New York Times Casts Off Any Illusion Of Objectivity Over John McCain Editorial

Please tell me that this doesn't surpirse any of you in the least little bit. Less than one week after the New York Times published an editorial by Barack Obama, the NYT embarks on its own little crusade of censorship and refuses the publish a column by John McCain. Their objection? McCain should have "mirrored" Obama. In other words, the NYT has decreed that McCain should be delivering the same misguided, ignorant message that Obama is shilling.

McCain's work was rejected by NYT Op-Ed editor David Shipley. In Shipley's own words: "'It would be terrific to have an article from Senator McCain that mirrors Senator Obama's piece." Not contrasts it, but mirrors it.

Oh, and did I mention that David Shipley served in the Clinton Administration as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Presidential Speechwriter?

Obama's essay was all about getting out of Iraq, even if it means we lose. Senator McCain holds the viewpoint that we should win the war and then end it. Shipley agrees with Obama and refuses to allow McCain' point of view to be made public through the NYT. Apparently, McCain's viewpoint doesn't fit in with the New York Times' agenda of propaganda.

But, you can read a full text of Senator McCain's essay right here:

In January 2007, when General David Petraeus took command in Iraq, he called the situation “hard” but not “hopeless.” Today, 18 months later, violence has fallen by up to 80% to the lowest levels in four years, and Sunni and Shiite terrorists are reeling from a string of defeats. The situation now is full of hope, but considerable hard work remains to consolidate our fragile gains. Progress has been due primarily to an increase in the number of troops and a change in their strategy. I was an early advocate of the surge at a time when it had few supporters in Washington. Senator Barack Obama was an equally vocal opponent. "I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to solve the sectarian violence there,” he said on January 10, 2007. “In fact, I think it will do the reverse." Now Senator Obama has been forced to acknowledge that “our troops have performed brilliantly in lowering the level of violence.” But he still denies that any political progress has resulted. Perhaps he is unaware that the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad has recently certified that, as one news article put it, “Iraq has met all but three of 18 original benchmarks set by Congress last year to measure security, political and economic progress.” Even more heartening has been progress that’s not measured by the benchmarks. More than 90,000 Iraqis, many of them Sunnis who once fought against the government, have signed up as Sons of Iraq to fight against the terrorists. Nor do they measure Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki’s new-found willingness to crack down on Shiite extremists in Basra and Sadr City—actions that have done much to dispel suspicions of sectarianism. The success of the surge has not changed Senator Obama’s determination to pull out all of our combat troops. All that has changed is his rationale. In a New York Times op-ed and a speech this week, he offered his “plan for Iraq” in advance of his first “fact finding” trip to that country in more than three years. It consisted of the same old proposal to pull all of our troops out within 16 months. In 2007 he wanted to withdraw because he thought the war was lost. If we had taken his advice, it would have been. Now he wants to withdraw because he thinks Iraqis no longer need our assistance. To make this point, he mangles the evidence. He makes it sound as if Prime Minister Maliki has endorsed the Obama timetable, when all he has said is that he would like a plan for the eventual withdrawal of U.S. troops at some unspecified point in the future. Senator Obama is also misleading on the Iraqi military's readiness. The Iraqi Army will be equipped and trained by the middle of next year, but this does not, as Senator Obama suggests, mean that they will then be ready to secure their country without a good deal of help. The Iraqi Air Force, for one, still lags behind, and no modern army can operate without air cover. The Iraqis are also still learning how to conduct planning, logistics, command and control, communications, and other complicated functions needed to support frontline troops. No one favors a permanent U.S. presence, as Senator Obama charges. A partial withdrawal has already occurred with the departure of five “surge” brigades, and more withdrawals can take place as the security situation improves. As we draw down in Iraq, we can beef up our presence on other battlefields, such as Afghanistan, without fear of leaving a failed state behind. I have said that I expect to welcome home most of our troops from Iraq by the end of my first term in office, in 2013. But I have also said that any draw-downs must be based on a realistic assessment of conditions on the ground, not on an artificial timetable crafted for domestic political reasons. This is the crux of my disagreement with Senator Obama. Senator Obama has said that he would consult our commanders on the ground and Iraqi leaders, but he did no such thing before releasing his “plan for Iraq.” Perhaps that’s because he doesn’t want to hear what they have to say. During the course of eight visits to Iraq, I have heard many times from our troops what Major General Jeffrey Hammond, commander of coalition forces in Baghdad, recently said: that leaving based on a timetable would be “very dangerous.” The danger is that extremists supported by Al Qaeda and Iran could stage a comeback, as they have in the past when we’ve had too few troops in Iraq. Senator Obama seems to have learned nothing from recent history. I find it ironic that he is emulating the worst mistake of the Bush administration by waving the “Mission Accomplished” banner prematurely. I am also dismayed that he never talks about winning the war—only of ending it. But if we don’t win the war, our enemies will. A triumph for the terrorists would be a disaster for us. That is something I will not allow to happen as president. Instead I will continue implementing a proven counterinsurgency strategy not only in Iraq but also in Afghanistan with the goal of creating stable, secure, self-sustaining democratic allies.

You can access the original story on-line here:

NYT Rejects McCain's Editorial; Should 'Mirror' Obama
Drudge Report
July 21, 2008

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The Myth Of Consensus Explodes: APS Opens Global Warming Debate

And we have another convert on the Global Warming issue, that is convert from alarmist to skeptic. And it isn't just an individual, it is an entire organization.

The American Physical Society which once proclaimed Global Warming evidence to be "incontrovertible" is now saying that many of it's members "disbelieve human induced gloabl warming."

That's quite a statement given Al Gore's claim that there was supposedly a "concensus" of scientists on the issue. But why the change?

From DailyTech.com:

In a posting to the APS forum, editor Jeffrey Marque explains,"There is a considerable presence within the scientific community of people who do not agree with the IPCC conclusion that anthropogenic CO2 emissions are very probably likely to be primarily responsible for global warming that has occurred since the Industrial Revolution." The APS is opening its debate with the publication of a paper by Lord Monckton of Brenchley, which concludes that climate sensitivity -- the rate of temperature change a given amount of greenhouse gas will cause -- has been grossly overstated by IPCC modeling. A low sensitivity implies additional atmospheric CO2 will have little effect on global climate. Larry Gould, Professor of Physics at the University of Hartford and Chairman of the New England Section of the APS, called Monckton's paper an "expose of the IPCC that details numerous exaggerations and "extensive errors"

Why would the IPCC do this? And why would so many scientists come along and support them for doing it? To answer the first question: Because the IPCC is a body of politicians, not scientists. For the second: Those sicentists wanted money and going along with the flawed research of the IPCC was the only way for them to get the money.

More:

In an email to DailyTech, Monckton says, "I was dismayed to discover that the IPCC's 2001 and 2007 reports did not devote chapters to the central 'climate sensitivity' question, and did not explain in proper, systematic detail the methods by which they evaluated it. When I began to investigate, it seemed that the IPCC was deliberately concealing and obscuring its method." According to Monckton, there is substantial support for his results, "in the peer-reviewed literature, most articles on climate sensitivity conclude, as I have done, that climate sensitivity must be harmlessly low." Monckton, who was the science advisor to Britain's Thatcher administration, says natural variability is the cause of most of the Earth's recent warming. "In the past 70 years the Sun was more active than at almost any other time in the past 11,400 years ... Mars, Jupiter, Neptune’s largest moon, and Pluto warmed at the same time as Earth."

Yet more turths that Al Gore and his psuedo-scientific followers are finding to be "inconvenient."

You can access the complete column on-line here:

The Myth Of Consensus Explodes: APS Opens Global Warming Debate
Michael Asher
Daily Tech
July 16, 208

Nancy Pelosi's Delusional Comments, Breaks Yet Another Promise From 2006

9%. That's all. 9%. That's how many people think the Democrat controlled Congress has been doing a good job. But if you look at their record, the only thing they've done is said, "No."

"No" to lower gas prices. "No" to new refineries. "No" to new nuclear power plants. "No" to keeping taxes low. In fact, they haven't been able to keep a single promise they made back in 2006 in order to get themselves elected to power.

Nancy Peolsi recently gave and interview to CNN and clearly, she has deluded herself into believing that she and the other libs who now control Congress are doing something good. She is doing this in the context of the criticisms that President Bush rightly leveled at Congress, but mostly she is doing it to try and deflect the fact that the President's criticisms are right on the mark.

From CNN:

"God bless him, bless his heart, president of the United States -- a total failure, losing all credibility with the American people on the economy, on the war, on energy, you name the subject," Pelosi told CNN's Wolf Blitzer in an exclusive interview. The comments came two days after the president sharply criticized Congress over what he described as relative inaction over the course of the legislative term. At the White House on Wednesday, Bush noted that there were only 26 legislative days left in the fiscal year and said Congress would need to pass a spending bill every other day to "get their fundamental job done."

And what President Bush said was absolutely correct. Despite promises of bi-partisanship (a promise that was broken in less than a week after assuming power), the libs and Dems have absolutely nothing to show for their time in office while the American people languish under high energy costs and a looming economic disaster when the 2001 tax cuts expire and billions of dollars get sucked out of the economy.

More:

"For him to be challenging Congress when we are trying to sweep up after his mess over and over and over again -- at the end of the day, Congress will have passed its responsibility to pass legislation," she said. But Pelosi's comments come as a new Gallup poll registers the lowest level of congressional approval among Americans in the polling organization's 30-year history of conducting that survey. That poll showed that its approval rating had reached an anemic 14 percent, while more than 70 percent of those polled said they disapproved of the job Congress is doing. The House speaker said she doesn't consider those numbers a negative referendum on the Democrats in charge, saying she thinks they stem largely from Congress' failure to end the war in Iraq.

But, what Pelosi fails to see here is that we are winning the war in Iraq and it is no longer a major concern to us mainstream Americans. The big concern to us is energy costs and gasoline prices which have skyrocketed under the Democrat-controlled Congress. This is what makes her comments delusional. She cannot accept reality and must instead fabricate her own rationalizations.

Check this out:

In the wide-ranging interview, the entirety of which will air Sunday on CNN's "Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer," Pelosi also reiterated her longtime opposition to lifting a congressional ban on offshore drilling as well as opening up areas such as the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska for oil exploration. Bush and congressional Republicans have pushed for those two policy changes. Pelosi has long opposed drilling offshore, a popular policy position among Californians, many of whom fear its environmental consequences along the state's coastline. But a recent CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll showed that more than 73 percent of Americans polled approved of lifting the 1981 ban, and the move holds support among many in Pelosi's own party, whose constituents are growing increasingly angry over rising gas prices.

Yet again, a reality that Nancy Pelosi cannot see since she and the libs have completely fallen out of touch with the American people. Like other Dems, she has been parroting the line that oil companies should be drilling on lands that are already leased out. The disconnect with reality here is that the reason the oil companies are not drilling on those lands is because there is no oil underneath them. I wonder if Wolf Blitzer pointed that out to her during the interview? Probably not.

We need to get her and her delusional friends out of office. Her detachment from reality is causing nothing but harm to the American people. But all she can say is: "Bush is a total failure."

She truly is the worst Speaker of the House in history.

You can access the complete article on-line here:

Pelosi: Bush 'A Total Failure'
Alexander Mooney
CNN.com
July 17, 2008

A Glimpse Into How Gas Prices Are Affecting Local Economies (Harry Reid Territory, No Less) And The EPA Makes A Power Grab

It's kind of ironic when Dems who are deliberately keeping energy costs high are causing so much damage to their own constituents. Such is the case of Harry Reid (D-NV), the current majority leader of the Senate. Check this out from the Las Vegas Sun:

Southern California gamblers who regularly drive to Las Vegas have cut back their visits by a third because of record gas prices, and those who still come say they’ve cut their gambling back by 29 percent, a new poll has found. The findings indicate that gas prices are having a greater impact on tourism than can be gleaned from statistics generated by the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority. They compile key figures such as the number of visitors who drive or fly to Las Vegas, hotel occupancy and room rates, but don’t try to quantify how gas prices affect tourism. ... Medick said he wasn’t attempting to quantify the drop in tourism, but rather to identify why some gamblers have stopped coming and at what point they are priced out of Vegas because of gas prices. The survey follows one he conducted in 2005 gauging the response of Southern California gamblers to gas prices that had risen to more than $3 a gallon at the time. About 48 percent of the polled Southern California gamblers in 2005 said gas prices had affected their decision to drive to Las Vegas casinos, but the survey didn’t ask motorists to explain what the impact was.

The tourism industry is huge in Las Vegas as well as other major resort destination such as Orlando, Florida and Honolulu, Hawaii. All tourism will take a hit as a result of skyrocketing energy costs and the economy as a whole will take a major downturn unless Congress joins President Bush in calling for more domestic energy production.

It almost seems like justice that Harry Reid's home state should be among the first to begin feeling the pinch of inflated gas prices as brought on by the Democrat-controlled Congress.

You can access the complete article on-line here:

Survey: Gas Prices Deter Southern Californians
Liz Benston
Las Vegas Sun
July 8, 2008

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And the Heartland Institute has issued a warning about a new set of rules that the Environmental Protection Agency is seeking to impose on us. These new rules really amount to an attempted power grab by a group of people who have no accountability whatsoever.

Here are some key points:

Two weeks ago, EPA staff leaked a draft of the Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPR) on "Regulating Greenhouse Gas Emissions under the Clean Air Act," which was published in Energy Washington. This document and the policy direction it takes pose a major concern for consumers. The White House deserves credit for recognizing and opposing the huge economic costs and proposed government restructuring of the recently defeated Boxer-Lieberman-Warner global warming bill, but this draft ANPR is even worse policy than that flawed and rejected bill. 1. The leaked ANPR provides a roadmap to economy-wide regulation of greenhouse gases; it is not a solicitation of comments for a proposed rule. Normally, federal agencies release Advance Notices of Proposed Rulemaking to obtain preliminary information prior to issuing a proposed rule or to decide whether to propose a rule. This document goes far beyond that first step. EPA is not requesting preliminary information, but instead is providing a roadmap to economy-wide greenhouse gas regulation. ... 2. EPA's ANPR supports "all pain, no gain" regulation. Reducing emissions is painful. An analysis of a carbon "cap-and-trade" proposal considered by the U.S. Senate in 2008 -- the Lieberman-Warner Act -- found it would destroy between 1.2 and 1.8 million jobs in 2020 and between 3 and 4 million jobs in 2030; impose a financial cost of $739 to $2,927 per year by 2020 on national households, rising to $4,022 to $6,752 by 2030; and would increase the price of gasoline between 60 percent and 144 percent by 2030 and the price of electricity by 77 percent to 129 percent. (National Association of Manufacturers / American Council for Capital Formation, "Study of the Economic Impact from the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act," 2008.) ... 3. The science underpinning ANPR is lacking. Policymakers should be appalled by the lack of sound scientific analysis in the leaked ANPR. The science is important because the point of the document is to help the EPA Administrator determine whether greenhouse gases "may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare or to explain why the scientific uncertainty is so profound that it prevents making a reasoned judgment on such a determination." This is the entire point of the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling. ... 4. Apparently EPA has not independently assessed the science; it defers to the United Nations. EPA apparently has not independently assessed the science of global warming. Instead it seems to rely exclusively on the global warming reports from the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). This is disturbing because the IPCC's reports are not peer-reviewed and they do not include the latest science. The IPCC cut-off for science papers was May 2006. (For a critique of the IPCC's latest report, along with more recent research and data on issues ignored by the IPCC, see Singer, S. Fred, ed., Nature, Not Human Activity, Rules the Climate, Summary for Policymakers of the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change, Science and Environmental Policy Project, April 2008; http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=22835) ... 5. Congress, not EPA, should be the principal in developing energy and climate change policy. The proposed ANPR is an attempt by a rogue agency within the executive branch of government to establish new regulation under the Clean Air Act without the consent of Congress. This type of regulation is the prerogative of elected officials, who are accountable to the electorate and must authorize such activity, not unelected bureaucrats. The regulatory changes envisioned in the ANPR are sweeping, even breath-taking. If such a vast expansion of the regulatory state is to be brought about, it must be a legislative effort, not a purely regulatory effort. This effort by EPA appears to be designed to force Congress to enact greenhouse gas regulations that would redistribute wealth rather than address climate change or energy policy. Congress should not be forced to act at regulatory gunpoint. The Boxer-Lieberman-Warner bill was an attempt by members of Congress to address the issue of climate change. The bill failed because constituents, labor unions, and special-interest groups contacted their representatives -- elected officials -- and indicated their strong displeasure with the economic costs, the reorganization of government, and the impact on domestic energy supplies. Because it is accountable to voters, Congress defeated the bill. EPA must not be allowed to circumvent this democratic procedure.

This needs to die before it goes any further. The EPA has stepped way out of bounds here.

You can access the complete article on-line here:

EPA Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPR): Alert 1
Heartland Institute
July 9, 2008

Diplomas For The Jihadis? Hasn't Worked Before And It Won't Work Now.

You can always count of Michelle Malkin to find that one little nugget of news, that one little tidbit of information that the lesser jounalists of Old Media will always miss. She found this one during the political firestorm over a front-page cartoon ran by the New Yorker. Michelle notes:

The magazine piece quotes Obama's recommendations for how to stop jihad, which he had previously published in a local Chicago newspaper eight days after 9/11. It's a self-parody of blind, deaf and dumb Kumbaya liberalism: "We must also engage, however, in the more difficult task of understanding the sources of such madness. The essence of this tragedy, it seems to me, derives from a fundamental absence of empathy on the part of the attackers: an inability to imagine, or connect with, the humanity and suffering of others. Such a failure of empathy, such numbness to the pain of a child or the desperation of a parent, is not innate; nor, history tells us, is it unique to a particular culture, religion, or ethnicity. It may find expression in a particular brand of violence, and may be channeled by particular demagogues or fanatics. Most often, though, it grows out of a climate of poverty and ignorance, helplessness and despair."

Well, Michelle gives us some pretty good examples as to why this policy is a failure since we have already tried it and it returned to bite us in the collective rear-end:

Author and National Review Online blogger Mark Steyn's sharp rejoinder to McCain then applies to Obama now: "There's plenty of evidence out there that the most extreme 'extremists' are those who've been most exposed to the west -- and western education: from Osama bin Laden (summer school at Oxford, punting on the Thames) and Mohammed Atta (Hamburg University urban planning student) to the London School of Economics graduate responsible for the beheading of Daniel Pearl. The idea that handing out college scholarships to young Saudi males and getting them hooked on Starbucks and car-chase movies will make this stuff go away is ridiculous -- and unworthy of a serious presidential candidate." Ayman al-Zawahiri didn't need more education or wealth to steer him away from Islamic imperialism and working toward a worldwide caliphate. He has a medical degree. So does former Hamas biggie Abdel al-Rantissi. Seven upper-middle-class jihadi doctors were implicated in the 2007 London/Glasgow bombings. Suspected al-Qaida scientist Aafia Siddiqui, still wanted by the FBI for questioning, is a Pakistani who studied microbiology at MIT and did graduate work in neurology at Brandeis. And as I've reported before and must reiterate for the hard of hearing in Washington, lowering academic standards at American colleges helped al-Qaida mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed further the jihadi cause. In the early 1980s, he enrolled at tiny Chowan College in Murfreesboro, N.C., which had dropped its English requirements to attract -- ahem -- wealthy Middle Easterners.

This policy of giving Western educations to those who hate the West has been shown to be nothing but a failure. It shouldn't be surprising that Barack Obama would embrace it since he is also embracing the disastrously failed Socialist economic policies of the Carter Administration.

You can access the complete column on-line here:

Diplomas Won't Make Jihadis Go Away, Barack
Michelle Malkin
TownHall.com
July 16, 2008

Congress Fiddles While The Economy Burns

Got this in my email from FairTax.org. Read it. It's good:

Dear FairTax supporters, Our cause continues to gather steam in hometown America—while, with smoke in the air, Congress fiddles. Could it be more obvious that we will have to save the nation from our own elected officials and candidates? Retirement investments, savings and college education accounts are evaporating as the stock market falls—while at the same time leading economists predict that trillions of dollars can and will flow into the United States economy after enactment of the FairTax. Candidate Obama signals a desire to raise the amount of money the government takes from the growth of savings and investments while the country has the lowest savings rate since the Great Depression. With gasoline, food prices and inflation rapidly escalating and housing values falling, former Senator and John McCain economic adviser, Phil Gramm, says we’re all just a nation of “whiners” and the economy is really just fine. Candidate McCain has changed his earlier Iowa tune and now tells audiences that the FairTax is not the answer. Congress and the White House borrow $165 billion from other nations to finance taxpayer rebate checks to stimulate the American economy and ignore the wasted $265 billion annual cost of citizens and businesses preparing income tax returns. Meanwhile, the powerful Chairman of the House Committee on Ways & Means, Charles Rangel, practices politics as usual and solicits big business for big contributions to his Charles Rangel Center in New York City—and with a wink and a nod Washington adds more loopholes and tax gimmicks for favored interests. The United Nations concluded this week that three-quarters of the reason for higher food prices can be traced back to turning agriculture to bio-fuel production—here in the U.S. it is another recent ham-handed tax break by the meddling Ways & Means Committee. While leaders ignore the crisis, citizens work for a FairTax solution While "leaders" turn a deaf ear to our destructive tax system or offer medicine that will worsen the economic downturn, hometown America is quietly and steadily moving us toward the FairTax. Hundreds of people recently turned out for a FairTax seminar in Georgia designed to equip average citizens with the means to spread the word to fellow Americans and wake up elected officials. The Postal Workers Union is considering embracing the FairTax at its national convention. In Oklahoma, all but one member of the Congressional delegation have co-sponsored FairTax legislation because of the determined and relentless work of local advocates. A documentary team from Georgia is traveling the nation recording the determined but under-financed FairTax movement. XM Satellite Radio just featured FairTax.org on "Open Road," Channel 171, heard across the country and a favorite of long-haul truckers. Host Dave Nemo enthusiastically added the FairTax web link to his home page. Other radio hosts from Michigan, Virginia, California, Florida, Arizona, Colorado and elsewhere and the always popular Neal Boortz and Herman Cain continue to support the issue with their audiences. Candidates for Congress in West Virginia, Florida, Georgia, Colorado, Arizona and elsewhere have embraced the FairTax. At kitchen tables across the country FairTaxers are finding their own ways to push the movement--from YouTube and MySpace videos to letters to the editor to friendly conversations with neighbors. Keep the faith—and keep the FairTax movement growing! It's our nation and we'll have to save it from the original bad idea of an income tax that just keeps getting worse at the hands of tax lobbyists and the corrupted Congressional tax writing process. Now is the time for all citizens to band together and make the case for the FairTax. Tell your newspaper editor, tell your elected officials and tell your friends, neighbors and colleagues. Our country, our children and our future depend on this common sense solution—and it could not be more needed than right now. For every FairTaxer who writes a letter to Congress, goes to a Town Hall meeting, talks with a candidate, writes to the local newspaper, wears the FairTax cap or proudly displays the FairTax window sticker—thank you! For those who feel that someone else will get it done—wake up and smell the coffee because this lifeboat needs your oar. Our progress is slow but steady. Recruit one more FairTaxer and move us forward one more step at a time. Together we can make it come true. Sincerely, Ken Hoagland Communications Director

McCain Discusses Bill For Illegal Immigrants

Although Sen. McCain is still pushing for "comprehensive" reform, here is a little something about his current stance on border security. This comes from the speech event he recently attended with La Raza:

McCain continued to field questions even after La Raza organizers tried to wrap up the session. After organizers took the audience microphone, McCain tossed his own wireless microphone to Enrique Morones, a controversial leader of the Border Angels group. Morones, whose group provides water and other help for those who have crossed the border illegally, challenged McCain to end the "militarization of the border." McCain responded without hesitation that drugs flowing across the border were a serious problem and that there was little room for negotiation when it came to border security. "The United States of America has to have secure borders, but we can address the issue in a humane fashion," he said.

Still not perfect but light years ahead of Sen. Obama and the other Dems on this issue.

You can access the complete article on-line here:

McCain Discusses Bill For Illegal Immigrants
Martin Wisckol
Orange County Register
July 14, 2008

Will To Drill Is Strong And A New Political Cliche

Two items today that go right to the heart of our energy crisis. The first is from Investor's Business Daily. Just the first paragraph alone sets a very telling tone:

Contrary to claims by Al Gore and others that global warming is the greatest challenge of our time, Americans by better than 3-to-1 say the price of gasoline is a bigger problem now, according to the latest IBD/TIPP Poll. Moreover, they stand willing to do something about it, including and especially drilling for oil in the Outer Continental Shelf and in federal shale reserves in Colorado, Wyoming and Utah. Even drilling in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is backed by a plurality of Americans. ... Only 23% say climate change is more important. The sentiment prevails across the board — among men and women, old and young, rich and poor, and Republicans, independents and Democrats, two-thirds of whom say gas prices are more important.

That really says it all. So, when is Congress going to do something about it? More importantly, when are we Americans going to get rid of the do-nothing members and vote in people who will get things done?

You can access the complete column on-line here:

Will To Drill Is Strong, Poll Finds; Climate Change Pales As Concern
Investor's Business Daily
July, 14, 2008

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And why should we boot out the Congress we elected in 2006? Hugh Hewitt gives us the answer, once again right from the very first paragraph:

The economic mess the country confronts can be laid at the feet of Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. The Don’t Drill Democrats are forcing deindustrialization through depression brought about by soaring energy costs. This is a man-made meltdown, and make no mistake: The Democrats could halt and reverse the skyrocketing cost of oil, but they are choosing not to.

The results of their inaction/choice not to act have been staggering and will only get worse:

The impact of the massive oil shock brought about by the rise of oil to more than $140 a barrel has just begun to be felt. The airline industry has gotten organized to alert everyone it can that it cannot continue to stagger along at this price. Eight airlines are completely gone that flew a year ago, and many others are on the brink. Layoffs and new charges to battle soaring costs are hardly worth noting they arrive so frequently. Tremors continue to course through Wall Street as investors shunned mortgage giants Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae and yesterday worried Congressmen throw questions at the Fed Chairman and the secretary of the Treasury: How bad can it get?

Very bad. As I noted in another blog posting, oil is not our lifeblood; it is our energy. We need it like the human body needs food. To repeat the idiotic mantra that we need to "wean ourselves off of oil" is like saying that we humans need to "wean ourselves off of food." Only an idiot would believe such a claim.

More:

The environmental lobby owns Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, and Barack Obama –the brave new leader—doesn’t dare take it or them on. That lobby is applauding the deindustrialization underway, and their attitude is that a depression wouldn’t be such a bad thing as a lesson in learning how to live within our environmental means. Their jobs aren’t on the line, after all, and their disdain for the impacted industries is complete. What they and the Triple D Democrats hasn’t counted on, though, was America making the connection between the deteriorating economy and their anti-energy agenda. Energy is freedom. Energy is prosperity. Every Democrat on the fall ballot is part of the anti-energy party which is wrecking havoc on the economy and every family’s budget. A vote for any Democrat is a vote for shortages, rising gas prices, rising unemployment, and falling production.

I don't like political cliches, but the one for 2008 is "It's the oil, stupid!"

You can access the complete column on-line here:

It's The Oil, Stupid
Hugh Hewitt
TownHall.com
July 11, 2008

Hawking A Sports Fiction Novel For The Olympic Year (Themes: Running, Swimming, Pole-Vaulting)

The Olympics will be upon us on August 8, 2008 and the U.S. roster has been filling fast in recent weeks. Of particular interest to me were the Swimming and Track & Field trials. Those two sports figure prominently in the sports-fiction novel A Reason To Try by Tom LaLumiere.

Here is a synopsis:

Coming from a troubled home and a problematic childhood, Brian Coulombe was the last person anyone thought would achieve anything at Cavalcade High School back in 1981. After a near-death experience jolts him back to reality and he discovers his affections for one of his female teammates, he finds within himself a desire to strive higher and work harder. Beginning as a sophomore and all the way through his senior year, Brian learns how to do the most difficult event in track and field: the pole-vault. In his efforts to reach his goals, he learns that working inside the rules is what allows him to soar. But when his dream girl finally tells him "no," he slips back outside the rules and must work to rebuild his world. With the help of his friends and his desire to become the best, he learns that there is always a reason to try.

And here is an excerpt from the book.

In this scene, Brian is competing in the pole-vault at the Stanton Invitational Track & Field Meet being held at Mount St. Mary's College in Emmitsburg, Maryland. The bar is set at fouteen feet and six inches, a hieght that seventeen-year-old Brian Coulombe had never cleared before. Not only is he dealing with the pressure of this being a personal best, he is also dealing with the fact that if he clears the bar, he wins, but if he misses, he goes home in second place.

Brian walked over to the edge of the track to have a talk with his coach. “Mr. Hoskins. Do you have any last second advice?” “I have a last second question. How many misses do you have compared to him?” “I have one more miss than he does. I would lose on the tie-breaker if I miss this one.” “Well, then. The only advice I can give you is ‘don’t miss.’ Brian, sometimes you have to stand out on your own and bear the full brunt of a situation completely by yourself. This is one of those times.” As Brian was making his way back to the pole-vault area, Ellen, who had been doing a warm-up jog with the two-mile relay team, stopped him. He was a little surprised at this and wondered what she planned on saying to him. “How are you doing in there?” she asked. “Well, if I make this jump, then I win. If I miss it, then it’s second place.” Brian tried to keep his eyes on her but kept darting them in different directions. Ellen smiled, looked directly into Brian’s eyes and said, “Hey, Brian. How bad do you want it?” Brian returned the smile and walked back to the pole-vault runway and picked up his pole. After Ellen spoke to him, a calm washed completely over him. He felt no pressure at all. On the runway, he knelt down for a minute and then, for the first time ever as a pole-vaulter, did the “Sign of the Cross” in traditional Roman Catholic style and said to himself, if God is willing then so am I. He stood up on the runway and stared down at the box. Like that of his competitor, his own pole came up and down several times as the waiting for the most perfect moment continued. When that moment came, Brian lifted his pole and began his sprint. At the seventh step, his right hand thrust the pole directly over his head as he made the plant and then went airborne. His rock-back and kick-through inverted him as he could feel himself being shot skyward. He could feel no mistakes, no anomalies in the motion. As he crossed his right foot over his left, he knew that he would clear the bar. With less than half an inch to spare, he passed over the bar and began his descent into the soft pits below and his biggest victory yet. Brian stood up in the pits and began his celebration dance by doing a standing back-flip. He then exited the pit and began jumping up and down and rolling his clenched fists towards the sky. Never in his life had he felt such a feeling. He calmed down enough to receive congratulations from the referee and the other vaulters and then looked over into the team area where he was being given a standing ovation. That made him feel even better. Ellen was applauding and cheering along with everyone else. What more could he have asked for on this day? The awards ceremony was quick, but notable. For the first time at a major track meet, Brian was standing on the Gold Medal platform. At least five photographers were there to snap pictures of the top three placing pole-vaulters. Then he went back to the team area to relax and wait until it was time to leave. Everyone on the team offered personal congratulations and added comments like: “Awesome!” or “Fantastic!” or “That was amazing!” A few hours later, even though the meet was still going on, all of the Cavalcade athletes had completed their events, so the team packed up and headed home. The bus ride back to Temple Hills was as quiet as the ride out. Just as he did after the State Indoor Meet, Brian slowly caressed the medal hanging around his neck. He looked up towards the front and saw Ellen with her head leaning against the bus seat and her eyes closed. Around her neck she wore the gold medal for the Girl’s mile. They were the only two gold medals for Cavalcade that day.

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Holding Democrats Accountable For Our Energy Crisis

This is one column that holds back nothing. It is clear, concise and unambiguous about what is happening with regards to energy production, the world market and how the Democrat controlled Congress is actively working to make the problem worse thereby "sticking it" to the American middle class.

It is no secret that the Dems have been laboring feverishly to ensure that we Americans cannot produce lower-cost energy here at home. They have blocked drilling in ANWR, off-shore and they've blocked the construction of new nuclear power plants. Additionally, they have blocked the construction or upgrade of oil refineries.

Chris Adamo, writing for GOPUSA, notes that the American public is getting wise to the Democrats and also explains what the public is becoming aware of. From his latest column:

Simple economics, the principles of which are becoming painfully apparent to every American who stops to fill up the family sedan, dictate that when disproportionate multitudes of customers have to compete for a limited supply of fossil fuels, prices will rise. Thus all of the liberal/environmentalist efforts to curtail the availability of the world's oil, specifically by hamstringing America's ability to exploit its own natural resources, have only succeeded in driving up the cost of those resources for all who want or need them.

Yes. And I feel the need to once again bring up the promise that Nancy Pelosi made back in 2006 about the Dems having a "commonsense" plan for bringing gas and energy prices down. They have done nothing but drive prices up since they took over Congress. But it isn't just their policy of constantly saying "no" to domestic energy production. There is much more to it than that:

From a worldwide perspective, the "free market" would currently yield a much lower price for a barrel of oil than recent numbers which exceed one hundred forty dollars. This fact being well understood among oil producing nations, particularly in the Middle East, where major oil producers banded together to form the infamous "Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries" or OPEC. ... In essence, an artificial "monopoly" has been created among the member nations, whereby they can unilaterally determine what the rest of the world will pay for its energy needs. But for this monopoly to survive and thrive, it requires the defacto cooperation of all other parties involved. Perhaps the most infuriating aspect of this situation is that such "cooperation" is effectively coming from the Democrat controlled Congress of the United States. By stubbornly refusing any consideration of exploring, drilling, and thus expanding American oil production, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D.-CA) and Senate Majority Harry Reid (D.-NV) along with their Democrat political machine in Washington, are effectively forcing the entire American oil industry into the role of collaborating OPEC members. In a sinister sense, America is officially refusing to increase the world production of oil, thus strengthening the OPEC monopoly and its ability to deliberately inflate the price of crude oil.

So, the Dems are not just screwing us here at home. They are actively allowing oil producing nations to screw us from abroad as well. Why isn't Old Media or even the rank-and-file Democrats holding Nancy Pelosi's feet to the fire for breaking her 2006 promise?

More:

It makes no difference when paying the bill at the gas pump that Pelosi, Reid, and their liberal political cohorts are claiming to do their deed for the sake of the planet, as opposed to the Arab nations who simply want to maximize profits. The end product is the same. Americans are senselessly forced to crunch their personal budgets in order to keep the family car rolling. Elsewhere around the world, the predictable fallout from liberal policy making hits much harder. Food prices are soaring, both as a result of higher costs to grow and transport edible crops, along with the insane practice of sapping food supplies in order to use basic grains for the production of ethanol in a dubious scheme to supplement gas supplies. Meanwhile, those most responsible for the current energy calamity offer only environmental sanctimony, entwined in the hoax of "global warming," as their justification.

And let's not forget that Congressional approval ratings have fallen to single digits for the first time in history. Also keep in mind that this happened less than two years after the Dems took control and began their assault on our economy. But the Dems are hoping to deflect from these issues by bringing out smoke-and-mirror tactics such as fabricating an impeachment of the President. This will only hurt them.

America's families suffer a loss of buying power, and American workers are barred from gainful employment among the abundant natural resources that exist across this land and just off its shores. In response, Representative Maxine Waters (D.-CA) expresses her desire for the government to nationalize the oil industry, and Democrat presidential hopeful Barack Obama reveals his contempt for middle America, which he believes is excessively lavish in its lifestyles and use of energy resources.

Those are the real issues. Socialists don't want to confront the disaster they would inflict on everyone else. They simply try to dodge the issue by falsely claiming that the blame lies elsewhere. The American voting public isn't buying it.

You can access the complete column on-line here:

Holding Liberals Accountable For Energy Woes
Christopher G. Adamo
GOPUSA.com
July 10, 2008