Fresh Tasty Ideas

Peace negotiations do not create or defend nations. They never have, they never will.

So why does the left continue to promote the idea of negotiating peace with reckless regimes or countries headed up by madmen? Dennis Kucinich recently conducted peace negotiations in Syria — he remarks in this video below that they went very well.

Yet today we find out that Israeli air strikes in Syria destroyed a nuclear cache from North Korea. And the North Korean dock records in Syria have been altered to cover up the nuclear shipment.

Wake up lefties! Our enemies use you to project an image of peace. But behind your backs they conduct their schemes. Why can’t you get it through your head?

Why do garbagemen have holidays? Doesn’t it just push all their work back one day? I mean, if they usually pick up my garbage on Monday, and then because of the holiday they have to come on Tuesday, when do they make up the lost day? If they pick up someone else’s garbage on Saturday, they’ll have to pick it up on Sunday or they’ll permanently fall behind a day. What gives?

garbage

Just how zealous are some advocates of gun control? One Dan Simpson, in complete disregard of the 2nd amendment, world history, and common sense, recommends that the government create special police squads (the SS maybe?) to sweep across the country, confiscating any and all firearms. Read his article, if you can manage:

LAST week’s tragedy at Virginia Tech in which a mentally disturbed person gunned down 32 of America’s finest - intelligent young people with futures ahead of them - once again puts the phenomenon of an armed society into focus for Americans.

The likely underestimate of how many guns are wandering around America runs at 240 million in a population of about 300 million. What was clear last week is that at least two of those guns were in the wrong hands.

When people talk about doing something about guns in America, it often comes down to this: “How could America disarm even if it wanted to? There are so many guns out there.”

Because I have little or no power to influence the “if” part of the issue, I will stick with the “how.” And before anyone starts to hyperventilate and think I’m a crazed liberal zealot wanting to take his gun from his cold, dead hands, let me share my experience of guns.

As a child I played cowboys and Indians with cap guns. I had a Daisy Red Ryder B-B gun. My father had in his bedside table drawer an old pistol which I examined surreptitiously from time to time. When assigned to the American embassy in Beirut during the war in Lebanon, I sometimes carried a .357 Magnum, which I could fire accurately. I also learned to handle and fire a variety of weapons while I was there, including Uzis and rocket-propelled grenade launchers.

I don’t have any problem with hunting, although blowing away animals with high-powered weapons seems a pointless, no-contest affair to me. I suppose I would enjoy the fellowship of the experience with other friends who are hunters.

Now, how would one disarm the American population? First of all, federal or state laws would need to make it a crime punishable by a $1,000 fine and one year in prison per weapon to possess a firearm. The population would then be given three months to turn in their guns, without penalty.

Hunters would be able to deposit their hunting weapons in a centrally located arsenal, heavily guarded, from which they would be able to withdraw them each hunting season upon presentation of a valid hunting license. The weapons would be required to be redeposited at the end of the season on pain of arrest. When hunters submit a request for their weapons, federal, state, and local checks would be made to establish that they had not been convicted of a violent crime since the last time they withdrew their weapons. In the process, arsenal staff would take at least a quick look at each hunter to try to affirm that he was not obviously unhinged.

It would have to be the case that the term “hunting weapon” did not include anti-tank ordnance, assault weapons, rocket-propelled grenade launchers, or other weapons of war.

All antique or interesting non-hunting weapons would be required to be delivered to a local or regional museum, also to be under strict 24-hour-a-day guard. There they would be on display, if the owner desired, as part of an interesting exhibit of antique American weapons, as family heirlooms from proud wars past or as part of collections.

Gun dealers could continue their work, selling hunting and antique firearms. They would be required to maintain very tight inventories. Any gun sold would be delivered immediately by the dealer to the nearest arsenal or the museum, not to the buyer.

The disarmament process would begin after the initial three-month amnesty. Special squads of police would be formed and trained to carry out the work. Then, on a random basis to permit no advance warning, city blocks and stretches of suburban and rural areas would be cordoned off and searches carried out in every business, dwelling, and empty building. All firearms would be seized. The owners of weapons found in the searches would be prosecuted: $1,000 and one year in prison for each firearm.

Clearly, since such sweeps could not take place all across the country at the same time. But fairly quickly there would begin to be gun-swept, gun-free areas where there should be no firearms. If there were, those carrying them would be subject to quick confiscation and prosecution. On the streets it would be a question of stop-and-search of anyone, even grandma with her walker, with the same penalties for “carrying.”

The “gun lobby” would no doubt try to head off in the courts the new laws and the actions to implement them. They might succeed in doing so, although the new approach would undoubtedly prompt new, vigorous debate on the subject. In any case, some jurisdictions would undoubtedly take the opportunity of the chronic slowness of the courts to begin implementing the new approach.

America’s long land and sea borders present another kind of problem. It is easy to imagine mega-gun dealerships installing themselves in Mexico, and perhaps in more remote parts of the Canadian border area, to funnel guns into the United States. That would constitute a problem for American immigration authorities and the U.S. Coast Guard, but not an insurmountable one over time.

There could conceivably also be a rash of score-settling during hunting season as people drew out their weapons, ostensibly to shoot squirrels and deer, and began eliminating various of their perceived two-footed enemies. Given the general nature of hunting weapons and the fact that such killings are frequently time-sensitive, that seems a lesser sort of issue.

That is my idea of how it could be done. The desire to do so on the part of the American people is another question altogether, but one clearly raised again by the Blacksburg tragedy.

gun control, Dan Simpson, Toledo Blade, liberals

I’m simply fascinated with this whole Gore flap. The head cheese of the global warming “sky-is-falling” brigade can’t be bothered to actually reduce his own energy consumption. Classic. It’s like the pope having an abortion.

But seriously, the few liberals who even have had the courage to address the whole mess have created a primer in logical fallacies. Here’s what I’m talking about:

1. Attack the messenger: Over at Huffington Post, they immediately criticized the Tennessee Center for Policy Research, even though Gore did not deny the energy figures that were reported. That’s not the issue however, what’s at stake is Gore’s energy consumption after all is said and done, solar panels and all.
2. Set up a straw man: ThinkProgress falsely claimed that Gore has done nothing to reduce his energy consumption, then proceeded to disprove this statement of their own making by claiming Gore installed solar panels and fluorescent light bulbs.
3. “Everybody does it”/the Bill Clinton defense: Remember when Democrats across the country were rushing to defend Clinton for cheating on his wife (then lying about it) by claiming that if everyone who cheated on their spouse lost their job, the whole country would come to a stand-still? I’m hearing a lot of this too. Oh sure, Gore may wastefully consume energy, but no one’s perfect.

It’s pathetic. If liberals really wanted to take the high road and show they are above conservatives, they would banish Gore for his hypocrisy. But no, they rush to his defense.

But, did you know that Gore is the founder and chairman of the company that he buys his “green credits” from? That’s right, by offsetting his “carbon footprint” he’s actually buying stock in his own company: Generation Investment Management LLP. Anti-war protesters go on and on about Cheny-Haliburton collusion, and they overlook the sweet little deal Gore has with carbon credits. By touring the country to warn us of the dangers of global warming, he’s actually drumming up business for his own company!

This isn’t even to mention the gross perversity of Gore asking people much less wealthy than himself to make sacrifices that he himself cannot make but can compensate for with money. In the old days, the Roman Catholic Church used to have indulgences which allowed a certain amount of sin only if you could afford to pay tribute to the Church. Naturally, the created a nice moral vacuum for the aristocracy, but left the common (read poor) man out to dry. Fornication and drunken debauchery? The Church forgives you, depending on how deep your pockets are. Gore is essentially setting an example for a modern-day environmental indulgence system. As Bill at Ecotality puts it, the rich essentially have no rules, while the rest of us are fit with a carbon straight-jacket from which we have no escape.

But the media gave this issue a total pass, as I thought they would. A preacher who has gay sex and deals meth on the side, that’s national news for days. Mitt Romney’s great-great-great grandfather had several wives (he was Mormon, they like them their wives) and the AP puts out a hit piece on him. Gore, the godfather of global warming has his hypocritical lifestyle exposed, and you nary can hear a peep from the mainstream media.

global warming, Gore, Generation Investment Management, carbon, green

Ok so we were like watching the Boise State game against Oklahoma and we were like way in front at the start of the game. Then the Sooners scored a touchdown with only less than 2 mintues to play!!! We needed a touchdown and it was 4th and 18 with only 23 secondz to play! OMG we caught a pass then lateraled it and wE scored to tie and get overtime!

Then we were down in overtime by a touchdown on a 4th down and Zabransky the QB goes INTO MOTION! The backup QB tosses a touchdown!!!!!!!!!! Then instead of tryin to tie the game, we GO FTW!!!!11! Zabransky faked like he was throwing to his right then handed off to Ian Johnson who ran it in for TWOS and BOISE STATE WINz by a pOInt in OVRE TIME Z when THy lsmost loses in reuglaer tim e z ze; omg w ref ljf dslaj;; a;d;sk f;1!!!

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

boise state

A Palestinian doctor working in Sweden refused to treat an American woman for strep throat because of her nationality. He cited America’s foreign policy in Palestine as his reason for denying service.

This clown should have his medical license reviewed for pulling such a stunt. Can you imagine the outrage if a doctor had refused service to a homosexual or a black man? Doctors have no place in deciding which patients they want to treat and not treat based on ethnicity or nationality or sex, etc. If I was running his clinic, he’d be fired immediately.

Health Care, Sweden, Hippocratic Oath, news, doctor

Not the greatest video quality, but who cares.

Iraq, Hussein, execution

Apparently, John Kerry was shunned by our soldiers on his latest visit to Iraq. For some reason they didn’t appreciate his comments about being stuck in Iraq because they were stupid.

A picture is worth a thousand words. Here’s what the soldier who took the photo wrote:

This is a true story…..Check out this photo from our mess hall at the US Embassy yesterday
morning. Sen. Kerry found himself all alone while he was over here. He
cancelled his press conference because no one came, he worked out alone
in the gym w/o any soldiers even going up to say hi or ask for an
autograph (I was one of those who was in the gym at the same time), and
he found himself eating breakfast with only a couple of folks who are
obviously not troops.

What is amazing is Bill O’Reilly came to visit with us and the troops at
the CSH the same day and the line for autographs extended through the
palace and people waited for two hours to shake his hand. You decide who
is more respected and loved by us servicemen and women!

And this guy was almost the president?

Kerry, Iraq, military, soldier, Bush

I can’t believe how long I’ve gone without blogging.

Anyways, as I sit here on the day after Christmas, just relaxing, I come across an article that reports that a small island in the Bay of Bengal has been submerged by rising seas. The article attributes the disappearing of the island to global warming, and asserts that 70,000 people will soon be made homeless by global warming. The hysterical “world is falling” parade marches on…

Whenever I read a news article about rising temperatures or stronger hurricanes, it is not uncommon to see predictions of our impending doom. I have yet to see a major news organization include perspective about the ice age our planet went through only 17,000 years ago. Where is the reminder that falling temperatures killed off the Vikings in Greenland in a matter of a hundred years or so? Drastic temperature shifts in relatively short periods of time are well-precedented during the Earth’s lifetime. But you won’t hear about that when reading the news.

My own frustration continues to mount in the face of more questions that go unanswered: Why aren’t the possible benefits of global warming being analyzed? I know, that is enough to get me crucified in liberal circles, but doesn’t it stand to reason that if the Earth is warming, some previously uninhabitable locations will become suitable for farming and homesteads? When one door closes, another opens, and why are we only focusing on the closed door?

Another question that is usually met with silence is: If man is causing global warming, can we reverse it without destroying our own way of life? It’s one thing to combat man-made global warming by recycling instead of just using the trash; it’s another altogether to claim that global warming can only be stymied by reverting to pre-industrial revolution levels of CO2 emission. Where are the studies that show how much CO2 reduction is enough? As far as I can tell, the Kyoto treaty, costing its participants billions of dollars, will not even make a measurable effect by the year 2050. So just how far will we have to go to reverse the damage we have allegedly done? Will someone please step forward with a straight answer?

Finally, the pinnacle of frustrations for me is over-importance attributed to global warming and its effects. The same people who would spend billions and billions (of our tax dollars) to fight rising temperatures that endanger few (if any) lives are opposed to fighting an easily preventable disease that claims millions of lives every year. Malaria kills 3 million people annually (mostly poor Africans) and is easily preventable by the usage of DDT to kill the mosquitoes which transmit the disease. Where is the concern for the loss of human life when it is caused by malaria and not by evil CO2 gases?

Global warming is the trendiest of all pet causes. But under the surface, it is a mere minor threat of unknown causes vastly overshadowed by real global problems such as AIDS, Islamic terrorism, famine, and communicable diseases like Malaria. The hype and hoopla created by Al Gore is really only a smokescreen obscuring the real agenda: environmentalists put the Earth first ahead of people. When they claim people are dying or will die because of global warming — that cry rings hollow because these are the same people who balk at far greater problems claiming millions of lives a year.

global warming, environment, climate change, malaria, ddt

I’m thinking about shifting the focus of this blog, from multiple updates in one day to something different. I think I’ll take an issue, whatever is occupying my thoughts that week, and do a more in-depth post. It’ll give me more opportunity to probe a bit deeper into an issue than I have in the past.

The result is that I’ll probably post about once a week, but each post should be longer.