Climate Change's Latest Storm

It's been a good week for the future of Life as We Know It. First the keepers of the climate-science consensus admitted that the Himalayan glaciers are not on the verge of disappearing, as these columns pointed out last month. Now we've learned that there wasn't much science behind the claim, also trumpeted in the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 2007 report, that rising temperatures were leading to more-intense storms and more-expensive natural catastrophes.

This is good news for everyone, except perhaps the IPCC itself.
Read how the U.N. greatly exagerated findings, then used unpublished and unreviewed data. Shameful!!!  

What Does It Mean to Be A Conservative?

There is wide debate within the conservative movement over how differing ideologies can fall under one common category. Certain conservatives may doubt the legitimacy of others, but there are arguments for each view. The following list attempts to clarfy the discussion, focusing on conservative politics in the US. Some may feel the list falls short because conservatives can find themselves divided when attempting to describe themselves using these definitions. Admittedly, categories and definitions are subjective, but these are the most widely accepted.

1. Crunchy Conservative
National Review commentator Rod Dreher first coined the term "crunchy conservative" in 2006 to describe his personal ideology, according to NPR.org. Dreher says "crunchy cons" are conservatives “who stand outside the conservative mainstream,” and tend to focus more on family-oriented, culturally conservative concepts such as being good stewards of the natural world and avoiding materialism in everyday life. Dreher describes crunchy cons as those “who embrace a counter-cultural, yet traditional conservative lifestyle." On his blog, Dreher says crunchy cons are as mistrutful of big business as they are big government.


2. Cultural Conservative
Politically, cultural conservatism is often confused with social conservatism. In the US, the term often incorrectly describes members of the religious right because the two share ideologies on social issues. Christian conservatives tend to like being described as cultural conservatives, because it implies that America is a Christian nation. True cultural conservatives worry less about religion in government and more about using politics to prevent fundamental changes to US culture. The goal of cultural conservatives is to preserve and maintain the American way-of-life both at home and abroad.


3. Fiscal Conservative
Libertarians and Constitutionalists are natural fiscal conservatives due to their desire to reduce government spending, pay off the national debt and shrink the size and scope of government. Nevertheless, the Republican Party is most often credited with creating the fiscal conservative ideal, despite the big-spending tendencies of the most recent GOP administrations. Fiscal conservatives seek to deregulate the economy and lower taxes. Fiscal conservative politics has little or nothing to do with social issues, and it is therefore not uncommon for other conservatives to identify themselves as fiscal conservatives.

4. Neoconservative
The neoconservative movement sprouted in the 1960s in response to the counter-culture movement. It was later bolstered by disillusioned liberal intellectuals of the 1970s. Neoconservatives believe in a diplomatic foreign policy, stimulating economic growth by lowering taxes and finding alternative ways to deliver public welfare services. Culturally, neoconservatives tend to identify with traditional conservatives, but stop short of providing guidance on social issues. Irving Kristol, co-founder of Encounter magazine is largely credited with founding the neoconservative movement..


5. Paleoconservative
As the name suggests, paleoconservatives emphasize a connection with the past. Like neoconservatives, paleoconservatives tend to be family-oriented, religious-minded and opposed to the vulgarity permeating modern culture. They are also opposed to mass immigration and believe in the complete withdrawal of US military troops from foreign countries. Paleoconservatives claim author Russell Kirk as their own, as well as political ideologues Edmund Burke and William F. Buckley Jr. Paleoconservatives believe they are the true heirs to the US conservative movement and are critical of other "brands" of conservatism..


6. Social Conservative
Social conservatives adhere strictly to a moral ideology based on family-values and religious traditions. For US social conservatives, Christianity -- often Evangelical Christianity -- guides all political positions on social issues. US social conservatives are mostly right-wing and hold firmly to a pro-life, pro-family and pro-religion agenda. Thus, abortion and gay rights are often lightning rod issues for social conservatives. Social conservatives are the most recognized group of conservatives on this list due to their strong ties to the Republican Party.

Obama Switches To Populace Rhetoric

http://www.csmonitor.com/

By Patrik Jonsson Staff writer / January 23, 2010

‘Fighting’ Obama hits Supreme Court over campaign finance The Supreme Court’s 5-4 ruling striking down a 2002 campaign finance reform law ‘strikes at democracy itself,’ Obama says in his weekly address. Republicans say ‘free speech’ – even in the form of money – strengthens democracy.


President Barack Obama speaks during a town hall meeting at Lorain County Community College in Elyria, Ohio, Friday.

/Atlanta


Fresh off a fighting stance at an Ohio event, President Obama aimed a haymaker at the Supreme Court in his Saturday morning address, saying a 5-4 ruling striking down the 2002 McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform law undermines the Republic by giving “voice to the powerful interests that already drown out the voices of everyday Americans.”

Taking Points For Better Heath Care Delivery

Health Issues

January 22, 2010

FIVE HEALTH CARE REFORM SOLUTIONS THAT MAKE SENSE

Massachusetts, the bluest of states in our union, stunned the nation on Tuesday when it voted to end Washington's unbridled spending and plan for government-run health care. Americans still want health care reform, but they are looking for clear, patient-centered, fiscally responsible solutions. There's a way to make this work, says Dr. C.L. Gray, president of Physicians for Reform.

Sell insurance across state lines:

State mandates drive up costs; health insurance for a 25-year-old male in New Jersey costs nearly six times what it does in Kentucky, largely because of state mandates.

Allowing businesses to purchase insurance across state lines empowers consumers, not Washington, and does not cost a dime.

Let individuals purchase health insurance with pre-tax dollars:

Insurance companies serve businesses, not patients; businesses purchase employee health insurance with pre-tax dollars while individuals purchase insurance with post-tax dollars making their insurance far more expensive.

This reform lets patients buy products that meet their needs and makes insurers more accountable to patients.

Encourage Health Care Savings Accounts (HSAs):

HSAs reduce health care costs without rationing (cutting Medicare); they also let patients control their own money, decreasing health care spending by 13 percent.

During 2005 and 2006, traditional insurance rose 7.3 percent annually while lower cost / higher deductable plans combined with HSAs rose only 2.7 percent annually.

End abusive medical litigation:

Frivolous litigation drives physicians out of medicine; bringing tens of millions of new patients into the system requires more physicians, not fewer.

Frivolous litigation reform lowers cost and improves access to care; Americans spend approximately $124 billion every year because physicians practice defensive medicine.

Cover the uninsured:

We can insure the uninsured without expanding American debt; approximately 25 percent of patients who visit the emergency rooms do not have health care coverage.

A system of tax credits can help the uninsured purchase coverage; this would cost approximately $80 billion annually.

Source: Dr. C.L. Gray, "Five Health Care Reform Solutions That Make Sense," Fox News, January 21, 2010.

For text:

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2010/01/21/clgray-health-care-reform-obama-massachusetts/

For more on Health Issues:

http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_Category=16

The Stunning Events Of The Massachusettes Special Election

By TheSageOfTheWabash

Now the hard work begins.

Yesterday the people of Massachusetts gave voice to what independent voters all over the country have been trying to tell the present majority in Washington D.C.

What began with a movement by the "Tea Party Patriots", and grew into political action with the campaign of Scott Brown, has resulted in one of the most stunning special elections in modern history.

What has to happen now of course, is for the conservatives to capitalise and expand on the gains of this past years efforts.

Conservatives must build new alliances and rebuild old ones.

Democrats who in the past have had a moderate voting record, sometimes called "Blue Dogs", will now feel more comfortable opposing the President's progressive, radical agenda on all issues, not just health care.

Others. such as our own Senator Evan Bayh, who voted with Ted Kennedy as much as any liberal, will now see that his own place in the senate is not assured. if a conservative openly running against the entire liberal agenda, can capture one of the most historically liberal seats in the senate, then given a worthy opponent, they are all vulnerable.

Now is the time for many moderate Democrats like my Senator Bayh to realise that the party has left them. The David Obies, Nancy Pelosies, Harry Reeds and other more socially radical darlings of moveon.org have wrenched control of the traditional democrat party from the nation itself.

Some of the more moderate Democrats will defect, in fact one already has as I write this. Undoubtedly more will simply come to their collective senses and refuse to play ball with the radical power brokers.

When they do repent so to speak the conservative had better be waiting with open arms or the congressional gridlock could continue for years to come

Not only are the Republicans Stronger, the Democrats are weaker.

The Democrats are weaker, not just because the Republicans have captured some of their strength in the form of popular support but because of a long series of mistakes and missteps by the President. In the past year the President has appeared in three different states in an effort to help the Democrat candidate campaign. All three times that candidate was rejected. He made a failed effort to influence the International Olympic Committee in the selection of Chicago as the site of the 2016 Summer Games. in fact, Chicago was rejected in the first round. The President awkwardly injected himself into the dust up between the cop and the college professor, making himself look foolish.

Add to these failures by President Obama, the paranoid feeling by many members of the legislative branch that they have been had, that the president has led them over a cliff. Now with the House and Senate leadership with egg on their faces and at least Harry Reed is facing defeat. The individual members are left with no one to rally behind. They must drag themselves home and try to rebuild grassroots support before the next election. I am sure that this will prove a daunting task for many.

Even with all of the damage that has been done to Democrats

the work ahead for their opposition will be difficult and continuing long past the 2010 elections. The president's oratory is powerful. He alone will be able to spin these failures to the advantage of his purpose because his true believers will accept any excuses he offers. As evidence of this I give you his appearance on George Stephanopoulos' program Wednesday after the election. He explained to the interviewer Stephanopoulos, that anger over George W. Bush was what made voters choose the Republican Scott Brown instead of the Democrat Martha Coakley.? Why does he say such ridicules things? Because he knows his followers will believe anything.

Also, the memory of the electorate is short. By the time that some of these Senators come up for reelection 2014 these resent events won't even be a blip on the radar screen. I must also add that the Republicans are a rather feckless bunch themselves. They had what looked like a straggle hold on power after the 1994 election and their "Contract With America". They managed to loose that ,regain it and loose it again because of greed and corruption. That is one of the reasons that the Republican leadership would like to cooped the Tea Party Patriots into the Republican party.

One thing for sure it won't be boring

What Ever Happened To Government Transparency

http://townhall.com/news/

Government Issues

January 21, 2010

INSIDE WASHINGTON: SECRET BILL-WRITING ON THE RISE

The civics books say the House and Senate produce a final bill by sitting around a table where the public can watch them work out their differences. It's a quaint idea, but a different modern reality has been on display this month. Democrats are refusing to open to the public the end-stage negotiations on how the government is going to change the delivery of health care. And it's not just on the high-profile health care bill; the trend on much legislation is to shut the door and keep the minority party, cable TV and other media on the outside, says Townhall.com.

For examples:

Dating back to 1789, the House and Senate have dealt with differences in bills by convening conference committees to thrash out a unified approach that the chambers can pass and send to the president.

For the past two decades at least some of these bicameral, bipartisan meetings have been open to C-SPAN cameras.

But in those same two decades, leaders from both parties have held fewer and fewer conference meetings, or reduced their significance to photo ops.

Conferees did meet briefly last February on the $787 billion economic stimulus package, but only after the White House and Democratic leaders had reached agreement on the key issues. Other major bills sent to the president last year -- a credit cardholder bill of rights, a women's fair pay bill, a smoking regulation bill and a war spending bill -- were completed without open conference meetings, says Townhall.

Senate Historian Donald Ritchie says the demise of the conference meeting has coincided with the rise of partisanship, and the health care bill is a perfect example; there's no motivation to convene a bipartisan conference when every minority member opposes it. Another factor is a shift in power from House and Senate committee chairmen to party leaders.

Rather than staging conference meetings, putting bills online for 72 hours before a final vote would better ensure public access to what Congress is doing, says John Wonderlich, policy director for Sunlight Foundation, a group that promotes government transparency.

Source: Jim Abrams, "INSIDE WASHINGTON: Secret bill-writing on the rise," Townhall.com, January 19, 2010.

For text:

http://townhall.com/news/politics-elections/2010/01/19/inside_washington_secret_bill-writing_on_the_rise

GLOBAL WARMING???

I found this statement in an old National geographic magazine in a waiting room. I thought that it added to the argument that the science involving global climate change is far from settled. I don't have permission to reprint it but here it is anyway.

October 2004 National Geographic
Page 1 "Who Knew"; "Climatology"; "Green Sahara" Paragraph eight;
" 'we are learning, and only in recent years, that some climate changes in the past have been as rapid as anything underway today', says Robert Geigengack, a University of Pennsylvania geologist."


One of the arguments is, that recent climate change is happening suddenly enough that it must be man caused. However, we see here that This scientist states that some climate change, here concerning the desertification of the Sahara, took place suddenly.

The Greatest Guitarist That You Never Heard Of!!!

This guy is possible the most underrated underappreciated player in the last have of the last century.

You must check him out.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Moore

Utube/garymoore/redhouse/hendrix

Is This The World That You Grew Up In?

Restaurant Chefs Boiling Over NYC Mayor's Salt Crackdown



Tuesday, January 12, 2010


Print ShareThisNEW YORK CITY — Mayor Bloomberg yesterday defended his latest nanny initiative — a controversial crackdown on salt — by comparing the simple seasoning to killer asbestos in the classroom.


"If we know there's asbestos in a school room what do you expect us to do?" Bloomberg shot back at reporters questioning his new initiative. "Say it's not our business? I don't think so. The same thing is true with food and smoking and a lot of things.


"Salt and asbestos, clearly both are bad for you," Bloomberg continued. "Modern medicine thinks you shouldn't be smoking if you want to live longer. Modern medicine thinks you shouldn't be eating salt, or sodium."


Bloomberg is pushing a plan to cut the amount of salt in packaged and restaurant foods by 25 percent over the next five years. He says the initiative is voluntary.


Never mind that salt has important properties that preserve and stabilize food, and its sodium ions help maintain the fluid in human blood cells.


Forget that the body does not manufacture its own sodium ions so there has to be some salt in everyone's diet.


Restaurant owners have a less scientific reason for disliking the crackdown: salt makes food taste good.


Some of the city's top chefs and restaurant owners yesterday had a spicy message for City Hall: Simmer down and stay out of our kitchens.


"I'm all for trying to make New Yorkers healthier people," said acclaimed chef Ed Brown, owner of the restaurant eighty one on the Upper West Side. "But when it comes to him telling me how much salt to put in food, I have a problem with it."


Noted chef David Chang, owner of the Momofuku Noodle Bar, said cooks have been using salt with food almost as long as they have been using fire.


"You need salt to draw flavor out of food," Chang said. "It's a skill that you teach cooks. For that to be regulated by the government is just stupid and foolish."


Too much sodium contributes to high blood pressure, which can cause heart attacks and stroke, health officials say.

Disscussion Question; What Camcorder Should I Buy For You Tube?

I am considering getting a camcorder to help me with my new interest in vloging on You Tube.
I originally thought that I would get the Flip Mino, Then I found the Kodak Zi8. However the Zi8 was unavailable at a reasonable price.

Wabash River History

When the Wisconsin Glacier melted 14,000 years ago, part of the meltwaters formed the proglacial Lake Maumee, the ancestor to Lake Erie. Eventually the meltwaters overtopped a glacial moraine located near Fort Wayne, Indiana, and catastrophically drained southwestward in the Maumee Torrent. The torrent carved the wide alluvial valley that the Wabash flows through today.


The name "Wabash" is an English spelling of the French name for the river, "Ouabache." French traders named the river after the Miami Indian word for the river, waapaahšiiki, meaning "it shines white". The Miami name reflected the clarity of the river in Huntington County, Indiana where the river bottom is limestone.[1] This is a historical oddity since today the river bottom is no longer visible due to water pollution and agricultural siltation.




The Wabash was mapped and named by French explorers to the Mississippi, including the sections now known as the Ohio River[2] Although the Wabash is today considered a tributary of the Ohio, it was considered the other way around until the mid-18th century.[3] This is because the French traders traveled North and South from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico, and the Ohio River was not considered an important trade route until France and Great Britain began fighting for control over it, sparking the French and Indian War.[4]. For 200 years, from the mid-1600s into the 1800s, the Wabash was a major trading route, linking Canada, Quebec and the Great Lakes to the Mississippi River and Louisiana.




Three notable battles in U.S. history: the Battle of Vincennes (1779), St. Clair's Defeat (1791) and the Battle of Tippecanoe (1811), were fought near the Wabash; the last two have each been referred to as the "Battle of the Wabash".




A 329-acre (133 ha) remnant of the old-growth forests that once bordered the Wabash can be found at Beall Woods State Park, near Mount Carmel, Illinois.




In the 1800s, the Wabash and Erie Canal, one of the longest canals in the world, was built.




On July 2, 2008, it was reported that after heavy flooding over the previous several weeks the river had cut a new channel. This cut-off created a new 1,700-acre (690 ha) island at Mackeys Bend. This is now the largest island on the Wabash River. Detailed information about this historic event can be found at http://www.indianawaterways.com/wabashrivercutoff.htm




The major tributaries of the Wabash River include:

Salamonie River (Indiana)
Little River (Indiana)
Mississinewa River (Indiana)
Eel River (Indiana)
Tippecanoe River (Indiana)
White River (Indiana)
Patoka River (Indiana)
Vermilion River (Illinois and Indiana)
Embarras River (Illinois)
Little Wabash River (Illinois)
Wildcat Creek (Indiana)


Dams


The Wabash River is regulated by a dam operated by the Army Corps of Engineers near Huntington, Indiana. The dam creates J. Edward Roush Lake, and the surrounding property makes up the J. Edward Roush State Park.[5] During its development, fluid mechanics students were given this problem to tackle the forces the dam would need to sustain: A dam is to be constructed across the Wabash River using the cross-section shown. Assume the dam width is w = 50 m. For water height H = 2.5 m, calculate the magnitude and line of action of the vertical force of water on the dam face. Is it possible for water forces to overturn this dam? Under what circumstances?


Other dams used when the river carried commercial traffic in the early 20th century have since been destroyed.[citation needed]


 Cities and towns along the Wabash

 Illinois
A small island and water fowl wildlife refuge in the Wabash near Mount Carmel, Illinois.Grayville
Hutsonville
Maunie
Mount Carmel
St. Francisville


Indiana
Andrews
Attica
Bluffton
Clinton
Covington
Delphi
Huntington
Lafayette
Lagro
The Wabash River at Williamsport, Indiana.Logansport
Markle
Merom
Montezuma
Newport
New Harmony
Perrysville
Peru
Terre Haute
Vincennes
Wabash
West Lafayette
Williamsport


 Ohio
Fort Recovery

Wabash Facts

The Wabash River is a 475-mile (764 km)-long river in the Midwestern United States that flows southwest from northwest Ohio near Fort Recovery, Ohio across northern Indiana to Illinois where it forms the southern Illinois-Indiana border before draining into the Ohio River, of which it is the largest northern tributary. From the dam near Huntington to its terminus at the Ohio River, the Wabash flows freely for 411 miles (661 km) which makes it the longest stretch of free-flowing river in the United States east of the Mississippi River.[citation needed]

 The Wabash is the state river of Indiana, and subject of the state song, "On the Banks of the Wabash, Far Away" by Paul Dresser.