Postponed

Due to unforeseen circumstances (i.e. the more research I do, the more I want to write on it), the Israel post must wait until tomorrow. Happy Memorial Day and God bless and keep this nation.

Seriously, This Really Happened?

A church was fined for pruning a tree on its property. Let that sink in for a second.

Gingrich Already Down, Now Romney

Well "She turned me into a" Newt "but I got better" Gingrich has already removed himself from any consideration that I might support him (with my vast audience that is rivaled only by your local book club for illiterates). Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, who was already hanging on a ledge due to his defense of the state version of Obamacare, has completely shown he's willing to leap over logic in favor of power. Mitt "my soul is for sale for your vote" Romney has come out in favor of ethanol subsidies to appease the Iowa farmer crowd.

Let's talk about ethanol a bit. Let's ignore the issue of subsidies as generally being bad policy. Let's first note that the federal government mandates the use of ethanol in fuels. Ethanol eats up small engines, causing them to wear out early without a conversion kit. Oh, and apparently it actually harms the mileage of the vehicle it's used in. Call me crazy, but if you get less emissions but have to use more fuel, don't you just end up with roughly the same amount of emissions? That's an oversimplification But it doesn't just stop with the actual useless effects it has on cars.

Corn is notoriously poor at absorbing nitrogen from the soil. This nitrogen runs off in rain and irrigation into the local water table, eventually making its way down to the Mississippi (it's illegal to grow crops on the west coast due to environmental impact on small fish) and the Gulf of Mexico. When this nitrogen rich water reaches the Gulf, it dominates the oxygen rich waters, creating what is known as a dead zone, where nothing can live. An article on this study can be found here.

Now I don't know if you, like myself, eat, but there is an impact on this as well. There is a moral dubiousness to burning food as fuel as people starve (but in truth, we have been paying farmers not to grow crops to artificially inflate food prices for decades). Using corn crops for fuel instead of farmers growing less profitable food crops means that prices of food go up (read the first paragraph of the CBO report I've linked to, it's not like the government doesn't know this). YAY! Everybody wins! Wait, that's not right. Oh, and by the way, because corn is not the sole source of food, by lessening the supply of one source of sustenance, the demand for the other sources goes up, meaning ethanol drives up the prices of meat, eggs, milk, yogurt, etc.

So, on the basis of falsified data and a questionable hypothesis called anthropogenic global warming, as well as general environmental moronicism, we've decided to make it harder for people to eat. Mitt Romney is all for this, as long as it gets him the votes in the Iowa primary.

So scratch two people off my list of the Republican candidates to defeat the mistake that is our current President (and Mary, if you're reading this, I didn't like Bush or Clinton or Bush, Sr. either, you're right, it's a hard job, but if you can't do it don't run).

Thank God I Don't Live in California

The insane judges and environmentalists are at it again in California. Be sure to get your child's cake approved by an environmental impact study. I have a sneaking suspicion these people are staging some sort of elaborate protest to demonstrate that idiotic is not a sufficient word to describe them.

Memorial Day Posting to Come

I have been watching the issues surrounding what is going on with Israel and the putative Palestinian state. Anyone who has read this blog and my analysis of Russian President Vladimir Putin (the link provided should reference much of what I've written, but a search may turn up more) and noted the recent news of his intent to return to the Russian presidency should be able to see that I have some foreign policy acumen.

So on Memorial Day, I intend to finally put down my thoughts in another of those unreadably long posts on this subject. I hope you find it interesting and insightful.

On the other side of things, I hope to find some nice stories about the heroes of our military that we honor on Memorial Day each year to share with you. Make sure you have a hot dog. Someone died for the freedom to grind up random meats into an unnatural shape so that you could grill it beyond having to taste it in freedom! That and much more. God bless.

What Motivates NPR Listeners?

A professor of biology questioned why those crazy global warming deniers could possibly refute her position that global warming is responsible for the recent tornado outbreaks in the middle of the United States. Let's look that statement over again. A biologist is asking why people don't agree with her about meteorology based upon climatology. Because when my back hurts, I'm heading to my eye doctor because he's cheaper. This lady is like the character in "The Hangover" who keeps calling himself a doctor when he's a dentist. And she doesn't understand why I don't just roll over and accept her opinion.

Of course, there is always the fact that most meteorologists I've seen opine on the subject relate the tornado and severe weather outbreaks to La Nina, a cooling of Pacific waters. But then, I'm no biologist, so I won't tell you what to think either, I'll just give you the information I have and you can decide (I encourage you to do a search on that independent of the only article I'm linking to to further educate yourself, as I do).

Now I will disagree with the first article in that NPR is not coming out and staking an official position as far as I can tell. She seems to be just an editorial voice that reflects the general editorial positions of NPR. I do wonder though, how a scientist who can't imagine how someone might have a different conclusion than her own can truly be a scientist. She sounds more like what atheists say to stereotype clergy to me. The only reason I bring this up is a wonderful friend of mine often depends NPR on its news coverage, and though I cannot disagree, I don't believe in funding it because I don't believe government should be funding any news, no matter how unbiased, or any editorial opinion, such as this person, who can't believe you might disagree.

Obama's Carter Redux Regime

Ask yourself, who do you work for? Now ask yourself, who do Democrats think you work for? The answer is simple, you work for them, as a slave. Democrats are floating a plan that would raise the tax burden on anyone who makes over a million dollars in a year to over 50%. The effective tax rate would rise to levels not seen since the Carter administration (which worked out swimmingly for the United States). Now I know millionaires aren't necessarily the most sympathetic bunch, but think for a second. How much income before expenses does the local business owner make? How many people could he employ for the over $500,000.00 he will be forking over to the feds? How much more could he try to expand and improve his business?

I submit to you that the Democrats may be the first instance of economic atheists.