Apparently the Global Warming alarmists are convinced that the situation is so dire that we need to darken the skies or something.

John Holdren told The Associated Press in his first interview since being confirmed last month that the idea of geoengineering the climate is being discussed. One such extreme option includes shooting pollution particles into the upper atmosphere to reflect the sun’s rays. Holdren said such an experimental measure would only be used as a last resort.

Yeah, I’m gonna go ahead and say that probably won’t be a good idea. If I’ve learned one thing from Hollywood movies it’s that scientists always try to do something to save the world, but ultimately end up creating a problem much larger than what they were ultimately trying to stop. Seriously though, this is just one more thing that the Obama administration is trying to push on people in order to expand the size of government.

If the blotting out the sun technique doesn’t work they can always just try and make, wait for it, artificial trees!

Another geoengineering option he mentioned was the use of so-called artificial trees to suck carbon dioxide—the chief human-caused greenhouse gas—out of the air and store it. At first that seemed prohibitively expensive, but a re-examination of the approach shows it might be less costly, he said.

Ahem, just for the record, CO2 levels rise at a rate that follows temperature increase and not the other way around. So, if the temperature was dropping then, and only then, would CO2 levels drop by the vaccuum trees. I guess what I’m trying to say is that the trees would do nothing but gobble up CO2 from the air that actual trees would absorb and convert back in to oxygen so that humans could continue, you know, breathing.

Just sayin’.

If you watched American Idol last night then you heard Adam Lambert sing a song titled “Mad World”.

Some people actually remember the original Tears for Fears version, but the most popular cover of the song was done by Gary Jules and was featured pretty heavily in the cult favorite “Donnie Darko”. I personally think that the songs popularity helped rocket Gears of War to fame with it’s use in the promotional video.

Personally, I love the song and considering I look at my governments current actions as nothing but an exercise of insanity the song holds a different meaning for me. Either way, watch the video that inspired the idol singer and enjoy.

Boy, that $700 billion ballooned awfully quickly didn’t it?

“We still have a long way to go. A very long way,” Elizabeth Warren, the Harvard Law School professor who chairs the panel, said in an interview today with Bloomberg News.

The panel reported that the government has spent, lent or set aside more than $4 trillion through the Troubled Asset Relief Program, the Federal Reserve and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.

When the government first started throwing around this word “bailout” and began creating the TARP fund I knew that this was going to turn in to one giant mess. I told all of my friends and family that there was no way that $700 billion dollars would fix the problem, and when I even mentioned that the incoming administration was planning on injecting up to TRILLIONS more I was told that the “people wouldn’t stand for it”.

Well, here we are, 700 billion has ballooned up to 4 trillion and that’s just the TARP fund. That isn’t including the President’s bloated budget that was passed, the “stimulus” package”, or the 900-item pork project filled Omnibus bill that was passed either. Yet, even after all that money they have planned to spend (which will actually increase the deficit exponentially up until the year 2019 and not cut it in half like our glorious teleprompter told us) we’re still in a “crisis” and it’s far from over?

Sounds to me like the administration is just trying to drum up more social dischord so that then they want to spend more money they’ll just convince the people, again, that the country is in a “crisis” and that unless they spend millions/billions/trillions more of the taxpayers hard-earned money that it’s only because they are trying to do the right thing. When, in reality, the government spending is doing nothing but impoverishing our future generations.

So, the Hummer model is being removed from the market, but this tiny piece of crap is getting a green light?

GM has slashed product-development programs, advertising and spending on auto-show events. But it will take to the streets of Manhattan on Tuesday to show off a prototype of the vehicle, called PUMA, for Personal Urban Mobility and Accessibility

Its even got a stupid acronym for a name, and one that falsely advertises that the car might actually be relative to an actual Puma. This abomination can barely reach 40mph and it looks absolutely ridiculous, but in GM’s quest to be “greener” they are tossing out car models that actually sell and are trying to force this garbage at consumers.

Sorry, but this is absolutely infuriating. Is it any wonder why foreign cars like Audi, BMW, and the Japanese car-makers are constantly beating us in the markets?

Hey, remember that conflict between Russia and Georgia a while back? Remember how Russia made a deal to keep troops out of Georgia when it was over?

Yeah, looks like they decided that the deal was off.

The Russian military, working with the governments and the small military forces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, two separatist regions in Georgia, has stationed forces in two large swaths of territory that were under Georgian control before the war. Observers and diplomats say Russia has also used attack helicopters and stationed tanks in areas where none existed before the war.

So, instead of fulfilling one of the basic requirements of the cease-fire and agreement between Russia and Geogia, it looks like the Soviets Russians are just going to station troops, tanks, and heli’s within the reason anyways. Woo, those Russians really go out of their way to look like total douchebags don’t they?

In other news: The President of Russia, Dmitry Medvedev, has recently hailed American President Barack Obama as his “new comrade”. Aww, isn’t that sweet?

Anyone else getting that sick feeling in their stomachs yet?

Apparently Obama hasn’t figured out that to cut the deficit in half by the end of his term he’s going to have to stop spending money like it’s going out of style.

Not only does this bill increase the 2009 spending over what the final year of the Bush Administration was spending, but this is compounded on top of ALL of the other spending that Obama has waved his pen and made possible this year. The Stimulus Bill + Omnibus bill + the new budget bill will pretty much put us in to the poor house for the next 12 years and there doesn’t seem to be any end in sight for more government spending.

Oh, as if to make matters worse lets see some highlights from this horrendous budget:

Voting along party lines, the House and Senate approved budget blueprints that would trim Obama’s spending proposals for the fiscal year that begins in October and curtail his plans to cut taxes. The blueprints, however, would permit work to begin on the central goals of Obama’s presidency: an expansion of health-care coverage for the uninsured, more money for college loans and a cap-and-trade system to reduce gases that contribute to global warming.

“Expansion of Health-care for the uninsured” seems to be the big ringer in that last statement, but the Cap and Trade system will do nothing but cause energy costs to skyrocket. So, it looks like not only will the government spend more of our hard-earned money like the generational thieves that they are, but they plan on making life almost unsustainable for us by imposing riduculous energy costs upon us and possibly a universal healthcare system that will do nothing but dismantle one of the best healthcare systems in the world.

Things aren’t looking good, folks.

Hopefully they will get better, but if I had to wager a guess what the rest of this President’s term will look like by looking at his last 72 or some odd days? Yeah, not looking at all like a bright future ahead for America.

I know that I haven’t posted anything in a while, but I just HAD to add this video.

I wish that this guy would sit down and talk with Obama and constantly repeat the lines “You can’t spend your way out of recession” over and over again. I’ll be attempting to come back and take care of this old place more often, but as time does not stop for no one….we will have to see.

In the never-ending war between Progressive Liberalism and Social Conservatism it would seem the left has launched another volley against the right. Obviously feeling emboldened in the presence of their marxist savior they feel it is time to try, once again, to assimilate the GOP in to their fold by convincing the Republican party to cut away its largest base: Social Conservatives.

This isn’t a new tactic and the Left has been trying to find any way that they can to rid themselves of the constant conservative thorn in their side. So, now that The One has been elected to take the highest office they feel now is as good a time as any to start their all out attack upon the conservative crowd by convincing the rest of the GOP that they don’t need them. The only problem with that is that the Social Conservative base actually makes up the largest portion of the Republican party. Without Social Conservatives the rest of the GOP would basically just be, well, Democrat-Lite.

And that’s precisely what they want.

Following the conventional wisdom of the past two presidential elections, McCain tried mightily to assuage the Republican Party’s social-fundamentalist wing. His selection of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, whose social views are entirely aligned with that wing, as his running mate was clearly meant to demonstrate his commitment to that bloc. Yet while his choice did comfort those voters, it made many others uncomfortable.

So, by following the conventional wisdom of the last two elections McCain was wrong to try and persuade the social conservative crowd to support him? I wonder just how greatly McCain would have lost if he didn’t have what few Social conservatives actually went and pulled the lever for him.

In the wake of the Democrats’ landslide victory, and despite all evidence to the contrary, many in the GOP are arguing that John McCain was defeated because the social fundamentalists wouldn’t support him. They seem to be suffering from a political strain of Stockholm syndrome. They are identifying with the interests of their political captors and ignoring the views of the larger electorate. This has cost the Republican Party the votes of millions of people who don’t find a willingness to acquiesce to hostage-takers a positive trait in potential leaders.

Really? The most leftist, liberal state in the entire country just went out and voted to ban same-sex marriage and your actually going to sit there and actually claim that “Social Conservatism/Fundamentalism” was what caused the GOP to lose the Election? The passing of Proposition 8 is proof enough that most people in this country have a tendancy to lean towards the social aspect of conservatism when they are making a social decision. However, as those glorious exit polls (which you shove in everyones faces) will also show you, this election was not decided by people voting on their conscience or their beliefs in social fundamentalism.

The Economy decided this election. FISCAL Conservatism, supposedly one of the staple platforms of the GOP, was no where to be seen in the last eight years and the American people watched as their economy rose to one of its highest levels and then completely crashed to a halt in a matter of weeks. We have seen the largest percentage of government expansion EVER in the last eight years, and the GOP basically went on an all-out shopping spree in pork projects. The GOP began sealing their own fate when they abandoned the principles of fiscal and economic conservatism and took the people of America for granted. So, when the economy began to falter who was the people going to blame? The Democrats?

Well, it would have been easy to blame the democrats had it not been for the fact that the GOP  seemed to absolutely refuse to address any of the problems that had actually caused the economic crisis. The truth of what caused the economic crisis, as exit polls show was the most important deciding factor on the election, is out there and if anyone is willing to search for it or, oh, I dont know, ****ing REPORT IT they’ll find that the real blame can be traced back to the Clinton Administration, the retooling of the Community Reinvestment Act, Barney Frank, Franklin Raines and Jim Johnson (who were both Fannie Mae CEO’s during the time when FMae was cooking the books), Rahm Emanuel (Who was a board member at Freddie Mac when THEY were cooking the books), Chris “Countrywide” Dodd, and finally Barack Obama.

However, the Media refused to reveal any of that and continuously supported Barack Obama and the only stories they would run about the economic crisis were ones where the Democrats were, erroneously, trying to place all of the blame upon the Republican party. Also, it didn’t really help much that the GOP never tried to clear their name nor did they ever try to speak out against the accusation of blame.

The “Social Fundamentalist” section of the Republican Party, however, DID try to bring tons of issues to light to try and get McCain to fight back against Senator Obama. However, at every turn the “Moderates” told the GOP base to shut up and go away. When Palin was brought on board the GOP base was energized and began to find interest in the election once again, but whenever somebody tried to bring up the long list of dirty scams that the Democrat party was involved with, well, McCain would just brush it aside and act as if was never brought up.

Lets look at all of the issues that many of the Social Fundamentalists/Conservatives tried to bring to light and was largely ignored by their own candidate:

• ACORN Voting Scandals and Obama’s extensive association with ACORN
• Obama’s association with William Ayers
• Obama’s association with radical Pastor Jeremiah Wright
• Obama’s association with Rasheed Khalidi
• Obama’s experience or his drastically lacking thereof.
• Obama’s Socialist or Marxist views on Radicalism and Redistribution of Wealth (It took a plumber to finally get that moving)
• The fact that Obama never explained how he was going to give 95% of Americans a tax break when 45% of Americans don’t even pay taxes.
• McCain never confronted Obama on the fact that the Senator was the second largest receiever of campaign funds from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac just behind Chris Dodd.
• McCain never addressed the fradulant donation system that the Obama Campaign was using (and was proved to be using) to accept all those millions of dollars

Whenever we Social Conservatives tried to bring any of this to light the McCain campaign would ignore it and just go on as business as usual.

McCain didn’t lose because of the Social Fundamentalists, oh no, he lost because he ran a disasterous campaign and because he refused to address ANY of the issues that should have disqualified Senator Obama from ever becoming President. However, despite the cries from the Republican base (The fundamentalists as you call them) McCain ignored them and just continued on without them.

So, how can one possibly argue that the Social Conservatives/Fundamentalists cost McCain the election when the social cons were being ignored? The truth is they cant without sounding like a bunch of raging idiots.

UPDATE: HotAir now has something up about this piece. Morrissey is right: “Growth Through Dismemberment does not Work”.

No, I’m not making this up.

During an interview with Glamour Magazine this is what Couric had to say about Gov. Palin:

I think she should keep her head down, work really hard and learn about governing. But I’m not anyone to give advice to anyone about anything.

Then, uh, why give any sort of advice that you, yourself, recognize that your not qualified to give? That statement right there is pretty much exactly how those College Football coaches must feel when they go on those radio shows and get tons of ridiculous questions from callers, who have no coaching experience whatsoever, grilling them on why said callers team completely sucked that night.

Your right Katie. Your not anyone to give advice to anyone about anything.

Ever.

The term “Paradigm Shift” is a phrase that many have heard but few rarely understand. The term actually originates from a man named Thomas Kuhn to describe the differentiating changes within the ruling theory of science. In a nutshell it has basically been referred to as a “scientific revelation” and until it found mainstream popularity within the marketing realms as a type of jargen used within marketing circles it had only had any real relevance in the Scientific community.

Now, the reason why I bring this up is because the term “Paradigm Shift” has been so overused that it has fallen in to the realm of irrelevancy, and it is this level of irrelevance that I find so many conservative commenters and bloggers achieving lately. In fact, the very term “Conservatism” has been so overused by so many people in the political realm for so many years that the actual meaning has somehow been lost on those who claim to subcribe to the true ideal of it. During the election many self-proclaimed “Conservative” writers and bloggers would continuously push themselves on the scene to decry many fellow Republicans or Conservatives for being too conservative or for supporting a running mate candidate who held far more conservative beliefs than the actual presidential nominee.

Kathleen Parker and Peggy Noonan, for example, had been held up in the past as being “conservative” writers in the past and were pretty well respected by those who knew them. However, in the late stages of the Election, both of them were making headlines, but instead of making waves in the media by questioning how supremely leftist Senator Obama is or questioning his associations with some pretty nefarious individuals they were, instead, screaming their heads off about how Palin was a bad pick for the Republican ticket. Two supposed conservatives were repeatedly bashing the most conservative side of the Republican ticket and fairly nastily so.

What seemed to be the problem? Palin was pro-energy, pro-life, favored limited government, was a great supporter to the military, supported lower taxes, had a history of reform in the Alaskan government, actually HAD executive experience as a governer, and was just a generally decent woman all-around. Yet, Parker and Noonan lashed out against her by claiming that she was dragging the ticket down and Parker even called for Palin to drop out of the ticket to “save her country”.

Why?

Well, the only conclusion I can seem to come to is that both Noonan and Parker are of the “Cocktail Conservative” crowd. A group of people who claim to subscribe to the ideals of conservatism over a glass of wine during dinner, but in actual daily practice will only admit to such ideals if means that they will remain politically relevant.

If there is one certainty that can be said about the Republican party: It is we eat our own.

Still, I question the intentions of these so-called conservatives and why they, bright minds who supposedly uphold the positive theme of conservatism who were so quick to lower the hammer upon someone who was far more conservative than the front-runner. A front-frunner, I should add, who has a long reputation for constantly being at odds with the more conservative sides of his own party. John McCain gained the stigma of being labeled a RINO (Republican In Name Only) during the primaries and it stayed with him throughout the campaign. Are these writers, his supporters, also cut from the same cloth? It would appear so.

While some “conservatives” were busy trashing one of their own others were freaking the hell out. Now, to be fair to Ace (whom I respect greatly), he is a libertarian conservative, and he has spent nearly 99.9% of his time supporting the conservative agenda on his own. He’s been a far greater bastion of conservative truth than the two pseudo-cons I mentioned above. However, even the threat of financial collapse was too much for him to bolster down and stand up to government expansion. He, and many others, were adamant that the bailout was the only thing that could save our economy. A strange idea considering our economy is based upon limited, if any, government intervention.

It’s called a free-market for a reason.

Even the Senate republicans were jumping on the bandwagon to support the bailout program. However, as a last bastion of hope, the House Republicans were standing up to the bailout and were crying out in large numbers against it. They defeated it once, but even they fell to the pressure to get the bailout passed. However, it must be pointed out that the pressure was not coming from PEOPLE, but it was coming from these very same pseudo-conservatives and the democrats who served in the chairs next to them. The citizens hated the idea from the start, but the supporters of the largest expansion of government in history were going to pass it anyways.

And they did.

Where did it get us? The supporters of the bailout looked down upon those who opposed it and called their cries of “creeping socialism” nothing but irrational fears and phobia. Though, not even two months later, it would seem that many of those bailout supporters will have to eat their words.  They wont though, and who could blame them? They invested too much of their faith in to the convincing words that everything was going to be “ok” if they could just pass that bill. Now, instead of a “bailout” we are seeing a “buyout” and the government is buying up stocks in private banks. How is government owning stakes in private businesses capitalism (a sister ideal of conservatism) again? Well, it isn’t, but it is a definate scary path towards the fears of creeping socialism that many of the bailout opposers were forseeing. If the Republicans in the Senate and House had only practiced what they preached (conservartism) then the bailout would never have been necessary. However, as the crisis grew bigger you found out who was serious about their ideals and who just liked to claim membership to the club.

And what of the Republican Conservatives after the election? More “Conservatives” are seemingly lining up to say that the Republican party is doomed to a permanent minority while others are even going far enough to defend the strange plans that our new President-Elect has in store for us. Many on the left have been quick to claim that this past election season was the death of Conservatism and the Right-Wingers, but was it really? The very same people who supported McCain (and hated Palin) were the ones who were front and center in this campaign, and if it was their man who lost (a man who had considered leaving the republican party after the 2000 election) then would it not be more appropriate to say that it was the moderates who hold the keys to failure?

If anyone was paying attention at all they could easily see that true conservatism wasn’t even at the party. At least not until Palin was introduced and then as soon as she was brought on to the scene the pseudo-conservatives tried to be rid of her and claim she was far too right-wing to help the campaign. So, those of us who subscribe (and practice) the ideals of real conservatism we have a question to ask ourselves.

“Do we continue to let those who do not truly belong write the narrative and speak for us?”

I, for one, don’t plan on it. I have found that these self-proclaimed conservatives* have hidden behind an ideaology that they never really intended on adhereing to and have used that veil so often that they have become their own “Paradigm Shift”…..

Increasingly irrelevant and meaningless.

[*I would like to point out that I am not lumping Ace from AoSHQ in to that group. I do not question his conservative ideals, but only find fault with his willingness to accept a bogus bailout plan that most people found to be an appalling piece of legislation.]