Question of the Day

Are Colorado Residents Racists?

A new poll by Rasmussen shows that 55% of Colorado residents favor an immigration law like Arizona's while 35% oppose such a law. How can that be when you hear so much in the media about how racists this is. Actually, Colorado's 55% is lower than the National average of 59% who favor such a law.

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/general_state_surveys/colorado/55_of_colorado_voters_favor_immigration_law_like_arizona_s

The full court press you are seeing by the liberal establishment to me is a farce. The Phoenix Suns changed their jersey on Cinco de Mayo to Los Suns. To begin with if they really wanted to change their name to support Mexicans, they should have chosen "Los Soles." And since they objected to requiring people to come into the country "legally" couldn't they have shown their support by openning their gates that night and not collecting any tickets? Of course if you PAID for a ticket, you might be a bit upset.

Many years ago, I was living in Cincinnati Ohio and needed to go into town for something. I found a place to park on the street. When I got back to my car I still had 10 minutes on the meter but I had a ticket on the car. It seems there was no parking after 4 PM and instead of a $10 ticket, it was a $40 ticket. I hadn't seen the sign and was upset with myself.

I paid the ticket which was a lot of money back then. The day after I paid the ticket there was an article in the paper saying "no one" pays these tickets. I felt like a fool.

In essence this is what the left is telling all the people who immigrate legally to the US. They are saying to them, only fools do it the right way. Come on in illegally and we will ignore it.

I'm getting tired to the left playing us all for fools. They seem to want to pick and chose the laws they want to enforce and they want to do it in a morally superior fashion.

The problem we have is not Arizona's new law. The problem we have is that neither political party seems to have the guts to either enforce the laws we have on the books or change them. It is time for a change in congress.

Chutzpah

Hope and Change Redux

According to the new Allstate/National Journal Heartland Monitor poll only 39% of voters would vote to reelect President Obama and 50% would vote for someone else. Of those numbers 25% said they would definitely vote for him, while 37% would definitely vote for someone else. Numbers like this tend to encourage challengers. I wonder if Hillary has seen this poll?

Of course to many on the left, this just means Americans are racists (or at least the 50% who wouldn't vote for Obama are).

You can seem more on this subject at:

http://reason.com/blog/2010/05/06/now-playing-at-reasontv-is-the

Unemployment up

After peaking at 10% the unemployment figures decreased to 9.7%. They now have increased to 9.9% which isn't good news for the Democrats or the Obama Administration. On the positive side, employers added 290,000 jobs in April. But the unemployment rate went up because the number of workers in the work force increased.

Perhaps now is the time for the Democrats to focus like a laser beam on jobs! Or perhaps they should have done that 16 months ago.

Oregon Media Teacher misreports on Times Square Bomber

Jason Levin, a media teacher at Conestoga Middle School in Beaverton, who is currently on paid leave of absence for his advocacy of discrediting the TEA Party movement, may have shown that he doesn't act as a very good role model when it comes to reporting on his blog. Talking about the Time Square Bombing attempt Levin speculated:

"UPDATE MAY 03 Suspect currently being questioned by law enforcement.

"Anonymous sources have reported that a suspect is currently being questioned in the Bridgeport / New Haven CT area. The suspect is a middle age white male, has a history of strong political views, and considers himself a Sarah Palin Tea Party express activist. An arrest is expected within days.

...Anonymous sources at the scene have reported that the terrorist attack is likely related to the Sarah Palin Tea Party movement. "Much like the 911 attackers, Sarah Palin's Tea Party movement also has shown a strong dislike of the United States government." one source reported. "

Later when it was confirmed the bomber was not a "middle age white male" who considered himself a Sarah Palin Tea Party express activist, but a naturalized Muslim man who hated George Bush, Levin became more sympathetic blogging:

"But he appears to have fallen victim to the Republican created recession. Court records seen by Associated Press appear to show that the property, owned by Shahzad and a woman named Huma Mian, was being foreclosed on by banks following default on a $200,000 mortgage. The family moved out in July last year after a series of garage sales to offload furniture and property."

Now Jason may be looking for a job with MSNBC, but his logic is absolute appalling. Doesn't it strike any of these "reporters" odd that Faisal Shahzad quit his job, got an $80,000 loan, went to Pakistan multiple times for multiple months and came back and tried to blow up a car in Times Square? Now if I had $80,000 I think I could make the house payments (he did buy an SUV with cash as well as a one way airline ticket to the Middle East) and if I really was looking for the American Dream, I probably wouldn't quit my job until I had another one. Far from falling victim to the "Republican created recession" Shahzad appears to be a cold calculating terrorist who didn't want his 72 virgins, but did want revenge for all the Obama ordered "drone" strikes to the Taliban. I think Levin is falling victime to TEA Party derangement syndrome.

Death throes for Anthropogenic Global Warming?

When I was a kid playing CYO football, one of the boys on the team wasn't doing well. The coach at the end of practice made him run 5 laps around the field. The next day he brought a note from his mother exempting her son from doing laps. Needless to say the young man did not stay on the team long after that.

Yesterday it was announced that a group of 255 scientists from the National Academy of Science had written a letter that attacks critics driven by "special interests or dogma" and "McCarthy-like" threats against researchers. This is one of those incidents which demonstrates what real chutzpah is. After years of their supporters attacking skeptics (who many of them referred to as denialists), here are just a few of the "McCarthy-like" threats the skeptics endured.

Talking Points Memo pondered the question ‘at what point do we jail or execute global warming deniers?’

Greenpeace uttered a threat to skeptics, ‘we know where you live.’

David Suzuki called for politicians who questioned global warming science to be jailed.

Joe Romm wanted to strangle skeptics in their beds.

NASA’s James Hansen suggested skeptics be tried for high crimes against humanity

As with my teammate who brought a note from his mother, the supporters of AGW are feeling the proverbial heat and they don't like it. But like the boy so many years ago, their time on the playing field is numbered.

Odds and Ends with the emphasis on the Odd

Colorado polls from RealClear Politics:

Colorado: Rasmussen shows former Lt. Gov. Jane Norton holding consistent leads over her potential Democratic opponents of about six or seven points. That's not awe-inspiring, but it's statistically significant at about 85% confidence. A near-majority of the state strongly disapproves of the job Barack Obama is doing, and 60% favor repealing the health care bill. Neither Democrat -- Bennett nor Romanoff -- has ever polled above 42% in Rasmussen, which isn't a particularly good sign for the fall. Norton leads Bennett by two in the RCP Average.

Where does the Justice Department get it's news.

According to the LA Times, Justice gets it news in the secure confines of the briefing room of Holder's own Justice Department in Washington from Fox News. The briefing room's main TV's are tuned to the top-rated cable news channel. At least we know something that is fair and balanced in the Obama Justice Department.

Does it strike you odd?

It strikes me odd that after all the warnings about the TEA Party protests and the violence that could ensue, the only violence at any TEA Party demonstration has come from Union thugs. In the meantime, every terror act is first spun by the MSM as "possibly being" from some right wing fanatic. We even had on MSNBC correspondent expressing chagrin that the Times Square bomber was a Muslim.

After a year of TEA Party protests not a single TEA Partier has been arrested (not so for anti-war demonstrators in the USA) and we see just how peaceful the left can be by the "demonstrations" in Greece. It appears the left doesn't do well with if you tell them no or even worse you can't afford it. Here we have the EU bailing out the Greek people for their overspending but putting strings on the bailout and the leftists there act like homicidal little children throwing a temper tantrum.

From James Lileks:

The MS in MSNBC stands for Morally Superior, I guess. That explains this:

“I get frustrated…” said Contessa Brewer. “There was part of me that was hoping this was not going to be anybody with ties to any kind of Islamic country. … There are a lot of people who want to use terrorist intent to justify writing off people who believe in a certain way or come from certain countries or whose skin color is a certain way. I mean they use it as justification for really outdated bigotry.”

This begs the question: what kind of bigotry isn't outdated? Against conservatives I suppose.

And speaking of bigotry

On Cinco de Mayo five Live Oak High School students were asked to leave school because they donned American flag T-shirts. Assistant Principal Miguel Rodriguez did not want any fights to break out among Mexican-American students and those wearing American flags.

At the same time you had students showing their pride in Mexico. Pictured above you have freshman Laura Ponce showing off her Mexican pride as she wears a Mexican flag over her shoulders and wears facepaint Wednesday as she waits for school to get out at Live Oak.

So it seems that wearing clothing in America with an American flag on it is "incendiary" but wearing a Mexican flag and facepaint is just showing pride.


Last Navy Seal acquitted

All the Navy Seals who were accused of roughing up a terror suspect have now been acquitted of all charges. Having only the testimony of the suspected terrorist and a single sailor who admitted to dereliction of duty for not reporting what he testified to in the trial. His testimony was considered unreliable.

Navy SEALs involved secretly captured one of the most wanted terrorists in Iraq — the alleged mastermind of the murder and mutilation of four Blackwater USA security guards in Fallujah in 2004. Ahmed Hashim Abed, whom the military code-named "Objective Amber," told investigators he was punched by his captors — and he had the bloody lip to prove it.

The three enlisted men involved refused non-judicial punishment — called a captain's mast — and requested a trial by court-martial. This probably wasn't the response the convening officer was looking for. A captain's mast with a minor punishment would have allowed the military to look tough while not seriously affecting the seamen involved careers.

Instead the Navy now looks foolish and very political. Actual misconduct should never be permitted, but this should never have gone to trial.

A bit of this, a bit of that

Are Democrats racists?

It appears the Republicans are expanding it's attractiveness to voters. This election 32 black candidates will be running as Republicans (6.8% of all the national seats that will be up for grabs). Realistically only 5 of them are looked at as having a chance. Since this represents only 15% of the candidates I guess this means the democrats, independents and republicans who vote against these candidates must be racists. I'm betting there will be more racists democrats than the other two groups.

Now this is a foolish assumption on my part (that if you vote against a black candidate it makes you a racists), but it seems to be the primary assumption by the liberal left. What's sauce for the goose.....

More bad indications for the Democrats

In primaries in NC, IN and OH, Democrats turned out, but at far lower rates than they have in previous comparable elections.

In Ohio, only 76% of the democrats voted in a competitive primary (663K) between LG Lee Fisher (D) and Sec/State Jennifer Brunner (D) as compared to the voters who turned out in '06, when neither Gov. Ted Strickland (D) nor Sen. Sherrod Brown (D) faced primary opponents.

In North Carolina only 425,000 voters turned out to pick a nominee against Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC). The 14.4% turnout was smaller than the 18% of all registered Dem voters -- who turned out in '04, when Gov. Mike Easley (D) faced only a minor candidate in his bid to be renominated for a second term.

And in Indiana, just 204,000 Hoosiers voted for Dem House candidates, far fewer than the 304K who turned out in '06 (just 67% of the voters in 06).

This does not bode well for the Democrats. 2010 has a fired up electorate who are anti-Washington and anti-Obama policies.

http://hotlineoncall.nationaljournal.com/archives/2010/05/dem_turnout_fal.php

When the moon is in the seventh house, and Jupiter aligns with Mars.....

You know the song, but it appears just such a strange alignment has happened in very liberal and very environmentally conscienced Concord MA. Firing the environmental shot heard round the corner, the good people of Concord just a couple of days ago, banned bottled water from their town.

Now if God has a sense of humor what do you supposed He would do? That's right, suddenly there’s a water main break, and people are swarming supermarkets across the region desperately seeking bottled water.

As Kermit the Frog likes to say, "It's not easy being green."

Another member of congress to bite the dust.

House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey has told close associates that he will not seek reelection. This appears to be a big blow to both the Democrats and Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Elected in 1969, the liberal Obey is a major democrat figure who played a leading role in the anti-war and reform movement of the House in the 1970’s. As the Appropriations chairman, he has been a close ally to Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) who came up through the same panel before moving into the leadership. And his departure follows on the death of Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.) this winter, are major blows to Speaker Pelosi.

As Obama turns left, the rest of the country turns right.

Some interesting polling by Resurgent Republic:

"On some emerging economic issues, however, a conservative consensus includes a plurality of Democrats. Asked whether they think it is good or bad that federal pay exceeds private-sector pay, 62 percent of voters said it was a bad thing and only 19 percent a good one. A new value-added tax was unpopular across the board: Voters panned it by a 67–21 percent margin, with only 31 percent of Democrats approving.

Democrats revert to being out-of-step on some national-security issues. While voters, by a five-point margin, think that Obama has improved the country’s standing in the world, voters by large margins want to keep Guantanamo Bay open (60–32) and favor military tribunals for trying terrorists (56–36).

The survey, in short, provides an enormous amount of good news for Republicans and conservatives. It even finds that Republicans in Congress, while still unpopular, are less disliked than Democrats in Congress." At least the Republicans are the lessor of two evils.


http://article.nationalreview.com/433351/republicans-in-resurgence/ramesh-ponnuru?page=1

AGW vs Intelligent Design

We should look at the basic science of AGW. In February of 2010, Dr. Walter Oechel, a distinguished professor of biology and director of the Global Change Research Group at San Diego State University, wrote an op-ed piece for the San Diego Union Tribune titled Climate change is real; there is no debate. In this he said:

“The message from five decades of scientific research, the public-at-large and even most politicians is clear: Climate change is real and we must act now. Our future health, economic well-being and national security are at risk if we don’t.

‘But what about the debate?’ There really isn’t one. The following are facts:

• Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas that acts to warm the planet.

• Carbon dioxide is being emitted from fossil fuels by human activity.

• The amount of carbon dioxide emitted from fossil fuel use is increasing.

• The climate is getting warmer, more unstable, and the climate extremes are greater.

• This can only be adequately explained by including human carbon dioxide emissions.”

I’m going to start with the last point, because if this isn’t true, the rest of his “facts” are irrelevant.

To understand this position we need to understand how scientist came up with AGW being the only factor that can “adequately” explain the warming we’ve seen.

In the 1980s and the 1990s the temperature was increasing at a healthy clip. Scientists took the climate models that they had and could not explain the totality of the increase in temperature (the models could account for about ½). They then look around, saw the first three points in Dr. Oechel’s article and declared it must be caused by greenhouse gas.

The flaw (and it’s a big one) is that the multiple models they used then and the updated versions they use now are not accurate. In fact they AREN’T EVEN CLOSE. So using inaccurate models they couldn’t account for the warming and decided that to attribute it to manmade CO2 (we used to call this the factor of restitution—your answer times this factor gave the correct answer). Their models didn’t accurately portray the known patterns that affect the climate such as the AMO, PDO, ENSO, etc.

Richard Lindzen PhD, the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology in the Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology recently noted that this leap of faith “MAKES ARGUMENTS IN SUPPORT OF INTELLIGENT DESIGN SOUND RIGOROUS BY COMPARISON.”

http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2010/02/dr-richard-lindzens-talk-at-fermilab.html

In other words, the warming we saw might easily be explain by other natural processes if we understood them better and could accurately model these processes. The models currently being used by the IPPC and the ones from which we keep hearing gloom and doom continue to be altered to explain the past, but don’t do a good job in predicting the future.

AGW is probably the most overstated, under proven, scientific theory in history.

Follow the Money

AGW has basically fallen into disrepute. The following explains why this has happened.

The basic science of AGW has always been questionable. Far from “settled” science, what we had was “bought” science. If you follow the money, it doesn’t lead to the oil companies, but to the US government who has been funding the AGW scientists.

“The US government spent $79 billion on climate research and technology since 1989 - to be sure, this funding paid for things like satellites and studies, but it's 3,500 times as much as anything offered to skeptics.”

In the meantime, Greenpeace has searched for funding for skeptics and “found $23 million paid by Exxon over 10 years (which has stopped).” Perhaps Greenpeace missed funding from other fossil fuel companies, but you can be sure that they looked.

www.transworldnews.com/NewsStory.aspx?id=104031...

Former Vice President Al Gore’s unsubstantiated August 7, 2007 assertion that $10 million dollars a year from the fossil fuel industry flows into skeptical organizations, any funding comparison between skeptics and warming proponents utterly fails. Gore launched a $100 million a year multimedia global warming Alarmist campaign. Gore alone will now be spending $90 million more per year than he alleges the entire fossil fuel industry spends, according to an August 26, 2007 article in Advertising Age

http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=38d98c0a-802a-23ad-48ac-d9f7facb61a7

James Lovelock, the grandfather of green was recently interviewed by Guardian. He had a lot to say and in the area of the science itself and the effect of all this money on scientist he said:

“The great climate science centres around the world are more than well aware HOW WEAK THEIR SCIENCE IS. If you talk to them privately THEY'RE SCARED STIFF of the fact that they don't really know what the clouds and the aerosols are doing. They could be absolutely running the show. We haven't got the physics worked out yet.

So why on earth are the politicians spending a fortune of our money when we can least afford it on doing things to prevent events 50 years from now? THEY'VE EMPLOYED SCIENTISTS TO TELL THEM WHAT THEY WANT TO HEAR. The Germans and the Danes are making a fortune out of renewable energy. I'm puzzled why politicians are not a bit more pragmatic about all this.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2010/mar/29/james-lovelock

So this data disproves the claims by AGW supporters that their opposition is well funded compared to them. In fact, the opposite is true.

Back from Vacation

For the past week, I've been on vacation and made a concerted effort not to read or watch the news (makes a vacation much more relaxing). But I'm back and in looking at the web found an interesting piece.

http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/the-fire-and-brimstone-world-of-texas-school-propaganda/

"While attending the Texas State Republican Executive Committee (SREC) quarterly meeting to blog on behalf of TexasGOPVote.com, I learned about an example of extreme liberal bias in the form of a handout entitled “Philosophical Differences Between Liberals and Conservatives.” It was passed out by San Antonio Roosevelt High School (NEISD) teacher Barbara Geerdes to her AP U.S. government class. TexasGOPVote was later sent a copy of the handout, and I recognized it as something our community would be greatly concerned about.

According to some parents, Mrs. Geerdes did not allow the students to take the handout out of the classroom. (That charge has since been denied by the school district’s superintendent, as you’ll read in a moment.) However, one brave student grew concerned over the teacher’s repeated politicization of the classroom and managed to get his copy of the document out of the classroom so that he could show his parents at home. According to a source that followed up with the father of the student:

The Dean of Students responded that the teacher admitted that she has been distributing handouts all year without required pre-approval from the head of the social studies department. She has been giving these out to all of her classes, not just the AP class. She has always collected the handouts at the end of the class period and has never allowed the handouts to be taken home. "

Two things pop out at me when I read this. First, the fact that Ms. Geerdes would pass out unapproved handouts and second she would collect them at the end of the class period.

Now the second action could have been because she knew she hadn't gotten them approved and feared the consequences. But I think like many on the left, she didn't want to have her left wing propaganda challenged.

What ever the case, she should be severely reprimanded. Schools should not be indoctrination camps for either the right or the left. The entire purpose of education is to get people to think, not to parrot a particular political philosophy. Now you may assume that I think in a battle of ideas the right would prevail, and you are correct. While the left is a feel good philosophy, it can't stand up when you actually put facts and figures and not just anecdotal examples of injustice. The problem with the left's philosophy is that for it to actually work, you have to change human nature. Short of that, you have to impose strict laws and you strip freedom away when you do that.

Just a quick note. I placed the picture of "the thinker" on the right side of this article since a lot more thinking is done by the right than the left.