Like Sheep, We Are Herded All Day Long!

Who owns your visage?

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Question: Does not my "visage" belong to me? As ugly as I am, it’s me…and I OWN my looks… right? I mean… it is an unalienable right, granted by the creator, it seems to me.

OK, if you believe, as I do, that you have a right, a sole right, to your visage, that is, what others see when they look specifically at you, then why in hell is there not a law on the books that makes it illegal for someone, anyone, to take a photograph of you without your permission?

Have you ever stopped to consider how many times a day your photograph is taken, without your permission, without your even being aware of it? Dare I say… hundreds? I had one commenter, sometime back, who estimated his photo was taken over 300 times a day!

Pull up to a big box store and get out of your car and smile! You’re on "Candid Camera!” At a big box store near me I counted 22 cameras pointed at various parts of the parking area. That was just on the outside. I had not even entered the store yet! Inside, the ceiling is full of those dark colored bubbles with cameras in them covering every nook and cranny of the building.

Drive up to an ATM machine and WHAMMO! You photo is taken and you even become a movie star as the digital recording device whirrs away, someplace, recording your brief appearance in front of it’s lens.

Pull up to an intersection and checkout the posts on the four corners. Chances are very good that at least one post has a video camera grinding away taking a mini movie or photograph of you, and your car, and your car’s licensed plate. Run through that light before it changes to green and your can rest assured your photo has been taken, breaking the law" and you will son receive a ticket in the mail. Forget your constitutional right to confront your accuser in a court of law! Why, that is just a phrase from an old piece of paper called “the constitution” which nobody has even read these days. You’ll be charged and fined and never see your accuser.

Now these are just some examples of how our God-iven right to privacy is invaded, every day, in the US. And now they want to make it worse. Police departments, all over the country, are trying to obtain spy planes, those unmanned drones, to fly above their city streets watching us below.

Now, maybe it’s just me, but all this spying on me just invokes resentment of the government. It is an insult! I see it as a presumption of guilt! That’s right, I interpret spying upon me as the government presuming I am guilty, already, of breaking the law. I don’t like it. In fact, I detest it!

This “unauthorized spying" didn’t begin with the onset of the GWT (Global War on Terror). Oh, no, It has been around far longer. The 9-11 incident only provided the government, and law enforcement agencies, all the excuse they needed to REALLY get into your business. And they have taken advantage of it… big time!

The US government, and all the little governments, have grown entirely too strong. Law and order is a wonderful thing… but not at the sacrifice of freedom for those law abiding citizens of a government. Somewhere, along the line, the phrase "consent of the governed” has been forgotten, or swept under the rug, or shunted off into a dark corner, out of sight and out of mind. As a result we are being herded, as sheep, from the moment our feet touch the floor in the mornings until we retire at night… and even while we sleep.

Even as Founding Father John Adams was loathe to “shake off the chains of Great Britain, only to take on the chains of France”, we modern Americans have replaced those British chains with American chains. So what have we gained? More importantly… what have we lost? Think about that next time you see all those cameras watching every move you make.

Longstreet

Filed under:

conservative+privacy+cameras+consent+rights

An American Dynasty?

(From November 2007)

A Constitutional Amendment banning succession of family members to the office of President of the US?

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Yep! It’s time.

Grover Norquist, a Republican activist, aims to turn the question of dynasty into a campaign issue.

Norquist hired lawyers to draw up a constitutional amendment that would ban family members from succeeding one another to elected and appointed office.



In the event it passes, it won’t affect the Clintons as president Bush was elected between them. But Norquist believes that it will alert voters to the perils of dynasty. “Americans don’t like to go back,” he said. For the full story, go here:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article2848250.ece


Frankly, I’m not sure what to make of this. Admittedly, I do not like family members following one another into the same political office. It smacks too much of a “ruling class”, or a “ruling family” and my ancestors came here , to America, to escape that very thing (not to mention jail)!


Realistically, a constitutional amendment will have to wait for a conservative congress to even have a prayer of coming to the floor of the two houses even for discussion. The Dems are not about to discuss anything that will light the dark corners of the Clinton’s scandalous former administration and those scandels which still cling to them. There will be time enough for that when, and if, Hillary is elected. It will be, as her husband’s administration, a string of scandels, one behind the other, for four long years. It cannot be escaped, if Hillary is elected.

However, there is a school of thought among the democrats that Hillary is losing votes/support as a result of voter’s fear of a political dynasty. I really don’t think that is why her support is weak in some quarters. Actually, I suspect it has more to do with her being such a polarizing person. There are two camps, and two camps only, of voters considering Hillary. Those who love her and those who hate her. There is no middle ground.


Let’s face it: Dems and Repubs are both dissatisfied with their respective fields of candidates for the Presidential nomination. I wouldn’t be surprised if next year’s election has a record low turn out by voters. If Conservatrives manage to get a third party up and running before next fall, they will probably decide the election. It won’t be in favor of the republicans. For that reason, Conservatives may choose to wait until after November of 2008 before launching The Conservative Party.


In my opinion, Norquist’s proposal has merit. I don’t think America wants a “ruling family” no matter the political leanings of that family. After all, the US is a Republic. A representative republic, to be sure, but a republic, nonetheless.


It pays to keep in mind the expression: “Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.” A ruling family’s power increases with every succession. I don’t think America wants to go there.

Longstreet



Filed under:



conservative+US+Presidency+Dynasty

Cold North Pole, Cold South Pole!

Cold North Pole, Cold South Pole
By Alan Caruba

I was suspicious when the Department of the Interior announced it was considering the listing of polar bears as an “endangered species”, particularly since the designation has nothing to do with the current, thriving population, but a computer model projection that in fifty years they might be endangered. Since polar bears have been around for hundreds of thousands of years, the notion they might suddenly go missing in fifty years is questionable.

The fact is polar bears operate in waters around Alaska where geologists believe there are major reserves of undiscovered oil and natural gas. As you may recall, Alaska is also a place where there are vast known reserves of oil in the ANWR area. The refuge is huge. Only the 1.5 million acre or 8% on the northern coast of ANWR is being considered for development. The remaining 17.5 million acres or 92% of ANWR will remain permanently closed to any kind of development. If oil is discovered, less than 2000 acres of the over 1.5 million acres of the Coastal Plain would be affected. That's less than half of one percent of ANWR that would be affected by production activity.

So my suspicions were aroused when I received a March 26 news release from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration saying that NOAA’s Fisheries Service had accepted a petition from “a California environmental group seeking protection under the Endangered Species Act for an ice seal called the ‘ribbon seal’ that inhabits Alaska’s Bering Sea.”If this goes forward, then the bearded, spotted, and ringed seals will also be considered for protection. What they need is protection against the polar bears because they are all considered a three-course meal by any one of the 50,000 roaming around that area.

It is now blatantly clear, if it has not been to date, that the Endangered Species Act exists to provide Greens a vehicle by which they can keep Americans from having access to the oil that would reduce to some extent our much vaunted dependence on oil from the Middle East. That would seem a good thing to most people, but not to the enemies of any and all forms of energy—particularly energy on which the U.S. depends to maintain and rebuild a shaky economy.

These listings are not a coincidence. They are a deliberate attack on the security and economy of the nation. Somewhere in the Bush Administration, the word has gone out that it is okay to consider taking action that will harm the United States of America and its longterm energy needs.

From the Great North to the great south, Antarctica, the media has been making a big deal of the potential calving of the Wilkins Ice Shelf. It is cited as yet another example that global warming is happening and we’re all going to die unless we stop driving, shut down all the utilities and manufacturing plants in America, begin to live in tents and cook our meals over an open fire.

A fact that is inconveniently ignored by the media is that the vast majority of Antarctica is in a decades-long cold spell. It has been cooling since around 1979. Indeed, the majority of Antarctic and the Southern Ocean is accumulating ice, not losing it. So, if the Wilkins Ice Shelf should experience any loss, it would run counter to the trend there.

Joseph D’Aleo, executive director of the International Climate and Environmental Change Assessment Project, points out that, “In reality, the Wilkins Ice Shelf and all the former shelves that collapsed are small and most near the Antarctic peninsula which sticks well out from Antarctica into the currents and winds of the South Atlantic.” It lies over a tectonically active region with surface and subsurface active volcanic activity. If Wilkins breaks up, it will eventually do what other ice masses do. It will refreeze.

The media, besotted and enthralled by the global warming lies, continues to inaccurately report the truth of events like the Wilkins shelf because they just don’t care about the truth any more. They, like their fellow Greens, have an agenda and if that means telling big fat lies by leaving out key elements of a story, that’s okay by them.

Alan Caruba writes a weekly column posted on the Internet site of The National Anxiety Center, www.anxietycenter.com. He blogs at http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com.

© Alan Caruba, March 2008

Filed under:
conservative+Global+Warming+Religion+Pagan+Socialism+hoax

Some Think Opposing Global Warming Theory is Crime against Humanity!

(From October 2006)

Some Think Opposing Global Warming Theory is Crime against Humanity!

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We have felt for sometime the proponents of the Global Warming Hoax are on a power trip. Some of you didn’t believe that. Well, now comes the story that some of the GWC (Global Warming Crowd) want those of us, who do not buy into the awful science behind the global warming theory, tried for some kind of “crimes against humanity”. I am not kidding.

For the story on this go to:

http://epw.senate.gov/fact.cfm?party=rep&id=264568

I would seem to me that the very last place the GWC would want to go would be to a courthouse, or a court room, anywhere in the world. You see, a trial seeks truth. It seeks facts. It is our opinion that when the sloppy science of the Global Warming Theory is brought to light, the proponents would be laughed out of, practically, any courtroom in the world. The Scopes Monkey Trial would seem like a Sunday School picnic!

The frustration of the GWC must be monumental. They keep up their continuous drumbeat of doom and gloom and for the most part, that part of the world, which is most free, ain’t buying it. When you give the human race a choice between freedom, and the restrictions which would be placed on their freedoms by the GWC, they’ll choose freedom every time.

So the GWC continues to nag and snap at the ankles of humanity. And now… they want to put their opponents in jail!

You still think that’s not a power trip???

Longstreet

Filed under:

conservative+Global+Warming+Religion+Pagan+Socialism+hoax

A Bargain Broken!

A Bargain Broken!
“Why the Confederate Battle Flag Will Never Be Hauled Down in Dixie!”

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When you ask me, as a Southerner, to give up the Confederate Battle Flag… do you have any idea what you are asking me… and… why what you are asking is impossible and is not going to happen? I don’t think you do.

Have you ever wondered why that flag never seems to go away? Why that flag appears all over the world, even in Africa, when freedom movements are born?

Where once it stood for the fight of the Southern states for freedom and independence, the Confederate Battle Flag has become a universal ensign of the fight for freedom! Did you see the Confederate Battle Flag when the Berlin wall came down? Did you see the Confederate Battle Flag being waved proudly in the streets of Belgrade when Milosevic was arrested and put on trial? Did you see the Confederate Battle Flag in the Sudan? Yes, even among the black people of the Sudan the Confederate Battle Flag was their choice of an emblem for their freedom movement.

We Southerners cannot give up that flag. For in doing so, we recognize we would be rejecting our families. We would be denying who we, as a people, are. Make no mistake about it; the Southern people are a different people from those who settled the northern part of this great nation. We are, for the most part, of Celtic ancestry. We do not accept defeat. If you ever wonder why the South didn’t just lie down and roll over after Lee’s surrender at Appomattox Courthouse, Virginia, there’s your answer.

There are those in the South who have not yet given up on the idea of Southern Independence. There is a feeling that eventually the US will crumble, and collapse, from the accumulated weight of it’s ever growing federal government. Some even look forward to that day as the day when the Southern states will again seek their independence.

We’ve all seen the bumper stickers with a caricature of an old Confederate soldier, obviously disgruntled, and the expression: “Forget, Hell!” written across the sticker. There is more truth in those pop culture bumper stickers than most of us, north AND south, are comfortable with. There is an undercurrent of discomfiture running through the American Bloodstream.

March 8th, 2008 was Confederate Flag day in North Carolina. On that day the First National Flag of the Confederacy is raised above the State Capitol Building, in Raleigh, and remains there, all day, as festivities are enjoyed around the city. Confederate reenactors (Re-activated Confederate soldiers, as we refer to them … just for the day, of course!) are all over. There are speeches, and many events in remembrance of that period in our history. Mr. Thomas Moore was the keynote speaker for this year’s event. The title of his speech was: “The Unconquered Banner”. We recommend you read his speech. You’ll find it at:

http://www.ncscv.net/files/theunconqueredbanner.pdf

I hope you have read it. If you have, what I have said above will make more sense to you… especially if you do not enjoy the happy coincidence of being a born a “southerner”.

No, the St. Andrew’s Cross, the Confederate Battle Flag, will never disappear. Wherever men seek freedom, wherever men value honor, and loyalty, and love of God, family, and country, that flag will fly. For is an undying symbol of all those things… and more. It stands for the bravery of men who will willingly lay down their lives for the idea that men are born with the unalienable right of freedom, no matter the color of their skin, no matter their station is life, no matter the despotic forces arrayed against them. And it stands for the proud heritage of a singular people who first marched onto a battlefield beneath its billowing folds to fight and die, as their fathers and grandfathers before them, for Independence.

It occurred to me a while ago that as the federal government of this land continues to clench its mailed fist around the few remaining freedoms we Americans have left, that Confederate Battle Flag will be seen flying from doorpost after doorpost from the Gulf of Mexico to the Canadian border and from the Atlantic coast to the Pacific coast as Americans who recognize what is happening in this country decide to show their support for a return to the freedom granted them, as Americans, under the original constitution of the United States of America.

Deo Vindici!

Longstreet

Filed under:

conservative+Freedom+Confederate+Battle+Flag+American

Mrs. Clinton Lied? No Kidding???!

Mrs. Clinton Lied? No Kidding???!

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Regular visitors to INSIGHT on Freedom may have noticed that we made no comment on the obvious lie Mrs. Clinton offered about deplaning under sniper fire in a combat zone a while back.

Please understand… we were not shirking our duty here at IoF. No, certainly not! We usually remark on things, which are… well… “remarkable”. The fact that a Clinton lied was NOT remarked about, on this site, for the singular reason that a Clinton telling a “whopper” is NOT remarkable!

For those of you who slept during the eight horrible years this nation suffered under the moral vacuum that was the Clinton administration(s), let me alert you, and for those who may have forgotten, allow me to remind you, that even the Mainstream Media (no friend to conservatives) marveled, in print, at the accomplished manner in which Mrs. Clinton’s husband, Bill, approached telling an "untruth"! Even fellow politicians, of his own party, remarked publicly that he was the best liar they had ever come across. Quiet possibly, the most famous, or infamous, lie Bill told was: “I NEVER had sexual relations with THAT woman!” That one is now in the “Liars Hall of Fame”! (If there is such a place. If there is not… there OUGHT to be!)

Look, politicians lie! No… I don’t know why! There seems to be something, which compels them to lie. They do it when it would be as easy, or easier, to tell the simple truth. There is something pathological about it.

I had the fortune, good or bad, you decide, of having grown up with an aquaintance who was a pathological liar. She lied all the time… about big things, and little things…things that mattered, and things that didn’t matter. The woman was a flat-out liar. She just couldn’t help herself. She lost her job, she lost most of her family, and she wound up with no close friends… at all. It was a pathetic thing to see. But that was back in the days when there was no treatment for pathological liars and the community-invoked treatment of “shunning” was the accepted approach to persons so afflicted. As a result of that influence, I grew up developing a form of ”radar” for liars.

When the Clintons came along, in the early nineties, they completely destroyed my “liars radar”. The blatancy, and frequency, of their lies simply overloaded the circuits. I was in total amazement at the how easily they lied. Remember the joke circulating at the time: “How can you tell when Bill Clinton is lying?” Answer: “His lips are moving!” Remember?

So, tell me, why are people surprised that Mrs. Clinton has been caught in a whopper? I know Americans have short memories, but to forget the prevaricating Clintons is a form of self-induced amnesia! If you have forgotten THAT, please seek professional help!

Now, spare me a few moments to expound upon the folks who are NOT amused, not in the slightest, with Mrs. Clinton’s lie about sniper fire… and the whole yarn. The folks in the US Military are furious about it. It cast them is a bad light. A very bad light. One they DO NOT deserve!

Look, no halfway professional military would place a First Lady in Harm’s Way… as described by Mrs. Clinton. It is not going to happen. Had there been sniper fire, anywhere near the air field that day, Mrs. Clinton would never have been allowed anywhere near it. For Mrs. Clinton to insist that it did, with video tape of the actual event on that day readily available for all to see (And I have seen it several times) speaks of some sort of, well, illness??? Why would she do it???

As an armchair shrink, I would say that people, who lie to cast themselves in a much more heroic light than does reality, have a severe problem with an “inferiority complex”. If it were a defense mechanism, then I’d guess it is a manifestation of paranoia. And then, there are those who simply must be loved and feel an outpouring of love, lavished upon them, to give their lives “meaning”. These folks are really “needy” people. They will suck all of the attention out of room, any room, simply by entering said room. They must AWAYS be the center of attention. Now, I’ll leave it to your expertise to match the Clintons with my armchair diagnoses above.

When you stand back and distance yourself from all the whoopla and the hysteria of the crowds of “needy” people, and the entourage of “exceptionally needy people” around the three candidates vying for President of the USA, it is actually a little frightening to observe. In my opinion, ALL of them are deeply wounded people. All three of them exude the failings of a former president who very nearly was impeached... and would have been... had he not chosen to resign. Every single one of them is a train wreck just waiting to happen!

If there was ever a time in the history of this country for a third party candidate to step forward and offer a clear-headed choice in November … now is the time.

I shudder to think that one of the three candidates currently offering themselves for the office of President of the US will actually take the reins of power of this nation, and the powers of the commander-in-chief of the most powerful military machine on the planet, (with the nuclear “button” always within arms reach), and the leadership of the free world, unto themselves next January. Now, THAT is a sobering thought.

Longstreet

Filed under:

Liberal+Socialist+Lies+Hillary

Understanding Arabs ... By Alan Caruba

Understanding Arabs
By Alan Caruba


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Seven years passed 9/11 and five years passed the invasion of Iraq, Americans are still trying to figure out what makes Arabs behave the way they do. There is a vast cultural difference between those in the West and those in an Arab world that fills the Middle East and stretches across the northern tier of Africa. Indeed, military conflict with Arabs goes back to the days of Thomas Jefferson.

In writing about Arabs, it must be acknowledged that one must use generalizations. No group is unanimous in all respects. All have their conservatives, their moderates, and starry-eyed liberals. Every group, however, has widely shared cultural and religious views, and as history teaches us, it is the silence of good people that permits the bad actors among them to dominate events.

In her new book, Sandra Mackey uses the calamity that is Lebanon to provide some useful insights to the Arab world she knows well. “Mirror of the Arab World” is well worth reading with the caveat that Mackey has bought into the view that Israel does not have any right to exist. For her it is always “Zionist” Israel in much the same way Arab news media always refers to “occupied Jerusalem.”

Even with her sympathy for Arabs, she does a pretty good job of showing them at their worst. Granted, this does not take a lot of effort. Is there a day that goes by when the civil war in Iraq does not produce more Shia and Sunni dead bodies? The Kurds, isolated and armed to the teeth, have managed to keep other Iraqis from destroying their hold on a significant portion of that nation’s oil.

In fact, one eventually comes to see the problems of the Middle East as stemming from a seventh century schism that occurred shortly after the death of Mohammad. Fourteen centuries later, the Shias or Shiites, are still held in contempt by the majority Sunnis. You can find a majority population of Shias in two nations, Iraq and in Iran.

The Iranians, descended from Persians, are not Arabs. While they may be linked by religion to the Shias, they reportedly take a dim view of Arabs. You might feel the same way if Saddam Hussein had made war on your nation for eight years or if Pakistan and Afghanistan was a neighbor.

Lebanon’s problems reflect the Arab world because its population has always been sharply divided between the Christian Maronites, the Muslims, who include both the Druze sect and the Shias whose population has been growing due to the influx of Palestinians. The latter is the result of failed wars against Israel as well as those driven out of Jordan after they attempted to overthrow the monarchy there.

The result has been the rise of Hezbollah, an armed militia of Palestinians, backed by Syria and Iran, who intend to rule Lebanon for the purpose of continuing their war against Israel. By destroying the delicate balance of power between Lebanon’s confessional groups, the Palestinians precipitated a fifteen-year civil war in Lebanon. From 1975 to 1990, the war destroyed the nation and left what remained under the control of Syria.

The 2006 conflict with Israel precipitated by Hezbollah saw vast portions of Beirut leveled to rubble by the Israelis who do not take kindly to having their soldiers kidnapped and their cities rocketed.

If Arabs stopped making war on Israel the whole region could begin to modernize, make peace with the West, and begin to enjoy improved lives. The presence of Hezbollah in Lebanon and, in Gaza, Hamas, makes that impossible. Even the quiet diplomatic efforts of the Saudis have failed to bring about any reduction in bloodshed.

The problems of the Middle East, sitting atop one of the world’s greatest concentration of oil, have required military intervention by the United States for the strategic reason that the West depends on the free flow of oil. It is the reason the United States has not only had to invest blood and treasure there, but the reason the cost of oil has increased. Since the days of World War II, the United States has been the guarantor of the flow of oil from there to the rest of the world.

One might be tempted to blame Lebanon’s problems on the existence of Israel since recognition of its right to exist, first by the British and later by U.S. support since 1948, but what it reveals is (1) the endemic hatred of Jews that reflects the Muslim Arab mindset, (2) the failure of Arabs to exist peacefully with one another due to theological schisms, (3) their family and tribal mentality, and (4) the anti-Western attitudes of Arabs that literally date back centuries to the Crusades.

As Mackey puts it, “Spasms of change grip every Arab society. Long-festering wounds on the inside and new influences invading from the outside are eating away at ageless certainties, time-honored traditions, and venerable relationships within families, clans, and tribes.”

If there is one thing Arabs have fought against it has been change and, in the last century, they had a lot of change thrust upon them. At the end of World War I, the Ottomans who had ruled for centuries had their empire divided and colonized by the British and the French. They drew lines on the map of the Middle East to create what can only be called imaginary nations.

One of them was Lebanon that was ceded to the French. The other was Iraq that became the property of the British, along with a protectorate called Palestine. No “nation” of Palestine has ever existed. There were no “Palestinian” people until the late Yassir Arafat, the father of modern terrorism, invented them.

Syria, who had always regarded Lebanon as part of “Greater Syria”, resented then and now having the Levant that bordered the Mediterranean taken from them. Finally, the British drew lines to create Jordan as a sop to the Arabs who had fought with them against the Turks.

What few in the West have understood is that Islam is political entity. It may have the trappings of religion, but it existed from the beginning to assert control over territory and peoples as a form of government. This is most obvious in Iran where all decisions are made by a small band of ayatollahs, men learned in Sharia or Muslim law. It can be seen as well in Saudi Arabia where a pact between its founder and the Wahabi sect of Islam created that desert nation.

A massive poll of Muslims, not just in the Middle East, but worldwide where there are more than a billion reveals that about seven percent, some 100 million, have a hostile view of the West. Muslims in general see the West as a threatening and dominating force. Among those polled, however, the vast majority expressed a desire for real democratic reform. This is called progress, but it takes time. Lots of time.

This is why, five years after invading Iraq allegedly to bring democracy, its rival sects still do not appear to be able to fashion any kind of functioning government. The invasion was in part about oil and the need to protect Saudi Arabia against Saddam’s ambitions. It was invaded, as well, to create the trap for al Qaeda and a lure to those Islamists who would try to take advantage of the occupation.

Lebanon is the perfect example of a place where power was divided between clans based entirely on one’s religious confession. Oddly, this jerry rigged system produced a highly successful nation that winked at the strictures of Islam to become the most Western of nations in the Middle East, a banking capitol, but also a place where any rupture in the system could lead to the slaughter of opposing groups.

As Mackey notes, “Those who identify themselves as Arab place themselves in a mystical whole composed of time, religion, language, culture and tradition.”

“In this sense, the Arab world reflects a mighty nation aligned against all who would seek to humble it. But this same world resonates with its own rivalrous discord as Arab states duel with each other over national interests…Arabs are trapped between their intense sense of unity as a people and tangible conflicts arising from competing parochial and national interests. This duality has rendered the Arab world treacherous territory for outsiders.”

For this new century, the confluence of oil and religion will make the Middle East and other Islamic nations a treacherous place, but one where the West has no choice but to intervene and even impose its will by force of arms.

Alan Caruba writes a weekly column posted on the Internet site of The National Anxiety Center, http://www.anxietycenter.com/. He blogs at http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com/.



© Alan Caruba, March 2008





Filed under:

conservative+Arabs+Insight

Global Temps Drop Along With Global Warming Jaws!

Global Temperatures HAVE BEEN DROPING For The Last Decade! Global Warming Disciples SHOCKED!

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The handful of us who have been able to see “The King Has NO Clothes” have been trying to tell you, for well over a decade now, that Global Warming is a HOAX! Now, noted scientists, who have their feet solidly planted on Terra Firma are, somehow, breaking through the “jamming” of the GWM and getting the truth out. Little by little it is coming out and faces are reddening even as I write.

The truth is… the earth is NOT warming. In fact the earth IS COOLING and there are undeniable signs that we are headed into another mini-ice age. (The last one ended in the mid 1800’s and lasted 500 years.)

DO NOT EXPECT THE DISCIPLES of Global Warming, or as it is being called now…Climate Change… to come easily to acceptance of the truth. History teaches us this is not very likely. But, I think the very fact that they have changed the name of their movement from “Global Warming” to “Climate Change” indicates they ALREADY KNOW their Global Warming Theory is shot full of holes and switching to the name Climate Change will allow them to switch gears slowly, but publicly, from Global Warming to “Global Freezing” (if you will) and continue their charade for a few more decades. Con men are ever at the point of the spear watching for any change they can swing to their advantage.

There is an important article by Christopher Pearson over at “The Australian” you really need to read, if you read nothing else today. You’ll find it at:

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23411799-7583,00.html

It’s only going to get worse for the Global Warming…WHOOPS!…”Climate Change” crowd. Their cover has been blown. Oh, they’re not going away anytime soon, actually… never. Like a chameleon they will change their colors, from time to time, to blend into future societies, but they will still be hawking their threats of doom and gloom, of death and destruction, and fear.

We are on the cusp of a new Ice Age. As the seasons come and go it will become overwhelmingly obvious to everyone just how wrong the “Climate Change” movement has been. Most of us, however, will have vanished from this earth long before it becomes established as fact and there will be few, if any, around to point out the errors made by the world’s governments in preparing for the wrong “climate change”. It will make a bad time even worse.

The "tree huggers" should be really worried... for as the New Mini Ice Age settles in, and there is no fuel oil to heat our homes, it is likely the North American continent will certainly be denuded of trees, to at least some degree, as the inhabitants cut them and burn them to provide heat for their homes and businesses. Some things have a way of coming back to ‘bite” us in the backsides.

Longstreet

Filed under:

conservative+Global+Warming+Religion+Pagan+Socialism+hoax

Militias Beginning to Spring Up... Again!

(We hope you enjoy this article, which first ran in May of 2007.)

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Fear of Totalitarian Government under Democrats Sparks Rebuilding of Militias!

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Sometime back, if you are a regular reader of this site, you may remember that I warned that if Democrats gained control of the Congress those Militia Units, which seem to have died out during a Republican administration, would come roaring back. Well, it has begun. The news media, over the weekend was touting the rise in Militia units, once again.

Granted, an awful lot of those guys come across as paranoid loonies. But not all of them. And there in lies the warning!

You might find this article titled: “America's Militia Threat” interesting. You’ll find it at:

http://www.defencejournal.com/dec98/militia.htm

Here in the South we understand what it means to be invaded, conquered, and occupied. We hated it then… and we hate it now. There are scars amongst Southerners, which have never healed… nor will they ever.

When the War Between the States ended, it was the general’s who surrendered. The soldiers did not. The southern populace did not. The bulk of the Confederate army was ready to take to the hills and swamps and forests and continue the fight for as long as it took, even if it took forever. General Robert E. Lee stopped that. He was the only man on the face of the earth who could have. Lee repented, however, after viewing the damage so-called re-construction did to his beloved Virginia and the remainder of the South. He said that had he known the damage from reconstruction would be so devastating to the South, we would have died fighting with his sword in his hand!

Southerners reserved the right to pick up their arms and take to the countryside, to fight as partisans and freedom fighters and guerilla fighters, at a moment’s notice. As the Israeli army chants “never again” so does the Southerner… and for the same reason. And since more Southerners than any other region’s populace have served, and currently serve, in the US military, the Southern partisan would already be trained, for the most part, as an effective fighting man.

Now, if you think all this is just whistling “Dixie” take a look at the US Military installations in the South! Everywhere you look there are Army, Air Force, Marine, and Navy installations. (There are six US Military installations just in the eastern part of North Carolina!) Why are they so numerous in the South? Not because the land is cheap! The extraordinary number of US Military installations is for the same purpose that US Aircraft Carriers are showing the colors off the shores of Iran, (plus, personnel, and material, is “pre-positioned” … just in case!) It is meant as a constant warning to the South.

Twenty-two states have their own state militias, which are separate from the National Guard. The Guard can come under Federal control at the President’s pleasure. ONLY the governor of the respective states commands the state militia units. North Carolina is one of those 22 states. It is surprising how many people have no idea those Militias exist!

The Southern people spring from the European Celts… the same Celts who invaded and conquered Rome. The old families of the South trace their lineage back to the Scots, the Irish, and those people who lived in the region north of London, England. The Celts’ love of Freedom has been handed down from generation to generation and even now burns in the hearts of all Southerners.
We will live free!

Every time the Southern people are forced to conform to the Federal way of doing things we bristle. We are plagued with flashbacks of the Federal bayonet trashing our culture, our schools (Bussing), our religion, even the way we vote (by forcing states to gerrymander their voting districts to allow for a minority only district).

The one single thing we ask of the federal government, to secure our southern border, the Federal government will not do. They ignore us, just as they did prior to the War of Northern Aggression. If Washington would give the Southern states the authority to secure the southern border with Mexico and deport all the illegals we could round up, the problem would be solved forthwith.

The frustration with the Federal government, I am convinced, is the root cause of Militias springing up across the nation. As the level of frustration grows, watch for the number of Militias to grow. It seems to work that way.

Is it unsettling? Yes, it is. Is it going to continue? Yes, I expect that it will.

Longstreet

Filed under:

Conservative+Liberal+Democrat+Militias

He IS Risen! Happy Easter!!!

Now when He had spoken these things, while they watched, He was taken up, and a cloud received Him out of their sight. And while they looked steadfastly toward heaven as He went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel, who also said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will so come in like manner as you saw Him go into heaven.” ... Acts 1:9-11

Happy Easter, all..... from Longstreet and the staff of

INSIGHT on Freedom!

Filed under:

conservative+Christian+Easter

Our Nation, Our Military, Our Mission.... by Alan Caruba

Our Nation, Our Military, Our Mission
By Alan Caruba
****************************
Americans know that we have troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, but I suspect they have little idea that nearly a half-million of our soldiers, marines, airmen, sailors and coast guard are in far-flung places prepared to deter and defeat the enemies of, not just our nation, but of the freedom we enjoy and want to extend worldwide.

“About 490,000 U.S. service personnel are forward-deployed around the world.”

The quote above is from Major General Richard Sherlock, director of operational planning for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It should be noted that they are all volunteers.
In a nation with just over three hundred million population, their bravery, their dedication, their sacrifice strikes me as extraordinary, but I also think we probably need a lot more such people as the 21st century portends an “asymmetrical war” against fanatical jihadists bent on dragging everyone back to the 7th century.

A February article in The American Legion Magazine by Alan W. Dowd, drawing on available data from public records, including the Pentagon’s “Active-Duty Military Personnel Strengths by Regional Area and By Country” report, reveals just how committed the United States is to the mission of maintaining peace throughout of the entire world.

“To display every U.S. deployment on earth,” wrote Dowd, “would be to highlight virtually every country from Albania to Zimbabwe.” The Congressional Research Service reports that the U.S. has a military presence in 144 nations.

Here’s a thumbnail sketch of where Americans are “forward deployed” in a dangerous world.

After more than 50 years since the stalemate that ended the Korean conflict, 1950-53, we have 27,114 U.S. forces in South Korea. My former affiliation, the 2nd Infantry Division and several Air Force tactical squadrons are based there. Across the border is the criminal, Communist nation of North Korea. U.S. forces have fallen by 9,000 in the past three years.

Long since the end of World War II, having protected Europe against the possibility of an invasion by the Soviet Union, we have 10,152 personnel in England. A raft of Army, Navy and Air Force personnel are stationed there. We have 58,894 personnel in Germany. At the height of the Cold War, we had nearly 300,000 U.S. troops deployed there. Reunited with the fall of the Berlin Wall, today there is no East Germany controlled by the Soviet Union. We have military assets in Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, Spain and Portugal. We maintain a minor presence in Bosnia-Herzegovina and in Kosovo/Serbia. Coming soon we will station “force protection” troops in the Czech Republic and Poland. We even have a small force in Greenland.

Keep in mind that we are in these nations and others at their invitation and as the result of mutual defense treaties.

Because 70 percent of the U.S. military’s Iraq-bound air cargo passes through Turkey, we have 1,668 Air Force personnel based at the Incirlik Air Base. We have been there since the 1950s. We’re building new air force facilities in Romania and some 2,500 in Bulgaria. Both are former Soviet satellite nations. A small force for naval support is based in Greece. There’s also a deep-water port and airfield at Souda Bay in Crete.

In addition to approximately 168,000 U.S. fighting forces based in Iraq, there are 26 other nations represented there for a total of 11,830 additional personnel. Approximately 3,830 Americans have given their lives to depose a homicidal dictator and bring about a democratic government in that nation. Nearby in Kuwait, which was liberated in 1991 after an Iraqi invasion, we have 16,500. Kuwait is the logistical hub and staging area for U.S. operations in Iraq.

There are approximately 24,800 U.S. troops conducting counter-insurgency and stability operations in Afghanistan. In addition, there are some 20,000 non-U.S. forces deployed there as well. About 700 coalition personnel have been killed, including 445 Americans.

Elsewhere in the Middle East, there are small forces deployed in Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, and even Saudi Arabia.

Turning toward Asia, there are 50,000 forces stationed there. Japan hosts a carrier battle group, the 111 Marine Expeditionary Force, the 5th Air Force, and elements of the Army’s I Corps. Approximately half are based in Okinawa. There are a small number of personnel in the Philippines, primarily in a training mission to help that nation deal with Islamic terrorist groups. Australia is host to just over 700 personnel and, in Guam, the U.S. maintains critical Navy and Air Force facilities and military units. There are plans to deploy F-22 fighter-bombers, aircraft carriers, and 20,000 more troops there. Major units of the U.S. military are based in Hawaii to the tune of 35,874 personnel.

The volatile continent of Africa and its strategically critical Horn has just over 2,000 personnel conducting humanitarian, training, and military operations. We have a small number of special operations units in the Trans-Sahara region, mostly concerned with counterterrorism. The U.S. presence is likely to increase, given the creation of an Africa Command.

In North America, we have major units based in Alaska, a forward-deployed position in the event of trouble in Asia. A handful is based in Canada as part of NATO and mutual defense commitments. As might be expected, there are 876,378 military personnel are based in the United States. Some 63.8 percent of America’s active-duty personnel are based here. There are, for example, 3,000 National Guard deployed along the U.S.-Mexico border to assist our border patrol units.

The Southern Command we maintain units that deploy in training exercises with troops from 19 nations in South America. Small units are maintained in Honduras and Columbia. There are just over 900 in Cuba at the U.S. Naval Station in Guantanamo Bay where we also have just over 300 detainees from the various fronts of the global war on terrorism. There’s even an Army garrison at Fort Buchanan in beautiful Puerto Rico.

All this sounds like a lot of military power and it is, but we need more and we need to upgrade our Air Force that is flying aircraft that are decades old and need replacement. We have been keeping at least two full carrier groups in the Persian Gulf for a very long time, along with troop strength in Iraq and Afghanistan. We are likely to do so as long as Iran and other factors continue to threaten the stability of that region.

The ancient Romans knew something about maintaining troops in a far-flung empire. “Si vis pacem, para bellum.” If you want peace, plan for war.

Alan Caruba writes a weekly column posted on the Internet site of The National Anxiety Center, http://www.anxietycenter.com/. He blogs at http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com/.

© Alan Caruba, March 2008

Filed under:

conservative+World+US+Military

Get Used To It!

Get Used To It!
*******************
I mean… very high gas prices, very high food prices, very high prices for black and white goods, well, higher and higher prices for everything!

We have brought this on ourselves. We have danced the dance and now we must pay the piper.

This “recession”, if you insist on calling it that, is self-inflicted. The key is the high prices on crude oil. It is a price we in the United States do not have to pay and yet we have chosen to be blackmailed, at the oil well, and watch our economy fail and our society suffer. In other words we have chosen to be wimps!

Get used to it. The incoming “democrat” government will only make it worse.

We don’t NEED OPEC’s oil! We have our own, thank you! But the limp-wristed bunch running our government won’t let us go get it. The oil in Anwr, the oil off our coasts under the continental shelf, the oil in our shale deposits, the oil in the tar sands in Kentucky and other states, plus all the coal we will ever need… and then some. Not to mention nuclear power to generate electricity. It’s here… all within the borders of the US… and we have chosen not to use it. We have chosen to switch off the engine of democracy in the US because we have bought into a lie. A lie that says we are destroying the planet with our use of petroleum based fuels.

This is unforgivable! This course of action is worse than stupid, it is base ignorance! Yet we puff out our chest and proclaim that we are GREEN! We are SAVING MOTHER EARTH! What a bunch of idiots!

We really ARE a pathetic bunch, you know that? NO, we are WORSE than pathetic!

I have watched this nation go from the top of the heap… from leadership in everything you can think of…all the way down to the bottom of the societal ditch through our own machinations. Somehow, we have saddled ourselves with guilt because the Americans who went before us worked hard, and sacrificed. They fought, bled, and died to create a gleaming jewel of a nation… the first of it’s kind ever seen on this planet…. and we are ASHAMED OF IT?

What the hell is the matter with the American people????

What I see demonstrated before me by our government, by our young people, by our religious leaders… that’s not American! I don’t KNOW what it is… but it sure as hell isn’t American.

For instance…Americans would tell the Kyoto Treaty crowd to stick that so-called treaty where the sun doesn’t shine. Americans would have nuked Iraq and Iran and the entire Tora Bora area of Afghanistan and promised them more if they ever dared raise a hand toward another human being again! Americans would go get our domestic oil… from where ever it was found… and use it to prosper this nation… and those who don’t like it can get the hell out of this country.

Americans would have put a bounty on illegal aliens inside this country, rounded them up, by the school bus load, and shipped them to camps in the southwestern deserts and assigned them to work on public works projects until they could be processed out of the country… for good. Babies born to illegal aliens in this country would remain in this country while their parents are shipped back home… but only until the Constitution can be amended to outlaw “anchor babies” and then the baby would go back to wherever it’s parents came from, too.

Americans would have built a 20-foot high steel wall along our southern border replete with machine guns, and mine fields, and barbed wire. Anything attempting to cross that border, except through designated border crossings would be shot dead!

Americans would, even now, be mining our own moon and the planet Mars and the moons of the other planets for precious metals and sources of energy to run our permanent colonies there as well as for shipment back to America on Earth.

Americans would be laughing their behinds off at this ridiculous comedy playing out before us we call a Presidential Campaign. We would be embarrassed to have anyone of the candidates, from either political party, representing an American political party! Americans would run them all out of town, and find a Fighting Military Man and elect him President in a 50 state landslide.

Americans would have run the United Nations off the shores of the US long ago and nationalized the land upon which their fancy building sits in New York.

Americans would have halted the Politically Correct movement on the beaches of this nation and never allowed it entrance. Its brand of “moral relativism” would not be allowed in America.

But… that is not what we have done. We have shamed our ancestors. We have shamed those who carved this land out of a wilderness and built it brick by brick and board by board.

Morally, America has become the sort of country America used to send missionaries to to bring enlightenment and The Gospel.


What a mess we have become. We have begun the slide from the pinnacle to the dustbin of history and nobody seems to be the least bit concerned.

It is painful to watch. It is even more painful to be a part of it.




Longstreet







Filed under:







conservative+America+Decline+Apathy+Ignorance

5 Years Down... Only 45 Years To Go In Iraq! (UPDATED!!)

I, for one, was never under the illusion the war in Iraq would be a quick "in and out" affair. I said, from the beginning, that the US was looking at 50 years, or more, of
troops deployed in Iraq. I am beginning to think even 50 years will be a “best guess scenario”.

It is a very, very, tenuous thing to try to decide what you, yourself, would do in someone else’s shoes in a given set of circumstances but … going where angels fear to tread… I think, had I been the President, I would have had Saddam assassinated. I know, I know, Jerry Ford “fixed it” so we can’t do that. Well, the truth is… it can be undone with the stoke of the current president’s pen, and the issuance of Presidential pardons for the “D” boys, sent it to take him out, would have prevented their being brought up on charges later.

That said…. I think the plain truth is… the war was, indeed, about oil. Now, let me hasten to add…I’m not against that. Hell, every time I gas up, I want to invade Saudi Arabia!

Somehow, an important factor in the circumstances surrounding going to war in Iraq, has gotten lost. Way back, before the first shots were fired in Gulf War One, we knew that Saddam was going after the oil fields in Saudi Arabia. Had he been successful… he would have had command of way too much of the world’s oil, that which we, ourselves, as a country needed, and still need, to keep the engine of democracy running. The damage that would have done to our economy is incalculable. I mean… just look at what the high prices on oil have done to us already… and the supply of oil is not even stinted. Only a steep rise in the per-barrel price has “creamed” our national economy. Had Saddam been allowed to invade Saudi Arabia, and there is no doubt that he would have overtaken the Saudis in a matter of days, he would have had a strangle hold on the world’s energy source. We could not allow that to happen.

In the spirit of “full disclosure” let me say that I voted for President Bush… twice. Given the same set of circumstances, and the same set of candidates to choose from… I would do it again. However, I have been greatly disappointed in the President. He has proven to be even less a conservative that we were led to believe. I knew he wasn’t a conservative in the same vain as I, myself, am. He, and his father both, at best, would be referred to as moderates, here in the Carolinas. That is a very strong reason I will not support John McCain in November.

I do not think the war in Iraq has been prosecuted as aggressively as it should have been. I don’t think we used anywhere near the force we could have used and I have no love for “winning the hearts and minds” of an enemy, any enemy. I fault the Commander-in-Chief for that.

Maybe I was mistaken in thinking Iraq was chosen by the US Military as the designated killing fields” for Al Qaeda and the Iranian terrorists. I really think it was… so I am not yet ready to back away from that. Invite them to come in and kill as many of them as we possibly can.

As a former police officer, I can tell you that “back in the day” we did not discourage the bad guys from places they liked to “hang-out”. Why? Because we knew where they were. It beat the heck out of having to canvas an entire city looking for a bad guy when you could simply go to the “Hang-out” and pick him up. I see Iraq in the same way. Encourage them to come in… and once in… kill them. Problem is, as I see it, we have not been as aggressive, in killing them, as we ought to have been. That’s another reason lawyers have no place on a battlefield. War is, indeed, hell. People get killed. And yes, innocent people get killed. If a nation is not able to accept that going to war means death and destruction, then… that nation had better dig a hole and climb into it, and hide, for their days as a nation are numbered.

I see no easy way to disengage with the enemy. In fact I see no way to disengage with the enemy. We are in a fight for our lives as a “Christian” nation. Of course, we can always surrender, as the democrats wish, and become an Islamic nation. I, for one, am nowhere near ready to do that… and never will be. The BIG LIE being sold to the democrat faithful, and other weak willed Americans is… that if a Democrat is elected President they will bring the troops home from Iraq. That is not going to happen. They know it, but they are deliberately lying to America. They may bring SOME troops home… but not many months from then, they will simply be sent right back.

This is not Vietnam. This enemy with which we are engaged does not simply want to occupy Iraq as the North Vietnamese wanted to occupy South Vietnam. The enemy we are locked in battle with today wants TO OCCUPY THE ENTIRE WORLD! They already hold vast portions of it even today. They are the largest religion on the planet! A tenant of their faith says America must die. They will not be swayed from their goal of overrunning America and setting up that worldwide caliphate. And… do not kid yourself… the ONLY thing standing in their way is AMERICA! They will keep coming as long as even one them draws breath! They are within our borders, even now, plotting death and destruction here in America.

(Update) If you are not ready to accept that the US is going to STAY in Iraq, I urge you to read an article entitled: “Air base evidence of shift in plans” by Kevin Maurer of the Fayetteville Observer, Fayetteville, NC. The article was published in today's edition. You’ll find it at:

http://www.fayobserver.com/article?id=289058

So… what to do? Suck it up, and do what Americans have always done. Determine to do whatever it takes to win. I am not the least bit adverse to genocide if it will guarantee the survival of my country or my family. “Extremism in the defense of freedom is no vice”. Goldwater was right. He was right then and he is right now.

But one thing is for sure. We cannot beat this enemy, this threat to America’s freedom, by being divided. We have to be as cohesive, as determined, and fierce, as deadly, as cunning, as focused on killing the Islamofacists and they are toward killing us. They are deadly in earnest about it and so should we be.

So far, we are our own worst enemies in this war.

Look, the “battle” in Iraq is a “pissant war”! We will have been in Iraq 5 years. We have sustained some 4,000 causalities. That is a trifling number of dead in battle. In a place called Cold Harbor, Virginia, 7,000 Americans died in twenty minutes (and the battle wasn’t over!) in the Civil War. On “D” Day nearly 7,000 died on one day in one battle. Any death of an America in battle is a sad thing. But when weighed against the goal of that war, which is to maintain the freedom and security of this nation, it is a very small price to pay.

This experiment we call America is always on the precipice. It is a balancing act to keep her aright. So many are trying, incessantly, to topple us. The ONLY way we are going to keep her standing straight is to pull together to insure her continued existence.

I DON”T have the answers to what ails our country. Like all men of good will, I try to offer, from time to time, “suggestions” I feel, might be, in some small way, helpful. The infinitesimal magnitude of those suggestions makes them trifling I know, but, hey, it is all I can offer.

Longstreet

Filed under:

conservative+Iraq+War+US

Why Is Everyone Lying About Energy? ... By Alan Caruba

Why Is Everyone Lying About Energy?
By Alan Caruba

******************

In early March, President Bush, addressing an International Renewable Energy Conference, was widely quoted saying that the United States has to “get off oil.” Earlier he had said that America was “addicted” to oil. These are such huge lies one wonders why he is telling them, unless perhaps he has quietly been investing in ethanol production.

For the record, “renewable” energy refers to solar and wind energy for electricity, and biofuels for transportation. None of these options can ever be expected to provide the electric energy America uses, nor will biofuels ever replace oil for transportation.

In one of the most brilliant analysis of America’s dependency on oil, “Gusher of Lies”, by Robert Bryce, the author spells out the realities of a world in which, not just the United States, but all nations are going to be importing oil for as long as crude can be pumped from places around the world that include the Middle East, Russia, Africa, South America, and the deep ocean waters.

The problem is not a lack of known reserves of oil. The problem is the way the lack of knowledge by the consuming public is being exploited.

Yes, the price of a barrel of oil has reached and surpassed $107, but that price is subject to a myriad of factors that have nothing to do with scarcity. As OPEC president, Chakib Khelil, told reporters recently, “There is sufficient supply. There’s plenty of oil there.” He’s telling the truth. One factor is the falling value of the U.S. dollar. Oil that is priced in Euros has not risen nearly as much.

“Energy independence,” says Bryce, “is hogwash. From nearly any standpoint—economic, military, political, or environmental—energy independence makes no sense. Worse yet, the inane obsession with the idea of energy independence is preventing the U.S. from having an honest and effective discussion about the energy challenges it now faces.”

Nowhere is this more obvious in the campaigns of the Democrat and Republican candidates. John McCain, the GOP nominee, is committed to the global warming hoax that is based on the lie that the use of all forms of energy is contributing “greenhouse gas” emissions at such a rate the Earth is warming dramatically. It isn’t. There isn’t a scintilla of scientific data to demonstrate this. It has warmed about one degree Fahrenheit—naturally—since the end of the mini-ice age in 1850.

The Democrat candidates are no better on the subject of energy and Sen. Clinton is on record wanting to seize the profits of “Big Oil” and divert them to ever more research into alternative energy options. Take the case of ExxonMobil whose profits—after you factor in the billions it spends on exploration, extraction, refining and distribution—have been the same for years, about ten percent. Over the past three years, this one oil company has paid an average of $27 billion a year in taxes to the federal government, about 41 percent of the company’s taxable income.

Bryce points out that, “The reality is that the world—and the energy business in particular—is becoming ever more inter-dependent. And this interdependence will likely accelerate in the years to come as new supplies of fossil fuel become more difficult to find and more expensive to produce.”

”Energy independence, at its root, means protectionism and isolationism, both of which are in direct opposition to America’s long-term interests in the Persian Gulf and globally.”

U.S. energy policies, tragically, are leaving us ever more vulnerable to the uncertainties of the global oil market. Congress prohibits exploration and extraction of oil and natural gas from 85% of the nation’s continental shelf. It prohibits access to the oil in Alaska’s ANWR. It has mandated that gasoline be refined in numerous different blends and that ethanol—a huge subsidized scam—be added to it, reducing its efficiency while increasing its cost. On top of that, it taxes gasoline, adding over 40 cents to every gallon that consumers purchase.

Predictably, when consumers, oblivious to the realities of the global oil market and everything else involved with delivering gasoline at the pump, begin to complain, politicians begin to think about regulating gasoline prices. It doesn’t work and it will likely worsen the Recession we’re in.

It was tried by the Carter administration and was a full-scale disaster. Between 1978 and 1980, thanks in part to the overthrow of the Shah of Iran, crude oil prices more than doubled from about $9 a barrel to over $21. Back then, Carter was advocating solar energy, conservation, synthetic fuels, and other “solutions”, but they didn’t work then and they won’t work now.

In terms of our enormous energy needs, Congress and the White House are seriously mismanaging America.

Energy is the “master resource.” Without it everything else slows, stalls, and stops. The nation’s economy is entirely dependent on our ability to function in a world where oil, natural gas, and coal are global commodities. They don’t have a nationality. They have a price. And that is set by supply and demand, not the federal government.

The government is literally wasting billions on “alternative forms” of energy and “climate change.” It should be encouraging the building of more refineries, more nuclear fission, coal or gas-fired plants to generate electricity, more pipelines. It should be eliminating the restrictions on access oil, gas, and coal within and these sources from beyond our nation’s borders.

The President, the candidates competing to be the next President, and members of Congress are all lying to Americans about the realities of energy. The situation is likely to get much worse before it ever becomes better.

Alan Caruba writes a weekly column posted on the Internet site of The National Anxiety Center, http://www.anxietycenter.com/. He blogs at http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com/.

© Alan Caruba, March 2008



Filed under:

conservativeCongress+Ethanol+Food+Global+Warming+Politics

Pavlov's Votors

Pavlov’s Voters


******************

Well, Obama has repudiated his Pastor. Will that be enough? Of COURSE it will… for the millions who have latched onto his empty message of “Hope” and “Change”. But for Independents and moderates… NO it will not be enough.

The drive by Conservatives to “Keep HER in it, so we can win it” is increasing in ferocity. Conservatives in Texas and Ohio flocked to the polls and voted for Hillary in their respective primaries. All part of the scheme to “Keep HER in it, so we can win it!”.

But, the Pastor Problem, no, that was all Obama’s doing. To be so smart it was a DUMB move! Surely his aids saw it coming. Did they not approach the candidate with it and explain the trouble it was bound to bring? If not… why not? Is the candidate unapproachable? Is the candidate so sure of himself that he will brook no input from those closest to him? All good questions. Questions the voters need answered.

When you step back and look at this massive “Cluster Screw-up”, by Obama and his campaign, it sorta makes who answers the telephone in the White House at 3 AM a much more compelling question… now doesn’t it?

When one pushes through the smoke screen surrounding Obama, one quickly learns that he is an archliberal.


“Obama is a liberal, and a rather radical liberal at that. According to Obama's new best seller, "The Audacity of Hope," Obama hates Ronald Reagan: He was "disturbed ? by Ronald Reagan's election in 1980 ? unconvinced ? by his John Wayne, 'Father Knows Best' pose, his policy by anecdote and his gratuitous assaults on the poor." (31) He loves Jimmy Carter: "a Democrat who ? with his emphasis on human rights ? seemed prepared to once again align moral concerns with a strong defense." (288) This passage is from: “Barack Obama: Radical Liberal” by Benjamin Shapiro. You’ll find the entire article at:

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=53064

No liberal Presidential candidate… well, no Presidential candidate as liberal as Obama… has won the presidency in more than a generation… according to Bob Dole. And Dole is correct.


The GOP is ready and “loaded for bear”. Running against a liberal… well, one as liberal as Obama... is fairly easy. Most often they defeat themselves. Republicans are already licking their chops, so says Mike Allen and Ben Smith in an article titled: “Liberal views could haunt Obama.” over at “The Politico” at:

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1207/7312.html

If you are an Obama supporter, ask yourself, if Obama is already in this kind of trouble and he is only running against a fellow democrat, how well will he fare running against a Republican with “no holds barred”? The answer must give you pause!

Pat Buchanan has said that should Obama win the Democrat presidential nomination “…Republicans will tear him apart”. He’s right about that. I have absolutely no doubts about the GOP’s ability to deconstruct Mr. Obama, down to his core, and allow the world to see his inner “Liberal” self. My only question is… will it be enough?

Frankly, I’m not sure.

When one looks into the faces of the Obama… uhh… “Disciples” one must admit that Obama is more a “movement” than a “campaign”… a “religious” movement at that. His “messianic” message is mesmerizing to millions whose minds have been carefully prepared for this “liberal mush” since entering “daycare” and reinforced as they made their way through the Government Indoctrination System we refer to as the Public School System. When you REALLY look into their eyes it is as though you are looking into the eyes of Pavlov’s dog. They are reacting to their indoctrination… and they are ready to cast that vote for the archliberal… Obama!

Scary enough for you?

Still unconvinced?

Look into their eyes. That is not reason you see glowing there. That is reaction to indoctrination. Back during the Korean Conflict, my generation learned a new term for it from the Chinese Communists: “Brain washing”.

Now… look again….!

Longstreet






Filed under:

US+POLITICS+MEDIA+INFLUENCE+Barack+Hussein+Obama+Pavlov