Steve's Serendipities

"The Competing Narratives of Barry and Sarah"

2009-12-15T08:05:00.000-05:00

I wonder if this writer thought of beginning with "A Tale of"?...

At AmericanThinker.com, Jack Cashill has an interesting article. He begins:

"In the spring of 1964, Sarah Heath, then just three months old, flew into backwater Skagway, Alaska (population 650) aboard a 1930s-era Grumman Goose to start a new life with her parents, brother, and sister.

At that same time, in America's other new outlier state, Hawaii, two-year-old Barry Obama was just getting used to a fatherless existence in the otherwise-comfortable world his white grandparents and occasionally his mother would make for him.

At the time, not even Nostradamus could have foretold that the paths of Barry and Sarah would intersect in the "historic" 2008 election, Barry as the first major party presidential nominee of African descent and Sarah as the first woman with a real shot at the vice-presidency."

In Our World - Ranching vs. Recreation

2009-12-15T08:04:00.000-05:00

What a sad story.
In a case like this, I don't think even the Wisdom of Solomon could satisfy.
You, of course, can be your own judge...

PRE-LINK TEXT Nicholas Riccardi reports in the L.A. Times:

"Reporting from Camp Hale, Colo. - As soon as Renee Legro saw the sheep, she screamed.

The herd, 1,300 strong, has been coming for 30 years to graze in this valley on the backside of the Continental Divide. But as Colorado has become an adventure sports destination, the once-empty valley has filled with hikers, campers and mountain bikers like Legro, and she was about to tragically embody the collision of the old West with the new."

Barack Obama - "Nobel Affirmative Action Awarded"

2009-12-15T08:03:00.003-05:00

If you've never met or heard of the Hon. James David Manning, here's your opportunity...

On his website, Hon. James David Manning comments on the recent award of the Nobel Peace Prize. He calls it the:

"Nobel Affirmative Action Award"

Global Warming - "Why they fell for it..."

2009-12-15T08:02:00.000-05:00

They say "many a true word is said in jest".
In this post, you'll have to decide which is which, or maybe it is what it is...

After describing who and why they fell for the global warming hoax, Don Surber tells us:

"The only people who didn’t fall for it were we mouth-breathing, Bible-thumping, beer-guzzling, cousin-humping, baby-bumping, overfed, inbred, illiterate, gun-clinging, buck-toothed, trailer-park-living, truck-driving, ATV riding, Wal-mart shopping, knuckle-dragging, military-supporting, ain’t-recycling, patriotic, homophobic, xenophobic, sexist, racist hillbillies with cooties."

Global Warming - and the measuring locations

2009-12-15T08:01:00.000-05:00

This seems to equate to measuring temperature using a thermometer placed on an asphalt parking lot, and extrapolating it as a global example.
That's already been exposed, Now, measuring CO2 is the latest.

With questionable data collection, how do these people make such indelible conclusions?...

This is in a post by Erin at RightSoup.com:

"All 5 Global Baseline C02 Monitoring Stations Are Suspiciously Sited…

Mauna Loa has been producing a readout which supports Manning’s 'goal' by showing steady growth in atmospheric CO2 concentrations since 1959. This is known as the Keeling Curve, a beloved datapoint of Al Gore’s.

Just thirty miles from the observatory, Kilauea’s Pu`u O`o vent sends 3.3 million metric tons of CO2 into the atmosphere every year. It has been erupting continuously since 1983. Since 2008 it has been joined by a second eruption even closer to the Observatory — from Halema`uma`u Crater at the top of Kilauea. Pu`u O`o sends the equivalent of the yearly CO2 production from an average city of 660,000 people into the air. Air trajectory charts show that most of the air reaching Mauna Loa Observatory first passes over Pu`u O`o and Halema`uma`u."

Sarah Palin - and liberal reactions

2009-12-14T08:04:00.003-05:00

"like vampires to garlic"? Yep...

At ToledoBlade.com, Jack Kelly reports:

"Going Rogue received savage reviews from most liberals, like that from Ana Marie Cox in the Washington Post, who acknowledged she hadn't actually read the book.

Those who did have a different opinion. Stanley Fish, writing for the New York Times, described it as 'compelling and very well done.'

The reaction of liberals to Mrs. Palin - which is like that of vampires to garlic - indicate she is the Republican they fear most. With good reason, Mr. Fish thinks.

'Perseverance, the ability to absorb defeat without falling into defeatism, is the key to Palin's character,' he wrote. 'Her political opponents, especially those who dismissed Ronald Reagan before he was elected, should take note.'"

Global Warming - "Four Colossal Holes in the Theory..."

2009-12-14T08:03:00.000-05:00

My opinion is clear on this.
The Earth surely does heat up and cool down; but, to confidently blame it on human activity lacks credibility at this time.
One good sized solar flare, or one large volcanic eruption can have more influence than human activity ever will...

At Townhall.com, John Hawkins writes about "holes in the theory" and concludes:

"The Doomsday predictions from global warming alarmists are absolutely meaningless because they're based on climate models that don't work very well in the first place. As Dennis Avery, co-author of Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1500 Years has said:

'I think they pull their predictions out of their hats and I don't think they have any validity whatsoever.'

What the global warming alarmists are asking of people is no small thing. They want us to spend trillions of dollars, dramatically impact our economies, and change the way people across the world live for the worse. Those are not trivial changes and simply having scientists -- who've been put under enormous political pressure and make a living off global warming grants – say, 'Trust us, it's real,' isn't going to cut it for proof. If global warming alarmists can't even deliver plausible answers to the most obvious problems with their theory, then no one should take them seriously."

The United Nations - Climate chief Rajendra K. Pachauri

2009-12-14T08:02:00.000-05:00

Even if there were undisputed facts concerning human caused global warming, how could we possibly believe people with these connections?

In some venues, one must recuse themselves, in order to preserve the integrity of the issue.
Ooops! I forget this is the United Nations...

PRE-LINK TEXT Jerome R. Corsi POST-LINK TEXT:

"A Mumbai-based Indian multinational conglomerate with business ties to Rajendra K. Pachauri, the chairman since 2002 of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, stands to make several hundred million dollars in European Union carbon credits simply by closing a steel production facility in Britain with the loss of 1,700 jobs.

The Tata Group headquartered in Mumbai anticipates receiving windfall profits of up to nearly $2 billion from closing the Corus Redcar steelmaking plant in Britain, with about half of the savings expected to result from cashing in on carbon credits granted the steelmaker by the European Union under the EU's emissions trading scheme, or ETS.

Corus has accumulated 7.5 million European Union surplus carbon allowances, or EUAs, given the company free by the EU, after corporate officials lobbied EU officials aggressively in Brussels. "

Another Omnibus Spending Bill - WSJ.com

2009-12-14T08:01:00.000-05:00

Can anyone see what value we're getting for this money?
Our elected officials are totally out of control, and maybe out of their minds.
Voting for an incumbent seems like the dumbest thing a citizen might do...

The Wall Street Journal editorializes about it:

"When it comes to spending, the Democrats who run Washington can't decide on their message. On the one hand, as President Obama said this week, they claim we have to 'spend our way out of this recession.' On the other, they keep telling us the deficit is too large and isn't 'sustainable.' In this tug of political spin, watch what they spend, not what they say.

And that means watching this weekend's expected Senate vote on a 1,088-page $445 billion 'omnibus' package of spending bills to fund the government for fiscal 2010. The House passed a similar elephant earlier this week, allowing federal agency budgets to increase spending by some $48 billion, or about 12% from 2009. That increase—when inflation is negligible—is in addition to the $311 billion in stimulus already authorized or out the door for these programs. Adding this new stash means that federal agencies will have received a nearly 70% increase in the last two years.

Oh, and that's not all. The President and Congress also want to spend as much as $200 billion more from the Troubled Asset Relief Program on still another stimulus, though this time we are supposed to call it a 'jobs' program, because stimulus now has a dirty political name."

Global Warming - the Medieval Warm Period

2009-12-13T08:03:00.000-05:00

This is about the medieval period that the global warming advocates would prefer did NOT exist...

At JoanneNova.com, JoNova posts this with quite a few convincing charts and graphs:

"It’s clear that the world was warmer during medieval times. Marked on the map are study after study (all peer-reviewed) from all around the world with results of temperatures from the medieval time compared to today. These use ice cores, stalagmites, sediments, and isotopes. They agree with 6,144 boreholes around the world which found that temperatures were about 0.5°C warmer world wide."

Politicians - PA State Rep. Ken Smith

2009-12-13T08:02:00.001-05:00

Another lawmaker who apparently doesn't feel it necessary to honor his obligations...

This is from Pennsylvania's Pocono Record website:

"State Rep. Ken Smith is the co-owner of Smith's Restaurant in Scranton. Records show the business has not a made a full monthly payment on the loan since July 2006. That's two months after Smith won the Democratic nomination in the 112th District."

Barack Obama - "Abandons the Young"

2009-12-13T08:01:00.001-05:00

This falls into my category of politicians promising anything to get elected.
Unfortunately, our youth may not have the experience to know that...

PIn the N.Y. Daily News, James Kirchick seems to make his point quite well:

"The 2008 presidential race was widely trumpeted as the 'Youth Election,' and for good reason. Inspired by Barack Obama's relative youth and his message of 'hope' and 'change,' young Americans flocked to the then-junior senator from Illinois.

It is doubtful that he could have become the most powerful man in the world without them.

What did the young get for their critical outpouring of support? Though most of his youthful backers would be hesitant to admit it, the President has betrayed them on three issues of great importance to their wallets and sympathies:"

Politicians - Gov. Mike Huckabee

2009-12-12T08:02:00.001-05:00

I have several thoughts about pardons.
One is that politicians should not have the sole power to grant them.
Another is that there must be evidence to support the pardon, not just compassion.
Another is that certain crimes not be pardonable, unless DNA or other evidence is conclusive.
We have to remember that the criminal likely confessed, or was convicted (beyond a reasonable doubt) by a jury of his peers, and was not successful with any appeals. I don't think a single person should be able to override that...

At Examiner.com, Kevin Hall has nothing nice to say about Gov. Huckabee's pardons:

"Mike Huckabee is a liar. He granted clemency to a dangerous criminal, but wants us to believe everyone would have acted the same way. Huckabee's efforts to shift blame away from himself includes a total fabrication of Maurice Clemmons' extensive criminal history, and his age."

The Welfare State and Military Power - WSJ.com

2009-12-12T08:01:00.001-05:00

It's pretty obvious that the less money a country has, the less it has for it's defense.
It follows that defense has some fixed costs, so with less money, there is less for other costs.
Apparently, some countries have defense forces, but don't have the money to use them for anything, which almost equates to having a car and no money for gas.
Oh yes, and did I mention that politicians control all of this?...

In this article, the Wall Street Journal explains:

"The overlooked culprit here is the rise of the modern welfare state. Since World War II and especially from the 1960s, Europe has built elaborate domestic income-maintenance programs, with government-run health care, pensions and jobless benefits. These are hugely expensive, requiring high taxes and government spending that is a huge proportion of GDP. The nearby table compares the so-called tax wedge across nations, which is one measure of the relative burdens to finance cradle-to-grave entitlements.

One consequence has been slower growth in Europe, relative to the U.S. and China, with less tax revenue to spend on everything. Another result is that welfare spending has crowded out defense spending. The political imperative of health care and pensions always trumps defense spending, save perhaps in a hot war. Europe may never again be able to muster public support for a defense buildup of the kind the U.S. undertook to end the Cold War in the 1980s, or even the smaller surge after 9/11.

The tragic irony of this year is that Democrats are rushing the U.S. down this same primrose entitlement path. With ObamaCare certain to eat up several more percentage points of GDP as it inevitably expands, we will take a giant step toward European social priorities."

Meanwhile - in the U.K. at the bowling alley

2009-12-11T08:02:00.000-05:00

If we let them, governments will "protect" us from everything, and I mean everything!...

Steve Doughty reports in the U.K. Daily Mail:

"t's a peril that only a crack team of health and safety experts could have uncovered.

After two years and £250,000, they found that ten-pin bowling alleys up and down the country could be a 'very dangerous' environment for families.

They concluded that it was too easy for children or teenagers to run down lanes and get trapped in machinery that sets up the pins - even though there was no record of any such accident having happened."

When Pundits Compare Apples To Oranges: One Look at Health Care Polling

2009-12-11T08:01:00.000-05:00

Trying to compare or match one poll against another is pretty futile...

Scott Rasmussen explains:

"A blog entry posted at CQPolitics.com looked at a recent Rasmussen Reports poll and another by the Kaiser Family Foundation and concluded that the 'new polls disagree on whether a government overhaul of the nation's health care system will leave people better off or worse off.'

In fact, according to the posting, the results were dramatically different with the Rasmussen poll showing that people think the system would be worse by a 54% to 20% margin 'while the Kaiser poll says the country as a whole would do better, 54 percent to 27 percent.' The post concluded that the polls 'do not provide much in the way of clues that might explain the discrepancy..'

Stories like these are frustrating and are used by some to raise doubts about the entire field of polling. At Rasmussen Reports, when we see a discrepancy like that, we seek to understand why."

Meanwhile - aboard AirTran Flight 297

2009-12-10T08:04:00.001-05:00

So, what in the world do you think this is all about?...

At CanadaFreePress.com, Doug Hagmann reports:

"On November 17, an incident took place aboard AirTran Flight 297 scheduled to fly from Atlanta Hartsfield Airport to Houston that the media does not want to cover and everyone from the airline to the TSA and other government agencies want to keep very quiet."

Barack Obama - "Beware of the New 'Silent Majority'"

2009-12-10T08:03:00.001-05:00

Here's an interesting article about the history of the "silent majority".
It's my opinion that they are about to assert themselves, once again...

Patrick Dorinson writes at FoxNews.com:

"Yes, I am talking about the 'Tea Party' folks. But there are others. Not all of the forgotten Americans attend rallies and burn up cyber-space with their anger.

But for everyone who goes to a rally or comments on an article or blog on the Internet there are many who feel the same way. Polling data bears this out.

The media and political elites -- aided and abetted by their fellow travelers in Hollywood -- are determined to squash this rebellion against their hero Barack Obama."

Barack Obama - and his 'Safe schools' chief

2009-12-10T08:02:00.001-05:00

Can't they find a non-controversial person for this job?
After all, we're talking about America's children!...

Bob Unruh reports at WorldNetDaily.com:

"A new report is raising alarms that the Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network, a homosexual advocacy organization founded by Kevin Jennings, now head of the U.S. Office of Safe Schools for the Obama administration, is recommending XXX-rated sex writings for children as young as preschoolers.

'We were unprepared for what we encountered. Book after book after book contained stories and anecdotes that weren't merely X-rated and pornographic, but which featured explicit descriptions of sex acts between preschoolers; stories that seemed to promote and recommend child-adult sexual relationships; stories of public masturbation, anal sex in restrooms, affairs between students and teachers, five-year-olds playing sex games, semen flying through the air,' said the report.

'One memoir even praised becoming a prostitute as a way to increase one's self-esteem. Above all, the books seemed to have less to do with promoting tolerance than with an unabashed attempt to indoctrinate students into a hyper-sexualized worldview,' it advised. "

Politicians - "We Pay Them to Lie to Us"

2009-12-10T08:01:00.000-05:00

Fool us once, shame on you;
Fool us more than once, we are really stupid...

John Stossel writes at Townhall.com:

"When you knowingly pay someone to lie to you, we call the deceiver an illusionist or a magician. When you unwittingly pay someone to do the same thing, I call him a politician."

Politicians - Former House Speaker Rod Jetton

2009-12-09T08:35:00.001-05:00

This probably has nothing to do with politics; however, I am fascinated that people with these "character" flaws can get elected to public office...

This is from the KMOX website in Missouri:

"In the statement, the woman claims that Jetton came to her home on Nov. 15 after the two discussed sexual intercourse, with he and the victim having "agreed on a safe word of 'green balloons' to use as a stop word during intercourse." She said that when Jetton came he brought two bottles of wine for them.

At one point, she said that Jetton went to the kitchen out of sight and poured her a glass of wine. While watching football with Jetton the victim said she finished her glass and began to lose consciousness. "

Army Technology - Pentagon Unveils New Gelatinous Chemical Robot

2009-12-09T08:04:00.002-05:00

The things we've seen on the Sci-Fi channel keep creeping into our future real world...

A posting at ArmyTechnology.com reports:

"The chemical robot moves from place to place by way of a process called 'jamming' which causes the material to transition between semi-liquid and semi-solid states with only a slight change in volume.

Jamming technology allows the scientists to make the ChemBot grow or shrink and roll it around with accurate control, and even manipulate it to pass through cracks in walls and reform on the other side."

Barack Obama - "A failed presidency is now unavoidable"

2009-12-09T08:03:00.000-05:00

Opinions are changing and criticism is now abundant...

At AmericanThinker.com, Monty Pelerin closes his writing with this:

"We have a failed presidency that cannot be retrieved. The dream cannot be rebuilt because there was never a foundation to begin with. It was all show and no substance. Yes, it created much excitement and (false) hope. But so did Elmer Gantry and James Jones. However, the image was akin to an old Hollywood set, all facade and no depth. Now the winds of reality are slowly and inexorably tearing the facade away.

The politicians in Congress see these same signs and read the polls. At this point they are trying to decide what is least dangerous for their individual careers. For the Republicans that probably means pouring gasoline on Obama's burning ship of state. For the Democrats, it is a more difficult problem. Ultimately, I believe they will abandon ship. Politicians of both parties are like rats; they are survivors. All politicians will take that course which they believe gives them the best chance for individual survival. Loyalty be damned.

Hang on, this will be a rough period ahead."

Global Warming - Greenland got it's name because...

2009-12-09T08:02:00.000-05:00

I've always thought that the fact that Greenland was once "green" should clinch the argument that human caused global warming is a crock.
It was obviously warmer in the past than it is now, and there were no SUVs, coal burning power plants, etc...

At AmericanThinker.com, U.S. Rep. John Linder begins with:

"For the last several years, when people have instructed me that human activity was causing a dangerous increase in global temperatures, my response has been, 'Then tell me, what should the temperature be?' Should it be the temperatures that the planet experienced a thousand years ago, during which Greenland was settled as a farming community and during which wine grapes were grown in Scotland? Should it be the temperatures of three hundred years ago, when the Little Ice Age ended the inhabitation of Greenland and the Thames iced over? Should it be the temperatures of 829 A.D., when the Nile River froze? No response!"

"Emerson Electric Votes With Its Feet"

2009-12-09T08:01:00.000-05:00

Our elected officials are NOT serving American businesses well.
It's time to publicize their malpractice and vote them out...

Richard McCormack reports on it at ManufacturingNews.com:

"One of the country's most important industrial companies says the United States is not a good place to manufacture and it will continue moving its assets offshore.

The federal government is 'doing everything in [its] manpower [and] capability to destroy U.S. manufacturing,' says David Farr, chairman and CEO of Emerson Electric Co., in a presentation at the Baird 2009 Industrial Conference in Chicago Ill., on Nov. 11. In comments reported by Bloomberg, Farr added that companies will continue adding jobs in China and India because they are "places where people want the products and where the governments welcome you to actually do something. I am not going to hire anybody in the United States. I'm moving. They are doing everything possible to destroy jobs." "