Global warming is hoax crowd gets an ego boost

I have said before on this blog that I am neither a supporter of the global warming theory nor an ardent opponent of it. However, I am a proponent of letting science be science and not rushing or panicking based on one study, or one set of trends.

I have written before on this blog about how the temperature trends on the earth have increased and decreased in a cyclical pattern over the past 100 years. This is not up to debate. It is a fact.

However, I do not like to see politicians and activists panicking and generating fear among the peoples of the world and telling us that if we do not do things to decrease CO2 emissions that the planet will not exist in 5, 10, or 15 years. Likewise, I think it is a bad idea to regulate businesses based on a theory.

That said, we must be environmentally responsible. I think it is a good idea to search for cars that are run by electricity or clean fuels instead of gas and oil. I think it's a good idea to do things to keep the earth and its air clean. That is simple common sense.

In the 1970s activists were so panicked that they came up with an idea to thaw the ice caps to warm the earth. Aren't we glad they never did that. Since then the scare has been that of global warming, and these activists want to regulate businesses at the expense of ruining the economy. It's almost to the point that some conservatives say the reason liberals like Al Gore are pro-global warming is so the government can gain more control over the people. In other words: to spread socialism.

This is almost what I think as I read about Obama's cap and trade ideas, which would basically give the president the power to make any decisions necessary to decrease CO2 emissions. He would even have the right to tell us, American citizens, what we can and cannot buy. To me that's socialism, and power I do not want my President to have.

A report today notes that most scientists have noticed that since the year 2000 global temperatures have remained stagnant. They have not risen. According to the article:

Global warming appears to have stalled. Climatologists are puzzled as to why average global temperatures have stopped rising over the last 10 years. Some attribute the trend to a lack of sunspots, while others explain it through ocean currents.

Another thing they must consider is that global warming just might be, as many conservatives contend, just a hoax after all. That the scare that humans, that capitalism, was destroying the planet was an unjustified fear. I'm not taking sides, I'm just speculating here.

The article also notes:

The controversy sends confusing and mixed messages to the lay public. Why is
there such a vigorous debate over climate change, even though it isn't getting warmer at the moment? And how can it be that scientists cannot even arrive at a
consensus on changes in temperatures, even though temperatures are constantly being measured?

That's a good point. When the scientific community itself is confused over the matter of global warming, how is it that global warming experts like Al Gore are so certain that we are destroying the planet?

I have no problem with Al Gor per se. I just want to make sure people like him do not pass a law to stop global warming that ultimately slows down the economy of the greatest nation on the planet, only to learn that the earth is getting cooler.

I think we need to be careful what laws we make. We need to make decisions based on common sense and with a calm demeanor. We must not panic. We must be careful. And we must not make laws based on a theory.

So, this new "stagnant" trend gives the global warming is a hoax crowd a much needed boost, and seems to create some credibility problems for those who are in the global warming is a fact crowd.

Obama stimulus pachage utter failure????

There was fair reporting in the Detroit Freepress this past weekend ("Billions For State, But here are Jobs?") as the newspaper did a thorough review of reports from those receiving money from the "massive" $787 billion economic stimulus package. The article basically stopped short of noting it has been an utter failure to this point as far as the residents of Michigan are concerned.

Which, mind you, is what many economists had predicted would happen despite Obama claiming it would prevent the unemployment rate from exceeding 8%, although we all know that did not happen, as it is currently greater than 10% nationally, and state high 15.3% in Michigan.

According to the review:

• The vast majority of grants, contracts and loans in Michigan so far have created or retained virtually no jobs.
• Others who have been promised or have received stimulus money have overstated the number of jobs created or protected.
• The biggest impact of the stimulus was spurring or protecting public-sector (government) or summer jobs, and has done nothing to create jobs in the private sector. Michigan has the highest unemployment rate in the nation at 14%.
• Officials reported that by Sept. 30, some 22,500 Michigan jobs were created or retained thanks to the promise of $5.2 billion of which had arrived.
• Of that money, less than 700 awards had received some money, and nearly half of those -- 327 -- had created one job or less, at a cost per job of $2.7 million

I suppose to suppose it's too early to decide for sure whether it has been an utter failure. We have to consider that after the Reagan tax cuts it took a while for the economy to turn around. But those tax cuts actually were meant to create an incentive to save and invest, which (according to economics 101 and history) is the best way to recover jobs and grow the economy.

When the government spends money, there is a lot of waste, which this report show. Likewise, most of the jobs created are only temporary, so the economy will only improve "temporarily" and when those jobs expire (which many already have) the economy will tank again.

Obama's economic stimulus package has produced essentially no jobs, and therefore this pretty much proves one of two things:

• a) that Obama and liberals know nothing about how to boost an economy
• b) that there purpose in the first place was to tank the economy
• c) that the whole purpose of this bill was not to save the economy but to spread socialism and gain more control over our lives. (which I believe is the same purpose of Cap and Trade and Obamacare.

For more information please check out Freep.com which did a very thorough review how Michigan benefited, or has yet to benefit, from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Kudos to Todd Spangler for his great reporting.

Obama rose to power by sheer luck

How did a person so radical as Obama rise to power so fast. You have to consider he doesn't have much executive experience, and he wasn't even a Senator for very long. So how the heck did he rise to the most powerful seat in the world.

According to National Review "Trouble with Obama" by Noemie Emery (October 5, 2009), Obama was made it through all the leves to the office of the President by pure luck of the draw.

• He ran for the state legislature of Illinois and won because the incumbant decided to retire
• He ran for the U.S. Senate and his two opponents were involved in a scandal
• He ran for President just at the perfect time when most of America was upset with the status quo and ready for a change just for the sake of change and probably would have voted for anyone other than a republican. Yet still John McCain had managed to regain the lead mainly due to people realizing that Obama had ties with bad people. Plus Sarah Palin gave McCain a boost. Yet, just as it looked as though McCain might win, the economy collapsed just weeks before the election. It's the economy stupid. Amid an economic scare people always vote for the opposite party, and hence Obama was elected. He got lucky.

You see, Obama got lucky. Now that he's screwing up the country his popularity is shooting south faster than a falling safe in a stalling economy. However, if conservatives are elected in the midterm election to take over Congress, they might bail out the economy just in time for Obama to get the credit. And if republicans nominate a moderate again, Obama might get lucky once more in 2012.

We'll have to wait and see though. If his healthcare reform bill gets passed he might lose in the greatest landslide in the history of this country.

Some liberals live in a bubble

The trouble with Obama is he's lived in a bubble his entire life. According to the Weekly Standard, "The Trouble with Obama" (By Noemie Emery, October 5, 2009), "Obama has spent his entire adult life confined in the bubble of deep blue America -- a place that makes up less than one-fifth of the country -- in blue states, in blue cities, in blue states of mind."

He sees what blue America wants for America, but he fails to see the vision of all of America. He fails to understand what America is all about.

Emery writes:

"His city neighborhoods are the back yards of elite universities; he worked in the ghetto; and he rose in the urban ethnic machine of Chicago: the perfect trifecta of liberal politics, where people's looks, speech, and dress may seem to be varied, but the voting and thinking go only one way. It is a real world, but a small one, and in a real sense misleading; one that sees suburbs and small towns as strange, foreign countries; where centrists are rare, and the right nonexistent; where Bill Ayers really is just a guy from the neighborhood, and where no one and no party disputes that the state is the answer, that 'social justice' demands redistribution, that less wealthy whites cling to God and to guns out of 'bitterness,' and that racist white cops always act 'stupidly' when they are forced to have dealings with blacks.

Obama knows people who make laws, and people who teach law, and people who depend upon help from the government, but few people who make things, or run things, or work in the market economy; in other words, he doesn't know his own country, and has no sense where its center of gravity lies. He seems surprised at the resistance to his agenda: Who knew there were so many millions who are staggered by deficits, who don't see the point of identity politics, and want the state largely out of their lives? Not he, and he still doesn't seem to believe it, viewing the fringe (the far left) as the majority, and the center-right that is the core of the country as a demented fringe element that can be dismissed, condescended to, or shoved off to one side. A man of the world, but not of his country, he is just sensing the depth of his own lack of knowledge. He doesn't seem eager to learn."

Sorry for the large quote, but Emery hits it right on the head. This is not just Emery but many people I've dealt with who were born and raised in the Detroit area, or have at least spent the majority of their adult lives there.

They work for unions. They see people who only have jobs during the summer months and live off the unemployment check the remainder of the year. They only see and hear from people who are from the left, and therefore don't see the real working capitalistic America.

You could say this is the same for people on the right too. Where I live is pretty conservative. Yet conservatives don't expect any more for themselves than they expect for anyone else. Where I want an opportunity to succeed, I want that same opportunity for my fellow Americans.
Liberals like Obama don't see it that way. They want to take away from those who work hard to succeed and give it to the people who who don't succeed. In this sense, those in the rest of the country see blue America as wanting to punish those who succeed to support those who are stuck on the government dole.

Yet Obama doesn't see it that way. People like my liberal friends from Detroit only see blue. They see more than just the blue sky. And this is why Obama sees it okay to make radical changes to our government. He believes it is okay to risk everything, including bankrupting the country, if only he can make America more like socialist Europe.

Feel free to disagree.

Has Obama made America more racist?

Obama was supposed to unite America, not divide us. As the first black President (second if you count Bill Clinton) he was the President who was supposed to clean America of any racist ties that still exist. Yet that seems to be the exact opposite of what has happened since he was elected.

It seems that every time someone opposes one of Obama's policies calls of racism are shouted by Democrats. Rush Limbaugh predicted before the election that racism will become even more evident once Obama gets elected as every time someone disagrees with Obama they will be called racist by democrats.

Limbaugh appears to have predicted correctly. Jimmy Carter announced that conservatives are only opposing his health care reform package because Obama is black. The truth is most people who oppose the health care plan are doing so on grounds that they think it is a bad idea. It will make America more socialist, which is counter to what America is all about. It will also eliminate our ability to choose, and therefore it is anti-capitalistic.

Remember Joe Wilson? He's the U.S. Representative who called the President a "Liar" while he was speaking before the full House and Senate. How the heck can people associate Joe Wilson calling Obama a liar with racism? Sure he could have been more tactful and appropriate, but racism? Come on!

For some people racism always seems to be the motivation. But, unlike liberals in Washington, Conservatives like Joe Wilson have long stood in support of a color blind society, while liberal pundits continue to bring up race. Maurine Dowd wrote a whole article about how Paul Wilson's motivation for calling Obama a "Liar" was racism. How she would know this I have no clue.

However, it iss not Wilson or Limbaugh nor Joe Conservative who keeps bringing up the idea of race: it's always some liberal democrat who says she wishes to eliminate racism from society. Yet blaming opposition to everything Obama stands for on racism seems counterproductive from eliminating racism from society.

Unconstitutional bill may end up before court

Well, the Obama Health Care Package has passed the House, and now is headed for the Senate. Hopefull it will be stopped in it's tracks there or some of our God given freedoms will be taken away.

As a matter of fact, this bill is the worse one to be passed by the House in modern times. Basically it's the government saying that it knows what's best for you. It's the government saying that you have to buy health insurance, and you have to buy a plan that they approve or you will be fined or go to jail.

I believe this is the first time in American history that the government has attempted to pass a law that forces Americans to buy something. Ladies and gengtlemen: it is unconstitutional.

If it is signed by Obama this bill, which is unconstitutional, can be taken to the court. Yet it can only be taken to the high court if someone fails to pay insurance and is sentensed.

At this time it may be taken before a court. Yet in this time there will be Americans who have had their freedoms taken away, their ability to choose, and it may effect the pocket books of many Americans and make the economy even worse -- perhaps cause a depression.

We must get our news from many sources

Where do you get your news. Grandma always said that you ought to get your news from more than one source. Of course we all know that did not happen during the 1960s, 70s, and 80s while all the headline stories were filtered down from the New York Times by Satellites called CBS, NBC and ABC and a variety of magazines.

Unfortunately, while America has consistently stayed right of center, the New York Times has remained left of center. At times the Times even seems to be left of left of center, which means it was out of touch with the mainstream. However, for people like you and me who are fiends for absorbing information, what choice did we have?

Thanks to the likes of Ronald Reagan and his getting rid of the Fairness Doctrine, Rush Limbaugh who was the first to benefit from Reagan's bold move, William F. Buckley Jr. and his National Review, an array of conservative books that finally made their way on the market in the 2000s, and now Fox News, we now have outlets for getting the rest of the news.

We can go back to the annals of history and listen to Walter Cronkite as he told Americans that we ought to get our of Vietnam, and we Americans trusted him so much we believed him at his word. The news he gave us we saw it as fact. Few of us dared to say, "Is the news you are giving us all the news."

Thankfully there were those who asked these questions, and I mentioned them above. Thanks to them we can now flip through the news channels on cable TV, and click through the Internet, and get every angle of every story. No longer do we have to rely on one reporter. No longer do we have to rely on one news outlet.

I wrote about this before and I'll say it again. I remember when I was in college my two best buddies were democrats. When we were debating they would tell me to prove what I was saying. Then they'd say, "Hey, what I was telling you was in the Detroit Free Press. Now prove your point of view. Prove that higher taxes cause recessions."

I had no outlet. Now I do. Guys like Rush Limbaugh became popular because voices like his were muffled in the past by socialists who ran the country, and they no longer are muffled. That's why programs like his are so popular, because there were a lot of people like me who dared to question the media. There were a lot of people who's voices Rush gave credence to.

The same can be said of Fox News. Fox News, which I believe has replaced the New York Times as the most powerful news outlet, gives credence to the voices not represented by the New York Times (which just laid off a bunch more workers).

To be honest, I love Rush and Fox News. However, I do not get all my news from them. In the morning I watch the Today show. Sure the Today Show Gang tends to call conservatives "controversial" and liberals democrats. Sure the Today Show Gang tends to quiz conservatives harder than fellow liberals. Still, there's some pretty useful information obtained from that show.

Then, if I continue watching TV, I watch CNN. The only time I watch Fox is in the evening when Glenn Beck is on. I love that show. That show has grown from nonexistent a few months ago to the #2 rated news show behind The O'Reilly Factor.

Giving credence to the conservative voice, the voice that represents traditional American values and capitalism, has almost forced Americans to flock to Fox. In fact, most of the shows on Fox in the evenings (including Glenn Beck) nearly have higher ratings than all its competitors combined. If that's not telling of how conservative this nation is then what is?

It's important, however, not to get rid of the other news outlets. We need to continue to get all the news, and the only way to do this is for an array of journalists to ask an array of questions from every angle possible. That, my friends, is what every single news outlet should do. Yet, as the New York Times has taught us, we are all victims of our own biases.

So, as grandma says, we should all continue to read, listen and watch as much as we can from as many news outlets as possible, and never stop questioning the news and then source.