Vocal Minority

The Best of Dennis Prager '08

On December 31, 2007, I posted my favorite ten articles by Rite Jew Dennis Prager. I had to wait one whole year to deliver the 2008 installment and, unsurprisingly, Prager didn’t disappoint.

So here it is. Enjoy my end-of-the-year Prager-palooza:

A Response to “What You Have To Believe To Be a Republican Today” (Jan. 29)

For four years, a list of alleged Republican positions—“What You Have To Believe To Be a Republican Today”—has been circulating on the Internet and forwarded in countless e-mails. In this presidential election year, it is important to respond to these charges. If people want to vote for a Democratic president, they should not do so based on falsehoods about Republicans. […]

1. “Saddam was a good guy when Reagan armed him, a bad guy when Bush’s daddy made war on him, a good guy when Cheney did business with him and a bad guy when Bush needed a ‘we can’t find Bin Laden.’”

Response: Saddam Hussein was always considered a bad guy by anyone with a working moral compass, and that included Democratic President Bill Clinton and his administration. The main reason that President Ronald Reagan armed Saddam Hussein was so as to enable Saddam to fight against Iran so that Iran would not be the dominant power in the Muslim Middle East. Arming an evil man to fight another evil man does not make the former less of an evil man. America aided Stalin’s genocidal Communist Soviet Union in order for him to better fight against Hitler. And after World War II, America aided some former Nazis in order to be able to fight Stalin. That is moral wisdom, not hypocrisy. […]

4. “A woman can’t be trusted with decisions about her own body, but multinational corporations can make decisions affecting all mankind without regulation.”

Response: Unlike those on the left, many Republicans, not to mention medical science, view a human fetus as having its own body and not being a mere extension of a woman’s body. People can differ on the legality of early abortions -- not every immoral action is necessarily illegal -- but to belittle the killing of a human fetus for no medical reason as “a woman doing what she wants with her own body” is only one more example of the left’s broken moral compass.

5. “Jesus loves you, and shares your hatred of homosexuals and Hillary Clinton.”

Response: No mainstream Republican or conservative has ever said that he or she, let alone Jesus, hates homosexuals. But because there is so much hatred on the left for Republicans and for religious conservatives, many on the left, like the writer of this list, constantly accuse Republicans and conservatives of being haters. It is usually projection. […]

7. “If condoms are kept out of schools, adolescents won’t have sex.”

Response: While many Republicans believe that teenage sexual standards should be left to parents and not to schools, no mainstream Republican has ever argued, “If condoms are kept out of schools, adolescents won’t have sex.” But many people, not just Republicans, think that teaching “safe sex” to middle schoolers sends a message to young minds that society assumes they will have sexual intercourse. And what society assumes usually happens. When society assumed teenagers should not have sex, they rarely had it. For generations before schools put condoms on bananas, there was far less teenage sex because society has a profound impact on teenage sexual behavior. The message in schools since then has often been that the only reason not to have sex at age 16 (or 15 or 14) is that you might get pregnant or contract a sexually transmitted disease. The portrayal of sex as almost exclusively a biological act has been one of contemporary liberalism’s greatest sins against young people.

8. “HMOs and insurance companies have the best interests of the public at heart.”

Response: Who ever said that? HMOs and insurance companies have the best interests of their owners or stockholders at heart. The question is not whether companies want to make profits, it’s whether individuals will have a choice about how to obtain health care, and whether the state should massively expand to create Canada-like socialist medicine with its triage and long waiting periods. […]

12. “Being a drug addict is a moral failing and a crime, unless you’re a conservative radio host. Then it’s an illness, and you need our prayers for your recovery.”

Response: Most conservatives and liberals believe that legalizing drugs would result in large numbers of young people using life-destroying drugs. As for Rush Limbaugh, he illegally acquired prescription painkillers for chronic back pain. Only people with hatred in their hearts can liken that to using heroin and other nonprescription drugs that crush lives.

Before Sending Your Child to a College, Ask these Questions (Mar. 4)

Before you take out a second mortgage or otherwise deplete your savings in order to pay for your child’s college education, you might want to ask the colleges to which your child is applying some questions.

1. Can one obtain a Bachelor of Arts degree at your college without having read a single Shakespeare play, one Federalist Paper or one book of the Bible? If so, why attend such a college?

2. Does the college allow military recruiters on its campus? […]

3. In the political science, English, sociology, anthropology and history departments—or any other liberal arts department—what is the ratio of Democrats to Republicans among the professors? […]

4. What are the names of the speakers invited and paid with college funds to speak last year at the college? […]

5. Can my child live in a same-sex dorm and are the bathrooms co-ed? […]

6. Is Howard Zinn’s “A People’s History of the United States” the most widely assigned American history book?

If the answer is yes, you should consider sending your son or daughter to another university or at least be aware that you will be paying a lot of hard-earned money for your child to be manipulated into believing that America is a bad country, certainly no better than others, as he or she reads what is essentially a proctologist’s view of American history. Zinn believes, as he told me in an interview on my radio show, that America has done “probably more harm than good in its history.”

7. Would a typical graduate of your university be able to say anything intelligent about Josef Stalin, Louis Armstrong, Pope John XXIII or Pope John Paul II, differences between Protestantism and Catholicism, Cain and Abel, the Gulag Archipelago, Franz Josef Haydn, Pol Pot, Martin Luther, Darfur, how interest rates affect the dollar, dark matter, and “Crime and Punishment”; explain what the Korean War was about and when it was fought; identify India on a map; and know the difference between the United Nations General Assembly and the Security Council? […]

Unfortunately, the chances are that if you receive any response at all to these questions, it will be a discouraging one. Outside of the natural sciences, colleges are either more interested in liberal indoctrination than in a liberal arts education, or they enable students to take courses that are so narrowly focused that your child graduate will likely graduate as a cultural and historical illiterate. Why so many Americans go into debt paying so much money to such failed institutions is one of the riddles of the universe.

It is time to demand that universities teach. Forcing them to answer the above seven questions is a good way to begin. Because granting a Bachelor of Arts degree on someone who never heard of Cain and Abel and never heard a Haydn symphony is a fraud.

Why Do Palestinians Get Much More Attention than Tibetans? (Mar. 25)

The first reason is terror. Some time ago, the Palestinian leadership decided, with the overwhelming support of the Palestinian people, that murdering as many innocent people—first Jews, and then anyone else—was the fastest way to garner world attention. They were right. […]

The second reason is oil and support from powerful fellow Arabs. […]

The third reason is Israel. To deny that pro-Palestinian activism in the world is sometimes related to hostility toward Jews is to deny the obvious. It is not possible that the unearned preoccupation with the Palestinians is unrelated to the fact that their enemy is the one Jewish state in the world. Israel’s Jewishness is a major part of the Muslim world’s hatred of Israel. It is also part of Europe’s hostility toward Israel. […]

A fourth reason is China. If Tibet had been crushed by a white European nation, the Tibetans would have elicited far more sympathy. But, alas, their near-genocidal oppressor is not white. And the world does not take mass murder committed by non-whites nearly as seriously as it takes anything done by Westerners against non-Westerners. […]

A fifth reason is the world’s Left. As a general rule, the Left demonizes Israel and has loved China since it became Communist in 1948. And given the power of the Left in the world’s media, in the political life of so many nations, and in the universities and the arts, it is no wonder vicious China has been idolized and humane Israel demonized.

The sixth reason is the United Nations, where Israel has been condemned in more General Assembly and Security Council resolutions than any other country in the world. […]

The seventh reason is television news, the primary source of news for much of mankind. […]

The world is unfair, unjust and morally twisted. And rarely more so than in its support for the Palestinians—no matter how many innocents they target for murder and no matter how much Nazi-like anti-Semitism permeates their media—and its neglect of the cruelly treated, humane Tibetans.

Time Fights Carbon Emissions; Military Fights Evil (Apr. 22)

The state of the liberal mind is on display on this week’s cover of Time magazine.

The already notorious cover takes the iconic photograph of U.S. Marines planting the American flag on Iwo Jima and substitutes a tree for the flag. Why Time’s editors did this explains much about contemporary liberalism.

The first thing it explains is that liberals, not to mention the left as a whole, stopped fighting evil during the Vietnam War. As I wrote in my last column, whereas liberals had led the fight against Nazism before and during World War II, and against Communism after the War, the liberal will to fight Communism, the greatest organized evil of the post-War world, collapsed during the Vietnam War. The Vietnam War did to American liberals what World War I did to most Europeans—it rendered them anti-war rather than anti-evil. […]

It is much easier to fight global warming than to fight human evil. You will be celebrated at Time, Newsweek, The New York Times, the BBC and throughout the media world, no one will threaten your life, there are huge grants available to scientists and others who fight real or exaggerated environmental problems, and you may even receive an Academy Award and the Nobel Peace Prize. Individuals who fight Islamists get fatwas.

The Time cover is cheap heroism. It is a liberal attempt to depict as equally heroic those who fight carbon emissions and those who fought Japanese fascists and Nazis. [...]

Years from now, Time’s cover will be regarded as another silly media-induced fear. But, as with Time’s 1974 article warning its readers about “another ice age” and its many articles on the threat of heterosexual AIDS in America, Time will just let public amnesia deal with credibility problems. Until then, however, one fact remains: Today, conservatives fight evil and liberals fight carbon emissions. That’s what this week’s cover of Time is about.

Liberalism and Victimhood (June 3)

If you want to understand the negative impact of feminism on women (and men) and, by extension, the destructive effects of liberal teachers, Democratic politics and liberal news media on African-Americans, here is Katie Couric last week on the CBS Evening News:

“A new study on teens and sexual harassment should give every parent pause.

“Most teenage girls report they’ve been sexually harassed. … In a study that appeared in the journal Child Development, 90 percent of teen girls say they’ve been harassed at least once.”

Millions of American parents and their daughters were told on one of the most widely watched evening news reports that nine out of every 10 American girls aged 12 to 18 are sexually harassed.

Suspicious that the feminist and liberal I-am-a-victim ideology was at play here far more than some real plague of sexual harassment, I decided to look into the report cited by Ms. Couric.

... Girls subjected to feminist indoctrination are undoubtedly more likely to interpret innocuous behavior as sexual harassment. Almost the entire liberal-left Weltanschauung is predicated on portraying every group in America except white, male, heterosexual Christians as oppressed. Women are oppressed by men. Blacks and Hispanics are oppressed by whites. Gays are oppressed by straights. Non-Christians are oppressed by Christians.

Of course, the fact is that American women have more opportunity and more equality than just about any women in the world today and certainly in history. Moreover, if either sex is “oppressed” today, it is far more likely to be males. If women were incarcerated, let alone murdered, as disproportionately as men are; if only 40 percent of those getting a bachelor’s degree were female; if girls dropped out of high school at the rate males do, there would be a national outcry. It is men who are, in fact, suffering. But for feminists, academics and CBS News, it is women who are still oppressed. And that is what they are taught in high school and college by feminist-oriented teachers. [...]

To an ever greater extent, schools and the news media do the same thing to African-Americans—tell them over and over that they are oppressed. And the effects have been even more corrosive. Just think of the wildly enthusiastic receptions the NAACP gave to the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and the black members of Trinity United Church of Christ gave to Father Michael Pfleger when he spoke of America being “the greatest sin against God” because it is so racist. The number of blacks who perceive of their lives as oppressed by whites can only lead to estrangement from the greater American society, not to mention anger toward and resentment of it.

Barack Obama’s Naive Berlin Speech

[This segment is from Part Two (Aug. 5). See Part One (July 29) here.]

Sen. Barack Obama’s recent speech in Berlin may have been a hit with American journalists. That, however, is due to most journalists’ politics, not to the profundity of Obama’s remarks. They were neither profound nor stirring. Indeed, a careful study of the speech should lead an impartial observer to be concerned about Obama’s grasp of the world. I started my analysis last week; I conclude this week. […]

Obama: “The poverty and violence in Somalia breeds the terror of tomorrow.”

In the seven years since 9/11, I have not seen a study that relates terrorism to poverty. And, as everyone knows, all of the 9/11 terrorists came from relatively wealthy homes. Obama’s assertion is simply a statement of faith. That faith is liberalism—increasingly a doctrine with more non-empirically based beliefs, i.e., dogmas, than most traditional religion: “Poverty causes crime”; “black incarceration rates are a result of racism”; “war is not the answer”; “capital punishment doesn’t deter”; “tax increases on ‘the rich’ help the economy”; “more money for education” and countless others. […]

Obama: “Europeans today are bearing new burdens and taking more responsibility in critical parts of the world …”

Which Europeans? What new burdens? Where are they taking more responsibility?

What new burdens have Spain, France, Norway or Sweden taken on? It seems to many of us that most European countries work hard to ensure that their welfare states prosper and, beyond that, do little to promote liberty on earth or even ensure their won security and values. [...]

Obama: “The walls between races and tribes; natives and immigrants; Christian and Muslim and Jew cannot stand. These now are the walls we must tear down.”

Those thoughts are lovely. But what matters is who is responsible for erecting these walls. For example, is it Christians or Jews or Muslims who today are erecting walls between “Christian and Muslim and Jew”? Obama seems to imply that all are equally responsible.

The Gibson Doctrine (Sept. 16)

… When [ABC News’ Charles Gibson] asked Palin whether she agreed with the Bush Doctrine without defining it, he gave the game away. He lost any pretense of fairness. Asking the same unanswerable question three times had one purpose—to humiliate the woman. That was not merely partisan. It was mean. […]

… There are at least four doctrines that are called “Bush Doctrine,” which means that there is no “Bush Doctrine.” It is a term bereft of meaning, as became abundantly clear when Gibson finally explained what he was referring to:

GIBSON: The Bush doctrine, as I understand it, is that we have the right of anticipatory self-defense, that we have the right to a preemptive strike against any other country that we think is going to attack us. Do you agree with that—the right to preemptive attack of a country that was planning an attack on America?

That’s the Bush Doctrine? “The right to preemptive attack of a country that was planning an attack on America?”

Isn’t that just common sense? What country in history has thought it did not have the right to attack those planning to attack it? I learned the “Bush Doctrine” when I was a student at yeshiva in the fourth grade, when I was taught a famous Talmudic dictum from about 1,800 years ago: “If someone is coming to kill you, rise early and kill him.”

And preemptive attack is exactly what happened in June 1967, when Israel attacked Egypt and Syria because those countries were planning to attack Israel. Would any American president before George W. Bush have acted differently than Israel did? Of course not. Did they all believe in the Bush Doctrine? […]

… Charlie Gibson showed far greater hostility toward the Republican vice-presidential candidate than Dan Rather did in his interview with Saddam Hussein or Mike Wallace did in his interview with Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Which reminds me of another Talmudic dictum: “Those who are merciful to the cruel will be cruel to the merciful.”

We might call it the media’s Gibson Doctrine: Confront Republicans, act obsequious toward tyrants.

Jewish Left Wins, Jews and Israel Lose (Sept. 30)

… Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the president of the Islamic Republic of Iran, who has repeatedly called for the annihilation of Israel and who denies the Holocaust, came to speak at the United Nations. The day before he was scheduled to speak, Jewish organizations across the religious and political spectrum had organized a “Stop Iran” rally at the Dag Hammarskjold Plaza across from the UN. They had invited Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., and then invited Republican vice-presidential nominee Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.

The intent was to maximize publicity for the anti-Iran cause, the most important Jewish concern (and arguably the most important world concern) today. With Clinton and Palin present, the world press would cover the anti-Iran rally, and the Jewish community could show the world and America that this was one cause that knew no politics—the most prominent female Democrat and the most prominent female Republican would both lend their names and prestige to this rally.

However, the moment that Clinton learned that the organizers had invited Palin, she withdrew. For Clinton, giving the other most popular woman politician in America publicity was unacceptable—even among New York Jews, one of the steadfast liberal and Democratic groups in America. The near collapse of the Stop Iran rally was of less consequence to Clinton than denying Palin a public platform.

Not many were surprised by Clinton’s action. What was alarming was the realization that for much of the Jewish left—not leftists who happen to be Jews and for whom the welfare of the Jewish people is not particularly significant, but left-wing Jews who claim to care deeply about Jewish survival—fighting Palin is of greater importance than fighting Ahmadinejad.

Left-wing Jews and Jewish organizations put intense pressure on the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations to cancel the invitation to Palin. And the pressure worked.

As the liberal editorial page of New York’s major Jewish newspaper The Jewish Week put it:

“But somehow, a big-tent cause like Iran as a terrorist power seeking nuclear arms has become so politicized within our community that Monday’s rally was more about the non-presence of Gov. Sarah Palin than about the very real presence at the UN of a Holocaust denier whose goal is to destroy our way of life.”

Yet, in a rare move, publishing an entire speech that was never given, Ha’aretz, Israel’s equivalent to The New York Times in its prestige and in its liberal politics, published the speech that Palin would have given. In Israel, liberal and even many left-wing Jews know that Iran is a greater threat to Israel than American conservatives.

The Palin speech was so good it should be read by every American concerned with Israel’s survival. And it was so nonpartisan that it praised Clinton for being at the rally. To say that Palin—who has the American, Alaskan and Israeli flags in her Juneau office—is a better friend of the Jews and Israel than much of the American Jewish left sounds odd only to Jewish leftists.

But the Jewish left acts as if it fears and hates her more than it fears and hates Ahmadinejad. … For left-wing Jewish organizations and their supporters—as opposed to many rank and file liberal Jews—the real fight is against Republicans and especially Christian conservatives (as a community, the Jews’ best friends) more than against a nuclear Iran.

After the cancellation of Palin, a left-wing Jewish organization that was influential in opposing Palin’s appearance, an organization called J Street, on whose Board of Advisors sits the executive director of MoveOn.org, headlined on its website: “We Won!”

That is indeed the case. The Jewish left did win. Which is why the Jews and Israel lost.

Why Reporters—and Judges and Professors—Are Biased (Nov. 25)

… For most liberal news reporters, therefore, the purpose of news reporting is not to report news as objectively as possible. The purpose of the media in general and of reporting specifically is to promote social justice and the social transformation of society.

For most liberal judges, the primary purpose of being a judge is to promote social justice and transform society. That is why liberal judges are so much more likely to be judicial activists than conservative judges. Most liberal judges do not see their roles as merely adjudicating a dispute according to the law. They see their role primarily as using the law and their power to rule on the law to promote social justice.

For most university professors—and many high school teachers, as well—outside of the natural sciences and math, the same holds true. The task of a teacher is to teach, i.e., to convey the most important information as honestly as possible. But, again, this conflicts with the social justice goal of the left. History teachers who merely teach history are of little use to the left. History—and English and political science, and sociology and other liberal arts—teachers must use their classroom to produce young people who will wish to engage in society-transforming work for social justice.

For most liberals in the arts (there are very few conservatives in the arts) there is no denial of their having an agenda. They state quite candidly that the purpose of the arts is to challenge the (conservative) status quo, to raise political and social consciousness by advancing a “progressive” political and social agenda. The artist whose agenda is merely to produce beautiful art is looked upon as a reactionary buffoon, and is not likely to be taken seriously—no matter how talented—in the worlds of music, dance, painting, and sculpture. […]

Minorities Should Express Shame, Not Only Pride (Dec. 16)

… Why does one almost never hear expressions of group shame from members of any American group other than white Christians (specifically, white Christian male heterosexuals)? Are the only evildoers in America white male heterosexual Christians? Is there something inherently wrong about members of minorities expressing anything but group pride? Are there no minority sins worthy of shame? The latter is in fact the argument advanced by many intellectuals concerning black racism, for example. For a generation, college students have been taught that it is impossible for blacks to be racist because only the racial group in power, i.e. whites, can express racism.

Of course, that is nonsense. A black can be a racist just as a white can be one. A minority race might not have the power to implement racist national policies but that hardly means that no minority group, or any individual, can be a racist. […]

Expressing group shame when morally necessary is not airing dirty linen or giving solace to ones ideological enemies. It is, rather, one of the highest expressions of moral development. And it is therefore universally applicable. Being a minority doesnt exempt its members from moral responsibility. It will be a great day for America and the world when minorities begin to express shame as well as pride. In fact, there is real pride in expressing shame. Minorities should give it a try.

Keep it up, Mr. Prager. 2009 is going to be one doozy of a year!

Are Israel's Responses Against Its Enemies Disproportionate? Damn Right: It Never Does Enough!

A few days ago, as the Israeli counter-strike on the Palestinians in Gaza began, I was wondering how soon it would be before the oh-so morally superior U.N. and the oh-so morally superior world community starts bashing Israel for its “disproportionate response” against those poor innocent oppressed Palestinians. These are the same Palestinians who had been launching rockets unanswered into Israel from Gaza—land Israel gave up for the sake of peace, remember???—without a single peep from such bastions of morally superiority.

Well, the wait is over. And, luckily, Vice PM Tzipi Livni has a bigger backbone than many of her predecessors, saying before the Knesset:

Israel is waging a struggle, but this struggle is not Israel’s alone. Israel is standing on the frontlines of the Western world’s war against terror, and we expect support for doing the right thing and fighting the war of the entire free world.

It is true: the pictures broadcast on television all over the world are provoking harsh public opinion against Israel. Unfortunately, some of the world’s decision makers are swayed by public opinion and the media, even though they know what is true and what is not, and how they would act in a similar situation.

You go girl!

But let’s talk more about that abused word “disproportionate” for a minute. The morally backward U.N. and world community launched that charge against Israel not too long ago, when Hezbollah was launching rockets into Israel from Lebanon. When Israel struck back, there came the criticisms: “Israeli retaliation too disproportionate!”

Even if such a claim is true, the premise is ridiculous: When an enemy launches exactly one rocket at a non-civilian target, you’re expected to also launch exactly one rocket at a similar non-civilian target, and so on and so on and so on? Uh, no. And that’s why the rest of the world cowers to real evil: They don’t know how to recognize it, let alone fight it. And so the U.S.—the Big Satan to Israel’s Little Satan—has to cover everyone’s ass for everything. With very few exceptions, we’re the only country on this planet that recognizes true evil and has the balls to go and take care of it

At least we are until January 20, 2009. Then all bets are off.

But is Israel’s attacks against the enemies that surround it “disproportionate”? The author(s) of a Front Page Magazine article today thinks so. More specifically: Israel never does enough!

Europe is not incorrect in stating the Israeli response is “disproportionate” to Hamas’ instigations. A “proportionate” Israeli response would involve firing rockets targeted at innocent civilians, rather than military targets (which Hamas terrorists hedge about with Palestinian civilians). Although Hamas suicide bombings claimed the lives of at least 300 innocent Israelis—roughly the number of “policemen” Israel has killed thus far in its military campaign—the bloodthirsty Zionists never induced a wave of Jewish youngsters to strap on explosives and hug Palestinian children riding public transportation. This disproportionate warfare manifests itself in every aspect of the war:

• Terrorists blow up buses of Jews; Israelis blow up cars containing Hamas leaders. 

• Palestinian television incites its citizens to kill Jewish civilians; Israelis wait years to target known mass murderers.

• Terrorists kidnap and sometimes lynch IDF members; Israelis release convicted terrorists to prove their goodwill.

• Terrorists destroy hotels in the middle of a seder; Israel bombs empty buildings, often calling ahead to assure Hamas evacuates those structures before the bombs fall.

Israel’s response to Muslim terrorism is disproportionate and always will be. The asymmetry represents the gulf between civilization and barbarism. It underscores the difference between nation-states and terrorist entities that have momentarily accrued the resources of nation-states. […]

As the Islamic world sends the flower of its youth off to die—and, they hope, kill—the Western world inveighs against Israeli “disproportion.” The irony is not merely that their criticism is disproportionate, but it is self-defeating. Israel is the canary in the mine of worldwide terrorism, waging a proxy war for—us. The relativist governments of Europe now strain to prevent Israel from doing the one thing necessary to preserve itself and the West: hunt down the terrorist enemy, destroy their power base, and test their allegiance to the proposition that 72 virgins in heaven are preferable to three on earth.

Amen, brotha.

As the New Year approaches in just a few hours, may the world finally wake the hell up!

Liberal Lie #1: Conservatives Are Racist: "Barack the Magic Negro" Probably not on Peter Yarrow's iPod

Awww, “Puff the Magic Dwagon” composew Petew Yarrow is vewy angwy. The über-socialist and peacenik is perturbed at the parody “Barack the Magic Negro,” produced under the auspices of Rush Limbaugh and played all summer long on his radio show.

Mr. Yarrow says at the Huffington Post:

The sending of a Christmas greeting by Chip Saltsman to the members of the Republican National Committee that includes a recording of the so-called parody, “Barack the Magic Negro” is not only offensive, it is shocking and saddening in the extreme. It flies in the face of America’s deeply held hope for a new era in which common ground and mutual respect characterize the exchanges between our national leaders.

I and my co-writer of “Puff,” Lenny Lipton, have been eagerly awaiting an end to the mean-spiritedness, outright disrespect and bigotry that was commonplace prior to this last presidential election. What might have been wearily accepted as “the way it was” in the campaign, is now unacceptable. Obama is not a candidate. He is the President-Elect, and this song insults the office of the Presidency, the people who voted for him, as well as those who did not—and taking a children’s song and twisting it in such vulgar, mean-spirited way, is a slur to our entire country and our common agreement to move beyond racism.

It is almost unimaginable to me that Chip Saltzman who sent the CD, would seriously be considered for the top post of the Republican National Committee. Puff, himself, if asked, would certainly agree.

Oh, puh-lease.

I actually got to share a stage once with Mr. Yarrow. Well, I was actually getting on the stage at the same time he was getting off, but for a few seconds we were on the same stage at the same time! It was at a national Jewish educator conference, and he was just finishing a rehearsal of his evening extravaganza, and I was just coming on to rehearse my slightly less adverstized set.

Anyway ... Problem is, Mr. Yarrow and Ms. Huffington, the song wasn’t making fun of Barack Obama or his blackness. He was making fun of a March, 2007, Los Angeles Times article by liberal columnist David Ehrenstein called … um … wait a minute, I have it here somewhere … oh, yeah, here it is: Obama the ‘Magic Negro’!

If you read Mr. Ehrenstein’s piece (which I won’t reprint any of here; I just had breakfast), you can almost see where the puddles of drool dropped. Seriously, the man must have had to change his pants three times before he completed writing it.

So what are conservative commentators supposed to do when such a sycophantic, um, “puff” piece is written about the Golden Calf and is given such a telling title? You write a freaking parody, of course! And that’s exactly what Rush Limbaugh got his parody peeps to do.

In other words, the parody isn’t a reflection of alleged conservative mean-spiritedness. It was a musical illustration of liberal intolerance and hypocrisy, namely, columnist Ehrenstein’s infatuation with Barack Obama’s race!

But neither Yarrow, nor Ariana Huffington who gave him a forum to express his repulsion, nor the HuffPo commentors whose posts I perused, seem to realize this.

Mr. Yarrow, it seems the person you should be angry with is not Rush Limbaugh, or the RNC who used this song on a CD they’ve been distributing; instead you should be angry at L.A. Times columnist David Ehrenstein. After all, he’s the one who, clearly with your song in mind, bastardized your precious song title.

By the way, here are the lyrics to the song. The whole thing is based on quotes about Obama by the L.A. Times article, Sharpton himself, and guilty white liberals (who, since that March 2007 article, Rush correctly predicted would prop Obama up to Messiah-hood and get him elected president.)

(As if sung by Al Sharpton)

Refrain:
Barack the Magic Negro lives in D.C.
The L.A. Times, they called him that
‘Cause he’s not authentic like me.

Yeah, the guy from the L.A. paper [See, it’s right in the song, and Yarrow and the HuffPo still don’t have a clue]
Said he makes guilty whites feel good
They’ll vote for him, and not for me
‘Cause he’s not from the hood.

See, real black men, like Snoop Dog,
Or me, or Farrakhan
Have talked the talk, and walked the walk.
Not come in late and won!

Refrain

Some say Barack’s “articulate”
And bright and new and “clean” [That would be VP-elect Joe Biden who said that, by the way. Oh, the freaking irony!]
The media sure loves this guy,
A white interloper’s dream! [That’s the only racist comment in the entire song—and it was uttered by a black person about white people!]

But, when you vote for president,
Watch out, and don’t be fooled!
Don’t vote the Magic Negro in
‘Cause...

(Music stops, Sharpton rants, music returns)

Sounds like good old-fashioned humous parody to me. Say what you will about whether the song is vulgar or mean-spirited, but the lyrics are 1000% true. And that’s most likely why the left-o-sphere is so angry.

In conclusion, my advice to the “so-called” songwriter Peter Yarrow:

First, get the facts straight before you start yet another rant about the alleged racism of the Republican Party.

I know, I know. You’re a liberal. When have the facts ever stopped you from thinking the worst about anything? Republicans are racist. America is evil. Man-made carbon emissions is going to fry the planet. What else does anyone really need to know, right?

Second, get a backbone: It’s a free country and if you really want people to believe you are the tolerant, open-minded, and free-speech-loving liberal you claim to be, then you shouldn’t have a problem with someone making a parody of your song—even if you don’t approve of the content. So man up.

And besides, what would you have done if someone wrote a “Puff” parody bashing Sarah Palin? I’ll tell you what you would have done: Stood up and cheered, you little hypocrite.

And lastly, get over yourself.

There. Was that vulgar, offensive, and mean-spirited enough?

From the WTF Files ...

This is what we're up against [h/t Little Green Footballs via Roman Around; Witty speech bubbles by yours truly]:

Any questions?

Liberal Media Bias: Obama's Obsession with Exercise = Praiseworthy & Essential. Bush's = Creepy & Distracting

Has anyone noticed the MSM’s sycophantic swooning and drooling over Barack Obama, who has been showing off his “sun-glinted chiseled pectorals” while vacationing in Hawaii?

OK, fine, Barack Obama is in good shape. But isn’t George W. Bush, fifteen years Obama’s senior, also in very good physical shape for his age? Indeed, we have seen over the past eight years how Bush is an avid runner and biker. He has also shown his natural athleticism whenever the camera has caught him throwing a football or tossing the first pitch at a baseball game.

The inimitable Michelle Malkin has noticed both the media’s infatuation with Obama’s physique and goes back to archives to document their coverage of Bush’s. The conclusion: Can you say, “Liberal media bias”?

As Malkin reports in her new article, the Christmas day Washington Post had the following on the front-page article by a smitten sycophantic Eli Zaslow:

As Duties Weigh Obama Down, His Faith in Fitness Only Increases
Gym Workouts Help Obama Carry the Weight of His Position

… The sun glinted off chiseled pectorals sculpted during four weightlifting sessions each week, and a body toned by regular treadmill runs and basketball games.

The more Obama’s life intensifies, friends said, the more he relies on the gym—which is why he might be taking office in the best shape of his life. The gym is where he releases stress, maintains a routine and thinks without interruption. He sometimes wears headphones and barricades the outside world. […]

To accommodate Obama during the 18-month presidential campaign, aides arranged workouts for him in several dozen states. The staff called gyms a few days before his arrival and persuaded them to close late or open early to oblige the candidate’s schedule. Once, on July 17, Obama visited a gym three times within 16 hours. Other days—often before primary election nights—he flew in half a dozen friends to play a few hours of pickup basketball.

“That’s one of the first things you learn working for him: You better make sure he gets his workout,” said Jim Cauley, who managed Obama’s 2004 U.S. Senate campaign. “If there isn’t any time, he’s not going to feel his best that day. If he only gets 30 or 40 minutes, he’s still not really happy.

“You have to make time for him to exercise, at least an hour or so. You block it out and put it on the schedule, because that’s what makes him happy.”

OK, so it’s clear that the media approves of Obama’s obsessive and intense commitment to daily exercise, and defends it as a necessary part of the Golden Calf’s work schedule.

Compare this to media coverage of President Bush’s devotion to daily physical activity. On July 22, 2005, Malkin reminds us, Jonathan Chait wrote about this in the L.A. Times. In his article, ominously titled, “The (Over)exercise of Power,” Chait kvetches:

Bush has an obsession with exercise that borders on the creepy.

Given the importance of his job, it is astonishing how much time Bush has to exercise.

There’s no denying that the results are impressive. Bush can bench press 185 pounds five times, and, before a recent knee injury, he ran three miles at a 6-minute, 45-second pace. That’s better than I could manage when I played two sports in high school. And I wasn’t holding the most powerful office on Earth. Which is sort of my point: Does the leader of the free world need to attain that level of physical achievement?

It’s nice for Bush that he can take an hour or two out of every day to run, bike or pump iron. Unfortunately, most of us have more demanding jobs than he does.”

Uh-huh. And I’m sure that come January 21, Chait will be right there with his word processor lamenting Barack Obama’s creepy obsession with exercise and how it must mean the rest of Americans have a more demanding job than he does.

And maybe pigs will fly out of my tuchas.

But Chait wasn’t done.

A week ago, when President Bush met with Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III to interview him for a potential Supreme Court nomination, the conversation turned to exercise. When asked by the president of the United States how often he exercised, Wilkinson impressively responded that he runs 3½ miles a day. Bush urged him to adopt more cross-training. “He warned me of impending doom,” Wilkinson told the New York Times.

Am I the only person who finds this disturbing?

Bush warned him of impending doom? What the hell does that mean? That does sound disturbing, until Wilkinson’s statement is put in the correct context. Chait, the ever-professional and objective journalist, had a problem with that, so Malkin reader “Stuart B.” had to explain it for him:

Jonathan Chait couldn’t or wouldn’t even quote properly. What Pres. Bush said according to the Times was that he was courting doom for his knees, i.e. that running should not be his only exercise. Why does this Chait have to make things up?

Because if liberals/Democrats don’t make things up about conservatives/Republicans, then they won’t have anything bad to say about them! Silly goose!

Another example of the exercise double standard is the following Reuters article from August, 2005 (dug up by Tom Blumer at BizzyBlog and NewsBusters):

Bush tests his mettle in bike ride with Armstrong
By Caren Bohan

… Bush says exercise helps sharpen his thinking.

But some of his critics view his exercise obsession as an indulgence that takes time away from other priorities.

Among them is Cindy Sheehan, the Vacaville, California, mother of a soldier killed in Iraq, who until late last week was camped out down the road from Bush’s ranch seeking a meeting with him to discuss her opposition to the war.

Sheehan, who left her vigil on Thursday to tend to her sick mother, has said she believes Bush should take fewer bike rides to have more time to focus on the “the nation’s work.”

Like anyone (aside from a partisan liberal “journalist,” of course) really gives a frog’s fat ass what Cindy Sheehan has to say.

To summarize, Michelle Malkin writes:

Fit Republican president = Selfish, indulgent, creepy fascist [whose commitment to daily exercise is a detriment and a distraction to the performance of his job]

Fit Democratic president = Disciplined, health-conscious Adonis role model [whose commitment to daily exercise is a necessity and a benefit to the performance of his job]

Got that, everyone?

But liberal media bias is just in our heads, right?

UPDATE: The Anchoress also weighed in today on the topic:

The press corp mostly sneered at Bush’s commitment to exercise. They sneered at Condi Rice’s exercise regimen, as well; she was the over-achiever subsuming her emotions to the treadmill, or whatever. But Sen. Obama? They’re turning him into “Chesty McCheesecake”, (and he seems a willing exhibitionist) probably because they haven’t got a clue who he really is or what he’s really about. And perhaps Obama likes it that way; he seems to be smart enough to know that if he gives them his chest, he needn’t bother giving them his thoughts.

All the press can do is hope and prey.

President Bush, who famously never enters the Oval Office in anything but a suit-and-tie, likely had too much respect for the Office of the Presidency to make a point of walking around shirtless. But had he done so - had he moseyed out of a workout with shirt in hand and pecs glistening, can’t you just imagine how the press would have howled about it, decrying his “vanity” in displaying the effects of his workouts? Of course they would have.

American “reporters” have become the political equivalent of teen magazine editors; this person is so hunky and in, this other person is so dweeby and out! […]

Does all of this portend a presidency of style over substance? I doubt it; Obama will not get the same “vacation from history” that Bill Clinton enjoyed. In serious times such as these, I suspect a salivating press does not do an American President any favors when it turns him into a beefcake pin-up.

Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s great that the president-elect and the future first-lady work out; we Americans can use the encouragement and example. It’s just too bad that for the last eight years the press did not see it “equally as fit” to praise a presidential work-out regime as an admirable, and not suspect, thing. And all because the guy had an R after his name, instead of a D.

End the Occupation! Liberals Out of Our Schools Now: Purdue Student Employee Convicted of Racial Harassment. Find out why.

Back in October I wrote about how liberals—who constantly accuse conservatives of banning everything they don’t agree with (remember the Sarah Palin book banning lie?)—are actually the ones who are quite experienced at banning everything they don’t agree with.

One example from that October post was the following:

Just this July at Purdue University, a student employee was slapped with a racial harrassment charge by the Affirmative Action (read: We’re looking with a magnifying glass for the racist that lurks within the depths of every single white person on this campus -- and your tax dollars are paying for it!) Office. Why? Co-workers saw him reading a book called Notre Dame vs. the Klan: How the Fighting Irish Defeated the Ku Klux Klan. For those of you who tend to vote Democrat, let me explain. The book is “an account of a 1924 incident in which a group of University of Notre Dame students fought in the streets with members of the Ku Klux Klan.” But the co-workers saw the words KKK and filed a racial harrassment suit. These are the politically correct morons running our universities.

UPDATE: Andrew Marcus at Founding Bloggers has informed us that the student employee, Keith James Sampson, has been found guilty of racial harassment—all for doing nothing but reading an anti-KKK book during his work break that some idiot co-workers thought was racist.

And an idiot panel IUPUI (whatever the hell that is) convicted him. They are extremely stupid and extremely dangerous people.

(There’s also a video of the story at the link provided above.)

Marcus adds:

A finding of racial harassment is no small matter. Once that is in a student-employee’s permanent record, it can follow them around forever. Even though Keith was completely exonerated of any wrong doing and the university apologized to him, that is small consolation considering a Google search of his name immediately returns links to this whole sordid mess. Certainly more than one of Keith’s future employers might take the time to perform a Google search. That should make for some interesting job interviews.

So watch what you read in public. It could get you convicted of a harassment crime. The nutjobs are definitely running the asylum.

And the next time some liberal/Democrat tries to paint conservatives as the suppressors of free speech, tell them this story. Next time some liberal/Democrat tries to revisit the false story that Sarah Palin tried to ban books at an Alaska public library, tell them this true story—which not surprisingly is nowhere to be found in the mainstream media.

This is the future under liberalism.

Hope and change, my mindless little sheep. Hope and change.

Change? More Like Recycled Garbage

Right before the presidential election, a November Associated Press article discussed a presidential candidate who "said he stood for change. He left a long list of promises."

These promises included: a streamlined bureaucracy, a new tax system, a pared-down defense budget, and comprehensive national health and welfare reform.

The article also explains that the candidate "billed himself as a candidate of the people, and outsider running against Washington insiders who are pawns of special interests, who've turned the government into a ‘horrible, bloated bureaucratic mess.'"

Sound familiar, right? Like candidate Barack Obama who, of course, is now president-elect Obama.

Only this AP article was not printed this November and was not about Barack Obama. The date of the article was November 3, 1976 and the candidate of change was Jimmy Carter.

The rest, as they say is history.

The more things change, the more they stay the same. Or perhaps more aptly: The more a politician talks about change, the more likely he's really for implementing old, tired, and failed policies of the past that he hopes you don't remember, or never learned about to begin with. 

As Ben-Peter Terpstra recounts in his current American Thinker article, Barack Obama is not a candidate of change. His presidency is destined to be a rerun, a redo of what has come before, and which has failed before. To wit:

Roughly a year after Carter’s reign began:

January 11, 1978: Change is here. Robert De Fina’s paper for the Center for the Study of American Business informs literates that the “cost of regulations to be more than $65 billion” in 1977 and that private “businesses must pay 18 billion to fill out government forms.” Under Carter, a global cooling hysteric, “billions more are spent to pay for new equipment and employees to meet many other federal regulations.”

In this economic context too, “the 65 billion regulatory bill is passed on to the consumer in the form of higher prices” and this “cost averages $307 for every person.” Americans feel their empty pockets, and they don’t like the feeling.

Apart from penniless businesses, citizens are also discovering that the ungodly “expense of regulations is more than the federal government spends on health care each year” and that “it uses 73 percent of the amount spent for national defense.” Further, it is “more than one-third of the total amount spent by private industry for new plant and equipment.”

And, in all seriousness, the world’s largest pharmaceutical group openly admits before Congress that their company now “spends more time filling out government forms” for President Peanut “than it does performing research on cancer and heart disease.”

January 12, 1978: As it turns out, Carter is peanuts. Wilfred Burchett, an Australian Communist, receives a waiver to gallivant around America’s colleges and universities. “Integrity”? “Sensitivity”? One writer points out in The News Tribune that he is—I quote—the “professional communist propagandist who worked insidiously on our prisoners of war in Korea and later in Vietnam” and that he has “been identified under oath before the Soviet KGB” for some unfathomable reason. Oh, yes and “his record is despicable” What’s more, “The New York Post has published a devasting exposure of his record.”

Summarily, then, Carter made headlines for (a) attending a whites-only church and (b) allowing white KGB-approved preachers to freely preach. In the meantime, Moscow is happily “airlifting weapons and supplies to Ethiopia” and “filing false flight plans when stopping to refuel in countries,” according to an aerial subterfuge report.

Since, Carter’s inaugnaration the jubilant communists have really taken to “flying over countries that lie between the Soviet Union and Ethiopia” for some reason beginning with “C.” On this day too, William Buckley is challenging President Carter’s belief that—I quote—“Our concept of human rights is preserved in [Red] Poland.” The erudite founder of National Review responds:

What is preserved in Poland is not our concept of human rights. What is preserved is 1) Soviet colonialism; 2) the supremacy of the state; 3) the abolition of property; 4) the abolition of intellectual and political freedom; and 5) the perpetual insecurity of any human rights—save only the right to practice one’s religion, which the Soviet Union found it could no more control than it could, domestically, the consumption of vodka. […]

But that's how change looks like after one year. Change, in a liberal nutshell, is peanuts.

They say that those who don’t learn history are doomed to repeat it. Jimmy Carter was president a mere 30 years ago. How quickly our country has forgotten this recent history, inarguably one of the worst presidents of the 20th century, if not in all of U.S. history, occupied the White House. How stupid our liberally-educated dupes must be. Obama clinched the youth vote over McCain by the millions. This can only be the result of an electorate who have not been properly schooled in history, by those who want to erase and rewrite it.

Otherwise, how does one explain how Barack Obama could have won the election on “change” when all he’s doing is recycling the same crap we got from the Carter years? And the LBJ years? And the FDR years? That’s not change; that’s crap. And it’s coming to your doorstep January 20.

Does this mean that America under Obama is headed directly where Carter’s America did? Not necessarily.

But if it doesn’t, it sure won’t be for lack of trying.

When People Don't Get What (You Think) They Deserve

There is a both a good side and bad side to Facebook.

On the one hand, you have this amazing opportunity to catch up with old schoolmates you haven’t even thought about in decades, let alone seen them. Memories of birthday parties, school functions, not to mention plays and concerts (if you were a music/drama geek like me) flow back like ice water poured on your head. It’s heartwarming to see these people you knew as a kid now raising their own kids and see where they ended up in life, career, and location.

The bad side is that there are also people you don’t want to see. Being a music/drama geek, I was ripe for ridicule. Growing up I was the one picked last in gym, who got shoved into lockers, whose chair got pulled from under him in the cafeteria, who got teased by the girls sitting in front of him who were getting D’s but didn’t care. All for the amusement of those kids who knew they were big enough and strong enough and “cool” enough to get away with it.

What was worse was when some of the parents were just as cruel as their children. And so it came as no surprise that when the school bully’s father ends up being your soccer coach, he’s just as much of a bastard to you as his son is.

So how do you respond when you deal with a bully—or an entire bully family—as I did as a child? Well, naturally, you wish the worst upon such people. You hope that those kids who made your life a living hell grow up to suffer a living hell of their own. After all, they can’t be too intelligent to begin with, so how far can they go in the academic or business world? Bullies are generally the kids who’ve already figured out by the time they’re in junior high that their life journey will be taking them no further than the fryer at the McDonalds, right? The ones who are in their 30’s and still single, or who have gone through a bitter divorce because their ex just couldn’t live with their temper anymore.?

But that didn’t happen to this guy. There I was innocently skimming the infinite pages of Facebook when, bam, there he was. And you know what? He was successful. Very successful. Huge house, huge pool, fast cars, his own business, and (seemingly) a beautiful family. Sure, you might be thinking, but does all that wealth really mean he’s happy? All the posted pictures seem to point that way. I can’t imagine that the smiles in those photos can all have been faked.

Here's the funny thing: Reading this guy's posts on the walls of our would-be mutual friends, I discover that he's actually warm and endearing, i.e., like a decent human being. So that gets me thinking: Maybe he turned out nice after all. A lot of people who are jerks as kids eventually grow up, right? Or, could I have just been overreacting as an insecure, sensitive and hopelessly unathletic child?

Looking into the eyes of someone who was a real bastard to me during my childhood, and into the eyes of his bully coach father who now smiles in pictures from his grandchildren’s bar mitzvah’s … it’s hard to know for sure.

There is a both a good side and bad side to Facebook.

Global Warming Lie #6: It's Getting Really Warmer!

Read my lips, global warming climate change htysterics:

No. It's. Not.

Deroy Merdock at NRO this morning on all the inches of global warming that’s been falling around the world:

Whatever Happened to Global Warming?
Because we could sure use some of it right about now.
By Deroy Murdock

… New Englanders still lack electricity after a December 11 ice storm snapped power lines. Some 3,900 Granite State customers remain in the dark after what PSNH, the local utility, called “the most devastating natural disaster to hit New Hampshire in recent history.” Over the weekend, snow similarly knocked out the lights in Illinois, Indiana, and Missouri.

Meanwhile, up to eight inches of snow struck New Orleans and southern Louisiana on December 11 and didn’t melt for 48 hours in some neighborhoods.

In southern California last Wednesday, half an inch of snow brightened Malibu’s hills while a half-foot barricaded highways and marooned commuters in desert towns east of Los Angeles. Snow barred soldiers at Barstow’s Fort Irwin from deploying to Iraq. In Las Vegas, 3.6 inches of the white stuff — the most seen in 19 years — shuttered McCarren Airport Wednesday and dusted the Strip’s hotels and casinos.

What are the odds of that?

Actually, the odds are rising that snow, ice, and cold will grow increasingly common. As serious scientists repeatedly explain, global cooling is here. It is chilling temperatures — if not the climate alarmists’ fevered expectations of so-called “global warming.”

According to the National Climatic Data Center, 2008 will be America’s coldest year since 1997, thanks to La Niña and precipitation in the central and eastern states. Solar quietude also may underlie global cooling. This year’s sunspots and solar radiation approach the minimum in the Sun’s cycle, corresponding with lower Earth temperatures. This echoes Harvard-Smithsonian astrophysicist Dr. Sallie Baliunas’ belief that solar variability, much more than CO2, sways global temperatures.

Meanwhile, the National Weather Service reports that last summer was Anchorage’s third coldest on record. “Not since 1980 has there been a summer less reflective of global warming,” Craig Medred wrote in the Anchorage Daily News. Consequently, Alaska’s glaciers are thickening in the middle. “It’s been a long time on most glaciers where they’ve actually had positive mass balance,” U.S. Geological Survey glaciologist Bruce Molnia told Medred October 13. Similarly, the National Snow and Ice Data Center has found that the extent of Arctic sea ice has expanded by 13.2 percent over last year. This 270,000 square-mile growth in Arctic sea ice is just slightly larger than Texas’s 268,820 square miles.

Across the equator, Brazil endured an especially cold September. Snow graced its southern provinces that month.

Marc Morano, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee’s Republican Communications Director, collects global-cooling incidents as others pin exotic moths to cork boards. Here are just a few of his latest specimens:

• Just before Halloween, southwestern Florida’s temperatures plunged to 47 degrees, October’s coldest readings since 1902. October 29 saw 120 new record-cold measurements and 63 new record-snow figures across America.

• The next day brought record cold to Havana, Cuba, where the mercury reached 48 degrees.

• The most snow ever to hit Tibet killed seven people October 30, stranded 1,300 others in damaged buildings, and took the lives of 144,000 head of livestock.

• Record snowfalls hit Switzerland the same day. Snow blocked rail lines between Interlaken and Spiez, forcing travelers onto buses. Snow-damaged fences in the Bernese Oberland helped cows slip away without adult supervision.

• Mother Nature lampooned a speech on so-called “global warming” by its highest priest, former vice president Albert Gore Jr. Bracing temperatures greeted his October 22 remarks at Harvard University. “Starting at 3 p.m., we will be serving hot cider and soup to keep everyone warm,” read a letter to the Harvard Community from the school’s Sustainability Celebration Committee. “Please dress for our changeable New England weather.”

“Global Warming is over, and Global Warming Theory has failed. There is no evidence that CO2 drives world temperatures or any consequent climate change,” Imperial College London astrophysicist and long-range forecaster Piers Corbyn wrote British Members of Parliament on October 28. “According to official data in every year since 1998, world temperatures have been colder than that year, yet CO2 has been rising rapidly.” That evening, as the House of Commons debated legislation on so-called “global-warming,” October snow fell in London for the first time since 1922.

These observations parallel those of five German researchers led by Professor Noel Keenlyside of the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences. “Our results suggest that global surface temperature may not increase over the next decade,” they concluded in last May’s Nature, “as natural climate variations in the North Atlantic and tropical Pacific temporarily offset the projected anthropogenic [man-made] warming.” This “lull” should doom the 0.54 degree Fahrenheit average global temperature rise predicted by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the Vatican of so-called “global warming.” Incidentally, the IPCC’s computer models factor in neither El Niño nor the Gulf Stream. Excluding such major climate variables would be like ESPN ignoring baseball and basketball.

America’s biased, pro-“warming” media holistically overlooked this paper in one of Earth’s most serious and respected scientific journals. Had these researchers forecast the years of higher temperatures, you would have heard about it, ad infinitum. [...]

Happy Holidays!

Merry Christmas and Happy Chanukah to all! - ETR

Liberal Media Bias: MRC's Notable Quotables of 2008 Are Here!

It’s here! The 21st instalment of the Best Notable Quotables brought to you every December by the Media Research Center.

So grab yourself a very strong egg nog and read the whole thing. Or, enjoy my personal favorite picks below.

Note: Although they are included by the MRC, I’ve discounted quotes from Chris Matthews, Bill Maher, and hosts of what are really opinion shows. However, news analysis shows, such as “Face the Nation,” “Larry King Live,” or morning shows like “GMA” or “Today,” are fair game.

Now, sit back and prepare for your mouth to drop to the floor and eyes to pop out in the face of the most humiliating media Obama-gasms, Palin-annihilation, America-bashing, and, as always, global warming climate change hysterics of 2008.

From the “Cut to commercial so I can change into some clean underpants” Department:

“They come in droves, by the tens of thousands at times, to hear Barack Obama speak … With soaring rhetoric, Obama is moving his audiences not just politically, but emotionally. Even some political commentators who’ve seen it all can’t help but gush. ... The stoic eloquence channels John F. Kennedy.”
— Correspondent Tracy Smith on CBS’s The Early Show, February 14.

“Today they gathered by the thousands at American University, sensing a moment of history. John F. Kennedy gave the commencement address here five months before he was shot. And today, the audacity of hope had its rendezvous with destiny. The Kennedy clan anointed Barack Obama a son of Camelot.”
— ABC’s David Wright on the January 28 World News, reporting on Ted Kennedy’s endorsement of Obama.

Co-host Robin Roberts: “Some would say it’s a team of rivals, a la President Lincoln, or is a better comparison a team of geniuses as FDR did?” …
ABC’s George Stephanopoulos: “We have not seen this kind of combination of star power and brain power and political muscle this early in a cabinet in our lifetimes.”
— ABC’s Good Morning America, Nov. 24

MSNBC’s Chris Matthews: “You know what? I want to do everything I can to make this thing work, this new presidency work, and I think that …”
Host Joe Scarborough: “Is that your job? You just talked about being a journalist.”
Matthews: “Yeah, it is my job. My job is to help this country … This country needs a successful presidency more than anything right now.”
— MSNBC’s Morning Joe, November 6

This Chris Matthews quote is fair game: He said it on another show, not his own.

From the “John McCain is an angry, mean-spirited war-mongerer and Sarah Palin is a stupid, backwoods, racist Nixonian attack dog who hates her children. But hey, we’re just reporting objective news here.” Department

“A campaign that’s turned down and dirty: Down in the polls, the McCain campaign has found a new attack dog … Yesterday [Sarah Palin] took after Barack Obama in a style reminiscent of Spiro Agnew when he was Richard Nixon’s running mate.”
— CBS’s Bob Schieffer opening the October 5 Face the Nation.

“If Sarah Palin becomes Vice President, will she be shortchanging her kids or will she be shortchanging the country?”
— NBC reporter Amy Robach on Today, September 3.

“[F]rom John McCain and Sarah Palin....attacks that stoked the anger at Republican rallies, where there have been reports of attendees yelling things like ‘terrorist’ and ‘kill him.’ [to Biden] Are you at all concerned in this home stretch for Senator Obama’s safety?”
— Co-anchor Terry Moran profiling Democratic vice presidential nominee Joe Biden on ABC’s Nightline, October 13.

“[Rush Limbaugh] was upset that I said he was perverting the process by encouraging Republicans to vote for Hillary Clinton in open primaries in an effort to quote, ‘bloody up’ Obama....When you encourage someone to vote for a candidate that they don’t want as President, I believe it is actually un-American....It is shameful.”
— MSNBC’s Dan Abrams reacting to Limbaugh pointing out that many Democrats had voted in GOP primaries, Live with Dan Abrams, March 5.

“Her attack was unsubstantiated and carried a racially tinged subtext that John McCain himself may come to regret. … Palin’s words avoid repulsing voters with overt racism. But is there another subtext for creating the false image of a black presidential nominee ‘palling around’ with terrorists while assuring a predominantly white audience that he doesn’t see their America?”
— Associated Press writer Douglass K. Daniel, October 5. Palin was referring to Bill Ayers (who is white)

From the “Don’t worry, Barack, we’ve got your back” Department:

“What of the attacks has busted through to you? What makes you angriest at John McCain, the Republicans? What’s being said about your husband that you want to shout from the mountain tops is not true?”
— NBC’s Brian Williams to Michelle Obama in an interview shown on the August 27 Nightly News.

“Many of the attacks that have come from John McCain’s campaign have been, quite frankly, condescending. Are you surprised by that? Does it anger you?”
— CBS’s Harry Smith to Democratic candidate Barack Obama on The Early Show, August 22.

Co-host John Roberts: “I want to just stipulate at the beginning of this interview, we are declaring a Reverend Wright-free zone today. So, no questions about Reverend Wright. Our viewers want us to move on, so this morning we’re going to move on. Is that okay with you?”
Barack Obama: “Fair enough. That sounds just fine.”
— CNN’s American Morning, May 5.

“People have called you ‘The Savior,’ ‘The Messiah,’ ‘The Messenger of Change.’ The expectations have been raised to such a level. … If you are, as you just say, lucky enough to be elected the next president, are you going to have to consciously manage expectations during the first several months of your administration?”
— NBC’s Matt Lauer to Barack Obama on Today, October 20.

From the “America is so racist, selfish, racist, evil, and racist” Department:

“East Germany Had Its Charms, Crushed by Capitalism”
— Headline over an October 29 New York Times review of a book bemoaning the introduction of Western capitalism to the former Warsaw Pact country.

“What do you think the bigger obstacle is for you in becoming president, the Clinton campaign machine or America’s inherent racism?”
— ABC’s Chris Cuomo to Barack Obama in a December 20, 2007 interview on Good Morning America

“To see his [Jeremiah Wright’s] career completely destroyed by three 20-second sound bites, all of the work he has done, his entire legacy gone down the drain, has been absolutely devastating to me — to him, sorry....We are still a racist country....I think that so many white people who had never been inside a black church were absolutely shocked by the tone and language that they heard [from Wright]....I think it brought out a lot of latent racism.”
— Washington Post writer Sally Quinn on PBS’s Charlie Rose, April 30.

Hey Sally and Chris, when you call Americans inherently racist, are you including yourselves? Cause if you are, then how dare you project your own racism onto the rest of us? And if you aren’t, how arrogant of you to exclude yourselves from a flaw the rest of America supposedly has?

“It’s early April, which means these are the few days of the year when Americans of almost every political stripe unite in a perennial ritual: complaining about taxes. Count me out. I’m happy to pay my fair share to the government. It’s part of my patriotic duty — and it’s a heckuva bargain. … There seems to be an inconsistency about people who insist on wearing flag pins in their lapels, but who grumble about paying taxes. … Genuine patriots don’t complain about their patriotic obligations. … Pay up and be grateful!”
— Former ABC and CNN reporter Walter Rodgers writing in the Christian Science Monitor, April 2.

“There was a statistic that came out this week from the Congressional Budget Office which was just stunning to me. It said that in the last two years — from 2003 to 2005 — the increase in income for the top one percent exceeded the total income of the bottom 20 percent. Given that, what would be wrong with letting the tax cuts for the top one percent expire and plowing that money into education?”
— Host George Stephanopoulos to Alan Greenspan on ABC’s This Week, December 16, 2007.

“I don’t even know how these candidates can talk about policy, because it seems like every day someone’s asking them to apologize for the comments of their supporters. Rush Limbaugh went nuts today on his program about this [Jeremiah Wright] story. John McCain is talking about this particular story. How do we get away from this?”
— MSNBC’s Norah O’Donnell to The New Republic‘s Michael Crowley during live coverage, March 14.

We? What do you mean “we”? Don’t you mean “How do the Democrats get away from this?”

From the “What to you mean we’re biased in favor Democrats?” Department:

Reporter Deborah Solomon: “You helped re-elect Bush in ‘04 when you gave $3 million to the Swift Boat campaign to discredit John Kerry’s Vietnam service. Do you regret your involvement?”
Businessman T. Boone Pickens: “Why would I?”
Solomon: “Because it’s such an ugly chapter in American political history.”
Pickens: “Oh, I see. Well, it was true. Everything that went into those ads was the truth.”
Solomon: “Really? I thought it was all invented.”
— From a “Q&A” exchange published in the New York Times Magazine on Sunday, August 3.

“Agree with him or not, [John Edwards] deserves credit for pushing tough issues off the back burner. He encouraged his fellow Democrats to speak out for the disenfranchised and under-served. He was the first to raise issues like poverty, universal health care and climate change, proposing big ideas — sometimes controversial ideas — to meet big challenges. He bucked the conventional wisdom and took political risks, speaking honestly about why he wanted to raise taxes, for example. That took courage.”
— CBS anchor Katie Couric in a January 30 “Katie Couric’s Notebook” video posted to CBSNews.com a few hours after Edwards quit the presidential race

What the f**k is this woman talking about? What color is the sky in Katie Couric’s twisted fantasy world?

From the “Messiah-Goracle 2008 (i.e., Gore for VP)” Department:

“This has been one of the most active, deadly tornado seasons in a long time....I talked to three people, casual conversation today, all of them smart, saying, ‘I don’t know, we must be doing something to our Earth.’ So once and for all, what’s going on?”
— NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams to NBC WeatherPlus meteorologist Bill Karins, May 12. Karins discounted global warming as a cause.

How can you, given the passion that you feel about this issue and the enormity of the dimensions that we’re dealing with here, turn down the idea that you could be in the administration as a Vice President or as an energy czar or as both? … There is no power like 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue for setting the agenda, for drawing attention to it, for moving the country, and for moving Congress. Mr. Vice President, no one knows that better than you do.”
— NBC’s Tom Brokaw to Al Gore, July 20 Meet the Press.

“Could global warming one day force us into space to live?”
— ABC’s Sam Champion teasing an upcoming segment on Good Morning America, February 8

And my favorite:

“Media bias largely unseen in U.S. presidential race”
— Headline over Reuters dispatch, November 6

I guess it depends on what they mean by “largely.”

Why I Left Liberalism #9 - Envy: Joe Biden Wages Class Warfare

The Investor’s Business Daily has an editorial about this ridiculous “middle-class” task force to be headed by Joe “paying more taxes is patriotic” Biden. The author’s conclusion: It’s the same ol’ Democrat tactic of envy and class warfare.

Your Average Joe
By INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Tuesday, December 23, 2008 4:20 PM PT

Class Warfare: President-elect Obama finally has a job for Vice President-elect Biden — czar of Obama’s “middle-class task force.” So what will that involve? Stirring up class envy and resentment is our guess.

Here’s Biden on his job: “We’ll look at everything from college affordability to after-school programs, the things that affect people’s daily lives,” he told ABC’s “This Week.”

We’re not sure Biden could even tell us what the middle class is — in terms of income, wealth, education or any other meaningful measure. But we are sure one thing is certain to come out of this: A greater resentment between economic classes, stirred up intentionally as part of a divide-and-conquer strategy ultimately intended to impose punitive taxes on those deemed “wealthy.”

The media and the left, which are often indistinguishable, have spent the last eight years telling those in the middle class that they’re “losing ground” or will be the “first generation to have less than their parents did.”

It’s all nonsense, of course, but it seems to be effective. Obama’s pledge to “ rebuild the middle class” by giving tax breaks to “95% of workers and their families” no doubt won him a lot of votes.

But guess what? The middle class did get a tax break — a big one, it turns out — under President Bush. As Congressional Budget Office data show, the effective tax rate on the middle fifth of households fell from an average of about 17.1% under President Clinton to 14.4% under Bush. That’s a 16% tax cut for the middle class.

Another oft-heard claim is that middle-class incomes are stagnant or shrinking. But a study last year by the Minneapolis Fed concluded that “incomes of most types of middle American households have increased substantially over the past three decades.”

Class warriors such as Biden like to cite median household income as evidence of stagnation. And on the surface, it seems convincing: Real household income did grow just 18% over the past 30 years.

But after correcting for distortions in the data, Terry Fitzgerald, a Fed senior economist, found something else: “Median household income for most household types . . . increased by 44% to 62% from 1976 to 2006.” And per-person income surged 80%.

Rather than stagnating, income has grown at an extraordinary pace. Yet that story never quite gets told.

Instead, we hear about another myth: “growing inequality.” But according to the accepted measure, the Census Bureau’s Gini ratio, there was virtually no change in inequality from 2000 to 2007.

Yes, many Americans are suffering in this recession, including the middle class. But the last thing we need is another general in a phony class war telling people how bad they have it.

Can't say I can argue with any of this.

Liberal Media Bias: NYT, Ignoring Its Own Reporting from the '90s, Blames Mortgage Crisis Solely on Bush

Noel Sheppard at NewsBusters has one of the most compelling and comprehensive takes on the latest nail in the New York Times' coffin: The complete and utter rewriting of history vis a vis the mortgage collapse. Read it all. It's worth it!

Global Warming Lie #1: Humans Are Significantly Affecting the Climate

Primetime Politics posts this recent TV clip from Eyeblast:

Awww, sorry Al Gore. But here's your consolation prize. You can still keep your worthless Nobel "Peace" Prize.

Liberal Hypocrisy: Wright OK, Warren No?

 

Response from the Left: YAAAAAAAWWWWNN

Response from the Left: Why, that #(*%^&$@! Barack Obama!!! Revolt! Protest! Turn your back on Rick!*

Hey, I'm just aksin.

* An actual campaign currently taking place on Facebook.

Dick Cheney Tells It Like It Is on Fox News Sunday

He is the antithesis of cool, which makes him cool.

Cheney has a job to do and he gets it done.

His job is riding shotgun in the Bush administration. He has the president’s back. So they call him Darth Cheney and he doesn’t care because that’s his job.

That’s how Don Surber describes VP Dick Cheney, who gave his “exit” interview on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace.

And I agree with him. Here is a key part of the interview:

CHENEY: We didn’t set out to achieve the highest level of polls that we could during the course of this administration. We set out to do what we thought was necessary and essential for the country. That clearly was the guiding principle with respect to the aftermath of 9/11. I feel very good about a lot of the things we’ve done in this administration. I think that they will be viewed in a favorable light when it’s time to write the history of this era.

I think the fact that we were able to protect the nation against further attacks from Al Qaida for 7.5 years is a remarkable achievement. To do that, we had to adopt some unpopular policies that have been widely criticized by our critics.

But I think in terms of “Is 29% good enough for me?” Well, we fought a tough reelection battle. We won by an adequate margin in 2004. We’ve been here for eight years now. Eventually, you wear out your welcome in this business.

But I’m very comfortable with where we are and what we achieved substantively. And frankly, I would not want to be one of those guys who spends all his time reading the polls. I think people like that shouldn’t serve in these jobs.

And that’s why Dick Cheney is one of the most reviled politicians of the modern era. He doesn’t care about polls; he cares about getting the job done. Same thing with George W. Bush, for the most part.

My liberal relatives and friends hate Dick Cheney. Hate him. But they loved Bill Clinton and now love Barack Obama, two men who together have less moral character than pond scum. (And my sincerest apologies to pond scum.). A very liberal Reform rabbi I know has an Olbermann-esque infatuation with Cheney. Everything that goes wrong in the world you can be sure he will blame it on Dick Cheney, if not George W. Bush or Karl Rove. He also, not surprisingly, has a Matthews-esque leg-tingling love for president-elect Golden Calf.

But Bush and Cheney are the total opposite of the spaghetti-spined Democrats of late. Bill Clinton? Totally driven by polls and the desire to be loved by everyone. John Kerry in ’04—same thing. And now Obama in ‘08, who unfortunately got elected. For eight years the Dems’ mantra has been “We have to restore our standing in the world.” Lemme translate that odious remark: “We must sacrifice what’s good for the country so that people will like us.”

Well, screw that! I don’t want a president or VP who lives to make sure the a-holes of the world like us. I want one who does what he can to make our country safe. That’s exactly what Dick Cheney helped do over the past 7.5 years. And God bless him. (And besides, as Dennis Prager has argued, the world doesn’t hate us; rather, the world’s left hates us. Big difference.)

Dems like Obama are always talking about needing a strong leader who will make the tough decisions even when they’re not popular. They’re full of crap. Dems like Obama never make tough decisions because all they care about is popularity. Otherwise the man wouldn’t have voted “present” umpteen times in the Senate. It’s people like Dick Cheney who made the tough decisions—and the result is he’s leaving the White House with a 29% approval rating.

That’s walking the walk, my friends.

Look, I’m not one who loses sleep at night trying to come up with ways to defend Dick Cheney. But I will say that, in stark contrast to my liberal relatives and friends who hate and/or fear him, I have absolutely no qualms with anything he has done over the past eight years. In fact, for much of what he’s done, particularly with regard to national security, we should thank him.

Article of Note: Coulter Recalls Palin and Her Effect on the Hateful, Hypocritical Left

Like a fine wine, Ann Coulter gets better with age. The left-wing mainstream media continues to lionize the Golden Calf, whose only accomplishments in life is that he’s done nothing but managed to write two autobiographies by the ripe old age of 47. In today’s new article, Coulter taps who should have been Time’s person of the year: Sarah Palin. Highlights:

Sarah Palin: Conservative of the Year
12/22/2008

… When McCain chose our beauteous Sarah as his running mate, the maverick was finally acting like a real maverick—as opposed to the media’s definition of a “maverick” which is: “agreeing with the editorial positions of the New York Times.” […]

I assume Palin was chosen because McCain had heard that she was a real conservative and he had always wanted to meet one—no, actually because he needed a conservative on the ticket, but that he had no idea that picking her would send the left into a tailspin of wanton despair. […]

True, Palin made some embarrassing gaffes.

She complained that we didn’t have enough “Arabic translators” in Afghanistan—not realizing the natives don’t speak Arabic in Afghanistan, but rather a variety of regional dialects, the most common of which is Pashtun.

Speaking to military veterans one time, Palin said, “Our nation honors its unbroken line of fallen heroes—and I see many of them in the audience here today.”

She bragged about passing a law regulating the nuclear industry that it turned out never became a law at all.

Some days Palin said Venezuela’s dictator Hugo Chavez should suffer “regional isolation”—but then on others she’d say she supported the president’s meeting with Chavez.

She told one audience about recent tornados in Kansas that had killed 10,000 people. In fact, a dozen people were killed in the tornados.

She referred to the “57 states” that make up the U.S.

Speaking of her eldest daughter’s pregnancy, she said Bristol was being “punished” with a baby.

As you probably know—or guessed by now—none of these gaffes were uttered by Palin. They are all Obama gaffes. Luckily, he made them to a star-struck press that managed not to ask him a difficult question for two years.

It seemed like the media would introduce an all-new double standard each day throughout the two glorious months of Palin’s candidacy.

I don’t remember, for example, zealous inquiries into the supposedly peculiar religious practices of any candidates in past elections. No one in the press touched on Sen. Joe Lieberman’s religious beliefs when he was Kerry’s [Oops, I think she meant Gore] running mate. (Nor, while we’re on the subject, was the media particularly interested in the beliefs of the religion that inspired the 9/11 attacks on America.)

But the press snapped right back into their anti-religious hysteria for a candidate who was a Pentecostal! The same media that couldn’t be bothered to investigate Obama’s ties to former Weathermen or Syrian Nationalist Tony Rezko was soon hot on the trail of a rumor that Palin’s church had a speaker 30 years ago who spoke in tongues!

Let me think now: Were there ever any unusual or otherwise noteworthy speeches or sermons given in churches where Obama worshipped? Hmmm … it’s on the tip of my tongue.

Liberals also suddenly decided that a woman with children could not handle the stress of higher office. Until Palin reared her beautiful head, this is precisely the sort of thinking liberals would have denounced as the Neanderthal, backwards, good old boy network attitude that had created a “glass ceiling.” […]

Having indignantly rejected experience as a presidential qualification in the case of Obama, liberals had to raise questions about Palin’s experience gingerly. But, in short order, they threw caution to the wind and began energetically criticizing Palin for her lack of experience. I call that two … two … two standards in one!

Like most Democrats, both Obama and Biden boasted of their humble beginnings, while having fully adopted the attitudes, pomposity and style of the elites.

Meanwhile, Palin is the sort of genuine American that brings out the worst, most egregious pomposity of liberals. For weeks, Carl Bernstein was showing up on TV to announce: “We still don’t have the date of first issuance of her passport.” Members of the establishment would be astonished to learn that more Americans have guns than passports.

Liberals were angry at Palin because they thought she should look and act like Kay Bailey Hutchinson: Upper crust, prissy and stiff.

Palin had a husband in the Steelworkers Union, a sister and brother-in-law who owned a gas station, and five attractive children—one headed for Iraq, one a Down’s syndrome baby and one the cutest little girl anyone had ever seen.

In a nutshell, Palin was everything Democrats are always pretending to be, but never are.

She didn’t have to conjure up implausible images of herself duck hunting as Hillary Clinton did. Nor was Palin the typical Democratic elected female official who went straight from college into politics, like Nita Lowey.

Despite their phony championing of “women’s issues” (i.e. abortion) there was not one Democrat woman who could win a head-to-head contest with Palin. Especially not if we got to see their faces. Democrats may have a fleet of women politicians, but they don’t have a deep bench of attractive ones. You don’t even think of most Democratic woman as women: Rosa Delauro, Nita Lowey, Patty Murray, Janet Napolitano—and the list goes on. Oh, sure, there are the odd female Democrat sex kittens—your Janet Renos, your Donna Shalalas—but they’re the exception to the rule. […]

The Obama campaign was so alarmed by Palin’s speech, it loudly dismissed the speech saying she didn’t write it. At least that’s what a press release written by an Obama campaign staffer said.

Indeed, the first words out of every Palin critic’s mouth were: “Good speech, but she didn’t write it.” So I guess all liberals were reading the same talking points written for them by the Obama campaign. At least Palin pays her speechwriters. Neil Kinnock is still waiting for his check.

Speaking of Joe Biden, he said that Palin’s speech had a lot of style but little substance. Inasmuch as Biden was Obama’s running mate, I think that meant he liked it!

A newspaper in Boston responded to Palin’s speech by interviewing hairdressers who criticized Sarah’s hairstyle. (Where were these people after Joe Biden’s speech?)

Trendy dinner party opinion soon demanded that all liberals take up the cry that Palin must let the press have a whack at her. Almost immediately after she was introduced to the nation, the cry went up: “When are we going to be allowed to ask Palin questions?”

Palin’s refusal to meet with the press for one week after being chosen as McCain’s running mate was evidently more maddening than Obama’s refusal to appear on Fox News for almost the entirety of his campaign. […]

Osama bin Laden was more upset about the Rev. Jeremiah Wright than liberals were—especially after “Jeremiah Wright videos” passed “al Qaeda videos” for most total viewings on Youtube. (He was kicking himself for not coming up with that “God Damn America” line first!) […]

In time, HUMAN EVENTS’ 2008 Conservative of the Year will be ready to be our President and someday can sweep into office and dismantle all the heinous government programs Obama and the Democrats are about to foist on the nation. Who knows? She might even be able to run as the candidate of “hope” and “change.”

‘Nuf said. Love her or hate her, Ann Coulter has the Democrats’ number!

Two Excellent Pieces on Global Warming Hysteria (L. Anderson)

At the American Thinker, author Larrey Anderson has two recent pieces on the “religion” of climate change alarmism. To be sure, Anderson is not the first to call radical environmentalism a religion; nevertheless, he adds constructively where pundits like El Rushbo have left off.

Both articles are really quite fascinating and illuminating. The highlights of each are below, but if you have the time I recommend reading them in full.

December 14, 2008
Worshipping the Weather

... In environmentalism, an all-wise clergy, composed of government bureaucrats and “scientists,” saves the planet from a sinful humanity. In the green religion human beings are both God and the devil. We are righteous when we act in conformity with the establishment’s dogma -- and we are evil if we question it.

The most fundamental environmental dogma is that man is destroying the planet.[ii] The leading tenet of the environmentalists’ dogma was simple. (It was simple until recent data that the planet is getting colder started pouring in.) The earth is heating rapidly and the increasing temperatures are caused by the man made release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

The church of environmentalism has a long list of litanies and a parcel of penances for the faithful to perform as part of their daily ritual (cleverly termed “lifestyle”). The sacraments include buying the right light bulbs, driving the right car, reprocessing the garbage, using recycled products, purchasing from environmentally “friendly” businesses. The list goes on and on.

Just as faithful Catholics intone, “The body of Christ” when they partake of the Eucharist; devoted environmentalists chant, “We are saving Mother Earth” as they separate paper from plastic.

This church of the earth has a catechism for its young members. (Warning: the site for children that I have linked to in that last sentence is spooky.) The church has the green equivalent of tithing. (There are only three links in that last sentence. There are dozens of different green congregations that will gladly take their parishioners’ money.)

The church even has indulgences. The worshippers call them “carbon credits.” And when the indulgences are paid the believers’ multiple sins against mother earth (exhaling is one of them) are forgiven. The followers have purchased the right to believe that they are not only saving the planet ... they are creating heaven on earth. […]

Al Gore has famously claimed about global warming, “the debate in the scientific community is over.” Al Gore may be many things to many people -- but he is not a scientist.

When a layman declares a scientific debate to be over, one of three things is possible:[iii] (1) the person is a prophet; (2) the person is ignorant and should be ignored by rational human beings; or (3) the person is insane and needs medical treatment.

It follows that someone who believes the layman’s assertion is (1) a religious follower of the prophet, (2) someone whose need for a “moral” issue exceeds his or her capacity to reason, or (3) someone at least as delusional as the person making the claim. […]

 

December 19, 2008
Climate Crisis = Logic Crisis

… I distinctly remember the first time I had an argument with someone about “climate change.” It was a warm spring day in April of 1975. I was walking across the campus at Harvard headed for lunch. A fellow classmate (we were both juniors) ran up to me. He was really excited. He hollered out:

“Have you heard? The ice age is coming. They’ve proven it with computer studies at MIT.”

“How did they prove that there is an ice age coming with computers?” I asked my friend.

“The planet is getting colder. They have the data. And it is going to keep getting colder. They have these computer models --”

I stopped him right there. I knew enough about computers to understand that they were not up to accurately predicting short-term weather patterns -- let alone an ice age.

“No way. Computers aren’t that powerful. “

“But they have the data and they have computers!”

“I know they do. But computers spit out whatever they are programmed to spit out. Load a computer with the data that the world has been getting colder; ask it what the weather will be tomorrow, and what do you think the computer is going to tell you? The world is getting hotter? If it does you’d better get a better computer. You hungry?” I replied and I continued on my way to lunch.

The original “climate change” hypothesis was that the planet was getting colder and that it would continue getting colder. That was a very simple hypothesis and was easily proven or refuted. Planet keeps getting colder = hypothesis correct. Planet gets warmer = hypothesis incorrect.

The world got warmer instead of colder. The “climate change” hypothesis was rewritten. This time the planet was facing a catastrophic meltdown. The world was not only getting warmer -- it was going to keep getting warmer at an ever increasing and life-threatening rate.

I remember this hypothesis too. It was scary. Computers were fed information that the world was now heating up and asked, again, “what will the weather be tomorrow?” This time the computers spit out: “hotter.” Good computers.

The computers said it would be even hotter the day after tomorrow. Hotter still next week, and next month. And in a few years? Forget about it.

The hypothesis predicted, and the computers affirmed, an exponential increase in temperatures was being caused by the exponential increase in man made green house gases. Al Gore’s famous (and refuted) “hockey stick graph“ proved it. In other words, the earth would heat fast, then faster, then faster still. Man made global warming was predicted to be a run away train on a steep downhill incline that had to be stopped and stopped immediately.

That was the hypothesis. It was simple. And it was just as easily proved or refuted as the global cooling hypothesis. World gets steadily and increasingly warmer = hypothesis correct. Planet gets colder = hypothesis incorrect.

But while concentrations of CO2, the culprit behind man made global warming, continued to rise -- the temperature did not. The empirical data refused to cooperate with the hypothesis. In the last few years the earth’s temperature has leveled off. It may be dropping.

Oops. Another hypothesis bites the dust. Not to worry. The hypothesis has been rewritten, once again. Now we have a “climate crisis.” Long term global warming is causing short term global cooling that will, eventually, result in long term global warming. Really. That is the new hypothesis.

The official reason being given is that the “weather is not the climate.” For those readers not skilled in dialectical huckstering, the argument seems to be that the weather can get colder while the climate gets warmer.

Proponents of global warming finally have an irrefutable, because incoherent, theory guaranteed to win any debate. This hypothesis cannot be refuted. If the “weather” cools it proves that the “climate” is getting warmer. If the weather gets warmer then the climate gets warmer. As the barker shouts out at the carnival, “Winner! Winner! Winner!”

This latest hypothesis is a violation of the most basic of the laws of logic: the principle of non-contradiction. Something cannot be both A and not A. The weather cannot get colder while the climate gets hotter anymore than the earth can be flat while the world is round. This is not science, or logic; this is unabashed nonsense.

Thank you, Mr. Anderson, for your eloquent and thought-provoking contribution to the issue of global warming climate change hysteria. Looking forward to even more.

Alas, as much of the country is hit with icy cold temperatures and rare instances of snow fall, will anyone listen to reason?

Global Warming Lie #6: It's Getting Really Warmer! AP's Seth Borenstein Is a Liar, a Nutcase, an Idiot, or All 3

The latest from Diversity Lane:

 

Have you noticed that every time some global warming climate change awareness event is scheduled, it is thwarted by some unprecedented snowstorm? The latest happened earlier this week, when Southern California—as well as Las Vegas and New Orleans—got pummeled by the white stuff. Chris Horner, author of the excellent new anti-GW hysteria book Red Hot Lies, shares this email on the anti-GW hysteria site Planet Gore:

From: Mona Mesereau
Sent:
To:
Subject: FW: Death Valley Solar Photovoltaic Facility Dedication Event

Good afternoon. I am writing to follow up on the invitation below. In addition to Ed Begley, Jr., it looks like there is also a very good possibility that Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger will also be speaking at the event. We have set aside rooms at the Furnace Creek Inn for members of the media. You are certainly welcome to assign someone to cover the event. You can RSVP by replying to this email. I look forward to hearing from you.

Mona Mesereau

[...]

From: Mona Mesereau
Sent:
To:
Subject: FW: Death Valley Solar Photovoltaic Facility Dedication Event

Because of the winter storm and several road closings in the area, the December 16, 2008 dedication of the solar photovoltaic system in Death Valley National Park has been cancelled.

Please contact Mesereau Public Relations for more information.

OK, Ms. Mesereau, I will!

Not to worry, though. AP’s science writer Seth Borenstein reminds us that such rare snow events are more evidence of catastrophic global warming:

Since Clinton's inauguration, summer Arctic sea ice has lost the equivalent of Alaska, California and Texas. The 10 hottest years on record have occurred since Clinton's second inauguration.

This is a lie. The 10 hottest years on record have not occurred since Clinton’s second inauguration. According to NASA itself, the 10 hottest years on record are:

1934, 1998, 1921, 2006, 1931, 1999, 1953, 1990, 1938, 1939.

Get it? That’s five of the ten hottest being before 1940, one in the 50’s, and the remaining four in 1998 and after. (And remember, “on record” means since around 1850—a microspeck of a microspeck on the timeline of the planet.)

Seth Borenstein then goes on to write:

While skeptics are already using it as evidence of some kind of cooling trend, it actually illustrates how fast the world is warming.

Yeah, and if your 5’6”-tall blogger gets any shorter, the NY Knicks will be calling me to play center for them.

NewsBusters blogger Noel Sheppard provides a response to Borenstein’s hysterical AP piece by professor David Deming from U. of Oklahoma:

How can this guy call himself a “science reporter?”

He is perhaps the worst propagandist in all the media, and that’s stating something.

In his latest screed, he screams: “global warming is accelerating”

How then does he explain the fact that the mean global temperature (as measured by satellite) is the same as it was in 1980?

How can global warming be “accelerating” when the last two years have seen dramatic cooling? Is this guy totally removed from all reality?????

He completely ignores any evidence contrary to his personal beliefs, and twists everything to meet his preconceived notions.

How can anyone so ignorant be a reporter for AP? Seriously?

Easy, Prof. Deming. Clearly, to be an AP science reporter, an anti-American socialist with an agenda, or even president of the United States, all one has to do is be a GW alarmist. Just leave your facts at the door.

Liberal Hypocrisy / Media Bias: Sarah Palin Inexperienced, Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg Wonderful Candidate

Jonah Goldberg asks why the same mainstream liberal media who destroyed the decent and talented governor Sarah Palin and who bashed her over her alleged lack of experience, is not the least bit critical of possible NY Junior Senator Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg, the princess of the ultra-liberal dynasty who was born with a platinum spoon in her mouth and who has less political experience than Sarah Palin’s left pinky.