Brother Tim's Travelling Salvation Show !

I just finished reading a book by Czech President, Vaclav Klaus, entitled "Blue Planet in Green Shackles."  In it he profoundly states, "Today's debate about global warming is essentially a debate about freedom. The environmentalists would like to mastermind each and every possible (and impossible) aspect of our lives.  They are the neo-Marxists of the new century."

Last week we had a revivalist meeting in Melbourne, complete with pictures and snake oil, calling on the faithful to force carbon sinners to repent. The elixir from Brother Tim and his brethren offered the solutions to all our ills. It was the remedy to rising temperatures, rising sea levels, the treat of extreme temperatures, drought and lo...it would save the planet for future generations. GLORY BE !!

I'm sure those of you in other countries have your share of global warming fanatics, better known as Watermelons (Green on the outside, but oh so Red on the inside). Well, Australia has Professor Tim Flannery, a palaeontologist, who is not a climate scientist, as its resident warmist-fanatic who has managed to hoodwink the Labor government into appointing him Climate Change Commissioner with his warning of carbon-induced doom. His remuneration for this position, for working only 3 days a week is $180,000 a year! Anyone in a different position who has been so off the mark with his predictions and prognostications over the past 10 years would've been ridiculed and sacked. Unfortunately his guru status remains strong with this misguided warmist government.

John McLean, a reporter who was present says, "for the first 15 minutes the crowd was lectured by three commissars (opps...commissioners). Brothers Tim and Will (Steffen) and Sister Lesley (Hughes). Talk about smoke and mirrors, and hell-fire and brims-stone. We had it all."  The crowd was shown a bell-shaped chart representing a range of temperatures with the global warming line clearly on the rise warning of extreme weather ahead. And woe would visit upon our future generations according to Sister Lesley. There was not a word about humans acclimatising to the temperature rise as the Vikings did in 900AD when it was 3 degrees warmer than today without any bad effects.

Destroyed by fire or destroyed by flood? Brother Will stated that the seas were rising, as was their temperature (really only 0.3 degrees)  and we'd be swept asunder, or at least anyone living near the coast would. He didn't mention that Brother Tim just bought a house on the water's edge on a tidal inlet. Why so serious when your own Gore-Guru doesn't fear what the computer modeling dictates. But of course the models the IPCC reported on are padded with CO2-induced warming to make up for the shortfalls in the knowledge of numerous climate forces. This modeling "industry" would collapse if it couldn't find a way to claim a human hand in every possible climate variation.

No religion is fully supported by logic; there's always a gap somewhere. Brother Tim's climate religion doesn't have a gap but a chasm, one that he tried hard to ignore. He said that he felt we'd "moved on from the science."  Moved on? More like skirted around it. Brother Tim and his brethren have been too scared to confront the fact that observational data refutes their claims, too scared to openly face their critics and the debate the matter. Bring back Lord Monckton! In an audience of the faithful, there was no interrogation, no questions about Brother Tim's involvement in companies that have benefited from government largess. No questions about the required number of further years with No Warming before the Climate Commission will admit it is wrong. No questions about the hundreds of legitimately peer-reviewed papers that challenge the commission's mantra.

The Way I See It....when you look behind the curtain of this traveling show you'll discover that there's been no warming for the last 12-13 years despite the increase in CO2. You'd also see that despite global average temperatures rising from 1977-1997 there had been no change in the steady rate of sea level rise that's existed since around 1860. To try and shut-out the voices of the "deniers" by saying that there is a consensus and the "science is settled" is absurd. Brother Tim's advice to the "believers" is revealing: "Ignore those who don't believe. Talk to the converted and get them to take action." Do we throw in a  "Hallelujah and damnation to the carbon heretics!!"

During question time, John McLean, reports that political correctness showed its head too. An audience member had the temerity to suggest that maybe Australia should invest in carbon-free nuclear power. The response from Sister Lesley mentioned its expanded use in Europe, particularly in France and Germany, but Brother Tim was more definite regarding Australia, declaring that electric consumption was decreasing and we should be looking for using more photovoltaic cells. A burst of applause rose from the audience.

No one seemed to mind that responses were inaccurate or distorted. Germany was said to be on track with switching over to renewable power when in fact the country is struggling and is likely to stick to its nuclear facilities and abandon the effort because of the costs and unreliability. But with Brother Tim's magic solution there was nary a word of cost for large installations, be they of wind turbines or solar cells, no word of the amount of land that would be demanded, nor any hint that backup sources would be necessary when nature failed to oblige. Brother Tim's Government-Sponsored Travelling Salvation Show is good at snake oil, smoke and mirrors.

Abbott to China: Time For Reform !

Australian Opposition Leader, Tony Abbott has broken from bi-partisan tradition on a trip to China to urge the Chinese government's politicians to embark on political reforms to match its "remarkable" economic transformation. Predictably, official news outlets such as Xinhua left out some of the Opposition Leader's more confronting statements such as the one that China would prosper even more if  "its people enjoyed freedom under the law and the right to choose a government."

''As prime minister I would hope for political reform to match China's economic liberalisation, while acknowledging the government's right to maintain order and respect China's growing place in the world,"  Mr Abbott told a business breakfast in Beijing. He added, "We already have a strong relationship with China based on shared interests. Over time, I hope it will be based more on shared values." This bold comment on the values of other governments will leave some former diplomats fretting and tut-tutting about disrespecting our largest trading partner but it was worth mentioning.

Because focusing on values also matters for other reasons. Whether Abbott knows it or not, he is simply reaffirming what many prominent Chinese economists are already saying about what the country needs to do to build a surer foundation for further prosperity.

For example, the country's 150,000 centrally and locally managed state-owned enterprises receive about three-quarters of all formal bank loans in the country. The bias towards these Self-Owned-Enterprises (SOEs) exists despite the fact that private domestic firms are two to three times more efficient. The state-dominated economy of SOEs have been running at an average of 20-30% each tear since 1990s. In contrast, mean household incomes have been rising by 2-3% a year over the same period. Studies are now suggesting that the disposable income of 400 million Chinese has actually stagnated or gone backwards over the past decade. Other indicators reveal that absolute poverty (those living on less than $US1.50 a day) has actually increased over the same period.

Within one generation, China has gone from being the most equal society in all of Asia, in terms of distribution in income, to the least. In China's state-dominated model, opportunity and privilege are tied to SOEs and Chinese Communist Party connections.

The Way I See It....the much hyped transition towards a domestic consumption-led economy driving growth is all-but-impossible under these circumstances. Chinese economists, and even some political officials, are increasingly voicing their concern that such  political-economic model, despite its impressive achievements, is reaching its limits.

Mr Abbott urged closer and more active engagement but also signalled a tougher stance on Chinese investment, saying that an Abbott-led government would "rarely" support a Chinese government company taking over an Australian business. Perhaps Tony Abbott has moved a few steps faster than diplomatic protocol demands, but his comments have nevertheless hit the mark.

The Green Movement's Inconvenient Truths !

Here in Australia, we have a bunch of "watermelons" going by the name of the Green Party. They form a hotbed of warmist beliefs and their one eyed approach to environmental "sustainability schemes" blinds then to major consequences that become Inconvenient Truths.

Take Solar Power:  Ex-leader Bob Brown stated that, "we want Australia to be at the cutting edge of solar power. In Germany, where they did this because the Greens there were in the balance of power and created many jobs. It was the strongest component of the German economy during the recent recession. It's good economics!" REALLY BOB?

The Inconvenient Truth here is the wave of bankruptcies in the solar industry that continues unabated and once again, investors lose a lot of money. The future belonged to solar energy, preached the idiot Greens. Germany's large solar companies have lost almost 25 billion Euros on the stock market and a many, many people lost their jobs. There were a dozen spectacular bankruptcies in the United States as well. What is less known is the impact of the solar manufacturing industry in China where over 50 companies have closed.  Who needs cutting edge when this is what you get from it?

Wind Power Tragedies: The rush for another free but also unsustainable source of power by coating the countryside in wind turbines has had another big inconvenient truth....DEAD BIRDS & BATS! In Australia once again, it was revealed that Tasmania's largest wind farm in the island's north-west, has killed 19 Wedge-tailed Eagles, 3 Sea Eagles, numerous Magpies, Falcons, Kestrels, Crows and smaller birds with their rotors. Bob Brown said he was deeply distressed to learn that a number of breeding pairs of the endangered Wedge-tailed Eagles had been killed. Coming to his senses he said, "There should be no more wind turbines built in Tasmania's prime raptor region and the turbines should be shut down when eagles were seen nearby."

In California's Bay area, wind turbines have killed an average of 67 Golden Eagles per year since the wind turbines were constructed in the early 1990s. Approximately 5,000 turbines border the canyons and grasslands where the protected raptors build their nests. The region has one of the highest concentrations of Golden Eagles in the U.S., but the Green idiots didn't think about that beforehand. On-site surveys have found that approximately 2,000 raptors, besides the majestic Golden Eagles, including Red-tail Hawks, American Kestrels and Prairie Falcons are killed annually in the area. The troubling thing is that throughout the U.S., almost 440,000 bird fatalities occur each year at other wind farms.  It really is tragic when you realize that one average nuclear power plant standing on a square kilometer of land produces the same power as a wind farm on 240 square kilometers of land!

The stupidity marches on! Now, a green-tinged council is thinking of putting up 3 extra tall wind turbines a half mile from a famous seabird reserve at Bempton Cliffs, in east Yorkshire. It is the nesting area of hundreds of thousands of Puffins, Gannets, Kittiwakes and others that would be in extreme danger. One halfwit environmentalist drew the ire of bird lovers when he spoke at a council meeting and stated, "The energy from windpower is clean and renewable and if there was one overwhelming threat to wildlife, it is global warming!"  That's right sacrifice over a million birds a year, worldwide, for your misguided environmental ideology!

If birds deaths don't change the Greenie's heartlessness, what about the thousands of bats killed by those wind turbines? Dead bats are turning up beneath wind turbines all over the world. Bat fatalities have been documented at nearly every wind facility in North America and these sites are estimated to cause the deaths of thousands of insect-eating bats per year. The economic impact of losing so many insect-eating animals is staggering: A study published in Science lat year estimated that bat deaths could lead to annual agriculture losses in North America of more than US 3.7 billion!  Is this really good economics?

The Way I See It....avian enthusiasts should join forces to promote a strong opposition to windfarms proliferating across so many country and seasides where there is significant bird and bat roosting and nesting. They should get their local and state governments to disregard the stupid watermelons opposition to clean, carbon-free nuclear electricity generation and aim for installing the latest, safer and smaller self-cooling  nuclear plants that are earthquake, tsunami, missile and terrorist-proof. In this way you have a guaranteed constant Base-Load supply that is far superior to an intermittent supply dependent on the whims of the wind and the growing eye-sores on our landscapes. We must stop these tragic Greens inspired Inconvenient Truths.

OBAMA....You S.O.B. (Slanderer of Business) !

President Obama unwittingly defined himself as clueless about business in a speech last week. He said quite emphatically, "If you've got a business -- you didn't build that, somebody else made that happen."  And of course, since you did nothing to build your business, it belongs to "the people" --  along with any wealth or profit derived from it. Pretty much what that deadshit LENIN had to say about the matter, if you recall.

The president is obviously clueless about what it takes to start a business from scratch, having never done anything remotely like that, since his career has consisted entirely of suckling at the government teat. His extreme leftism allows him to promote a form of class warfare by asskissing the Occupy movement encouraging the "them against us" attitude without a thought for what made America great...entrepreneurship. That supreme gamble to put your assets on the line for a taste of prosperity.

His use of Chicago-style sleaze attacks against Mitt Romney for being a successful business man is a diversion from a bad economy and a taste of things to come in the presidential campaign. John McCain, expressing anger at the negative attacks concerning Romney's tax returns, his offshore investments and his years running the Bain Capital investment firm, said, "Mitt left Bain Capital in good shape to save the Olympics that were in severe collapse and all kinds of scandals. And he worked 16 hours a day to save the Games. I'd like to see Barack put that much effort into getting America to prosper again."

Just in case you needed any further persuasion that Barack Obama's carping about Romney's finances is both stupid and hypocritical, Romney spokeswoman Andrea Saul noted that Obama himself (besides being a millionaire) has accepted six figures' worth of political donations from executives of Bain Capital. "President Obama has based his entire reelection campaign on a dishonest assault on Mitt Romney's business career and wealth.  The real question for the President is this: if Bain Capital is so bad, why has he taken nearly $120,000 in donations from them?  Obama's actions are the height of hypocrisy," Saul declared. The hypocrisy continues with the knowledge that the managing director, Jonathan Lavine is actually responsible for the decisions Obama has most stridently hammered Romney for, even though they were made after Romney left the company.

"Relations between Obama and black businessmen is downright contentious", says Harry C. Alford, president of the National Black Chamber of Commerce (which represents nearly 2 million black businesses). "His views on small business, especially black business is counter to ours. This clueless President's view of business is that there should be few major corporations which are totally unionized and working with the government, which should also be massive and reaching every level of American society," Alford continued. "His first Executive Order was the reinstatement of Project Labor Agreements in government contracting. PLAs give labor unions an exclusive option in construction jobs. This activity, in effect, discriminates against blacks, Hispanics and women per se, as trade unions deliberately under-employ them.. How ironic that we have the first black president who deliberately discriminates against small business, women and minorities and doesn't want to hear he is wrong. What an Amateur!"

The Way I See It....Obama's populist assault on Bain's laying off workers and sending jobs overseas just shows the fact that Romney participated in the global economy and made him guilty of precisely nothing. The tax code was tilted to encourage such behavior. In the 1980s and 1990s many American corporations had to be restructured to compete in the global economy. By almost all accounts Bain Capital performed this function honorably and well. Now there is a crying need to rebalance American capitalism, to make sure that the rewards of financial wizardry do not dwarf the rewards of productive manufacturing, to reward long-term development rather than short-term profits.

All in all, every American has a right to experience the reward of knowing they gambled and won, that they built something with their own hands that belongs to them -- something that one may be able to leave to their children. And that's something no one should belittle or take away from you. Unless it's a wannabe commissar like Barack Obama...who resents you, deep down, because you had the courage and ability to do something he could never have done in a thousand years.

The only way Barack Obama can get what you have is to steal it!  Which is exactly why he's telling people it doesn't belong to you in the first place.  Yes, it really is that simple...that S.O.B!

The Missing Facts on Fukushima Alarmism !

Fairfax newspapers in Australia are promoting a new "study" spreading alarm about a nuclear incident that has unhelpfully failed to kill or injure many, many people through radiation. They state:

      Stanford University scientists said RADIATION from Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant may    cause as many as 1300 cancer deaths globally, according to a study that showed fallout from from   the Tokyo Electric Power Company's crippled reactors may be deadlier than predicted. Mark Jacobson, co-author of the study, added that the March, 2011 disaster may cause as many as 2500 cases of cancer in Japan and may have been 10 times greater if the radiation had not mostly fallen in the sea.

Here's a few facts omitted from the article -- facts that suggest the findings are alarmist trash!
       1) Jacobson is a long-time anti-nuclear activist and global warming campaigner.
       2) Jacobson's past absurd claims include asserting that by 2030 "wind, water and solar technologies can provide 100 % of the world's energy, eliminating all fossil fuels" -- a purely fantastical infrastructure plan that grossly exaggerates the output and reliability of solar and wind power and grossly underplays the cost.
       3) This bonehead Jacobson has claimed "nuclear power results in up to 25 times more carbon emissions than wind energy" (which is contradicted by experts).
      4) Jacobson still assumes the discredited No-Safe-Dose theory of nuclear radiation, claiming that infinitesimally small levels of radiation spread widely will still kill hundreds. In fact, says the International Commission on Radiological Protection:

       The concept of Collective Dose has come under attack for some misuses. Collective effective dose is not intended as a tool for epiemiological risk assessment and it is inappropriate to use it in risk projections. The calculation of the number of cancer deaths based on collective doses from trivial individual doses should be avoided.

Why was none of this background given in the newspaper article?  Surely it is relevant in judging whether the alarmist findings should be heeded or treat with contempt.?

The Way I See It....ironically, the Jacobson paper is just more evidence that anti-nuclear extremists and media dupes cause more harm and alarm than nuclear power ever will. The study actually confirms it in its own findings, even allowing for its gross exaggerations:

      Japanese government agencies evacuated a 20-kilometer radius around the plant, distributed Iodine tablets to prevent radioiodine uptake and prohibited cultivation of crops above the radiation threshold -- steps that scientists "have applauded."

But the paper also notes that nearly 600 deaths were reported as a result of the evacuation process itself, mostly due to fatigue and exposure among the elderly and chronically ill. According to the study's model, the evacuation prevented at most 245 radiation-related deaths -- meaning the evacuation process may have cost more lives than it saved!

PS: After all his wild assumptions and exaggerations, the worst that Jacobson can claim is that the worst nuclear disaster in two decades could eventually kill just 30 people (mainly the plant workers and the cleanup crews).

The Evidence Against Soy !

Dow Chemical and Dupont, the same corporations that brought misery and death to millions through Agent Orange, are now the driving forces behind the promotion of SOY as "a near perfect food" for humans. They are financing anti-meat and anti-milk campaigns aimed largely at those concerned about animal welfare and the environment. They are trying to convince them that Soy products are not only healthier than the real thing, but better for Mother Earth too...even though the growing body of  evidence suggests quite the opposite!

This evidence has led me to the conclusion that it is important for me to warn you that any possible benefits from consuming Soy are FAR outweighed by the well documented risks. I found that Soy does not reliably lower cholesterol and in fact rises Homocysteine levels in many people. High Homocysteine levels have been found to increase your risk of stroke, dementia, memory loss and yes, heart disease!

There is a an increasing list of other common health problems linked to the build up of Soy in your diet, which are; thyroid dysfunctions (like weight gain, hair loss and loss of libido), poor calcium and iron bioavailability, increased tendency to food allergies and asthma, kidney stones, bladder cancer, hindered protein digestion and by mimicking Estrogen, that hormone's activity is altered and even blocked! This danger to your health increases every year with more new products containing Soy as an ingredient; mostly in processed and "fast foods."  And for God's-sake don't give your baby any Soy-based formula!

The Way I See It....I am not against all forms of Soy. Properly fermented products like natto, tempeh, miso and soy sauce do not wreak havoc in your body's delicate tissues like the unfermented Soy products do. It's today's high-tech processing methods that fail to remove the anti=nutrients and toxins that are naturally present in soybeans that traditional fermentation neutralizes.

It is unfortunate that most health-minded people still believe that the unfermented and highly processed Soy products like Soy milk, oil, burgers, tofu, cheese and even ice cream is good for them. This is a tragic case of shrewd marketing of misinformation and outright lies taking root among the masses, exactly like the fluoride deception.  I hope in my small way, the warning I'm giving you will help you rethink your attraction to Soy as a health-giving source of protein and select wisely.

Death-Obsessed Culture Cause of "Batman" Shooting !

Within hours of the tragic "Batman" shooting in Aurora, Colorado, political opportunists have wasted no time in exploiting the actions of a lone lunatic for political grist and push for gun control, with major-asshole New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg demanding that both Mitt Romney and Barack Obama "stand up and tell us what they're going to do about mass shootings." This idiot who is turning New York City into his own private Nanny-dom, wants to crack down on gun rights (remember the 2nd Amendment) and crush the right to self defense.

Quite how either Romney or Obama have the power to reverse a Hollywood-inspired culture that serves up lashings of violence to young people like turkey at Thanksgiving is anyone's guess. Also, the notion that either of the presidential candidates can put a halt to a juggernaut pharmaceutical industry that through their medical "pushers" dole out violence-causing SSRI drugs to this younger generation like penny candy is clearly asinine.

Perhaps the more fundamental question that needs to be asked as to why America keeps experiencing mass shootings, when as recently as 20 years ago they were few and far between. And to what extent the sick culture and entertainment industry is contributing to the general malaise and unfeeling psychosis that seems to have gripped the younger generations?  Again...why were there so few mass shootings just two decades ago compared to now?  Has the number and availability of guns increased substantially? NO. Is the sewer pipe we call Hollywood "action movies", the gaming industry and "gangsta rap" pumping out sicker, more nihilistic and more violence-immersed entertainment than ever before? YES.

As numerous observers have noted, the recent Batman films have contained unnerving amounts of violence that seem to serve little purpose other than to appease a bloodthirsty craving for gore and brutality amongst young people, who have had such scenarios foisted upon them on a regular basis.. The 24-year-old shooter, James Holmes, who dyed his hair red admitted, as he was arrested, that he felt he had morphed into the JOKER!

As journalist, Jenny McCartney, notes in the Telegraph newspaper, "we have been turned into a society seduced by sadism." This sadism is also more accessible to children and young people than ever before. Many people today are asking what a 6-year-old child was doing at a midnight screening of this kind of movie?  Are slack parents aiding and abetting the violence culture on to the next generation?  Sure looks like it.

In an unbelievable irony, it has come to light that Warner Bros paired the Batman movie with a trailer for a film which shows a gangster with a machine gun shooting up people in a movie theater from behind the big screen. Amazing!

The Way I See It....that once again, before we even know anything about the shooter, James Holmes, the liberal establishment media and leftist-scum of political operatives are rushing to denounce gun rights as the culprit behind the tragedy. Once again, as they and like the black community who rushed to judgement and pilloried George Zimmerman for the "racist" shooting (he was labeled a white Hispanic!) of that known street-rat, 17-year-old, Trayson Martin in Florida, they fail miserably to address the underlying root cause -- a sadistic, death-obsessed culture that allows young men to be drawn into bizarre fantasy worlds where violence is seen as an alluring adventure.

Fifty Shades of Grey's DARK SIDE

Fifty Shades of Grey -- the titillating story of how a shy virginal university student is seduced by a mysterious magnate (Mr. Grey) with a penchant for bondage and domination -- has become the fastest-selling book in history. A "mummy porn" phenomenon, the book has been expanded into a trilogy and is reportedly earning author E.L. James $1.35m a week!

While people are reading it on buses and trains worldwide, debate rages over whether it's an entertaining diversion or a sinister users' guide for setting feminism back 100 years. It seems a little generous to suggest James set out to "dismantle" decades of good work by women's liberation activists. She says she drew on her "midlife" fantasies and set out to write a Twilight fan fiction piece that imagined what would happen if that book's "notoriously abstinent" lovers did the deed instead of simply staring at each other. The spanner in the works is the nature of the sex enjoyed in Mr Grey's fifty shades; when Ana finds love and, yes, power in submission. You'll have to wait till page 136 until there's any "real action".

Inexplicably, women everywhere are talking with "giggly delight" about this raunchy "chick-lit."  Bettina Arndt in The Advertiser newspaper, says, "There have been a number of soft porn books and Ebooks directed at female tastes in the past few years but none has ever ignited their loins as much as Fifty Shades of Grey." Positive female reviewers have blithely dismissed the "dreadful" writing and claimed "how liberating, how empowering," this book is for women. Yet men who use porn are cast as perverted, or infantilised by assuming they can't distinguish their sexual fantasies from what happens in real life. How readily female commentators can switch from their normal stance that men and women are equal to suggesting that women are essentially superior.  With wide-spread reports of Fifty Shades of Grey "awakening long-dormant female sexual appetites", men are probably not complaining, but why such different rules for girls?

The Way I See It....is that the popularity of the Fifty Shades trilogy demonstrates how common enjoyment of sadomasochistic fantasies is. I know some psychologists feel the books uphold damaging myths about people who are into S & M, including links to childhood abuse and dangerous behaviors, but these are unsupported by clinical evidence. I've heard that a top San Francisco hotel is offering "Fifty Shades Weekend" packages with a complimentry box containing satin ties and a jar of "lubricant".

More troubling for me is the possessive relationship between Ana and her seducer, Christian, which perpetuates "problematic myths" about love: that stalking behavior is romantic; that it's OK for a man to control a women's life; that a woman should change a man into what she wants him to be. Gina Barreca, of the Independent, has a point when she says, "If Christian wasn't rich, Ana would have him followed by the police or arrested for kidnapping." To say he was vulnerable and hid his own distress under his compulsion to offer pain is laughable. The book is pushing absurd psychosexual rituals and doesn't always make for "happy-funny-relaxed" times in bed -- unless you're into terrible prose as punishment.

This is No Way To Run a Revolution!

It's Bastille Day today when Frenchmen, world-wide, celebrate their inglorious revolution. It has become fashionable lately to equate the French and American revolutions, but they share absolutely nothing beyond the word "revolution."  They are like chalk and fromage. The American Revolution was a movement based on ideas, painstakingly argued by serious men in the process of creating what would become the freest, most prosperous nation in world history.

The French Revolution was a revolt of the mob. It was the primogenitor of the horrors of the Bolshevik revolution, Hitler's Nazi Party, Mao's cultural revolution, Pol Pot's slaughter, and now with the continuing of the Arab Spring  The French Revolution is the godless antithesis to the founding of America.

One rather important difference is that Americans did win freedom and greater individual rights with their revolution, creating a republic. France's revolution consisted of pointless, bestial savagery, followed by another monarchy, followed by Napoleon's dictatorship and then finally something resembling an actual republic 80 years later. Both revolutions are said to have come from the ideas of Enlightenment thinkers; the French Revolution informed by the writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the Americans influenced by the writings of John Locke.

Locke was concerned with private property rights. His idea was that the government should allow men to protect their property in courts of law, in lieu of each man being his own judge and police force. Rousseau saw the government as the vessel to implement the "general will" and to create more moral men. Through the unchecked power of the state, the government would "force men to be free." As historian Roger Hancock summarized the theories of the French revolutionaries, they had no respect for humanity "except that which they proposed to create. In order to liberate mankind from tradition, the revolutionaries were ready to make him altogether the creature of a new society, to reconstruct his very humanity to meet the demands of the general will."

As Stephen Waldman writes in his definitive book on the subject, "Founding Faith," the American Revolution was "powerfully shaped by the "Great Awakening," an Evangelical revival in the colonies in the 1700's. There are books of Christian sermons of the day encouraging the American Revolution. Indeed, it was the very irreligiousness of the French Revolution that would later appall the sensibilities of Americans and British alike, even before the bloodletting began.

Americans celebrate the Forth of July, the date our written demand for independence from Britain based on "Nature's God" was released to the world. The French celebrate Bastille Day, a day when a thousand armed Parisians stormed the Bastille, savagely murdered a half dozen guards, defaced their corpses, stuck their heads on pikes -- all in order to seize arms and gunpowder for more tumults. It would be as if the United States had a national holiday to celebrate the L.A. riots!  No Thanks!

The Way I See It....Patrick Henry's famous quote, "Give me liberty or give me death!" far out ways the French Revolution's famous slogan, "Fraternity or death," which soon became, "Be my brother or I'll kill you."  And even the stark differences in the icons of the two revolutions: the Liberty Bell, first rung to herald the opening of the new Continental Congress and rung again to summon the citizens of Philadelphia to a public reading of the just-adopted Declaration of Independence and the French "Revolution's "national razor" , the guillotine....says it all.

NOTE: Of the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence, all died of natural causes in old age, with the exception of Button Gwinnett of Georgia, who was shot in a duel unrelated to the revolution. Meanwhile, the leaders of the French Revolution all died violently...guillotine by guillotine.

My Take on LOVE & MARRIAGE !

After 40+ years of marriage I have been asked, quite a number of times, to give advice and encouragement to patients who were planning to marry. And since our patients are treated like they are part of our extended family, I loved the opportunity to pass on the benefit of my experience.. Also, my wife and I have been invited to many of our patients nuptials and receptions as part of their extended family.

To make a marriage work, start with a mate you already find ideal. Do not, under any circumstances, find a mate who has problems and believe you can change him or her. You almost never can. How do you know when it will be the right person? I have discovered the "acid-test" of any relationship is whether you are happy with the other's company and happy when you are with that person. So, if you are not happy when you are with your intended, cancel the nuptials today! Again, do not expect to be able to get along being "sort of happy" and "sometimes happy" and "when-he's-in-a-good-mood" happy. That won't work. Get one who you are happy with all of the time.

Do not ever compare your spouse with other girlfriends, spouses or boyfriends. If you feel the need to do that, you probably should not be getting married at all.  Do not find fault. Tolerate him or her as you want him or her to tolerate you. My dad gave this advice about getting married: "Go through life with one eye closed." In other words, "don't sweat the small stuff!" Do not demand a lot from your spouse. Love does not count up how big a house you have or how many fancy cars, boats or fur coats.

I know this really hard for some people, but give your spouse space. If need be, take up running, gym, bicycling, knitting or something that amuses you and keeps you out of each other's hair. No one, not even the most loving couples can deal with being together 24/7.  Also, I suggest you get a mid-large sized, lovable cuddly dog. One for each of you, if you can afford it, to comfort you and warm you when you feel the need. This is far better than searching for other human companionship. Don't do it...just hang with the pooch and you'll be much happier and stress-free.

Love just wants devotion and attention. Do not demand that your spouse be the best looking or the smartest in your circle. IRON LAW: No human is perfect. You will mess up. Your spouse will mess up. Forgive, FORGIVE, F O R G I V E! Nothing on earth has the power of forgiveness in marriage. If it were not for the Godly gift of forgiveness, no marriage would work. Forgiveness, as they say, is really a selfish emotion and act. It helps the forgiver more than the forgiven.

Forget about who is right and who is wrong. What is right is what love and forgiveness tell you to do, not about anything outside of that. Staying married is more important than showing up your spouse in anything. Have a good sense of humor about everything. It's much healthier for you in the long run. It is far better to laugh than cry. Remember this and engrave it upon your heart: Laugh with (not at) your spouse. Do not ever criticize your spouse in front of others. EVER!

The Way I See It....love your wife and your husband as you want to be loved. Love Fully. Love without conditions. Or, as the Old Testament says: "Do not do to others what is hateful to you" which Jesus paraphrased into, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."

Properly enjoyed, marriage is the best device on earth for preserving life, sanity and hope. But use it gently. It works if you work it with love, forgiveness, humor and a dog or two!

Safer Breast Cancer Screening !

Breast cancer is the leading cause of death among women between the ages of 40-55, and the high prevalence has spawned a very lucrative industry; from mammography and other dangerous or invasive testing methods, to "preventative" double mastectomies and cancer drugs.

Much effort is placed on trying to detect cancer at an earlier stage. Unfortunately, the conventional recommendation to get regular mammograms has shown to be more harmful than helpful, as research shows ten times as many women are harmed in some way compared to those whose lives are spared by annual mammograms. Lately, the Australian Breast Cancer Council is advising women to have mammography every other year. They are being cautious with this new information.

For years there has been a better way, but ignored by the medical profession and even more by he radiology profession... it's THERMOGRAPHY.  Thermographic breast screening is brilliantly simple and completely harmless. It's as safe as having your photograph taken. It employs a special camera that measures the infrared heat emitted by your body and translated this information into thermal images. The primary benefits are that Thermography does not require mechanical compression of delicate breast tissue or ionizing radiation on that delicate tissue. The fantastic feature of this examination approach is that it can detect signs of physiological changes due to inflammation and/or increased tumor related blood flow approximately 8-10 years before mammography or a physical exam can detect a mass.! I repeat...changes are seen 8-10 years before traditional exams spot anything!

Gaea Powell, who was previously a radiologist, became a Board Certified Medical Thermographer in California after she lost her mother to breast cancer  at 49, and being told she was at high risk of getting breast cancer herself and needed to have mammograms early. "But I was determined to help myself prevent breast cancer in the first place," says Gaea. " I soon realized that a mammogram would just let me know I already had cancer. I was also concerned about the repeated radiation year after year and then the compression of the breasts. Luckily, in 1995, I discovered thermography and it empowered me to be alerted to physiological changes, so I could try to make changes in an effort to help myself prevent disease."

As mentioned earlier, thermography can indicate the presence of potential cancer nearly 10 years before it would ever show up on a mammogram. Essentially, it detects areas of high inflammation, which can be viewed as a "hot-spot" with cancerous potential. It does not diagnose cancer but it allows you to track your unique temperature data over time. Higher readings indicate higher levels of inflammation, which can lead to cancer and can let you know you need to address that inflammation to avoid deterioration and give that area further evaluation.

The Way I See It....thermography can offer you up to a decade's worth of time to take control of and address your health. This can be profoundly empowering, as opposed to getting a cancer diagnosis when it's already too late to expect a few lifestyle changes to fully address your situation.

By working with a sympathetic integrative practitioner, you can be guided to make the most appropriate changes, depending on your situation. For example, I can give you the following strategies that may be helpful for clearing inflammation out of your body so it will benefit systemically. Here's a few options to employ:
     1) Balancing your hormone levels
     2) Optimizing your vitamin D levels
     3) Lymphatic drainage
     4) Lymphatic massage

Last but not least, Breast Thermography Health Assessment Imaging benefits are proven effective for women of all ages and for all breast densities. It is particularly helpful for women with dense breasts, as they are at a higher risk of both false positives and false negatives due to the limitations mammograms have in imaging dense breast tissue.  Now it is Up to You!

Joe Biden's Wasteful Weekenders !

A year ago, last June, Obama placed his Vice president in charge of a Campaign to Cut Waste, which will "hunt down and eliminate misspent tax dollars in every agency and department across the federal government," according to the White House website.

In an email, Biden told supporters that he was the "new Sheriff in town."  He said that "particularly at a time when we are facing tough decisions about reducing our deficit, it's a no-brainer to stop spending taxpayer dollars on things that benefit nobody."  But behind the scenes, it's a different matter.....the bloody hypocrite!

Every Friday, Biden takes a helicopter designated as Marine Two from the vice president's residence to Joint Base Andrews in Maryland and then hops on Air Force Two to fly back to his home in Delaware. At the end of the weekend, he returns on Air Force Two to Washington. During warm weather, Biden regularly returns to Andrews on the plane (which is a specially configured Boeing 757-200 commercial jet with a crew of 18) on Saturdays to play golf at the Air Force base with President Obama. After the golf game, he flies back to Delaware and returns to Washington on Sunday evening...all at taxpayer expense.

The cost of flying Air Force Two is $22,000 an hour, so each half-hour trip to and from Delaware costs about $10,000. Each golf game costs taxpayers $20,000. At that rate, the annual cost to taxpayers of Joe's weekend trips is well over $1 million! In addition, the Secret Service rents more than 20 condominiums in the Wilmington (Del.) area for agents who must accompany Biden when he goes home. Biden's press office had no immediate comment when this gross wastage came out.

As a U.S. senator, Biden was proud of the fact that he commuted daily by train from his Delaware home to Washington during the week. Amtrak even named the newly renovated Wilmington station the Joseph R. Biden, Jr. Railroad Station. But after taking office as vice president, a Secret Service agent says Biden began the habit of commuting by fare-free government jet on weekends, costing taxpayers close to $4 million so far.

Obama is obviously aware tht Biden is running up a huge government tab for each game of golf he plays with him. When reporters asked if President Obama thinks these costs are appropriate, why he has not questioned Biden in to play golf with him at $20,000 a game and in view of these $1 million a year for weekend trips, whether the vice president should no longer be in charge of cutting government waste, the president's press office offered "No Comment."

The Way I See It....Joe Biden is a Grade A hypocrite! With a salary of $230,700 and the addition of free use of a handsome 9,150-square-foot, three story mansion overlooking Massachusetts Avenue in Washington he should go back to basics and either pay something toward the air fares or get back on that train.

Biden has portrayed himself as a "regular" Joe, a product of a working class family who takes on millionaires and Republicans, who he says are out-of-touch with middle-class Americans. I would say middle-class Americans will soon be out-of-touch with Joe, come November, with his living "high-off-the-hog" without a thought for them.

A Bird Clone Escapes Custody !

While the fear of a mutated virus turning into a pandemic is flouted virtually every year it seems, perhaps a greater concern is the potential for an engineered bioweapon somehow escaping out of the confines of a top level Bioterror lab -- a possibility that seems increasingly credible, when you consider the astounding safety "snafus" that occur from time to time. The recent incident at the Bioterror Germ Lab at the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta is just the latest scare, and it highlights the fact that seemingly unbelievable errors can and do occur, despite all guarantees to the contrary.

According to reports, the $214 million Bioterror Germ Lab has had repeated problems with airflow systems designed to help prevent the release of infectious agents....government documents and internal emails show. While the agency says no one has been infected, a biosafety expert says the problems appear to be major violations of laboratory operating standards.The area of the building with problems involves Biosafety Level 3 labs that can be used for experiments involving anthrax, the SARS coronavirus, monkey pox, dangerous strains of influenza and other microbes that have the potential to be used as bioweapons.

Apparently, working on a clone of the Bird Flu ( H5N1) virus, they mutated it to become 10 times more virulent and turned it into an airborne infection! The air from this research lab in one of the Biosafety Level buildings was being vented into a so-called "clean" area, where visitors are not required to wear protective gear, rather than being filtered and re-circulated. Thankfully, no one was in the area at the time and a new pandemic was averted. But sadly, earlier this year, a vaccine researcher at the Northern California Institute for Research died shortly after being infected with the Neisseria Meningitides bacteria in a similar fashion.

The CDC refused to grant interviews about the problems inside the high-containment labs and animal-holding area of the agency's 11 story Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratory. The records show that other CDC staff have expressed safety concerns about this new deadly virus and recommended that there be a Biosafety Level 4 lab made as the ultimate airflow containment facility.

MORE VACCINE NEWS:  Two former Merck virologists have filed a federal lawsuit against their former employer, alleging Merck overstated the effectiveness of their mumps vaccine, which has cost the US government hundreds of millions of dollars. Merck's mumps vaccine was originally introduced 45 years ago. Since the 1970's it's been part of the notorious trivalent measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine. According to the lawsuit, Merck has defrauded the government by hiding the fact the mumps vaccine had lost effectiveness and is not living up to its claims.

                                   A recent study published in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine brought the issue of highly questionable vaccine trial standards to the fore yet again. It's worth noting that the Human Papilloma Virus vaccine was yet another fast-tracked vaccine, which devastated the lives of thousands of young women and their families since its premature release in the U.S.  India halted HPV vaccine (Gardasil) trials after four girls died and 120 suffered serious side effects. A study into the ethics violations concluded that the vaccinations should not have been undertaken since it was impossible to effectively monitor the efficacy of the vaccine.

The Way I See It....the preceding information should make you aware of the fact that more, and certainly deeper, questions need to be asked when it comes to vaccine safety and efficacy; vaccine trials; and the scientific evidence backing up current claims and recommendations.

Remember that for the most part, most all of the lame-stream media portrays the entire vaccine process as something heroic and vital to the health of our culture, and they will be reluctant to ever promote any news that contradicts this belief. It is vital for you to carefully research ALL sides of the vaccine issue and not merely trust public health authorities, most physicians and the media, as they are largely influenced by massive conflict of interest and collusion. Seek other independent and objective views before you make any decisions about deciding to vaccinate.

Breaking News !  August 10, 2012    A new flu virus related to bird flu is killing seals and could pose a risk to humans. The H3N8 strain was discovered after the death of 162 harbour seals in New England in the U.S. last year. The strain is closely related to one that has been circulating in North American birds since 2002 but, unlike the bird strain, it has adapted to living in mammals. It has also evolved mutations that allow easier transmission and cause more severe symptoms. There is a risk that humans might be exposed to this virus sometime in future.

Climate Science Aussie-Style !

Two weeks ago, Andrew Bolt, a journalist from the Herald Sun Newspapers wrote about this news report on startling claims that global warming threatened Aboriginal communities around Lake Eyre (in bush country north of Adelaide):

      The first stage of University of Adelaide research released today shows that South Australia's Arabunna country, which includes Lake Eyre, is likely to get both drier and hotter in decades to come.  "Temperatures could increase up to 4 degrees Celsius in the this area in the next century, threatening the survival of many plants and animals," says the report.

As Mr Bolt noted then, the curious thing was that temperatures in the area hadn't actually been rising and there were very few Aborigines in "Arabunna country" to affect even if they did. So he checked the membership of the University's Lake Eyre Climate Project.    Guess what he found?

Dr Melissa Nursey-Bray (Lead Researcher)
      Senior Lecturer, Adelaide University, Deputy Director of the Centre for Coastal Research and (get this) Convenor of the Envirnomental Activism Stream for Gender Research.

Dr Deane Fergie
     Senior Lecturer, in Anthropology, Adelaide University, and promoter of the Hindmarsh Island 'Secret Women's Business' claim, after which a Royal Commission investigated and found the claims had been fabricated. It was highly critical of Dr Fergie's report and methodology.

Dr Genevieve Bell
     Director of the User Experience Group, Intel, leading new product strategy championing consumer-centric (?) innovation. Adelaide THINKER (?) in Residence. (sic)

Professor Lester-Irabinna Rigney
     Dean, Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Education, Adelaide University.

Professor Nick Harvey
     Executive Dean of Faculty of Humanities & Social Sciences. Lead Author in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Group II report on Impacts, Adaptations and Vulnerability. Professor Harvey warned that more cyclones (sic), rising sea levels and increased flooding would be the pattern for Australia's coastal communities by 2050.

Dr John Tibby
     Senior Lecturer, Disciple of Geography, Environment & Population, Adelaide University

Dr Veronica Arbon
     Chair: Indigenous Knowledge Systems, Institute of Koorie Education, Deakin University.
     She stated: "Western science is not the only knowledge position in the world, there are others and we can use others. For all people but particularly for Aboriginal people who come from a knowledge system of fundamental relatedness (maybe like lighting a fire without matches ?), it is critical to actually use that in powerful ways to critique and turn back the Western knowledge position on itself to highlight where it is flawed." (I'll use the matches!)

Rob Palmer
     Consultant: Marketing, branding, research and relationship management.

The Way I See It.....this whole bunch are not climatologists but mainly elitist academics with a warmist agenda. They made this farfetched report without giving a thought to the latest documented global climate findings that indicate no significant temperature rise, ice melting, polar bear deaths, coral reef bleaching, ocean level rising or cyclone activity. I need more convincing that this report is the product of science more than idealogy.

Blame-ologists Play With Fire !

Good News!  Last month's Colorado Springs fire which forced 32,000 residents to flee, claimed 2 lives and destroyed 347 homes is now contained. Bad News: Radical environmentalists won't stop blowing hot air on the air waves about this year's infernal season across the West. And the Associated Press (or rather the Activist Press) fanned the fear-mongering torch with an eco-propaganda piece titled "U.S. summer is what global warming will look like."

Al Gore slithered out of the political pondscum to bemoan nationwide heat records and pimp his new "Climate Reality Project," which blames global warming for the wildfire outbreak. He should get some Reality! The idiots at the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) are posting maps with red dots showing the high temperatures across the west and mid-west on their Facebook page with dire warnings. Even the Agriculture Department head Harris Sherman, who oversees the Forest Service was sucked in and claimed to the newspapers: "The climate is changing and these fires are a very strong indicator of that."

The problem is that the actual conclusions of scientists included in the AP's screed don't back up the apocalyptic headline. Just yesterday on the CBS TODAY Show a meteorologist came on to give the weather report and explained what was actually happening. The Polar Jet Stream has moved north and is blocking any Arctic air from entering the United States. He stated; "This is weather....NOT climate. Weather is always variable, freak things happen and this was a local event and not global." A more hedging headline would've been journalistically responsible, but Chicken Little-ism better serves the global warming blame-ologists' agenda.

More inconvenient truths: As the Washington Post noted this week, the National Climatic Data Center shows that "Colorado has actually seen its average temperature drop slightly from 1998 -2011." The TRUTH is that radical green efforts to block logging in national forests since the 1990's are the culprits. Wildlife mitigation experts point to incompetent forest management and militant opposition to thinning the timber fuel supply. Australia had to learn the same lesson after massive forest fires destroyed lives, homes and thousands of areas of forest due to those same Green bastards opposing proper forest management.

Another symptom of green obstructionism; widespread Bark Beetle infestations. The U.S. Forest Service itself reported last year;"
          "During the last part of the 20th Century, widespread treatments in lodgepole pine stands that would have created age class diversity, enhanced the vigor of remaining trees and improved stand resiliency to drought or insect attack -- such as timber harvest and thinning -- lacked public acceptance. Proposals for such practices were routinely appealed and litigated, constraining the ability of the Forest Service to mange what had become large expanses of even-aged stands susceptible to Bark Beetle outbreak and tree death."

The Way I See It....the capitulation to lawsuit-happy deadshit green thugs like Fred Krup (head of the EDF), and others, undermined "public acceptance" of Common Sense, Biodiversity-preserving and lifesaving timber harvest and thinning practices. Local, state and federal officials offered praise to Colorado Springs residents who engaged in preventive mitigation efforts in the neighborhoods. Yet, litigious environmental groups have sabotaged such mitigation efforts at the national level -- in effect --creating an explosive tinderbox out of the West.

Stoking global warming alarms, especially with more scientists discrediting it, may make for titillating headlines and posh Al Gore confabs, but it's the human blame avoidance strategy rooted in ideological extremism and flaming idiocy. Perhaps burning their own headquarters down would give them a real taste of how losing your home really feels.

Michelle Obama's Phony "civilian" Act !

The first lady of the United States (FLOTUS) is on a whirlwind publicity tour for her hefty new food and gardening book ($30), which the White House hopes will bolster Team Obama's favourabilty ratings. I'd say it's a classic recipe for rank campaign hypocrisy and media double standards. While journalists savor chummy chitchats with Mrs. Obama about beets and Beyonce, FLOTUS is once again escaping hard questions about her cronyism, junk science and generous junkets at taxpayer expense.

However, one journalist and the author of Culture of Corruption: Obama and his Team of Tax Cheats Crooks & Cronies (Regnery), Michelle Malkin, points out Michelle's media blitz has already brought her to many daytime Television shows with celebraty status. Even Whoopy Goldberg, on "The View", couldn't help genuflecting in front of such black royalty. Malkin predicts that as soon as the fawning media frenzy dies down and Mrs. Obama's book and royalties rise to the top of the best-seller list, POTUS will go back to claiming that FLOTUS is a "private citizen" who should be left alone. He has long enjoyed invoking selective immunity for Michelle and lapdog reporters have assisted in creating an impenetrable bubble of political protection around this mean, profligate, policy-meddling first lady.

We've seen it all before!  When conservatives challenged Mrs. O's caustic 2008 campaign trail statements disparaging America (similar to the rants of her favorite deadshit preacher, Rev Wright) her hubby invoked the "civilian" shield. He argued that political spouses should not be subject to public scrutiny because they didn't choose public life.That's B.S. And remember Mrs O's lavish vacation in Spain in 2010, when she was accompanied by an entourage of 70 Secret Service agents and 250 Spanish police officers. Boy, did that provoke a massive public backlash and yet again Obama stressed that the first lady was a "private citizen" who should be off-limits to tough questions about her behavior.

Obama's outspoken bitter-half conscientiously and deliberately inserted herself into the public areana long before her move to the White House.....whether it was taking a publicly subsidized job with Chicago's corrupt Mayor Daley, or parlaying a cushy job at the University of Chicago Medical Center, where she oversaw a patient-dumping scheme that benefited her political cronies. Let's not forget that Mrs Obama leveraged her hubby's Senate victory to snag a lucrative seat on the corporate board of directors of TreeHouse Foods, Inc. despite having ZERO experience in that industry. And now just last month she got the head of her Obesity program (her husband's golfing buddy) Dr. Eric Whitaker, a $6 million grant from Obamacare with ZERO independent oversight. Taste the boodle!

Oh yeh..just a humble private mom raising her two daughters while Dad does all that hardball politics stuff. Pshaw. When her garden gloves are off, her political boxing gloves are on. She exploited the bully-pulpit to restrict food advertisers'speech. She helped the Service Employees International Union increase the welfare state by padding membership rolls with more government school workers under the guise of fighting childhood obesity. The stench of cronism hangs over the White House.

The Way I See It....is that when Michelle Obama stops using her public office to push new Big Government power grabs and redistributes wealth to her cronies, stoke racial grievances, and meddle in Obama administration personnel decisions that lead to whistleblower firings like former AmeriCorps Inspector General Gerald Walpin who found millions of dollars were wasted or misspent,....then we'll leave her alone.

Mr. & Mrs. Cranky Pants !

So it turns out that the cool cat billed as "No Drama Obama" by his sycophants is actually quite a drama queen. While the White House publicly pretends to ignore media detractors of his administration of the country, Chief Touchy-Touchy seems to be personally consumed by those critiques.

Back in February, the "Amateur-in-Chief "  had himself a "Toddlers and Tiaras" style meltdown with Arizona Governor Jan Brewer after landing in Phoenix. As Brewer told reporters on the scene, Obama took umbrage at Brewer's recent memoir. She minced no words on the book's cover: Scorpions for Breakfast; My Fight Against Special Interests, Liberal Media and Cynical Politicos to Secure America's Border. And she minced no words describing her impressions of Obama as they sparred over her state's tough immigration enforcement law. Brewer called Obama "condescending". She said, "He was a little disturbed about my book and complained I hadn't 'treated him cordially in it' and stalked off mid-sentence while I was still responding to him."

Journalist, Michelle Malkin mentions two other governors -- Rick Perry of Texas and Bobby Jindal of Louisiana -- have recounted similar presidential snit fits on the tarmac. He sulked over the letter Jindal wrote to Obama about giving Food stamps to Gulf oil spill victims. He bolted after a half-minute meeting with Perry at Austin Airport over border security issues. Perry said, "You know those 'petty grievances' of Washington politics that Obama has long condemned? Now it can be told: He knows whereof he squawks."

As New York Times reporter Jodi Kantor's new book, The Obamas, reveals, the president and his inner circle spent even more time carping about conservatives influence on public opinion. What "galled him" she observed, "was when they gained mainstream credibility in a supposed media that was favourable to him." What was especially galling was the release of a new book by Michelle Malkin called:  Culture of Corruption: Obama and His Team of Tax Cheats; Crooks and Cronies.

Among many allegations, Malkin wrote that Michelle Obama --the President's "bitter half" --was secretly running the country in Lady Macbeth-like fashion. Malkin even took a hatchet to Mrs Obama's long dead father (Fraser Robinson) arguing with evidence that his job at a water plant made him part of the "the Chicago political corruptocracy."  The facts? It was former alderman, Leon Depres, who admitted that Mr Robinson's job in the city water department was a reward for loyalty to Mayor Daly's political faction. The department was "a renowned repository of patronage jobs." That revelation had Michelle blow-her-stack! She was angry for days.

It's the Illinois press that has long documented Mrs Obama's ties to Chicago "machine". It was Kantor herself who spotlighted the First Lady's internecine warfare with her husbands Cabinet. And from her angry meddling and aggressive Big Labor-backed push for a publicly subsidized food police corps. When Oprah Winfrey mentioned she maybe able to help, Michelle rebuffed her with "your over-weightness wouldn't look good for the program" and there has been a spiteful rivalry between them ever since. Mrs Obama has been openly expanding her East Wing fiefdom in Marie Antoinette-like fashion, Kantor reports. Maybe in November we'll see her and her husband get the "chop"!

The Way I See It....it shouldn't take long before we see a FLOUS (First Lady of the United States) tarmac tantrum. We did get two divas for the price of one. As longtime observers of the royal Obamas have long observed: Mr. & Mrs. Cranky Pants' problem has never been the colour of their skin. It's the thinness.

GREENS' Love Lost Over Lovelock!

"Likewise, I say unto you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth", says the Bible.

So let joy be unconfined that one of the world's arch Greenies, James Lovelock, creator of the GAIA hypothesis and therefore the founder of the world's most powerful modern religion -- has come clean and admitted that he got it WRONG with his apocalyptic predictions that billions would like die from man-made climate change by the end of the century. And boy are the Watermelon brigades around the world really pissed off with his being a "traitor to the cause" and that their green drivel has been exposed.

Unlike many "environmentalists," who have degrees in political science, Lovelock, until his recent retirement at age 92, was a much-honoured working scientist and academic. Having observed that global temperatures since the turn of the millenium have not gone up in the way computer-based climate models predicted, while CO2 has risen, he acknowledged, "the problem is we don't know what the climate is doing. we thought we knew 20 years ago." He responds to attacks on his revised views by noting that, unlike many climate scientists who fear loss of government funding if they admit error, as a freelance scientist, he's never been afraid to revise his theories in the face of new evidence. Indeed, he says, "that's how science advances!"

Among his observations given in an interview with the U.K. Guardian newspaper:
     1) He is a long-time supporter of the new-generation nuclear power plants as a way to seriously lower greenhouse emissions safely, which has also made him unpopular with narrow-minded Greenies. After much thought Lovelock has now come out in favour of natural gas fracking (which environmentalists also oppose), as a low-polluting alternative to coal. "It makes me angry with the Greens for try to knock it. Let's be pragmatic and sensible here, we should be going mad for it," he says indignantly.
     2) Lovelock blasted the Greens for treating global warming like a religion. "It just so happens that the Green religion is taking over from the Christian religion. It's an other guilt-trip. You can't win people around by saying they are guilty for putting carbon dioxide in the air."
     3) Lovelock mocks the idea modern economies can be powered by wind turbines. As he puts it, "so-called 'sustainable development'...is meaningless drivel. we rushed into renewable energy without any thought. The schemes are largely hopelessly inefficient. I personlly can't stand windmills at any price and the cost is millions of birds a year!" 
     4) Finally, about the claims "the Science is settled" on global warming: "One thing that being a scientist has taught me is that you can never be certain about anything. You never know the whole truth. You iterate towards the truth. You don't know it."

The Way I See It....I think Mr Lovelock should be now be donating all his royalties from his earlier alarmist bestsellers to help fund those proper, principled, decent scientists around the world, like Fred Singer, Richard Lindzen, Bob Carter, Ian Plimer and Tim Ball, et al, whose careeers have been blighted and whose lives have been made a misery for having said precisely what Lovelock is now admitting, only much, much earlier.

To top off this conversion, perhaps then, using what's left of his cachet among his Greenie Co-religionists to make amends for his sins by calling for the abolition of the corrupt IPCC. Then we can all rejoice in Bibical fashion.

The Man Vladimir Putin Fears Most !

"I am not ready to back away from my views," says the soul & champion of Russia's opposition, Alexei Navalny. The anticorruption blogger and activist has been, in the last 3 months, in the middle of Russia's unexpected political awakening. By the tens of thousands, Russians shed their fear and apathy to protest December's fraud-ridden parliamentary elections and Mr Putin's hold on power. From a crowded stage of opposition figures, Mr Navalny has emerged as the charismatic and fresh face of the movement.

In a repressive regime like that of ex-KBG thug Vladimir Putin, there is a constant struggle between the dictatorship and those who oppose it and try to liberate vital information from a non-transparent apparatus. Alexei is at the vanguard of these "data dissidents." He built a network to reveal the corruption of the Putin regime, relentlessly ferreting and documenting the kleptocracy case by case, with popular outrage as a result.

Apart from his persistence, courage and skill, this 35 year old lawyer possesses the more subtle requirements of leadership in the modern age. His personal charisma is complemented by a sadonic sense of humor that is ideal for puncturing the propoganda of the grey humorless Kremlin. His knack for phasing has branded Putin's United Russia Party as the "Party of Crooks and Thieves" for all time.

He says, "The Kremlin should understand these tens of thousands of people will never leave the streets. We will never consider Putin as a president with legitmacy." Escalation carries risks for the opposition. Confrontation with police and the Kremlin's Nashi Youth shock troops may scare the middle-class Muscovites but many still joined the winter's protests. The Kremlin seems to fear My Navalny most of all the dissident figures because he is so good on digging up dirt on shocky government tendering and purchases. Websites and TV stations friendly to the regime have tried to smear him as a CIA operative or Hitler-like nationalist. He is the sole opposition leader still barred from state-controlled television.

"I'm on the very blackest part of the Black List," says Mr. Navalny. When television host and Putin family friend, Ksenia Sobchak, invited him on her popular MTV show it was yanked off the air---presumably by government orders. "Sometimes it seems to me that there is a small crazy guy in the Kremlin who works for me," Alexei jokes. "Relatively few people watch such shows, but because they banned it, there are millions of Russians now who wonder, 'Who is this guy? Why do they fear him so much?'"


The Way I See It....Alexi's secret weapon is the rapidly rising number of Russians on the Internet. There were an estimated 3 million in 2000 when Putin took power and 35 million in 2008 when his second term ended, and today there are more than 60 million (44% of the population)! His growing audience of Truth seekers is largely but not entirely young, and he has given a voice to millions Russians whose calls for fair elections refute the western critics that often declare the Russians are unsuited for democracy.

I'm sure that idea is at the forefront of Putin's thinking. As his popularity has slid, Mr Putin's rhetoric has hardened. He doesn't see why the past 12 years of  his "sovereign democracy" is not appreciated. "Putin did a lot of good stuff in 1999 until 2003," says Alexei, " but it's obvious now that his system of power is based on corruption and people around him depend only on money and its corrupting influence."

Mr Putin was badly rattled by the Arab uprisings, most of all Gadhafi's fall and murder. Pointing to the dead Libyan leader in a photgraph with Putin, Mr Navalny say, "The historic end of this guy drives Putin crazy. He thinks the only way for him to be alive and healthy and rich is to be president. This latest Czar is 'trapped' by power but we'll be still working hard on keeping the bastard honest!"

The Junk About Junk food !

"Enough of this trash-talk over burgers and fried chicken! There's nutrition to be found in those fast-food joints!" says Bob Lyons, author of Panic on a Plate, How Society Developed an Eating Disorder, which explains why we need to rethink our fast-food fears.

Junk food is Big business. Activists and Health Officials loudly lament the abundance of fast-food joints around the world. If these officials and fine-food lovers are to be believed, this explosion of junk food means we are on the road to Hell. But...does the idea that junk food is less nutritious than "real food" stand up to close examination?

Take the Big Mac meal from McDonald's. The sandwich (burger) contains about 500 calories, including the two thin slices of ground beef and a slice of cheese. The accompanying fries are surprisingly nutritious. French fries contain substantially more vitamin C pound for pound than apples! A portion of fries contains between one-quarter and one-third of the daily requirement of vitamin C for an adult.

Even the ubiquitous tomato ketchup is a surprisingly healthy product, but that shouldn't be surprising since it is essentially concentrated tomatoes with a little vinegar, salt and sugar.According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, 25 grams of ketchup contain 25 calories, barely any fat and about 0.25 grams of sodium...but it also contains 6% of an adult's recommended daily intake of vitamin C and about 4.5% of the vitamin A requirements.

The idea that a McDonald's meal is pretty good nutritionally would obviously send our health guardians into apoplectic fits. Oh yes, in the world of the Food Police, potatoes don't count as vegetables. Image that! But while living on the diet of fast food might mean missing out on one or two nutrients --never mind being a bit tedious -- it is certainly at least as nutritious as the alternatives offered up as superior. For example, how about a nice salad? All those crunchy leaves, a few tomatoes, perhaps some kind of protein like chicken or tuna? Try living on that for a few weeks and watch yourself waste away.

The Way i See It....becoming stick thin and enduring a constant craving for food might be reasonable for a wannabe Hollywood starlet, but it's no way for the rest of s to live. I think a sense of perspective is required on what is and is not a good diet. For example, consider the diets of those who live in developing countries where junk food is unheard of. There, one fod may dominate people's diets, be it rice, bread, corn or cassava. Meat and vegetables asre added when available, but the diet remains limited. Can that be described as better than living off of burgers, French fries, pizza and fried chicken?  Think about it.

Rinehart is More a Brave-Heart !

Which of these makes a more useful contribution to the well-being of the world, would you say?
     a) an industry which creates thousands of (very well-paid) jobs, brings in billions of dollars in export earnings, massively boosts economic growth, contributes greatly to the government's tax revenues and furnishes the world with an incredibly useful product.
     b) an industry which depends for its survival on spreading fear and panic around the world--poisoning the minds of children, warping the outlook of adults--using a mix of junk science and propaganda with a view, ultimately, to slowing economic growth, rationing consumption, stealing your freedoms, increasing taxes and regulation and subverting the democratic process.

Hmmm. Yes, I think so too.
     As Question a)  I present to you the Australian Iron Ore industry.
     As Question b)  I present the environmental industry, as embodied by publicity stunts like Earth Hour (see a previous posting) and anti-jobs, anti-growth activist organisations such as Earth Hour's co-sponsors the World Wildlife Fund and the Environmental Defense Fund. Now which of those two industries would pose the greater threat were it to gain any kind of conrol over a large and influential media organisation?

Yep, assuming your answer was b)...I totally agree with you. The mining industry is bound by any number of regulations and corporate and social responsibilty strictures. It is legally bound to behaving honourably. Furthermore, if ever it were thought to be exploiting its media power by unduly printing thinly disguised propaganda, there would be a bunch of left-leaning, anti-capitalist bastards to jump on it like a ton of bricks (count Julia Gillard in on it too).

On the other hand, the environmental industry, is completely unregulated and, as it has shown time and time again, feels no obligation towards truth, decency or transparency -- not the least because of its sanctimonious belief that its cause is so just that however many lies it tells the noble end more than justifies the means. We have seen examples of this in everything from its exaggeration of the (non-existent) threat to the polar bear population, to the killing of the Great Barrier Reef.

Good. Now we've sorted that one out we're in a better position to understand the significance of Gina Rinehart's move on Fairfax Media. The Australian billionaire, a staunch conservative has branded herself as a "white knight" trying to rescue the ailing---and leftist-leaning Fairfax newspaper group. She has bought a 19% stake in the company and is rightly vying for 3 board seats but the directors want her to sign the company's charter of editorial independence. A statement from her lawyers said, "It was hoped the Mrs Rinehart would be viewed by the board as a successful business person and necessary invigorating force with a mutual interest in a sustainable Fairfax."

The reality is that Fairfax Media really doesn't have a leg to stand on here for ar least three reasons:
     1) Fairfax Media is Broke. The days of publishing two of Australia's biggest papers as a route to profit are long since over. Also its readership seems to have lost interest in its politics and its ass-kissing the Greens ideaology.
     2) In any business, if you buy the controlling interest...you buy the controlling interest. It's your property to do what you will. The idea being put by the Fairfax management and its journalists that there is something unnatural about Gina wishing to have some say about her property would only make sense if you were of the Marxist persuasion.
     3) How can Fairfax possibly strive to present itself as a bastion of unbaised reporting standards when with the World Wildlife Fund it has preached their activist retoric and acted as co-owner and demented cheerleader of Earth Hour? This isn't journalism! This is political activism of the grossest, most embarrassing kind. It's precisely this kind of hippy-dippy, anti-growth, anti-free-market campaigning and scaremongering which led to the hated Carbon Tax, which from today will be doing its bit to hamstring the Australian economy.

The Way I See It....we are seeing our country turning so ignorant, self-hating and wrong that not just thwarted lefty journalists but a host of stupid celebrities actually believe there is some merit in the argument that a failing left-wing media organisation should be permitted by some special dispensation to go on spewing drivel regardless of the bottom line or who owns the business or whether the readership gives a damn anyway.

The fact that we live in the Land of Stupid is precisely what makes Gina Rinehart's move on Fairfax so brave, heroic and so very necessary. It's heroic because so few business people put their money where their mouth is these days, never championing free markets when they can do better via cosy regulatory "stitch-ups" with big government instead. And it's very necessary because the world economy is on the brink of a precipice.

The things that have brought us to the edge of the precipice are getting more and more obvious to the man-in-the-street. It's these things that Gina has spent her business career opposing: over-regulation; destructively high taxes; bureaucracy; government meddling; and insane overspending by the state.

Gina Rinehart is a totally bloody heroine -- and Australia should count itself very lucky to have her. As should those wretched ingrates at Fairfax Media.