Considerettes

Geraldine Ferraro discusses how the protracted and nasty Democratic primary season has split the party, enough for her to be concerned about November.

LAST YEAR at the beginning of the presidential primary season, Democrats were giddy with excitement. Not only did we have an embarrassment of riches in our candidates but we had two historic candidacies to enjoy. Once and for all our country would show that racism and sexism were not part of our 21st-century DNA.

Here we are at the end of the primary season, and the effects of racism and sexism on the campaign have resulted in a split within the Democratic Party that will not be easy to heal before election day. Perhaps it’s because neither the Barack Obama campaign nor the media seem to understand what is at the heart of the anger on the part of women who feel that Hillary Clinton was treated unfairly because she is a woman or what is fueling the concern of Reagan Democrats for whom sexism isn’t an issue, but reverse racism is.

As you may know, Ferraro is a Clinton supporter, so her criticism needs to be looked at through that lens. But the main issue here I think is that identity politics hath wrought this on the Democrats themselves. Frankly, I’ve not seen the sexism or racism Ferraro alludes to. I have read criticism of Obama from Clinton-supporting sites like TalkLeft, and I’ve read (rather nasty) criticism of Clinton from Obama-supporting sites like Daily Kos.

What I have seen are complaints that the Clintons are corrupt liars, Obama doesn’t have broad enough appeal within the base, jabs against folks in Appalachia, and other such sniping, but not sexism or racism. In fact, Ferraro’s column later notes that some are requesting an investigation in whether or not it actually happened.

Read the rest of this entry »

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My three eldest kids are going to each be doing a short-term missions/ministry trip this summer.  One is going to Costa Rica later in the summer, which will be the subject of "Part 2" later.  The other two are going to Waveland, Mississippi to work with the Christian Life Center, a relief ministry of our church, the Christian and Missionary Alliance.  The CLC’s focus is on the reconstruction of homes post-Katrina and development programs for the needy.  A joint effort by two nearby churches, the CLC was one of the first relief groups into Waveland after Katrina hit.  (Their history page is here.)

In addition to bringing clothing to donate to the CLC’s thrift store (and thus clearing out a bit of space in our garage), the kids from our youth group are going to be working for a week on service projects in the area and helping with gospel outreach as well. 

Please pray for their safety, their witness, their work and their personal spiritual lives.  Thanks.

Technorati Tags: religion, Christianity, missions, Waveland, Mississippi, Christian Life Center, Christian and Missionary Alliance, Katrina

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Jim Lindgren at The Volokh Conspiracy notes a few studies showing that the carbon offset program set up by the United Nations is what amounts to a scam.

Leading academics and watchdog groups allege that the UN’s main offset fund is being routinely abused by chemical, wind, gas and hydro companies who are claiming emission reduction credits for projects that should not qualify. The result is that no genuine pollution cuts are being made, undermining assurances by the UK government and others that carbon markets are dramatically reducing greenhouse gases, the researchers say.

[…]

A working paper from two senior Stanford University academics examined more than 3,000 projects applying for or already granted up to $10bn of credits from the UN’s CDM[clean development mechanism] funds over the next four years, and concluded that the majority should not be considered for assistance. "They would be built anyway," says David Victor, law professor at the Californian university. "It looks like between one and two thirds of all the total CDM offsets do not represent actual emission cuts." . . .

Should we really be shocked that a left-wing scheme to "do something" turns into a Make Money Fa$t scam?  (Hint: No.)  It’s just become another tax, which, one wonders, if that wasn’t the plan all along.

Technorati Tags: environment, United Nations, global warming, climate change, carbon offsets, Stanford University, David Victor, clean development mechanism

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is kevlar bite proof (#67 on Google)

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From "Strategy Page" comes this extremely interesting analysis of why al Qaeda believes they lost in Iraq. 

Technorati Tags: Iraq, al Qaeda

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Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) slaps his party on the back of the head and tells them to wake up.

As congressional Republicans contemplate the prospect of an electoral disaster this November, much is being written about the supposed soul-searching in the Republican Party. A more accurate description of our state is paralysis and denial.

Many Republicans are waiting for a consultant or party elder to come down from the mountain and, in Moses-like fashion, deliver an agenda and talking points on stone tablets. But the burning bush, so to speak, is delivering a blindingly simple message: Behave like Republicans.

Unfortunately, too many in our party are not yet ready to return to the path of limited government. Instead, we are being told our message must be deficient because, after all, we should be winning in certain areas just by being Republicans. Yet being a Republican isn’t good enough anymore. Voters are tired of buying a GOP package and finding a big-government liberal agenda inside. What we need is not new advertising, but truth in advertising.

Becoming Republicans again will require us to come to grips with what has ailed our party – namely, the triumph of big-government Republicanism and failed experiments like the K Street Project and "compassionate conservatism." If the goal of the K Street Project was to earmark and fund raise our way to a filibuster-proof "governing" majority, the goal of "compassionate conservatism" was to spend our way to a governing majority.

Indeed, Republicans, with control of the purse strings to incredible riches that is the constant lure in a centralized government as huge as ours, turned into the very things they criticized; spendthrifts.  In doing so, they further exemplified one of the major problems with government trying to "do something".  Each party essentially winds up promising money for votes.  A smaller central government, not nearly as flush with cash, would be required to stick more closely to its constitutional boundaries.  Instead, regardless of the party, government has, in recent administrations, decided that it knows better how to be "compassionate".

But, as Senator Coburn notes, it’s not "compassion".

Compassionate conservatism’s starting point had merit. The essential argument that Republicans should orient policy around how our ideas will affect the poor, the widow, the orphan, the forgotten and the "other" is indisputable – particularly for those who claim, as I do, to submit to an authority higher than government. Yet conservatives are conservatives because our policies promote deliverance from poverty rather than dependence on government.

Compassionate conservatism’s next step – its implicit claim that charity or compassion translates into a particular style of activist government involving massive spending increases and entitlement expansion – was its undoing. Common sense and the Scriptures show that true giving and compassion require sacrifice by the giver. This is why Jesus told the rich young ruler to sell his possessions, not his neighbor’s possessions. Spending other people’s money is not compassionate.

Precisely.  Read the whole thing, especially if you’re a Republican.

Technorati Tags: Senator Tom Coburn, Republicans, compassionate conservatism, K Street Project, small government

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The whole dust-up over Barack Obama’s Memorial Day gaffe about his uncle helping liberate Auschwitz (which was really liberated by the Russians) should not be a big deal.  Republicans should not be trying to take some sort of advantage with this.  Honestly, in US political life, this sort of thing has never been a big deal.

Just ask Dan Quayle.

Technorati Tags: Barack Obama, Dan Quayle, Auschwitz, Memorial Day

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Hat tip to Instapundit for the bit from Kurtz’s "Reliable Sources":

And if you went to the Internet — you know, we all know about the false Muslim e-mails that go around about Barack Obama. But if you ever saw the language, the vulgarity, the vitriol that is hauled at Hillary Clinton by liberal Democrats, by the liberal blogs, largely by, frankly, Obama supporters, you’d be appalled. I mean, you’d punish your children for this.

Is that the sound of a united Democratic party?  Or is this?

Twenty-four percent (24%) of White Democrats nationwide currently say they’ll vote for the Republican candidate, John McCain.

That’s assuming that Obama gets the nomination.  Now, it’s just a poll, subject to the winds of change between here and November, but that doesn’t sound to me like Obama is uniting anyone, if a very significant portion of his own base will jump ship.

The Democratic primary has been nasty and protracted; not good for their eventual nominee. 

Technorati Tags: Barack Obama, Democrats, presidential election

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Shire Network News #131 has been released. The feature interview is with French media analyst Philippe Karsenty, a long-term critic of France 2, the TV channel that broadcast the famous footage of Mohammed Al-Durah, the 10 year old Palestinian shot allegedly shot dead in his father’s arms by Israeli soldiers. Not only does Phillipe say it was a hoax, he now has a court ruling backing him up. But he needs help to get this message past an entrenched state controlled media. Click here for the show notes, links, and ways to listen to the show; directly from the web site, by downloading the mp3 file, or by subscribing with your podcatcher of choice.

Below is the text of my commentary.

Hi, this is Doug Payton for Shire Network News asking you to "Consider This!"

This is another Global Warming Update.  It seems that there has been quite a lot of news that has, again, gone unreported by much of the mainstream media.  So we here at SNN are providing the balance in an otherwise unbalanced news world.

An editorial in the Washington DC Examiner last Thursday noted a number of data points that are all trending in the same direction.

New data produced by more than 3,000 sophisticated ocean buoys scattered across the world’s oceans indicate average water temperatures have been decreasing since 2003, not increasing as would be the case in Gore’s globally warming world. NASA’s Josh Willis, who studies the output of the sophisticated buoys that take temperature readings from thousands of feet below the surface, says the significance of the new data is unclear.

Of course, it’s unclear.  Now, if the data had shown that the ocean was warming, the significance of the new data would have been immediately clear, and Al Gore would have held a press conference by now. 

The average land temperature of the globe dropped precipitously last year, according to the Hadley Center for Climate Prediction. The temperature drop — more than enough to “wipe out most of the global warming of the past 100 years,” according to the online technology publication Daily Tech — was also recorded by NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

Somehow, this must all be Bush’s fault.  Or Karl Rove’s.  Either way, it seems rather, shall we say, convenient that this happened so close to an election year?  Things like this simply do not happen during a Republican administration.  And "wiping out" something sounds a bit too much like the Bush Doctrine of preemption. 

The severity of this global temperature drop was reflected in the fact the average U.S. temperature in January was lower than the average for the previous century, according to the U.S. Climactic Data Center. Also, the Canadian Ice Service reports the Arctic ice pack is 10 to 20 centimeters thicker in many places this year than it was in 2007.

Well so what?  All this means is that the ice floes those poor polar bears are floating on are 8 inches thicker.  Let’s just hope they float far, far away from Dick Cheney’s hunting party.

Professor Oleg Sorokhtin of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences is advising people “to stock up on fur coats” because he expects an extended period of global cooling, an assessment that is echoed by Kenneth Tapping of the U.S. National Academy of Science’s National Research Council. Both scientists contend solar activity explains most of the temperature variation in the Earth’s atmosphere.

Solar activity affects Earth’s temperature?  Yeah, right.  And ocean currents affect fish migration.  Puhleeze.  (Besides, we can’t tax the Sun.  Yet.)

A peer-reviewed study published recently in the journal Nature suggests there will be no global warming until 2015, due to the effects of the Meridional Overturning Circulation, a giant oceanic conveyor belt that moves warmer water into the North Atlantic in a 70- to 80-year cycle, according to the London Telegraph.

Oh, for goodness sake, so they are going to bring up ocean currents!  Solar cycles, weather cycles, ocean cycles, yadda yadda yadda.  This is global warming we’re talking about!  What does history have to do with it?

>ahem<

In any event, if you’re waiting for these items to gain prominence in the news reporting of the day, hold not thy breath. 

Consider that.

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Joe Lieberman, on his party and how it dealt with enemies:

Beginning in the 1940s, the Democratic Party was forced to confront two of the most dangerous enemies our nation has ever faced: Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. In response, Democrats under Roosevelt, Truman and Kennedy forged and conducted a foreign policy that was principled, internationalist, strong and successful.

This was the Democratic Party that I grew up in – a party that was unhesitatingly and proudly pro-American, a party that was unafraid to make moral judgments about the world beyond our borders. It was a party that understood that either the American people stood united with free nations and freedom fighters against the forces of totalitarianism, or that we would fall divided.

This was the Democratic Party of Harry Truman, who pledged that "it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures."

And this was the Democratic Party of John F. Kennedy, who promised in his inaugural address that the United States would "pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, to assure the survival and the success of freedom."

And then came the late 1960s, and it turned upside-down.  Or, perhaps more correctly, inside-out.  Read the whole thing.

Technorati Tags: Joe Lieberman, Democrats, foreign policy

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That is, the ones who are grilling oil executives.  Bruce McQuain at QandO notes questions suggested by the Institute for Energy Research.  The first 3:

1. Do you understand the fundamental economic principal of supply and demand for commodities pricing in the oil market?

2. Oil is a global commodity, bought and sold on the world market. Given that the nine largest private oil companies hold less than 5% of the entire world’s proven oil reserves, isn’t it more likely that the law of supply and demand is “manipulating” current prices than the five corporations represented at your witness table?

3. As a U.S. Senator, you have control over oil production on U.S. federal government lands. Taxpayers own these lands and the energy that lies beneath them, but 97% of the federal OCS and 94% of onshore government lands are not being used. Are you willing to help increase the world’s supply of oil – and thus reduce the price of oil and gasoline – by allowing more U.S. energy to be produced from these lands?

Read the whole thing.

Technorati Tags: energy, oil, Senate, economics, commodities

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Erik Erickson, a contributor to Redstate.com, also has a personal blog in which he talks about local politics (he lives in Macon, GA). Yesterday, he talked about a good local government program the finds summer jobs for high school students. It does its job well, he says, but it’s having a new problem.

Erik is on the Macon City Council’s Community Resources and Development Committee, and the lady who represents the program briefed the committee on it.

During the course of the lady’s presentation she lamented the increase in the minimum wage — this from a government bureaucrat who’d already blamed Bush for cutting other social program funding.

Because of the minimum wage increase, it is now more expensive to employ each student. Because it is more expensive per student, less students can be employed. The less students that can be employed through the program, the more students there will be on the street during the summer without jobs.

And that could very probably increase the rates of petty crime during the summer.

Way to go Democrats!

He titles the post “The minimum wage and unintended consequences“, but those consequences are certainly not unforeseen, as any honest economist would have to admit to it. Democrats, when arguing for an increase, however, never seem to mention that a minimum wage increase does not, cannot, happen in a vacuum. There are consequences to tampering with the free market, but the loss of jobs is minimized or ignored by a party that claims common cause with the poor.

Technorati Tags: minimum wage, free market, Democrats, living wage, unintended consequences

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Shire Network News #130 has been released. The feature interview is with Dr. Walid Phares, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies where he focuses on Middle East history and politics, global terrorist movements, democratization and human rights.  He speaks to us about the Hizbollah intimidation of the government of Lebanon, and whatever happened to the amazing disappearing Bush doctrine.  Click here for the show notes, links, and ways to listen to the show; directly from the web site, by downloading the mp3 file, or by subscribing with your podcatcher of choice.

I did not have a commentary this week.

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The diplomatic line typically goes, “Our argument is not with the people of [insert country here], but with their government.” In most cases, this is a true statement. However, a recent poll shows that in the Palestinian Territories, it may not apply.

(Angus Reid Global Monitor) - The majority of people in the Palestinian Territories are against the militant group Hamas recognizing the legitimacy of Israel as a state, according to a poll by Arab World for Research & Development. 63 per cent of respondents living in the West Bank and Gaza Strip share this opinion.

In explaining the results of the January, 2006 elections that put Hamas on top in the Palestinian Legislative Council, TV pundits I watched explained this as more of a rejection by the Palestinian people of Fatah’s corruption than of their having made common cause with Hamas’ agenda.

Yeah, well, maybe not.

(Hat tip: Meryl Yourish.)

Technorati Tags: Israel, Middle East, Fatah, Hamas

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A group of evangelical Christians is trying to get the point across that the science isn’t settled on global warming, and indeed that the "cure" may be worse than the disease.

While it may seem like everyone believes in global warming and the impending catastrophe it will bring, a group of conservative Christians countered that message Thursday by launching a national campaign to gather one million signatures for a statement that says Christians must not believe in all the hype about global warming.

The “We Get It!” declaration, which currently has nearly 100 signers, is backed by prominent Christians including Tony Perkins of Family Research Council, Dr. James Dobson of Focus on the Family, award-winning radio host Janet Parshall, and U.S. Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma.

What supporters of the statement seek is to inform Christians about the biblical perspective on the environment and the poor, and to encourage them to look at the hard evidence, which they say does not support the devastating degree of climate change claimed by mainstream society.

The point is that there’s more to global warming than carbon offsets and fluorescent light bulbs.  There are people to be considered.

[Dr. Barrett Duke, vice president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission] called it an “unbiblical” response to make policies based on unsettled data that would push the poor further into starvation and poverty.

But the SBC leader made sure to clarify that he and other signers are not “anti-earth.”

“It isn’t as though we think that the earth is here to be abused. It is not,” he said. “It is God’s creation and we have a responsibility to care for it and to do all that we can to help it be the place that God wants it to be.”

Yet at the same time, policies should not be made to sacrifice the needs of the most needy in order to “reach some kind of standard” that may not even be reachable, Duke argued.

“If humans are not causing the problem then it doesn’t matter how much we reduce CO2 emissions. It won’t make any difference,” he said.

Dr. E. Calvin Beisner, founder and spokesman for the Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation, brought the point home. 

“The number of premature deaths, number of diseases, and the harm to the human economy that can be predicted from the policies used to fight the warming” is more destructive than even if all the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change)-predicted global warming-caused disasters came true, Beisner said emotionally to The Christian Post.

“You try to cap emissions and you kill more people than die if you don’t cap emissions,” Beisner said, referring to those who would die from lack of access to energy, higher food prices, and the halt in their country’s economic development.

“We will have killed people,” he added solemnly. “We care about this issue the same way why we care about abortion. It kills people.”

This is explained in the Cornwall Alliance’s declaration itself.

Public policies to combat exaggerated risks can dangerously delay or reverse the economic development necessary to improve not only human life but also human stewardship of the environment. The poor, who are most often citizens of developing nations, are often forced to suffer longer in poverty with its attendant high rates of malnutrition, disease, and mortality; as a consequence, they are often the most injured by such misguided, though well-intended, policies.

The old joke goes that, finding out that the world was to end tomorrow, the mainstream media would blare out headlines, "WORLD ENDS TOMORROW - POOR, MINORITIES HARDEST HIT!"  Interestingly, in this case, and in the case of so many causes that the press is on board with, that effect is only examined long after they’ve done their persuading, if at all. 

The idea that Christians don’t worry themselves about science is, of course, completely wrong.  Indeed, what needs to be done in the case of global warming is an examination, not just of the science of climate and our globe’s history, but of the proposed solutions and how they relate to our charge as children of God.

Technorati Tags: environment, global warming, Christianity, climate change, we get it, Tony Perkins, Dr. James Dobson, Senator James Inhofe, Dr. E. Calvin Beisner, Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation

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