We Have People There In Harm's Way

When your friends and neighbors are at war, you would expect your friends and neighbors to support them.

To protect them.

Except when you want the money.

It's the only explanation I can come up with why Vancouver, Washington company Dotster is hosting "Voice of Jihad" @ www. alemarah.org.

According to The Jawa Report, "The official Taliban website is still receiving business services from the Vancouver, Washington Dotster company which masks the webmaster hosting the Taliban website through their Privacy Post service."

Located near Camp Bonneville Military Reservation, "Dotster has established itself among the world’s largest domain name registrars more than 3 million domain holdings under management and servicing hundreds of thousands of customers worldwide.At Dotster, our mission is to provide a range of innovative, reliable and easy-to-use Internet solutions to our customers and to support them with unprecedented, personalized support".

Smokes--Deux

I'm heading over to buy my third pack of Camels. Not Camel Lights, filters or whatever else girlie kind there are out there.

It's been thirty years since I smoked "straights". I made the switch to lights when they came out because I did want to cut the amount of tar I was inhaling.

Now I've had to switch back to straights just to get a tobacco smoke to burning paper smoke ration high enough that I can taste the tobacco without tasting the paper. It's almost working.

Note to the uninitiated: If you've never smoked straights before, make sure you tap one end of the smoke before smoking. Then, you "smoke" away from the end you tapped. This keeps stray tobacco from getting into your mouth.

Enjoy the tobacco flavour! Remember, it's Democrats that voted for this "safety" measure. (pdf)

Teachers Oppose National Standards

NEA wants more money and less accountability. And the Democrats are pandering again. With nearly 10,000 teachers meeting in Philadelphia the number one issue for teachers is how to get around No Child Left Behind.

At stake? Whether or not federal money should be attached to federal standards. Teachers say, "No!" Teachers want the dough. They don't want to have to prove they can perform. They don't want their union featherbedding challenged. They don't want their brothers and sisters "unfairly judged."

The explosion of federal spending in education in the last fifty years is inarguable. One of the lasting gifts of the Johnson administration and his War on Poverty was the 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965. Opponents of the time argued that this was an unwarranted intrusion into the perogatives of the state. Education still remains primarily the responsibility of the individual states.

My dad was stodgy in his own way. He'd been teaching about seventeen years when he started complaining about the changes taking place within "the profession". The AFT wanted to take over the teaching profession. Some teachers were being pressured to join. My dad had a problem. If he had wanted to join the AFL-CIO he would have chosen the truck driving and garbage hauling "profession".

Profession. Professional. Professor. To dad these were steps in life. Begin teaching at a high school. Learn your craft. Finish your masters. Get a part-time teaching position with a college or university. Polish your thesis and receive your PhD. Get a full-time assistant professorship and work to tenure. Tenure didn't "just" mean job security. It meant you were there at the top of your profession.

Enter the world of big bucks in education. In 1965 federal spending on education totalled under $2-billion dollars. In 1996, $15-billion. $25-billion by 2005. Don't forget, this is in addition to state spending on education. Oregon's 2007-2009 budget(pdf)--the state's portion--amounts to nearly $7.6-billion dollars. This is in addition to the money you pay locally for schools through your property taxes.

So, where is your children's teacher's union (doc) taking all this?

NEA President Reg Weaver:

“We cannot allow our schools to be judged solely on the basis of one-size-fits-all, multiple choice test. Even if we meet all of the criteria of No Child Left Behind, it still won’t prepare our children for the 21st century.”

Hillary Clinton:

“And like you I believe that we should reward teachers when schools show achievement gains, and we can’t do this unless we finally fix what is wrong with No Child Left Behind.”

I love Hillary's line. It's very much like here stance on the War in Iraq. It's eerily similiar to her stance on Global Warming, i.e., "You and I know things are wrong--Republican--and things won't get better unless we finallly fix what is wrong with "xyz".

The problem is, money alone won't fix the problem. And I can't see how making schools perform to a standard--not a high standard, just the only standard we have--can be that bad.

Unless I was a member of the union. Then, of course, this is a rice bowl isssue. Education be damned.

You can update yourself with audio from this lovefest here.

Tolerance, Truth and Reason

Something from another blogger, Bill Vallicella at Right Reason.

Quoting from Leszek Kolawowski, "It is important to notice, however, that when tolerance is enjoined upon us nowadays, it is often in the sense of indifference: we are asked, in effect, to refrain from expressing -- or indeed holding -- any opinion, and sometimes even to condone every conceivable type of behaviour or opinion in others." ("On Toleration" in Freedom, Fame, Lying, and Betrayal, Penguin 1999, pp. 36-37.)

Something from another blogger, Baron Bodissey at Gates of Vienna. He writes:

"There’s a normal social urge not to be held in contempt by one’s fellow humans. The fact that more people agreed with Don’s positions than disagreed with them was not enough to save him from a nagging feeling that his opinions were beyond the pale. Everything he took in from the larger culture around him — the TV news, the pronouncements of government officials, the unctuously politically correct magazine advertisements placed by large corporations — told him that his natural tendencies were atavistic, hateful, and wrong."

I too, have struggled with the "happy medium" question. I think that using the bell curve as representative of large groups is a useful tool. When it comes to questions about how much or how little control to accept or impose as part of, or over, society, I think it's helpful to recognize that on separate issues individuals are able to accept or grant, more control from or to the individual, or from or to society. I haven't been able to find a good way of representing this breakdown using Venn diagrams on this computer, but imagine a smaller circle "C" fitting entirely into circle "A". This could represent those who self-identify as Libertarians or, in the late 19th century, anarchists. These are those who would view the imposition of any outside authority their actions as objectionable.

A small circle "D" fitting entirely within circle "B" could represent those who self-identify as Totalitarians or, in the late 20th century, anarchists. These are those who would view any imposition of authority they impose as necessary.

Notice above that the intersecting areas of circles "A" and "B" are apparently less than a third of either circles. To view the area found within the first standard deviation of the Bell Curve would mean that about one-half of a third of each circle would be outside the intersection of circles "A" and "B" (that is to say, about 68% of the total population would be represented by the intersection of circles "A" and "B".)

When we look at societies sometimes we lose sight of the forest for the trees. By fitting the small circle "C" within the boundaries of "A" we introduce an artifact of homogeniety that doesn't exist within the bounds of normal distribution. (Unless we look at areas, like the Pearl District in Portland, which, when I was growing up was the crummy part of downtown. Now that it has a cool name it's home to some real limo lefties.) Likewise, when you attend a meeting of whatever group you tend to see the group identity rather than the group as individuals.

If you would allow, this is an almost hermeneutical approach to gauging public opinion. It allows us to see that the degree of homogeniety within our society is actually quite high, while the ideas that separate us are quite slight.

Freedom versus slavery? We're pretty much of one mind.

Apostacy versus submission? Hmm. The Jesuits have one mind. The Salafi, another.

Tolerance versus intolerance? Another hmm. From Baron Bodissey, "There’s another kind of “moderate” stance which is very much in vogue: the idea that the best course of action, not mention the truth, always lies somewhere between two extremes."

I think now we arrive at the crux. I would posit that for society the best course of action is somewhere between the two extremes. The Baron responds, "Let’s take some instructive examples from history. Consider the ancient controversy over the idea of a geocentric cosmos. At one extreme were the traditionalists who insisted that the Earth lay at the center of creation, and the sun, the moon, the planets, and the stars all revolved around it in a set of concentric crystalline spheres. At the other extreme were the radical proponents of the heliocentric universe, among them Aristarchus of Samos, Ptolemy, and Copernicus."

"Did the truth lie somewhere between these two extremes? Was there a model of the universe which included some geocentric elements? Maybe we could tinker with the original theory and have the moon and the stars revolve around the Earth, while the planets could revolve around the sun…?

In another place I have argued that it's important to know the difference between knowledge and belief. And I think this is where the Baron gets off track. In the aggregate our world is filled with shades of gray. It is only when we begin the process of disaggregating that we can effectively change or influence peoples thinking. Plutarch wasn't the first guy to point this out. We tend to be suspicious of "other people's" ideas. Which is where, I think, both Valicella and Bodissey both conclude that tolerance is the greatest value that binds us as a society.

Bodissey writes, "This is not to say that a successful political system never involves compromise. In order for our political structures to work, they must always allow for compromise."

"But sometimes one extreme or the other represents the truth. It’s not always true that “both sides” have validity. The best course is not always the happy medium. We have to take the issues on a case-by-case basis."

And Valicella writes, "A toleration worth wanting and having is valuable because truth is valuable. It is threatened in two ways. It is threatened both by those who think that have the truth when they don't and those who are indifferent to truth."

Even fifty years of repeated falsehoods don't invalidate simple truth. It can create a great deal of cognitive dissonance. Hence the phenomena of the Jacksonian. I think it's possible that these are people that represent the silent majority. That is to say, if you look at the bell curve above and put "Give a Damn" at one end of the spectrum, and "Give a Damn" at the other, that most people will be somewhere in the middle, not giving a damn. Until something trips them up. Unless and until, they're happy with watching the CBS, NBC and ABC version of the news, with some of them wandering over to the populist--Jacksonian--Bill O'Reilly.

In both of these gentlemen's words I would point out that I disagree with the tone of their dismal conclusions. I both loved the title and the movie starring Alec Guiness, "Situation Hopeless, But Not Serious". What we refer to as Mainstream Media continues to update Sgt. Lucky Finder with bad news about the war. As new Europe defends itself from the intrusive EU promulgated by the Left in France, Germany and Britain, as Iraqis pick up the war against al-Qaeda, as the Lebanese fight Syrian and Iranian intrusions, as the middle-class in Afghanistan asserts modernity as a countervailing force against tyranny, and as long as there is an Israel, we will continue to celebrate freedom, tolerance and dignity.

And truth.

Not Algore's Day, or Month, Even Year

You can't fault the former Vice-President's optimism about his pessimistic vision of the future.

This is the scene in London, where the Algore is awaiting the 0707 "Live Earth" concert.

(I just loved the first search result! "Ticket Prices have been Reduced - Great Seats Available.")

Now comes news that the former Should Be First Son was arrested. I guess being an Oregonian I can forgive the marijuana...but Xanax, Valium, Vicodin and Adderall?

It's been pointed out that perhaps he should be forgive post-injury to his brain. Traumatic Brain Injury. Occured when he was 6, back in 1989. And maybe, just maybe, Algore should have given a little more attention to problems around the house starting about 11 years ago. Al III's rap sheet includes:

- In 1996, he was suspended from his high school for smoking marijuana.
- In August 2000, he was ticketed for reckless driving by North Carolina police for driving 94 mph.
- In September 2002, military police arrested him on suspicion of drunk driving near a military base in Virginia.
- In 2003, he was charged with marijuana possession in Maryland after police stopped the car he was driving for not having its headlights on.
- In February 2004, he entered a substance abuse program as part of a plea agreement.

But do an AltaVista search on "gore tbi" and this pops up:

TENNESSEE UNDERWORLD
Officials say Gore killed drug probe

Maybe III was just visiting Uncle Whit?

Independence Day

Didja ever wonder about the words in the Declaration of Independence, "We hold these truths to be self-evident?"

Reposted from February 15, 2007:

The question was asked in comments to a previous post, "Can someone be against the Iraq War and NOT be a leftist?"

You can be against the war due to religious convictions. And during a period where we have an all-volunteer army it's impossible to find a reason why anyone opposed to war qua war would have to serve. And the argumentation--religious convictions from adherence to the Ten Commandments--is unassailable. You choose to believe that all killing, therefore, all war, is bad. I, personally, am against the death penalty.

But do I believe the State has the right, or authority to take a life? Yes. I would prefer it didn't, but the death penalty has a lot of possible argumentation that that includes the religious proscription to kill, as well as economic and justice issues.

Of course, the Seventh Day Adventists and Quakers come to mind. But Quakers and Adventists have served our military with distinction. So, against the war, in Iraq in some other way?

War isn't a death penalty for the enemy. Wars can escalate. Wars can be lost. Wars can be won. War is serious business. And while the business of war is often killing, it isn’t the aim of war.

In my response to the previously mentioned comment I attempted to point out that the groundwork for this war was not the product of "Bush's ego" as the commenter suggested. In fact, if one looks at the historical record, the precedents for our War in Iraq were set during the Clinton presidency. My response follows:
"Shifting the meaning of things is easily spotted as a logical fallacy. Here's an excerpt from an interview with Dr. Martin Indyk, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs dated February 2, 1999. "Well, the Security Council resolutions are comprehensive in their requirements. They would require a different kind of Saddam Hussein. Were he to accept them he would be in a different kind of Iraqi leader. The fact that he has not accepted them for seven years shows that he is not going to accept them, that he is not going to accept Iraq's international obligations. And we see already having accepted one on recognition of Kuwait. Now, his people are raising questions about that again. So, we know that he is not undergone a fundamental change. If he were to give up his weapons of mass destruction, completely disarm, then the oil embargo under the resolutions will be lifted, but he won't do that. That is why the sanctions remain on because he will not accept the requirements of the Security Council. If he were to accept them, if he were to be somebody different then the circumstances will change. But we do not expect that to happen anytime soon because he is Saddam Hussein."

As a young man one can criticize easily what one doesn't remember. When ones leaders are busily erasing history--see Hillary's latest stance regarding the war in Iraq--it can be confusing to the young when it looks at the years previous to the Bush presidency and sees such belligerence. Look at the expression of the will of Congress as voiced by the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998. "Expresses the sense of the Congress that once the Saddam Hussein regime is removed from power in Iraq, the United States should support Iraq's transition to democracy by providing humanitarian assistance to the Iraqi people and democracy transition assistance to Iraqi parties and movements with democratic goals, including convening Iraq's foreign creditors to develop a multilateral response to the foreign debt incurred by the Hussein regime."Sounds pretty much like the President's "plan", doesn't it? Why Lefties have to bring up Bush, or in your case, Bush's ego, is laughable. But that's the way of fallacious logic. For instant, "further strengthening of our Government into Totalitarianism" because?) "...war is the ultimate show of power by 'The State'".

Crazy, man! Like, outasight! It’s sooo progressive!War--to fulfill the mandates of the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998, or, as the result of the HJ Res 114--is totalitarianism?

Everyone is allowed to have opinions. But an opinion that purports to show conclusory fact--when in fact it's just a bumper sticker--is not a valid argument. "War is the ultimate show of power by "The State". Well, no, maybe defending one's borders is. Or the ability to levy and collect taxes is. Or, as in Venezuela, the ability to destroy a nation's economy. All these conclusory statements could be supported by argument. But building a fallacious argument, using terms like "Totalitarianism" (with caps), "Bush's ego" (huh? didn't this get sorted out during the Clinton years?), and "nowhere near a threat to the citizens of our country" (read a little history) aren't important enough in themselves to form an argument of any kind.

Glad to have you here. Have a nice day!"
Key cites listed above were from the pre-Bush era. Secretary Indyk was Clinton's secretary for Near Eastern Affairs. The Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 was signed into law by President Clinton.

The question again asked, “Can someone be against the Iraq War and NOT be a leftist?" Well, yes, here are two quick states where that could be true. The person who was for the war and now against the war could be an opportunist or of weak character. Hans J. Morganthau wrote about this kind of politician in his “In Defense of the National Interest”, Knopf (1951). It is difficult to “swim against the tide of popular opinion” and face it, the lure of being popular is seductive. It’s generally preferable to being unpopular.

The second case would be if that person were simply wrong. If, in the face of United Nations resolutions, House and Senate mandates, and the words of two presidents that the risks that Saddam Hussein presented are denied, can simply be ascribed to as being wrong. Sometimes people simply make mistakes. If, in the face of overwhelming evidence you can’t draw the correct conclusions we can only fault the system.
In disagreeing with the war, are you opposed to the aims of the war? I suppose that’s possible. Are you one of those people who view the region with the jaundice of Rudyard Kipling? Was the Senate wrong in 1998 when it set out to establish democracy for the Iraqi people? But that wouldn’t free you from the label of being a Lefty. Liberal, rational thought coincides in the words “We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal…” To quote the Claremont Institute:
"The Founders are about to state four truths that they describe as self-evident. But they know that nearly every other political power on earth denied these truths. In what sense, then, can they be called "self-evident"?The phrase "self-evident truth" has a particular meaning in the western philosophical tradition. It means a proposition whose truth is known as soon as the definitions of the terms in question are known.

For example, one knows it is a self-evident truth that "a whole is equal to the sum of its parts," as soon as one understands the definitions of "whole," "sum," and "parts."For those who do not understand the definitions--for instance, using the example above, for someone who doesn't know what "sum" means--a self-evident truth does not appear true. Nonetheless, it is."

So, it’s always been known that denying truth is possible. Denying truth doesn’t make you a lefty. It’s just a good indicator. You can choose to oppose this war on the basis of religion, on the basis of opposing the policy of your country, or by being wrong or an opportunist.

But where does opposing this war make you right? Are you right in your support of Saddam Hussein? Are you right in your support of Islamic Terror? Are you right in your support for beheadings, for the subjugation of women, Christians, Kurds? Death squads of Shia and Sunni? Are you right in wanting to become more like France? Are you right because you appease your enemies? Are you right because the values that you and I share are too good for the Iraqi people? Are you right because you don’t care about the innocents in Iraq? Are you right because you want to consign the Iraqis to civil war and oppression?

Would you stand up, as King Christian X did and wear the Mogen David? Would you support the fight to liberate Iraq from tyranny, or would you consign it to civil hell? Can you see that if Iraq fails, Lebanon fails? Will you turn your back on liberals in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan?Or will you prove the bombers in Lebanon right? Prove the warlords in Somalia right? Kill an American and they run.
Not this time. War was declared on the US in 1979 when Islamic terrorists took US diplomats hostage. War was declared on the US in 1983 when Hezbollah, an arm of the Iranian terror movement killed 220 Marines, 18 sailors and 3 soldiers. War was declared in April of 1993 when Iraq attempted to assassinate President George H.W. Bush. War was declared on the US when Iraq targeted US fighters in the no-fly areas of Iraq. And Iraq declared war on humanity when it used gas and chemical weapons on its own people, between February and August of 1988, destroying hundreds of villages and 200,000 people.

I am proud of my country. I am proud of what we are doing to help the Iraqis, the Kurds, the Shia, the Sunni, the Lebanese, Jordanians, Egyptians, and Saudis. To retreat, to run is wrong.

Can you oppose the war and not be a Lefty? Perhaps. But one name is as good as any other I can think of.

Dude, Where's My Smokes?

At what point will the Progressives--aka Lefties--be satisfied?

Now they've taken my cigarettes. For my own good. The only problem now is finding a reasonable substitute.

We've been smoking in this country for around 400 years. What made the Dems in Salem think they knew better?

Oh, smoking deaths. Right.

Last year we lost power for five days during a winter storm. An elderly couple around the corner from me died using candles for light. I notice the legislature didn't mandate self-extinguishing candles.

Which, on the right date, would make sense. "Hey, baby, come over for a candle-lit dinner tonight?" Then things progress from there.

Lefties exist because their opinions are more important than yours. How many deaths were there from dumb? Let's outlaw dumb first. Then move on to cigarettes.

I'm Not Saying I Want to be Jewish, But There Are a Lot of Times I'm Glad I'm Not

Me? I'm not Jewish. I guess you'd say I'm a Christian. But I'm not. Not like we "In the West" would say I'm a Christian.

I am respectful of other people's religions, though. Well...maybe not.

I have a hard time with Muslims. But, maybe you don't.

Let's just blame that on cultural diversity.

I Have a Mouse in My Pantry

But who cares, but I?

When you have a mouse, you know it. How? Mouse turds.

What do you do when there's a mouse in the pantry of state?

That's kinda what I thought the President's commutation of "Scooter" Libby's sentence was all about.

Mr. Libby was sentenced to 30 months in prison for what?

I'm not gonna go where most will, with comparisons of other wrongs and rights, and concommitent pardons.

Mebbe if Russert were going to jail, too, I'd feel less forgiving of Libby. But if you didn't follow the actual testimony of the trial you have either up or down. If you followed it, Tim Russert would be going to jail. And, he's a Mainstream Media Journalist. So...you knew it wouldn't happen.

I watched all that "Big Tim" "Little Tim" crap. Russert lied. Yes, I'm pissed. But mostly? At the judge who denied what any "perp" would have had. Time "out of the joint" while the appeals progressed.

Kill somebody? Release. Fight Lefties? The Joint.

Afraid to complain? Why? If you blog, wait until we get closer to November '08. Some of us will be cited for violations of McCain-Feingold. Some of us will go to jail. "Scooter" is us in a year.

I have a mouse in my pantry. But who cares, but I?




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More OregonGuy here.

Snake Handlers, Charlatans and Lefties

I met Marjoe Gortner, child evangelist, well into his thirties. Evangelism had been good for him, in terms of putting bread and butter on the table. And it worked pretty well, until his dad absconded with all the carbon credits.

He was on campus at OSU following his Academy Award winning documentary, "Marjoe". I was a teaching assistant for the English Department which allowed my entree into the department sponsored program on religious oddities. I even became a Bishop of the Universal Church that week. Top that!

But the word, "charlatan", is such a pretty word. Here's Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary, "1: quack 1<~s killing their patients with empirical procedures> 2 one making usu. noisy or showy pretenses to knowledge or ability."

It was with great amusement that I found The Emporer's Poe-ification of one of America's greatest charlatans, former Vice-President Al Gore (ManBearPig).

"Are the tundras really melting, caused by warming’s heavy welting

"While the ursine ice floe dwellers float on ice cubes far from shore?

"Or, perhaps, they’re getting colder, leaving nary an ice-free boulder

"While the ice sheets cover more land than it did the year before?

"Who had nailed this vital question with real science true and sure?

"Quoth the experts: 'Not Al Gore.'”

But read the whole thing. Nice job, Emporer Misha!

But the key to the MarJoe/AlGore nexus is that behind the religious votives is the reality that these people know they are taking you to the cleaners. Politics 101, "It's the Man, Not the Party". Period. We all watched the Frank Capra flicks where good wins over evil. But it's just a flick. I still don't believe Keith Richards is a pirate. Even though I saw it with my "own two eyes".

Probably the biggest con pulled on the American people, and Oregonians especially, has been the Endangered Species Act. Because it's the environment, stupid!

How can you argue against Bald Eagles and the Marbled Murlet? ("Some who oppose managed forestry argue that the world has plenty of browsing animals, deer now overpopulating many U.S. and European woodlands. But, they continue, the world is short of old-growth species such as the spotted owl and marbled murlet. This may well be true, yet it is an entirely human judgment. The notion that owls or murlets are more deserving than deer no more springs from the natural condition than do the finished two-by-fours in your couch."-Easterbrook).

But it is the Endangered Species Act that has allowed the Snakie Charlatans of the Left to close down the woods.

I shudder to think what would happen if we were to pass some kind of "global warming" federal legislation.

"Religion claims to be in possession of an absolute truth; but its history is a history of errors and heresies. It gives us the promise and prospect of a transcendent world — far beyond the limits of our humans experience — and it remains human, all too human.–

Ernest Cassirer,An Essay on Man”

How looney the Left? Here's today's press release from "Oregon News Service", the Oregon Front for Public News Service: Headline,

"Congress Investigates VP's Role in Klamath Fish Die-Off" (click on 87222)

Seriously. Nobody likes Dick Cheney. So, let us trot his existence in front of the House Natural Resources Committee. Is it good for the state?

Nope, but it's great for the Charlatans.

Update: It gets crazier. Now it's Dick Cheney, Gordon Smith and Karl Rove!

Lefty Snake Handlers

My dad was a sought after musician in Portland. For those of you who grew up in musical families, getting a good gig outside of the "job" was critical for getting mom the stuff she wanted. Or the sisters their girlie things. Or a toy for dad.

The best outside gig was directing a large choir Sunday mornings. So whoever was paying best...and offered a competitive choir gig, would have dad as their director. The upshot is, my religious upbringing could be broadly described as eclectic. And not the faux eclecticism of teh educated. I mean any Sunday I could be sitting at a Christian church, through Catholic Mass, Presbyterian services or the Episcopalian knock-off romans.

My family is all over the place, sect-wise. The only thing none of them cottoned to were the holy rollers.

Holy rollers were people who had a veneer of religiousness that was only skin deep. If that.

What they were were madmen to a cause. We knew they were there because we could read about them. Occasionally, we'd read about them in the newspaper. (You can guess why we would read about them, can't you? Because someone died.) But what we knew about holy rollers is that there was nothing there to emulate. When your grip on reality is so loose that the only feedback you can get is replaying a scene from Deer Hunter, only with snakes instead of revolvers, you have some serious self-image problems.

It's the only form of rationalization that I can project upon members of our state's government who are wedded to their belief in Global Warming. Guys like our governor. Guys like our state treasurer. Guys like the democrats in the state house and senate who voted for some incredibly stupid energy bills in anticipation of Global Warming and its effects. What kind of lunacy could be induced so broadly across such a wide swath of Oregon's political class?

Governor K? Take a look. And remember, none of this is real. Treasurer Edwards? How can our state's treasurer, responsible for investing billions of Oregon dollars, ignore the facts here?

My dad was a musician. I grew up around religious people. And musical people. But I learned that there were different types of religious people. Just like there are different kinds of musicians. I'm not talking different like Jew, Christian, Catholic different. I'm talking about Jew/Christian/Catholic versus the Nutz. Trust me. And it's not the Long Hairs versus the Beatniks, either. Catholics and Jews have just as nutty guys as the reformed religions have...you've just gotta show interest and you'll find them. But "we" saw them as they were. They see themselves as "true believers".

I'm not sure I'm comfortable having the State of Oregon lead by True Believers in Global Warming. No, let me take that back. I'm clearly uncomfortable having True Believers in Global Warming in control of our state. All I ask is you read the articles reported in two trusted news sources. Unlike our state's Oregonian. Which was, some twenty years ago, a pretty good paper.

Update: via Captain's Quarters

Algore strikes again in the New York Times. Read the Captain's comments, too.

When will these people wise up and learn something?