Willful Ignorance, Willful Blindness

While we in the US are caught up in our own drama of a president sipping beer with morons, trying to socialize medicine, and tumbling in his approval ratings to sub-Jimmy Carter levels, a reminder comes to us from south of the border as to how precious our still yet existant freedoms really are.

"Venezuela's top prosecutor insisted Thursday that freedom of expression in Venezuela "must be limited" and proposed legislation that would slap additional restrictions on the country's news media. The new law would punish the owners of radio station, television channels and newspapers that have attempted to "cause panic" and "disturb social peace," Attorney General Luisa Ortega said."

Hugo Chavez is increasingly discarding any pretense of anything other than moving his country toward an oil-rich version of Cuba that in no way has the best interests of the United States at heart. Make no mistake about it, Argentina's de Kirchner, Brazil's Lula da Silva, Ecuador's Correa, Bolivia's Morales, and to a lesser extent Chile's Bachalet are all "brothers and sisters below the skin". I think that they all realize that Chavez is the epitomy of a banana republic dictator who almost resembles a parody of a head of state rather than a real one and they try to distance themselves from him when he starts spouting off too much Marxism too soon.

In a related article, Sen Richard Lugar (R, Indiana) is requesting that Sec. State Hillary Clinton explain the administration's policy of attempting to "reinstate a left-wing government in Honduras" according to the article. After all, ousted Honduran president Manuel Zelaya, a Hugo Chavez toady, was only ousted after trying to make himself president for life using ballots printed in (where else?) Venezuela . I understand the guy was democratically elected but then again, so was Adolf Hitler.

UPDATE: True to his word, Chavez has now officially closed 13 of the 34 stations that were to go off the air as of today (Saturday). Chavez was quoted as saying ""We've recovered a bunch of stations that were outside the law, that now belong to the people and not the bourgeoisie". What other evidence is needed that this maleducated hillbilly is trying to foment class-envy every bit as vitriolic as The Nazis or certain members of the Democrat party?

Romney: Mr. President, what's the rush?

Today's guest columnist in USA TODAY is non other than former Massachussetts Governor Mitt Romney.

"Because of President Obama's frantic approach, health care has run off the rails. For the sake of 47 million uninsured Americans, we need to get it back on track. Health care cannot be handled the same way as the stimulus and cap-and-trade bills. With those, the president stuck to the old style of lawmaking: He threw in every special favor imaginable, ground it up and crammed it through a partisan Democratic Congress. Health care is simply too important to the economy, to employment and to America's families to be larded up and rushed through on an artificial deadline. There's a better way. And the lessons we learned in Massachusetts could help Washington find it."

I make no bones about my preferred candidate in 2012. Let me try to head off any criticisms by stating that I think that Romney is the least-flawed out of any potential front-runners for the GOP, not any sort of "ideal candidate". Insofar as a possible solution the nation's health care matters, I believe that Health Savings Accounts are probably the best way to provide coverage to people, are portable in the event of changing jobs and could help keep prices down. Any other viewpoints on this important subject are welcome to be aired out here.

Colombia: FARC arms traced to Venezuela

I hate to keep harping on this like a broken record, but CNN is reporting that a recent seizure of weapons from left-wing, marxist paramilitary rebels FARC (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarios de Colombia) can be traced back to our "friends" in Venezuela.

"Shoulder-launched anti-tank weapons purchased by Venezuela have ended up in the hands of guerillas, Colombian Vice President Francisco Santos said. In an interview with Caracol Radio on Monday, Santos addressed local reports of anti-tank weapons manufactured in Sweden being seized from members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, and traced to Venezuela. "This is not the first time"....Santos said. The weapons have been identified as AT-4 shoulder-fired rockets manufactured by Saab Bofors Dynamics of Sweden according to Jane's Defence Weekly."

Great, just what we need. With North Korea and Iran getting a free pass to do anything they want, what demotivator exists for Venezuela to curb it's plans to expand it's circle of influence and spread socialism throughout the hemisphere?

What keeps me up at night

This week's installment from Warren E. Williams raises some interesting questions concerning the creme de la creme of our armed forces' cadre of officers.

"Let's go over what the Naval Academy sees as an artificial achievement barrier. A black candidate with B and C grades, with no particular leadership qualities, and 500 on both portions of the SAT, is virtually guaranteed admittance. A white student, who's not an athlete, with such scores is deemed not qualified.... Many black students are admitted to the Naval Academy through remedial training at the Naval Academy Preparatory School (NAPS) in Newport, R.I., which is a one-year post-secondary school. Finishing the year with a 2.0 GPA, a C average, almost guarantees admission to the academy. A C average for remedial work is nothing to write home about. Occasionally, when students don't make the 2.0 GPA target, the target is renegotiated downward. Minority applicants with SAT scores down to the 300s and with Cs and Ds grades (and no particular leadership or athletics) are also admitted after a remedial year at the Naval Academy Preparatory School. "

Speaking as someone who didnt have the best grades in the world, I can't say that it's a bad thing that less qualified students are given a year to try and catch up with the others in their class. It's just that I never realized that the bar would be lowered so much as to allow nearly anyone with the ability to read these words the shot at attending such a prestigious school simply because of race. With the world becoming more and more dangerous, this makes about as much sense as allowing unqualified candidates receive firefighter jobs due to the supposed neeed to fill quotas. (or "goals" as they are now known by the Michael Bloomberg set.

Taking care of Number 1

This entry finds yours truly a bit under the weather. I had cold-flu like symptoms for 9-10 days and they werent getting any better. I was taking good over-the-counter medications, hot tea with lemon and hot soups to no avail. My doctor determined that I had an infection in my system and that's why the symptoms were persisting. Now I'm on an anti-biotic along with a powerful prescription-strength cold medicine. If I hadnt gone to the doctor's office yesterday, who knows how long I would have prolonged my misery?

All of this happens just a few days after tragedy struck at my workplace. A certain co-worker, Marc, had persistant bronchitis for awhile. He kept putting off getting treatment for it. By the time he had gone to the doctor for help, his bronchitis developed into double-pneumonia and he had to be admitted to the hospital. He lay lingering on a respirator for a couple of weeks and just last Tuesday afternoon, he died. He was relatively young (about 50) and was just now renewing his interests in the great outdooors, hunting and fishing.

We all get sick. All too often, we know people who take advantage of calling in sick too frequently and abuse sick time. Nobody is a better barometer of your personal well-being than you. If something doesnt seem right, seek medical attention ASAP. The life you save just may be your own. Now you know why they say hypo-chondriacs live the longest. :-)

Finally some foresight

It seems that when it comes to one of the more troublesome areas of the world that happens to be right in our own backyard, pragmatism is carrying the day.

"Colombian President Alvaro Uribe said Monday that his government is aiming to reach an agreement for what defense officials say would be the use of three airfields and two navy bases by U.S. forces...."Some third countries have expressed some concern regarding the agreement. We have always said that this agreement applies exclusively to Colombia," (Colombian Foreign Minister Jaime) Bermudez said. "We are going to end drug trafficking and terrorism. That way, we Colombians are going to be free, but we are also going to guarantee security for the entire region."

Finally, it would appear that one of the biggest threats to our (US) security that is located on our side of the Atlantic is being taken seriously. When reports come out about Hugo Chavez getting chummy with Hamas and Iran then it's time to seriously consider our options in the region. Thank God for the clear-headed thinking of President Uribe on this matter. The last time I went to Venezuela I saw the mosques going up in a previously (overwhelmingly) Catholic nation. Not that it means anything in and of itself, but forewarned is forearmed.

Brother Mychal tells it like it is

This week's column by Mychal Massie was well thought out and very well presented. From that article...

"Maybe having Congress and the White House involved in the automobile industry wouldn't be such a bad idea – because if they pushed cars like they are pushing the climate bill, the auto industry would be poised for unprecedented growth. "

Amen brother, please continue. Whoever thought it was a good idea to have the government get involved with the auto industry rather than letting them, on their own, make the tough decisions that would put them back on the road to profitablility, need only examine how well the government runs other such models of efficiency like Social Security and Medicare.

"Sen. Barbra Boxer, D-Calif., claims that if the Senate doesn't pass a bill to cut global warming there will be dire results of biblical proportions: both droughts and floods (she wants the bases covered), fires, agricultural losses, loss of species and worsening air pollution."

This in spite of the fact that recent reports indicate that the globe is cooling rather than warming. This recent article from no less a right-wing think-tank than USA TODAY would raise the possibility that the climate models used to predict global-warming are all wrong.

"David Deming wrote, "This is not science – it's religion. It takes faith to believe in global warming. You need to pretend the sun is not the major factor in how warm the earth is at any given time. You need to pretend that your choice of light bulb can really impact the temperature of the planet. You need to pretend that buying carbon credits from Al Gore will actually save the planet."

And let's see a show of hands. How many people believe that the so-called "carbon credit" business is anything other than a complete and utter fraud? Using a common search engine I typed in the words [carbon credits fraud] and got about 300,000 hits, including this one from the NY Times stating that "reports of fraud and abuse are piling up."

Kudos to Massie for mentioning that Weather Channel founder, John Coleman described global warming as a " 'manufactured crisis' by dastardly scientists with environmental and political motives who have manipulated long-term scientific data to create an illusion of rapid global warming." See Weather Channel founder: Warming 'greatest scam in history'.

I've long believed that the leftist-globalist cabal would have had MUCH better success trying to advance their agenda by approaching it from a air-water quality angle rather than something more easily disproved like AGW.

Gettin' "Wiki" with it

It seems that some of the people who edit for Wikipedia are coming on board with Joseph Farah's "Where's the Birth Certificate?" campaign.

"The free, online encyclopedia written and edited entirely by its users this weekend displayed at least two countries the commander in chief may have been born in – the United States and Kenya....To date, Obama has not revealed his original long-form, hospital-generated "Certificate of Live Birth" that includes details such as the name of the medical facility and the doctor who delivered him."

Whether or not you believe he was born in the US or in Kenya, I think it's a bad idea to let the respective parties vett their own candidates. That being said, if someone accused you of not being a citizen, wouldnt you just go ahead and prove them wrong if for no other reason, to put the entire matter to rest once and for all?

The inevitable "Hitler" comparisons

Today, while over at Makarios' blog, I came across the usual claptrap about how Hitler was supposedly a "Christian". Hitler was many things, however him being a practicing Christian is not one of them. Why doesnt anyone who really wants to examine the question with an open mind ever look at what he did rather than focus upon any sort of church attendence that he might have had in his youth? This should settle the entire matter in a heartbeat, however for the anti-God set, this would be too easy. Better to just find a few obscure quotes from when he was running for office and would have said anything rather than give up the poster-child of atheistic relativism. VD asked a good question awhile back over at his blog that I still havent heard a good answer to. If Hitler was such a committed Christian, why did he grow up to be somebody who tried to destroy both the Catholic and Protestant churches of Germany?

Today while surfing the net I came across this webpage that has an abundance of information on the subject should anyone so desire. In addition to links for the OSS papers prepared for the Nuremburg Trials that proved beyond a shadow of a doubt what the Nazis were trying to do, I came across the following quotation from Nazi henchman Martin Bormann.

"The Christian churches have long been aware that exact scientific knowledge poses a threat to their existence. Therefore, by means of such psuedo-sciences as theology, they take great pains to suppress or falsify scientific research....No one would know anything about Christianity if pastors had not crammed it down his throat in his childhood. The so-called loving God by no means reveals the knowledge of His existence to young people, but amazingly enough and despite His omnipotence, He leaves this to the efforts of a pastor. When in the future our youth no longer hear anything about this Christianity, whose doctrine is far below our own, Christianty will automatically disappear."

Now I ask you dear friends, who does the above sound more like? Richard Dawkins and the "New Atheists" or Billy Graham and Bishop Fulton Sheen?

UPDATE: While reading over NUMEROUS articles on the subject these last couple of days, I came across a passage that, I think, sums up this subject very well. From adherents.com

"On occaison we have read people claim that "Hitler was a Catholic" or "Hitler was a Christian" in a meaningful way implying that Christianity or Catholicism was the primary impetus for the Nazi Reich. Such claims are simply vitriolic attacks occaisionally voiced by ideologically anti-Christian, anti-Semite or pro-Nazi people. Historians agree that Hitler was pointedly anti-Christian. we are not aware of any published sources from acknowledged academic historians or writers that identify Adolf Hitler as significantly Catholic or Christian in his motivations as an adult. If anybody writes to us to point out such resources, we will be happy to cite them and refer to them here."

I think that the above summation is one we can all agree on. (Except perhaps NGITS) Link to the cited article.

"

A tangled web

It's the title of today's thought-provoking article from Thomas Sowell.

"In other words, if group X doesn't pass a test nearly as often as group Y, then there is something wrong with the test, according to this reasoning or lack of reasoning. This implicitly assumes that there cannot be any great difference between the two groups in the skills, talents or efforts required.... Does anybody seriously doubt that blacks usually play basketball better than whites? Does anybody seriously doubt that the leading cameras and lenses in world have long been produced by Germans and Japanese? Or that Jews have been over-represented among the top performers in various intellectual fields?...In a number of countries, powerless minorities have so outperformed the dominant majority that group preferences and quotas have been instituted to favor the majority group that has otherwise been unable to compete. This has happened in Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Nigeria and Fiji, among other places. Before World War II, quotas to benefit the majority were common in a number of European universities, where Jewish students outperformed others. "

Never could I imagine that the left would nominate someone so supremely unqualified as Sotomayor for the SCOTUS. Even with the numbers needed in the Senate to pass her confirmation, it still seems like it's far from a done deal and the Obamunists just might have a nice little suprise when the vote is finally taken.

And the Plot Thickens........

I think that this report from the Washington Examiner really hits home what is occurring in Honduras.

To cover the basics, the former president of Honduras, Jose Manuel Zelaya, made a bid to form a referendum allowing him to be president for life, a la Hugo Chavez. Zelaya ran into a problem though: Honduras' constitution and it's government which didnt allow for the president to make a constitutional rewrite. That power, as Mary O'Grady points out in the Wall Street Journal lays with the Honduran Congress.

Rather than being a voice of reason and a beacon of liberty, the Obama administration is exercising selective myopia when reporters start throwing around the words "coup" and "Central America" in the same sentence. When one begins really examining the relavent issues as to why he (Zelaya) was removed it becomes clear the the legislative and judicial branches of the Honduran government were doing EXACTLY the right thing by removing him from office.

Now it appears the the jet that is attepting to return Zelaya to Tegucigalpa is of Venezuelan origen. What were you expecting? The Swiss Guards to accompany the guy?

UPDATE: Rep Thaddeus McCotter (R-MI) is seeking assurances from the Obama administration that "U.S. intelligence or law enforcement agencies have no information implicating officials of the Honduran administration of Manuel Zelaya, including Mr. Zelaya himself, in the transit of illegal narcotics through Honduran territory or in any other ties to drug trafficking" It just gets better and better people.

Party at The Grove

I was out of town for a week and held a sort of "Welcome to the Family" get together for the new Mrs. and a couple of members of her family with a whole host of members of my family. I rented a few pavilions in a private picnic grove that I have fond memories of as a youngster back in 1972. The only problem with the facilities was that nothing had been updated since before 1972. It all worked out in the end and at least there was alot of open areas and things for the young kids to run around and do. So what exactly does one provide when a group of Haitians and rural middle-class whites are meeting together for the first time? I settled on hamburgers and hot dogs for the young-uns and Jerk (Jamaican style) BBQed chicken for the adults. Everybody brought a covered dish and the menu went well. Insofar as any sort of imbibed spirits were concerned, I chose the following.....

Beer, (Venezuelan) Polar, pilsner

Beer, (Guatamalan) Famosa, lager

Rum, (Haitian) Barbancourt

And of course, cousin "Jack" came through and provided another rum de Venezuela

Rum (Venezuela) Cacique

All of this went down well for all concerned if feedback is to be believed. Thanks to Danny, Mike and Dear Old MOM for helping put together a real hootin'-anny that will be talked about for years to come.