So, I don't mind, in fact I expect, getting back from the government what it owes me for services rendered and past payments made. But I've never asked my government for any kind of handout. My dad taught me as a boy that when you need a helping hand, it's always best to look at the end of your own arm first.

One of President Obama's most recent ideas is to give seniors $250 apiece to help them cope with not getting a cost-of-living-adjustment (COLA) in their Social Security checks this year. Nope, I don't think that's what it's really for. COLAs are based on the annual Consumer Price Index and the Social Security trustees have assessed that the index shows no increase in costs, so there should be no COLA increase this year, either.

Remember, the cost of living this past year went down, along with the economy, not up. Giving bonuses now would defeat the purpose of the COLA, which was indexed to inflation starting in 1975 to help keep seniors' purchasing power even with inflation, not to increase their purchasing power against the inflation rate.

If Washington bypasses the trustees' COLA recommendations this year, the yearly adjustments will lose their meaning -- a meaning which is significant so that Washington can both help seniors make ends meet and restrain the growth in federal spending. In a concept which seems totally alien to Obama and the Democratic Congress, as well as some RINO Republicans, it's called "fiscal responsibility."

However, the reality, at least the political reality, in Washington right now is that many politicians want to write checks to seniors. Why? Because seniors vote in great numbers and already dislike Medicare cuts embedded in most, if not all, of the current round of so-called health care/insurance reform proposals being pushed by Team Obama and floating around Congress, as well as a lot of other things being done by "progressive" politicians, so those politicians want to "secure" those seniors' votes, don'tcha know?

Well, that seems too much like a bribe to me, and my vote can't be bought at any price and certainly not for a measly $250. So, thanks but no thanks. I just hope that when you slick politicians get ready to do this, you offer a way for those of us who don't think we deserve it, to opt out of receiving it. But you probably won't. After all, it would be contrary to everything liberals believe in about all of us in the great unwashed masses for anyone not to want "free" money, right?

Forget the fact that it's not really "free" money because it will be paid for by my taxes and yours. Forget the fact that some people actually have enough self-esteem that they don't want something for nothing, in other words, a handout. And forget the fact that some people actually have enough self-respect to resent attempts to buy them off, including trying to buy their vote.

So, if you provide a way for me to refuse accepting your Social Security handout, I will exercise it and opt out -- because I didn't earn it, because I don't need it and because I'm more than just a little tired of Washington liberals spending my tax money like it was their own on this or that scheme, even if it's one by which I may benefit.

But, since you probably will just assume everyone will be so happy to get it and therefore won't include such an opt-out provision, if you send it, I will accept it and use it the best I can, both for myself and in my small way to stimulate our economy -- by spending all of it either toward the purchase of another gun or maybe on some more ammunition for the guns I already have.

After all, I'm thinking, the way things are going, my guns, my ammo, my faith and my freedoms are the things I really don't plan to run out of any time soon, Mr. President, no matter what your plans are. Just don't tell your Attorney General buddy Eric "Americans are cowards about discussing race but we won't prosecute Black Panthers who have confessed" Holder, okay? He and your inarticulate Homeland Security Secretary Janet "acts of terrorism are just man-made disasters" Napolitano already think I'm some kind of domestic terrorist, anyway, just because I'm a veteran, was in law enforcement, am a conservative and don't like most of your "progressive" (that's spelled M-A-R-X-I-S-T) policies. No sense getting them all upset that I'm using my unearned and unrequested government handout for something as practical as buying more guns or ammo.

Oh, and if you, or he, or she should plan to send someone to my house to "check" on that, maybe you should be aware of what I used to tell hard core prisoners who threatened me about what they were going to do when they got out of the Army stockade which I commanded and which they were locked up in -- "Threaten me all you want, but there's four things you don't mess around with, so far as I'm concerned: my family, my money, my car, or my house after dark, as any of those could get you hurt and some of them will get you killed." So, do anyone you should send a favor and tell them (a) it's really preferred that they don't come at night (things get "confused" in the dark sometimes, especially me when I'm rudely awakened and angry and armed), (b) to at least come in pairs if not platoons, (c) to have a properly executed warrant or expect to be denied entry, forcibly if necessary, and (d) to bring a lunch. Because, even if they abide by all that, it's still probably going to be what we sometimes used to call it in the Army, a long and messy day.

First, let's be clear, there is as yet no one, single ObamaCare "plan" for us to consider or discuss. Instead, there is HR 3200, America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009, the bill narrowly passed by the House of Representatives; there is another version, The Affordable Health Choices Act, reported out of the Senate HELP (Health, Education, Labor and Pensions) Committee; and there are at least three other versions of some kind of health care and/or health insurance reform legislation, in various stages of development, discussion, debate and deliberation currently being circulated around the Congress.

So, what you have heard referred to as "ObamaCare" (or health care reform, subsequently changed by Team Obama to health insurance reform and maybe by now "Teddy KennedyCare") by the president who says we are in still another emergency and must once again hurry up and act, by most (but not all, by a long shot) Democrats who support it, by Republicans who almost unanimously object to it, and by angry town hallers who have heaped questions about it on their hapless, and sometimes hypocritical and hubristic, congressional representatives (at least the 1/3 who deigned to even meet with their constituents during the August congressional recess) is, at this point, some general themes and claims of what Obama and the Democrat Congress say should or should not be included.

(Maybe -- hopefully -- Obama will put a finer point on exactly what he thinks it should consist of (as he should have done when debate about it first started) when he addresses the specially convened for that purpose and TV prime-time (again) Joint Session of Congress on this Wednesday evening, September 9th.) 
 
But, while we await that, yet another "historic" address by the Silver Tongued One, let's look at some of those claims and themes.

1. Cutting $500 billion from Medicare will not hurt care or cut benefits for seniors.
This claim by Democrats, in addition to being another socialist redistributionist example of robbing Peter to pay Paul, just flies in the face of logic. How can you take that much money from a system which works pretty well but which almost everyone says is already going broke, which is already covering more and more seniors daily, and say that will not result in less money to provide benefits to more seniors, which of course must diminish the amount and quality of care provided to all who are in the program? That is, unless the Democrats have just figured out how to squeeze water from rocks and they're just not telling the rest of us.

2. Spending $1 to $1.6 trillion -- maybe even $2 trillion -- will save money.
How many of you, in gong over your own personal or family checkbooks or running your own small businesses, actually save money by spending money? The closest you can come to that, in running your business, for example, is to make a capital investment (spend) on new equipment, technologies, etc., which will increase your production capacity and therefore enhance your bottom line (saving you money by "paying for itself" over time). Otherwise, you're like my significant other, who will tell me with glee how much she "saved" by shopping a 60% sale at which she bought some stuff she didn't really need -- but it was such a good price! -- and who fails (more likely just flat refuses) to see my point when I tell her how she could have saved 100%.  

3. Spending $1 to $1.6 trillion -- maybe even $2 trillion -- will not increase the deficit.
I'm sorry, but at heart I'm just a simple Southern boy with a non-Ivy League education and, to me, debt is debt, whether you call it something fancier sounding, like a deficit, or not. To my somewhat unsophisticated view, deficit is just another way of saying longer term, and usually much larger -- and with Obama and this Congress, scary larger -- debt. And you don't reduce debt by spending still more, especially when the debt on the debt (the interest) is a pretty big debt all on its own. And if any of you Democrats know how to spend that much and not increase the deficit, I wish you would help me to pay down my credit card balance 'cause it seems to me that the more I charge on it, the more the credit card company tells me I'm in debt to them.

4. If you like your plan, you can keep it.
Except that within a few years of any Democrat version of ObamaCare being in effect, every insurance plan design for everyone will be dictated by the federal government design requirements, so you may not want to keep any of the plans which are available by then.

5. You can buy any insurance plan from any insurer you want.
Except that you can only buy the government designed, government approved plans. That's like saying you can buy any car you want, but the auto manufacturers all have the same designs and models and can only build and sell those models.

6. This is not a government takeover of the health care sector.
Uh-huh, like firing GM's CEO and giving more than half interest in the bankrupted company to the union which ran it into the ground in the first place was not a takeover, or refusing to let banks which were ready to repay their government loans get out from under government control by repaying them was not sustaining a takeover, i.e., exerting control. Sure. You betcha.

7. There will not be any rationing.
Let's see, our health care system is too expensive and is "broken," we need to take action for a massive overhaul immediately, we need to add 47 million uninsured and underinsured people to the system, no one has talked about how many more doctors and nurses will be needed because of that increase in people covered, much less how we're going to produce those additional doctors and nurses at all, or by when, much less in a timely manner, and there won't be any need to ration health care? Hello? Hmmm, more people added to the rolls and provided health care, plus not adding more doctors or nurses to provide that health care, equals providing more with either less or at least the same resources -- which means rationing. Or, let's put it this way, you and two other people are trekking across the desert and each of you has a half canteen of water. What do you do to ensure you have enough water to last until you get to the next oasis? Right, you ration the resources you have among all those who need it.

8. Campaign promises were explicitly made by the president that he would not cut any deals with “the drug companies.”
Yet he did exactly that in closed door, back room deals in return for Big Pharma spending millions in ads to prop up the sagging ObamaCare "plan" over the summer.

9. Abortion is not a covered benefit.
Democrats say this, despite the fact that the Democratic House pro-life leaders admit that it covers abortion, more than 20 Democrats have told their leadership in writing that they will not vote for any bill that covers abortion, and Republican amendments specifically prohibiting abortion being a covered benefit have been summarily dismissed and denied by Democrat congressional leadership. If, as claimed, it's not intended to be a covered benefit anyway, why not add an amendment specifically saying so?

10. Seniors will not be steered in the direction of dying to save money.
But most of the public knows that the most expense in health care is in the last six months of life, logically making seniors think Obama’s promises sound hollow because, as it turns out, and not surprisingly, they do not want the government making the decision about when that last six months starts, much less made by some cost-saving bureaucrat deciding who should start that last six months by deciding who does or does not get needed health care. So, no "death panels" per se, folks. Just a distant, federal government bureaucracy which will "cost-manage" to the same result.

11. The president is against a single payer system and ending employer provided health care.
So, all those videos of the president saying that he is for a single payer system and for ending employer provided health care, both as a candidate and as president are -- what? Just “misleading”?

12. Your employer may decide to put you in a government designed plan.
Because, that way, your employer will be taxed less than it costs to give you your insurance. Your employer will save money by putting you in the government-run Health Information Exchange -- but then you may be effectively "locked in" and can never leave!

13. The legislation's purpose is to insure the uninsured and accomplish “insurance reform.”
So what openly started out as the massively needed massive overhaul of our entire "broken" health CARE system later changed to only health INSURANCE reform and is just to ensure that the uninsured are insured and to only ensure "insurance reform" now? Uhhhhh-huh. What's that Will Shakespeare once said? Oh, yeah. "A federal government control power grab by any other name would smell as sweet." Or something like that. 
 
14. President Obama promised no mandates in his health plan.
But current versions have an individual mandate (which requires you to get health insurance whether you want it or not) and an employer mandate (which requires your employer to provide you coverage whether he or she wants to or not, or whether you would rather get more pay instead).

15. Families earning less than $250,000 will not see their taxes increase.
But if you don't buy health insurance and you earn more than $19,000 a year, you will be taxed 2.5 percent of your total income. And the no tax increase pledge for families earning $250,000 or less does not apply, of course, to ObamaCare.

16. There won't be any waiting lines.
First, there are waiting lines now. Go to almost any hospital ER, especially on a weekend, and see how quickly you are seen, unless you are bleeding all over the floor or have severe chest pains. But an additional 47 million will be added to the “free” health care system (which more people will use more "freely" because, you know, it's "free"), yet you won't find yourself waiting to see a doctor? Oh, please!

17. Obama says you can keep your own physician.
However, if a physician opts not to sign on to a government-run option and the government-run plan is what you're stuck with, you will lose your doctor. It's as simple as that. And recent polls show that a majority of doctors say they will not accept government plan patients.

18. There is no specific language in any of the current bills specifically prohibiting covering illegal immigrants.
Yet the president keeps talking about providing coverage for the 47 million uninsured, a figure which, although grossly inaccurate in and of itself, for one thing because it includes about 10 million LEGAL immigrants here on visas, etc., does also include millions of ILLEGAL immigrants. Again, similar to Republican amendments specifically prohibiting abortion coverage, amendments specifically excluding illegal immigrants and offered by Republicans have been steadfastly rebuffed by the Democrat congressional leadership. Some Democrats flatly deny that ObamaCare will cover illegal immigrants but, if that is really so, why not put expressly prohibitive language in the legislation saying so?  

19. Those who oppose Obama’s reform belong to the Republican "Party of No," are for the status quo, favor various special interest groups, and don't have anything else to offer.
However, Republicans have put forward at least FOUR major, much cheaper, less intrusive and less complicated proposals to lower the cost of health care, only to be actively ignored by the Democrat leadership, including President Obama, and by the so-called national “news” media.

20. Congressional Democrats will have the same option to use ObamaCare that their constituents will have.
This is just disingenuous, which is a nice word for not telling the whole truth. Some variation of this response is normally given by Democrat representatives when confronted at town hall meetings by angry constituents wanting to know that if what their Democrat representatives are proposing with ObamaCare is so good and necessary, will those same representatives commit to changing to ObamaCare from the cadillac, five-star health plan they now have, usually the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP) [which is a system of "managed competition" through which employee health benefits are provided to full-time permanent civilian employees and qualified retirees of the US Government and under which the employer (that would be the US government, with the use of your tax dollars) pays an amount equal to 72 percent of the average plan premium for self-only or family coverage (not to exceed 75 percent of the premium for the selected plan), and the employee (that would be the member of Congress) pays the rest, i.e., 25 to 28 percent]. Not bad, huh? But that response purposefully begs the question anyway. Of course, a member of Congress could select ObamaCare, in whatever form, if any at all, that it finally takes. But that's far different from committing to doing that, instead of keeping the gold-plated, mostly government funded plan you already have and can even keep after you retire -- and which is not even available to most of your constituents (plus continuing to receive the highest annual salary you received, for life).

21. Tort reform and consumer-patients being able to "shop" for health care insurance across state lines would do more, and more quickly, than anything else to lower health care and health insurance costs. 
But, while being able to shop for health insurance like we can now do for other types of insurance may make it into even some Democrat versions of the health care/insurance reform legislation, it's highly doubtful tort reform to reduce frivolous or exorbitant doctor and/or hospital medical malpractice law suits will. As Democrat Howard Dean, former DNC Chairman, recently admitted at a town hall meeting: "When you're trying to change so much about something, you're going to make enemies and you have to be careful about how many enemies you make, or you won't get anything done, and the trial lawyers are a (special interest) group which Democrats just don't want to take on." Or words to that effect.

Well, Howie, you finally said something for a change that I think was not only completely honest but with which I totally agree -- trial lawyers are a mainstay constituency of the Democrat Party which no Democrats want to "take on" -- not even to help all those un- and under-insured folks suffering along with our "broken" health care system out there.

It's a shame, really. Democrats, maybe even with a little "bipartisan" help (and therefore political "cover") from Republicans, could do so much to help so many if they just really meant what they said, instead of actually trying to do something totally different. It's just that Democrats want to use healthscare for a huge government power grab more than they really want to do anything else.

The car that is our health care/insurance system is the best in the world but is too expensive to run now and does need some fine tuning. But the Democrats want to either completely overhaul it or throw it on the junk heap and replace it with a whole new model which may but probably won't work any better, or maybe not as well. That's like getting a small hole in your best-fittin' blue jeans and just throwing them away and getting a new pair, instead of neatly just patching that hole. Wasteful, rash and foolish.

But, let's see how the Silver Tongued One spins some of this, all of this, any of this later tonight, shall we?

I attended a TEA Party organizing meeting this past week.

By the way, I write TEA Party, instead of just tea party, because TEA is an acronym standing for the core idea of "Taxed Enough Already," whereas a tea party is presumably where tea may be served. That is, unless you're talking about "teabagging" and that kind of "tea party." [You see, snide comments in April by some cable news, and other, TV network nitwits and nincompoops labeling TEA Party protesters as "teabaggers" (snigger, snigger, snork, snork, coffee out through your nose, tee-hee, simper, simper, sigh, sigh) "educated" me about some in the gay community practicing what's called "teabagging."] So, since I'm all about being "Taxed Enough Already" (TEA) and do occasionally enjoy a cup of hot tea or a glass of iced tea but am definitely not into "teabagging," I use TEA Party, just to be grammatically correct, accurate and clear.

Anyway, this organizing meeting was voluntarily "organized" by a couple of guys who had voluntarily collected email addresses from those of us who had voluntarily attended a local 4th of July TEA Party and wanted to be kept informed of other, similar upcoming events which we could voluntarily attend and/or otherwise support. I wasn't paid to attend, nor was I coerced into attending. Heck, they didn't even serve refreshments, not even tea.

This organizing meeting was held in the mid-sized meeting room of a local library. They expected about 20 to 30 people to show up. There were over 100 of us there ..... Republicans, Federalists, Independents, Libertarians and moderate Democrats ..... some from the distance of several counties away ..... on a Wednesday midweek work night ..... from 8-10PM ..... when we could all have been relaxing, spending time with our families or watching our favorite TV shows. And many lingered after the meeting to further exchange ideas and contact information.

This is the kind of concerned citizen, genuine grassroots movement which Obama, his White House henchmen and the Congressional Democrats all want to ignore and deplore, deny and decry, demonize and denigrate, claiming the protests and meetings are organized by the GOP or some other Obama-unapproved organization, funded by this or that nefarious special interest group, and that we participants are "organized" and "enticed" to attend (please refer back to my third paragraph, above).

Besides, it's too late. Already too big and still growing, one might say by leaps and bounds. I'm hearing of more and more local TEA Party events which are having to be moved to larger venues at the last minute because of turnout exceeding planners' projections. Each one seems to be bigger and better attended than the last.

Democrats and other liberals may hold sway in Washington for now and you may ridicule us if you like (some of us know ridicule is a standard Marxist Saul Alinsky tactic anyway), but we won't be relegated to the sidelines any longer. Ignore, deplore, deny, decry, demonize, denigrate, ridicule and relegate us at your own risk. The more of that you do, instead of really listening to what your constituents are upset about, and the more you are aided and abetted in that by the liberal lamestream media's unrepresentative and unbalanced coverage (or selective lack thereof), the more anxious and angry, the more denied and disenfranchised, the more frustrated and furious we will feel and the more persistent and powerful we shall become.

Watch out, Dems and other liberals! A growing giant is finally awake now, and watching everything you do. Try to ridicule and relegate us now if you dare, but a reckoning is coming.

I was recently reading some posted comments online about President Obama's nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court, and one commenter suggested: "Could the case be made that the 'moderate Democrats' need to be the ones to step up here and do the right thing in opposing this nominee?"

My reaction:

First of all, that seems like a rational question to ask. And, yes, the case could be made, and should be made, but the watchword unfortunately seems to be: "Please don't hold your breath." In other words, no disrespect intended, but -- are you kidding?

For example, where were those "moderate Democrats," those so-called Blue Dog Democrats, when the UNREAD and NONstimulating "stimulus" bill was passed? Or when the PORK LADEN "budget" was passed? Or when still more billions, even trillions, in generational deficit and debt are spent -- and even Obama says such debt is "unsustainable" -- in a vain attempt to SPEND us out of a recession? Is that how YOUR checkbook works? Mine neither. But then, neither of us can just print more money, like Team Obama can, either.

However, I agree, it would seem that at least SOME Blue Dogs would show they have some common sense about all this, but, so far, not much of a whimper. They, like other Democrats, are too busy either wagging their tails over being in power or running around chasing their tails, fascinated, like a puppy with a squeaky ball, with any and all bright and shiny new spending ideas they can play with. So, sorry to say, don't expect any help from them on something like this Supreme Court nominee, either.

Sotomayor is "qualified" -- more so than Myers was but probably less so than Thomas, or even Bork, would have been -- because of her long time on the federal bench. But she certainly is not one of the "best qualified." She really is a twofer quota fill for Obama in payment for the Hispanic vote in particular and the liberal vote in general. She seems to lack the depth and breadth of legal intellect or personal charm to sway the current 5/4 court, which is good, making her basically a one-to-one replacement for the liberal Souter. So, as far as the Court is concerned, this nomination is probably a wash.

But watch out for Obama's NEXT nominee. THAT will be the deal-breaking nominee. There are lots of things I don't like about Obama, but I have to give credit where credit is due -- and he is a shrewd politician. The Sotomayor nomination could be his testing of the waters, to see how far and hard he can push an even more liberal pick next time around. Hopefully, he won't get another chance until 2010 or after and, by then, Republicans should have regained enough in the Senate, if not the Congress overall, to kill the chances, if appropriate, of whomever he nominates next.

Global temperature is measured through thousands of temperature reading stations located around - well, the globe. The United States alone has more than 1,000, which are supposedly among the most reliable world-wide. But Anthony Watts, of the Watts Up With That blog, and a group of about 650 volunteers, found out very differently when they actually visited and examined 70% of the U.S. stations:

"We found stations located next to the exhaust fans of air conditioning units, surrounded by asphalt parking lots and roads, on blistering-hot rooftops, and near sidewalks and buildings that absorb and radiate heat. We found 68 stations located at wastewater treatment plants, where the process of waste digestion causes temperatures to be higher than in surrounding areas.

"In fact, we found that 89 percent of the stations - nearly 9 of every 10 - fail to meet the National Weather Service's own siting requirements that stations must be 30 meters (about 100 feet) or more away from an artificial heating or radiating/reflecting heat source. In other words, 9 of every 10 stations are likely reporting higher or rising temperatures because they are badly sited.

"It gets worse. We observed that changes in the technology of temperature stations over time also has caused them to report a false warming trend. We found major gaps in the data record that were filled in with data from nearby sites, a practice that propagates and compounds errors. We found that adjustments to the data by both NOAA and another government agency, NASA, cause recent temperatures to look even higher."

The conclusion is obvious: The U.S. temperature record is unreliable. And since it is based on what are supposed to be among the more reliable temperature readings from around the world, what does that potentially say about many other nations' readings?

So, with ground temperature data revealed as unreliable, what is it that we know that we know?  Well, satellite data indicate the earth warmed from the period 1979 to around 1998, and that it has cooled since 2002. That's 19 years of warming and at least the 7 most recent years of cooling. Yet, countries around the world are instituting disastrously business-damaging programs, like carbon taxes or cap-and-trade programs. 

The U.S. Congress is considering the Waxman-Markey bill, which would enact a cap-and-trade program: (a) that would impose draconian operating conditions and carbon emission taxes on businesses, (b) that would cause energy costs to skyrocket for everyone who turns on a light switch or drives a car, and (c) that even global warming alarmist James Hansen of NASA and consumer advocate Ralph Nader say won't work. Oh, and (d) that would also raise lots and lots of money in taxes for the government to spend.

Global warming proponents tell us "the science is settled" and that any who disagree with them are merely "deniers," the same type of ignorant or unsophisticated people who deny the Holocaust or that the Earth is round. Of course one of the most prominent of these proponents, former vice president Al "The Goracle" Gore (who can sometimes say the most preposterous things with a perfectly straight face - guess it sometimes actually helps to be a little "wooden"), is ironically, hypocritically and personally responsible for a huge "carbon footprint" himself. With a monster house in Tennessee which uses more energy in a month than those of his neighbors use in a year and with all of his jetting around in a private jet for speaking engagements, fund raising and global warming alarming, Gore, like many other liberal elites who preach to the rest of us about how we should live, creates more carbon emissions in a month than you or I do in a year. But, of course, I guess he, like some other rich people salving their own consciences for their extravagant and wasteful lifestyles, makes it all right by buying what are called "carbon credits" to offset his excessive carbon emissions.

You know, I've heard the carbon credits thing talked about a lot, normally just as if in passing, like, well, everybody understands about that, but I'll admit to having never understood exactly how that works. For example, how much does, say, one carbon credit cost? Who determines what that cost is? Is it market driven or determined and regulated by government bureaucrats? If I wanted to buy some carbon credits, to whom would I make out my check? Do they give me a piece of paper, perhaps a certificate of some kind, to prove that I paid for some carbon credits? Can I deduct buying some carbon credits from my taxes?

(If anyone reading this understands how it all works (if, in fact, it actually does at all), please 'splain it to me.)

But, enough philosophy. Back to science. If the science is "settled," then why do over 30,000 scientists, many of them world-renowned, disagree with the man-made global warming alarmism? First, that doesn't sound all that "settled" to me. And, second, it now turns out that the so-called "settled science" is based on flawed data. If temperature readings are inputted to computer models which then make global warming "predictions" and 8 or 9 out of 10 of those temperature readings are wrong, then aren't the computer model predictions necessarily also wrong? Or did a basic computer principle - garbage in, garbage out (GIGO) - change all of a sudden?
 
Besides, Richard Henry Lee at the American Thinker Blog probably asks a more important question:

"...the real question is why it took a dedicated group of volunteers to find the numerous faults in our temperature record rather than the heavily funded governmental and educational institutions which are continually warning us about global warming."

Well, I think part of the answer to Mr. Lee's question lies in his wording "heavily funded governmental and educational institutions." They don't get funded anymore if there is no man-made global warming or they "solve" the problem, do they?

Perhaps it's less "environmental science" and more "economic science" which has been the point all along - and still is really in play here.

President Obama, in his own words, speaking at a town hall meeting in Missouri, April 29, his 100th day in office:

"When you see, you know, those of you who are watching certain news channels on which I'm not very popular, and you see folks waving tea bags around, let me just remind them that I am happy to have a serious conversation about how we are going to cut our health care costs down over the long term, how we're going to stabilize social security."

"Claire [McCaskill] and I are working diligently to do basically a thorough audit of federal spending."

"But let's not play games and pretend that the reason is because of the Recovery Act, because that's just a fraction of the overall problem that we've got."

Anyone still seriously arguing that Obama is not arrogant, often thin-skinned and sometimes even petty? Really? With a straight face? Please remind me not to buy a used car from you, then. And I don't want to buy that bridge in Brooklyn, either, so fugeddaboutit.
 
"...those of you who are watching certain news channels on which I'm not very popular..."
Do you mean those which report on what you're doing, rather than just what you're saying, Mr. President? Those which question your actions sometimes, rather than just slavishly hanging on your every word? Those news channels? Gee, don't be so thin-skinned. Actually, I'm surprised to hear you say "news channels," plural. I thought there was really only one - Fox News. But, okay, maybe there's more than just one, at least occasionally.

"...and you see folks waving tea bags around..."
Those "folks waving tea bags around" were Americans, Mr. President - hundreds of thousands of them, in a truly grassroots movement, from all political persuasions, from all across the country, angry at our government (their government), the Congress (their Congress) and your White House (their White House) and protesting to be heard - and the best you can do is refer to them dismissively, almost derisively? Why, you would think you were just another arrogant American, being dismissive and derisive about the Europeans again.

"...let me just remind them that I am happy to have a serious conversation about how we are going to cut our health care costs down over the long term, how we're going to stabilize social security."
So, by implication, their protests were not serious but you will be glad to have a serious conversation with them about what you want to talk about. No, Mr. President, you don't always get to choose what you want to have serious conversations about with the American people. Sometimes they choose. And if you choose not to listen, then you will lose in the long run

"Claire [McCaskill] (U.S. Democratic Senator since January 2007 and former Missouri State Auditor) and I are working diligently to do basically a thorough audit of federal spending."
Oh? And how is that going for you so far? I mean, aside from one of your cabinet-level departments suddenly "discovering" that it could save millions of taxpayer dollars just by ordering office supplies in bulk (duh!), by you "saving" American taxpayers $100 million (about .002 percent of your budget), and also about $17 billion, mainly by cutting Department of Defense spending on about 120 programs, during a time of war being fought on two fronts, while your pork-laden, so-called stimulus package, your even more porky budget and your set-asides for future projects (health care reform) for which you don't even have a plan to implement yet are sending deficit spending into the trillions of dollars which our children and even our grandchildren will have trouble paying off. Please let me know when you and "Claire" come up with some real savings, some real contraction of runaway government spending. Then, I'll give you some credit. But, don't expect any from me just based on what you say you're doing or going to do. Seeing is believing.

"But let's not play games and pretend that the reason is because of the Recovery Act, because that's just a fraction of the overall problem that we've got."
Well, finally, Mr. President, you and I agree on something. But, first, you're wrong to imply that the TEA Party protesters were "playing games." They were not. They were serious and angry at their government for not listening to them. You had people protesting who had never protested before in their lives, about anything, and taking time off from work to do it - and you had them by the hundreds of thousands. However, what you're right about is that their protests weren't just about your so-called Recovery Act, and they weren't "pretending" that it was. They were angry about much more than just that, although that was one thing which many Americans think you and your Democratic Congress pushed through without proper input or consideration.

Oh, and we agree on something else, too. "..the Recovery Act, because that's just a fraction of the overall problem that we've got." Yes, Mr. President, your Recovery Act is just a fraction of the overall problem we've got. Some of us know that. Some of us who know that were among the TEA party protesters, and will be again on July 4th. You and the Democratic Congress have done much more than just that to try and move this country to the left, to take over businesses in order to "save" them, to redistribute the wealth of this country from those who earn it to those whose votes you can buy with it, and to deficit-spend more than any of what little may remain into creating multi-generational debt. Yes, Mr. President, some of us know your so-called Recovery Act was only the beginning. But we also know that, hopefully, your "beginning" may be short-lived. After all, 2010 and 2012 are coming, thank goodness - and probably not any too soon, either.

The U.S. House of Representatives has recently passed a bill, now on its way to the U.S. Senate, on new (more) hate crimes legislation.

That means, with everything else Team Obama and this Congress are taking onto their plates (running banks, auto companies, finding new things on which to spend tax money we don't have for things which many question we need, trying to influence a federal bankruptcy judge, socialize our national healthcare, etc.), some committee somewhere in Congress is, once again, spending our tax money considering some kind of new hate crimes legislation, as if Congress doesn't already have enough other stuff to get done.

Congressman Louie Gohmert, himself a former judge, told Human Events about the radical nature of this so-called hate crimes bill and what happened when House Republicans tried to amend the bill so it did not offer protection to pedophiles:

"When we tried to get the term sexual orientation narrowed down to where it didn't include something like a pedophile ... that was voted down on party lines ... there are about 30 different types of sexual orientations, and they can include exhibitionism and voyeurism or things that are so offensive such as pedophilia or necrophilia. The problem is that the supporters of this bill did not want to exclude any of those and even voted down the amendment that would have excluded pedophilia."

Gohmert pointed out the absurdity of the legislation as written, as it would warrant the prosecution of a woman under the federal hate crimes statues if she hits a flasher with her purse after he exposed himself to her, because exhibitionism is a protected sexual orientation under this bill.

"The one who did the flashing committed a local misdemeanor," Gohmert said. 'The one who hit (the flasher) with the purse singled him out because he's an exhibitionist, and therefore she has now committed a federal hate crime and is looking at felony time."

Kevin Theriot with the Alliance Defense Fund said it best:

"So-called 'hate crime' laws actually serve only one purpose: The criminalization of citizens based on whatever thoughts, beliefs, and emotions they have that are not considered to be 'politically correct.' No one should fall for the idea that this bill does anything to bring about greater justice for Americans."

Well, my take on this is even more simple - not simplistic, just more simple: I cannot think of one subject of so-called hate crimes legislation for which there are not already adequate laws on the books. If you are heterosexual and I assault you, I have committed assault. If you are homosexual and I assault you, I have still committed assault. If I am White and you are White and I murder you, I have committed murder. If I am White and you are Black and I murder you, I have still committed murder.

In most, if not all, capital crimes, it must be proven that one had the intent to commit the alleged crime, but the "why" of that intent does not have to be proven. The "why," as you sometimes hear lawyers, mainly on TV, say, is "irrelevant and immaterial." The intent itself, e.g., to commit murder, not the rationale behind it, is what is important. That's why someone may be found guilty of manslaughter and not murder, but in both cases the result for the victim is the same - he or she is dead. In the case of murder, the intent was to kill, but in the case of manslaughter there may have been intent to harm, or to accidentally or negligently cause harm, but not to kill.

Hate crimes legislation, instead of making various classes of people more equal before the law, actually attempts to make them more equal than other classes, and in the process represents adding another and unnecessary layer to the jurisprudential system.

Besides, it should be remembered that morality cannot be legislated, and that's exactly what hate crimes legislation attempts to do.

I know you wanted to be president. And, it's true, anyone who really wants that job must really, really want it. But, even given that, you went above and beyond, designing your own version of a presidential seal during the campaign (pale blue and white, if I recall correctly - or was that creme?) and then making sure to hold news pressers two or three times a week from winning the election right up to your inauguration, usually appearing at a podium bearing a sign for the nonexistent "Office of the President-elect" and to the point that your disclaimer "there is only one president at a time" became as much of a mantra as "hope" and "change" were during your campaign. I know you wanted to stay in the limelight, as well as comment on some things, yet avoid commenting on other things, so you had to remind the clamoring press that you weren't the real president yet, but that you were already almost the president and had your appointees to introduce and important things on your mind to talk about. Well, now, finally, you really are the president, so no more need for fake seals or signs. Now you can use the real ones. And I know you haven't had to wait as long, nor gain as much experience, as most who have held that office, but you've just been chaffing at the bit to actually be the president and get started "remaking" America.

I don't know that America needs "remaking," actually, but I do know that our country has problems and needs some "revitalizing." And I know you want to show that you're getting right to work on that. I also know you want to show your base that you're going to fulfill campaign promises and all of us that you're decisive and bold and, well, um, presidential. So far as I know, you may also feel the extra "burden" or "opportunity" of being our first black president and want to do especially well because of that, as well. But, despite having to wait a relatively short time before becoming president and now actually being president, you need to slow down just a little and take a breath or two.

Within just the first few days of your new administration, you've signed a flurry of Executive Orders (EOs). True, you can take fast action on many issues and campaign promises with EOs. Nobody can prevent you from signing them - after all, you're the country's chief executive and they're your orders. You don't have to have anybody's approval, much less wait on them, like you do legislation, to be considered, debated and passed by Congress in their often excruciatingly slow and sometimes painfully procedural and dysfunctionally "deliberative" process.

But, even there, in the legislative arena, you've moved quickly. You've already signed major legislation about women's fair pay in the workplace and your so-called stimulus plan, which is the largest transfer of taxpayer money not only in our country's history but in the history of the world. You've moved quickly to more than triple our nation's deficit in about the first 40 days of your new administration, compared to the deficit caused by former president George Bush over a period of eight years! And he was funding a global war on two fronts and dealing with the costs of two major hurricanes, Katrina and Gustav, as well as widespread forest fires in California, along with a few other things.

But axioms become axioms because there's truth in them, a truth which has been tested over time and found valid again and again. And one axiom is: Haste makes waste. Years ago when I was an Army instructor, small group facilitator and trainer, and student faculty advisor and field supervisor at an Army leadership, management and organizational effectiveness school, one of the classes I taught was on executive decision-making, planning and plan execution. One of the teaching points I used was a simple diagram devised hundreds of years ago by an Italian scholar (whose name I can't recall right now - Alfredo Something) which demonstrated the planning-to-plan-execution principle that longer and more careful planning before executing a plan actually reduces overall plan implementation time, and is therefore not only more effective but efficient in the long run. In other words, if you take a little longer to ensure you're implementing a good (effective) plan, rather than rushing to implement a quick (efficient) plan, you will reduce overall planning-to-implementation time, which will be more effective and efficient in the end. Your planning time will be longer, but your execution time will be shorter, cleaner and you won't have to spend even more time in "adjusting," "fixing" and "do-overs."

But, I already knew about this principle in another form because my dad, who was raised a red dirt, Georgia farm boy and had to stop his formal education after high school to work on the family farm, but who always had what I came to respect as uncommon common sense, used to remind me: "Son, you can take the time to do something right the first time, or you can take longer to do it over and over until you get it right."

So, Mr. President, you might want to slow down a little bit and take a breath now and then. Oh, I know you want to "push your agenda." And I know there are political reasons for doing that as fast as you can, on as many fronts as you can - from doing so much so fast that it's harder for the press, the opposition in Congress and the American people to keep up with; to rewarding those who helped elect you, like the Democratic Left, anti-war activists, Big Labor, ACORN, Planned Parenthood, the Hollywood glitterati, and the liberal mainstream media chattering class; to striking while the iron is hot and using our current economic crisis as a reason, excuse and political cover to scare, bully and cajole everyone into going along with you. I understand all that.

But, you also need to remember that you not only have to push your agenda, reward your supporters and move quickly, especially on the economic crisis, but that you also owe it to the American people at large to take the time to get it right. Don't confuse brashness and boldness, promises with principles, fast for functional, deliberation as dysfunctional, payback as performance, or energy and eagerness with effectiveness and efficiency. In the military, one's superiors sometimes insist that you do things not only well but "like yesterday." So, as I sometimes had to stand up to my superiors in the Army and tell them, "Sir, if you want this done fast, we can do that, but it won't be pretty." So, just remember another axiom, Mr. President: Usually, if you want something quick and dirty, that's exactly the way you'll get it - both quick and dirty.