The Price of Liberty Is Eternal Vigilance

The Lunatics Are Running the Asylum

When major news media figures can characterize Barack Obama as Burkean then the lunatics are truly in charge. SEE HERE Saul Alinsky'ites like Barack Obama have a good deal more in common with Lenin than with Edmund Burke. We live in times of entitlements. So many government programs have been created with the thought that somehow the government is going to save you from yourself that it is not surprising that the nanny-state is growing out of control.

The problem is that government is just the collective action of the people usually with a particular group elevated to positions of power, the oligarchs as it were. The government produces exactly nothing but commands: "Do this. Do that. Do this other thing." and by the way, pay for it yourself. The wealth that the government disperses must first be extorted from the people. But increasingly the people who command the oligarchs are people that themselves do not pay the taxes for in a Democracy it is only necessary to have a majority or even a plurality to maintain power. When sixty percent of the people are only paying about 3% of all the taxes, then those oligarchs who pretend that the people have entitlements that they don't pay for can continue to exist while everyone parties on except those upon whose backs the party is erected. Over time these weary and fall back into the growing pool of the entitled and then to maintain the party the burden becomes more onerous on the rest. When the tipping point comes the system collapses. The night is far advanced.

If we fail to recover the American spirit of independence and personal responsibility then we go into the night of economic collapse and universal poverty. Watch and be astute. Either we reverse the current trends or we go over the top and down following all the great nations of the past into the dustbin of history.

The Global Warming Fabricators

So exactly what is the deal with global warming? Is it something to really be worried about or not? I'm a physicist but not a climate scientist. I have a friend who has done a lot of work on climate science (he says that all the folks he knows think it is bunk) then I have a former professor who is a distinguished statistician Dr. Edward J. Wegman whose Wegman Report showed statistical deficiencies in the work of Michael E. Mann.

More recent work suggests that the data was cooked by selecting for data that made the case and rejecting other equally reasonable data. That's basically called fudging the result or cooking the data, cherry picking the data, or if you want to really be blunt: being dishonest.

SEE HERE and HERE for some treatment of this issue. The interesting thing is that if you use all the data the hockey stick effect goes away and the data actually goes down. So the whole global warming argument based on this fallacious bit of data starts to look like it is falling apart. Maybe that accounts for the fact that this Summer has been markedly cooler than usual here in the Shenandoah Valley.

Striking Contrast between February and September

The previous post is using a February 2009 YouTube to illustrate the Tea Party movement. The crowd was relatively small. But it was much larger at the Tea Party's around the nation that occurred in April and the movement continued to build and the 912 turn out in Washington was estimated at 1.7 million by reliable sources. SEE HERE
The reports varied wildly from 60 to 70 thousand to two million or more. How does one discover the truth and does it matter? Well I think to answer the second question first, it certainly matters when we're lied to by the media. It is clear that the turn out was vastly larger than "tens of thousands" as some media reports claimed. Whether it was the largest turn out ever is Washington I don't know, but some Park Service personnel were quoted as saying that. There is also supposed to be a study by people at the University of Illinois which claims 1.7 million but I have not seen the study. Moreover there are plenty of people debunking all the figures, here's an amusing example. SEE HERE So go figure. It was big. So the Tea Party Movement is not done. The obvious question is "What next?" If our masters (ur leaders ... hmmm... ) think we can just be rolled over and taken over, maybe we need a lot more moxy. My own opinion used to be summed up in the quip: "Aren't you glad you don't get as much government as you pay for?" But lately the government seems to be trying to catch up and that is scary.

Some Tea Party Coverage As The Beat Goes On

I don't know if you've gotten involved in the Tea Party movement. I first made note of it back in April when I went down to Court Square in Harrisonburg to see what was going on with these T.E.A. (Taxed Enough Already) people. I found a eclectic group of people who were just tired of being the butt of government. Every time you turn around there are more taxes for more unconstitutional stuff that government has dreamed up to make itself bigger, "Enough Already."

With the election of the current White House incumbent we got a whole lot more than we bargained for. We have government intrusion in monumental proportions into the auto industry, the banking industry, the health care industry and the energy industry. This isn't the change anyone voted for except for a few far left marxists. But it is the change that is going to be rammed down your throat if you don't do something about it.

America is about individual freedom and opportunity. It is not about collectivism and socialism. But if you don't do something you will shortly discover a whole new America and you won't like it. Tyranny Rising!

Koolaid Drinkers Out In Force

Whatever is happening in national politics it is going to shake things up. Here we have a video of the usual suspects arranging a circular firing squad for the Republican Party and the Conservative Movement in general. The problem of course is that the Democrats are the party of namecalling and big government and the Republicans are the Party that hasn't really got a focus except occasionally because it is a loose coelition of semi-liberals, fiscal conservatives, and people who really care about moral values. They can only make a partical common cause because they are all more principled than the name calling power grabbers.

The fact that our government and political arena is reduced to this is tragic. Glenn Beck and Mark Levin are principled people who are blowing the horn on this fiasco, so they have to be marginalized and turned into proto-racists, nutjobs ... and who to do that job better than the card-carrying name callers and power grubbers of the liberal koolaid drinking media. The night is far advanced and we do not know what tomorrow brings. Hopefully some of these folks are going to wake up and start acting like statesmen. I wouldn't hold my breath though. That's a recipe for turning purple and passing out. Instead you should start planning to vote them all out. We need a new start. This pile of dung is pathetic.

The First Narcissists Continue Their Sacrifices for the Little People

SEE HERE It is rather hard to imagine a more self-absorbed pair that Barack and Michelle Obama. So far we've seen then jetting off on fabulous dates to New York, the UK, Europe, and now we find them in Copenhagen touting the Chicago bid for the Olympics. Frankly this hardly seems to be presidential business. One can only imagine the outrage the media would have expressed if President Bush had been using his office in this manner, especially as the Afghanistan conflict enters sensitive times and the commander on the ground is appealing for more commitment. You have to wonder at the priorities of the White House occupants that send out of pizza chefs and wine and dine themselves in luxury while saying what a great sacrifice it is. I think I'll go sacrifice myself and have filet mignon at my local steak house and maybe a glass of wine. I know it's not up the standards the first family are setting, but then I don't have Air Force One to jet myself around the world on a whim.