Vocal Minority

Help! My Young Kids Are Already Being Turned into Environ-mental-ist Wackos

I had no idea that by ages 5 and 7 my kids would already be getting turned into environ-mental-ist wackos.

This morning, my 7-year-old son, just a couple weeks shy of starting 2nd grade, finished watching the DVD Epic, which their mother bought for them yesterday, and came into my office asking to go to the "Energy Star" website.

I was already familiar with the propaganda Energy Star (with the government's help and using our money) peddles to kids. Three summers ago I noticed posters inside my town's public schools using the Lorax movie to motivate kids to "save the planet".

Anyway, I humored my son and we went to the EnergyStar.GOV site. There we were met with this page:

If you go to the actual site, the "HELP" sign sticking out of the North Pole pops in and out of supposedly melting ice and bops around. Nice touch. The pink vocab box on the top right changes every time you visit or reload the page, showing words like "renewable energy," "CFL's," "photovoltaic cells," "greenhouse gases," and other things every young skull full of mush needs to know. The green "fun facts" box changes too, giving scary statistics about all the evil things the U.S. does to destroy the environment.

From this web page you can click on the spinning wheel at the bottom and select various games and activities. My son chose this word search game:

OK, "clean air," "clean water," is fine, whatever. But "togetherness" and "respect"??? How much leftist feel-good gobbledygook can one government-funded website squeeze into one child's word search game??? Someone should let them know they forgot "bullying"!

Anyway, while my son played these activities he began complaining that "Cars are bad!" My 5-year-old daughter seconded that, bemoaning cars' "smoke". I asked, "Well, how would we get around?" To which my son quickly replied, "By bike." (I immediately recalled a story El Rushbo talked about this week about young millennials being glorified by NPR for living a car-free lifestyle and getting around by bike.)

How does Epic fit in to all this? Our EPA (again with our tax dollars) is using the characters, who in the movie "save the planet", to encourage viewers to go to the Energy Star website and to "join Team Energy Star in the EPIC fight to protect the climate!" They've done this by playing advertisements on the DVD following the movie.

This page is at schoolfamily.com, a website associated with America's PTA/PTO organizations.

What was I, an informed citizen but also a parent, to do? I calmly explained to my kids that cars were not evil and that the website was meant to scare kids into thinking that we're destroying the planet. It was a good way of teaching them that not everything they see on TV or online is true. I was also straightforward and explained in a way for kids to understand that the people trying to scare us to stop using cars and electricity really just don't like the fact that people have ways to be successful and prosperous and provide for their families. I also pointed out that the scarers haven't even given up their own energy-indulgent lifestyles.

Not quite convinced of my explanation, my son reasoned that at least littering is definitely bad for the planet. Which I, of course, agreed with.

But the conversation wasn't over. Done with the computer game in my office, my two kids were about to head upstairs to play something else when my son stopped at the doorway and insisted the light be turned off to save energy. I told him not to because, for one thing, it wasn't light enough in my office at 9:30 in the morning to use only sunlight, and in addition, the fixture in my office had those curly CFL bulbs in there anyway. (Why the hell not? They last longer and in the long run they're cheaper.) So my son reluctantly turned the light back on and went up to play with his sister.

I had no idea that by ages 5 and 7 my kids would already be getting turned into environ-mental-ist wackos.

But I'm just one parent trying to "fight back the liberal hoardes." What I'd like to know is: How are other parents dealing with creeping leftism everywhere -- schools, songs, movies, websites, and even commercials?

Obama's Revenge: Day 19 (2/8/13)

"Vote! Voting is the best revenge." - Barack H. Obama, Nov. 2, 2012

Gateway Pundit and others reported this story yesterday:

Obama Administration Shuts Down 100 Year Old Oyster Farm This Week

Another Obama success story…
The Drakes Bay Oyster Co. has been in business for 100 years.
Then came Barack Obama.
In November, the Obama Administration shut down the oyster farm. They said it was for environmental reasons.

The farm produced 40% of California oysters.

The business was ordered to close its doors this week after a federal judge denied the oyster farm’s request to overturn its eviction from Point Reyes National Seashore.

Kevin Lunny, owner of Drakes Bay Oyster Company, hugs longtime worker Lupe Guadalupe Arriago after learning the government will not renew his family’s lease in Inverness, Calif., Nov. 29, 2012 (Wall Street Journal)

Our president is like a Bizarro King Midas. Everything he touches turns to crap. This is only Exhibit #38163. I'm sure if his environ-mental-ist bullies didn't shut them down, his IRS bullies (oh, sorry: Affordable Health Act advocates) would've put them out of business with punitive regulations and costs. You wanted 4 more years of Hope&Change(TM)? You got it!

Incidentally, when I linked this GP article on my FB page, a a lib/Dem friend not pleased with my disrespect for The One, replied:

How about taking a look at the history of the legislation and the complexity of the situation: http://blogs.berkeley.edu/2013/01/04/of-mollusks-and-men-the-wilderness-act-and-drakes-bay-oyster-company/

<Sigh> A blog entry written by the Executive Director of the Center for Law, Energy & the Environment at UC Berkeley? That's sure to be a "fair and balanced" piece. Incidentally, I did read the piece, and, not surprisingly, it applauded the Obama's Interior Secretary Ken Salazar for refusing to renew the Lunnys' lease. Another victory scored by Big Government over individual liberty and property rights. All in the name of "the children," "the environment," or whatever.

As an epilogue, President Hope&Change had some eyebrow-raising words to say about the outgoing Salazar, as AWR Hawkins at Breitbart reports:

Offering comments on behalf of outgoing Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar Wednesday, President Obama suggested the Hispanic Cabinet member is more authentically American than New England's Pilgrims.

"His ancestors were here before the Mayflower set sail," Obama noted.

Obama talked about Salazar's Spanish roots and segued from that to focus on how hard he's "working to get immigration reform passed." 

The President then repeated a phrase common among Nativists, insinuating that lands belong to ethnicities and not countries: "[Salazar and] his family did not cross the border, the border crossed them. And that's why, when I needed somebody to lead Interior, I didn't have to look very far."

Dear G0d, I can't wait to see who Obama picks as the new Interior Secretary.

Green ‘drivel’ exposed | Columnists | Opinion | Toronto Sun

Green ‘drivel’ exposed | Columnists | Opinion | Toronto Sun [h/t Drudge]

Question: Why is environ-mental-ist hysteria too often reported as actual news, while the debunking of environ-mental-ist hysteria relegated to the "Opinion" section?

Liberal Fascism: Environ-Mental-ist Forest Service vs. Tombstone, AZ

This little story will cheer you up this fine Saturday morning. The Forest Service is prohibiting the town of Tombstone, Arizona (of O.K. Corral fame) from repairing a fire-damaged water pipeline that's been around since 1881. Why? 'Cuz it might threaten the habitat of the endangered Mexican spotted owl.

Rep. Jeff Flake (R-AZ): "The unforeseen consequences of federal laws and regulations threaten to do something outlaws, economic busts and the Arizona desert couldn't: Kill the town too tough to die."

Some New Vids: The Great One and a Great American

Everyone should watch this video taken at the Reagan Library last Friday. It is Mark Levin at last Friday's book signing -- Levin's last for his latest book "Ameritopia."

There is also this young up-and-coming great American by the name of Kira Davis. She's the one whose "Apology" video went viral last month. Here she is again doing a "Smart Phone Smart Minute". Go get 'em, Kira!

Update on Those "Green" Spaces

Back in early October I posted about two parking spaces at a local synagogue designated for vehicles that are "environmentally friendly" or that "reduce America's dependence on foreign oil". The spaces were placed practically as close to the building as handicapped spaces, as incentive for congregants to purchase a hybrid or whatever.

Well, it's now the middle of February and I have to report that in the dozens of times I've been to this synagogue  I have not seen one car occupy these spots. The spaces sit there empty like pathetic neglected wallflowers whom nobody asks to dance. All around them sit regular sedans, minivans, and SUVs.

That is, until last week. For the first time since keeping track, I spotted a Toyota Prius in the parking lot ... but it was not parked in a green space! It was simply interspersed in the regular part of the lot among all the gas guzzlers.

Maybe it was a visitor who parked before realizing there were these "green" spaces, I reasoned. But then this week I saw the same Prius ... again parked in a regular parking space!

The custodian happened to be doing some maintenance outside when I arrived so when I got out of my car I asked him if he's ever seen a car parked in the green spaces. He said no. "So why do they have them"? I asked incredulously. "I don't know," he casually answered. Then I pointed at the Prius halfway down the parking lot, yards away from the green spots. He just shrugged. What was he supposed to do? Wasn't his idea. 

I wonder how many more months these empty berths will be taking up space in this parking lot. (Maybe the synagogue should offer free membership too.)

I also wonder how many other houses of worship that have installed these green spaces are faring.

Meanwhile, just this past month we've learned that the polar ice caps aren't melting anywhere nearly as quickly as the alarmists have warned, the Mt. Kilimanjaro's supposedly imperiled snowcap is growing, and Europe is undergoing such a deep freeze that Venice's waterways are icing up.

Just sayin'.

End the Occupation: National Center for Socialist Propaganda Science Education

Are you one of those intelligent people who actually refuse to fall for the flawed theory of catastrophic man-made global warming climate change? Do you have a child attending a public school? No problem. A non-profit group called National Center for Science Education has created a program to help science teachers take on you neanderthals.

Meteorotologist, radio host, and author Brian Sussman has the story today at Human Events.

This month, the National Center for Science Education (NCSE), a nonprofit group that denounces intelligent design and supports evolution-only curricula in the classroom, is expanding its mission. The organization is determined to silence global warming deniers, and is unfurling an aggressive effort to teach America’s schoolchildren that climate change is real and is being caused by human activity. ...

As a prime example of what the NCSE intends, the University of California at Berkeley operates the website GlobalWarmingKids.net.  On the site, instructors can order “Global Warming for Young Minds,” a handbook aimed at 6- to 10-year-olds. It also offers “Let’s Stop Climate Change” DVDs, in which Simon the hippopotamus encourages children to take action against the dangers presented by global warming.

In the class projects section of a similar website, HotStuffChillOut.org, school kids are told, “We all know about climate change. We all know what to expect. Now we must act.”

The tragic aspect of all such eco-brainwashing is that the scientific method is being bastardized as our students are being told what to think, not how to think.  ...

END THE OCCUPATION. LIBERALS OUT OF THE SCHOOLS NOW!!!

End the Occupation! - U.K. School Principal Keeps School Freezing to "Save the Planet"

This story from across the pond appeared today on Drudge:

A HEADTEACHER got a roasting yesterday for turning the school heating OFF on one of the coldest days of the year — to save the planet.

Pupils shivered in coats, hats and scarves as temperatures fell to just 1°C (34°F).

Head Rob Benzie switched off the radiators to show how the secondary school could cut its carbon footprint.

But some staff and parents slammed the "barbaric" plan.

One teacher called it "beyond stupid" and added: "It was absolutely ridiculous.

"I've never worked in such cold. I'm all for saving the planet but this was barbaric.

"Nobody could work properly and kids could not even grip a pen through their gloves." The mum of a 12-year-old at Ansford Academy in Castle Cary, Somerset, said: "She was shaking when she came home. I was absolutely furious."

A dad added: "Turning the heating off in December is just mental."

"I can't believe the kids learnt anything. I'm very angry with the school."

 But Mr Benzie, 52, defended the "successful" experiment last Friday — locally the coldest day of the winter so far — and vowed to stage regular "eco-days" at the 640-pupil school.

He said: "We cut the heat to see if we can lower our carbon footprint. We let pupils wear as many jumpers as they liked.

Oh gee, how gracious of you. Yeah, that's what I want to do as a schoolchild. Wear 20 layers for 6+ hours at school. That's going to help us get a lot of work done.

"Everyone seemed happy enough although it did get pretty chilly. We sent letters to parents telling them of the plan.

"We had only one complaint and that was from a member of staff. But in the end they just got on with it."

Um, that's not what the article says ...

Mr Benzie said he hoped for another eco-day next term, adding: "I'd like it to be a regular event. We have too much heating — sometimes I have to turn it down as it can make students fall asleep.

Well that's just stupid. Why does it have to be way too much heat — which is a problem in and of itself — or no heat at all. Are we too ill-equipped in the 21st century to have a system that produces moderate indoor temperatures?

 

"The idea was actually thought up by a small number of pupils from our student eco-group."

Oh sure, pass the blame on to a bunch of brainwashed kids. Real smooth. What a freaking joke that environ-MENTAL-ists like this are running schools (Oh believe me, there's more than one.)

You know what? I hope more schools do this. You know why? Because it's going to end up turning kids off to this global warming scam.

END THE OCCUPATION. LIBERALS OUT OF THE SCHOOLS NOW!!!

 

Global Warming Lie #7: The Science Is Settled

I haven't blogged about man-made global warming climate change in a while. So much other stuff going on!

Lately we have an international oil pipeline that can deliver energy to millions of and jobs to thousands. Yet, the radical environmentalist left, including President Hope&Change, is blocking it. Why? The hoax of mmgwcc, that's why.

Meanwhile, not covered by the DBF* media of course is the fact that scientists are jumping off the mmgwcc bandwagon more and more. In Britain, in continental Europe, and in the U.S. 

Karin McQuillan summarizes these developments in this AT piece:

Media coverage on global warming has been criminally one-sided.  The public doesn't know where the global warming theory came from in the first place.  Answer: the U.N., not a scientific body.  The threat of catastrophic warming was launched by the U.N. to promote international climate treaties that would transfer wealth from rich countries to developing countries.  It waspolitical from the beginning, with the conclusion assumed: the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (U.N. IPCC) was funded to report on how man was changing climate.  Its scientific reports have been repeatedly corrected for misrepresentation and outright fraud.

This is important.  Global warming theory did not come from a breakthrough in scientific research that enabled us to understand our climate.  We still don't understand global climate any more than we understand the human brain or how to cure cancer.  The science of global climate is in its infancy. ...

There is a lot of emotion and little common sense in this argument.  If a diagnosis is based on a shaky and partly fraudulent theory, ignores much more convincing evidence, and has terrible negative side effects, you don't perform major surgery.  We do not have to run around like Chicken Little on the off-chance that the sky may be falling.

There has been a high economic cost to limiting our oil and gas wealth, with much human anguish because of government-imposed economic contraction.  Responsible government policy requires honest media coverage, unfettered scientific inquiry, and robust political debate.  Our country cannot afford the costs of foolish energy policy based on politicized science and fear.

She's correct. That's all this has been: politicized science and fear. A hoax on which basis the environ-mental-ist left can control our energy, control our prosperity, control our lives.

Reason #47355 Why I Will Never Rejoin the Reform Movement: "Green Spaces" in Synagogue Parking Lots

Here’s a real WTF moment I had earlier this week:

As I went to park in a synagogue parking lot I noticed the two closest spots to the building (other than the handicap spots) had been newly designated with green line paint and a sign. According to this sign, provided by the American Jewish Committee (AJC), the spots were reserved for flex-fuel or hybrid cars that get 30+ MPG. It then said in smaller letters at the bottom: “Reduce America’s Dependence on Foreign Oil.”

Sure enough, when I got home later that day, I did a search on-line and lo and behold: This NJ Jewish News has this story on the Green Spaces campaign.

I was actually surprised to find out the article was dated June 29 of this year. That means for a good three months it passed under the radar; I do not recall anyone speaking of this on the news sites or blogosphere.

The piece reads in part:

Drive a hybrid? Shuls may have a space for you
by Robert Wiener
NJJN Staff Writer

June 29, 2011

The American Jewish Committee is asking houses of worship to reserve one or more spaces in their parking lots for fuel-efficient vehicles.

The Green Spaces initiative seeks to promote hybrid, flexfuel, electric, or any other cars that log 30 or more miles per gallon of gasoline.

“We want to reward people who drive cars that use less gas. We want to continue to keep this issue on everybody’s mind,” said Allyson Gall, director of the AJC’s New Jersey Area.

The program, launched last year at the AJC chapter in Cleveland, dispenses Green Space signs for parking lots and places explanatory brochures in building lobbies.

Great, it started in Cleveland. That means no matter where you live, look for this at a house of worship near you.

The initiative, said Gall, “educates people about the issue of our dependence on foreign oil, which affects national security, Israel, human rights, and the environment. Someone might come to a church event or a synagogue event and see that not just the handicapped get a good parking spot.”

It doesn’t educate people about anything. It takes a specific position on a far-from-settled political issue and then imposes it on everyone else by enacting policies that affect people’s behavior.

OK, I’m sorry, what kind of business does a house of worship have designating preferred parking spaces for “green” vehicles? What kind of political B.S. is this? Oh, don’t give that “saving the planet” and “keeping the earth clean” and “reducing our dependence on foreign oil” are not political issue but purely religious-moral concepts. That sound you hear is my Bravo–Sierra alarm going off.

Gall talked about the program when she appeared along with several hundred other activists at the Environmental Lobby Day rally in Trenton on June 20. …

Oh yeah, I’m sure that was an apolitical all-sides-represented kind of a gathering. Puh-leeease.

Let’s enumerate some of the problems with designating “green spaces” at a synagogue, shall we:

First and foremost, synagogues that have these parking spaces have made a value judgment on behalf of the entire congregation. That is undemocratic and exclusionary. As of this writing the synagogues listed at the NJJN article are mostly Reform. The key concept distinguishing Reform Judaism from other denominations is that it respects the individuality of its adherents and respects their ability to make informed choices about which Jewish rituals and practices reflect their lifestyle and worldview.

For this reason, I would surmise that to this day no synagogue has ever designated preferred parking spaces for congregants who keep kosher laws (you know, an actual Jewish practice). Or for congregants who donated the most tzedakah that week? Or for those who plan on observing the Sabbath by not using electric or other power (O.K., that one might be difficult logistically because even if you’re driving to synagogue, you’ve already broken that rule. But you get the jist). What kind of odd precedent does it set that of all the truly religious/moral reasons a synagogue could reward its congregants, it’s for driving a hybrid car???

Second, consider the unfairness of this policy. Hybrid cars and the like are only within reach of people whose lifestyle and budget (not to mention mere personal taste) allows them to have one. A carpooling parent transporting a half-dozen kids in their SUV or minivan can actually benefit from a close parking space, but are not going to be able to.

Finally, let’s look at this “reducing our dependence on foreign oil.” Yours truly deliberately buys gas only from stations that sell only or mostly American oil, like Sunoco and Hess. (I also use BP, which is British and not from the Middle East.) So why can’t I park there, even if my car gets less than 30 mpg. I’ve been reducing my dependence on foreign oil for years.

Let’s not delude ourselves: This is just the latest example of a synagogue pushing left-wing policy preferences as Judaism. And I’m not alone in that assessment. Here are the comments of people who as of this writing also responded to the NJJN artice:

“Patti” (June 29, 2011):

Is the New Jersey News funded by or affiliated with the Hard Left AJC? Just wondering as it seems as though the point of view week after week is quite monolithic.

Does the New Jersey Jewish community get a chance to hear the other side? If not, why not? As you can see here, there are different points of view within the Democrat Party.

I understand that Conservative Jews like myself don’t seem welcome in your paper. but it would be nice if once in awhile your paper didn’t read like a series of press releases for the Hard Left Jewish organizations.

“Morris” (June 29, 2011):

So you would penalize the young family with 3 or more children or the soccer mom that carpools her children and their friends to after school activities requiring a larger vehicle? You would give parking preferences to the yuppy couple with 2 incomes at the expense of the family where there is one working parent supporting the family while mom takes care of the extracurricular activities of her family. Another short sighted liberal attempt to push an agenda at the expense of intelligence and logic.

“Phil” (July 6, 2011):

“We want to reward people who drive cars that use less gas. We want to continue to keep this issue on everybody’s mind,” said Allyson Gall,”

If rewards and reminders are key, how about adding a parking space in front of the synagogue that is too small for a car? That way, people will try to walk to services on Sabbath. (The reward might be of an Otherworldly variety.)

And this, my friends, is reason #47355 why I will never rejoin the Reform movement (although, I should note, some Conservative congregations can be just as environ-mental-ly active).

Global Warming Link to Drowned Polar Bears Melts Under Searing Fed Probe

Nothing to see here, folks. Just another global warming climate change myth in the process of being blown out of the icy Arctic water. From Audrey Hudson at Human Events:

Special agents from the Interior Department’s inspector general's office are questioning the two government scientists about the paper they wrote on drowned polar bears, suggesting mistakes were made in the math and as to how the bears actually died, and the department is eyeing another study currently underway on bear populations.

Biologist Charles Monnett, the lead scientist on the paper, was placed on administrative leave July 18.  Fellow biologist Jeffrey Gleason, who also contributed to the study, is being questioned, but has not been suspended.
 
The disputed paper was published by the journal Polar Biology in 2006, and suggests that the “drowning-related deaths of polar bears may increase in the future if the observed trend of regression of pack ice and/or longer open-water periods continues.”
 
It galvanized the environmental movement that led to the bear’s controversial listing in 2008 as threatened, and it is now protected under the Endangered Species Act.
 
Although the four dead bears cited in the paper were observed from 1,500 feet during flights over the Beaufort Sea, and the carcasses were never recovered or examined, Gleason told investigators it is likely the creatures drowned in a sudden windstorm that produced 30-knot winds, not for lack of an ice pack.
 
“We never mentioned global warming in the paper,” Gleason told the investigators, according to the transcript.
 
“But it’s inferred,” responded investigator Eric May.  “That’s why the world took it up as a global warming tangent.” ...

 

Who's Really Anti-Choice? (Giving Liberals a Taste of Their Own Medicine)

Did you ever see that bumper sticker that says, "Don't like abortion? Don't have one!"

Think of the inanity of that statement. To the pro-abortion crowd, choosing whether or not to have an abortion is no different than whether or not to see a movie or whether or not to purchase an iPhone. Don't like a certain movie? Don't see it! Don't want an iPhone? Don't buy one! What logically follows, they believe, is: Don't like abortion? Don't have one! It's simply a personal choice (that five lawyers in black robes one day decided was a constitutional right) and no one has the authority to "force" a woman what to do with an unborn child. 

But the main difference is that seeing a movie or buying a piece of electronics doesn't involve the destruction of an innocent tiny human. In fact, when those who are pro-abortion argue their position, the baby is the farthest thing from their mind, if it enters their mind at all. The baby necessarily doesn't factor in; it's just a dispensible clump of cells until the very second every inch of her body enters the world.

Not only does the pro-abortion crowd willfully ignore the inhumane gruesomeness of an abortion -- if you don't think it is willful, consider the hellstorm that ensues every time it is suggested young people actually be shown footage of an abortion being performed -- but they also mischaraterize the position of the anti-abortion position. They would have us believe that those who are anti-abortion are actually anti-woman, i.e., they want to control women in general and impose their rigid traditionalist "patriarchical" views on them. This is why those against abortion are also often called "anti-choice": such people supposedly don't want women to be able to make any choices for themselves, including abortion. 

While these descriptions might be politically advantageous, they are wholly inaccurate. If people who were anti-abortion were anti-woman or anti-choice, why is there no other area in which such people seek to restrict women's behavior? Where are those anti-choice types who are trying torestrict a woman's choice to have a career or stay "in the kitchen," for example? Where are all those Neanderthals attempting to restrict women's freedom of speech, assembly, etc.?

There aren't any. But when those who are pro-abortion call their opponents "anti-choice," that is the message they are trying to convey. When pro-abortion liberals call anti-abortion conservatives "anti-choice," it makes my skin crawl. Conservatives are not anti-choice, we're just anti-abortion. And for good reason. Abortion is murder, no matter how you slice it, no matter how you rationalize it, no matter how many lawyers in black robes declare it a constitutional right.

My purpose in bringing this all up was to try to give liberals a taste of their own medicine. Because if there is any group of people in this country that is truly anti-choice, it is the American liberal/Democrat. What if we took that abortion bumper sticker and fashioned it to defend conservative positions:

Don't like guns? Don't get one!

But liberals/Democrats generally hate guns, and because it is they who are truly anti-choice, they have done everything in their power, including ignore the Constitution, to prevent law abiding citizens from owning guns.

You know how liberals scoff at abstinence programs, claiming they're not effective? You know how hell-bent they are from keeping abstinence out of schools' sex ed curricula in favor of promoting "safe sex"? They're always telling us that young people are going to have sex anyway and that instead of making the unreasonable demand that they abstain, adults should instead teach them how to do it safely. Well, why then do liberals insist on "gun abstinence," i.e., gun bans and gun control laws? If they were consistent, they would favor "safe shooting"? Sounds perfectly reasonable to me. After all, people are going to shoot guns. Why not simply educate them as to how to properly and safely use them?

Oops, there I go looking for logic and consistency in liberalism!

How about these:

Don't like SUV's? Don't drive one!

Don't like incandescent light bulbs? Don't use them!

But most of the liberal/Democrat left are devout practitioners of the religion of environ-mental-ism. And while constantly decrying the creeping theocracy allegedly being foisted upon the American people by the "religious Christian right," the religious environ-mental-ist left gleefully foists upon us their religion. Thus, it's not enough for them merely to dislike certain types of cars, the incandescent light bulb, coal-powered electricity, toilets with enough water in them to actually flush correctly, (and if  you live in California, the plasma T.V.!). Having bought into the hoax of man-made global warming climate change, the anti-choice left has succeeded in or is currently attempting to ban those items which allegedly contribute to it. 

This one is for all the liberal/Democrat food fascists out there:

Don't like trans-fats / salt / sugar / soda / Happy Meals? Don't consume them!

Yet in cities like San Fran and NYC nanny state busybodies have not only made it a point to avoid these items, but they have made it illegal for you to decide whether or not to eat them. On food, these liberals/Democrats are anti-choice. They clearly never thought that what you eat is a "personal choice between you, your partner, and your doctor" like a certain other thing ...

And speaking of NYC, here's one more:

Don't like cigarettes? Don't smoke them!

O.K., I know what you're thinking. Smoking pollutes the air and makes it uncomfortable for people around them to breathe. Fair enough. That's what smoking and non-smoking sections of restaurants used to be for. That's what outside is for. In other words, there are plenty of places where smokers can engage in their disgusting habit without disturbing others who want clean air.

But in many places around the country, all public establishments and even outside venues like parks are non-smoking. Even bars, where smoking is to be expected and tolerated? Yes, even bars. Even cigar clubs, whose raison d'être is to be a place where people come to ... um ... smoke! Yup. Some states even ban people from smoking in their own homes and cars if there are children close by. 

On smoking, liberals are vehemently anti-choice. Restaurant and bar owners don't even have the choice whether or not to allow smoking in their establishments, if that's what their clientele prefers. The anti-choice left has made that decision for them.

There are plenty more examples out there but I think you get the point: When it comes to being anti-choice, liberals beat conservatives hands down. Want to choose your food, your toilet, your light bulb, your car, whether or not to bear arms or a place to smoke? To the anti-choice left the answer is: "Oh no, you don't. Those things are (or should be) illegal! Prohibited! Banned! Fined! Taxed!"

But suggest that there shouldn't be abortions and these very same people will rise up with their stupid clothes hanger in hand and shout, "How dare you impose your views on others, you fundamentalist anti-choice zealot!"

Then they'll drive away in their tin can of a hybrid car with a bumper sticker on the back that reads, "Don't like abortion? Don't have one!"

You think they'll ever stop being blinded by their own self-righteousness to notice this hypocrisy?

What? There's Global Cooling Now?

You just can't make this stuff up.

First, the (sort of) good news: A new climate study seems to show that "anthropogenic global warming" (or whatever the %&*# you want to call it) had in fact peaked in 1998. Yes, I know, that's a huge admission, right? What happened to all that cooked-book drivel about the hottest years on record being in the 2000's?

But now for the bad news: The reason AGW has stopped is ... pollution. That's right. Sulphur pollution from Asia's burgeoning economies is having a cooling effect on the planet, canceling out the warming effect allegedly caused by Western pollution.

Get it? The earth is warming? Pollution! The earth is cooling? Pollution! It's a Marxist misanthrope's dream come true.

It's amazing. It's like the climate of the planet never #&^*ing changed until the first smokestack was invented!

 

 

Why I Left Liberalism #16 - They Reward Failure: Obama's Genius Economists

El Rushbo has mentioned this many times in the past, and today it is worth repeating: The Democrat Party rewards failure.

For instance, when Howard “Yaarrrrrgggghhhh!” Dean lost the 2004 presidential candidacy to John Kerry, he was rewarded by being made the DNC chair, at which post he boosted the integrity of his party by accusing the Republicans of being racists, sexists, homophobes, xenophobes, etc., etc., who want women back in the kitchen and blacks in the back of the bus. (This illustrious tradition, incidentally, is now continued by the new DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz, but that’s another story for another blog post.)

Another example is when Hillary lost the nomination to President Hope&Change in 2008. For this she was rewarded by being appointed to Secretary of State, a position she shows to be grossly unqualified for on a frequent basis.

These are just party-internal failures. But what happens when the failures of Democrats translate to big problems for the American people at large?

Arguably the most egregious example of this is Al Gore. Soon after the man who “used to be the next president of the United States” lost the presidential race in 2000 to W., he began embarking on his man-made global warming climate change campaign full force. Within just a few years, Gore had become a celebrated “ambassador for the planet” to the Democrat-media(-Hollywood-academia) complex. For this role Gore is now worth hundreds of millions of dollars and currently sits in a humongous Tennessee mansion with multiple plasma screen TV’s, SUV’s private jets, and an Oscar award for a movie deceptively billed a documentary.

And what do we, the American people, get? We’re being threatened by draconian, oppressive environ-mental-ist regulations. We have toilets that need to be flushed three times because there’s not enough water in them anymore. A gaggle of unaccountable lawyers in black robes known as the Supreme Court has declared CO₂—a gas exhaled from every breathing creature and needed by plant life to survive—a freaking pollutant. In just a few short months the incandescent lightbulb will be banned. The oil and coal industry, which fuels our entire economy and ensures our comfortable modern lifestyle, is under governmental attack. Our children from grade school through college are being indoctrinated to “go green” and to demonize anyone who refuses to hop on the environ-mental-ist bandwagon.

Another salient example of the liberal/Democrat being rewarded for failure and concomitantly having disaster upon our nation: The many members of President Hope&Change’s economic advisory team. All these people who have gone in and out of this position like it’s a revolving door from academia to Obama’s Washington and then back to academia again. These people are, we are told, the best and the brightest. They hail from, we are also told, the most prestigious universities in the nation, for which parents pay tens of thousands of dollars to send their children to be educated by them.

But look at the economy right now. Has it improved one whit since Obama took office in January, 2009? No, just the opposite. Has the employement rate improved since then? No, just the opposite. Has federal spending been reined in? No, just the opposite. Have the debt and the deficit been reduced? No, just the opposite. Has the nearly trillion dollar “stimulus” package worked? No, just the opposite?

Yet the architects of every failed scheme and policy imposed by Obama at the advice of this crack squad of economic geniuses are still considered geniuses. They are still revered as experts despite the utter destruction they have wrought on this nation and its economy. And every one who has left the Obama administration is welcomed back with open arms by the prestigious universities they had left. To do what? To teach Marxist-socialist crap to unwitting college students. And get paid hundreds of thousands of dollars a year plus cushy benefits to do it.

Isn’t being a liberal/Democrat great? Get paid craploads of money to teach young people wrong things.

This week Obama’s current economic advisory chair, Austan Goolsbee, announced his resignation. This utter failure came from the University of Chicago School of Business where Michelle Malkin reports “He also pulled in a University of Chicago salary of $465,000 and additional wages and honoraria worth $93,000 …” This is in addition to “assets valued at between $1,146,000 and $2,715,000.” So, at least Goolsbee is good about making money for himself, just not for everyone else. So much for the liberal/Democrat claim to care about the little guy, spread the wealth around, pay your fair share, blah blah blah. The disgustingly rich Goolsbee joined Obama’s advisory committee when the employment rate was at 6%. He’s leaving when it’s at 9.5%, to return to a job that will pay him nearly a half a million dollars.

Isn’t being a liberal/Democrat great?

Here’s El Rushbo yesterday announcing the exit of Goolsbee:

So a failed economic advisor quits so he can return to academe and teach young skulls full of mush how to destroy jobs and run up the deficit. And we wonder why the country's in trouble. Failed liberals in government go back to their overpriced universities to teach liberalism to young skulls full of mush who don't know squat about the real world. These failed intellectual idiots are running what's called higher learning. … Goolsbee is fleeing his abject failure and is being welcomed with open arms back into the American academy. What is the old saying, those who can, do, and those who can't, teach.

Indeed. (Not to say all teachers aren’t capable of being doers. It just seems there are too many of them in our hallowed university classrooms, and definitely too many who are invited to join failed Democrat presidents’ failed administrations.)

But in the aforementioned Malkin piece demonstrates, Goolsbee is merely the last in a long list of intellectual morons who had a high-paid cushy university job before coming to Washington, who certainly had a well-paying job while totally screwing up things in Washington, and then return to that same high-paid cushy university job after fleeing Washington. There’s Christina Romer (UC Berkeley), allan Kreuger (Princeton), and Larry Summers (who would have still been president of Harvard had he not violated a sacrament of feminazi political correctness). Other geniuses who didn’t come from / return to academia but nevertheless are still sitting pretty in well-paid positions of various sorts: Peter Orszag and (Biden advisor) Jared Bernstein.

Isn’t being a liberal/Democrat great?

Why do Goolsbee, Romer, Summers, Orszag, and Bernstein even have jobs? If ours is truly a nation where success is rewarded, and not failure—and these days it is definitely not—then Goolsbee, Romer, Summers, Orszag, and Bernstein should be hanging their heads in disgrace and unemployed. Why do these people even still have jobs, let alone prestigious and high paying ones? Why would anyone who runs a university even want these people within 100 yards of a single student???

Why does Al Gore even have two dimes to rub together? Why are the names Howard Dean and Hillary Clinton not simply relegated to the ash heaps of American history?

Because liberals/Democrats take care of their own. It’s not how well you do; it’s what you believe, and it’s how much you do to further the agenda of the Left. Success be damned. And the American people be damned.

Related reading: Goolsbee Gone: Obama’s Economic ‘Dream Team’ Evaporates (Richard Pollock at Pajamas Media)

When It Comes to Doomsdays, the Left Shouldn't Laugh at the Religious

Dennis Prager hits it out of the park, as usual:

... the left should not laugh too loudly. The religious world has far fewer doomsday predictions than the left does. At least every few years, the secular-left frightens itself — and tries to frighten everyone else — about another doomsday scenario.

The most obvious current example is, of course, global warming. For years now, we have been told by the world's left-wing media that scientists are united in predicting that there will be worldwide catastrophe as a result of global warming caused by manmade carbon dioxide emissions. Oceans will rise so high that they will drown many of the world's great coastal cities; entire island-countries will disappear; vast areas of the world will dry up; and countries will fight one another for the little remaining fresh water.

Compared to the global warming scenario, I'll face the Rapture — and I'm not even Christian.

Of course, none of these global warming predictions has materialized. For example, in April of this year, Der Spiegel reported:

"Six years ago, the United Nations issued a dramatic warning that the world would have to cope with 50 million climate refugees by 2010. But now that those migration flows have failed to materialize, the UN has distanced itself from the forecasts. On the contrary, populations are growing in the regions that had been identified as environmental danger zones."

As a result of so many such false alarms, and because so many places have experienced record cold temperatures, global warming has been renamed "climate change." ...

 

Kids 'Scared Straight' to Climate Activism

By Anthony J. Sadar and JoAnn Truchan at American Thinker:

Oscar Wilde once said, "In America, the young are always ready to give those who are older than themselves the full benefits of their inexperience." What was true in 1887 is still true today, as those with limited or non-existent adult responsibilities can find the time to take up causes. However, there is a reason why 13-year-olds are not allowed to drive, purchase alcohol, vote, or hold elected office -- they simply lack the experience to do so intelligently and with maturity.

Children especially are susceptible to outside influences such as the manufactured entertainment of "organized" activities and video games, manufactured celebrities (think Justin Bieber and Khloe Kardashian), and now manufactured causes. Adults can look at the claims of the climate-change activists and contrast the activists' assertions with factual revelations such as the Climategate scandal, biased atmospheric science studies, and cartoonish distortions of scientific realities presented in political propaganda films like An Inconvenient Truth.

Children, on the other hand, typically lack perspective and discernment. Therefore, it is unfair, even unethical, for adult activists to target the young when the activists have been unable to convince more-informed, less-gullible adults of a coming global-warming catastrophe attributable to human activity.

Nevertheless, from their earliest age, children are indoctrinated to these fabricated oncoming disasters by activist progressive educators. The kids then take the manufactured causes home to their parents -- or in the case of the iMatter March, bypass their parents completely in order to teach them. As Oscar Wilde continued, "Indeed, they spare no pains at all to bring up their parents properly and to give them a suitable, if somewhat late, education."

As adults continue to "learn" from the children, and as another school year "progresses," what is needed to improve education is to teach the children to be critical thinkers and help them become more-reasoning individuals. This will assist them with the skills necessary to evaluate complex concepts like global climate change and keep them from falling prey to adults with big, scary, unsubstantiated ideas. Otherwise, the kids may grow up to be the new promoters of such ideas.

Then again, isn't that the ultimate objective of the purveyors of the global-warming goblin?

The Wheels Keep Falling Off the AGW Bus

How's about these statements:

The debate about global warming has reached ridiculous proportions and is full of micro-thin half-truths and misunderstandings. ...

The whole idea that carbon dioxide is the main cause of the recent global warming is based on a guess that was proved false by empirical evidence during the 1990s. But the gravy train was too big, with too many jobs, industries, trading profits, political careers, and the possibility of world government and total control riding on the outcome. So rather than admit they were wrong, the governments, and their tame climate scientists, now outrageously maintain the fiction that carbon dioxide is a dangerous pollutant. ...

Official climate science, which is funded and directed entirely by government, promotes a theory that is based on a guess about moist air that is now a known falsehood. Governments gleefully accept their advice, because the only ways to curb emissions are to impose taxes and extend government control over all energy use. And to curb emissions on a world scale might even lead to world government — how exciting for the political class!

Wow. What knuckle-dragging science-denying Earth-hating Big-Oil-loving Neanderthal said that?

That would be David Evans: scientist, holder of 6 university degrees, former full-time consultant to the Australian Greenhouse Office (now the Department of Climate Change) from 1999 to 2005.

Video of the Day (4/21/11): Eco-Hitler Youth Come to D.C. -- at the Invite of Your Favorite Dem Leaders

Yes, you read that right: Eco-Hitler Youth. What else do you call 10,000 teenagers brought to D.C. rallying in the streets donning green helmets, gas masks, and ... what is that at 0:50? underwear? bathing suits? spandex?

What else do you call youths who make statements like these:

"[W]hat we need is a complete revolution -- social, economic, political, cultural ... The change becomes we force it. And I don't think that's about going to lobby politicians, to be honest. It's about blockading en masse."

"It's a revolution. It's a climate justice revolution." 

"This is our revolution that we have take hold of."

And just who brought these mind-numbed robots to D.C. for this gathering? Why, members of our liberal America- and capitalism-hating leadership, of course. These instigators include the Obama White House via the EPA, former VP and world's first enviro-billionaire Al Gore, former disgraced whatever czar and avowed Marxist Van Jones, and sitting Congressperson and former House freaking Speaker. See:

"You need to know: the EPA is counting on Power Shift." -- EPA Speaker

"Hello, Power Shift, and thank you! ... Thank you for your leadership. I hope to see you again on Capitol Hill." -- Congresswoman and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, addressing the attendees of Power Shift on an enormous screen, eerily similar to Big Brother in 1984.

People, can you wake up, please? 

Think about it: power shift = revolution. (It's slightly clearer than the faux cross hairs on Sarah Palin's obscure election map that supposedly caused a deranged stalker who most likely never even heard Palin to shoot at a Democrat Congresswoman in Tucson.)

Here's a three minute video [h/t Breitbart] of these young skulls full of mush displaying a level of stunning ignorance and dangerous stupidity that only decades of liberal "education" could produce:

This is truly the most frightening display of indoctrination of the stupid and easily malleable by dangerous radicals since the Hitler youth and Soviet pioneers. Hell, these teenagers are being encouraged to become this era's Hitler youth and Soviet pioneers. (But remember, it's the Tea Party that's "extremist", it's conservative Republicans that are "radical," it's the likes of Beck and Palin and Limbaugh that are poisining the public discourse. Riiiight.)

Oh, sorry, too vitrolic and mean-spirited? Tough! Get your head out your freaking tuchas and pay attention to what's going on for once.

Liberal Media Bias: Earth Day Rocks, Easter Sucks

Here's a sympathetic shout out to my Christian readers. NewsBusters reports on the mainstream DBF* media's 2010 coverage of the two holidays which occur this week: Easter and Earth Day. The former is 2000 years old and is the most important holiday for Christians. The latter is only 41 years old and was created by radical Lenin-worshiping socialists who have amassed power, fame, and wealth perpetuating the myth that capitalism and the United States are the biggest threats to the survival of the planet.

According to NB contributor Erin Brown, in 2010:

Media Undermine Christian Holiday: Nearly two thirds of all stories about Easter were negative (22 out of 34).

Easter Used to Attack Catholic Church: Ninety-one percent of the negative Easter stories were about the pedophilia scandal in the Roman Catholic Church.

Love That Mother Nature: 100 percent of Earth Day stories were positive.

Consider these glowing teases or stories about the left's favorite holiday:

"[T]his is Earth Day, the 40th anniversary, in fact, of what's considered the birth of the modern environmental movement. ... On this Earth Day there was this item in the news today, a way to remind us all to take a fresh look at something we look down and see just about every day: cigarette butts. Not only are they the most common form of litter, they are filled with toxins, every one of them that can leach out into the environment and make their way into drinking water supplies and pets, among other things." -- Brian Williams, NBC "Nightly News"

"Today, Earth Day turned 40, and a new CBS News poll shows that many Americans have big concerns about the future of our planet. Nearly half expect the environment to be in worse shape for the next generation." -- Maggie Rodriguez, CBS "Evening News"

Awwww. Sing it, everyone, "Kum-ba-yah my Gaia. Kum-ba-yah ..."

Contrast those with:

"On this Easter Sunday, an unusual statement from a Vatican official in defense of the pope, Pope Benedict XVI who has been accused of not doing enough to address charges of sexual abuse in the church." -- Russ Mitchell, CBS "Evening News"

Unbelievable. What's next, something like, "On this first night of Passover, Israeli PM Benyamin Netanyahu has been accused of not doing enough to address the senseless killings of Palestinian children"? Maybe.

This one takes the cake:

"Coming up next, the apocalyptic Christian militia jailed for plotting war against the government." -- Dan Harris, ABC "World News Sunday"

Huh? We have millions upon millions of radical Muslims hell-bent on eradicating Western civilization and imposing Sharia law worldwide (which of course the DBF media has been ignoring or dismissing for years) and ABC News does a story on some obscure Christian militia?

Lots more where that came from.

*DBF = Democrat-b*tt-f**king

Reason #47354 I Will Never Rejoin the Reform Movement: Meet the New Boss. Same as the Old Boss

Let me preface this post by emphasizing that I know URJ president Eric Yoffie personally. Although we are friends, we are quite aware of each other’s political differences. This post is in no way an attack on his character but merely a strong disagreement with his positions and, by extention, those of the Union for Reform Judaism (URJ). Likewise, although I do not know his presumptive successor Rabbi Jacobs personally—we might have met once a few years ago—I’m sure he is a decent human being and my issue is with his positions and not his character. That said …

From where I stand, the Reform Movement has been in need of a change. Even the NY Times admits that the movement was “facing a recent decline in numbers and an uncertain future despite its stature as the largest movement in American Jewry.”

I don’t have the numbers in front of me, but I’m sure some of that decline is due to the continuing secularization of today’s youth, as well as the long-standing problem of Jews marrying non-Jews and their subsequent abandonment of the faith. But I have a sinking suspicion that there is another reason membership in the Reform Movement is dwindling.

Ever since the URJ took a public stand opposing George W. Bush’s War in Iraq in 2005, I’ve been amazed how many right-leaning (and Bush-supporting) Reform Jews have come out of the closet to speak their mind. And ever since the new Moshiach was elected president in 2008, those numbers have climbed even more.

Then there’s the conservative Reform Jews who have “come out” to me personally, but not to the public. With still school-aged children needing religious education and the requirements to become a Bar/Bat Mitzvah (at age 13), they begrudgingly remain members, paying dues to a synagogue that in turn pays its own dues to a national organization that promotes positions 180 degrees opposed to your own.

Other Jewish righties I know have in fact left our local Reform synagogue, chosing to educate their children at a local Chabad, or keep Jewish learning in the home. Myself, I left the Reform Movement over a year ago, with no intention of returning anytime soon. Not a month goes by where I witness this and other Reform synagogues are awash with left-wing/Democrat programming and propaganda.

Oh, Reform clergy, educators, and committee-people will insist that they’re apolitical, open-minded, and tolerant of all views.

Really? Visited the website of the URJ’s Religious Action Center (RAC) lately? Pick an issue: environ-mental-ist issues, abortion (excuse me, “women’s rights”) environ-mental-ist issues, oil, environ-mental-ist issues, government-run health (s)care, environ-mental-ist issues, 2nd Amendment rights, environ-mental-ist issues, welfare and poverty programs, environ-mental-ist issues, radical Islamism (oh, did I mention environ-mental-ist issues?). Every one of these topics is—coincidence of coincidences—identical to that of any far-left Democrat Party member. If it didn’t threaten their 501c3 status, they probably could just link to the DNC’s website and get it overwith.

Start 'em young!

This is not what I signed up for. If I wanted to teach my children to be good little lefties and walk in unswerving lockstep with the Democrat Party agenda, then the nearest Reform congregation is for you. If you want to meet Al Gore, far-left Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz [Would you believe the very day after I wrote this blog post, Wasserman Schultz was appointed by Obama as DNC chair!], and any liberal Jewish Hollywood celebrity, then the RAC is the place to be.

But if you want to hear from Dennis Prager, Michael Medved, David Horowitz, Aaron Klein, Caroline Glick, Congressmen Eric Cantor or Michelle Bachmann, forget it! At this Centre of tolerance and open-mindedness, non-lefties need not apply.

So, with more and more righty Reform Jews being bothered by the URJ’s political agenda, who do they choose to replace outgoing President Rabbi Eric Yoffie? Meet Rabbi Richard Jacobs from Westchester County, NY. I’m sure Rabbi Jacobs is a very nice, decent fellow. But what are the main priorities of the incoming president of the nation’s largest Jewish organization?

For Jacobs, that means embracing environmentalism, helping in places like Darfur and Haiti, and speaking out in support of the Islamic center near Ground Zero in Manhattan. He speaks with pride of his synagogue’s green initiatives, noting that its Ner Tamid, or Eternal Flame, is solar powered. He is chairman of the New Israel Fund’s pluralism grants committee, which promotes religious and social pluralism in Israel. He is a board member of the American Jewish World Service, with which he visited Darfur refugees in Chad in 2005. He wears a green Darfur bracelet on his wrist.

Darfur nad Haiti? Wonderful. Religious and social pluralism in Israel? Of course, I get it.

But environmentalism? Green initiatives? Going solar? (I actually know a Conservative temple that is going solar, so it’s not just the Reform movement). This is a priority? Oy vay. I’m all for conservation and recycling, but the man-made global warming climate change hoax has completely taken over this movement!

Supporting the mosque near Ground Zero? Oy! Why don’t we just surrender to all the world’s radical Muslims and cut off our own heads? Dhimmitude on display, brought to you by the URJ. 

Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.