Timothy Birdnow

Many people have been concerned about my welfare of late, what with the fourth Great Flood hitting the Midwest in 15 years. Just to assuage any anxiety, I am, indeed, still above water and do not need a snorkle, although people on the bottoms may not be so lucky.

We had the Great Flood of 1993, then a second ``flood of the century`` in 1995 drowning the lowlands of Missouri.  This year we have had two floods, one in the spring as a result of the worst day of rain I can remember; essentially it was a storm surge that lasted all day, raising river levels to those of 1993, but cresting quickly.  Now we are enjoying the bilge from Iowa and Minnesota as our rivers rise, breaking levees and floodwalls and flooding farmland.  St. Louis sits at the confluence of three major rivers; the Illinois, Missouri, and Mississippi, and we have a lot of peninsular-type land with large flood plains.  All of the rivers are up, and the river communities are fighting for their lives right now, though St. Louis is largely in the hills, so only those who have homes on the flats are having trouble-and they aren`t having much.  Generally, River Des Peres (a huge drainage creek in St. Louis, as well as Maline Creek and Gravois Creek overflow and damage the adjoining property, but this isn`t happening-yet.  The Meramec river south of St. Louis is up, but not hitting any subdivisions yet.  We don`t have it so bad here.

The town of Portage De Sioux isn`t even fully flooded yet.  Anyone who saw the rather silly program ``Farmer Wants a Wife`` was treated to some scenes of the community, as Portage was the farmer`s home town. Of course, to the snobs at the television networks, any place not on the coasts is redneck territory, and they portrayed Portage as some obscure, lost community with millions of miles to civilization.  Actually, Portage lies on what we call Alton Lake, just north of the Great Confluence and upriver from the Alton Dam.  It is a resort area, with marinas, restaurants and bars, a couple of wineries across the river in Grafton, Illinois, and just up from Alton.  It is just a couple of miles to St. Charles, the hub of the north western suburbs of St. Louis, and just a dozen miles from North St. Louis County.  Portage is farm country BECAUSE it is on the flood plain.  If it weren`t, it would be wall-to-wall houses and condos.  St. Charles county is one of the fastest growing in the country.

Portage is best known as a harbor town, and her claim to fame is the annual ``blessing of the fleet`` at the statue of Our Lady of the Rivers on the Mississippi.  The statue-thanking God for saving the town from a previous flood by giving the Blessed Virgin Mary a new title-is lighted, and visible all up and down the Alton pool. 

I know people in Portage, and they haven`t had to evacuate yet. Things just aren`t THAT bad!

At any rate, we are having some reasonably dry weather, and I expect the worst is about over for us, although some of the towns to the north such as Winfield have suffered when their levees have broken.  Cleanup should commence forthwith.

Thank you all for your concern!

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 07:17 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Timothy Birdnow

When the Bill of Rights was introduced to the U.S. Constitution, an argument erupted over the need for Amendments specifically enumerating the rights of Americans.  The Constitution states quite plainly that any powers not expressly granted to the United States government are reserved to the States and the People.  In short, there should have been no need to enumerate rights; they were granted not by men but by God, after all, and the Constitution made it plain that America`s central government was to be seriously circumscribed. 

But many feared the power of this new, stronger union and the ``elastic clause`` (Article I, Sec. VIII) granting the power to do what was ``necessary and proper`` for the welfare of that union, and so the first ten amendments were introduced to guarantee the freedom of the citizenry.  One freedom that never made it into the Constitution was so basic, it probably never occurred to the Founders that there was a need for a formal inclusion; the right to mobility.

Just as the right to own property was not included because it was seen as self-evident, the right to move about is one of the roots of liberty, something absolutely unabridgeable in a free society and likewise self-evident.  A number of the individual States incorporated this fundamental right into their constitutions, and the U.S. Supreme Court ruled early on in Corfield v. Coryell (1823) and in a series of subsequent rulings (Paul v. Virginia, Ward v. Maryland, U.S. v Harris, etc.) the right to travel was a fundamental thing, although it was not specifically within the jurisdiction of the United States government; after all, those rights were reserved to the States and the People.

Then we must consider this:

"Personal liberty largely consists of the Right to locomotion to go where and when one pleases only so far restrained as the Rights of others may make it necessary for the welfare of all other Citizens. The Right of the Citizen to travel upon the public highways and to transport his property thereon, by horsedrawn carriage, wagon, or automobile, is not a mere privilege which may be permitted or prohibited at will, but the common Right which he has under his Right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Under this Constitutional guarantee one may, therefore, under normal conditions, travel at his inclination along the public highways or in public places, and while conducting himself in an orderly and decent manner, neither interfering with nor disturbing another's Rights, he will be protected, not only in his person, but in his safe conduct."

- American Jurisprudence 1st, Constitutional Law, Section 329, p. 1135.
end quote

In fact, mobility rights have become a part of international law, with the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html declaring that:

(1) Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state.

(2) Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.

So even liberals should appreciate the importance of freedom of mobility; the U.N. declared it a fundamental right! It is not just about building roads and bridges, either; it means that the government of the United States has a duty to encourage the free movement of her citizenry by whatever manner those citizens see fit.

This freedom we take for granted has a long pedigree, going back to Persian King Cyrus the Great`s permission of his newly conquered subjects to move about his empire freely (and thus allowing the Israelites to return to their homeland).  The Magna Carta had this to say about the right to travel:

``It shall be lawful to any person, for the future, to go out of our kingdom, and to return, safely and securely, by land or by water, saving his allegiance to us, unless it be in time of war, for some short space, for the common good of the kingdom: excepting prisoners and outlaws, according to the laws of the land, and of the people of the nation at war against us, and Merchants who shall be treated as it is said above.``
end quote

This fundamental right of movement is, as is true of all rights, something that does not impose any burden on others, but does require governments to cooperate in it`s free exercise. Heavy restrictions on travel, or burdensome regulations on the means of travel, act to deny this fundamental liberty.  After all, there is a reason the government builds roads and bridges, and enforces traffic laws; without these things the public would find mobility difficult, and their right to move about restricted.  Liberals are always complaining about infrastructure, so they should understand the necessity of this fundamental right; why spend money on building thoroughfares if people can`t afford to use them?

Of course, commerce would be impossible without the right to mobility, and we would never have had a Union without recognition of this right to move about.  America would never have been anything more than a series of isolated villages without the means to travel, and there would have been no economy to speak of.  We would never have had a westward expansion, our forefathers would never have conquered a continent, had it been believed (as other peoples have in the past) that travel should be restricted by government. Shipping meant trade, and the American Revolution was largely fought over British interdiction of free shipping of goods.  Roadbuilding made it possible for Americans to travel west, and California would be a backwater had it not had good harbors for ships, railroads, and later Route 66. The commerce so necessary to our lives also funds our government through the taxes we pay, and so that government is obligated to maintain the easy flow of people, goods, and services to justify taking that money. The lives we enjoy are predicated on the ability to travel as we see fit. And, of course, one of the principle duties enumerated in the Constitution of the United States is to foster and regulate interstate commerce; something that requires the government do everything in it`s power to make mobility easier.

Our ability to move about is dependent in modern times on oil. With affordable fuel we have the means to exercise that basic right. Without it we are being oppressed by a government that is withholding a fundamental liberty.

We have much of the oil we need here in America, buried under publicly owned land (i.e. the People`s land), but environmental restrictions have made it impossible to obtain and refine that resource for our use.  We have ``designer fuels``, mandates requiring the use of ``renewable resources`` that do not work, limits on the use of coal, on nuclear power, etc. forcing us to waste oil to generate electricity.  In this way U.S. government policy has abridged the right of the people to mobility by driving the price of fuel beyond the reach of many. (Granted, bad monetary policy and international markets have helped to drive this price up, though not commodities speculators http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=26710 as is often alleged.)  This is an issue of human rights, and should be recognized as such.

That is why I believe we have gone off-track in our arguments for more energy exploration; we are approaching the matter from an economic and political viewpoint, rather than one of basic rights.  This argument should be framed as the right to mobility versus the regulatory burden of an overweight government determined to use the many laws on the books to restrict our freedom to travel. 

One of the first things tyrants do when they take power is restrict the right to travel. The Roman Emperor Diocletian restricted the right of the peasantry to move off their tenant farms, laying the groundwork for medieval serfdom.  The Russian Tsars did likewise at a later date.  The Bolsheviks always required special passes for travel, and the fascist state in modern Russia is now doing likewise http://72.14.205.104/search?q=cache:LJQppLJk-HUJ:www.nelegal.net/articles/schaible.pdf+restrictions+on+movement+travel+to+control+the+populace+in+soviet+union&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=2&gl=us&ie=UTF-8.  Ditto Castro http://www.cubaverdad.net/freedom_of_movement.htm#1._Right_to_freedom_of_movement_and_residence_within_Cuba._. Control of the movement of people means control of the individual.

It should be pointed out that those who are more mobile generally defeat those who are sedentary in warfare.  It has been so since the taming of the horse and demonstrated repeatedly in every war. Ask those who fought the Mongols, the Spaniards, Napoleon, the British Navy, Rommel, or the U.S. mechanized army with fast tanks and aircraft.

In fact the ability to move fast is on a par with the ownership of guns when it comes to defending liberties. In the Revolutionary War, Washington`s ability to outrun the British army eventually won the day. British General Burgoyne and the other commanders could never catch him!  Santa Ana could never catch Sam Houston in Texas, for that matter, but Houston's men caught HIM at San Jacinto; he was too slow. A speedy public makes tyranny difficult.

Which is precisely why liberals hate the automobile; it grants a level of independence impossible to those in less developed nations.  Liberal thought is all about control; they seek to fundamentally change human nature, and to do that they must have a high level of control over the individual. Theirs' is a crusade to change beliefs and minds, and one cannot change what one cannot catch. The mobility of Americans -- both physical via autos and intellectual via the internet and other uncontrolled media makes implementing liberal policies impossible. The New Man cannot emerge as long as the Old Man can out-run him! This ability to move about means chaos to many on the Left, and that cannot be allowed.

The liberals have tried to control our mobility, through public transportation, urban renewal projects, restrictions on driver`s licenses and vehicle ownership, and other  methods, but the American people love their cars, and demand cheap fuel to operate them, spoiling their plans. Now, however, environmental restrictions and the religion of Global Warming have given the Left a new tool to restrict that right to travel.  Taxation, restrictions on energy exploration, restrictions on refining capacity, regulations on emissions, other pollution regulations, etc. have been imposed to stop Americans from whizzing around where they will, ruining the grand design of liberal statists.

So, we have an energy crisis largely imposed by the government.  If freedom of mobility is a basic human right, granted in our Constitution, seen by the Founding Fathers as being granted by a beneficent God to believer and non-believer alike, then our governmental policies can best be summed up as tyrannical.  They MUST be changed!  We should be using the language of the Civil Rights era when discussing this. Schumer, Reid, Pelosi, et. al are the bigots -- and elitists -- blocking the doorway to every American`s mobility. The liberals want to keep us on their plantation, dependent on them for the things we need rather than letting us go out and get things for ourselves.  And, oh yes!  Women and minorities ARE hardest hit, since they have to pay the highest proportion of their incomes to transportation costs.

The U.S. government is not duty bound to drill for oil, but it has a sacred obligation to get out of the way of those who want to do it for us.  The right to mobility should not be infringed!

Special thanks to Jack Kemp for helping to pull this together.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 06:39 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Jack Kemp (not the politician) forwards this for our consideration:

http://www.nwanews.com/adg/Editorial/230102/
Liberals as reactionaries
Bradley R. Gitz

Posted on Sunday, June 29, 2008

That contemporary liberalism has become more reactionary than progressive is a claim frequently made by conservatives. They point out that liberals have spent far more energy in the past two or so decades defending alleged liberal triumphs of the past-Social Security, racial preferences, Roe vs. Wade-than proposing new ideas. At least some evidence of the truth of such claims can be found in the person of Barack Obama. Despite his talk of change, he has failed to deviate from oldline liberal orthodoxy on a single issue of importance. There is nothing in his world view that wouldn’t have been familiar to and approved of by mainstream liberals circa 1968. That he is actually more the candidate of the past than the future, even in comparison to 71-year-old John McCain, can be grasped by his inflexible dogmatism regarding perhaps our two most pressing campaign issues, the war in Iraq and energy costs. With respect to Iraq, no remotely objective observer denies that ``the surge`` has succeeded beyond the wildest dreams of those who conceived it. Iraq is in every possible area of assessment a dramatically better place than it was before the surge began, to the point where it is now finally possible to talk about victory there. That Obama opposed the war from the beginning has been established; that he criticized the idea of the surge and advocated rapid withdrawal instead is beyond dispute. What is remarkable is that he shows no willingness to admit that he was wrong or to even acknowledge that any progress has been achieved because of it. Perhaps fearful of alienating his radical-left base among the college kids and their egghead professors, he remains incongruously wedded to the same ``we’ve already lost`` narrative that so many other Democrats embraced before the 2006 congressional elections.

In spectacular disregard of the victories won by Gen. David Petraeus and his troops, Obama continues to demand withdrawal on the verge of victory regardless of the consequences. At the least, one would think that a candidate whose mantra is ``change`` would be willing to change his policies to fit such obviously changed circumstances, but no.

On energy policy, Obama’s approach is perhaps even more baffling, and apparently even more resistant to modification. He instantly dismissed McCain’s proposals for reducing our dependence upon foreign oil by extracting more oil here at home and building more nuclear power plants as ``failed policies of the past`` while offering only the usual stock solutions from the liberal catalogue-solar power, windmills, mass transit-as alternatives.

It is unclear how Obama defines words like ``failed`` and ``past``, since it has generally been public policy in recent decades to discourage oil exploration and drilling in the places McCain now proposes to explore and drill, and no new nuclear power plants have been built in 30 years. A reasonable observer might conclude that whatever policies have failed in such a manner as to put us in our present energy predicament, they aren’t any that McCain is proposing or that have been in place since Obama was in high school. On at least one point, his call for a windfall profits tax on the oil companies, Obama has embraced a position so demagogic and potentially counterproductive as to defy belief. The problem, in the end, may lie not so much with Obama’s personal inflexibility as with the broader leftism that he so loyally subscribes to. Liberals simply can’t comprehend that the Bush administration might have done something right, regarding the war in Iraq no less, while their quasi-religious environmental orthodoxy won’t allow for even the possibility of safely drilling for oil in coastal areas and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. An influential school of thought within leftist circles, associated with the linguist George Lakoff, has been arguing for some time now that there is nothing wrong with liberal policies, only that liberalism needs to find a better vocabulary and a more effective spokesman through which to express them. Consider Obama, then, to be a test of Lakoff. There is certainly nothing else that is new here, and no change of any kind regarding anything. To the contrary, it is possible that neither of America’s two major political parties has ever nominated a candidate with such retrograde views as the junior senator from Illinois. But he presents it all so nicely.

—Free-lance columnist Bradley R. Gitz teaches politics at Lyon College at Batesville.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 06:15 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Timothy Birdnow

Anthony Watt`s website links to an {link=http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2008/06/28/astronomical-society-of-australia-publishes-new-paper-warning-of-solar-quieting-and-global-cooling/#comments]Astronomical Society of Australia paper entitled ``Does a Spin-Orbit Coupling Between the Sun and the Jovian Planets Govern the Solar Cycle?`` in which the authors claim:

``Based on our claim that changes in the Sun’s equatorial rotation rate are synchronized with changes in the Sun’s orbital motion about the barycentre, we propose that the mean period for the Sun’s meridional flow is set by a Synodic resonance between the flow period (~22.3 yr), the overall 178.7-yr repetition period for the solar orbital motion, and the 19.86-yr synodic period of Jupiter and Saturn.``

In other words, much like Dr. Theodor Landscheidt, the authors contend a correlation between the position of the planets-especially Jupiter and Saturn-and the internal activity of the Sun. 

According to Ian Wilson, one of the authors of the paper:

``It supports the contention that the level of activity on the Sun will significantly diminish sometime in the next decade and remain low for about 20 - 30 years. On each occasion that the Sun has done this in the past the World’s mean temperature has dropped by ~ 1 - 2 C.  ``

This set off a series of comments at Wattsupwiththat, most arguing over whether gravity could have this kind of impact on the Sun. 

Timothy Birdnow (08:31:09) :

I may be all wet here, but must this be strictly a gravitational/tidal matter? The Sun has a magnetic interchange with the planets, and wouldn`t this interchange (and the ionized plasma in the solar interior) be influenced by the position of some of the larger bodies in the solar system-especially Jupiter, with its strong magnetic field relative to the Barycenter and the Sun`s position.

I`m not a physicist, and may be completely out on a limb here.

anna v (09:40:31) :

This is from Wikipedia, not the ultimate truth, but I needed a quikc reference for the solar dynamo:

``The solar dynamo is the physical process that generates the Sun’s magnetic field. The Sun is permeated by an overall dipole magnetic field, as are many other celestial bodies such as the Earth. The dipole field is produced by a circular electric current flowing deep within the star, following Ampère’s law. The current is produced by shear (stretching of material) between different parts of the Sun that rotate at different rates, and the fact that the Sun itself is a very good electrical conductor (and therefore governed by the laws of magnetohydrodynamics).

Any electrically conducting fluid can form a dynamo simply by shear within the fluid itself, because of a consequence of Lenz’s law of induction: moving the fluid through a pre-existing magnetic field will induce electrical currents in the fluid that distort the pre-existing magnetic field. The direction of the distortion is such that the existing field lines tend to be dragged along with the fluid, like threads of dye embedded in taffy or syrup. If the flow has a strong shear component then the individual field lines are stretched by the flow, amplifying the existing magnetic field. Such systems are called MHD dynamos. Depending on the structure of the flow, the dynamo may be self-exciting and stable, self-exciting and chaotic, or decaying.

The Sun’s dynamo is self-exciting and chaotic: the direction of the field reverses itself about every 11 years, causing the sunspot cycle as ropes of magnetic field lines rise to the surface of the Sun and manifest as sunspots on the surface.

The detailed mechanism of the solar dynamo is not known and is the subject of current research.

It is obvious that what would be affected by gravitational tidal perturbations would be ``shear within the fluid``, and that could change magnetic fields. A model is needed for this, and then, to have an effect on earth climate a mechanism of how magnetic fields operate on climate has to be found and proven.

So it is a long shot, that needs a lot of research.

Good.

Stevo (10:04:22) :

The point about the equivalence principle is right - the sun is not aware of its motion relative to the barycentre, it can only detect it through tides or other external effects. (It would be interesting for someone to plot tidal strength instead of barycentre motion to see if the correlation holds up. I’d guess it should.)

Some further things to think about. The sun rotates differentially every 25 days at the equator, ranging up to about 35 days at the poles. So tides will occur roughly every 25-35 days. The sun’s axis of rotation is tilted only about 7 degrees to the ecliptic, so there isn’t a great deal of asymmetry there. Jupiter on its own will simply give a 25 day tide, wherever it is in its orbit. That’s why the Jupiter-Saturn synodic period was proposed, the effect being similar to that of spring/neap tides. Although it should be noted Saturn causes only one tenth the tidal force of Earth or Mercury, which are themselves about half that of Venus or Jupiter.

The forces are undoubtedly small, so some sort of amplification process is needed. Since we’re talking about sunspots and the solar magnetic cycle, the logical place to look is the physics of the solar dynamo, which is currently not fully understood. The basic theory is that the differential rotation of the equator faster than the poles causes polar magnetic field lines to get wound up, which magnifies their strength. Loops bubble up and get twisted by Coriolis-induced cyclonic cells (sensitive to disturbances?), which introduces helicity, induces a current along the toroidal field lines, which restores a polar field to get twisted up again. The magnification is exponential, so this seems fertile ground for looking for small perturbations becoming large ones.

The other area to figure out is why the sun has a differential rotation. It can because it is a fluid, but what drives it to spin faster than the underlying core at the equator? The cycle period is driven by the meridional current: which rises at the equator, moves quickly to the poles in about 7 years, where it sinks and returns slowly to the equator over about 20 years. It is a wave of activity in this underlying current that carries the sunspots towards the equator - sunspots being loops of magnetic field that bubble up and pierce the surface. And the motion is known to be affected by the changes in the magnetic field, although it’s not known if it can be affected by changes external to the sun. All the mechanisms are linked. Figure out what drives the flow, and you may be some way towards understanding how planets could affect it.

You may find these documents relevant.

http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1927PASP…39..228L
http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/astro-ph/pdf/0405/0405052v2.pdf

The second (big) one has a discussion of all the things that are not understood or don’t fit about the solar dynamo. Hope that helps.

Peter Taylor (10:25:20) :

I came across Landscheidt’s work several years ago - he had a remarkable capacity to predict both sunspot activity and El Nino - and this led me to review much of the oceanographic data indicating links to solar cycles - I am now convinced the solar wind affects cloud cover in pulses that somehow time the varying ocean cycles - ‘global warming’ (1980-2005) coincides with a triple peaking (harmonic) of the Atlantic 20yr cyle, Arctic 70 yr cycle and Pacific 30yr with the 1998 El Nino providing the record high - now all three cycles are entering negative phases and I expect the Arctic to begin refreezing this year or next - you can track all this my following ‘depth-average temperature’ data rather than surface data for the oceans. So the recent oceanic shifts would indicate a solar shift - with a time lag period (Landscheidt had also worked out the lime-lags) - and reflective-type cloud data points to 2001 as the crucial year (global thinning from 1983-2001, thicker since).

I could not, with my limited physics, understand how Landscheidt derived cycles of amplitude (which he equated with Gleissberg cycles of 70 years) from the spirograph patterns of the COM around the sun. But whatever the correlative method, which was obviously accurate, we need to have a more open mind about the mechanism - the movements of the COM may be correlated with more than gravitational tides or transfer of angular momentum - the solar system is a complex almost neuronal web of magnetic fields and channels along which plasma flows, is accelerated and constrained - and this plasma is electrical current, which in turn generates magnetic field . If I recall correctly, there is still no physics explanation for the accelerating solar wind - other than it being pinched by magnetic field lines - and it snakes around the solar equatorial belt and ecliptic in four massive spirals within the current sheet that occasionally align with the earth - solar storms move very quickly through these arms. What happens to the reverse current?
Or do we still have a model of a unipolar electric current that ends at the Heliopause and simply disappears? Hannes Alfven proposed that the photosphere could not reach its 3m degrees without the backcurrent. Did anyone ever answer that question satisfactorily? If he is right, then we may be looking in the wrong place for mechanisms - could not solar visible light variability, flares and sunspots be induced by electrical phenomena caused by the back-current (and this would be influenced by Jupiter’s field)?

And let’s not forget - there may also be galactic cycles influencing the sun - there are 5000 year peaks of varying amplitude in the berrylium-10 profiles.

Shouldn’t there be a major effort to integrate all this breaking science?

end comments

This from Tim:

I posed the same question at The Reference Frame, hoping to get Lubos Motl to weigh in.  I received the following response:

`` Timothy Birdnow,

The sun is electrically conductive and quite immune to external electric fields. External magnetic fields are also negligible because they fall off as the cube of distance (there is no magnetic monopole).

Of course internally generated magnetic fields play a big role in the sun's dynamics, but planetary effects can play a role only through tidal forces and that seems unlikely to me.
Gene Day | 06.29.08 - 7:23 pm ``

I`m not a physicist, and I don`t even play one on t.v.  I know about the inverse cube law, but I also know that it has been discovered by NASA`s THEMIS mission that the planets are connected to the Sun via ``magnetic ropes`` which trigger explosive auroras. These Birkeland currents (named for Kristian Birkeland, who postulated that solar electric currents powered the auroras-something proven in the 1970`s) are truly amazing. According to  NASA investigator Dave Sibeck states: "It was very large, about as wide as Earth, and located approximately 40,000 miles above Earth's surface in a region called the magnetosphere."

Here is more on Birkeland Currents.

At any rate, this is not just a matter of two magnetic fields acting on one another; there is an interaction between the Sun and planets, and, the Sun`s own magnetic field may be pushing against Jupiter and the other planets.  I don`t know.  Is Gene Day correct?  I suspect that these magnetic ropes influence the Earth`s climate, but do they have a cumulative influence on the Sun? 

Any physicists want to weigh in?

Related to this, Dr. Manuel Oliver from the University of Missouri, Columbia (Mizzou) has argued that we grossly misunderstand the nature of the solar interior, and that gravitational interaction with the planets does indeed effect the Sun`s behavior-and the Earth`s climate.

I don`t know if this is true, but it makes for some interesting speculation.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 02:37 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Jack Kemp (not the politician):

Here is a piece from Israel Insider casting further suspicion on Obama`s birth certificate.

The "money quotes:``
 
 
Quote 1:
 
So where is that birth certificate? It got lost? The dog ate it? No matter. Barack Obama or an immediate family member can plunk down $10 ($11.50 if he orders online) and have Hawaii mail a certified document to him within a week or two. But more than two weeks have passed since the Obama campaign adopted the suspect, uncertified image of a purported birth document published by a left-wing blog Daily Kos, and nothing certified and nothing on paper has since has been forthcoming. Nor has there been any official comment about the issue from the campaign. They may cling to the hope -- however audacious -- that the one issue that could disqualify their man constitutionally from gaining the presidency will just go away.

Quote 2:
 
Maybe so, but all the certificates we have seen have the embossed imprint clearly visible, as well as horizontal fold marks.
 
We got an email yesterday from Bryan Suits who has a radio show on KFI Los Angeles. He writes:

"I have just received my State of Hawaii certified birth certificate for my 1964 debut on the planet earth. It looks....nothing like Obama's. We've scanned it at 72dpi, 300dpi. Nuthin. We can't make the emboss disappear. Also, we can't make THE FOLDS disappear!! How did FightTheSmears do it?
 

The full article:
 
http://web.israelinsider.com/Articles/Politics/12944.htm

Be sure to read the entire piece; it includes photos as well as many extra details.
 

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 08:11 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Jack Kemp

This from Newsbusters:

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/p-j-gladnick/2008/06/27/obama-religious-affairs-adviser-jesus-was-illegal-alien

Obama Religious Affairs Adviser: 'Jesus Was an Illegal Alien'
By P.J. Gladnick | June 27, 2008 - 20:59 ET

Michelle Boorstein, writing in the Washington Post's The Trail, sounded more like she was presenting a glowing Barack Obama campaign press release than a political story when she announced the hiring of Obama's new religious affairs adviser:

Shaun Casey, who teaches religion and politics at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, D.C., has been hired by the Obama campaign to focus on outreach to evangelical voters.

Casey, who has been informally advising the Obama campaign on faith issues for a year, next month will become a formal part of the faith outreach staff, Casey said today. His title will be senior adviser for religious affairs.

The Obama campaign plans a strong push to attract religious voters -- with small group "faith forums" held around the country, regular meetings with clergy of various faiths, frequent appearances in religious media and a faith outreach staff of a half-dozen that may grow as the general election nears. Expert observers, however, say they find the senator's outreach to white evangelicals the weakest part of the effort. It will be Casey's job, he explained, to get Barack Obama's story and policy positions out into the evangelical world.

It will also be Shaun Casey's job to explain to evangelicals his own religious beliefs such as his bizarre conviction that "Jesus was an illegal alien" which he proclaimed in Faithful Democrats:

...I am convinced Matthew included the flight to Egypt by Jesus and his family to show that Jesus' own story was part of the ancient story of Israel.  They, too, fled to Egypt, suffered persecution, were redeemed by God, and then were empowered to live lives in solidarity with sojourners and aliens wherever they encountered them.  Likewise disciples of Jesus throughout history pick up the same ministry of solidarity with displaced people.  Jesus was an illegal alien and that ought to shape how we enter the current debate.  But too often political ideology clouds good theology.  In the current debate over immigration policy it distresses me to no end that so many of my fellow church goers ignore this fundamental tenet that should be central to our identity.  Instead as theological amnesiacs we insist on a secular law and order ideology over a biblical mandate.  

Great way for outreaching to evangelicals by reinterpreting  the Bible to conform with trendy leftwing 21st century political ideology. Apparently Ms Boorstein did little research on the background of Shaun Casey who was previously in the news running cover for Obama over the Reverend Wright controversy. Boorstein also seems to imply that Casey himself is an evangelical without actually saying so:

Casey, who was raised an evangelical and received his undergraduate degree from Abilene Christian University before heading to Harvard Divinity School, has also informally advised Sen. John Kerry and Democratic Party chair Howard Dean in the past.

So Casey was "raised an evangelical" but does that mean he is one now? Boorstein does not say. She also neglected to tell the readers that Casey is a visiting fellow with the far left Center For American Progress which, along with Media Matters, is heavily funded by billionaire George Soros. Among the "charitable" projects of this group is a blatant attempt to silence conservative talk radio. Perhaps CAP visiting fellow Shaun Casey can cite for us the Bible passage justifying censorship.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 09:05 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Timothy Birdnow

Nasa is about to test-launch a solar sail http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2008/26jun_nanosaild.htm?list1010788

Solar sails are thin, ultra-lightweight reflective material that uses the pressure of sunlight for propulsion, much as a sail on a windjammer uses air pressure.  Because the pressure of sunlight is relatively low, they have lilliputian acceleration, although they have an unlimited fuel supply within the solar system so make ideal long-range vessels.  They can also be harnessed to use the solar wind, giving them the equivalent of a prow so they can tack into the sun.  Extending magnetic fins could allow them to manuever and stop, as well, by using the sun`s magnetic field.

Couple a solar sail with a laser cannon say, on the Moon, and acceleration can be greatly increased. 

In fact, solar sails are one of the few propulsion systems that we can build that could (theoretically) take us to another star.  We would build a giant laser cannon (or a battery of them) in solar orbit, say near Mercury.  A giant lense would be placed in orbit somewhere around Saturn, and a two-stage solar sail would be deployed.  It would, of course, have to be enormous!  Launched via Moon-based laser, the Mercury laser would keep it at a constant acceleration until well past the orbit of Saturn.  The laser would then beam through the lens, keeping centered on the sail as it leaves the solar system.  It would keep firing decade after decade as the ship approaches, say, the Centari system. At the midpoint the sails would be jettisoned, and the ship would deploy a new sail.  The old sail would act as a mirror, reflecting the laser light onto the new sail to act as a brake.  By the time the ship reached the Centari system (many decades later) it would be within normal orbital speeds.

The problem is, the crew would likely be dead of old age.  The vessel would be too slow, and the relatively weak acceleration would require a minimum of mass, so a multi-generational ship would be impossible.  If we had some sort of suspended animation, it might work.  More likely, a robotic probe would employ this method; we are talking over a hundred years, after all!

But solar sails should work great in-system, and we have only just started exploring our own neighborhood.  We`ve got a LOT of space to check out, and solar sails would be a cheap way to do it.

We live in exciting times!

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 08:40 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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This from Jack Kemp (not the politician):

Tim, I wonder what the late Carl Rowan would have to say about the handgun ban being lifted. In the 1980s, Washington Post columnist Carl Rowan, a strong gun control advocate, used an illegal handgun at his home to scare away teens swimming in his District of Columbia pool. As a liberal, he made no apologies. He was less embarrassed than you or I would be if we accidently shortchanged a newstand dealer who asked us for an additional dime.
Jack
http://www.tincher.to/rowan.htm
Carl Rowan used illegal handgun to shoot at children

"Rowan, who had advocated strict handgun control, found himself in the center of a gun controversy during the 1980s when he was arrested and charged with using an unregistered weapon to wound a teen-ager who intruded into his backyard. Rowan argued that he had the right to use whatever means necessary to protect himself and his family. The jury deadlocked and the judge hearing the case declared a mistrial." Source: "Columnist Carl Rowan dies at age 75", CNN, 23 September 2000

"In 1988, Rowan shot and wounded in the wrist an intruder who had trespassed on his property in Washington and used his swimming pool. Rowan said he had fired because the youth was trying to break into his house and refused to stop when ordered to do so. He also said the pistol he used was exempt from the District's strict gun-control laws because it belonged to his older son, a former FBI agent. District officials disagreed and charged the columnist with violating those laws. A highly publicized trial ended with a hung jury." Source: "Columnist Carl Rowan Dies at 75", The Washington Post, 24 September 2000

"Rowan was 'a towering presence' in Washington -- and a hell of a song-and-dance man, writes fellow Sun-Times commentator Robert Novak. Novak adds that Rowan's 1988 run-in with teenagers skinny-dipping in his pool (he shot one of them in the wrist) 'led to the only really negative publicity in his career.' " Source: "...AND SO IS CARL ROWAN", USC Annenberg - Online Journalism Review, 26 September 2000

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 08:19 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Dana Mathewson forwards this piece about how the Obama campaign charged a reporter $115 for a turkey sandwhich and a cup of soup.

http://www.heraldtimesonline.com/stories/2008/06/23/digitalcity.qp-5807963.sto

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Timothy Birdnow

The newest story making the rounds about Global Warming is that the Arctic Ocean MAY lose all ice this summer.  May.  This morning, I flipped on the Today Show without Katie Couric (thank the Lord for small favors) and one of their top stories was about this of a straight up Arctic (no ice).  (Hey, if it`s good enough for a martini...) This report interviewed two ``experts``; Mark Serereze from the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) and the U. of Colorado, Boulder, and our old dishonest friend from Realclimate and Hansen protege at Nasa, Gavin Schmidt.

Here is a priceless quote from the article:

``Already, figures from the National Snow and Ice Data Center show sea ice in the Arctic as a whole at about the same level now as it was at its low point last year in late June and early July.

The explanation is a warming climate and a weather phenomenon, scientists said.``

Gee!  It`s late June/early July, and we are ALREADY at the same level now as at the lowest point of late June/early July of last year!

Of course, the idea of a natural cycle never occurs to the dolts at NBC:

``For the last couple of decades, there has been a steady melt of Arctic sea ice, which covers only the ocean and which thins during summer and refreezes in winter. In recent years, it has gradually become thinner because more of it has been melting as the Earth’s temperature rises.

Then, this past winter, there was a natural weather shift called the Arctic Oscillation, sort of a cold weather cousin to El Nino. That oscillation caused a change in winds and ocean that accelerated a normal flushing of sea ice in the Arctic. That pushed the older thicker sea ice that had been over the North Pole south toward Greenland and eventually out of the Arctic, Serreze said. That left just a thin one-year layer of ice that previously covered part of Siberia.``

So, the AO is moving sea ice out of the Arctic.  The AO has nothing to do with Global Warming; No Brains Commanded (NBC) has destroyed their own argument!

Of course, anyone who bothers with basic physics knows that sea temperatures have not risen, and that the lilliputian rise observed in land temperatures has not been a factor, so the decline in sea ice has nothing to do with Anthropogenic Global Warming.  Also, there is a lively under the Arctic Ocean to which we were heretofore unawares.  It should also be pointed out that Antarctic sea ice[link] is at record levels.

Oh, and here is an interesting piece everyone may want to check out.

It amazes me how the mainstream media can possibly put such tripe out.  There was no attempt, zero, to balance this alarmism with at least one critic.  Media bias can no longer be argued; that is the real ``settled science`` here.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 07:59 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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By Muslims Against Sharia

(A Note from Tim; This is a comment left at Timothybirdnow.com to Jack Kemp`s post about Barack Obama`s birth certificate http://www.timothybirdnow.com/?p=831#comment-1064 It deserved to be a post in it`s own right.)

“What you won’t hear from this campaign or this party is the kind of politics that uses religion as a wedge,” says Mr. Obama, while denouncing statements of him being a Muslim as a smear. Why is the presidential candidate who claims to be religiously inclusive is treating the word “Muslim” as an insult? Apparently, it is OK for Mr. Obama to be associated with terrorists like William Ayers or racists like Jeremiah Wright, but God forbid somebody would call him a Muslim! No, he won’t stand for that kind of smear! We admit that most terrorists are Muslims, but most Muslims are not terrorists and the statement on Mr. Obama’s website is insulting to hundreds of millions of people.

How could a man who discards his family heritage in favor of political expediency be even considered for presidency of the United States? Where are all the so-called “Islamic civil rights groups” like CAIR, MPAC, ISNA, MAS, etc. who are quick to defend every Islamic terrorist, but are silent when Muslims in general are being denigrated? Would Mr. Obama have the same reaction if someone claimed that he was raised as a Jew? We sincerely doubt that.

“In the wake of 9/11, my meetings with Arab and Pakistani Americans, for example, have a more urgent quality, for the stories of detentions and FBI questioning and hard stares from neighbors have shaken their sense of security and belonging. They have been reminded that the history of immigration in this country has a dark underbelly; they need specific reassurances that their citizenship really means something, that America has learned the right lessons from the Japanese internments during World War II, and that I will stand with them should the political winds shift in an ugly direction.” Barack Obama, “The Audacity of Hope”, page 261.

Well, the political winds did shift in an ugly direction. Is equating “Muslim” with “smear” Obama’s idea of “stand[ing] with [Muslims]?

Muslims Against Sharia demand immediate removal of “SMEAR: Barack Obama is a Muslim” statement from the official Barack Obama’s website as well as an apology for giving the word “Muslim” a negative connotation.

http://muslimsagainstsharia.blogspot.com/2008/06/senator-obama-is-not-dirty-muslim.html

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 07:54 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Jack Kemp

This was in today's NY Post Gossip section. I think they could have written the title with just the first three words.
 
Jack
http://www.nypost.com/seven/06252008/gossip/pagesix/keith_goes_nuts_over_ketchup_117081.htm
KEITH GOES NUTS OVER KETCHUP
June 25, 2008 --

MSNBC blowhard Keith Olbermann couldn't even control his temper at a memorial reception for beloved Tim Russert.

Network sources told Page Six Olbermann was furious last week when MSNBC didn't get him a first-class ticket to Washington, DC, for a private service honoring the "Meet the Press" anchor's passing.

The source said Olbermann was screaming into the phone on Tuesday because there were no first-class train tickets available for that day, and he wanted to make sure he would ride first-class on Wednesday. According to the source, Olbermann berated a staffer who was coordinating Wednesday's Kennedy Center memorial by yelling, "You better hope to God there is a first-class train ticket tomorrow."

Our insider elaborated, "MSNBC was dealing with who could come to the private ceremony Tuesday and who couldn't, among the hundreds of people who worked with or for Russert - and Keith was ranting about not getting a first-class ticket."

We're told Olbermann didn't get to Tuesday's ceremony, and went to Washington by car to broadcast from outside the Kennedy Center the next day. An aghast witness there said, "As guests were making their way into the memorial, Keith went apoplectic because there were no ketchup packets at the Kennedy Center."

Olbermann was heard saying outside the service, "this place is going to hell," because his Washington staff couldn't find ketchup packets for lunch at the Center. An NBC insider claimed, however, "Keith did not have lunch at the Kennedy Center and was not eating on the set because he was anchoring a broadcast."

A rep for Olbermann snapped: "Since whatever you're going to print is an outright lie, you can go ahead and write whatever you want. That's on the record and applies to all future items you might make up."

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 07:02 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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1 My!  And I thought John McCain was the guy with the "anger management" problems.  Perhaps Mr. Olbermann's been working too hard lately -- some time off might do him good.  Like, shall we say, forty years?  

Posted by: Dana Mathewson at June 27, 2008 12:58 PM (GmK7c)

2 He definitely needs to take a stress pill and think things over, as HAL would say.  I don`t know if we want him wandering lose for forty years, though, Dana. Generally those with Olbermania are given nice long rests in clean, padded facilities.  I think they used to say he ``went to the farm``...

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at June 29, 2008 07:45 AM (bHxmI)

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Jack Kemp

The birth certificate has no embossed seal and no official signature. When compared to a verifyable Hawaiian certificate, it doesn't pass scrutiny. If you enlarge the Obama certificate, you notice that the Certificate Number has been blacked out. Why is that? I thought it was social security numbers that one has to keep private. Is Obama afraid someone is going to claim to be he, one of the most recognized faces in the world today?
 
Jack
 
http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/3675
 
Legitimate birth certificates Winnie the Pooh’s birth certificate more authentic than Obama’s
 By Judi McLeod  Thursday, June 26, 2008

It was Richard Danzig, Navy Secretary under President Bill Clinton, now touted as National Security Adviser in an Obama White House, who told the Centre for New American Security: ``Winnie the Pooh seems to me to be a fundamental text on national security``.

Now Winnie the Pooh seems to have something that Barack Obama doesn’t: a legitimate birth certificate.  Winnie’s birth certificate was signed by its creator A.A. Milne.  See Winnie’s birth certificate here.

According to Israelinsider, ``It is now a certainty that the `birth certificate` claimed by the Barack Obama campaign as authentic is a photoshopped fake.``

The image, purporting to come from the Hawaii Department of Health, has been the subject of intense skepticism in the blogosphere in the past few weeks.  But now the senior spokesman of that Department has confirmed to Israel Insider what are the required features of a certified birth document features that Obama’s purported `birth certificate` clearly lack.

That strongly suggests that Daily Kos obtained the image from Photobucket, not the State of Hawaii, the Obama family, or the Obama campaign. Photobucket is not generally known as a credible supplier of official vital records for any of the fifty states, and the liberties that other Photoshoppers took with the certificates confirms this.

Some of these oddities surfaced in Israel Insider’s previous article on the subject, but new comparative documentary evidence presented below, and official verification obtained by Israel Insider from a senior Hawaiian official, provides the strongest confirmation yet.

`An authentic Hawaiian birth certificate for another Hawaiian individual has since surfaced which, using the same official form as the presumptive Obama certificate, includes an embossed official seal and an authoritative signature, coming through from the back. Obama’s alleged certificate lacks those features, and the certificate number referencing the birth year has been blacked out, making it untraceable.

Janice Okubo, Director of Communications of the State of Hawaii Department of Health, told Israel Insider: ``At this time there are no circumstances in which the State of Hawaii Department of Health would issue a birth certification or certification of live birth only electronically``. And, she added, ``In the State of Hawaii all certified copies of certificates of live birth have the embossed seal and registrar signature on the back of the document``.

Compare the top image presented by his campaign as evidence of Obama’s 1961 birth and the other certifying the birth of one Patricia Decosta.

So if he were registered as being born in Hawaii, Barack Obama, because only he or another member of his immediate family could by law request a ``Certification of Live Birth`` must have a certified paper copy, with embossed stamp and seal, or he could request one. But what his campaign has put forward as genuine, according to the senior spokesman in the relevant department of the State of Hawaii, is not in fact a certified copy. It is not valid.

Whereas the uncertified Obama document provides the date ``filed by registrar``, the certified DeCosta document provides the date “accepted by the registrar. The difference between filing an application for a Certification of Live Birth and having it accepted may be key here.

The Obama campaign, however, continues to flaunt the unstamped, unsealed, uncertified document, notably in very low resolution, on its ``Fight the Smears`` website, with campaign officials vowing that it’s authentic, sending the image around as ``proof`` to reporters, and inviting supporters to refer to it as they battle against supposed distortions and calumnies against their candidate. However, the campaign refuses to produce an authentic original birth certificate from the year of Obama’s birth, or even a paper version with seal and signature of the ``Certification of Live Birth``. Nor has it even published an electronic copy with the requisite embossed seal and signature.

The failure of the Obama campaign to do so, and its willingness instead to put up an invalid, uncertified image, what now appears to be a crude forgery, raises the dramatic question of why the presumptive Democratic presidential candidate might have to hide.

Until now, it has been thought that there might be some embarrassing information on the real certificate: was the candidate’s name something other than Barack Hussein Obama II, as it is claimed? Was no father listed because of the uncertainty over Obama’s paternity? Was his father’s race listed as Arab, or Muslim, rather than African? These revelations might be embarrassing, and further undermine his credibility, but he could disavow and downplay their significance. Would revealing such embarrassment outweigh the far greater risks involved in perpetuating a palpable forgery, or passing off an uncertified official document as being certified?

There is one possibility, however, which alone might justify the risk that Obama and his campaign seems to be taking in putting forward the uncertified document image: Obama was not in fact born in Hawaii and may not be an American citizen at all, or at least not a ``natural born citizen`` as the Constitution defines the requirement for the nation’s chief executive. Real original birth certificates, circa 1961, have all kinds of verifiable information that would confirm Obama’s origins, or throw them into doubt should they be lacking.

Research has since uncovered the law, in force at the time of Obama’s birth, that were he to have been born in another country, his young American mother’s youth extended time abroad would not suffice to make him a ``natural born citizen``. Even if he were naturalized later, and there is no evidence that he was—he would not be eligible to run for the office of president and, if forgery or misrepresentation were involved, he and his staffers might find themselves facing stiff federal and state charges.

But if, at this late date, Obama has no proof of being a US citizen by law, natural born or otherwise, then he or his advisers may be tempted to try to ``tough out`` the allegations about his ``birth certificate`` or the lack thereof. He and his campaign have gotten through other embarrassments: maybe this one will go away, too.

Because the consequences were he to admit, or should it come out, that he was not born in Hawaii would be so grave as to make it tempting to take the gamble and hope that no one dares call his most audacious bluff by demanding proof. Talk about the audacity of hope.

But now the State of Hawaii has dashed those hopes by clarifying that a certified birth certificate must have an embossed seal and signature, features his claimed birth certificate image lack.

The longer Obama waits, the graver grow the consequences of waiting.

There is one simple way for the candidate to clear up the issue once and for all: produce for public inspection and objective analysis the paper copy of his original Hawaiian birth certificate, if one exists. If he’s lost the original, he can request a certified copy. Ordinary citizens are required to produce one to get a passport or a driver’s license. Surely it’s not too much to ask from a man who aspires to hold the highest office in the land.

The issue is not whether Obama is black or white, Christian or Muslim. It is whether he was born in the USA and thus a citizen eligible according to the Constitution to run for President.

If proof of citizenship does not exist, then surely it would be wiser to admit it now.

Because if Barack Hussein Obama II does not produce definitive proof of his ``natural born`` American citizenship with original, verifiable documents, he will be setting the stage for a very public battle over his personal credibility, the basic legitimacy of his candidacy, and its possible criminality.

We can only imagine the letters dispatched from Obama’s ``Fight the Smears`` war room to bloggers who would question the validity of Obama’s birth certificate.

Perhaps instead war room maintenance staff can send anyone asking back to the nursery and that expert on national security, Winnie the Pooh.

Judi McLeod is an award-winning journalist with 30 years experience in the print media. A former Toronto Sun columnist, she also worked for the Kingston Whig Standard. Her work has appeared on Newsmax.com, Drudge Report, Foxnews.com, and Glenn Beck.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 06:21 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Dana Mathewson sends this piece from Yid with Lid decrying the need for a president with some foreign policy experience.

From the article:

Suffering Through a Presidential Learning Curve
 
If America is reckless enough to elect Senator Obama the next president of the United States, it will not be the first time we have elected someone who needs a foreign policy learning curve, just the first time we have done it in the time of war. The scary part is when we have elected a novice in many cases it has put us o the brink of war.

Take JFK, for instance, it was his lack of backbone on the bay of pigs, either to stop it or to do it right, that directly lead to the Cuban Missie crises and the brink of war. Jimmy Carter's naiveté caused Islamic Iran AND Zimbabwe.

End excerpt.

The author makes a good point about JFK`s wavering on the Bay of Pigs and his general lack of experience; Kruschev allegedly refered to him as a ``little boy`` in private, and treated him quite disrespectfully at the Vienna Summit in 1961. Kennedy`s repeated missteps lead him to a very public challenge of Moscow in Cuba, and he simply could have sent a note stating that they pull out the missiles or we would act.  Kennedy wanted to show the world he was as tough as Kruschev, so he trumpeted a very public challenge.  Foolish.

An Obama Presidency would mean our Commander-in-Chief will be completely clueless in a time of war.  In fact, it is doubful that Obama even understands that we ARE at war, so he will likely make a serious mess of things-much like Jimmy Carter, whose emphasis on human rights over practicality gave us the Ayatollah Khomeini-someone who gave even fewer rights to his people than the Shah.  Carter believed, like so many liberals of today, that our policies caused resentment against us, and that by giving the people a nationalist tyrant rather than a friendly dictator we could then talk our way to peace.  Carter was a fool, and so is Obama.  We will have a sea of troubles if we elect the Messiah!

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 07:08 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Timothy Birdnow

That Obama is a sneaky one; he knows how to say nothing better than anyone alive, I think.  He talks about reducing gas prices, but offers nothing but suing oil companies.  He promises a new politics, but carries on business as usual.  He says he will change U.S. policy by talking-as if we hadn`t been doing that for years!  Now he may well want to ``reduce abortion`` while taking no steps to do so.

According to this piece at Lifenews, many in the Party want Obama to adopt this plank:

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- In an idea that is more symbolism over substance, a leading Democratic Party activist says he's going to talk to Obama about adding language to the Democratic Party platform calling for the "reduction" of abortions. Yet the proposal wouldn't call for any actual bills or efforts to limit abortions.

"Abortion reduction should be a central Democratic Party plank in this election," Wallis told ABC News. "I'll just say that flat out."
End Exerpt

Unfortunately, Wallis` suggestion offers no specific way of accomplishing this.

According to the article:

The only problem is Wallis' idea includes no actual ways to reduce abortions.

Instead, Wallis wants language that promotes birth control and contraception efforts that Congress have pro-abortion groups have already spend billions on that don't necessarily reduce the number of abortions.
end excerpt

So, we`ll be getting leftist family planning, but no efforts to actually reduce abortion.  This is a classic liberal trick, package an odious initiative in such a way as to trick voters.  Who is the best guy to pull it off?  Of course-the man who says nothing in a positive way! 

Obama is the Jerry Seinfeld of politicians; a show about nothing. He looks good, is eloquent, thrifty, brave, clean (hey, I didn`t say it!), and reverent (at least where Black Liberation Theology is concerned).  He SOUNDS measured and reasonable.  He brushes his teeth.  He likes Budweiser beer, although he can`t bowl with shucks.  But what does he actually say?  Hope, change, the future, lather, rinse, repeat. There is never any meat, any substance.

Why?  Because the meat is rotten to the bone, and like any good huckster he needs to hide that fact from the public.  America is very much at odds with Obama`s far left viewpoints, so he hides them behind feel-good slogans and rock concert productions.  The apple is pleasing to the eye, but the fruit is quite sour.

That`s why this idea would fit perfectly into Mr. Obama`s all-things-to-all-people approach; he could trick some pro-lifers into voting for him, and wind up getting Eugenics in return.  Just as gasoline prices would rise in Obama`s efforts to reduce them through taxation, so, too, would abortions rise as the government encourages more sex so they can distribute more condoms.  Don`t believe it will happen that way?  There have been examples of advertising to get more people to apply for food stamps, people who do not need it, so the government can maintain their foodstamp budget.  If condoms aren`t flying off the shelves, they`ll need to peddle more sex, lest their budgets be cut.

Frankly, the American citizen is the one who will need a prophylactic if Obama is elected!

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 06:21 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Timothy Birdnow

The Media Research Center (MRC) is circulating a petition to stop the Democrats from reinitiating the infamous ``Fairness Doctrine``.  For those who do not remember this stifling of freedom of speech, the horribly misnamed FCC rule said that anyone could demand equal time on the radio (it did not apply to television, newspapers, or network news) to challenge any controversial statement made by someone on-air.  The Fairness Doctrine gave us such scintillating topics as how much mercury was acceptable in drinking water, should parking meters have time limits, and what is the best approach to public lawn care.  Nobody dared put on a Rush Limbaugh because he would have to be balanced with equal time (3 hours a day) by either kooks or talentless amateurs.  There was no talk radio until Ronald Reagan got rid of this ridiculous rule.

Now, of course, the Democrats want to bring it back.  Their own efforts to reassert control of the media have failed miserably, with Scare America crashing and burning worse than the Hindenberg.  They own the mainstream television and print journalism, but are not content with near dominance.  Much like Dr. Evil in Austin Powers, they want the world!  The backwater medium of talk radio and the internet stand in their way.

Do not be deceived; if they get a return of the Fairness Doctrine on the radio, they will be coming for the internet next.  It used to be that their word was never challenged, and they are desperate for a return to those good old days.  America was headed down a path of liberalism from lack of knowledge until the Fairness Doctrine was removed, and America could be again, if reimposed. This is a serious matter; a matter of survival for conservatives.

Russia has already imposed regulation of the internet, and they have been arresting bloggers who insult Putinism.  Are we next?

At any rate, be sure to read and sign the MRC petition.

http://www.mrcaction.org/512/petition.asp?PID=17082439&NID=1

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 05:55 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Timothy Birdnow

Over at Commentaries, Abe Greenwald discusses the real possibility of an Iranian attack on U.S. interests.  http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/greenwald/13111 

Here is a brief excerpt:

With the likelihood of an Israeli strike on Iran, and with Iran threatening to deal the U.S. ``a strong blow in the mouth``, what kind of message are Democrats sending Tehran by insisting on quickly withdrawing U.S. troops from the region?

Having stood idly by while Iran progressed through step after step in their near-complete quest to obtain nuclear weapons, we now will be telling the mullahs that we will be splitting town when our ally finally opposes them. In today’s New York Sun, Eli Lake compiles some of the ``nightmare scenarios`` that may be unleashed in response to an Israeli strike:

> A terrorist attack on the Saudi oil port of Ras Tanura, an export point for oil bound for Asia. Saudi and American officials have in the past disrupted Al Qaeda plots on the facility, such as an attack on the Abqaiq oil processing plant near Dammam, Saudi Arabia, that killed two guards.

> A naval assault on the U.S. 5th Fleet in the Persian Gulf. Iran still has warships equipped with Russian-designed Shkval torpedoes that it could fire at American vessels. Another possible attack would be suicide boat sorties similar to the one that bombed the USS Cole.

> The commencement of a new round in the war between Hezbollah and Israel, with Hezbollah firing its Shihab missiles into Haifa and possibly the northern suburbs of Tel Aviv.

> Hezbollah or Iranian intelligence terrorist operations on soft targets, such as shopping malls and community centers, in third countries and possibly even America.

> A renewed effort to stir an uprising in Iraq through Moqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army or the special groups controlled by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard.

End Excerpt

As Mr. Greenwald points out, Barack Obama`s Militatas Interruptus plan, his scheme to remove troops, is either astoundingly naive or disingenuous-both terrible in this instance as it only serves to embolden a very dangerous enemy. 

The point is, the danger to the U.S. and, indeed, the world, is rising asymptotically along a curve with war, and the efforts of the peace crowd brings us inexorably toward conflict.  Peace is not won through kind words and soothing actions-especially not when dealing with a nation with warlike intentions.  It may be possible to avoid war among like-minded nations, but Iran is a place enthralled by the demon of international Islamic Jihad.  Their goal is nothing short of world domination, and they believe, much like Hitler, that the Will is paramount.  They have been fighting to export their revolution-and to hurt Israel and America-for decades, and they know that they have no scruples about who, what, or where they will strike, while we do. They use our decency, born from our shared Judeo-Christian heritage, against us, confident that their hard will means victory.  We, on the other hand, believe everybody is good, and if we can just say the right things this little misunderstanding will be cleared up and we can go picnic together in the flowers...

Wars do not come out of a vacuum, and frequently a period of weakness and appeasement of just the sort advocated by the Democrats and the Big O grease the skids.  A strong show of unity in this country would end this thing now, forcing the Mullahs to back down, but we are not united, and the Ayatollahs have every reason to believe they can strike with impunity-after the election, of course!

Time is running out.

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By Jack Kemp (not the politician):

 
Rush Limbaugh talked this Tuesday about the New York Time's Thomas Friedman advocating less gasoline usage and a 55 mph speed limit. Rush's response was that we should stop publishing the hardcopies of all newspapers such as the NY Times and the LA Times because they waste much natural resources. Trees have to be destroyed, and the papers have to be trucked around the country, stored in warehouses and later they become a landfill issue. The papers might financially cease to exist anyway, without government intervention, given their latest anemic circulation figures for the NY Times and others. I would add that many birds and endangered species are hurt because the NY Times has caused their tree homes to be chopped down (with gas powered chainsaws).
 
Rush then concluded  by saying if stopping the publication of hardcopy newspapers doesn't work to lower their carbon footpriint, then -- like refined gasoline -- there should be a large user tax on newspapers; $2 per paper would be a good start.
 
I would add some more examples for Mr. Friedman. As the British say, turnabout is fair play. Friedman, when he goes overseas to cover a story, should be required to travel by sail powered ship instead of jet plane. Perhaps the Times could book him a job as an oarsman on a Viking reproduction ship to cut down on carbon emissions. And other NY Times reporters having to go to the state capital of Albany could row most of the way up the Hudson River in a large canoe rather than waste fuel on auto travel. At the very least, the Times reporters traveling by charter airplanes could parachute out of the planes to reduce noise polution around the airport. The list of things that Mr. Friedman could first do to establish his green bona fides, before he tells everyone else what to do, is endless.
 
Jack

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This from Wil Wirtanen:

Got this from Military.com.

For us, ex-infantry this will be a sad moment.  Akin to having your dog die.

 
Wil

'Ma Deuce' Days May be Numbered

Norman Polmar | June 17, 2008

Probably the longest serving weapon in the U.S. military arsenal is the Browning .50-caliber M2 machine gun. Often referred to as "ma deuce" for its M2 designation, the weapon entered U.S. service at the end of World War I, being scaled up from the Browning .30-caliber M1917 machine gun. The .50-caliber weapon was initially designated M1921.

Using a round designed by Winchester, the .50-caliber machine gun was originally intended for ground troops to use against enemy troops. Subsequently, it was employed as an anti-aircraft weapon and then became the standard armament of U.S. warplanes. In 1932, the design was updated and redesignated M2.

Ground and naval machine guns could be air- or water-cooled, the latter having large "jackets" around the barrel. The weapons had rates of fire from 500 to 650 rounds per minute. Mounts for vehicle and shipboard use soon had twin barrels, while a fixed quad-barrel mount was developed for ground and vehicle use. Its light weight permitted up to eight guns to be carried in fighters and it fit into single-, twin-, and quad-barrel turrets on U.S. bombers. The weapon was used in every theater of World War II by U.S. and allied troops--by 1945 the U.S. Army authorized 237 .50-caliber guns in each infantry division, 385 in each armored division, and 165 in each airborne division.

The "ma duce" was used in large numbers in the Korean and Vietnam Wars, in other crises and conflicts, and, of course, in the Gulf War of 1991 and the later invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.

Now, after almost 90 years of service, the U.S. Army has moved to replace Browning's remarkable machine gun. The Army recently ordered three prototypes of a lightweight .50-caliber machine gun. Produced by General Dynamics Armament and Technical Products, the weapon weighs about one-half of the current .50-caliber M2HB (Heavy Barrel) machine gun, fires with less recoil and is equipped with technology to improve accuracy, according to the company.

The Army and Special Operations Command (SOCOM) will test the new guns and then apply the lessons learned to a potential production design. Low-rate initial production could begin as soon as 2011.

It would take several years for the new weapon to replace the "ma duce" in U.S. service. But even if it does so, the M1921/M2 would have been in service for a century.

Its inventor -- John Moses Browning (1855-1926) -- was one of America's most prolific gun inventors. After making his first gun from scrap metal at age 13, he went on to design pistols, rifles, and machine guns. The U.S. Army began using his machine guns in 1890. Browning's innovative weapons also included the .30-caliber M1918 Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR), used in U.S. Army and Marine Corps squads from World War I through the Korean War. 

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So, now James Hansen, climate alarmist extraordinaire, Torquemada with a slide rule, has called for Nuremberg trials and the jailing of Big Oil executives for their ``denial``.  Hansen, the man who fudged the Nasa GISS numbers to make 1998 appear to be the warmest year on record (when in fact it was 1934) has now called for the arrest and trial of oil execs for ``crimes against humanity``.

Of course, he`s not the only one; we`ve had Heidi Cullen at the Weather Channel calling for the decertification of any meteorologist who doesn`t buy the GW party line, and Gristmill`s David Roberts likewise called for those ``bastards`` to be tried for such crimes.

It`s interesting how a scientific debate has been Nazified.  If the truth is on the side of the alarmists, their view will win out.  They do not want debate, because this is about changing our culture and traditions rather than the truth, and debate means they will ultimately lose.  They know this, and fear a vigorous discussion.  This is a classic example of left-wing dialectic; push as hard as possible, make threats and demands, give a little, then push again.  This is not a matter of scientific inquiry-it is a religious crusade.

In a similar vein, CBS News reported a completely bogus story claiming earthquakes">http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2008/06/19/cbs-news-sinks-to-new-low-publishes-crackpot-global-warming-story-attributes-it-to-associated-press/]earthquakes are increasing because of Global Warming.  Forced to retract the story, C-BS has blamed the embarassment on the AP, who vigorously denies culpability.

Finally, a piece in my National Geographic claims that DYING contributes to Global Warming!  (I couldn`t find a link to the short piece online, sorry!) 

If that is the case, isn`t it bad for the environment to punish oil executives with Nuremberg trials?  We executed many of the Nazis, and should doubtless do likewise to many oil criminals.  But executions cost in greenhouse gas emissions.  What a bummer!

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 07:22 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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