Once again

I have said this before and I will say it again. We need to enforce term limits at every level. We have people who make careers and become rich through insider information. They go to state capitols and Washington as average folks and FORGET every reason they were sent there. They accrue power. They mingle with the glitterati. And soon they are looking for their names in the social sections of the Washington Post and scrambling for invites to cocktail parties with celebrities.

NOTE TO ELECTED OFFICIALS: This is NOT why we elected you.

I believe in Term Limits.
I believe in them enough to even say that Rick Perry, the fairly successful if tongue tied governor of my state needs to step aside and let someone else hold the reins of power. People who stay in one office too long often forget that they serve at OUR PLEASURE, not theirs. When I see the likes of Pelosi, Rangel, Reid all of whom have made themselves rich via pet project, pork spending and off the books donations in kind, it makes me sick. There is no problem so complex that our Congress can't make it worse. Earmarks, side deals and finagling seem to be the order of the day.

We have officials who measure their power by finicky and petty means such as office location, quality of furniture and number of assistants instead of how effective they are in doing their jobs. And in turn they promote a soulless bureaucracy that like a remora lives off the talents of the host without producing any real tangible benefits. This has to end. This endless massaging of the message via a partisan press has to end. The faceless "donations" and "contributions" which often come from shell companies and secret operations to candidates with few morals and less ethics must end.

And what it may take is some real political blood being shed. That may mean that we have to remove them all. All the incumbents. ALL OF THEM. It is time to send them home, vote them out, take away their power. Sure it's going to be confusing. And it's going to be messy. But it has to happen because what is going on now is going to destroy us individually and collectively.

I'm BAAAAACK

It's time to crank up this machine. It seems a new wind is blowing and those who have been content to sit on the sidelines and allow others to choose for them are now up in arms at the travesty of the Obama Administration. In following posts I will outline my views on this situation and I will back it up with research. It is clear that the DNC has mistaken a win for a mandate. By running from the middle while having no intention of honoring that theory, this administration has angered and dismayed the independents that votes for him. See ya in Washington September 12th.

Mark My Words

Now that the dust is settling and the markets are dropping, what happens next? I predicted that Soros and his buddies were waiting for the election to make their magical candidate appear truly holy by raising the market. I may have been wrong by a couple of months. In spite of the fact that a down market could cost millions of people their jobs, I think there are investors who are sitting on piles of money waiting for bargains. And they are also waiting to see how much they can enhance their positions after bailouts have been allotted. This, of course, is just more in the same serious of manipulations that got Obama in the White House. The media is in his corner. As an American, I hope he's right and I am wrong. I hope he pulls us out of this mess. But as a conservative, I see more appeasement of unions, more government programs designed to transfer wealth and a climat that is downright unhealthy for the growing of companies and job situations. As someone whose husband has just been laid off, I am concerned that this may be for the long haul. So what's Obama going to do to keep out of work Boomers from starving in the streets?

These People Are NOT Your Friends

So once again our mainstream media has weighed in with what they think is best for all of us. See, we, the American public, are too stupid and ignorant and attached to our religion and guns to really know what's what. Frankly, it's a wonder we can feed ourselves. You may think I am over the top on this, but there are countless blogs, wikis and other media out there who not only think we are wrong to support conservative ideals, but that it is the result of a mental deficiency. So the Media, in their gracious benevolence, has once again chosen for us. They have decided that Joe "I'm An Average Guy" Biden won. Frankly, I don't think either candidate did a bang-up job, but the constant self-congratulatory tone of the Obama campaign has worn thin.

But more than that attitude thing, I am truly wondering if the mainstream media has given up all pretenses of impartiality. The choosing of Ifill for the moderator was questionable considering her worshipful attitude towards all things Obama. But the way the media has chosen to ignore some very worrisome and possibly disastrous economic attitudes on the part of Joe Biden, is frightening.
To quote "Average Guy at the Home Depot" Joe, "

"we should be allowing bankruptcy courts to be able to re-adjust not just the interest rate you're paying on your mortgage to be able to stay in your home, but be able to adjust the principal that you owe, the principal that you owe. That would keep people in their homes, actually help banks by keeping it from going under"

Excuse me? Banks are businesses. They run on the money they make from LENDING MONEY. That's known as INTEREST. The interest is set by the government not to exceed certain rates, but there is a great deal of leeway and consumers are more than welcome to shop around for better rates. Herein lies the problems. Congress literally forced lenders to make loans available to what is termed "underserved populations." The reason Congress did this was , according to them, to get rid of the vestiges of redlining and racism in the system. Instead, what really happened is that borrowers who could not prove income, had horrible credit history or who didn't have the financial stability to afford the lower interest rates of a conventional 30 year fixed loan, were leveraged into loans that had balloons that would rise after a certain amount of time or loans that were interest only. The stated reason for these types of loans to even exist was to help subprime borrowers improve their credit and possible refinance at better rates. Instead many of these borrowers went for the maximum amount they could acquire and when the balloons went up, they couldn't pay the mortgage. Now while this is sad, it's not like this was foisted on them by jackbooted thugs in dark alleys. These were free American adults signing contracts where all of the details are laid out in copious minutae. Every payment, every escalation, every interest rate is spelled out in writing. Why is it that only the people that PAY THEIR LOANS ARE GETTING SCREWED?

In the end, it's popular now to picture CEO's with golden parachutes getting the largest portion of the bailout. And maybe to a certain extent that's true. But what's really happening is that this is keeping the lights on at the bank on the corner and making payroll for the tellers and loan officers who don't have those cushy jobs. It's easy to blame some guy who gets away with a cushy retirement, but why is it that the media doesn't want to place the blame where it really belongs, on borrowers that didn't pay for their loans.

And this is why Joe Biden and Barak Obama should scare you silly. They have no intention of shoring up the banks for longevity. They simply want them shored up for now. They intend to allow judicial fiat to rip profits from banks. That means that people who actually put money into banks could see their interest and deposits dwindle as more people discover that paying out a loan is foolish when the government will bail you out. And what about retirees who have stock in bank corporations? They will also see their stocks value erode. This isn't the first time this has happened. My parents lost $200K when the savings and loans went belly up thirty years ago. There are still a few people around who should remember that. Unfortunately, none of them are running for president this year. Watch your pockets-these guys are NOT your friends.

Let Mom Do It

Is there any family in the nation that functions without the skilled and careful intervention of Mom? Would lunches make it to school, would bills be paid, would vacations endured without her ability to plan, to handle finances and to make key decisions? Long ago feminists cried how women held up half the sky. I applaud the BOLD decision of John McCain to name a strong woman as his running mate. And the way the liberals are whining and posturing, it must have been a bigger shock than they expected. Huzzah!

McCain, Not Obama, Right About Georgia

Courtesy of the Chicago Sun Times

August 12, 2008

STEVE HUNTLEY shuntley.cst@gmail.com

Mention Georgia a few days ago, and most of us would have thought of the state evoked so sweetly in "Georgia on My Mind," the classic tune sung by Ray Charles. Very few of us had heard of the South Ossetia province of Georgia, the nation with the misfortune to have Russia as its neighbor, until war broke out last week.

Like Kosovo, Bosnia, Kuwait and other unfamiliar places before, Ossetia reminds us that a small, remote corner of the globe can explode into an international crisis. One who was up to speed on Georgia and the menace it faced from Russia was veteran Sen. John McCain. He had visited the Caucasian nation three times in a dozen years. When fighting erupted, the presumptive Republican presidential candidate got on the phone to gather details and issued a statement Friday summarizing the situation, tagging Russia as the aggressor and demanding it withdraw its forces from the sovereign territory of Georgia.

It took first-term Sen. Barack Obama three tries to get it right. Headed for a vacation in Hawaii, the presumed Democratic candidate for commander in chief issued an even-handed statement, urging restraint by both sides. Later Friday, he again called for mutual restraint but blamed Russia for the fighting. The next day his language finally caught up with toughness of McCain's.

Making matters worse, Obama's staff focused on a McCain aide who had served as a lobbyist for Georgia, charging it showed McCain was "ensconced in a lobbyist culture." Obama's campaign came off as injecting petty partisan politics into an international crisis. This was not a serious response on behalf a man who aspires to be the leader of the Free World. After all, what's so bad about representing a small former Soviet republic struggling to remake itself as a Western-style democracy?

The comparison between the two candidates served to emphasize the strength McCain's experience would bring to the White House in a dangerous world.

Obama's favored approach to international issues, diplomatic talks, failed to stop Russia's invasion. Vladimir Putin, a KGB bull in the former Soviet Union, wants to restore Russia as the supreme power of Eurasia and, to that end, bully former vassal states like Georgia out of their democratic ways. The fear is that Ukraine will come in his cross hairs next.

However the world's newest war ends, America's leadership must recognize and respond to the underlying dynamic of Russia's resurgent aggressive instincts -- the power bestowed on Moscow by its oil and gas riches.

While we don't get fossil fuels from Russia, Western Europe does, and the Kremlin's energy might is fueled by the worldwide demand for oil. Developing U.S. domestic energy sources and alternatives to oil will only enhance our national security and, by reducing the world's petroleum demand, undermine the economic, political and military advantage vast oil and gas reserves give to unfriendly powers like Russia, Iran and Venezuela.

Obama calls for transforming America's economy in a decade. He's got the right idea -- long term. But short term, this nation must push for energy security on all fronts -- now. That includes new offshore drilling for oil, which Obama loathes, and new nuclear plants, which he views with aversion. We can't just wait for breakthrough technologies for wind, solar and biomass energy.

McCain has got it right in advocating new offshore drilling and a federal push to add 45 nuclear generators over the next two decades. Given the evidence of Russia's energy-fueled aggression, he should abandon his opposition to drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve and to extending subsidies he favors for nuclear energy to include renewables.

As Georgia burns, we need to light a fire under all the talk about energy security and start doing what it takes to make it happen.

Of DDT, Green and Global Warming

Back in the 1970's, the book "Silent Spring" heralded a new awareness of chemicals on the world ecosystems. Embracing the tidal surge of opinion, suddenly useful chemicals were evil and many nations, with the permission of the World Health Organization and the UN, banned these substances. There is no question some of the chemicals needed to be eliminated. But in their zeal to eradicate all chemicals from the ecosystem, these same bodies eliminated DDT. DDT has been the poster child for bad chemicals for years. And it is an undeserved dishonor. The banning of DDT was an action done more for airplay than for actual defined scientific reasons. The result of this banning was a precipitous rise in deaths from malaria and other mosquito and insect borne diseases. Countless hundreds of thousands have died as the result. Today the tables are turned somewhat as the new science overturns the old. DDT is again recommended for use in regions that suffer from the ravages of these diseases. But before you read the quotes below, please consider some of the quick fixes that current popular spokesmen insist are necessary to prevent Global Warming. There has already been a great deal of opposition to the conventional wisdom, but these scientific bullies would rather be right than admit their methods were contrived to create the situation that would foster belief in Global Warming, rather than proving it to be a real occurance. Think about who is supporting draconian, expensive fixes for a global system that may not even be broken. Think about how these same people exonerate third world nations-who are the world's worst polluters-from having the curtail their development, their emissions, their industries. And finally consider all of these things when you vote, because the next election could impact your children, your grandchildren and your great grandchildren. I personally don't want anyone creating an economic problem just to salve their own wounded egos.

"...DDT does things no other weapon, at any price, can do. Sprayed in tiny amounts just once or twice a year on the inside walls of homes, it keeps 90 percent of mosquitoes from even entering – and keeps those that do come in from biting. That’s why it has slashed malaria rates by 75 percent in South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia and other countries where it has been used. Since DDT is no longer used in agriculture, mosquitoes are unlikely to become resistant to it. Studies show that even those that are immune to its killing properties are kept away by its repellant effects. The alleged dangers of DDT are ridiculously small or irrelevant compared to the dangers of diseases inflicted on Africa by tiny buzzing insects. Malaria alone infects over 400 million Africans annually, and kills the equivalent of ten jumbo jets full of passengers crashing every day. It enslaves the continent, kills babies and pregnant women, prevents people from working, perpetuates poverty, keeps tourists and investors from coming to Africa, and reduces the continent’s economic productivity by billions of dollars a year. In Kenya alone it costs 170 million lost working days annually..."
Full story here

Be a Concerned Scientist for $35 Full Story here

It’s astonishing that elected officials would use their taxpayer-funded offices to bully a company’s president into changing his corporation’s philanthropic giving practices. And it’s deplorable that in trying to discredit critics of catastrophic global warming, Rockefeller and Snowe would stoop to using smear rhetoric that alludes to “Holocaust denial”—and is inaccurate to boot. No one seriously denies that the Earth is warming. The debate is over the extent and consequences of such warming. Remarkable, too, is the senators’ cryptic reference to a “scientific group” that would soon issue its “findings,” words that bestow authority on what, as we expected, would turn out to be no more than a political attack.

It didn’t take us long to figure out what this “scientific group” might be and who is behind it: For almost four decades, the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) has manipulated the high reputation of “science” to serve the low ends of politics. It has done a good job of cherry-picking scientific facts to stir up public fears to advance its agenda. This time it is promoting alarmist claims about global warming by leveraging the prestige of the “concerned scientist.”

The credulous media usually fall all over themselves to defer to UCS every time the group takes a political position. For instance, when it issued a report in 2004 criticizing President George W. Bush’s handling of science policy, the union was described as “a scientific advocacy group” (New York Times), “a group of scientists” (Reuters), “an independent Cambridge-based organization” (Boston Globe), and a “nonprofit ... advocacy group in Cambridge, Mass.” (Newsday). After all, who but concerned scientists would pass judgment on President Bush and conclude that he was a scientific ignoramus manipulating science in order to advance a partisan agenda?

That UCS is a highly partisan operation—well funded by left-leaning foundations and Hollywood celebrities and happy to ignore established scientific methodologies for its own purposes—is apparently not newsworthy. The group has a long history of being just plain wrong on many scientific issues, and its current agenda conforms to the extremes of environmentalist ideology. Moreover, UCS is neither representative of the scientific community at large nor is it a gathering of top scientists. Instead, a cadre of senior staff whose credentials are steeped more in Washington policy-making than in scientific research rides herd over a grassroots membership from all walks of life. .."