- Saint Sputnik
- Apr 1, 2007
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Tyrannosaurs in P-51 Volkswagens!
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Some guy wrote into my town's paper with a proposed constitutional amendment.
quote:Proposed Constitutional Amendment – (Working Rough Draft)
Congress shall have the sole authority through the means of a declaration of war approved by a two-thirds majority of its membership to authorize the armed forces of the United States to wage offensive military operations such as full-scale war or major acts of war against any alliance(s), empire(s), nation(s) or armed faction(s) who have attacked the United States and its territories, or who pose a credible catastrophic threat to the continued independence of the United States as a sovereign nation and its American way of life, or who have infringed upon the lives, liberties and property of American citizens, or who have attacked an ally of the United States who we have a mutual defense treaty with, or who have the will, the means, and are in the process of attempting to enslave the entire planet under the rule of an authoritarian or totalitarian dictatorship.
The end of hostilities shall occur under the following conditions: victory on the battlefield, negotiated peace settlement, an executive order issued by the president ordering the armed forces of the United States to end hostilities and begin an orderly withdraw from the combat zone, a Congressional recall order passed by a two-thirds majority of the membership of Congress ordering the armed forces of the United States to cease hostilities and to withdraw from the combat zone in orderly fashion.
The president shall have the authority to authorize the armed forces of the United States to repeal invasions and sneak attacks upon the United States and its territories and to suppress rebellions, insurrections, and mutinies within the United States and its territories.
He also noted he's very proud of the research he put into it (to wit, reading as much legalese as he could find and barfing it out with a typewriter)
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Jun 15, 2011 18:04
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May 10, 2024 17:12
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- Saint Sputnik
- Apr 1, 2007
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Tyrannosaurs in P-51 Volkswagens!
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Clifford May is loving insane. Without providing any context whatsoever he just launched into this imaginary letter from Ayman al-Zawahiri the other day:
quote:Now the duty is entrusted to me. Now I am the amir of al-Qaeda't al-Jihad, better known — indeed, known everywhere on earth — as al-Qaeda. This comes at the right time. This month, I complete my 60th year — still young enough to think clearly and strategically, but old enough to fully comprehend that I will not live forever and that it is truly blessed to die a martyr's death as did my friend and leader, Sheikh Osama bin Laden, may he rest in peace.
I have waged jihad against the nonbelievers for a very long time. I joined the Muslim Brotherhood when I was just 14. A child of wealth and privilege, I could have led an easy life. My skills as a surgeon could have been put to use healing the elite of Cairo. I chose, instead, to be a knight under the Prophet's banner. I have never regretted that decision, al-Hamdu Lillah.
In 1981, when I was half the age I am now, I brought justice to Anwar al-Sadat. He had betrayed the nation of Islam by making peace with the accursed Jews. Death to any swine who considers following his example!
Exactly 20 years after that, surrounded by the good people of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, Sheikh bin Laden and I brought justice to thousands of Crusaders and Zionists, arrogant Americans who thought they were safe in their steel towers — safe to plot and steal from the Muslims. Those in the Pentagon — that vipers' den! — thought they were safe, too. But they learned: All the guards and guns and metal detectors in the world cannot protect them from our mujahideen!
The Americans are accustomed to soft beds and decadent pleasures. But their economy is crumbling — as is their will to fight. With the passing of bin Laden they will be eager to declare their mission in Afghanistan accomplished and fly away.
The woodworm has begun to eat the idol, though Americans do not yet yearn for the sweet relief of surrender as the Europeans do. The Europeans, in a time of war, are disarming. When in history has that happened before? They can't even defeat that mad jackal, Qaddafi! In this we can see the hand of Allah, may peace be upon Him.
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Jun 25, 2011 04:47
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- Saint Sputnik
- Apr 1, 2007
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Tyrannosaurs in P-51 Volkswagens!
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Suck the devil's dick in hell Cal.
quote:Millionaires and Billionaires
By Cal Thomas
Tribune Media Services
“Nothing succeeds like success” — Alexandre Dumas, 1802-1870
If new millionaires or billionaires were created every time President Obama and his fellow liberals disparage “millionaires and billionaires,” there would be far more of them than there are today. And that would be a good thing because it would mean more people are succeeding.
This president, more than any other in my lifetime, seems determined to punish and discourage success and the hard work, risk-taking and values by which one must live in order to attain it. He blasts people who fly on private planes, though he flies on Air Force One, the ultimate private plane, which taxpayers pay for. He doesn’t like yachts, or specifically the people who can afford to buy them. And yet the people who make the private planes and yachts have jobs precisely because others have achieved a level of success that enables them to afford such luxury.
Recall during the George H.W. Bush administration when congressional Democrats persuaded Bush to sign a bill increasing the luxury tax on yachts in exchange for a promise — later broken — to reduce spending. The result was fewer people bought yachts, boat builders were laid off and Congress later repealed the tax hike. Don’t liberal Democrats ever learn economic principles, or does their class warfare trump all else?
People who envy the successful won’t receive any of the money higher taxes might bring in. Congress will spend it long before it “trickles down” to the poor and even if the poor did get some of the largesse from the wealthy, when the money runs out they would likely remain poor because their attitude toward “entitlements,” rather than wealth building would remain unchanged. Isn’t that the story of the failed welfare system? Welfare mostly subsidizes people in poverty, helping few escape from it.
In their hearts, most people who are poor would like to be rich, or at least self-sustaining, but this president never talks about how they might achieve that goal. Instead, he criticizes those who made the right choices and now enjoy the fruits of their labor. Rather than use successful people as examples for the poor to follow, the president seeks to punish the rich with higher taxes and more regulations on their businesses.
President Calvin Coolidge, who is receiving another look by some historians, said in 1919, “The great aim of our government is to protect the weak, to aid them to become strong.” See the difference? President Obama apparently thinks the weak and poor can never become strong and rich without government, though government has a poor track record of aiding people in either endeavor.
Another Coolidgeism: “Don’t expect to build up the weak by pulling down the strong.”
Pulling down the strong seems to preoccupy this administration and congressional Democrats. Is that unfair? Where, then, can one find a champion of achievement, risk-taking and capitalism among the Democratic leadership? Many of them are rich; they just don’t want too many of the rest of us to become rich. If we do, we might not need government, or them. And we might just vote Republican.
There is something deeply repulsive, even un-American, about this war on achievers. We once held them in higher regard because they built and sustained the nation. What do the unsuccessful produce?
Wealth is a sign of achievement, a reward for risks taken. And being poor is not a crime, unless those in poverty refuse to strive to overcome it.
That’s the message this president should be broadcasting, not one that trashes success and promotes class division and envy of the successful.
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Jul 12, 2011 17:49
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- Saint Sputnik
- Apr 1, 2007
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Tyrannosaurs in P-51 Volkswagens!
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Bruce Leroy posted:
Ah, so she's like Alveda King?
Yeah looks like it. Maybe conservatives have hiring quotas?
Here's king shithead Jay Ambrose's column today.
quote:“Narrow-minded, book banning, truth censoring, mean spirited; ungenerous envious, intolerant , afraid; chicken, bullying; trivially moral, falsely patriotic; family cheapening, flag cheapening, God cheapening; the common man, shallow, small, sanctimonious.”
– Henry Fairlie, journalist, describing Republicans in 1980
Harold Meyerson is just about the only socialist in punditry land who calls himself a socialist, and for that he deserves a tip of the hat, but not for the Fairlie-like bigotry he exhibits toward the grassroots folks he supposedly adores.
Scout around on the Internet to see what people have been saying about the debt-ceiling fracas, and maybe you will bump into a column this editor of The American Prospect wrote for the Washington Post. He tells us that the House Republicans, in their opposition to new taxes, are at war with government and that market capitalism is malfunctioning. He is pretty put out that President Obama actually indicated he would consider entitlement cuts.
Sorry, but wrong, wrong and oh, please shut up, would you?
The House Republicans are at war, not with government, but with government abuses, including an irresponsibly accumulated bipartisan federal debt that could spell ruination. That’s not just the Tea Party talking, but top thinkers at institutions like Harvard.
One of the things abused is market capitalism. As a new book called “Reckless Endangerment” shows, it was government along with Wall Street that caused the financial crisis. What’s now thwarting business expansion as much as anything is fear of the debt, inflation, bureaucratic battering and legislative overkill.
Concerning entitlements – mainly Medicare and Social Security – the amount we owe on them beyond revenue projections is $61.6 trillion, and you couldn’t pay that off if you confiscated all the income and wealth of every rich person out there. Try to borrow our way out of it, and you’d have to give China the United States as collateral.
But those Meyerson goofs, plus a misunderstanding of the mutual advantages of trade and the rising of compensation before the recession, are Mickey Mouse stuff compared to his reach for deep insight into the conservative psyche. Here is his King Kong paragraph:
“Republicans, to be sure, have long waged a war on government, but only now has it become an apocalyptic and total war. At its root, I suspect, is the fear and loathing that rank-and-file right-wingers feel toward what their government, and their nation, is inexorably becoming: multiracial, multicultural, cosmopolitan and now headed by a president who personifies those qualities. That America is also downwardly mobile is a challenge for us all, but for the right, the anxiety our economy understandably evokes is augmented by the politics of racial resentment and the fury that the country is no longer only theirs. That’s not a country whose government they want to pay for – and if the apocalypse befalls us, they seem to have concluded, so much the better.”
That’s typical leftist babble, and the reason I quote Meyerson is not that I have any particular quarrel with him, but that he so aptly illustrates the pugnacious prejudices of hoity-toity left-wingers who think they have an obligation to control the hoi polloi beneath them, much like some slave owners thinking they were the slaves’ best friend. Though history has proven socialism inhumanely wrongheaded, you are some kind of a moral thug if you do not worship at least some semblance of that tattered god. Fairlie, a British journalist now dead, thought Republicans who nominated Ronald Reagan for president indistinguishable from Nazis.
By the way, we have not been downwardly mobile, either. Check the latest Pew survey on that question, and then, if still in a studious mood, pick up a copy of Arthur C. Brooks’ book, “Who Really Cares?” Measured by giving time and money to charity, it is those rank-and-file right-wingers who care most for their multiracial, multicultural brethren. They give a lot more than richer liberals relying on well intended but counterproductive, coercive measures paving the way to waste, more taxes and defenseless debt. Get in the way and feel not their generosity, but their sting.
Note he does nothing to belay the opening quote he chose.
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Jul 20, 2011 18:51
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- Saint Sputnik
- Apr 1, 2007
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Tyrannosaurs in P-51 Volkswagens!
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Deroy Murdock is another black conservative, just to continue the theme. Here's today's, where he literally equivocates abortion to incandescent bulbs and scammy poker sites.
quote:Almost unanimously, Washington Democrats call themselves “pro-choice.” “I support a woman’s right to choose!” they thunder. “Choice,” of course, means abortion, and that is where the Democrats’ passion for choice starts and stops.
Elsewhere, Democrats sabotage a woman’s right to choose. Instead, they demand to make that choice for her, as they do for men.
I support a woman’s right to choose whether or not to use a traditional Thomas Alva Edison incandescent bulb. Democrats disagree.
The House of Representatives voted July 12 on a measure to repeal federal regulations that effectively criminalize sales of Edison’s bulb. According to Freedom Action’s Myron Ebell, violators face a federal penalty of $200 per offending bulb sold.
Among 239 Republicans, 228 (or 95 percent) voted to liberate women (and men) so that they could choose among inexpensive incandescents, pricier LEDs, compact fluorescents (tainted with toxic mercury), and even candles. (Five thinking Democrats supported the GOP majority.) Candles average 15,260 home fires and 166 attendant fatalities annually, the National Fire Protection Association reports. Yet candles remain legal.
Among 192 Democrats, 183 voted to deny a woman this choice, echoing President Barack Obama’s veto threat. (Ten statist Republicans concurred.) Fully 95 percent of Democrats defended a 2007 law (signed by socialist Trojan Horse George W. Bush) that is steering Americans, like cattle, toward alternative bulbs.
“These standards are not taking choices away,” Energy Secretary Steven Chu recently told journalists. The polite word for Chu’s statement is “Orwellian.” The precise word is “lie.”
This law deliberately raises the bar higher than Edison’s bulb can leap. Regulations that wittingly exceed a product’s defining features prohibit the product itself. Why should Washington take away donuts, for instance, when it could criminalize fried-dough pastries that encircle holes?
I support a woman’s right to choose whether or not to use Avastin. Obama’s Oncologic Drugs Advisory Committee disagrees. On June 30, ODAC rescinded its approval of this treatment for late-stage breast cancer. ODAC decided that Avastin’s side effects were not worth its five-month average life extension, even though it lengthens the lives of “super responders” by upwards of two to three years. Perhaps ODAC forgot that a key side effect of metastatic breast cancer is death – as 40,000 women discover annually.
But that hardly matters to the pharmacrats who snatched this choice from some 17,500 American women on Avastin. Ironically, those Obama Administration members likely support a woman’s right to control her body – but only regarding abortion.
I support a woman’s right to choose whether or not to buy health insurance under ObamaCare. Congressional Democrats disagree. They voted in near lockstep last year to compel women (and men) to participate in ObamaCare. Without exception, Republicans opposed ObamaCare and its individual mandate.
I support a woman’s right to choose to send her child to an alternative school that accepts educational vouchers. Unfortunately, Washington Democrats disagree. A federal initiative gave roughly 3,000 students vouchers worth up to $7,500 to escape Washington’s calamitous government schools. Despite promising results, teachers unions detested this program.
So, after Obama took charge, congressional Democrats swiftly killed it. Never mind the choices of the poor, mainly black mothers whose kids these vouchers benefited. Fortunately, House Speaker John Boehner (R - Ohio) successfully re-authorized these vouchers within last April’s bipartisan budget agreement.
I support a woman’s right to choose Internet gambling as a pastime. Unfortunately, Obama’s Justice Department disagrees. On April 15, it hijacked the domain names of Poker Stars, Full Tilt Poker, and Absolute Poker, three foreign-based poker websites. Justice eventually let Poker Stars and Full Tilt serve foreign gamblers, provided that they discriminate against Americans. Thankfully, Antigua-based Absolute Poker is fighting Justice’s authoritarianism before the World Trade Organization.
If a woman chooses to kill the young American in her womb, nearly every Democrat in Washington, D.C. will fight for her like Army Rangers on Normandy Beach. But if a woman desires almost any other choice, Democrats impersonate the Great Wall of China.
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Jul 21, 2011 16:45
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- Saint Sputnik
- Apr 1, 2007
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Tyrannosaurs in P-51 Volkswagens!
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According to Cal Thomas today, those Norwegian kids would have lived if only they were packing heat. Didn't a bunch of assholes in the GBS thread on it make the same argument?
quote:Norway forbids civilians from carrying concealed weapons, or owning an automatic weapon, unless they are gun collectors. As in America, gun laws do not deter criminals who are determined to cause harm with a weapon. What would have deterred Breivik would have been a gun in the hands of a competent person capable of stopping his mass-murdering spree.
If Norway can be a site for terror, is there a safe place on Earth? The answer is no. There are no “safe” places; no one can be 100 percent safe. Does that mean everyone should be armed? Not necessarily. What it means is that for some countries, some people and some places, a way to make the environment as safe as humanly possible is to have properly armed and trained people who can respond to such events.
Would Anders Behring Breivik have thought twice about his killing spree if he had known in advance that someone would shoot back? That is impossible to know. But if someone on Utoeya Island had returned fire, there’s a possibility that far fewer would have been killed. This approach may not be pleasant for some to contemplate, but the alternative is more personal and national mourning, as is now being experienced in Norway.
I had to stop myself from putting it up online under the headline "Hello Mother, Hello Father, Here I am at Camp Utoeya." His idiot idea doesn't deserve a serious headline but I couldn't go that far for a joke.
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Jul 27, 2011 00:40
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- Saint Sputnik
- Apr 1, 2007
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Tyrannosaurs in P-51 Volkswagens!
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Cal wrote again today about how Norwegians should be armed to the teeth. I'm starting to think he gets his paycheck from the NRA or something.
quote:How long would the Norway gunman have lasted in Texas or any state where concealed-carry laws are on the books? I ran a survey while on a cruise: in Texas, 3 minutes; in Montana, 7 to 8 minutes; in Arizona, 2 minutes; and in Nevada, 3 to 5 minutes.
Had Norway not surrendered to the anti-self-defense nuts, and allowed Norwegians to protect themselves by legally carrying guns, the massacre might well have been prevented. There’s a lot of truth in the old adage that if guns are outlawed only outlaws will carry guns.
That was certainly true in Norway where Anders Breivik, a lone gunman, launched his assault on youth campers of Utoya Island. According to press reports he fully expected Norway’s special forces to swoop down and stop him at any minute. It didn’t happen. Faced with unarmed victims he was given plenty of time to kill 68 innocent people who could not defend themselves. Had just one of them been armed, Breivik could have been stopped dead and lives would have been spared.
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History teaches us that governments faced with an armed citizenry are restrained from usurping the rights of individuals. It is thus no surprise that governments which seek to exercise dictatorial powers over their citizens inevitably seek to restrict of outlaw gun ownership by their citizenry.
In an interview with the University of Chicago, Lott said that states with the largest increases in gun ownership also have the largest drops in violent crimes. Thirty-one states now have such laws – called “shall-issue” laws. These laws allow adults the right to carry concealed handguns if they do not have a criminal record or a history of significant mental illness.
I also loving love how he completely ignores Norway's extremely low violent crime rate under gun restriction laws.
(Also holy poo poo, according to this, 1.3 million registered guns are in the hands of only 300k Norwegians?)
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Jul 27, 2011 18:12
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- Saint Sputnik
- Apr 1, 2007
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Tyrannosaurs in P-51 Volkswagens!
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Adding to the confusion and unlikelihood anyone would have shot back: Breivik was dressed as a cop. I want to see someone start advocating making cops illegal in light of that.
I was wrong about Cal Thomas writing a second pro-gun article yesterday, that was Michael "did I mention my dad was Ronald?" Reagan. But here's Cal's article today:
quote:Texas Republican governor and potential presidential candidate Rick Perry will headline a “Call to Prayer for a Nation in Crisis” on Aug. 6 at Reliant Stadium in Houston.
The ACLU of Texas and liberals are predictably upset.
Liberals aren’t against prayer, so long as it advances a secular earthly agenda. While wringing their hands and even threatening legal action against the Aug. 6 gathering (the prohibition of which would violate the freedom of assembly, as well as the free exercise of religion clauses of the First Amendment), the ACLU of Texas and its fellow ideological travelers have said nothing about another prayer meeting that took place last week in the White House.
Here is how Jim Wallis of the liberal Christian magazine “Sojourners” described that meeting on his website: “I, along with 11 other national faith leaders, met with President Obama and senior White House staff for 40 minutes. We were representing the Circle of Protection, which formed in a commitment to defend the poor in the budget debates. Sitting in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, we opened in prayer, grasping hands across the table, and read scripture together. We reminded ourselves that people of faith must evaluate big decisions on issues like a budget by how they impact the most vulnerable.”
Wallis says President Obama mentioned a passage from Matthew 25 where Jesus is talking about “inasmuch as you’ve done it unto the least of these, you’ve done it also unto me.” There is no indication that Jesus commanded government to be the primary caregiver for the poor. His commission was for those who followed Him to do it, because His objective was not only to fill empty stomachs, but also to fill empty souls. The debate about the role of government vs. the role of the church has long been a tension point between conservatives and liberals in religious circles.
If this had been a prayer meeting hosted by conservative evangelical leaders with President George W. Bush in attendance and the prayers were about conservative social policies, one can safely predict how liberals would have reacted. But since this was about maintaining government spending for social programs favored by liberals, these prayers were no problem for them.
Who are the poor? Are they a perpetual underclass that never changes? Are they worse off, or better off than they were in the ‘60s when the “War on Poverty” began, a war that has lasted longer than the one in Afghanistan, which is often described as America’s “longest war”? A new report on poverty by The Heritage Foundation has some revealing facts.
Compiled by Robert Rector and Rachel Sheffield, “Air Conditioning, Cable TV, and an Xbox: What is Poverty in the United States Today?” references the U.S. Census Bureau, which says the poor population in 2009 was 14.3 percent, five percentage points lower than in 1964 when Lyndon Johnson announced a “War on Poverty.” Today’s poor, however, have a far different profile than they did back then.
Rector and Sheffield note: “The average household defined as poor by the government (is) equipped with air conditioning and cable TV. The family had a car ... two color televisions, a DVD player, and a VCR. If there were children in the home (especially boys), the family had a game system, such as an Xbox or PlayStation. ... The typical poor American had more living space than the average European. ... Poor boys today at ages 18 and 19 are actually taller and heavier than middle-class boys of similar age in the late 1950s, and are a full one inch taller and 10 pounds heavier than American soldiers who fought in World War II.”
Both liberals and conservatives claim to pray to the same God, but for different results. Abraham Lincoln noted this conflict in his Second Inaugural Address: “Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God; and each invokes His aid against the other. ... The prayers of both could not be answered.”
Perhaps what’s needed is less praying for results favorable to one side and more listening to what the One to whom each side is praying has already said.
Literally "gently caress the poor, God doesn't even want you to bother praying for them."
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Jul 28, 2011 18:09
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- Saint Sputnik
- Apr 1, 2007
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Tyrannosaurs in P-51 Volkswagens!
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Oh Cal, I hope you get your head bashed in.
Cal Thomas posted:PORTSTEWART, Northern Ireland – Some have compared the riots in the UK to the London Blitz. It’s a flawed comparison. The strategic bombing of London in 1940 came from an external enemy, Nazi Germany. Enemies from within are carrying out the free-for-all that began in Tottenham, England, on Saturday – quickly spreading to London and other parts of the UK – following the shooting death of suspected gang member Mark Duggan by Metropolitan Police.
Theresa May, the British home secretary, rejected calls for water cannons and more forceful methods to help overwhelmed police quell the chaos. Interviewed on Sky News May said, “The way we police in Britain is not through use of water cannon. The way we police in Britain is through consent of communities.” If that sounds completely feckless, that’s because it is.
Businesses have been wiped out. Untold numbers of jobs have been lost. Did the community “consent” to that? If even a few shop owners had been armed, perhaps these products of the British welfare, entitlement and envy state might have thought twice about their thuggish behavior. Unfortunately, gun laws in Britain are strict, owners must be licensed and self-defense can be difficult to prove. Northern Ireland, while also part of the UK, has more liberal gun ownership laws and the bar to prove self-defense is much lower, perhaps because of the history of violence in the country before the peace agreement. There has been no rioting in Ireland, Scotland or Wales.
Prime Minister David Cameron recalled Parliament from its summer session to discuss the situation and to present a “united” front. But that, along with condemnations “in the strongest terms” won’t address the real problem, which many Britons may not wish to confront.
The problem in Britain, and increasingly in America, is moral and spiritual, not economic and political. British history and values are no longer being adequately taught in the UK for fear a sense of super-nationalism might be conveyed. This at a time when no nation is to be considered superior to any other, a view expressed by President Obama.
According to a 2007 research report on church attendance in the UK from Tearfund, a UK Christian relief and development agency, just “fifteen percent of UK adults go to church at least once a month.” BBC News reports that according to a 2001 Census survey, “a fifth of children are in lone-parent families ... 91 percent of these families headed by mother” and there is “a minority of married couples for the first time – 45 percent of the population versus 64 percent in 1981.” So when the government calls on parents to be more vigilant about the whereabouts of their teenagers, the likelihood there are enough stable two-parent households who care enough to do so is not encouraging.
If civility, right and wrong, personal responsibility and accountability and the right to life, liberty and personal property are not values worthy of being passed on to the next generation, then their opposites will be taught by default. Children don’t “catch” goodness and right behavior as they do a cold. Their natural tendency is to do wrong. The goal of discipline is to teach them to do right. The London riots are the extreme outcome when “right” is no longer defined.
When a society refuses to impose a moral code in its schools, homes and culture, pandemonium is the result – think Detroit, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C. Multiply that several times and you have the lawlessness that has swept Britain with greater force than its mad cow disease scare.
“This was not an angry crowd; this was a greedy crowd,” said Chris Sims, chief constable of West Midlands police. One could see that from the TV shots of women trying on clothes and shoes before stealing them and men ripping flat-screen TVs off walls and smashing windows and jewelry cases.
There’s a TV program called “Sons of Anarchy.” It is fiction. These rioters are the real sons (and daughters) of anarchy and it will take more than political condemnations to repair the damage they’ve caused. Seventy years ago, the London Blitz forged a national unity in Britain. Where’s that unity today?
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Aug 12, 2011 02:27
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- Saint Sputnik
- Apr 1, 2007
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Tyrannosaurs in P-51 Volkswagens!
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Thanks for reminding me what a piece of poo poo you are Jay Ambrose.
quote:The misinformation was so great in a recent guest op-ed n the Denver Post that it could not have been manufactured by one person alone. It took a consumer group organizer, a member of the Sierra Club and a trouper from George Soros’s MoveOn.org to misrepresent a salvational technology known as fracking as a weapon of mass destruction.
You better have a cardiologist standing by, for what this committee said was that fracking has “caused livestock and crops to die from tainted water, people in small towns to black out and develop headaches from foul air, and flames to explode from kitchen taps.”
My apologies to those of you already reeling in terror, but there is more. The chemicals used in fracking can cause cancer and heart disease.
Or maybe not. Maybe, by now, you have grown accustomed to the evangelical, fundamentalist faith of radical environmentalism. Maybe you would like to visit with science and actual experience before you go into 911 mode, screaming into the phone that the cops had better, by heavens, get to those fracking sites with guns drawn.
Let’s set the record straight by first talking about what fracking is, namely, hydraulic fracturing, a means of forcing fissures in hard rock to let oil or natural gas seep its way to a well. The 64-year-old vertical technique using mostly water and sand under high pressure has been employed in about a million wells with no hullabaloo.
Something just a decade old has been added – similarly safe horizontal fracking. It allows vast reaching out in a bunch of different directions while taking up hardly any space above ground. What we get is the inexpensive, environmentally sound snatching of enough energy from deep-down solid stone to make us free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty, free at last.
It’s hard to overstate what’s happened. Especially with the new access to U.S. mother lodes of natural gas that is now a cheaper source of energy than anything else, we have taken a giant step toward energy independence. By itself, one fracking area in the East is said to have as much energy as Saudi Arabia.citation needed Tons more jobs are being created nationally. A truly significant reduction in greenhouse gases should result,citation needed along with a significant reduction in what it costs to make this industrialized, motorized nation go.
So does fracking murder cows? Bogus claim. For that to happen, you can learn from several articles, much diluted chemicals used in tiny amounts would have to rise thousands of feet and pass through solid rock without benefit of fracking to reach aquifers above. And if you say that sounds easy, listen to an EPA administrator quoted as saying fracking has never been shown to poison water. The EPA also concluded in a study that the chemicals pose no threat to human health.citation needed
And even before fracking was a fact, kitchen taps have exploded from methane gas tucked in spots close to homes by nature herself, no help needed. Fracking has never been shown to be responsible.
The Denver Post op-ed is a tiny part of the campaign now being waged nationally by large numbers of other eco religionists and those they’ve influenced, but then there is actual research refuting the shock-and-awe assault on the civic psyche.
Review activist assertions, but then if you have time, do what I did – chat with an experienced geologist, check with a couple of other experts, find out through reading a dozen and more articles what the data truly reveal and tune in on some sane comment, such as a Denver Post staff columnist citing hard evidence of alert regulation in Colorado.
From varied written testimony, it appears alert in the rest of the nation, too, and should be because experts do agree such matters as well coverings can be and have been an issue. Care is obviously needed, but don’t feel you need to call the cops.
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Aug 23, 2011 01:45
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- Saint Sputnik
- Apr 1, 2007
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Tyrannosaurs in P-51 Volkswagens!
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Here's a couple retarded opinions, written in to the paper I used to work for. Background: Goshen College, largely Mennonite, decided to play America the Beautiful before sporting events instead of the Star-Spangled Banner, on the grounds that it's a warlike song. Good on them, I thought. I read an essay years ago that stuck with me, about how warlike language permeates American culture.
And it's not even like they did away with any patriotic song altogether; most people bitching about it probably don't know the difference between the two songs.
quote:Anthem action ‘appalling’
I am appalled by the powers that be at Goshen College banning the playing of the national anthem at sporting events.
As a veteran, I was at first sickened by what I heard and then read. And then I considered the source — a liberal arts college.
Chances are none of the far-left-leaning liberal people ever served their country anyway, so how could they understand the importance of our American flag and our national anthem?
Thank God I don’t have children. I don’t know what I would do if one of them wanted to go to Goshen.
— Douglas Grant
Bella Vista, Ark.
quote:GC should worry about ‘filth’
I always thought Mennonites support America and were proud to be Americans. I’d also thought college administrators were open-minded and allowed their students the freedom to think for themselves.
I’m most disappointed to hear that Goshen’s administration supports stifling freedom and is critical of our national anthem. They would better serve their students and the county by banning some of the filth their students see on TV and online. This revelation convinces me that academics are destroying our country and our freedoms by allowing filth while banning something like our national anthem.
— Linda Ferguson
Greenbriar, Ark.
No idea why two people from Arkansas are writing in to an Indiana paper either.
e: On the other hand, the guy who writes in to my current paper most often is a little-known artist who used to go by the name A. Wyatt Mann.
Saint Sputnik fucked around with this message at 02:42 on Aug 30, 2011
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Aug 30, 2011 02:39
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- Saint Sputnik
- Apr 1, 2007
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Tyrannosaurs in P-51 Volkswagens!
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Big news: Tom Metzger, aka racist cartoonist A. Wyatt Mann, is a 9/11 conspiracy theorist.
quote:
Dear editor,
Why did the news agencies report that WTC 7 collapsed almost half an hour before it did, even though it was not hit by a plane, only had a few floors on fire, and gave no indication that it was in any serious danger?
Why do we still believe the tale of the 19 hijackers when so many of the accused hijackers showed up alive within days? And why do we still believe the fable of the 19 hijackers when the FBI admitted that they are not sure about either the identity of the hijackers or if there were any hijackers at all?
Why was WTC 7 rebuilt, reopened and reoccupied with no press attention? Wouldn’t this be an important victory in American resolve and perseverance?
Why were the NORAD rules changed for the first time several weeks prior to 9/11, taking responsibility/authority for shooting down hijacked planes away from NORAD military command for the first time in its history, and given to a civilian, Donald Rumsfeld, and then returned to NORAD the day after 9/11?
Why would hijackers planning on attacking N.Y. and Washington, D.C., drive from Florida, pass both D.C. and N.Y., and drive all the way to Maine and hinge this huge operation on a connecting flight from Maine to Boston, where we are told they hijacked their plane? Why wouldn’t they fly out of any of the airports that are visible from their targets, like Newark, La Guardia or JFK ... or even some of the smaller local airports that would have given them a clear easy path to their target and reduce the amount of time that our air defense systems would have to stop them?
Who placed all of those put options on the airlines just prior to the event, as if they knew that the stock prices on those specific airlines would lose a huge amount of value?
Why did George W. Bush’s Secret Service detail not rush the president to safety when it was evident that the nation was under attack? If the nation was under attack, and they did not know the scope of the attack, and the president’s location was known, how did they not worry about being attacked in Florida? Why did they act as if they knew that there was no threat? And why, when our nation was under attack, did the president not rush into action? If you say he was concerned about upsetting the children, you are the ultimate apologist. He could have told them that his mommy was on the phone and he had to see what she wanted. Our county was supposedly being attacked and he/they waited 20 minutes before they moved. This is the smoking gun of smoking guns.
Why did the FBI never list Osama bin Laden as being wanted for 9/11? Actually, we know this one ... because they admitted that they had no evidence linking him to the event.
Why was their molten metal flowing under the wreckage of the WTC for months? No jet fuel can melt metal, and nothing explainable could melt that much metal and keep it hot enough to remain molten for a month.
How did a passport of one of the so-called hijackers make it through the huge fireball and end up on the street?
Why have photos from the 80+ cameras confiscated at the Pentagon never been released?
Why did the airplane that supposedly crashed at Shanksville vaporize so that nothing remained, not bodies, not luggage, not metal – nothing – for the first time in aviation history? However, we are told that even though the plane vaporized at Shanksville, a hand-written note from a hijacker was found.
Think about it ... it’s really time to think about it.
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Sep 12, 2011 18:08
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- Saint Sputnik
- Apr 1, 2007
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Tyrannosaurs in P-51 Volkswagens!
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Be careful guys granting human rights to Palestinians will lead straight to Holocaust II: Electric Boogaloo.
Cal Thomas posted:
The world -- or at least the large part of it that hates Israel and wishes it would go away -- moves a step nearer that goal this week when the United Nations votes on whether to recognize a Palestinian state. The vote violates the Declaration of Principles signed by the PLO in 1993, which committed the terrorist group and precursor to the Palestinian Authority to direct negotiations with Israel over a future state. This violation is further evidence the Palestinian side cannot be trusted to live up to signed agreements and promises. Jerusalem Post columnist Caroline Glick rightly calls the prospective UN vote "diplomatic aggression."
Israel -- like the Jewish people for centuries -- has become the fall guy for people who prefer their anti-Semitism cloaked in diplomatic niceties. The Palestinians could have peace any time they wish and probably a state, too, if they acknowledged Israel's right to exist and practiced verbal, religious and military disarmament. One has a right to question the veracity of a people who claim they want peace, while remaining active in ideological, theological and military warfare aimed at its publicly stated objective: the eradication of the Jewish state.
The United States has pledged to veto the Palestinian Authority's membership application if it comes before the U.N. Security Council, but the General Assembly is another matter. There only a majority vote would be needed to grant the Palestinian government permanent observer status. From that point forward it would be death by a thousand diplomatic cuts until Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad finally decides to fulfill his own prophecy and drop a nuclear bomb on Jerusalem or Tel Aviv. Following that horror, European and American diplomats will wring their hands and say it would not have happened had Israel been more "flexible" and ceded additional territory.
Before Israel is allowed to disappear again (as Palestinian maps and school textbooks already depict) and the Jews who survive are sent into exile (who would take them?), it is worth noting a few of the numerous contributions Israel has made to the world, compared to what the Arab-Muslim-Palestinian culture has contributed.
This tiny land with less than 1/1,000th of the world's population, has produced innovative scientists that have contributed to cellphone, computer and medical technology, including the development of "a disposable colonoscopic camera that makes most of the discomfort surrounding colonoscopies obsolete," discovery of "the molecular trigger that causes psoriasis," as well as "the first large-scale solar power plant -- now working in California's Mojave Desert." Read about many more Israeli contributions to the world at http://www.israel21c.org/didyouknow/didyouknow.
quote:
These innovations, and many others, took place while Israel was engaged in wars, suffering terrorist attacks from enemies who seek its destruction and spending more per capita on its defense than any other country.
If Israel were to be made even more vulnerable and possibly eradicated by unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state, the moral stain on the West would be a "mark of Cain" for generations to come. What other nation, what other people, would the so-called "civilized" world allow to be targeted for annihilation like Israel has been?
quote:Israel's Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, will come to the UN to deliver a speech on the same day Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas is scheduled to give his speech calling for the body to support Palestinian statehood. "The General Assembly is not a place where Israel usually receives a fair hearing," Netanyahu said last week, "but I still decided to tell the truth before anyone who would like to hear it."
The UN can't handle the truth and few member states will like hearing it. The blood of the Jewish people will be on their hands if they continue to empower individuals and nations whose goal is to create Holocaust II and a "Palestine" without Jews.
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Sep 20, 2011 18:20
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- Saint Sputnik
- Apr 1, 2007
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Tyrannosaurs in P-51 Volkswagens!
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Bruce Leroy posted:
Don't forget loyalty oaths for any Arab Israeli citizens.
Yeah, you'd think they'd have some sympathy but there's too much "othering" because they are brown and Muslim and, more importantly, they are too entrenched with Israel as an ally, especially for the evangelical Christians who view Israel as just one more step to their crazy eschatology.
Reminds me what a loving birdbrain Marlin Stutzman is, a congressman from my area.
quote:On a recent trip to Israel, Stutzman said he saw a model of growing business.
“Their economy is moving so fast,” said Stutzman. “It was more of a socialist mentality that started Israel with Russian Jews coming from the Soviet Union. But then they started watching us and started to pattern their values after American values.”
Stutzman said that shift has led to more start-up companies in Israel than China, India and Great Britain combined.
“Our founding fathers looked to Israel, looked to the Old Testament,” said Stutzman.
Stutzman also took Obama to task for suggesting the country move back to its 1967 borders. Stutzman said it was hard enough for Israel to defend itself with the small amount of land it has currently.
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Sep 21, 2011 13:24
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- Saint Sputnik
- Apr 1, 2007
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Tyrannosaurs in P-51 Volkswagens!
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That's some pretty low poo poo, I mean drat.
quote:Just consider George Soros and the Koch brothers. They are listed high on the Forbes 400 list, but Soros funds Democratic campaigns, while the Koches helped foment the tea party revolution. Income can’t be used to predict political opinion. In 2008, for example, Obama won the votes of 60 percent of those with a family income under $50,000 and 52 percent of those earning more than than $200,000. McCain carried the middle class.
See boys and girls rich people can buy hard-rightists and they can buy insanely hard-rightists, what a diverse bunch!
e: seriously just the way the bolded part is worded. Ughhh
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Sep 24, 2011 07:57
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- Saint Sputnik
- Apr 1, 2007
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Tyrannosaurs in P-51 Volkswagens!
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I'm gonna interrupt y'all here with some A-grade horseshit from my man Cal.
quote:
“Another one bites the dust
And another one gone, and another one gone
Another one bites the dust.” – Queen
Forgive me if I don’t join the State Department, American officials and world leaders in their euphoric Hallelujah Chorus celebrating the demise of Libya’s Moammar Gadhafi. Oh, I’m happy he’s dead, but I have as much faith that things will change for the better in Libya as I do in the Great Pumpkin rising from the pumpkin patch on Halloween night (sorry, Linus).
“Gadhafi’s Death Ushers in New Era,” read the headline in last Friday’s usually sober Wall Street Journal. “West Hails a Turning Point...,” read the sub-headline. The question is, or should be: a turning to what? As Richard Boudreaux sensibly wrote in the Journal, “(Gadhafi) leaves a nation torn by war, devoid of civic institutions and difficult to govern.” What can be built on that rubble when Libyans have no history of practicing any of the values the West holds dear? No functional nation can rise when it rests on such a weak foundation.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has dropped an additional $11 million on Libya ($135 million since the uprising began), no doubt borrowed from the Chinese since we don’t have that kind of money. Why do Democrats think money is the answer to everything? Let’s see if the rebels submit receipts and expense vouchers showing what they spent. It’s a safe bet much of it will go down the rat hole of corruption, as our money has in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
We have been assured by various sources throughout the misnamed “Arab Spring” that these revolutionaries are genuine democrats, who want free elections and will guarantee at least some rights (if not equal ones) for women, religious minorities and perhaps even political opponents. But the attacks by Muslims on Coptic Christians and their churches in Egypt ought to be a warning sign that an Egyptian (and Libyan) version of America is unlikely to bloom in such putrid soil.
Turkey was supposed to be the shining light of 21st-century Islam, a beacon to the rest of the Muslim world. Instead, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been turning more and more to Islam’s conservative wing while rebuffing Israel and behaving in ways not befitting a U.S. ally or member of NATO.
In Tunisia, where the Arab uprisings began, an election was recently held. Initial returns indicate that a once-banned Islamist party, Ennahda, may have won a majority.
And Afghanistan isn’t turning out as many had hoped. The U.S. State Department reports “there is not a single, public Christian church left in Afghanistan,” the last one having been razed in March 2010. In March 2011 a Congressional Research Service report showed that Afghanistan has cost American taxpayers more than $440 billion (and counting), 1,700 lives (and counting) and the country is as intolerant of any faith other than Islam as when it was run by the Taliban. This is progress?
If real progress is to be made in Libya toward representative democracy, women’s rights, religious pluralism, economic stability and diplomatic cooperation with the West, the first step must be to rewrite the National Transition Council’s draft constitution. As I wrote in August following Gadhafi’s ouster, Article 1 tells us all where the rebel leadership wants to take the country: “Islam is the religion of the State and the principal source of legislation is Islamic Jurisprudence (Sharia).”
Should Libya’s new leaders approve a constitution without that clause, if they keep the Muslim Brotherhood at bay – which is now active in other Arab nations experiencing upheaval – and if they turn toward the West for more than economic aid, embracing the most fundamental of human rights, I will move from pessimism to guarded optimism. Confidence isn’t warranted when a headline in the London Daily Telegraph says, “Interim (Libyan) ruler unveils more radical than expected plans for Islamic law.” Than expected? What are they drinking?
I remain a skeptic that Libya is capable of heading in a direction that improves the lives of its people, aligns itself with the U.S. and our interests and lessens tensions in the region.
But I am open to evidence to the contrary, if it’s not based on wishful thinking.
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Oct 25, 2011 23:34
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- Saint Sputnik
- Apr 1, 2007
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Tyrannosaurs in P-51 Volkswagens!
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Bruce Leroy posted:
Personally, I want all this sexual harassment stuff about Herman Cain to go away so that we can get back to focusing on all the important things, like how he:
-wants to fatally electrocute Mexicans who try to cross the border
-depending on what audience he's speaking to, will either not appoint any Muslims to his presidential cabinet, may appoint them but will require some kind of kind of loyalty oath or litmus test, or appoint them if they are qualified with no other requirements (that last one only comes out when people call him on his bullshit)
-thinks gays are perverted sinners and homosexuality is a choice, but the onus is on everyone else to prove that it isn't a choice (rather than that he has to prove it is)
-has a flat tax plan that obviously favors the wealthy and punishes the poor and middle class, so he has to add in plenty of credits and exemptions, which inherently makes it not a flat tax
I want Cain's campaign to crash and burn for the right reasons, i.e. that he's grossly unqualified to be president and holds terrible beliefs and opinions, which are then spewed out in comically unprofessional bullshit.
"Just so I can clarify this for the media, this may be a breaking news announcement for the media: I am the Koch brothers' brother from another mother. Yes. I'm their brother from another mother! And proud of it!"
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Nov 7, 2011 23:14
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- Saint Sputnik
- Apr 1, 2007
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Tyrannosaurs in P-51 Volkswagens!
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I couldn't even finish this. Eat poo poo Susan Brown.
quote:As I write, the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement’s popularity is dropping just about as rapidly as the movement’s masses are being kicked out of the places across the country they’ve all but destroyed. What was originally painted as an innocent expression of freedom of speech quickly morphed into a violent temper-tantrum against all forms of normal society generally, and banks and financial institutions specifically.
Unlike the Tea Party movement which is largely responsible for changing the nature of the debate in Washington, and in 2010, changing the face of Congress, OWS will most likely have zero impact on the political process due to lack of substance and provocative style.
For a short season, the silent majority caught liberals by surprise when they rose to the occasion and publicly expressed their views against Obamacare and other far-left policies. They learned in short order that protests alone were useless having fallen on the deaf ears of a Democratic Party-controlled Washington. Henceforward Tea Partiers became involved in the political process. While there are whispers around Washington suggesting the Tea Party has seemingly lost its punch, it would be wise to remember who controlled the debt ceiling debate a few months back.
I genuinely feel sorry for so many of the OWS protestors who still haven’t a clue that they were played like pawns on a grand liberal chessboard by those who care little about financial inequality. Liberals are quick to come alongside protestors and claim solidarity, but fail to mention they are responsible for much of the mess the protestors are marching against. It’s all about political power — and naive, disenfranchised youth, brainwashed by college professors, bought into the whole “99 percent” marketing ploy.
The OWS movement was painted to portray protestors as representative of “the 99 percent” of Americans, but, evidently the paint was not permanent. After untold reports of public nudity, orgies and masturbating, personal property defecation, drug overdoses, robberies and rapes, Americans have discovered, with immense relief and much thanksgiving that these occupiers are not at all like the rest of us.
I can only imagine the protestors originally wanted to create some sort of “American Spring” where CEOs and Wall Street Bankers across the country turned in their resignation under duress and gave in to the protestor’s demands. Then what? Are the same dredlocked do-gooders going to hold a shareholder’s meeting to discuss the way ahead? Not likely. Likewise, during the Arab Spring protests, protestors fought for change, but when it arrived they didn’t have a clue what to do with it. As I’ve watched the coverage of the Occupy protests, I have tried to gleam some sort of common thread binding them all together, and all I can come up with is anger. But to what end? Anger without purpose is dangerous.
Democrat leaders seemed to hope the OWS movement would sweep across the country and not fizzle out as it has. What they fail to understand is protests absent a purpose, don’t accomplish anything. There’s no lasting energy. The Civil Rights movement had a singular focus which captivated the nation, and as a result, the movement affected a change in national policy. Similarly, the Tea Party movement succeeded in changing the political focus in the country to fiscal responsibility and smaller government. The Occupy movement has only succeeded to annoy and disrupt the lives of innocent people who happen to make a living in the vicinity of the Occupy parks, and expose the underbelly of the Left as to who they really are — agitators.
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Dec 4, 2011 23:37
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- Saint Sputnik
- Apr 1, 2007
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Reading Star Parker is like reading a high school libertarian or something, whose folks let her stay up late to watch FNC and chat about it over dinner and she wants to sound cool too
Star Parker posted:
According to a new Pew Research Center survey, 66 percent of respondents agree that there are “very strong” or “strong” conflicts between rich and poor in America. This is up from 47 percent that agreed with this two years ago.
In a Gallup poll last October, 52 percent said they trust the “ideas and opinions” of President Barack Obama for creating jobs compared to 45 percent that said they trust executives of major corporations.
The point is, sadly, there is mistrust in America about the very thing that any conservative will tell you is the mother’s milk of our country – freedom and free enterprise.
Mistrust in our country about free enterprise has always been a problem but never more than now.
Why? Two important reasons.
First, we have never had a left-wing ideologue occupying the White House like we have today. The man is serious and committed.
He told Americans he would change the country, and change it he has.
Now he is about to run for a second term with no pretensions about who he is. He is going to run on a platform of so-called fairness and against what he will label unbridled, merciless capitalism.
Republicans will have their work cut out to defend business and freedom against this onslaught, particularly in today’s environment of mistrust about these very things.
Second, our nation is at a genuine crossroads. Even if we could scale back the trillions in new spending that Obama has larded into our federal budget, we would still be in trouble.
Government has taken over major parts of American life and to regain our vitality, significant reforms must be made.
Even if Obamacare is repealed, American health care is still in crisis. We’ll need creative market-based reforms to alter the way Americans get their health care.
Our entitlement morass can only be fixed with market-based reforms that involve phase out of government and phase in of ownership and choice.
Reforms of major areas of American life where Americans have grown accustomed to the heavy hand of government will be impossible if a large percentage of our population is mistrustful of free markets and business.
To get this kind of change, leadership that inspires trust in free enterprise is essential.
There’s good reason for skepticism when former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney showcases his business background as the reason he will inspire this kind of trust.
America’s biggest and most powerful businesses are notoriously unreliable defenders of free markets. They have a deserved reputation for being unprincipled.
Take Romney’s own former company Bain.
Among the top 100 contributors to each member of Congress in each election since 2000, of the 29 members where Bain appears in these top 100, 26 are Democrats.
Bain executives generously supported champions of big government including former Rep. Anthony Weiner of New York, Sen. Al Franken of Minnesota, Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts and the late Sen. Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts.
Executive ranks of Bain, the bastion of capitalism that Romney led for 25 years, are populated by left-wing Democrats.
Businessmen may roll their eyes when Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C., former head of the Congressional Black Caucus, says, as he did the other day, that one of America’s most notorious crooks, Bernie Madoff, did what he did “in the name of capitalism.”
But, unfortunately, Clyburn expresses the sentiments of many blacks.
And corporate America enables this through the millions it pours into left-wing organizations – the Congressional Black Caucus, the NAACP and the National Urban League.
American big businessmen are generally about expediency, not principles.
Expedient better describes Romney than moderate or conservative.
He may be saying what sounds good now. But it’s the expedient thing to do.
Unprincipled business leaders helped lead us into the mess we’re in today.
More expediency is not going to get us out of it. Only principled leadership that inspires trust in free enterprise and capitalism will.
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Jan 17, 2012 04:44
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- Saint Sputnik
- Apr 1, 2007
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Tyrannosaurs in P-51 Volkswagens!
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Cal Thomas falls all over himself today to reinforce the right's pro-rich, anti-poor spin on the Bible
quote:For 60 years the National Prayer Breakfast has been a nonpolitical event where speakers put aside their earthly biases and focus on a Higher Authority. Last Thursday, President Obama departed from that tradition to claim the endorsement of Jesus for raising taxes. It beat the endorsement of Mitt Romney by Donald Trump.
In his remarks, the president quoted Luke 12:48: “From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked.” The president sees this verse as a command for him to raise taxes on the successful so the money can be “spread around” to the less successful. If the president’s interpretation of this verse sounds a little like Karl Marx, it should. Marx said, “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.”
The president took a quote that was meant to mean something else and twisted it to serve his political ends. He took a verse out of context, created a pretext and then preached on politics. A conservative spinner might also wrongly use Matthew 13:12 to justify cutting taxes. That verse says: “Whoever has will be given more, and he will have an abundance.”
Dr. Robert Norris, senior pastor of Fourth Presbyterian Church in Bethesda, Md., (where I attend) said in response to what I suggested to him was the president’s flawed exegesis, “There is an accountability we have for all that we have been given. We are held personally responsible by God and not man for what is entrusted to us. The knowledge, abilities and resources we have come from Him and he holds us accountable for their use.” The problem comes when government seeks to replace God and this was the attitude conveyed in the president’s remarks.
The religious and even secular left commends religion when it suits their earthly agenda, but opposes religious instruction when it comes to issues such as abortion and same-sex marriage.
The absence of any editorials in major newspapers critical of the president’s mixing of church and state and the virtual silence of activist groups like the ACLU and People for the American Way testifies to this point. Americans United for the Separation of Church and State criticized the prayer breakfast, but not the misinterpretation of Scripture, though it did say most of the president’s remarks were “election-season boilerplate.”
The president claimed Muslims, Jews and even secular sources like Plato also admonish us to have “consideration for others.” True enough, but that isn’t a mandate for government to be our primary keeper so we “shall not want.”
The verse the president quoted, in context, differs from the spin he placed on it. True charity has a purpose beyond the satisfaction of physical needs. Its objective is to change hearts so that whatever is making someone poor will help them become less so. Meeting physical needs is the primary work of the church and individuals, not government, which changes no heart and does a poor job of making people self-sustaining. Government should be a last resort, not a first resource.
The social gospel is not new to this president. It is largely a creation of 20th-century Protestants who believed in applying “Christian principles” to rectify society’s problems. Deeds quickly supplanted faith, evolving into a “works salvation” theology, which says if you do enough good works, God will be pleased and let you into Heaven when you die. This contradicts biblical teaching that it is by faith and not works that one is saved from judgment (Ephesians 2:8-9). Some verses teach works as an extension of faith, revealing its depth and seriousness, but they equally teach that works without faith in Jesus is not enough. This is traditional Christian theology. Accept it, or not, but the president is mistaken when he interprets Scripture to achieve his political goals.
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Feb 7, 2012 16:48
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- Saint Sputnik
- Apr 1, 2007
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Tyrannosaurs in P-51 Volkswagens!
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I was hoping Cal Thomas would be a little bit less of a shithead after he wrote a column apologizing to Rachel Maddow ("I think she's the best argument in favor of her parents using contraception." I then added, "and all the rest of the crowd at MSNBC, too, for that matter").
Nooooope!
Black (liberal) history month posted:
Black History Month honors the achievements of African Americans throughout history and that is a good thing. Unfortunately, a reliance on family and faith, which allowed many African Americans to survive the horrors of Reconstruction, racial injustice and violent acts of discrimination, has become a casualty of the modern welfare state, which has contributed to the destruction of family cohesion, supplanted faith in God with faith in government and fashioned many African-Americans into a Democratic voting bloc that has not improved the lot of the impoverished among them.
While African-American history is important, the way it is most often presented through a liberal political lens skews the contributions and examples of African Americans who do not toe the liberal line. One especially sees this in the civil rights establishment’s response to Justice Clarence Thomas and more recently to Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.)
West took to the floor of the House last week to praise what he called the Republican Party’s contributions to civil rights. It is a history practically unknown among many African Americans, who have been taught that Republicans are racist and care nothing about black empowerment. When examples to the contrary are presented to them, they often call white Republicans disparaging names and vilify Black Republicans as insufficiently black.
The Republican Party, not the Democratic Party, West asserted, has consistently fought for individual freedom over the last 150 years. He said Democratic “handouts” to the poor have resulted in a “modern form of slavery.” Republicans, he said, “reject the idea of the safety net becoming a hammock.”
West noted that following Republican Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, Republicans supported the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution, which ended slavery, provided for equal protection under the law and gave voting rights to blacks.
West added, “It was the Republican-controlled 39th Congress that established the Buffalo Soldiers,” an African-American regiment of the U.S. Army, and that it was President Ulysses S. Grant who signed into law the Civil Rights Act of 1875. Republican Calvin Coolidge spoke out in favor of civil rights. The late Republican Congressman Jack Kemp promoted “enterprise zones” in depressed urban neighborhoods.
Republican George W. Bush, West said, “signed an omnibus bill that included a voucher program for school children…,” establishing school choice in Washington, D.C. President Barack Obama announced there would be no new funding for the program in his current budget, even though it’s enormously popular with poor African-American parents, who see school choice as fundamental to their child’s success. Apparently, the president favors teachers’ unions over poor schoolchildren.
More history: The Ku Klux Klan was founded by a group of Southern Democrats; white Democratic politicians in the South tried to derail civil rights legislation; white Alabama Governor George C. Wallace stood in a schoolhouse door to keep African-American students out; the late West Virginia Democratic Senator Robert Byrd was a former member of the KKK. Byrd eventually recanted his racist beliefs, but late in life still used the phrase “white n----r” in an interview.
West’s point is that those Democrats who claim to care so much for African Americans have done them a disservice by perpetuating the myth of Republican racism and addicting too many of them to a government check instead of liberating them through education and strong families.
According to a study by The Heritage Foundation, published in Investor’s Business Daily, “The American public’s dependence on the federal government shot up 23 percent in just two years under President Obama, with 67 million now relying on some federal program.” That involves money for housing, health, welfare, education and other programs that were “traditionally provided to needy people by local organizations and families.”
Of course, African Americans are not the only group represented in this number — there are poor Hispanics, poor whites, etc. And certainly not all vote Democratic. The fact is, more and more Americans are finding themselves relying on government. In many cases, they would work if there was work to be had; they would succeed if the road to success were a viable option.
The question for African Americans, however, particularly during Black History Month, is not about history at all. The question is: “Are better you off than you were 40 years ago?” By any objective measure, the answer for too many is “no.” That was West’s point. No wonder the liberal establishment wants to redistrict him out of Congress.
I'm at work and wouldn't be comfortable googling the KKK just now, but comparing either party now to what its members did 100 years ago is just asinine.
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Feb 21, 2012 17:19
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- Saint Sputnik
- Apr 1, 2007
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Tyrannosaurs in P-51 Volkswagens!
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Jay Ambrose still sucks
quote:Hoping to find at least one thing Barack Obama did right in his first several years as president, supporters say this lifeguard jumped in the water, swam out to where it’s deep and saved General Motors and Chrysler from drowning.
They don’t mention that another lifeguard got shoved aside, that the victims, while still afloat, are not on shore yet — or that Obama tied anchors to their feet.
Though it’s nowhere near a certainty, normal bankruptcy procedures might have rescued these companies already plagued by too much government, chiefly in the form of those misdirected, consumer-ignoring rules about fuel efficiency.
We can reasonably assume, however, that we would still have had an auto industry in the form of other companies if a normal Chapter 11 proceeding had taken precedence over politically advantageous, socialist intervention. And this way out would not then have perverted long-standing legal rights while unconstitutionally picking the pockets of the citizenry.
In its takeover — the government still owns more than a quarter of General Motors, is still owed billions and is still the boss you best not ignore — the Obama team stole from tacky, old bondholders and others to give to one of the industry’s foremost malefactors, the United Auto Workers.
We can respect the individual workers while noting their huffing, puffing organization had rendered Detroit near-lifeless with negotiated wages and benefits it had gradually been agreeing to roll back for the sake of having any wages and benefits at all.
Unions are buddies of Democrats, the source of votes galore, of campaign contributions galore, and so if Congress won’t go along with a deal that helps keep them in clover, forget Congress.
Forget, also, what the Troubled Asset Relief Program says about who can get what and just go ahead and give $60 billion to the auto industry. You will get away with it. President George W. Bush had already forked over $20 billion to the industry, and the Supreme Court was never, ever going to intervene in any of this.
GM was able to announce record profits, and that’s great: Long live GM, and don’t anyone mention the tsunami that set back its Japanese competition.
Someone might mention, however, that what the government gives, it can take away. As a Wall Street Journal editorial explains in making the whole situation splendidly clear, GM has happily agreed to go along with more demanding fuel efficiency standards, meaning it is going to be making fewer and fewer of the pickups and SUVs its customers want and trying to sell them more and more of the sedans they do not want.
There is no better example of this stupidity than the GM flop known as the Chevy Volt, a $40,000 electric-and-gas car that had a dangerous battery and that everyone and his cousin has shied away from purchasing despite government incentives to buy it and government subsidies without which it might cost a quarter of a million dollars. General Motors — some now call it Government Motors — has a solution to consumer reluctance. It wants higher federal taxes at the gas pump.
The glory that is Detroit won’t necessarily remain glorious for long, as much as even Obama critics must truly hope it will. For what the government gives, it can take away.
The government helped get the industry in trouble in the first place by fuel-standard requirements that cost them customers.
Shed those anchors, GM. Do what your business sense directs you to do, understanding that Big Brother is himself drowning in debt and may never again be able to swim your way.
My God that last bolded part, loving laugh.
WSJ's editorial he mentioned is here but what you probably want is this.
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