Right Minded Online

Most people enjoy doing something special on New Year’s Eve, unless you’re a reporter with the liberal media. In that case, New Year’s Eve is just another reason to find that rain cloud to stand other and proclaim misery.

Economy puts damper on New Year’s Eve celebrations – Yahoo News.

Climate Audit has a hilarious spoof on Al Gore, which actually lends credibility to ”The Gore Effect,” where he brings with him record cold weather wherever he visits.

Long ago 2006, in the bad old days before IPCC AR4, Toronto got its lowest snowfall in a century. Lake level declines were sure to follow. Would water supplies for lattes be threatened? Even the unthinkable now seemed possible and even likely.

Nobody knew what do. Except for one little girl. Hey, its a story. She wrote to a famous ju-ju man in the South asking him to come north and cast a magic spell and make the snow return.

The ju-ju man heard the plea of the little girl. He quickly decided that the situation was far worse than even the little girl thought. This needed his most powerful magic and, so in 2007, he visited Toronto not just once, not just twice but three times.

The magic worked Soon Toronto was covered up in winter snow. The ju-ju man could only save part of the 2007 winter, but by 2008, his magic was in full force. Yesterday’s snow made 2008 snowfall the highest since 1883, with a few days still on the clock.

And it was all due to that one little girl.

As for me, my arms ache from shoveling snow. I think that the ju-ju man might overdid his spell a little. Id have been OK with just one incantation.

How Al Gore Saved Christmas « Climate Audit.

A couple of former advisors to President Bush appear to be taking the Scott McClellan route by selling out the 43rd president in order to win favor with the mainstream media.

Hurricane Katrina not only pulverized the Gulf Coast in 2005, it knocked the bully pulpit out from under President George W. Bush, according to two former advisers who spoke candidly about the political impact of the government’s poor handling of the natural disaster.

“Katrina to me was the tipping point,” said Matthew Dowd, Bush’s pollster and chief strategist for the 2004 presidential campaign. “The president broke his bond with the public. Once that bond was broken, he no longer had the capacity to talk to the American public. State of the Union addresses? It didnt matter. Legislative initiatives? It didnt matter. P.R.? It didnt matter. Travel? It didn’t matter.”

Oh, really? I would argue that President Bush enjoyed three major political accomplishments — all in the face of withering criticism from the left — AFTER Hurricane Katrina: John Roberts, Samuel Alito, and the troop surge in Iraq. But President Bush will leave office with low approval numbers — not as low as Congress’ approval numbers, but still low — and so the easy way out is to simply jump on the anti-Bush bandwagon.

Ex-Bush aides say he never recovered from Katrina – Yahoo News.

The tolerance police continue to stir up trouble over the choice of Rick Warren to deliver Barack Obama’s inauguration prayer, with liberals worried sick over the prospect that Rick Warren might invoke the name of Christ during his prayer. These are the same people, of course, who demand tolerance from everyone else.

Evangelicals generally expect their clergymen to use Jesus name whenever and wherever they lead prayer. Many conservative Christians say cultural sensitivity goes way too far if it requires religious leaders to hide their beliefs.

“If Rick Warren does not pray in Jesus’ name, some folks are going to be very disappointed,” Caldwell said in a recent phone interview. “Since hes evangelical, his own tribe, if you will, will have some angst if he does not do that.”

Advocates for gay rights protested Obama’s decision to give Warren a prominent role at the swearing-in. The California megachurch founder supported Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriage in his home state. Obama defended his choice, saying he wanted the event to reflect diverse views and insisting he remains a “fierce advocate” of equal rights for gays.

The thing is, gays already have equal rights in the U.S. — even the right to marry. Any gay man can marry any woman who agrees to it, and vice versa, which is the same right heterosexuals enjoy.

Warren’s inauguration prayer could draw more ire – Yahoo News.

Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that greenhouse gases emitted from motor vehicles amount to air pollution. That was all the Environmental Protection Agency needed to issue a report that may lead to the federal government taxing smelly farm animals who emit too much methane. Methane, of course, is a greenhouse gas. Cows and hogs give off lots of it. They always have. It’s part of their natural biological function. So leave it to the federal government to consider taxing it.

It’s all part of the global warming hoax. Since the beginning of time, created beings have given off methane, with the planet suffering no side effects. But now, suddenly, in the 21st century, what has always occurred naturally is destroying the planet.

There are two things you need to know about global warming. First, those who espouse the theory that man is altering the climate adhere to global warming with religious-like faith. You have to have faith in global warming, because factual analysis destroys it. Second, global warming is nothing more than a hoax that liberals and bureaucrats are using to grow government and raise taxes.

To illustrate just how global warming alarmists would micromanage our lives, let’s look at a few examples:

In Great Britain, where the global warming hoax has become far more ingrained than here in the U.S., the Energy Saving Partnership has taken out a patent on Heatseekers, thermo-imaging vehicles which, at full potential, have the capacity to identify 1,000 properties an hour, or 5,000 properties a night, that are leaking carbon. Once the property has been scanned, a dedicated team of energy advisers will visit householders to show them the thermal image scan of their homes.

Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which last year earned a joint share of the Nobel Peace Prize, asserts that people should have one meat-free day a week if they want to make a personal and effective sacrifice that would help tackle climate change. Dr. Pachauri said that people should then go on to reduce their meat consumption even further.

And if the addition of carbon police and eating less meat weren’t enough, we would see carbon crimes if the left ever had its way. You see, Stephen Hockman, a deputy High Court judge, has proposed a body similar to the International Court of Justice in The Hague to be the supreme legal authority on issues regarding the environment. The court would enforce international agreements on cutting greenhouse gas emissions, fine countries or companies that failed to protect endangered species or degraded the natural environment, and enforce the “right to a healthy environment.”

Meanwhile, the San Francisco Airport Commission has recently authorized a program that would enable enviro-nitwits to assuage their guilt over making too big a carbon footprint. The general idea, officials say, is that a traveler would approach a kiosk resembling the self-service check-in stations used by airlines, then punch in his or her destination. A computer would calculate the carbon footprint and the cost of an investment to offset the damage. The guilt-ridden traveler could then swipe a credit card to help save the planet. Travelers would receive a printed receipt listing the projects benefiting from their green “investment.”

Really, what kind of an idiot would fall for such a scheme?

Despite the hysteria, 2008 will end up the coolest year of the decade. If you’re worried about the environment, this should be good news. Indeed, everything liberals have told us is a lie. We enjoy such a high level of prosperity that we’ve had the time and the luxury to create our own crises, and global warming is an invented crisis. Global warming is a political movement built upon changes in the weather, and “global warming” has even morphed into “climate change” to cover any and all meteorological changes. Whether it’s hotter, colder, wetter, or drier, it can all be blamed on human activity now. The global warming alarmists have stacked the deck so they cannot possibly be wrong, even when their entire premise is a hoax.

It is supremely arrogant to believe that man can alter nature by eating meat, driving cars, and using incandescent light bulbs. It is just as arrogant to believe we can cool the atmosphere by switching to hybrids, taxing smelly farm animals, using curlicue light bulbs, and buying carbon credits. (You’re actually better off throwing your money away on the lottery, because with the lottery, you at least have a one-in-a-million shot at a payoff, whereas global warming is a 100% hoax.)

Likewise, politicians who endeavor to “save the planet” do so out of an inflated sense of self-importance. Democrats (and some Republicans, too) honestly believe they can change the climate merely by passing legislation that micromanages the lifestyles of everyone else. In reality, global warming alarmists would loot the wealth of individuals and private businesses who stand falsely accused of contributing to global warming. Indeed, looting wealth produced by others is a hallmark of liberalism.

It has been said that ignorance is the most expensive “commodity” we own. Global warming proves it, because if the left ever gets its way, the global warming hoax is going to cost taxpayers a great deal of money and loss of individual liberty.

The Memphis Tigers took to the basketball court for the first time since the Roses were there a week ago. Tonight, it was our Big East rival, the Cincinnati Bearcats, visiting the FedEx Forum, with the Tigers winning 60-45 in front of a near-sellout crowd of more than 18,000. The game was a defensive bloodbath, as neither team shot well, but especially Cincinnati, which made just 12 baskets the entire game. The big story for the Tigers were turnovers and rebounding, as Cincinnati committed 20 turnovers to the Tigers’ 14, and the home team winning the battle of the boards 40-30.

Memphis was led in scoring by hot-shooting senior Antonio Anderson, who had 18 points, followed by senior Robert Dozier, with 17 points, and freshman Tyreke Evans, who scored 14.

Cincinnati, which came into the game 10-2 and #50 in the RPI, owned Memphis back in the 1990’s and early 2000’s, but has now lost each of the past four years to the Tigers, who finally beat a Top 50 RPI opponent this season after losing their first three against such opponents. Memphis came into the game 7-3, #37 in the RPI, and had a #15 strength-of-schedule.

The Tigers have just two more games until the start of conference play. Memphis is 56-1 in Conference USA the last three years, with their last conference loss coming near the end of the 2005-2006 regular season at UAB. Since then, the Tigers have won 42 straight.

University of Memphis Tigers’ 2008-09 video intro

Barack Obama says he is committed to giving those middle class tax cuts he promised during the campaign. I’m all for tax cuts. It doesn’t matter whether Democrats or Republicans enact them. Tax cuts are tax cuts. The only problem I have is that Obama seems to be content to let the Bush tax cuts expire, then enacting a new round of tax cuts aimed at the middle class. He says the net effect would still be a tax cut. I would simply make the Bush tax cuts permanent. Making high earners bite the bullet while giving the middle class a tax cut is simply a transfer of wealth. Instead, let’s make government bite the bullet. President Bush has already proven that cutting tax rates from top to bottom actually increases revenue to the treasury, so government would also benefit from making the Bush tax cuts permanent.

Obama adviser: Slowing economy wont halt tax cuts – Yahoo News.

Caroline Schlossberg, who is campaigning to fill Hillary Clinton’s senate seat in New York, says 9/11 and Barack Obama motivated her to seek public service. Please. There aren’t too many liberals who seek political office purely out of a desire to serve the people. By their nature, liberals instead are motivated by a thirst for political power and a desire, out of their elitism, to micromanage the lives of others.

Kennedy says 9/11, Obama led her to public service – Yahoo News.

Today’s featured Wikipedia article is on the Battle of Shiloh, a site that I lived just a few miles from during part of my childhood, even spending several hours on a bicycle riding through the national park that now preserves the historic battlefield.

Battle of Shiloh – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Any comparison of the economic conditions in the U.S. at the present and those that existed during the Great Depression are disingenuous, require some measure of ignorance in order to believe, and simply do not reflect the depravity that existed during that era.

In the Great Depression, many Americans lined up for food and soup. In the current economic crisis, many Americans line up to shop for bargains.

Although political and economic leaders have told us the current recession is America’s greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression, the two events are not comparable. And the differences are particularly acute at Christmas time.

Lloyd Mitchell, 90, of Oklahoma City said he felt fortunate to get some fruit in his stocking when he was growing up as the son of a tenant farmer in far southwest Oklahoma. Mitchell’s father grew cotton on hardscrabble land in an era of drought and record low prices.

Economists, survivors say Depression can’t compare | NewsOK.com.

World Net Daily is compiling a list of the most underreported stories of 2008, and has links to Top 10 lists from previous years, as well.

What did the mainstream media miss in 2008?

Don’t ever buy the lie that there is a consensus among scientists on global warming. There may be a consensus among politically-motivated scientists, but there is also a long and growing list of authentic scientists who do not believe that man is affecting the climate of the earth.

“I am convinced that the current alarm over carbon dioxide is mistaken,” said William Happer, who began serving as the director of the U.S. Department of Energys Office of Energy under the first President Bush in July of 1991. “Fears about man-made global warming are unwarranted and are not based on good science.”

But when Happer testified before Congress under the Clinton administration in 1993, saying, “I think that there probably has been some exaggeration of the dangers of ozone and global climate change,” he lost his government position.

“I had the privilege of being fired by Al Gore, since I refused to go along with his alarmism,” Happer told Senate leaders yesterday.

Happer had stated of Gore shortly after his firing in 1993, “I was told that science was not going to intrude on policy.“

Global warming dissenters dash scientific consensus.

Reb Bradley has a book out describing how to train up a child to be a good, wholesome, responsible conservative.

“I noticed that all of the societal ills Rush talked about were really manifestations of people who really never grew up – never matured,” he explains. “Ultimately, that is what the worldview of liberalism is all about. And we wont escape its dire ill effects until we learn how to parent.”

Bradley contends that liberalism is the natural condition of the human heart and for people to be capable of self-government, they must be trained against their own nature.

“In this age of technology, one might say that liberalism is our default operating condition,” he writes.

“Throughout our childhoods, our parents must work hard and change our settings to keep us from operating in our default mode. If parents are successful, we enter adulthood with our new settings fully locked in. Left untrained, all children would grow up liberal in their outlook.”

Born Liberal author on C-SPAN.

There is a movement afoot to try and convince President Bush to grant pardons to two border patrol agents who were wrongly prosecuted, convicted, and imprisoned.

Mr. President Free Ramos and Compean.

It’s amazing the lengths to which liberals will go in order to sidestep anything related to Christianity. These people are absolutely paranoid about offending that one person, even if it means the manjority gets the shaft.

A public interest law firm has launched a new attack on what it calls an “anti-Christmas virus” evidenced by a school district that banned even traditional Christmas tunes.

The Ann Arbor, Mich.-based Thomas More Law Center says its lawyers filed a brief in the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia in a case challenging a New Jersey districts ban on the melodies.

“As so often is the case,” the firm said, “a complaint from one parent resulted in the districts policy that banned the playing of all Christmas music, including simple instrumentals without words.”

Religious tunes banned by school.

World Net Daily has a piece of Biblical history I knew nothing about. It’s amazing the things you can learn over the course of a day.

Eight years after the site was heavily desecrated by Palestinians, Jews this week quietly returned to Joseph’s Tomb in the northern West Bank to rebuild the structure in hopes of a continued Jewish presence at the tomb – Judaism’s third holiest site.

Joseph’s Tomb is the believed burial place of the biblical patriarch Joseph, the son of Jacob who was sold by his brothers into slavery and later became viceroy of Egypt.

Following repeated Palestinian attacks, Israel in October 2000 unilaterally retreated from Joseph’s Tomb and, with very few exceptions, banned Jews from returning to the site purportedly for security reasons.

Jews return to Joseph’s tomb.

One longtime psychiatrist has concluded that liberals are mentally ill. Here’s a portion of his supporting observations:

Dr. Rossiter says the liberal agenda preys on weakness and feelings of inferiority in the population by:

- creating and reinforcing perceptions of victimization;

- satisfying infantile claims to entitlement, indulgence and compensation;

- augmenting primitive feelings of envy;

- rejecting the sovereignty of the individual, subordinating him to the will of the government.

“The roots of liberalism – and its associated madness – can be clearly identified by understanding how children develop from infancy to adulthood and how distorted development produces the irrational beliefs of the liberal mind,” he says. “When the modern liberal mind whines about imaginary victims, rages against imaginary villains and seeks above all else to run the lives of persons competent to run their own lives, the neurosis of the liberal mind becomes painfully obvious.”

It’s no wonder then that repeated studies on happiness show conservatives to be far happier than liberals, regardless of economic circumstances or the outcomes of elections.

Veteran psychiatrist calls liberals mentally ill.

It’s stunning the schemes that the enviro-nitwits come up with, and even more stunning that there are people gullible enough to be guilt-tripped into parting with their own money in the name of the hoax that is global warming.

San Francisco’s Airport Commission has authorized the program, which will involve a $163,000 investment from SFO, but is still working out the details with 3Degrees. Because of that, McDougal said, he can’t yet discuss specifics, such as the cost to purchase carbon offsets and what programs would benefit from travelers’ purchases.

But the general idea, officials said, is that a traveler would approach a kiosk resembling the self-service check-in stations used by airlines, then punch in his or her destination. The computer would calculate the carbon footprint and the cost of an investment to offset the damage. The traveler could then swipe a credit card to help save the planet. Travelers would receive a printed receipt listing the projects benefiting from their environmental largesse.

Michelle Malkin » Eco-guilt assuasion in San Francisco.

The New York Times, which has fallen on hard times just like the rest of the mainstream press, is attempting to sell its share of the Boston Red Sox. Doesn’t that seem a bit odd, that an organization from New York City would own a portion of the home team’s most hated rival?

Michelle Malkin » Cash-strapped NYT tries to offload Boston Red Sox.

The Memphis Commercial Appeal has named the University of Memphis Tigers men’s basketball team Sportsmen of the Year, with a great accompanying article.

Tigers a team for the ages — Sportsmen of the Year : Tigers : Memphis Commercial Appeal.