I don’t want to be friends with people who are rubbing their hands plotting new ways to rob me of my hard earned money in order to give it away to bums. These are the same people who have spent the last 8 years undermining our national security, bad mouthing America to their Euro-trash friends, burning the American flag, and accusing our military men and women of war crimes.   My real friends don’t want to steal from me, they don’t want to control the food I eat or the car I drive. My real friends don’t want to kowtow to terrorists and foreign despots; they don’t want to teach my children about homosexuality, and, most importantly, my real friends know not to mess with my guns.   So here is my message from the 48 percent of us that voted for McCain to the 52 percent of you that voted for Obama. I promise to treat Mr. Obama with the same respect and deference you showed to President Bush. I promise to fight you every step of the way, resist any way I can, and, if things get really bad, hide my income and my guns so you can’t steal either.

Hybrid, I thought YOU particularly would find this interesting!  :)

Imagine for a moment the outrage, indignation and fury that would ensue should an evangelical church group show up at a gay marriage and disrupt the ceremony by staging a protest, shouting, pulling a fire alarm and throwing anti-homosexual fliers at the ceremony guests.  Should the imaginary protestors have the audacity and poor taste to shout something like “homo’s can’t get married” the hue and cry by the media, liberal elites and other culture warriors would be deafening, and within hours the pundits and talking heads would wax eloquent on television and radio about the “hate crimes” perpetrated by the protestors.   Ink in the papers, magazines and op-ed articles would flow by the barrelful as defenders of tolerance in our culture condemned those who had interrupted what was to have been a sacred and holy moment in the life of the couple being joined in marriage.

 

Why then are the proponents of tolerance so quiet in the aftermath of the church invasion and protest at The Mount Hope Church in Delta Township, Michigan.  According to multiple reports a group of militant homosexuals entered a service, threw fliers, pulled a fire alarm and shouted at the members.  Their “protest” included statements that church members were sure to find incredibly offensive, such as “Jesus was a homo”.

 

Forgive me if I am wrong, but does anyone reading this doubt for a moment that if the first scenario were acted out instead of the second, reporters would descend upon the church like a plague of locusts and no stone would go unturned until every individual present was held up to public scrutiny and the church itself examined under a microscope.  Yet, in the days following the “protest” hardly any attention has been focused on this issue in the media, and the defenders of tolerance in our culture are nowhere to be found.  Their silence is deafening.

 

For me, this confirms what I have suspected for some time.  I am surrounded by “intolerant tolerants.”  Tolerance is a virtue in our society only so long as it fits into the worldview and cultural framework that the “enlightened tolerant” finds personally acceptable.  Should I, or anyone else, have the temerity to step for an instant outside their accepted and obviously correct opinions and attitudes, our lack of understanding and ignorance moves us outside their “protection.”  Seriously, why should they be bothered to defend the rights of those that are so wrong?  Freedom of religion...freedom of speech…freedom of association…all minor inconveniences that can easily be sacrificed to the greater good that is supported by those making the decisions of what will be reported—and what will be ignored.

 

The Intolerant Tolerant is easy to spot.  There is one unmistakable identifying characteristic.  The Intolerant Tolerant has selectively acute vision.  They have an uncanny ability to spot heretofore unseen “rights” in the Constitution, while blithely ignoring those that the founding fathers explicitly stated.  This unique and amazing ability to simultaneously see beneath the surface and yet not perceive what is plainly in sight marks the Intolerant Tolerant for all to see. (ahem PB!!!! pay attention!!!)  Keep you eyes and ears open…they are everywhere…easy to spot…difficult to ignore…impossible to educate.

Liberals love to spout words like "tolerance," "rights" and "choice" but only if you agree with them. Their battle to impose their worldview extends even to the distortion of the language

Sorcerer's Apprentice Caught With Pants Down Clarice Feldman
A particularly egregious and obvious error seems to have finally outed Al Gore's Merlin, NASA's Dr. James Hansen:

... [a] surreal scientific blunder last week raised a huge question mark about the temperature records that underpin the worldwide alarm over global warming. On Monday, Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), which is run by Al Gore's chief scientific ally, Dr James Hansen, and is one of four bodies responsible for monitoring global temperatures, announced that last month was the hottest October on record.
This was startling. Across the world there were reports of unseasonal snow and plummeting temperatures last month, from the American Great Plains to China, and from the Alps to New Zealand. China's official news agency reported that Tibet had suffered its "worst snowstorm ever". In the US, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration registered 63 local snowfall records and 115 lowest-ever temperatures for the month, and ranked it as only the 70th-warmest October in 114 years.
So what explained the anomaly? GISS's computerised temperature maps seemed to show readings across a large part of Russia had been up to 10 degrees higher than normal. But when expert readers of the two leading warming-sceptic blogs, Watts Up With That and Climate Audit, began detailed analysis of the GISS data they made an astonishing discovery. The reason for the freak figures was that scores of temperature records from Russia and elsewhere were not based on October readings at all. Figures from the previous month had simply been carried over and repeated two months running.
The error was so glaring that when it was reported on the two blogs - run by the US meteorologist Anthony Watts and Steve McIntyre, the Canadian computer analyst who won fame for his expert debunking of the notorious "hockey stick" graph - GISS began hastily revising its figures. This only made the confusion worse because, to compensate for the lowered temperatures in Russia, GISS claimed to have discovered a new "hotspot" in the Arctic - in a month when satellite images were showing Arctic sea-ice recovering so fast from its summer melt that three weeks ago it was 30 per cent more extensive than at the same time last year.  It's not the first time, either that his "records"  fail any test of accuracy and that he's tap danced away from any notion of being accountable for his errors.

Update -- Bruce Thompson writes:

Now is the time for President Bush to bring the debate on global warming out into the open by firing James Hansen of GISS. There certainly is cause for firing him. And since the GISS data has been the primary data source for the global warming alarmists, publicizing the unreliability of their data is crucial to defeating carbon taxes.

As state before, this whole thing was MADE UP to scare people into following Al Gore & co into just another kumBUYya stupidness.

awwwwwwww kitty needs a bath!!!!

naptime!!!!

 

 

smooch!!!

get off my railing bird!!!!

"And you may ask yourself
Am I right?...am I wrong?And you may tell yourselfMy god!...what have I done?"  - Once in a Lifetime     Talking Heads
As the end of this never ending presidential campaign approached, I kept my faith that Americans would select the candidate that represented "Country First" over the one representing "Change We Can Believe In". While my faith in Americans proved naively misplaced, I fear that the electorate's faith in the One promising change was disastrously misplaced.
After a week and a half of digesting the post-election coverage, I still cannot comprehend how Americans elected the ultra-left candidate with no experience and a sobering view of America. He has spent his entire professional life campaigning for his next political office and has done so by allying himself with nefarious and radical individuals.
It is not surprising that the mainstream media fawned all over the anti-Bush candidate, refusing to question his past, his associations and his positions. It does, however, amaze me that the American public did as well. Just seven years after 9/11, Americans elected a man who raised his family in a church led by a hateful, anti-American zealot and surrounded himself both personally and professionally with unrepentant terrorists and Palestinian sympathizers.
While much of the post-election analysis centers on the economy -- McCain was in the race until the markets crashed --I also fail to understand how the electorate was so blind as to risk a repeat of the failures of the economic policies that Obama proposes.
As Steven M. Warshawsky wrote the day after the election:
"Perhaps most amazingly, Obama openly campaigned on a promise to use the power of government to take from the ‘rich' (now apparently meaning anyone who earns more than $120,000 per year) and give to the poor and middle-class - and the American people rewarded him with a decisive victory in both the popular and electoral votes. Who would have believed that the philosophy of Karl Marx -- ‘from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs' -- would triumph so spectacularly in the United States of America?"
As a proud American, I was repulsed when Michelle Obama arrogantly announced to the country that the first time she was proud of her country was when her husband was nominated. Since last Tuesday, however, I am not feeling as proud. I thought Americans were smarter, more patriotic, hard-working individuals who couldn't be brain-washed by the rhetoric of an Alinsky-trained socialist. I thought that Americans would ultimately see through the Greek columns and the ridiculous sound bites and would not allow the presidency to be purchased with the tainted money of illegal campaign contributions. I believed that Americans would be offended by the arrogance and narcissism pervasive in Obama's campaign and would ultimately reject the candidate with the overblown ego.  
So in an attempt to figure out how I misjudged the electorate, I've divided the Obamaniacs into five categories:
Ignorance is Bliss
Several months ago I asked a relative why she supported Obama. Not surprisingly, she could not provide one substantive reason. The only response that I got with a condescending smirk was "We'll see."
We'll see?! What does that mean?  I spent the next five months forwarding information to her that was not readily available in the mainstream but she never read any of it. She had the time; she just didn't want to leave her comfort zone.
Month after month people would say to me "Bill Ayers? ACORN?  McPeak, Malley and Powers? The Times never mentioned that. You must be watching Fox." 
Bush Derangement Syndrome
I have one liberal friend that claims to have read my emails. The day of the election she responded, "You failed to convince me that McCain is better than Bush." Huh? I realize that Obama's strategy was to convince the electorate that he was running against a third Bush term, but I was surprised to learn that my friends bought into it.
Obama has no experience - "Bush lied, people died."
Obama has associated with terrorists - "The terrorists hate us because of Bush."
Obama is a socialist - "Bush is evil."
But McCain's not Bush - "McCain voted with Bush 90% of the time."
One Jewish friend, conveniently ignoring the history of his ancestors and the civility of his synagogue, suggested that Reverend Wright's rantings were justified because his ancestors were slaves. How did he reach this conclusion? "We barely survived eight years of the Bush/Cheney horror show."
The age of reason apparently died when Bush "stole" the presidency.
Mob Mentality
Obama supporters drank the Kool Aid because others in their community also did. In particular, this addresses the Jewish vote. While the anti-Semitic views of Obama's pastor and his flip flop on the status of Jerusalem reluctantly made it to the mainstream, many other important facts foreboding a lack of support for Israel did not. 
So again, I sent my Jewish friends and relatives articles about Obama's pro-Palestinian advisors, his relationship with Khalidi, Biden's record on Israel and other warning signs that his administration would likely be one less supportive of Israel. Time and again, I'd hear, "But every Jewish person I talk to is supporting him so he must be a friend of Israel."
I'm reminded that "We are the ones that we have been waiting for."  
Socialism
A cousin recently said to me, "Obama's not far-left enough for me, I'm actually anti-capitalism." And as the Bill Ayers controversy brought to light, there are plenty of people that philosophically agree with these radical, socialist views. Many of us thought that the Joe the Plumber revelation that Obama wants to share the wealth would offend most hard-working Americans. Instead we found that academia jumped on board to support Ayers and that the majority of Americans don't fear Obama's nanny state proposals. 
Racism

While Howard Stern's street interviews with African Americans responding to questions about whom they were voting for were amusing, they were also enlightening. Many black people voted for Obama without even knowing what his policies were, who his running mate was, or anything else about him. 
Furthermore, Shelby Steele wrote after the election:
"[Obama's] talent was to project an idealized vision of a post-racial America -- and then to have that vision define political decency. Thus, a failure to support Obama politically implied a failure of decency."
How much of the electorate voted for Obama for racial reasons may not easily be quantified but it was clearly a defining factor for some. 
While the foregoing analysis is not complete, it has helped me rationalize the results of the election. It has not, however, made me feel better about the prospects for the future of the country. We are a country at war, in economic distress, and facing potential international crises across the globe. Our president-elect has absolutely no foreign policy experience, proposes economic policies that have proven historically disastrous and, based on his voting record, is unable to make a decision. 
Our future vice president Joe Biden has never been selected to chair a committee in the Senate, does not have one significant piece of legislation with his name on it, and has taken the wrong position on just about every foreign policy decision he's ever made. 
We've heard the names Hagel and Lugar as potential cabinet members and we know that Obama's advisors are sympathetic to the Palestinians. For anyone who cares about America's only ally in the Mideast, this is far from comforting. 
I expect that the citizens of this country that voted for Obama based on the blissfulness of empty rhetoric and the dreams of hope and change will very soon be saying, "My god!...what have I done?" We'll see.

Wow, this could have been ME that wrote this.  LOL

Obama Chic: Kitchen Staff to Provide Favorite Foods for First Family The First Family has the privilege of putting its own personal taste on the presidential mansion.

Cristina Corbin

FOXNews.com

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

May 7 2007: The White House state dining room set for dinner in honor of Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain (AP)

show_baynote_guide("ArticleGuide");

Editor's Note: The following is the first in a series of stories by FOXNews.com on "Obama Chic: The Changing Face of the White House."

When the White House changes face this January in a historic transfer of power, so too will the style and personality of the 132-room mansion that has housed every American president since 1800.

From the cuisine to the decor to the china pattern and bathroom soap scent, the White House residence will undergo a transformation that will come to define the Obama family legacy.

"It's not a hotel or a restaurant, it's a home," said former White House chef Walter Schieb, who worked for 11 years under the Clinton and Bush administrations.

He said the chief priority of the 90-person resident staff is to ensure that the comfort and personal tastes of the First Family are met.

Schieb, who is credited with introducing a contemporary American cuisine into the White House in 1994, said the first step is to have the general management of the residence -- known as the Usher's office -- meet with members of Barack Obama's transition team.

"Our goal at the residence is to offer an isle of sanity in what is a crazy world for the First Family as they make the transition. We try to anticipate their needs rather than having the family articulate them," he said.

The Obamas will have complete authority over the food menus and interior design of the private quarters. The couple can refurbish the residence's second and third floors -- and even redecorate more public spaces like the Red Room and Blue Room if they so choose. And they can hire and fire members of the army of residence staffers at any time.

"There is no civil service protection ... no seniority" among the residence staff, Schieb said.

As for food preferences, menus are dictated by personal taste and sometimes protocol -- especially during the holidays -- though the nutritional value of meals is always carefully considered by the culinary staff.

"The food at the White House doesn't delineate along party lines. There is no red state food or blue state food," said Schieb, though he noted there have long been clear gender differences in food preference.

"Both first ladies [Hillary Clinton and Laura Bush] enjoyed a range of foods -- including red beets and oat meal -- while Mr. Clinton and President Bush would have been just as content with a barbeque in the basement," he said.

The Bushes often requested "huevos rancheros" with black beans -- a classic Mexican breakfast dish -- after church on Sundays. And the first lady was keen on having her latte at 8 a.m. each morning and "adamant that everything be organic," Schieb said.

For state dinners or high-end entertaining, the Bushes typically preferred to serve beef while the Clintons favored lamb, according to Schieb.

And all special dietary requests must be addressed.

Hillary Clinton and Laura Bush frequently sent diet books to the kitchen staff, said Schieb, who noted that he often tested each diet as a "control measure" to see if it worked.

"Mrs. Clinton came to me six weeks into a diet, once, and humorously said, 'I'm not losing any weight,' to which I replied, 'That's funny, Mrs. Clinton, I lost nine pounds!"

Obama has said in interviews that his favorite food is chili, though Schieb cautioned about disclosing the president's most beloved dish.

"He'll be fed it everywhere he goes for the rest of his life," he quipped.

The president-elect has also been known to favor fish and pistachios -- as well as pumpkin pie.

Obama's two daughters, 10-year-old Malia and 7-year-old Sasha -- soon to be the youngest White House occupants since Amy Carter -- will also have some executive authority over their food choices.

Twelve-year-old Chelsea Clinton had two favorite meals: chicken breast with lemon pasta and broccoli and her "go-to Kraft macaroni and cheese, which had to be from the blue box," Schieb said.

In a July 2008 interview with Entertainment Tonight, Malia Obama said that her favorite food is ice-cream. 

"I could eat ice cream forever," she said.

But not Obama, who confessed on the show that he is "not a real sweets guy."

"He likes like minty gum; he doesn't like bubble gum," Sasha noted at the time.

Monday, November 10, 2008 11:53 AM

By: Pat Boone