The Happy Carpenter

Happy birthday, Mighty Mo!

Happy birthday to you!

Happy birthday to YOU!

Happy BIRTHDAY dear Moooo-oooom!

Happy birthday to you!!!!!

What else would we get?

Pete DuPont again:

Speaker-to-be Nancy Pelosi has indicated she would like to put Rep. Alcee Hastings of Florida in charge of the House Intelligence Committee. As a federal judge, he was impeached in the House by a 413-3 vote, and removed from the bench by the Senate for bribery, corruption, and perjury. Rep. Hastings would lead the oversight of America's antiterrorism policies.

Recall the earlier post from my favorite Lefty, Rob, in which he advocated removing incompetent judges from the bench.  I don't suppose he thought that meant reassigning them to the Chairmanship of important House committees.

Do you?

If not, VOTE REPUBLICAN.

Haircut of the Year

What would we get?

Pete DuPont says:

Every Democratic senator on the Environment and Public Works Committee voted against allowing the building of new oil refineries on closed military bases.

If you can't build them on closed military bases, you can't build them anywhere, here.  They're building refineries now, in India, which isn't totally a bad thing.  I mean, it's better to be dependent on Indians than on Arabs, yes, but wouldn't it be a lot better to be independent? 

To be independent, you have to have your own capacity.  Yes, oil refineries are messy, but if we're Citizens of the World, isn't it better to put oil refineries in countries with acute environmental awareness than not?  If you truly care about the environment, shouldn't we want as much industry in the first world as possible?  That's a question American greenies never ask.  They're too busy being BANANAs - Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything.

Most American greenies are Democrats.

Vote Republican.

Told you so

From the New York Times:

WASHINGTON, Oct. 21 — The Bush administration is drafting a timetable for the Iraqi government to address sectarian divisions and assume a larger role in securing the country, senior American officials said.

Details of the blueprint, which is to be presented to Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki before the end of the year and would be carried out over the next year and beyond, are still being devised. But the officials said that for the first time Iraq was likely to be asked to agree to a schedule of specific milestones, like disarming sectarian militias, and to a broad set of other political, economic and military benchmarks intended to stabilize the country.

Although the plan would not threaten Mr. Maliki with a withdrawal of American troops, several officials said the Bush administration would consider changes in military strategy and other penalties if Iraq balked at adopting it or failed to meet critical benchmarks within it.

It's about time.  The downside for the Iraqis, at first, should not be our withdrawing troops.  Instead, we should bill for them at 10% profit.  The profit should be given to the families of the fallen and to the wounded.  Freedom isn't free.  Wasn't free for us.  Shouldn't be for them.

Not only judges and the war -- in the long run, THIS may be the most important reason to vote Republican

We're rich.  We can afford all kinds of nonsense.  Most of the world cannot, and there's got to be a limit to how much misdirected effort we can tolerate.  This is important, dammit:

Every snowstorm, hurricane, deluge or drought generates headlines, horror movies and television specials, demanding action to avoid imminent climate catastrophe. Skeptics are pilloried, labeled "climate criminals," and threatened with "Nuremberg-style war crimes trials." Britain's Royal Society has demanded that ExxonMobil stop funding researchers who say global warming is primarily the result of natural forces. Meanwhile, scientist James Hansen received $250,000 from Teresa Heinz-Kerry for insisting that warming is due to humans, and "socially responsible" investor services refuse to list or recommend corporations they deem insufficiently sensitive on the subject.

Not surprisingly, companies from Wal-Mart to BP, GE and JP Morgan have brought climate activists into their board rooms, lobbied Congress for climate and ethanol legislation, and retooled to produce new product lines intended to boost tax subsidies, favorable PR and profits. But are these actions socially responsible or in the best interests of society as a whole?

Asserting "the science is settled" ignores the debate that still rages. Proclaiming that "climate change is real" ignores Earth's constant, natural warming and cooling. Vikings raised crops and cattle in Greenland 1000 years ago, while Britons grew grapes in England. Four hundred years later, the Vikings were frozen out, Europe was gripped in a Little Ice Age, and priests performed exorcisms on advancing Swiss glaciers. The globe warmed in 1850-1940, cooled for the next 35 years, then warmed slightly again.

Detroit experienced six snowstorms in April 1868, frosts in August 1869, a 98-degree heat wave in June 1874, and ice-free lakes in January 1877. Wisconsin's record high of 114 degrees F in July 1936 was followed five years later by a record July low of 46. In 1980, five years after Newsweek's "new little ice age" cover story, Washington, DC endured 67 days above 90 degrees.

Studies by National Academy of Sciences, NOAA, Danish and other scientists continue to raise inconvenient truths that question and contradict catastrophic climate change theories, computer models and assertions. The "hockey stick" temperature graph (which claimed 1990-2000 was the hottest decade in 1000 years) was shown to be invalid; the Southern Hemisphere has not warmed in the past 25 years; the US is yet to be hit by a major hurricane in 2006; interior Greenland and Antarctica are gaining ice mass, not losing it; and Gulf Stream circulation has not slowed, as claimed in 2005.

Other recent studies conclude the sun's radiant heat and cosmic ray levels affect planetary warming and cloud formation more strongly than acknowledged by climate alarmists. That's logical. Why would natural forces that caused climate change and bizarre weather in past centuries suddenly stop working?

Why would we assume (as many climate models do) that energy, transportation and pollution control technologies will suddenly stagnate at 2000 levels, after the amazing advances of the previous century? And can we afford the Quixotic attempt to stall or prevent future climate change?

Just the current Kyoto Protocol could cost the world up to $1 trillion per year, in regulatory bills, higher energy costs and lost productivity. That's several times more than the price tag for providing the world with clean drinking water and sanitation - which would prevent millions of deaths annually from intestinal diseases.

Over 2 billion of the Earth's citizens still do not have electricity, to provide basic necessities like lights, refrigeration and modern hospitals. Instead they breathe polluted smoke from wood and dung fires, and die by the millions from lung diseases. But opposition to fossil fuel power plants, in the name of preventing climate change, ensures that these "indigenous" lifestyles, diseases and deaths will continue.

Opposition to hydroelectric projects (damming rivers) and nuclear power (radioactive wastes) likewise perpetuates endemic Third World poverty. So would a new European Union proposal to tax imports from China, India and other poor countries that are exempt from the Kyoto Protocol, because this gives them an "unfair trade advantage" over EU countries that are struggling to meet their Kyoto #1 commitments.

But UK Climate Change Minister Ian Pearson insists that climate change "is one of the most pressing issues facing countries in sub-Saharan Africa." And environmental zealots blame malaria rates on climate change, to deflect charges that their callous opposition to insecticides is killing African babies.

Elsewhere, government and private studies calculate that the Protocol would cost the United States up to $348 billion in 2012. The average American family of four would pay an extra $2,700 annually for energy and consumer goods, and in US minority communities, the climate treaty would destroy 1.3 million jobs and "substantially affect" standards of living.

Yet, even perfect compliance with Kyoto would result in Earth's temperature being only 0.2 degrees F less by 2050 than under a business-as-usual scenario. Assuming humans really are the culprits, actually controlling theoretical global temperature increases would require 40 Kyoto treaties - each one more restrictive, each one expanding government control over housing, transportation, heating, cooling and manufacturing decisions. (This is the real motive behind the madness -- The Happy Carpenter.)

The real danger is that we will handcuff economies and hammer poor families, to promote solutions which won't solve a problem that the evidence increasingly suggests is moderate, manageable and primarily natural in origin.

The real catastrophe is that we are already using overwrought claims about a climate cataclysm to justify depriving Earth's most impoverished citizens of electricity and other modern technologies that would make their lives infinitely better.

Real ethics and social responsibility would weigh these costs and benefits, foster robust debate about every aspect of climate change, ensure continued technological advancement, and give a seat at the decision table to the real stakeholders: not climate alarmists - but those who have to live with the consequences of decisions that affect their access to energy, health, hope, opportunity and prosperity.  (emphasis added)

One party, the Democrats, is completely around the bend on this stuff.  The other is distressingly wobbly.  Wobbly is better than crazy.  Vote Republican.

From TownHall via Greenie Watch.

What does the best of the opposition plan?

Regular readers of The Happy Carpenter are familiar with my favorite lefty, Rob of Emphasis Added.  What are his plans for Democrat action after a, heaven forefend, Democrat electoral victory?

What does that mean? Scorched earth.

• Expose and expel their corrupt Congressmen.
• Jail the corporate criminals and put up strong barriers to choke off the flow of industry money into the coffers of the Congressional GOP.
• Remove unqualified judges from the bench and block new appointments until Bush leaves office.
• Reinstitute the Equal Time policy to get their lying gasbag propagandists off the public airwaves.
• Tax the fundie churches to their knees and bust their fraudulent faith-based non-profits that funnel money into GOP political organizing.
• Redistrict their gerrymandered seats and put in ironclad transparency measures for fair elections.
• And, oh yeah, impeach their President and Vice-President and send Donald Rumsfeld to

  the Hague

  as a war criminal.  (formatting added.)

Let's look this over.

"Expose & expel their corrupt Congressmen."  I'm all in favor of that.  Let's get rid of all of the corrupt ones, and the perverts, and the sexual abusers.  That's what Republicans do when they expose them.  On the other hand, by now we've all learned what Democrats become to themselves when their perversion or corruption in found -- heroes to their party.

"Jail the corporate criminals..."  Yes, let's.  This shouldn't be a partisan issue.  Let's jail all the criminals, and while we're at it, let's not be in a big hurry to restore their voting rights.

"... and put up strong barriers to choke off the flow of industry money into the coffers of the Congressional GOP."  No, sorry.  First, that's not accurate; the Republicans raise more of their money from small grass roots contributions than the Democrats.  It's the Democrats who get more of their money from big donors.  There's nothing wrong with that, per se, but let's be clear about the facts.  Second, there's no reason people in corporations should be politically hamstrung -- first amendment and all that. 

"Remove unqualified judges from the bench and block new appointments until Bush leaves office."  Well, here you just have to acknowledge that the Left's and the Right's views of proper judicial philosophy are so different that any judge who is "qualified" by one set of criteria is automatically unqualified by the other.  It's what elections are about.  I seriously doubt that any judge has been confirmed who is unqualified in the strict sense of the word.  Removing judges is a pipe dream; it ain't gonna happen.  However, "Block new appointments until Bush leaves office"  is exactly what they've been trying to do since the President was first elected.  Since the left doesn't hold executive power, they want to block it.  And they will, if they win.

"Reinstitute the Equal Time policy to get their lying gasbag propagandists off the public airwaves."  It's amazing, but Lefties like Rob really don't believe the Old Media is slanted their way.  Really, they don't.  They can't compete over the airwaves (is Air America still on the air anywhere?  Have they passed that Carribean music station in the New York City ratings competition yet?) so they'll try to stifle our free speech.  This effort will go nowhere, but their efforts will be quite revealing.

"Tax the fundie churches to their knees and bust their fraudulent faith-based non-profits that funnel money into GOP political organizing."  I guess the Left is perfectly willing to use their favorite government power, taxation, to choke those whom they disagree with, especially if their victims believe in God.  I'm not sure what Rob thinks is fraudulent about the faith-based non-profits, and I don't know why the faithful should be denied their right to contribute to the party they think represents their interests best.  If the Democrats are anti-Christian, that's their problem.  Voters have noticed.  Not all can be fooled all the time.

"Redistrict their gerrymandered seats and put in ironclad transparency measures for fair elections."  Pay back's a bitch.  After common sense and fairness was thrown out the window by the Democrats in order to manufacture black representatives -- you've seen maps of districts snaking along miles of interstate right of way -- now the Democrats complain that gerrymandering is bad?  Well, I agree.  In an atmosphere of patriotic cooperation, should such an atmosphere ever exist, then I guess we can fix this.  Until then, the party that wins elections is going to keep gerrymandering.  Winning elections is important.  And "redistrict their gerrymandered seats"?  What about your gerrymandered seats, Rob?  Think you can get the Congressional Black Caucus to go along with your plan to end gerrymandering?

"And, oh yeah, impeach their President and Vice-President and send Donald Rumsfeld to the Hague as a war criminal."  Yes, he's serious. 

And that's from a nice Democrat.  Defeat the Democrats.  It matters.

On growing older

I feel like my body has gotten totally out of shape, so I got my doctor's permission to join a fitness club and start exercising.
I decided to take an aerobics class for seniors. I bent, twisted, gyrated, jumped up and down, and perspired for an hour. But, by the time I got my leotards on, the class was over.

Thanks, Mighty Mo.

Even an old hog finds a nut now and then

And no pundit hog is older than George "Bow Tie" Will.  If you're a Republican thinking of sitting out this election (Aunt Betty), then read this and maybe re-think your opinion of profligate Republicans.

• But Clinton-as-Cassandra should not persuade college students to abandon their quest for diplomas: The unemployment rate among college graduates is 2 percent.
• But since the Bush tax cuts went into effect in 2003, the economy's growth rate (3.5 percent) has been better than the average for the 1980s (3.1) and 1990s (3.3). Today's unemployment rate (4.6 percent) is lower than the average for the 1990s (5.8) -- lower, in fact, than the average for the last 40 years (6.0). Some stall.
• The recent 20 percent decline of the cost of a barrel of oil, from a nominal record of $78.40 (which, adjusted for inflation, was well below the 1980 peak of $92 in 2006 dollars), has produced an 81-cent decline in the average cost of a gallon of regular gasoline in 70 days. For consumers, that is akin to a tax cut of more than $81 billion.
• And the federal budget deficit was $247.7 billion, just 1.9 percent of the $13.1 trillion GDP. That is below the average for the 1970s (2.1), 1980s (3.0) and 1990s (2.2).

The real question, if you're an economic voter this year, is this:  Do you think the Democrats would do better?  Aside from promising to raise taxes, they haven't said squat about how they'd do better, only that they would.  Riiiiiiiiiight.

If you think the Republicans should be punished, whether from your idea of tough love or just plain cross-grainedness, then I ask you, "For what?"  While far from perfect, the Republicans' performance has been better than anybody else's in the last several decades.  At the very least, the actual performance of the Republicans economically should take economic considerations off the table... if you're going to vote rationally.

So if you're not an economics voter, what does that leave?  Judges and foreign policy, that's what.  And if you want Democrats in charge of judges and foreign policy, then you're simply not a Republican nor a Conservative.

North Carolina photo's

OK, they're up.  See North Carolina '06 album if you're interested.