MaxRedline

Global Warming Hits The Skids

No worries, though - Oregon's going to continue to "lead".

The ranks of America's “climate sceptics” have been growing quietly for some months now. And at the weekend a watershed was reached: the usually left-wing New York Times put the British-born physicist Freeman Dyson on the front of its Sunday magazine. The article inside revealed that Professor Dyson - 85 years old and based in Princeton - not only possesses one of the finest noodles on Planet Earth, but also happens to think that most of what Al Gore and his band of Unmerry Men preach amounts to little more than yuppie self-loathing.

“All the fuss about global warming is grossly exaggerated,” is how Professor Dyson puts it. He adds that while it's true that human-caused carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are rising, the Earth is still going through a relatively cool period in its history, and that most of the evolution of life took place in a warmer era. Professor Dyson is also fond of pointing out that carbon dioxide helps plants to grow - so having too much of the stuff hanging around might not be such a bad thing.

Out in the blogotwittersphere, the Greens can hardly believe that the same media that once helped Mr Gore to win both an Oscar and a Nobel prize are now promoting such heresy. To make matters more infuriating, Professor Dyson isn't even a conservative: he's a left-wing, Obama-voting, peace-marching, boho-academic genius who argues that coal-produced electricity has liberated millions in China from poverty, and that “greens are people who've never had to worry about grocery bills”.

Darn.  They were so hoping that they could use the Religion to bring everyone under control.  But the pendulum's swinging back, perhaps faster than expected.  More and more, people are understanding that climate change hysteria is nothing more than a religious belief - and unlike other religions, the historical record clearly argues against it.

Fortunately, Oregon's legislature knows how to fight.  Forget minor issues like a blown-out budget (caused by their failure to set aside cash when times were good).  No, they're going after dishwasher detergent, proving once again that in Oregon, following the herd is more important than leading.

The legislature really should abandon Salem completely, and meet instead in the historic Peter French round barn.  It's a much more suitable site.

Moo.

PETA: Our Animal "Conscience"

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, based in Virginia, has an annual average budget of approximately $32 million - derived from the contributions of kind-hearted vegetables who believe in their professed goal of humane treatment for animals.  While much of that money goes to administrative overhead, the group spends millions on media campaigns telling Americans that eating meat, drinking milk, fishing, hunting, wearing leather shoes, and benefiting from medical research performed on lab rats are all “unethical.”

In order to maintain their status as a non-profit, PETA also runs an animal shelter. 

PETA’s “Animal Record” report for 2008, filed with the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, shows that the animal rights group killed 95 percent of the dogs and cats in its care last year. During all of 2008, PETA found adoptive homes for just seven pets.

Just seven animals — out of the 2,216 it took in. PETA just broke its own record.

 According to PETA, fishing is inhumane.  They go so far as to refer to fish as "sea kittens" in some of their propaganda:

Given the drastic situation for this country’s sea kittens-who are often the victims of many major threats to their welfare and ways of life — it’s high time that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) stop allowing our little sea kitten friends to be tortured and killed. Who’d want to hurt a sea kitten anyway?!

Sea kittens are just as intelligent (not to mention adorable) as dogs and cats, and they feel pain just as all animals do.

Please take just a few moments to send an e-mail to H. Dale Hall, the director of the FWS, asking him to stop promoting the hunting of sea kittens (otherwise known as “fishing”). The promotion of sea kitten hunting is a glaring contradiction of FWS’ mission to “conserve, protect and enhance fish, wildlife and plants and their habitats.”

It seems that of all organizations to blat about "glaring contradictions", PETA is among the least credible.  Why people continue to donate to them, and how the organization can sustain tax-free status as a non-profit, is mystifying.

And Along Comes Ashley

Joltin' Joe Biden is the gift that keeps on giving.  He said that an Obama administration would be "tested".  He just didn't mention that he and his family were going to be major providers of the "tests".

The Death Of Conservatism

Media keep writing obituaries.  Yet talk radio continues to thrive; ratings keep climbing.  And the voices on talk radio are conservative - liberals keep trying from time to time, and they die every time.

This is an interesting position.  Conservatives are vilified in the US media, except on talk radio - where the numbers keep moving up.

The best thing to happen in this market was when Obama made the mistake of essentially declaring war on top talker, Rush Limbaugh.  In many respects, Obama truly lives up to his nickname - Obambi.  This was a huge error on his part, but probably the best thing that's happened for talk radio in the last couple of decades.

Many recognize that there are two classes in America today.  And that the situation has morphed.

What we now have is not so much Democrat vs. Republican.  It's the Political class vs. Mainstream America.

There seems to be a backlash building against the mainly far-Leftist political class, as the rise in talk radio numbers clearly indicate.  There is no rise in Leftist radio, as Air America has consistently demonstrated.

Americans of all stripes are rejecting the vituperative swill offered up by the far Left on the talk radio venues, and Obama's declaration of war against conservative values has been met with an amazing show of support by Americans - in favor of those very values.

Are You Stimulated Yet?

What does it take to stimulate you?  According to the Obama administration, about ten bucks a week.  That's more money in your paycheck, which you'll rush out and spend. 

And you're going to be very happy.  Until next April, anyway.  When you get taxed on that approximately $500 of "extra income".  That ten bucks a week, of course, is coming out of the federal witholding - which is tax money.

You didn't think they were just giving you ten bucks a week, did you?  What government giveth, they taketh.

If you were thinking that they're going to let you keep more of your money, you need to pay attention.  That's not how the plan works. You will pay for hope.  And hope you can keep some change.  The sales pitch is that this amounts to an $800 tax cut for the typical family in which both adults hold down jobs.  Don't spend it all in one place.  You'll need it when the next tax bill comes due.

Once Again, China Beats Oregon

We thought we were all pretty hot with that whole "Death with dignity" thing.  Hoo boy!  "Physician-assisted suicide".  How cutting-edge, to say nothing of the "green" benefits derived from convincing expensive losers to off themselves.  It's a linchpin in Oregon's "progressive" image.   

But darned if the Chinese haven't one-upped us.

They've got mobile "death-van" units.  China executed 1,715 people last year, but that number is expected to rise  to  10,000 people this year.

The cool thing about these rigs is that they're set up so that doctors can harvest useable body parts quickly.  This is critically important: 

'The liver loses its function only five minutes after the human cardiac arrest,' the officer told our researcher.

'The kidney will become dysfunctional 30 minutes after cardiac arrest. So the removal of organs must be completed at the execution ground within 15 minutes, then put in an ice box or preservation solution.'

This is a huge step from the old days, when they executed a prisoner with a bullet to the head and then forced the family to pay for the bullet.  Chinese hospitals perform up to 20,000 organ transplants each year. A kidney transplant in China costs £5,000, but can rise to £30,000 if the patient is willing to pay more to obtain an organ quickly. 

A Wreck A Week

Light rail!  Such a wonderful thing!  The Phoenix system has been operational for three months, and events like the one in the photo happen every week.

They blame the drivers, of course, but why isn't more attention focused upon the designers of these costly behemoths?  Why do trains have to run down roads, anyway?  It's a stupid idea, stupidly expensive, stupidly designed, and stupidly implemented.

In commercial enterprises, rail crossings are signalized, and barriers drop down when a train approaches.  But light rail is a government-run thing, and their brain-trust thinks that trains and cars should "share".  Wrong.

Gas taxes pay for the roads, not train taxes.

If politicians want trains, they shouldn't be using gas tax-funded roadspace.  They should buy separate rights-of-way, and enforce payment for riding.

Bumps On The Road To A Socialist America

Actually, we prefer to call them "traffic calming devices".  It sounds ever so much more correct, politically speaking.

Dang!  The Teleprompter-In-Chief just can't catch a break, here.  Going in, he thought it'd be easy: give a few uplifiting speeches; watch the lemmings fall into line.  It's just not working out that way.

The Holy Grail of his union bosses isn't going to happen.  Now that Sen. Arlen Specter has firmly committed against card-check, which would abolish the secret ballot in unionization efforts, Republicans have enough folks on board to kill it by talking it to death.  Even worse, around 15 Democrats - Democrats! - have expressed concerns regarding the concept.  When even Democrats can't get behind abolishing the secret ballot, you've got a real stinker on your hands.

Cap-and-trade is also dead.  Kent Conrad, who heads the Senate Budget Committee, isn't going to go there.

The Teleprompter-In-Chief may have the audacity of hope, but that's run into hard reality, and reality usually wins.  The best that he can hope for at this point involves smaller victories.  It's likely that a modified version of his plan to soak the "rich" with punitive levels of taxation for having the audacity of success will go into effect.  He may get some degree of nationalized health care, although to what degree, if any, remains uncertain.

The health care delivery systems in the USA are so diversified that attempting to tie them all together would be akin to cat-herding.  More likely would be an attempt to unify hospital standards, communications, and other systems along the lines of the Illinois state trauma system.  While that approach has been effective in Illinois, the question of translation to a nationwide scale remains.

Clearly, Obama and his cohorts want to bring socialism to America because they believe that it has worked so well in Europe.  While its efficacy in European countries is still open to debate, one salient fact which Obama and his supporters appear to have overlooked involves scaling.  European countries are small; America isn't.  Most European countries, by virtue of their odd mix of parliamentary and reverence for monarchy, bear little resemblance to the representative absolutism of the USA. 

The closest we come to reverence for monarchy is the bizarre fascination held by many in regard to the Kennedy family of politicians.  Aside from that, the makeup of the USA differs quite significantly from that of the European countries.

These little issues aren't going to go away, and they represent yet another traffic calming feature along the road to American socialism.

You Want Asphalt With That?

KFC is offering to do the jobs that government won't do: patching potholes.  The fast-food chain has sent off a letter to the nation's mayors, offering to patch their potholes for free. The company will leave behind a stenciled brand on the patch informing people the road has been "Re-Freshed by KFC."

I never saw that coming.  I'm lovin' it.  Paging mayor Sammy....

If it takes corporate sponsorship to get the job done in a city whose "leaders" prefer to throw money at hiring centers for illegal aliens, custom-designed public potties, trams, and "couplets" - most folks would go with corporate sponsorship.  It really says something when a fast-food chain demonstrates a greater sense of civic responsibility than the mayor and the city council.

The Spokane Smugglers

Smugglers are operating out of Spokane, Washington.  They're sneaking over to Idaho and bringing back stashes of contraband dishwashing detergent. The government has decided to protect them by banning certain detergents deemed unacceptable.  As a result, formerly law-abiding citizens have turned renegade, Cascade and Electrasol by the truckload (Electrasol, by the way, is recommended by all major dishwasher manufacturers).

They are bringing Cascade or Electrasol in from out of state because the eco-friendly varieties required under Washington state law don't work as well. Spokane County became the launch pad last July for the nation's strictest ban on dishwasher detergent made with phosphates, a measure aimed at reducing water pollution.