Merry Greenmas

Ever wonder what a truly environmentally-conscious Christmas would look like? Wonder no more:

"No tree. No driving to the tree lot, watching them saw the tree down, wrapping it in plastic and then driving back home. No driving to Target, buying a plastic tree and driving home. We make a tree mural out of shopping bags and leave a few Sharpies around to decorate with. It's personal, meaningful and 100 percent recycled."

This from the Alternative Consumer magazine. They have more Christmas "rules," including, "No holiday hams. French toast can replace tired turkey and ham dinners."

Peace and goodwill to you, too, Christmas nazis.

You can read more about the Alternative Consumer's vision of a merry-less Christmas at Ralph Reiland's Pittsburgh Tribune blog. Plenty other goodies in his post about Christmas for those on the "green" side of life. These people make the Grinch look like Santa Claus.

"Vogon Care" and Saturday Night Lies

I'm tired of "Obamacare", "Pelosicare", and "Reidcare". Lame. Let's get creative! How about "Shadow care"? "We Really Don't Care about You care"? "Enjoy Your Time in Prison care"?

My personal favorite is "Vogon care". Vogons, of course, are the galactic bureaucrats from Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy. According to the Guide, "Vogons are one of the most unpleasant races in the galaxy. Not actually evil, but bad-tempered, bureaucratic, officious and callous."

Sounds like the people trying to ram socialism -- err -- healthcare reform down our throats. I'll take it! "Vogon care" it is! Vogons, like Pelosi, Reid, Obama, etc., are also in favor of death panels, because they won't even save their grandmothers from the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal without all of the necessary (and unnecessary) paperwork.

Similarly, don't let your Congressmen or Congresswomen read you poetry -- it will be as malicious, incomprehensible, tortuous and nauseating as their 2,074-page healthcare bill.

Speaking of which...

Senate Democrats have cleared the way for a Saturday night vote to begin the healthcare debate, a Democratic aide said.

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) has agreed to relent on his demand for Senate clerks to read aloud the 2,074-page bill and allow the chamber to take a critical test vote, said the aide. Reading the bill on the Senate floor was estimated to take as many as 30 hours or longer, raising the possibility of the Senate staying in session into next week.

Heaven forbid United States senators put in any overtime in debating the most dastardly piece of legislation ever assembled in the Senate. Thirty hours for 2,074 pages comes out to almost 70 minutes of debate a page. Instead, there will be no reading of the bill, and the Senate will take a vote at 8 pm Saturday night to end debate on a motion to move forward with the bill.

Not only haven't these senators read the bill, but these Saturday night vote fests are getting more than just a little worrisome. The House passed this bill on a Saturday night, and now the Senate is trying to end debate on a Saturday night. I might be mistaken, but constituents can't call their senators' office at 8 pm on a Saturday night, now can they? So glad our elected officials are looking out for our best interest.

Hey, waddya know? Another similarity they have with Vogons.

Jumping to All the Wrong Conclusions

I don't want to jump to any conclusions, but between President Obama's no-show at the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall, and his "let's not jump to conclusions" apology in the wake of the Ft. Hood terrorist attack, it's hard not to have any misgivings about Obama's priorities and his increasingly multicultural, morally-relativistic geopolitical worldview.

(On a side note, I just set a personal record for longest opening sentence in a blog!)

Toby Harnden's piece in the UK Telegraph nails Obama's decision not to go to Berlin on the head: "Perhaps Obama felt that celebrating the role of the United States in bringing down the wall would be a bit triumphalist and not quite in keeping with his wish to present America as a declining world power anxious to apologise for sundry historic misdeeds."

Zing!

If it's not about Obama, he won't be there. Harnden notes that Obama was able to find time to go to Berlin while he was campaigning for President, but now? Too busy. But pencil him in for accepting his Nobel peace price in December!

Regarding the PC storm surrounding the Ft. Hood massacre, Ralph Peters writes in the New York Post that in order to "call this an act of Terrorism, the White House would need an autographed photo of Osama bin Laden helping Hasan buy weapons in downtown Killeen, Texas. Even that might not suffice."

Obama's reaction to the Ft. Hood attack pales in its moral decisiveness and outrage when compared to his remarks about the killing of abortionist George Tiller. Did the President "caution against jumping to conclusions"? Did he (and Homeland Security secretary Janet Napolitano) warn about backlash against pro-lifers? As Al would say, I don't think so, Tim.

So what we have here is a President of the United States who willingly chooses not to celebrate one of the greatest moments of freedom in the history of mankind (and that was brought about directly by U.S. foreign policy and moral resolve), and who lacks the stones to call a terrorist a terrorist because it might offend a certain people group.

Personally, I find it offensive when a U.S. Army major kills 13 of his fellow service members while shouting "Allahu Akhbar!"

But I don't want to jump to any conclusions.

The new heart-healthy workout

From the always informational Ethiopian Review:

A study by German scientists showed that 10 minutes a day of ogling women’s breasts by men was as good at warding off heart disease, high blood pressure and stress as 30 minutes of aerobic exercise.The five-year study conducted by Dr. Karen Weatherby, followed 200 men. Those who partook in boob ogling for just 10 minutes a day enjoyed benefits equal to those of 30 minutes of grunting, groaning, sweating and doing push-ups at the gym. . . .

“There is no question that gazing at breast makes men healthier,” Weatherby said.

A few things:

1) I don't know if this is good or bad.

2) They needed to conduct a five-year study to tell us this? Really?

3) What about blind people? And eunuchs?

4) Is there a "vice versa" form of this "exercise" for women?

5) I'm glad that I'm married.

6) Feminists can view this one of two ways: Firstly, that this is a sign of women's power over men; or they can see it as further proof that modern science is sexist and men are sexist because they get excited about staring at boobs for 10 minutes.

7) How will the PR departments in the gym/fitness industry respond? "We have large-breasted women for you to ogle while using our state-of-the-art cardio room"?

So a guy with a concealed carry permit walks into a bar...

I'm movin' to Arizona! From the AP:

. . . a new Arizona law that goes into effect Wednesday . . . will allow guns into Arizona bars and restaurants that serve alcohol.

Under the law, backed by the National Rifle Association, the 138,350 people with concealed-weapons permits in Arizona will be allowed to bring their guns into bars and restaurants that haven't posted signs banning them.

Those carrying the weapons aren't allowed to drink alcohol.

On the Third Day, God and Norman Borlaug Created Plants

When Norman Borlaug passed away at the age of 95 on Saturday, Sept. 12, 2009, I bet you didn't hear anything about it.

Not that you knew who Norman Borlaug was, anyway, right? I'm not judging; I didn't know who he was either. I met my parents for dinner a few nights ago and my dad told me about his passing and who he was.

"Great American hero" is a good start. I did some researching about Mr. Borlaug and came across a piece by Gregg Easterbrook in the WSJ, which is way better than any of his "TMQ" columns on ESPN.com, by the way.

It's a great piece because it goes into detail about the humble greatness and inspiring work that Borlaug achieved in his life. I found myself awed at the triumphant, life-giving forces that one man brought into our messed up world. What follows is just a glimpse of what Borlaug did with his life, and what he did for the world.

Borlaug spent most of his life in the poorest nations on the planet, "patiently teaching poor farmers in India, Mexico, South America, Africa and elsewhere" the wide-ranging agricultural techniques that came to be know as part of the "Green Revolution." These techniques, writes Easterbrook, "prevented the global famines widely predicted when the world population began to skyrocket following World War II."

Green Revolution methods are universally used to this day. They include hybrid crops specifically bred for vigor; "shuttle breeding," a technique for accelerating the movement of disease immunity between strains of crops; Borlaug was also responsible for helping to develop cereals that were insensitive to the number of hours of light in a day, thus allowing them to be grown in many different climates.

The result? "From the Civil War through the Dust Bowl, the typical American farm produced about 24 bushels of corn per acre; by 2006, the figure was about 155 bushels per acre."

Borlaug's innovation helped more than the American farmer, however. In 1943, Borlaug relocated to rural Mexico to establish an ag research station, which was funded by the Rockefeller Foundation. Borlaug called his station the International Maize and Wheat Center, abbreviated in Spanish as CIMMYT. Through CIMMYT, Borlaug produced the high-yield, low-pesticide "dwarf" wheat. Most of the world's population still depends on this hybrid crop for sustenance. In 2006, thanks mostly to Borlaug's methods, the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization declared that malnutrition stood "at the lowest level in human history," even though the global population tripled during the 20th century.

In 1970 he won the Nobel Prize for putting an end to India and Pakistan's famine. Back in '99, the Atlantic Monthly estimated that through all of his agricultural-enhancing techniques, roughly one billion lives were saved.

I could go on. Read Easterbrook's article to understand just how much our world has been impacted by Borlaug. Next time you think American's are selfish individuals who should use their resources to help those living in impoverished, famine-stricken countries, think about Norman Borlaug and how his efforts have indeed helped feed the world.

I know. His advanced ag methods left a "carbon footprint." But Burlaug didn't care. He once told Easterbrook that environmentalists "have never experienced the physical sensation of hunger. They do their lobbying from comfortable office suites in Washington or Brussels. If they lived just one month amid the misery of the developing world, as I have for 50 years, they'd be crying out for tractors and fertilizer and irrigation canals and be outraged that fashionable elitists in wealthy nations were trying to deny them these things."

Borlaug understood that the best resource isn't genetically-modified crops, but people. He was a true humanitarian, and, thus, a true environmentalist. As Borlaug himself said, "Without high-yield agriculture, increases in food output would have been realized through drastic expansion of acres under cultivation, losses of pristine land a hundred times greater than all losses to urban and suburban expansion."

We should have a National Norman Borlaug Day. We will eat the fruits of his crops and seek to acquire his heart for the poor. This might take some time, though, seeing how no one knows who he was.

Here Comes Santa Klaus

Do I love Czech President Vaclav Klaus because he's the only politician on an international scale to speak out against "global warming/climate change", or is it because his name sounds like Santa Claus?

I say both.

Instead of bringing gifts to the U.N. meeting on climate change yesterday (headlined by Barack Obama), Klaus brought the only voice of rational skepticism about the "consensus" that our world is burning up.

Santa Klaus called the "propagandistic exercise" "sad" and "frustrating."

For Christmas, if Klaus was Claus, I'm guessing he would leave coal in the stockings all of the diplomats in attendance -- out of irony and recompense for being bad/stupid.

Kids Are Told the Darndest Things, Part Dos

This might be the longest blog ever written. It’s more like a blessay – a blog/essay. It comes in response to a series of questions about my post about President Obama’s public school address. Apologies for taking so relong to reply, but 2,000+ words takes a while to write. Enjoy!

Hi Sides,
I have a few questions for you. 1. Do you believe the school system in the US has a socialist agenda? 2. Is this agenda by the president unprecedented? 3. Because the schools all receive money/laws/guidance/leadership from the federal government, and the fed govt [sic] is run by the current administration, is it wrong for the current admin to "fulfill" this leadership by "leading" the students regardless of what some of the parents want?Thanks for your thoughts!

@Rachel:

I like these questions! They’re much better than the questions on Obama’s original Department of Education lesson plan. Your questions get down to the foundational/worldview level of this issue, which I had been meaning to address. Thanks for the exegesis. Now to your questions.

1. Do you believe the school system in the U.S. has a socialist agenda?

Are you trying to get me in trouble? I have friends and family members who are public school teachers. This is going to be the longest of the three responses to Rachel’s questions, so buckle up.

I believe that American public schools have a mission-statement agenda originating from its governing bodies (the National Education Association/Department of Education). I don’t know if this agenda is “socialist” by definition, or even that this agenda is felt as heavily (if at all) in certain school districts/individual schools. A good friend of mine teaches at a high school in Colorado Springs, Colo., which is the home of Focus on the Family. His district is staunchly “Republican”/non-socialist, which is a huge contrast to, say, the Washington, D.C., or San Francisco school districts.

Even within more “socialistic” districts, or districts that actively push a statist agenda, teachers still have a certain level of freedom in which to operate. Again, this varies by district. A Colorado middle school teacher held a mock trial to determine whether humans are the cause of climate change. Such teaching tools are innovative, clever, and definitely void of any “socialist” agenda.

Examining the level of “agenda setting” on a case-by-case basis is fascinating and insightful, but doesn’t fully answer the question. I think it is fairly plain to see that the public school system over the last 80 years has been operating on a politically and theologically left-leaning axis. Evolution is the only “scientific” theory taught in the text books. Prayer and Bible reading were banned in the early 1960s. Intolerance of the homosexual lifestyle is not tolerated. In practically every respect and subject of learning, the worldview being taught is decidedly antagonistic towards Christian principles and a Judeo-Christian life system of limited government, faith in God and personal responsibility.

If there is any agenda coursing through the public school system, it is one steeped in materialistic naturalism and experiential relativism. For this, we can thank John Dewey, the man unanimously regarded as the architect of our modern education system. His thoughts and theories on education have impacted the U.S. education system (and thus our entire civilization) through and through.

For a good understanding of where Dewey was coming from intellectually, his summary of his religious beliefs is a good starting point. He believed that “. . . faith in the prayer-hearing God is an unproved and outmoded faith. There is no God and there is no soul. Hence, there are no needs for the props of traditional religion. With dogma and creed excluded, then immutable truth is also dead and buried. There is no room for fixed, natural law or moral absolutes.”

Dewey was an avowed Darwinian naturalist and one of the leading pragmatists of his day, along with William James and Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. His pragmatic humanism determined his outlook and behavior toward every facet of life. More than just a philosopher, Dewey was a pioneer in behavioral psychology, and his work in this field is a critical component to his education philosophy.

His approach toward educational philosophy was driven by his belief that the “props of traditional religion” are bogus – and that experience is the driving force behind the construction of reality. So he developed a learning methodology that reflected the paradigm that everything – the physical world, animal species, and even the mind – is the product of millions of years of evolution. If everything is matter, and if man is simply “a biological organism subject to the changes and adaptations required by his environment,” then the mind is material as well. Thus, beliefs, convictions, and ideas are ever-evolving survival tools – like teeth, claws, feathers, etc. If an idea works, we can call it “true.” Indeed, “immutable truth is . . . dead and buried. There is no room for . . . moral absolutes.”

What does an education system based on this worldview look like? To Dewey, it was all about the “group.”

As Lewis Alesen wrote in his 1958 work Mental Robots, Dewey believed that since “there is no absolute truth . . . or moral law, the progressive educator sees no use in wasting the students’ time in studying history, because, of course, what other men have done and thought in the past is not of any particular value, as the circumstances under which they lived were entirely different from those facing the student and citizen today.” (This is called moral relativism. “Truth” evolves just like monkeys evolve into humans.)

Instead, the progressive educator seeks to impress upon the students’ minds that the good of the whole or group should come before the development of the individual. As Dewey wrote in 1916 in Democracy and Education:

There is always the danger that increased personal independence will decrease the social capacity of an individual. In making him more self-reliant, it may make him more self-sufficient. . . . It often makes an individual so insensitive in his relations to others as to develop an illusion of being really able to stand and act alone – an unnamed form of insanity which is responsible for a large part of the remedial suffering of the world.

In My Pedagogic Creed, written in 1897, Dewey stated:

The only true education comes through the stimulation of the child’s powers by the demands of the social institution in which he finds himself. Through these demands, he is stimulated to act as a member of a unity, to emerge from his original narrowness of action and feeling, and to conceive of himself from the standpoint of the welfare of the group to which he belongs.

The success and health of the at-large “group” (a collective population under a massive, government body) is paramount even to traditional courses of study. Dewey went so far as to say that “introducing the child too abruptly to a number of special studies [including] reading, writing, geography, etc.” results in the “sustaining force behind individualism.”

Translation: it is more important for students to assimilate to the group, thus ensuring a better adaptation (behavioral psych, anyone?) to their environment, than for them to learn life skills. Why? Because then the students are dependent upon the institution (“the group”) for their happiness – the chief aim in a life that is only composed of matter and lacking any transcendent truth. And in a world where there is no Higher Being to look to for purpose and value, the State becomes that force of divinity and higher calling. The goal of Dewey’s education model was to create entire generations of mind-numb citizens dependent on a system of government/bureaucracies that manage every aspect of their lives.

If any of this sounds socialistic/statist in nature, we’re getting close to answering question #1. But fellow Humanist Charles F. Potter clarifies how high/how important the stakes are in education: “Education is thus a most power ally of humanism, and every public school is a school of humanism. What can the theistic Sunday school, meeting for an hour once a week, and teaching only a fraction of the children, do to stem the tide of a five-day program of humanistic teachings?”

Dr. Chester Pierce, speaking at the Childhood International Education Seminar in 1973, called every five-year old child “insane” because “he comes to school with certain allegiances to our Founding Fathers, toward our elected officials, toward his parents, toward a belief in a supernatural being, and toward the sovereignty of this nation as a separate entity.”

What do you do with insane (read: sick) students? You heal them. Pierce’s remedy: public education. “It’s up to you as teachers to make all these sick children well – by creating the international child of the future.”

These “international children” are necessary for what Dewey called the “larger social evolution.” Individualism (insanity) kills all evolutionary progress.

In 1932, Dewey became the honorary president of the NEA. In 1933, he helped write the first Humanist Manifesto. The rest, as they say, is history. Today, the NEA is the leading lobbying group for teachers and the elite, professional educational community. Suffice it to say, they haven’t deviated from Dewey’s course.

2. Is this agenda by the president unprecedented?

Hard to say. There wasn’t much of an “agenda” in the President Obama’s speech. There was an agenda in the first draft of the “lesson plans” that sought to positively reinforce the students’ image and grandeur of Obama. Talk about behavioral psychology. But, no, the President’s speech was generic, positive platitudes about working hard and doing well in school. Fine. That’s great. But knowing what we know now about the original goals of public education, is it really so great that the President pushes a dependency on the public school system and excelling in that arena?

3. Because the schools all receive money/laws/guidance/leadership from the federal government, and the fed govt [sic] is run by the current administration, is it wrong for the current admin to "fulfill" this leadership by "leading" the students regardless of what some of the parents want?

It’s permissible and that’s where the problem lies. Can someone please explain to me why the President of the United States (ANY President at ANY time) should be “leading” the students in the public school system? Shouldn’t be his job, shouldn’t be on his radar. Yet since the public schools are government-owned indoctrination centers, you’re correct in stating that Obama’s actions are merely a logical follow-through of his leadership over the entire education system. That’s a frightening thought.

The biggest issue I have with the public school system is the lack of local/parental control on the curriculum and programs being taught. Like I said earlier, though, the “agenda” isn’t pervasive. Location, demographics and size of school/school district have a lot to do with what is taught and how it’s taught.

Again, teachers still have some freedom as to how they prepare and present information. Parents still (depending on district location/size) have a say as to what is being taught. The VP of the ad agency I work at signed his kids out of the classes they would have been in during Obama’s speech. A couple of the private schools in Fort Collins didn’t even show the speech. It seems undeniable, though, that this local/parental control has been gradually slipping away over the last few decades.

But do you think Dewey cared what the parents want? According to Pierce, young students are “insane” because they have been reared and have received values from their parents. Someone with Obama’s background – “community” organizer, a statist in a populist’s clothing – buys into the “good of the group” mentality. Why else does he keep calling for us to be “our brother’s keeper”?

I should note that the John Deweys of the world have failed to create the “international child” – on a massive scale, anyway. In 1918, the British sociologist Benjamin Kidd wrote, “Give us the Young and we will create a new mind and new earth in a single generation.” I believe our country (and most of the Western world) has been feeling the effects of Dewey’s vision over the last few decades, but it has definitely taken them much longer than they originally hoped. And certainly individualism is still the norm in American life, and not the exception. In Europe, however, it’s a different story.

Dewey and the other progressive humanists underestimated the will of the American mind. Once a people get a taste of individual liberty and responsibility, and the fruits of that freedom, they don’t like it when those freedoms are taken away. That, in my mind, is why the health insurance "reform" battle is so critical. The dependence and assimilation that Dewey wanted to imprint on students’ minds is finally making good on the trademark issue of socialism and abdication to the State: government-run health care.

Globalism has in its roots humanistic/statist elements because it de-emphasizes the individual. From “universal health care”, to a global currency and trans-national governing bodies like the U.N., the goal is to strip away local responsibility and individual freedom. How do you work to herd the masses into these constricting, authoritarian states? How do you breed the “international child”? I think Potter had the best answer, with “a five-day (per week) program of humanistic teachings”.

I would be more than remise if I didn’t close with recognizing the people who have stood their ground to fight the naturalistic relativism and state-glorifying humanism. The thousands of Christians who teach in public schools deserve our never-ending gratitude. So do the thousands of Christian parents who continue to instruct their children and take an active role in their education. From a biblical viewpoint, parents are ultimately responsible for the education of their children. But together, God-fearing parents and teachers have fought for Truth in a truth-less world, preserving the Gospel and individual freedoms for past generations and even the generations to come.

Anyway, if you haven't clicked-out or fallen asleep yet, I hope this whole thing made sense. Thanks for being here.

Just the Facts, Sir, Just the Facts

The articles below provide you with just about all you need to know about President Obama’s speech to the jointly divided Congress last night. In the words of the always feisty and tantalizing Camille Paglia, “Who is naive enough to believe that Obama's plan would be deficit-neutral? Or that major cuts could be achieved without drastic rationing?”

Obama on Health Care: Irresistible Rhetoric Meets Immovable Stalemate by Pejman Yousefzadeh, TNL

FACT CHECK: Obama uses iffy math on deficit pledge by Calvin Woodward & Erica Werner, Associated Press Writers

The Obama Supporter Bit Me! And It’s Still Hurting!

This is an American-success story if I’ve ever seen one. From the AP:

California authorities say a clash between opponents and supporters of health care reform ended with one man biting off another man's finger.

Ventura County Sheriff's Capt. Frank O'Hanlon says about 100 people demonstrating in favor of health care reforms rallied Wednesday night on a street corner. One protester walked across the street to confront about 25 counter-demonstrators.

O'Hanlon says the man got into an argument and fist fight, during which he bit off the left pinky of a 65-year-old man who opposed health care reform.

A hospital spokeswoman says the man lost half the finger, but doctors reattached it and he was sent home the same night.

She says he had Medicare.

Had this happened in the UK or in Canada, this poor man might have had to wait weeks – maybe months – before he could get his finger put back on. Worse, he might have even been forced to die prematurely, as is the case under the NHS. Thankfully for him, though, he lives in America, where emergency health care is still available without the wait list.

I was at the scene in California and captured the incident on camera. This is groundbreaking stuff. Enjoy.

Kids Are Told the Darndest Things

I think President Obama is going to put any and all town hall appearances on hold for the time being. He’s learned that adults are far too disruptive and cynical.

Like a determined scientist, the President is experimenting with tactic after tactic to find the reaction he desires to help see through his agenda of “hope and change.”

I believe the President is now targeting the chil’ren. Two events of late support this theory:

1. The “Regional Energy Forum” in Fort Collins, CO. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar, Colorado Governor Bill Ritter, Colorado Rep. Betsy Markey, and the White House Council on Environmental Quality Chairwoman Nancy Sutley hosted the invitation-only event at Fossil Ridge High School. “Energy and climate stakeholders” were invited, but the Fort Collins Coloradoan noted that students from the high school were also in attendance.

So, only certain business and policy “stakeholders” are invited to hear what the propaganda machine has to say – while the rest of the public has to stage a protest rally outside the high school – yet students are allowed admittance?

2. Obama is to address all of the nation’s students in a speech. The speech is schedule for Sept. 8, and the U.S. Department of Education has even concocted a lesson plan of sorts to augment the President’s speech. The whole thing seems to be focused on the students’ acceptance of and gravitation towards Obama and his presidency.

Some of the questions teachers are prompted to ask their students (in grades K-6) during the speech include (emphasis mine):

“As students listen to the speech, they could think about the following: What is the President trying to tell me? What is the President asking me to do? . . .

“What do you think the President wants us to do? Does the speech make you want to do anything? Are we able to do what President Obama is asking of us?

For middle school and high school students, teachers are advised to ask their students questions such as:

“Why does President Obama want to speak with us today? How will he inspire us? How will he challenge us?”

Hmm. Someone's insecure after taking a month-long beat-down in the ratings.

Actually, the thought of the President of the United States giving a speech to all of the students in the country (something entirely unprecedented) is eerily reminiscent of a scene from “V for Vendetta,” which isn’t so cute. As Chancellor Sutler charged, “What we need right now is a clear message to the people of this country. This message must be read in every newspaper, heard on every radio, seen on every television...I want everyone to remember why they need us!”

Well, broadcasting a speech from the White House Web site, supplemented with an administration-directed teaching plan, to every school in the country will suffice for now. Even if his remarks are generic and educational-policy oriented, do we really want the President of the United States attempting to “woo” the young’ns to his side? Asking questions like, "How will he inspire us? How will he challenge us?” or "Are we able to do what President Obama is asking of us?" is nothing short of indoctrination.

Obama is no fool; he’s very sharp – perhaps shrewd is the better word. And this move to take his ethos to the young skulls full of mush is no random thing. This is cold and calculated. He knows that students won’t (and can’t) stand up and rail against health care and cap ‘n trade while they sit at their desks.

But their parents sure can.

High School Never Ends

This has happened to all of us, in some way, shape, manner or form:

Your older sibling has a group of friends and they either form a club (like a tree house, when people used to build tree houses…BTW, what’s the carbon footprint of building a tree house? It’s in a tree, so does that increase or decrease the footprint?) or the older sibling never lets you go out with his/her group of friends.

So what do you do? You throw eggs at the tree house, or vandalize their room while he/she is out with the friends. Or you do other, more mean-spirited stuff. But the point is you get mad at their snobiness and show them that they’re a real jerk.

This is how politics works. The imprint for our 21st century political process is a direct descendent of how we responded to unjust exclusivity during our growing-up years.

So today's by-invitation-only “Regional Energy Forum” held by Obama cabinet folks and Democratic politicians from Colorado, and the subsequent protest of the “forum” is even more ironic because it took place at a high school – the contemporary birthplace of all cliques, clubs, arrogant and ineffective class presidents, and viral social retaliation!

Sometimes things just come together. And it was truly an all-American scene at Fossil Ridge High School today.

By nearly 1:15 p.m., somewhere in the vicinity of 100 protestors lined the entrance to the high school. A man dressed in 18th century drum core regalia played a tune on his fife while chants of “Drill here, drill now!” were struck up by the throng.

American flags large and small rippled in the warm afternoon wind. An occasional car exiting the school would honk as it passed the line of the non-invited. A single-prop airplane even circled overhead, with “No Bama” written on the underside of the wings. When it passed overhead, the crowd found a common cadence of “No Bama, No Bama!”

Picket signs of various size and slogan bobbed up and down. One read, “Shame on you, Ritter and Salazar, for shutting down Colorado’s energy!” Another: “Cap & Trade Is Voodoo Economical Farce.”

In a crowd such as this, opinions were freely given and accepted. One gentlemen in the line scoffed, “How come Ritter showed up in a Yukon SUV? Hypocrite.”

A Loveland man, Carl Langner, accused the Obama administration of using the “excuse” of global warming to wean the U.S. off fossil/nuclear fuels and onto the exponentially more expensive “clean” energy sources.

When asked what he thought about the by-invitation-only forum, Langner said it “sucks.” And about those who were invited? “I call them cronies, but I guess they’re business people.”

Ric Hicks, a representative from Americans for Limited Government, was signing protestors up for a postcard campaign that is to be delivered to Rep. Betsy Markey asking her to vote “no” on a series of Democrat-proposed legislation. Markey was one of the forum’s hosts, along with U.S. Interior Secretary Salazar, Gov. Ritter and White House Council on Environmental Quality Chairwoman Nancy Sutley.

“Maybe there will only be 80 or 100 of these postcards on her desk,” conceded Hicks. “But it lets her know that these 80 or 100 people used their lunch break to voice their concern over where America is heading.”

In a press release issued by Gov. Ritter’s office about the forum, “hundreds of energy and climate stakeholders and business and civic leaders” were in attendance.

“Colorado isn't just a mile high state – we're miles ahead of the rest of the country when it comes to creating a New Energy Economy,” Ritter said during the forum.

Colorado is unfortunately near the end of the pack when it comes to opening up meetings of such magnitude to the general public. Wind energy won’t power Ritter’s Yukon, but it will put more money in the pockets of the “energy and climate stakeholders.”

We're Not Invited

It’s their party and they’ll invite who (whom?) they want to.

According to the Fort Collins Coloradoan:

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and Council on Environmental Quality Chair Nancy Sutley will host a forum at Fossil Ridge High School [in Fort Collins, CO] on the economic impacts of clean energy development. The invitation-only meeting also is hosted by Gov. Bill Ritter and Rep. Betsy Markey and will include business and community leaders focused on the issue.

“Invitation-only,” huh? I for one am SO glad we elected a president that believes in a transparent government. Also, do you see anybody that would have an “R” in front of their names that got an invitation or are going to present? Didn’t think so.

The Coloradoan op-ed notes that Salazar and Sutley will put forward Obama’s plan for “jump-starting the American clean-energy sector to create jobs while reducing pollution . . .”

Awesome! If only the general public were “allowed” to come to the meeting so they could also see how awesome this plan will be. Too bad. Why couldn’t the Obama administration create some economic stimuli and, you know, actually open this event to the public by creating 100,000 invitations that could be printed at various Fort Collins print houses?

In an e-mail from a Colorado citizen action group, the Obama Administration and Colorado officials will answer questions from stakeholders about the local/regional energy issues. The e-mail also said that U.S. Senators Udall and Bennett also got an invitation and will each address the attendees. A protest of the invite-only shindig is planned to go down at 1 p.m. at the Fossil Ridge High School in Fort Collins, where the event is being held.

Gov. Ritter was quoted by the Coloradoan as saying, “Just as the industrial revolution created jobs in the 20th century, we now usher in a new century of innovation, creativity and entrepreneurial vigor.”

I wonder if the pontificators at this private pow-wow will mention the Spain study that found that for every renewable/green job created, two jobs in some other industry got axed. My gut is telling me no.

I don’t know what bugs me more, though: the fact that our politicians are having policy meetings in a “boys only” tree-house club kind of way, or that the Coloradoan spent half the article talking about how green the venue is. FRHS is, apparently, one of a hand full of high schools in the U.S. to get a “Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Green Building” certification.

Woot woot! The Coloradoan continued its drooling: “They couldn’t have picked a better location for a forum on this issue.”

Well ladi-frickin-dah. Too bad they couldn’t have let the energy consumers – all of us who don’t hold a political office and aren’t multi-million dollar stakeholders – get in on the forum action. Hurray for hope and change.

". . . the future belongs to those who show up for it."

Many stories, articles and happenings to post about today, but this one seemed to jump out at me more than the others. This also augments my "Dying to Be Green" post from a few days ago. From SteynOnline (where else?), I give you "Brewing and Breeding". Truly a great, yet harrowing, read.

Teaser:

Britain has a below-replacement fertility rate; its population increase depends entirely on immigrants and their children. If Scots and Ulstermen and the like are despoiling the planet, you can tie their tubes. But their place in the maternity ward will be taken by Pakistanis and Bangladeshis, and even some virtuous Ethiopians: As Europe already knows, no matter how fast you self-extinguish, First World infrastructure does not stay empty. Ethiopia comes to you: Abyssinia in all the old familiar places.

A Link a Day Keeps the Socialism Away

Just think what four will do for you!

Hope and Change Has Become Predictable Liberalism - by Troy Senik.

It would be safe to say Troy is a "senik" (ha, ha, ha) of the Obama administration's ability to lead. Highlight from the column:

"But as the first act of [Obama's] presidency has played out, he has shown himself to be anything but transcendent. Instead, he is an utterly predictable creature - a conventional liberal who mixes the weakness of Jimmy Carter with the ideological rigidity of George McGovern. And he is thus engaged in a conversation that the rest of the country concluded decades ago."


The Left’s Double Standard on Dissent - by Ken Connor.

The days of "dissent is patriotic" are long gone. As Connor notes: "The Democrats’ handling of public criticism over proposed health care reform, however, reveals a sinister side of the Left that is about as intolerant, undemocratic, and illiberal as it gets."


Canadians visit U.S. to get health care - by Patricia Anstett at the Detroit Free Press.

All right, I have an idea: let's revamp our health care system so that it looks like Canada's/Great Britain's! No? Fine. But think of all the foreign countries you'd get to visit because you'd have to travel abroad to get the care you need!


Tourists warned as Asian hornets terrorise French - by Telegraph.co.uk staff report.

Oh, come on! Are we gonna have to save the French again? Seriously.

Dying to Be Green

I came across this article a few weeks ago and haven’t had time to comment on it until now.

Titled “Save the Planet: Have Fewer Kids”, the article begins with this statement: “For people who are looking for ways to reduce their ‘carbon footprint,’ here’s one radical idea that could have long-term impact, some scientists say: Have fewer kids.”

“Radical” is one way to put it. Morbid might be another term. Apparently, statisticians at Oregon State University determined that the greenhouse gas impact – or “carbon legacy” – of an extra child is “almost 20 times more important than some of the other environment-friendly practices,” including driving Priuses, recycling, or buying mercury-filled light bulbs.

One member of the study team, Paul Murtaugh, is quoted as saying, “. . . we tend to focus on the carbon emissions of an individual over his or her lifetime. . . . But an added challenge facing us is continuing population growth and the increasing global consumption of resources.”

The article states that in the United States, “each child ultimately adds about 9,441 metric tons of carbon dioxide to the carbon legacy of an average parent – about 5.7 times the lifetime emissions for which, on average, a person is responsible.”

Translation: If you really want to do your part to stop climate change, plan on really small family reunions in the coming years.

Of course, these statisticians aren’t pushing for some kind of child-limit law, but “they simply want to make people aware of the environmental consequences of their reproductive choices.”

Hmm. Makes you wonder if these same statisticians will now push for abstinence-only sex education in public schools. Somehow I doubt it. Having sex should have no relation (pun intended) on procreating.

This article reminded me of another green/population growth article that appeared in the Times Online back in March. From the other side of the pond:

Jonathon Porritt, one of Gordon Brown’s leading green advisers, is to warn that Britain must drastically reduce its population if it is to build a sustainable society.

Porritt’s call will come at this week’s annual conference of the Optimum Population Trust (OPT), of which he is patron.

The trust will release research suggesting UK population must be cut to 30m if the
country wants to feed itself sustainably.

Take a guess at what Britain’s total population was in 2008. Go ahead. If you said slightly more than double (61,270,000) the 30 million Porritt wants to annihilate then you get a smiley face sticker. Porritt’s proposed reduction would bring the population back to Victorian-era numbers.

But should all countries send half of their populations to the death camps?

Many experts believe that, since Europeans and Americans have such a lopsided impact on the environment, the world would benefit more from reducing their populations than by making cuts in developing countries.

How…noble of us?

You might be asking the question, “How do they propose cutting entire population’s in half?” Answer: Britain's Tory leader, David Cameron, suggested that the UK needs a “coherent strategy” on population growth.

Oh, I know: How about we limit the number of babies a couple can have! It’s working for China, right? The good of the planet is at stake.

The irony is that most of Europe has already subconsciously enacted a birth-limit policy. By 2002, all of the member states of the European Union had a birth rate below the sustainability level (2.1 children born per woman). Spain’s birth rate in 2000 was 1.07 per woman, and rests precipitously today at 1.31; Italy’s birthrate is also at 1.31; Portugal’s is 1.48; Poland’s is a disastrous 1.28. Demographers believe that it is virtually impossible for a nation to recover once its birth rate dips to 1.3. In the United States, the latest numbers put our birth rate hovering somewhere around the sustainability level.

There’s more to this story than just declining birthrates. In 2000, 15% of Europe’s population was 65 or older. By 2060, there will only be two workers for every person 65 years or older. A Business Week article from October of 2007 noted that European Union residents 65 years or older outnumbered those 14 and under. Yikes.

(By the way, the European Muslim birth rate is three times higher than Europe’s non-Muslim population. The Muslim population in Europe will double by 2015, while the rest will shrink by 3.5%. Do you think Allah cares about carbon legacies?)

So what do you get when you cross a self-sterilizing culture with a rapidly-aging population? The Oregon State statisticians would probably say a positive, earth-friendly carbon legacy. So would Jonathon Porritt and other British greenmongers. My answer would be the end of democracy and Liberalism in Western Civilization.

Here’s the larger point, though. God’s command in Genesis 1 to “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it,” doesn’t exactly line up with the worldview/climate-change-combating measures of the Jonathon Porritts of the world. Nor do the Scriptures that praise children as a blessing from the Lord. It's one thing to be a steward of God's earth. But that stewardship needs to be anthropocentric. Calling for a nation's population to be slashed in half to save us from global warming is the furthest thing from a Biblical mandate on how to care for God's world.

Obviously, Europe’s declining birth rate can’t all be chalked up to a desire to live greenly. The anesthesia of socialism that has lulled Europe from its personal responsibility is largely to blame for the lack of kids that aren’t there now.

But it would be a mistake not to believe that a sizeable portion of the European population is making family decisions with an earth-first mindset – demographics and the survival of their culture be damned.

A 2007 story from the UK DailyMail tells how three individuals in Britain have had abortions and have been sterilized – all because they thought they were saving the planet. A certain Mark Hudson proclaimed, “That’s why I had a vasectomy. It would be morally wrong for me to add to climate change and the destruction of Earth.” His fiancé, Sarah Irving, quipped, “When I see a mother with a large family, I don’t resent her, but I do hope she’s thought through the implications.”

This kind of green fanaticism is setting the standard for what it means to live a truly environmentally-friendly, climate-change-combatting life.

Sure, you can drive a Prius, use public transportation or buy locally-grown food. But if you really want to save the world, don’t procreate. That’s as green as green can be.

Well, I'm Back

Lindsey and I returned from our 10-day journey through New Mexico, Arizona, Utah and Colorado Sunday night.

This was one of the greatest trips of my life and rates right up there with the honeymoon, to be honest. We were both exhausted yet happy when we arrived home Sunday night, with frames and fragments from the last 10 days spinning in our minds. We dubbed it the “Marriage Building Traveling Seminar.” Hooray for euphemisms.

Many pictures were taken, and for a mini-blog of all that went down, visit www.facebook.com/tsides. I will hopefully be posting pics and maybe even a Bill Simmons-ish retro diary of the trip sometime on here in the near future.

In the meantime, I am back to the blogging. Stay tuned and keep your stick on the ice.

The Road Goes Ever On And On

Tomorrow at 5:30 a.m. my wife and I are taking a 2nd anniversary/both of us finally finished with school (she just finished her BSN)/going to visit her father trip to Jerome, Ariz.; hike around Moab for a couple days, then chill in Vail on the return trip. Don't expect many posts until the Aug. 17. Until then, make the most of the time you've been given, and enjoy the journey. As the Bagginses might say:

The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say.

Healthy Criticism

Nevada must be bursting. From the AP:

The Senate’s most powerful Democrat on Thursday scolded health care protesters dogging his party’s lawmakers at local meetings, arguing that some critics on the political right have run out of ideas – and ditched their civic manners. Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada accused the protesters of trying to “sabotage” the democratic process.

So, pushing for a House bill that is too large to read and bad-mouthing “the people” isn’t sabotaging the democratic process? And is House Leader Nancy Pelosi claiming that health care protestors are “carrying swastikas and symbols like that to a town hall meeting on healthcare” a positive example of civic manners?

The problem with expanding government is that once it hits a certain waist-size, it thinks of itself as a kind of god appointed to tell the people how they should live their lives. After all, we’ve given government that power, we’ve forfeited individual and community responsibilities to them, so why shouldn’t it act as if they know better?

For all intents and purposes in several aspects of our American lives, we’ve given the Federal government the green light to run our lives. Europe is suffering the consequences of this good-willed totalitarianism that has been suffocating their culture and individual freedoms for most of this decade.

When the “common people” protest and criticize, the Reids and Pelosis take it personally. It’s an affront to their reality that they are a morally-enlightened group of people who know how to run our lives better than we do. That’s why they call protestors Nazis and saboteurs. Even if the government did know how to run our lives better, it would still be wrong of them to do so.

As Mark Steyn puts it, “I’d rather be free to choose, even if I make the wrong choices.”

Opening Up LaHood

I love David Harsanyi. Really. I think I have a man-crush on him (and he lives in Denver!). Why? Because he writes about the "Cash for Clunkers" program with lines like this:

Then again, in Washington, a place where elected officials are astonished -- astonished! -- when a program doling out free cash is popular, success often translates into higher costs and fewer results.

Satirical and beautiful! Harsanyi opens up the hood to see what "Cash for Clunkers" is really all about:

A survey of car dealerships found a relatively small differential in fuel efficiency between cars traded in and those replacing them. A Reuters analysis concluded -- even with the extended program in place -- "cash for clunkers" would trim U.S. oil consumption by only a quarter of 1
percent.

As an economic stimulus, the plan is equally impotent. As James Pethokoukis, a columnist at Reuters, succinctly explained, "The program gets much of its juice via stealing car sales from the near future rather than generating additional demand." . . .

This week, Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood claimed that "cash for clunkers" had benefited domestic car companies, particularly Ford. When The Associated Press requested data to verify this contention, the most transparent administration ever to grace God's soon-to-be-unblemished Earth refused to release the data.

Hmm. So you're telling me that destroying perfectly-functioning automobiles for government-preferred "green" cars won't boost the economy or "save" the planet? And it also hurts the poor and charities?

Sounds like hope and change to me.

Blamestorm Season

Timothy Geithner let off some steam about stimulus and financial regulation troubles.

From the New York Times:

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner blasted top regulators in an expletive-laden tirade amid frustration over President Barack Obama’s faltering plan to overhaul financial regulation, Reuters reported, citing a Monday story in The Wall Street Journal.

And these people want to run our healthcare? I don't think so, Tim.

*cheesey line about how my blog is new and improved*

Welcome. I have revamped my blog and will actually make posts more than once every couple years.

You'll find everything here: current events, political commentary, religious dialogue, and probably even some sports and culture stuff. We're in postmodernity, baby, so everything is connected and nothing off limits.

I will be adding gadgets and features to the blog as I go along, so please be patient as I get things up and running. For now, enjoy the posts, leave a comment or two and feel free to join.

Peace out.