This is to all the soldiers and citizens putting their lives on the line every day all over the world. For all the men and women fighting on the front lines and all those supporting them in the rear echelon, for all those who man the bases to support the war effort all around the world, I want you to always remember one thing.

We are with you.

As Democratic candidates for President talk about what a mistake the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been, as they bicker amongst themselves about who can pull you out of the war zone fastest while giving the least thought to how they could support your mission and help you ensure victory, remember this.

We are with you.

As Marxist radicals and anti-war Leftists plot to undermine the war effort by blocking shipments in Washington and march on D.C. to demand that you be pulled from your duty, and who picket your wounded comrades outside the very hospitals where they convalesce and try to heal, pay them no mind.

We are with you.

The great heart of America, the majority of its citizens love our armed forces. We love you because you are our sons and daughters. You are our brothers and sisters. You are our family. You are our dearest friends and we support you all the way. We know you are winners and we know that given the time and the right strategy, you will pull off a victory every time.

We are with you.

We will defend you when your character is besmirched, We will clap and cheer for you when you get off the plane and finally come home. We will send you care packages to remind you of hearth and home and that you will always be welcome at our door. We will send you Shields of Strength to remind you that God watches over you as he does all his children.

We are with you.

We will defend you against the chattering classes of pundits who attack you because it scores political points. We will stave off the wicked minority of protestors who hate you and persecute you. We will tell the nations who would see you put in harm's way that we will see them in Hell before we let them accomplish their goals. We will be there when you need us.

We are with you.

You fight for our freedom and for our right to exist as a nation. You fight to keep us safe from a dangerous world that would readily see us destroyed. You are our defense, so please remember that we are just as strongly yours.

We are with you.

In the dark of night, or the heat of battle or the long trip back to your home, when you feel the most cut off, the most alone in the world, when idiots spit at you, foreign nations revile you, and pacifists who would see us dead before they would see us free curse your existence, remember you are never alone. We, the great majority of Americans, will always be by your side and will always stand with you. We stand with you as we all stand for our nation. To diminish you is to diminish us all and that cannot be tolerated.

We are with you.

To all the fighting men and women out there who put their lives on the line every day for us, know that we will readily do the same for you, our fellow countrymen and bravest souls. Never forget.

WE ARE WITH YOU.

Most pundits have already weighed in on both sides about Ann Coulter’s remark on the Donny Deutsch show on CNBC. The replay of the clip over and over on morning shows and the like for days afterward certainly reached 1000-fold more viewers than Deutsch’s mind-numbingly boring show usually gets. I’ve seen it on the major news sites as a blurb, linking to one left-leaning site or another masking as a news site. “Ann Coulter says…”

It sort of reminds you of those old E.F. Hutton commercials. “Well, my broker is E.F. Hutton. And E.F. Hutton says…” whereupon every background extra in the commercial would stop what they were doing and listen intently to the conversation. If Ann Coulter says something of interest, and she often does, it draws the attention of most media pundits and pajama-wearing bloggers in this country and others. I’ve heard the range of them from her being anti-Semitic, hate-mongering, evil, blah blah blah, to “she’s pushing a book, of course she said something like that” to she was trying to properly explain Christianity, just badly.

Ann is an incredible legal columnist. She has a very intuitive mind and can analyze history and political situations like few I’ve seen. She apparently isn’t that good, especially on the fly, at explaining her religion, although she is known to be a person of deep Christian faith. Worse yet, Donny Deutsch is a secular hack who used the fact that he was Jewish only to feign offense. I would imagine it’s been some time since he’s been in the Synagogue and I’d almost guarantee he’s never seriously taken a moment of his time to learn anything about Christians beyond what he sees in the movies.

Especially given the fact that Ann seemed genuinely concerned that she had offended Donny that she came back from a commercial break to try and explain herself, I think we can rule out that she did it to sell books. Because Ann has proven time and again to be a defender of Israel in particular and Jews in general, I think we can rule out the anti-Semitism as well.

We can’t rule out that Christianity follows a basic tenet and this one is found in the Gospel of John in 14:6 where Jesus states “I am the way, the truth, and the light: no man cometh unto the Father, but through me.” This statement alone clearly articulates Christians’ belief that unless you follow Christ you cannot truly reach God. The rituals and prayers of Judaism are important, but they were the old compact, the Old Testament. God felt his followers were ready for the next step and a more direct connection to Him and sent his only Son as promised in Isaiah. The difference between Christians and Jews fundamentally is that the Jews are still waiting for the Messiah and Christians are fairly well certain that Jesus was it. He was a Jew and his original followers were Jews and Christians honor that. That Gentiles were also converted to Christianity, though, showed that Jesus’ message was not just for God’s Chosen People, but for all mankind.

It’s not offensive to believe that. It’s what it is to be a Christian to believe that. Unfortunately, our nation has taken such a major leap down the road of secularism that even many who profess to be “Christians” have probably never even thought of that or read that Gospel verse. Well there it is folks. Perhaps it’s time to reexamine our faith and why we believe. Do we believe because Christianity’s just some lip-service peripheral thing we do or is it because we feel it in our hearts and in our souls? Maybe we should be asking that if Ann’s comments elicit this kind of response from “Christians”. And maybe those Jews who were offended should consider, didn’t we know that’s what Christians (basically an offshoot sect of Judaism) believe and don’t we have real enemies who actually want to either forcibly convert or kill us like radical Islam? Maybe you guys and gals should focus back on them instead of Ann.

And maybe the secularists who have feigned such serious offense at her remarks in this regard need to stop and first consider the hypocrisy of their statements. If you want to cast aside the Faith in order to worship the State or Evolution or Gaea or whatever toy “religion” you’ve concocted to replace the actual religions you hold in such deep disdain, you’re going to need a sturdier bully pulpit. As is, a condemnation on something like this from something like secularists rings as hollow as Mammoth Cave .

I consider this “kerfluffle” as I’ve seen it called to be a good way to reflect on our faith and what we believe. If you feel such offense from a statement such as hers, perhaps it’s time to look into your own soul and see where it may be left wanting.

I wonder what sort of thank you card you send to someone who lied for you and broke federal law so that you wouldn't have to be seen in a negative light? Well, if you're the Clintons, you don't send  a card. You reward him with a plum advisor role; the same role he was fired from by the Kerry campaign in the 2004 elections.

The story of Sandy Berger is well known on the Right and probably just as well known on the Left. He willfully stole and destroyed critical documents from the National Archives in 2003, documents that were not only originals, but that it is believed provided a scathing critique of the Clinton administrations lack of domestic preparedness against terrorism in the wake of the Millennium Bomb plot. These could have seriously undermined the story of the former President and those called to testify from his administration (the ones not still in jail) proving that much of what he said was (as usual) riddled with lies and half-truths.

Sandy managed to lie himself until the evidence caught up with him showing what he did was not an "accident" or "honest mistake". The Bush administration Justice Department botched the actual trial, though and he walked with a $50,000 fine, some probation and his security clearance being revoked until 2008.

The punishment seemed a tad light for the crime. After all, we're talking about destroying original documents from the National Archives. What if he'd wiped his butt with the Constitution? Actually, seeing how little it's cost the Left to do just that since the '40's, I suppose we should be thankful that he was even punished as much as he was. What he should have gotten was hung by his neck from the main gallery as a warning to others who would destroy our history for their own gain.

And worse, what few people will or have considered, what he did was par for the course during the actual Clinton administation. This was standard operating procedure for any scandal that involved inconvenient documents. They were destroyed or "lost" accidentally of course in all cases.

As a side note, Media Matters has made a big stink over the fact that Bush's administration has had a few convictions of its own (besides Lewis Libby) staining its legacy. With the exception of one minor solictiation conviction (sometimes there's just not enough bullets in the world), the rest of the convicts pale in comparison to the list of Clinton convictions. 

So now here we are back in the present. Hillary Clinton, promising to be the antidote for the "culture of corruption" that somehow only taints Republicans, hires a known federal felon to advise her with her campaign. This is what everyone should expect and what everyone should condemn from Clinton's campaign.

Sadly, with such a complicit press, no serious scrutiny will arise from her choice and she will never be challenged on it. Clinton's campaign is like a runaway freight train and the antique media is content to push our nation in front of it. Look for there to be more scandals, more Norman Hsu's, more Sandy Bergers and more outrages that apparently will receive little or no mention from the antiques, who are too busy analyzing the latest non-scandal from one of Hillary's enemies on the Right.

This may be the best magic show since Criss Angel. Get your popcorn.

I don't think I've seen such a well orchestrated hit against a person since Sonny Corleone got taken out at the toll booth in Godfather. The attacks on Petraeus today came from every front. He received heckling from Marxist infiltrators in the gallery He received a sneak attack from MoveOn.Org via the New York Times and he suffered a full-on frontal assault from the Democrat-controlled Committee.

Still for the General, he came out largely unscathed. Assaults on his character, integrity, credibility and his command ability were all carried out, but largely to no effect. I doubt General Petraeus has faced a foe with the tenacity and ferocity of the Left outside of Al-Qaeda, but there you are.

His report said exactly what we expected it to say. The surge worked. The local Sunni warlords got in the game because not in spite of the surge. The al-Maliki government still isn't blowing up our skirts with its political acumen. The Iraqi Army continues to improve and gain combat experience and the forces of Al-Qaeda are repeatedly being decimated.

Militarily, he's done what no one thought could be done earlier in the year or at least that no one thought we'd have the stones to try. I'd say the man deserves a little bit of benefit of the doubt and a whole lot of respect. I don't expect it to come from the Left, but I do expect the rest of us U.S. citizens to maybe at least say "thank you and good job" and be on about our day.

Anything else demeans us a lot more than it does him. If it really is the case where more people believe a bunch of corrupt bureaucrats and communist holdovers sitting in the Swamp over the combat field commander of our forces in time of war, then we really are losing.

Thank you and good job, General Petraeus. You've done your duty and taken us closer to victory. What more could a soldier do for his country?

How often do we hear from the likes of the ACLU that no quarter can be given or even the slightest hint of accommodation handed to those who wish to practice religion in a public venue? Even more so, the likes of the ACLU has challenged in court time and again that no public facility or monies should benefit any particular religious organization. Of course, in all the cases that I’ve heard of, the defendants have always been Christian. And of all the accommodations and “public use” I’ve seen, again Christian-leaning organizations are the ACLU’s victims of choice.

 

One could be lulled into a sense of some kind of consistency regarding the ACLU’s single-minded attacks on Christians when you consider that the organization was founded by prominent socialists and has since then mostly limited itself to defending socialist-friendly positions. Sure they’re raging leftists, but at least they’re consistent raging leftists.

 

You always wonder if they’ll be consistent when it comes to non-Christian religions, though. Well, I imagine Judaism would probably gain their ire, but the one religion that seems to elicit not even a whimper from the ACLU-types of the Left is Islam. This could be because a large segment of radical Islam has adopted the two great evil philosophies of the 20^th Century (Nazism and Marxism) as their vehicles to bring Islam back to prominence as a political force and the ACLU, being a not-so-closeted Leftist organization, won’t attack its own. It’s just as likely and perhaps related that the ACLU recognizes that despite its and the Left’s best efforts the United States remains a Christian nation.

 

As a cog in the wheel of the Marxist engine, the ACLU has labored hard to mimic its European brethren and suppress exposure to and proselytization of the Christian faith in the United States . All the while, it protests that it would do this to any religion that sought to violate the sacrosanct (and quite phony) “separation of Church and State” we hear so much about.

 

With the dual incidents of foot baths being installed at Kansas City International Airport and at the University of Michigan at Dearborn, though, we have heard nary a peep from our enlightened socialist secular friends at the ACLU. In fact, there seems to be a collective sigh of “what’s the big deal” from the Left. Obviously, the Right in this country is simply making mountains out of mole hills, no?

 

No. The arguments used by the public institutions in question have been wholly religious in nature. KCI stated that Muslim cabbies (which Kansas City has quite a population of) were demanding such accommodations and KCI apparently saw no harm in helping them out. In the case of the University of Michigan at Dearborn , a town with so many radical Islamists that you’d think you were in Gaza , the Muslims attending school there were ripping the sinks apart and leaving messy, dirty water puddles all in college bathrooms. In this case, the University found it easier to acquiesce to the vandals than punish them, but again we’re dealing with a religious accommodation.

 

Where are the “Separation of Church & State’ers” in all this? Where are they when there is a madrassah cleverly disguised as an “ Arabic School ” is opened in New York with public funds? Although this one is being more vehemently defended by the Left as a secular institution, I still don’t see the point in teaching kids anything other than American culture and history in public schools. If they want to learn about Arabic culture, the last I checked we do have libraries and a host of universities that will teach them about it. And, of course, they can also travel to Ground Zero for a field trip…

 

You can’t have it both ways. For a discipline that daily in the media rails against the “hypocrisy of the Right” when a Senator gets caught literally with his pants down, they certainly do like to shovel out quite a bit of the real deal themselves when it comes to Islamic religious institutions and that pesky “separation of Church & State”. It should be more clearly defined as an attempt at separation of Christianity and State, which is what the secular Left has actually labored for and what the radicals in the Islamic community have become the cause celebre of modern Marxism. The ancient principle (Arabic or Chinese) of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” fits these two groups quite well.

 

If these seemingly minor inroads are allowed to stand while Christianity is assailed by those same forces, then there will be more. Either we will proceed down the path of the dhimmi or we will proceed down the path of secular humanists. We will have a new religion one way or another if we don’t defend the one that made this country as great as it is. We will be the ones to pay if we turn away from the Almighty or allow our eyes to be shielded from Him and his Son. Not just our freedoms, but our souls will suffer in the long run. I can think of no greater punishment for failing to stand up to the abomination that is the far Left.

Almost since the day our troops set foot in Afghanistan, we have had to suffer the Left’s slings and arrows that our forces are mired in a “quagmire” (there’s buzz word #1) not seen since the days of Vietnam (buzz word #2). In fact, if I recall, we hadn’t been on the ground more than a few days when the first quagmire and Vietnam missiles started falling on the American public courtesy of the antique media.

 

When the focus shifted and the “bigger” war became Iraq, the references shifted. Afghanistan became the “good war”, at least until the Left had no other war to carp about. Then I’m sure it would revert to Vietnam. For the moment, though and to this day we have had to endure pontifications by Democrat Senators, Representatives and the bulk of the Democrat apparatchik known as the mainstream media. You’d be hard pressed to find a full week’s worth of news where some major figure wasn’t quoted using one of the buzz words.

 

Sectarian strife and civil war have been added to the lexicon to alleviate the wear and tear on the q key for most media pundits, as well as the “Bush Lied, blah blah insert my ridiculous leftist slogan here” memes. Still, everything comes back to Vietnam. I’ve often heard, and I agree with by the way, that the Left clings to Vietnam because it was their one great victory, their shining moment where they humiliated the U.S. and saw the victory of one of their favorite communist powers.

 

Almost universally, they ignore the aftermath, that same aftermath that the right predicted at the time, of their triumph. Hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese were killed or “reeducated”. Thousands more fled and became refugees; the famous boat people we are now once again hearing of. Uncounted thousands died in Laos as communists came to rule the roost in that nation. Both paled in comparison to the 1-3 million dead Cambodians courtesy of Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge. The domino theory had proven correct, and the dominos crushed a few million under them as they fell.

 

None of this seems to have actually happened, though, if you listen to the likes of John Kerry. He has been attributed as saying the Domino Theory was false and that the locals suffered no ill effects by America leaving. This apparently is the standard by which leftist historians now portray this period to the masses, so perhaps John’s just showing how learned and “with it” he is.

 

Most have made sure to reeducate us lately because of the president’s speech given to a VFW that compares Iraq to Vietnam, only this time from the side conservative and right-leaning historians have tried to preach. He stated that to leave Iraq would cause the same type of carnage and loss of U.S. prestige that we suffered after we left Vietnam.

 

Liberal historians were outraged; most notably by anyone who presumed to educated people on the lessons of history over them. They were also outraged because he’s challenging their great “truth”, their good facts that tell history the way they think it should be told. In the Left’s view of history, everything within the last five hundred years is America’s fault and the atrocities and tyrannical happenings of the world since are merely a response to our Imperialistic and capitalistic aggression (read Howard Zinn if you think I’m exaggerating). The only lessons liberals wanted us to believe from Vietnam were those that were stamped and approved by their establishment. Tell me if you heard this in high school. The U.S. wrongly propped up a series of puppet South Vietnamese regimes while the patriotic Viet Cong aided by friendly Ho Chi Minh and the North Vietnamese resisted the Imperial aggression of the American occupiers. Take a look at these substantive quotes from “noted historians” that all swing left from the antique news reports following the speech.

Stanley Karnow, a Vietnam historian said “He's invoking Vietnam for political purposes. What he says about Vietnam is not entirely true.”

Very substantive retort from the great historian, but it doesn’t really tell us much.

Douglas Brinkley, the left’s favorite go-to historian said “You're not going to be able to sell the lessons of Vietnam being we should have stayed a decade longer.”

That wasn’t what Bush or frankly any historian who has looked at Vietnam realistically is advocating. The Democrat-controlled Congress, emboldened by Nixon’s resignation, cut off funds to Vietnam and cut off our military air support, which we had pledged when we pulled out ground troops. The South Vietnamese begged for this support even as they valiantly fought the North Vietnamese who invaded in 1975. The Democrats let South Vietnam die and the blood of all those innocents are on their hands. Now they want to do it again in Iraq, but that’s one thing you won’t see the likes of Douglas Brinkley addressing.

People like Brinkley certainly don’t address the realities of what happened there. The whole part about the U.S. defending an ally against an invasion by an aggressive communist neighbor, even fighting Russian pilots over the skies of North Vietnam, is completely left out. The fact that our predictions of disaster if we left also came true is the last thing the Left wants the average American to remember.

These happenings would very much echo into the future if we were to leave Iraq. Iran and Syria, possibly even the Saudis or Turks, will descend on a torn and divided Iraq. Refugees will flee in every direction (including here). Our ability to engage in Afghanistan will be called into question next and it will be significantly harder without a large presence in Iraq. The groups attacking the U.S. (especially Al-Qaeda) have already said that the war is in Iraq and that all loyal jihadis must come there to fight the infidel Americans. Where do you think they’ll want to come after they feel they’ve kicked us out of Iraq, after we’ve proven bin Laden’s prediction of us being a “weak horse” to be true? They’ll come here and they’ll kill us in droves. Perhaps that’s the only element that’s not a match for the legacy of Vietnam (although one could argue that communism in our hemisphere grew considerably after that; think Nicaragua, Grenada and El Salvador).

 

Here's a lesson worth extrapolating from the history of Vietnam. If you could go back and ask a majority of South Vietnamese if they liked the presence of the American Army, most would likely admit that they did not. If you then asked did they think the Americans should leave and withdraw support, thus allowing the North Vietnamese and remanant Viet Cong to kill anyone who might possibly disagree with them and convert the country into an unwilling collective, most would likely have said "No, please stay. Don't like you too much, but I like the idea of being dead even less."

That's more or less where the Iraqis are. They don't like being occupied. Who could possibly like a foreign army on their soil? I know we wouldn't. Do they want to be left to the mercy of sectarian militias, a vengeful and resurgent Al-Qaeda, and the depravities and ravages of their hostile neighbors instead? Every time we've asked, they say "No, please stay". They also like the idea of being dead even less. It's sort of a universal constant among run-of-the-mill humanity.

This is one of those golden opportunities to learn the truth about your American history. Study it for yourself and these facts will leap out at you. When you don’t view it through a Marx-colored lens, history can teach you some truly amazing things.

It is with some amusement and some boredom that I have watched the developing field for the Democrat nomination. Most especially, I love watching the Left in the media (which is most of it) slobbering all over itself to describe each Democrat candidate more breathlessly than the last.

My thoughts today are on the man the antique media can't help but refer to by his skin color, Barack "He's an articulate black" Obama. Well, articulate or not, he sure makes his fair share of gaffs. That might be because he's a major political lightweight. It's a sad statement when John Edwards has more federal experience than you do, and Barack fits that bill. He certainly seems to have more foreign politics savy, as he didn't quite make the mistake that Senator Obama did just a few weeks ago. Do you recall this excerpt from the New York Times on August 2nd?

"Mr. Obama, an Illinois Democrat who is seeking his party’s presidential nomination, said he would order strikes on Al Qaeda targets and withhold hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid if the Pakistani president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, did not blunt a resurging Taliban presence in the country’s tribal areas. This, he said, is the “right battlefield” to make the United States safer.

“If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won’t act,” Mr. Obama said, “we will.”"

To digress for just a moment, I remember back in 2000 when the TV news would spend hours going over how Bush didn't know the leader of some bannana republic in the middle of nowhere or that he wasn't aware of the ruler of the week for Kerplackistan. This was cited as proof that he had no skill in the foreign policy arena and was seen as enough to disqualify him from the Presidency by many of the annointed talking heads.

Now, you get a major contender for the Democrat nod (not some fringe uber loon like Jackson or Sharpton) saying something that qualifies almost as a threat of war against a sovereign nation (and ally) and it barely gets a mention. Does Obama even know who Pervez Musharraf really is, his situation in Pakistan or what he does for us?

Does he know that Musharraf is a former commando, not just a barracks commando but a veteran of several combat operations? Does he know that Musharraf walks a fine line daily in trying to hold his fragile nation together while keeping the Muslim radicals at bay? Does Obama have an inkling that Musharraf has survived over a dozen well-publicized assasination attempts (and several that haven't been so publicized)? Is Obama aware that unlike previous leaders of Pakistan who addressed Pakistanis in their speeches as "My Muslim Brothers", Musharraf says only "My Countrymen"? Has he considered that the alternative to Musharraf, who is decidedly pro-American, is a new radical Islamic republic (like Iran), this time armed with nuclear weapons?

if he is, then his comments were threats against an ally in a time of war and at the very least should make us question whether we want such a man in the Senate at all. If he is not aware of these things, then he seems to lack the experience of even someone with an internet connection and a little research time, because none of these facts are hard to find. Again, what exactly is he doing in the Senate?

I don't think he's qualified for even that. The Democrat Party in Illinois, well known for the miracle of getting dead men to vote, was able to find sufficient dirt on his opponent, Jack Ryan, that he would have ran practically unopposed. Instead, he went up against carpetbagger Alan Keyes, which when considered in hindsight might have been the worse of the two options.

Other than being your typical run of the mill, completely out of touch leftist state legislator, he had and still has no real special qualities that would suggest him to the office of a U.S. Senator, let alone President. Of the Democrats running, even the likes of the loony Mike Gravel are better choices among the liberals in the Democrat Party, but maybe they continue (as they did in the '60's) to judge people by the color of their skin and not the content of their character (or political expertise). Barack is a disgrace even for Democrats.

 I have followed the debate on man-induced global warming for many years, now. I spent my college and post-graduation years listening to one side of the argument and have passed the last several years listening to the sane side. My current view is that I can see no significant evidence for man-induced global warming. Given the historical evidence and the limited nature of our current climate records and models, there is just not enough data to suggest that man is anything more than a mild case of indigestion for the planet.

This piece, however, is not about my necessarily trying to prove or disprove anything. In this debate, I have watched the level of discourse, mostly from the Left side of the political aisle drop dramatically over the course of the last few years. At first, the typical shouts of “delusional”, “old-fashioned”, and “misguided” were heard, but then motives were questioned.

Those on the pro-man-induced crowd started suggesting an ulterior motive. I mean, after all, if you can’t brow beat someone with over-inflated, flawed and limited scientific research for decades and get them to accept your opinion, they must have a reason. The recent discounting of opinion from the Nature-induced side of things (conservatives on the side of nature, how novel) has insisted that those who believe such things must be in the employ of the oil companies. Personally, I have not been, although if I’m missing a check could someone in Exxon or Ultramar’s Accounting Department look into that for me? Thanks. Back to our discussion.

Now, those of us who disagree with our esteemed colleagues have been equated to a more sinister crew. Consider Ellen Goodman’s writings from the Boston Globe.

“I would like to say we’re at a point where global warming is impossible to deny. Let’s just say that global warming deniers are now on a par with Holocaust deniers, though one denies the past and the other denies the present and future.”

I’ve heard this phrase bandied around a lot recently. “Global warming denier” is the new dismissive. When you can’t legitimately refute an argument or come up with a quality counter argument to such questions as “Why is half of Antarctica getting colder?” or “What about the Holocene Optimum?” it must be ridiculously easy to just call names and play the emotional card. The emotional card, by the way, is the most oft-used staple of the bleeding Left.

How do questions regarding the bogus nature of the “Hockey Stick” temperature gauge and reliance on a pitifully small data set (both by the way very sloppy junk science) compare to pictures of a polar bear floating off on an isolated berg? Too bad the environmental movement isn’t big on product placement or they could’ve CGI’ed in a little Coke bottle next to the poor predator. I digress again, though.

Using a sinister term like “Global warming denier” and making sure your audience knows that you equate such people with Holocaust deniers (i.e. Neo-Nazis, skinheads, radical Muslims and wackjob revisionist historians) is likely the dirtiest and ultimate form of the politics of personal destruction. This particularly insidious way of doing business, perfected by the Clintons and used to great effect against conservatives for over a decade, is pushed ever forward by the Left’s biggest cheerleaders, the antique or “mainstream” media.

Not only is it bad science to stake our entire Western civilization and its economic well-being on a little over a century of isolated climate data, it is worse “science” to assume or to assure others that what is said from the Talking Heads of the Old Guard of media is itself fact. Just because someone with well-coiffed hair and a winning smile reads something from a teleprompter doesn’t make it so. The beautiful thing about science is, until you can confirm something as a physical Law, everything is just a theory and therefore open to refutation.

The theory of the small subset of climatology that states that manmade carbon emissions are the primary contributor to global warming is just that, a theory and an incomplete one at best. It’s always worth going back to Webster’s, because I think in this day and age we tend to forget what some words really mean. Theory can be defined as “speculation” or “an ideal or hypothetical set of facts, principles or circumstances” to name but two of its definitions. None of them, one would note though, state that a theory is a definitive and proven fact, irrefutable and unchangeable. If one assumes that without the benefit of certainty, which the “global warming” crowd does, then that person is taking the whole thing based on faith and man-induced global warming becomes a religion of sorts.

An alternate and equally plausible interpretation of this unquestioning devotion and one that can be proved more empirically is that many of the scientists in question belong to foundations and groups that are actively collecting money, grants and endowments for their work and continued research. The ultimate goal of a researcher is to get more money for his or her research and this area is not immune. Just as Exxon and Mobil fund some scientists who refute the liberal theories, eco groups fund the NGO’s that now push the U.N. to take draconian steps to subjugate its members economically for a potentially imagined issue. The door does indeed swing both ways, although the Left denies any agenda other than saving the Earth.

When all else fails, claim selfless altruism as your motive. It worked for Dennis Quaid in “The Day After Tomorrow”, didn’t it? Perhaps they should consider, though, that the altruistic souls are the ones who don’t want to see the freedom, economic vitality and quality of life of their fellow citizens reduced by junk science, by charlatans and snake oil salesmen. Worse, they don’t want to see it happen, apparently as many on the Left are now coming out and saying, even as nations like communist China are vindicated and given a pass. The pervasive shadow of Marxist ideology lies at the root of the modern radical environmentalist movement, a movement whose allies run from the mainstream media to most of the current Democrat Party leadership and a whole host of well-known private funds like Sierra Club. You did know that such organizations are by and large “for profit” now, didn’t you?

The worst part of it all is that such things are lost in the argument, because there is no real argument. There is no refutation of those of us who deny that global warming is a primarily man-induced phenomenon, no real refutation anyway. There is only emotion, junk science with even worse data sets to back it up and name-calling. Remember that next time someone defines the issue as “settled science” and anyone who disagrees with it as equal to some of the worst criminals in history.

 The media legend, Walter Cronkite, has come out of his retirement to provide his two cents on the state of nation, and lately the national media. Once called “the most trusted man in America”, Cronkite is hoping to broker that reputation into continued credibility for his tales of left-leaning fantasy.

His recent campaign involves telling tales of the loss of media independence. Corporate mergers and lax FCC laws have reduced the variety of opinion, he argues, as the stations must answer to their corporate sponsors. Fewer newspapers and fewer companies controlling those newspapers also mean that there are fewer and less diverse voices for the “people” to hear. This, at least, is how it is in Mr. Cronkite’s world.

He, of course, ignores the incredible explosion and diversity of opinions on the internet or even the increase of voices in cable news, sources that were not available in his heyday. There’s also the slight handicap of his tarnished legacy. Where once Walter Cronkite was looked to as the conscience of middle America, now he is seen for what he was; simply another leftist hack.

You need look no further than a review of history. During the Vietnam War, Cronkite was often seen as the best and most objective source of news regarding events there. What even he has admitted to, and what we can see from reviewing the actual events of the war, Cronkite consistently put a negative spin on events. He opposed the war, but felt the best way to express his opposition was to deceive the viewing public. His reason is a classic liberal argument. The ends justify the means, and he did it for our own good.

This came to a head with the reporting of the Tet Offensive. Cronkite famously pulled off his glasses and pronounced the war lost. Of course, now we know the war was far from lost. In fact, the Viet Cong was almost obliterated by their part in the Tet Offensive and the North Vietnamese Army divisions that had participated were mauled by U.S. Army and South Vietnamese divisions. There are still some, especially among the Left who view the Tet Offensive as the ultimate example of the failure of U.S. “imperialism”.

Now we hear Cronkite lament that “objective” reporting, you know, the kind he used to do when he was lying about U.S. success in Vietnam, is as scarce as hen’s teeth these days. I think it’s safe to say “objective” for Cronkite means left-leaning or flat-out left-skewed opinion. Even though there has been consolidation, there has been an explosion of news outlets, both professional and amateur. There has also developed an extremely diverse base of opinions, from the left to the right.

This is Cronkite’s imperfect America. Perhaps he could explain, if it’s not too much trouble for him to tell the truth, how all this true diversity is a bad thing. Maybe he’ll finally be able to own up to his past bias and take his place among the myriad and equally shrill voices of his darling Left.

And that’s the way it is.

Just as the left has begun its renewed assault on guns on the national stage, David Orentlicher, one of our illustrious Democrat legislators, has decided perhaps it is time to attack our rights on the state level. He has used the old caveat of "if you want safety, you'll need to give up some of that freedom."

Let me first start by providing a little history. And history's great; I love history. I'm a fan. And the history of the story is, many years ago Indiana was one of those states with umpteen little laws governing where someone could carry a firearm legally and where someone couldn't. It was up to the municipalities. For example, in crime-ridden Gary, they were as restrictive or more so than nearby Chicago, while in Jasper County a bit further south you were only restricted by state law. This created such a dizzying patchwork of laws, especially where dozens of little towns ran together (like near Chicago), that the state legislature rightly passed a law saying that the locals had to adhere to the state law, which required a permit for concealed carry, but otherwise wasn't terribly restrictive.

Critics of the legislature's move, as has been predicted for every laxing of restrictive gun laws across the nation, predicted blood in the streets, mass slayings where several people would pull guns and shoot it out, "Wild West style". None of it happened, of course.

What did happen was the meth trade started getting pretty bad. All urban areas were plagued with high crime rates during that time and they either caved and let the violence happen or the criminals were sent en masse to prison using a mix of federal and local prosecutions. We enjoyed a decade or so of some peace while those felons rotted in jail, but the meth trade is back and bigger than ever. Weaker sentencing, old criminals getting out of jail and a new crop of crooks have all combined to give us a brand new crime wave.

The answer according to Orentlicher and his ilk is that the legislature should allow municipalities to have stricter gun laws again. See, the rest of the state doesn't understand Indianapolis' plight or Gary's plight and therefore if they want to restrict their citizen's freedoms and make more of them vulnerable to crime, well, David thinks that's ok.

David and other legislators would just as soon see guns banned, which of course has led to the crime-free paradises of Great Britain, Canada and Australia (all seeing violent crime spikes since their bans) and our utopian megaplexes of Chicago, New York, Detroit and LA. Will they ever learn? My money's on no. Still, I hold on to that faint hope, and I hold onto the fact that there's enough people who still pay attention to legislators like him and ensure his Bill dies the death it deserves.

Represenative Orentlicher needs to learn that stripping freedoms from the average citizen only emboldens criminals and fattens government. Neither one of those is good for the average citizen, of course, but he may see it differently. I for one would like to hear his thoughts on that matter.

 It didn’t take long for the new Congress to rediscover its pre-94 roots and levy a considerable amount of new gun control legislation. Perhaps they have already forgotten what helped cost the Democrats Congress all those many years ago.

It is widely believed that one of the key elements that turned voters against the Democrats in the ’94 midterm elections was the rush to pass the Brady Bill, a since discredited joke piece of legislation that was, at its heart, the first step towards more draconian gun control measures. Handgun Control, Inc., then sharing a bed with numerous other lobbyists at the White House, openly boasted that this legislation would merely test the waters. More bills were sure to follow. My own Congressman at the time, Andy Jacobs, a man who I had come to respect as a moderate with tempered views and a good conscience, turned raving leftist and cast the deciding vote in its favor.

For those who don’t remember, the key elements of the Bill were that it limited handgun ammo capacity to ten rounds per clip, it established a mandatory waiting period to buy a handgun until the National Instant Check System could be brought online, and it banned the manufacture of new “assault weapons”, a list of cosmetically similar weapons that “looked evil” to the person who didn’t know any better, but that were otherwise identical to a whole host of weapons that remained legal to manufacture.

Many of the Congressmen who voted for that Bill received early retirement in ’94 and Jacobs was nearly defeated in his very secure central Indianapolis Democrat district. He retired shortly thereafter of his own volition.

With the history lesson out of the way, let’s look at what’s new in the 110^th Congress.

First, there’s the Child Gun Safety and Gun Access Prevention Act of 2007, H.R. 256. If it’s “for the children”, that’s code for “you can’t argue with us taking away your rights or we’ll make you look like a heartless killer”. Basically, it’s a law that will be used to prosecute anyone whose gun falls in the hands of a “child”, which the Left seems to want to classify as anyone under 25. In other words, if your gun is stolen and used in a crime by a youth or is used in a tragic accident in which another is harmed or injured, you go to jail. Well, it has that whole “personal responsibility” thing down pat, but given how forgiving the Left is of everyone from cop killers to rapists to child molesters, it’s a little harsh coming from the “Party of Forgiveness”. This Bill also raises the age of being able to own a rifle or shotgun from 18 to 21. Well, it worked for alcohol!

The edict “To require the Consumer Product Safety Commission to ban toys which in size, shape, or overall appearance resemble real handguns” clause in H.R. 428 is fairly straight forward. It means to ban toy guns. If toy guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have toy guns. Come on. Do we really have to be subjected to this nonsense? This lefty hippy feel-good ludicrous crap is the same thing they’re trying in England, where they’ve already banned most guns. It hasn’t done anything there to stop the rising rates of gun crime either.

The third piece of “legislation” being proposed by the Democrats is “The NICS Improvement Act”, H.R. 297. This Act is rather sinister. Its stated aim is to merely add lists of denied individuals who currently have not been added to the NICS system. This could rightly be seen as a “loophole”, because certain elements of the NICS aren’t complete. Certain databases of the mentally ill and some criminal databases have yet to be integrated, and this bill in its own feel good way will make sure they’re added.

The bad law part of this is that it also intends to add lists of individuals who are indicted, but not yet convicted, of felonies. It also promises to add everyone with a misdemeanor conviction or restraining order, which the infamous and Unconstitutional Lautenberg Amendment ensured would keep just about anyone from purchasing a new weapon. Indictments and restraining orders are about as easy to get as the chicken pox in kindergarten. Even though no conviction is in place, a person will be barred from purchasing a weapon because NICS will deny them.

But Rob, you say, Senator Lautenberg wanted to help battered women and stuff when he put in that clause about restraining orders. How is stopping evil wife-beaters from getting guns a bad thing? It’s not a bad thing. But a man can be called a wife-beater and not be one. It’s up for a court to decide, and until then the man is deprived of his rights. Oh, and for those feel-good leftist feminists out there, consider that a wife-beating husband can also get a restraining order against his wife, just so she can’t get a gun to defend herself. Care to guess the statistics on the number of women killed by their deranged ex-boyfriends or hubbies while waiting for the cops to show? The number’s rather high. That’s women’s lib for ya. You’ve come a long way, baby.

The last of the current gems is “The Gun Show Loophole Closing Act of 2007,” H.R. 96. This law will basically make it illegal to hold a gun show, anywhere, ever. It regulates “thought”, as in if you talk or even think about buying a gun without a background check, you’ve violated the law. And not only will you get it in the rear. , but the organizers of the gun show will go down with you. It’s yet one more way for gun sales to be more closely monitored and controlled and it’s usually one of the steps countries like Canada, Great Britain, and Australia (oh and let’s not forget the U.S.S.R. and Nazi Germany) used on the road to gun confiscation. So much for the Land of the Free.

Well, that’s just the first of anti-gun rights bills the “100 hour” brain trust could produce. Expect a lot more through the course of the next two years. It will be interesting to see if the anti-gun rights “moderate”, George W., is able to grow enough of a spine to veto any of this or if the Senate Republicans try to filibuster it. But then again, it may just hasten the Democrats exit from Congressional leadership once again. What a mixed blessing.

Hat tip to RightWingNews for the list.

A recent debate here in Indianapolis has crystallized for me an issue that’s been a pet peeve of mine for many years. Here in our fine city, the old city cemetery is called Crown Hill and it exists in what was once one of the more affluent parts of town. Now, much of those nice old houses are inhabited by low income or a few remaining middle income families. Crown Hill, not surprisingly, is very old. It is also large and has huge upkeep costs. Grounds keeping and maintenance aren’t cheap. The revenue Crown Hill has taken in recently isn’t really covering their bill, because there are not as many people being buried in the old cemetery. Competition has also taken its toll. So, the people who run it have to come up with new funding. They have in the form of a 70 acre parcel of old, wooded land that Crown Hill owns on its northern fringe.

This land can be prime development land, as the area is borderline decent. An affluent neighborhood could form the core of an area revival. It also will destroy most of the 70 acres of trees and habitat that now stands there. This is regrettable. I hate to see that. I like trees. I like wildlife habitat. However, it’s not my land, and unless I think I can get together the scratch to buy it, it’s not my business what happens to it. That’s the way of things. In a society where we allow people to do what they want to their own land, this is what you get. I find nothing wrong with that aspect.

I appear to be in the minority in this opinion. The local left-leaning news weekly and the editorials in the Indianapolis Star have been filled with protests from those who want to see this land preserved from the bulldozer. They are filled with colorful metaphors and fancy phrases that wax eloquent about how there is “another kind of death” at Crown Hill or how more of Mother Nature is being “raped” for the benefit of rich, cognac-swilling, cigar-smoking fat cats.

Their editorials and pontifications always end with calls for civic action. “Well, the city must DO something” and other such calls for government to stop a private land deal fill the media, especially the alternative media. This is the mentality of people who are still dead-set certain that Marx is applicable and can work. It doesn’t matter that it’s never worked to the benefit of the masses anywhere in the world. We just haven’t done it right yet. Part of doing it right, according to this train of thought, is when you don’t like what someone’s doing with their own land, you use the power of government to take it away from them.

Property rights are one of our oldest rights and along with those endowed to us by our Creator, they are pretty important. “A man’s home is his castle” and “the right to be secure in one’s home, effects and property” are indelible and unalterable aspects of who we are and how we define ourselves. If we let government decide what to do with our land, then the tyranny of the minority takes hold. Radical environmentalism is just the latest trend to exercise this principle. Republican (not the party) ideals of personal freedom and responsibility have no merit if you say that our most fundamental material concern (property) is the “people’s business” and not private business. Not to mention, this power can be used in a grossly corrupt fashion to control any land for any reason, especially if you’re the one who wants to get your hands on it. If you could go back in time and ask the kulaks of the Ukraine under Stalin’s rule, they could have shown you many fine examples of this leftist philosophy in action.

The simple reality of it is this. In our society, my land is mine. It’s not yours. It’s not the government’s. It’s mine. If I want to do anything with it, as long as it doesn’t adversely affect my neighbor, then it’s nobody’s business, but mine. If I want to sell it to a private developer, it is my right. It is also Crown Hill’s right to sell it to who they think will pay the most for it. If these groups and individuals so desperately want to preserve it, they can form a foundation, raise money and buy the land. It’s as simple as that. Of course, that solution is never thought of because it doesn’t entail using “magic money” also known as taxpayer dollars to curtail such a basic capitalist transaction. I like trees too, but I like that everyone can have their liberty even more.

The last few posts were some that I considered defining when it came to my positions on these issues, and rather than rehash the topics, I thought it might be easier to repost them to a new audience. I may do that from time to time. I don't consider it being intellecutally lazy. I just don't like being repetitive (although apparently I like certain phrases at my peril...).

Well, I hope you enjoy reading them and I look forward to a long and fruitful stay in the Townhall community.