Nancy and Harry want you to choose the best candy bar

Soon we will be able to make an informed choice between Snickers, M&Ms and Doritos. Truly history-making.

Read full blog on American Thinker

Sarah Palin, Boston Common, April 14

Here's a fun party trick. Surround yourself with liberals-not hard to find in Boston-and invite them to hear Sarah Palin at the Boston Tea Party rally on April 14th, the day before Tax Day. I tried it out last night. People looked at me as if my dog had dragged in some roadkill.

Read full blog on American Thinker

Six scary words: 'And not a moment too soon'

The stagecoach is out of control on a mountain road and some of the passengers are yelling at the driver to whip the horses.

Read full blog on American Thinker

Tend to Your Seeds, Mr. President

The spectacle of a sarcastic President is not a pretty sight. Unsubstantiated sarcasm is downright repugnant, transforming the leader of the free world into a mean-spirited twerp.

Read full blog on American Thinker

Does Anybody Really Understand ObamaCare?

Since the passage of the Health Care Reform Bill, the Democrat leadership has embarked on a strategy of demonizing its opponents as angry, potentially violent racists. Charles M. Blow developed a new line of attack in his New York Times column last weekend, with an argument based on a recent Pew Research Council poll: Republicans don't understand ObamaCare, so they have no right to criticize it.

Read full article on American Thinker

Bonnie and Clyde's propaganda coup

On American Thinker:

The New York Times published a seductive photo (here) on its front page of the 17-year old baby-faced girl who blew herself up on a crowded Moscow subway, taking 39 other commuters with her to paradise, and her 30-year old killer husband, both wielding pistols. The Times notes that the photo:

is deeply repugnant to most people but also likely to be embraced by other extremists as a propaganda coup, a kind of Bonnie and Clyde of the insurgency.

What greater propaganda coup than appearing on the front page of the New York Times?

'What Makes Chechen Women So Dangerous?'

The focus on the gender of the bomber throughout the mainstream media is a transparent diversion from identifying them as part of the global Islamic jihad.

Read full blog on American Thinker

Caucasian female alert level raised to amber

The fact that mainstream media coverage of the Muslim terrorist attacks in Moscow was predictable makes it no less craven.

Read full blog on American Thinker

Constitutional separation of powers 'a real drag'

According to Professor Jay Wexler, "separation of powers is not always positive. In times of crisis, when quick and decisive action must be taken to preserve the nation's well-being, a government with many power centers can seem like a real drag."

Read full blog on American Thinker

Who's the enemy here?

Nancy Pelosi compared to Churchill?

Read full blog on American Thinker

The Weatherization Boondoggle

Leave it to the left to turn something as sensible as insulating your house into a big-government organized-labor boondoggle.

Read full article on American Thinker

Rep. Capuano: Further needed health care reforms

Michael Capuano: "It is my hope that this landmark legislation will...serve as a starting point for further needed reforms."

Read full blog on American Thinker

Run for your life!

Charles Phillips of Concord is thrilled that hundreds of millions of people are “active in social justice” grassroots organizations (Boston Globe letter 3/24/10). From my point of view, most of these “environmental and peace and justice organizations” do not, as Phillips claims, “make a better world.” Most are filled with busybodies who want to write laws, expand government and tell everyone else how to live their lives. For example, Mr. Phillips cites “citizen lobbying efforts…toward…local food purchases.” Why do we need local food lobbyists? If you want local food, buy local food; don’t pass laws forcing your neighbors to follow your example.

Another citizen of Concord, Henry David Thoreau, wrote in Walden: “Philanthropy is almost the only virtue which is sufficiently appreciated by mankind. Nay, it is greatly overrated…If I knew for a certainty that a man was coming to my house with the conscious design of doing me good, I should run for my life.”

Community Organizing 2.0: 'Climate Community Activism'

The Cambridge, Massachusetts Climate Emergency Congress (CEC) is a casebook study of a new movement of "climate community activism" that pushes sustainability issues in municipal governments. It is a worldwide movement that bears watching.

Read full article on American Thinker

Talking Point Alert

This letter in the Globe repeats the talking point that Climategate was about a few "minor" errors in thousands of pages of top-notch scientific reporting. Just because, as the letter writer admits, this point has been "stated many times" doesn't make it true.

Science is not a popularity contest
March 15, 2010
IN HIS March 3 op-ed column “Gore still hot on his doomsday rhetoric,’’ Jeff Jacoby ridicules Al Gore for not “backing down’’ as the case for global warming “is melting faster than . . . glaciers.’’ Jacoby needs to get his facts straight.

The errors discovered in a few paragraphs of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports are minor points that in no way undermine the conclusion of the several-thousand-page reports, as stated many times.

Jacoby cites that polls show that a smaller percentage of the public believes that global warming is serious. Science is not a popularity contest. Would the Globe publish a piece that disagrees with other scientific facts, or that claims that Mars is hot and Venus is cold?

The op-ed page is for people to voice their own opinions. They are not entitled to their own facts.

Patrik Jonsson
Somerville

Haditha Marines judged guilty by NYT Book Review

The front page of the Sunday New York Times Book Review has a review of Black Hearts, which begins with the following statement:

Of all the crimes that sullied the record of the United States military in Iraq — the torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib, the killings of 24 Iraqi men, women and children by Marines in November 2005 in Haditha…

The Marines accused of murder in Haditha were in fact all cleared of charges. I can’t say for sure that nothing untoward happened in Haditha, but it’s clear that exoneration in a military court will not exonerate the Marines in the historical record as reported by the mainstream media. From now on, Abu Ghraib and Haditha will be code words for American evil perpetrated on innocent third world civilians.

Is the NFL Socialistic?

With the threat of an NFL player walkout in the news, the Boston Globe editorial board grabbed the opportunity to bring up the fatuous argument that football is a socialist enterprise.

Full article on American Thinker

Karl Marx on the 50 Yard Line

Number 4 on American Thinker!

Is the NFL 'Socialistic'?

The Boston Globe has acknowledged Climategate in a big story in the Sunday Science and Technology section: After errors, global warming gets a cold shoulder. Sort of. The article spins the story so that skeptics have twisted the story, misleading the public.

Senator Kerry's response is typical:

“What we have to do is go on the offensive,’’ Kerry said. The science “has been maligned and misinterpreted, and we need to fight back . . . people [need to] stop being moved by these talk show [hosts] and start looking for the facts’’ themselves.

Disgusted that Partisan Politics is Going On

Another one on American Thinker.

Beds are Burning

Mark Steyn's Happy Warrior column in NR has a story about the Australian Minister of the Environment Peter Garrett, the shaved head lead singer of the band Midnight Oil. It appears that Environment Australia has mandated an aluminum insulation that is causing house fires. Mark doesn't point out that Midnight Oil's biggest hit was "Beds are Burning," a song about giving Australia back to the Aborigines. Coincidence?

"Beds are Burning"

The time has come
To say fair's fair
To pay the rent
To pay our share

The time has come
A fact's a fact
It belongs to them
Let's give it back

How can we dance when our earth is turning
How do we sleep while our beds are burning

Daktari!

I was listening to an R&B compilation that has a group called the Daktaris. I had forgotten about the television show Daktari, based on the movie Clarence the Cross-eyed Lion. It was on from 1966-69, about the same era as Born Free (with Elsa the lion). Back then it was a family show, but today it's classified as a children's show. The plot revolved around a veterinary clinic in Africa where the heroes defend animal rights. It was a more innocent time when we could all cheer for the cause of animal rights. Sadly groups like PETA have radicalized and perverted the cause.

If You Get Too Cold, I'll Tax the Heat

Thanks to American Thinker for running another column.

Profiles in Courage

When the Republicans were in power, it was called the "nuclear option." Now it's called "reconciliation," or "majority vote" in today's euphemistic Boston Globe headline, "Democrats lay path to pass [health] bill in majority vote." The Globe quotes Nancy Pelosi: “We need to have the courage to get this job done." The reason she needs courage is because the bill is so unpopular with voters. A better headline might have been, "Democrats lay path to pass bill in defiance of majority of voters."

Candidates Simmons and Decker live outside Gallucio's District

Two Cambridge City Councillors have announced they are in the race for Anthony Gallucio’s State Senate seat. Strangely neither of these candidates resides in the district.

According to the Cambridge Civic Journal, Marjorie Decker’s home address is 61 Walden Street, Cambridge in Ward 10, Precinct 1. Decker page

Denise Simmons lives at 188 Harvard Street, in Ward 2, Precinct 1. Simmons page

Neither of these precincts is in Sen. Gallucio’s district, which is a rather bizarre one, taking precincts from the three counties of Middlesex, Suffolk and Essex. Cambridge precincts include: ward 3, precinct 2; wards 6 and 7, ward 8, precincts 1 and 2; ward 9, precinct 1; ward 10, precinct 2. Senatorial Districts

According to Massachusetts law, candidates for the State Senate, “Must be an inhabitant of the district when elected.”

The Cambridge Election Commission confirmed that Decker and Simmons would have to move before Election Day, which is on May 11, 2010.

Curiously the requirements for State Representative are more stringent; candidates “must be a resident of the district for one year preceding the date of the election.”

Elections: A Candidate's Guide to Special Elections

I can think of a few explanations:

A. It’s possible that both Councillors have a second address that they plan to use for the election. (Sort of like those college students who try to use their uncle’s address to get in-state tuition.)

B. They might both be so clueless that they didn’t check the candidate requirements. After all Marjorie Decker forgot to get the signatures required for her re-election to the City Council and had to run a write-in campaign.

C. They might both have the hubris to think no one will notice.

D. They might both intend to move into the district in the next three months.

Correct answer will be revealed in the not so distant future.

Willfully ignorant on next century's climate

The Boston Globe editorial staff takes GOP gubernatorial candidate Charlie Baker to task for what they term his “willful ignorance” about climate change. When pressed by a reporter to declare a position on global warming, Baker apparently replied, “I absolutely am not smart enough to believe that I know the answer to that question.” One might quibble with his choice of words, but it’s sensible and appropriately modest for a non-scientist (and a scientist as well) to admit that something as complex as predicting the Earth’s climate centuries in the future should be approached with skepticism.

The Globe will have nothing of it: “A governor who has not informed himself on the science that links carbon dioxide to global warming is going to be an unconvincing proponent of [green] technologies.”

Which science would that be? The stuff about Himalayan glaciers melting by 2035?

The Globe continues:

Baker would do well to listen to fellow Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger. “I say the debate is over,’’ the California governor said in 2005. “We know the science, we see the threat and we know the time for action is now.’’ Terminator, we have a student for you.

Given California’s impending financial implosion, I hope Mr. Baker doesn’t enroll.

American Thinker!!!

AT posted my first column. 53 comments so far, but who's counting?

Purple Loosestrife on the Loose

It is not a news flash that purple loosestrife has been crowding out native species in the northeastern U.S. since it was introduced in the early 1800s, but if a scientific study of invasive species at Walden Woods mentions global warming as a possible cause, the story is catapulted to both the Globe’s front page (2/4/10) and its editorial page (2/7/10).

The ecosystem at Walden Pond may be different than it was 150 years ago, but this is hardly incontrovertible evidence that we must rush through ineffectual trillion dollar carbon taxes to reduce manmade CO2. All plants prosper with increased CO2, and it may well be true that the “warming trend gives nonnative plants an edge.” This however does not validate either of the two essential tenets of the theory of anthropogenic global warming, that warming is both manmade and catastrophic.

By the way, although a long-term warming trend is not under question, I’d like to see the footnotes verifying the Globe’s cited warming trend in Concord of 4.3 degrees F in the last 150 years; the IPCC’s number for the planet is closer to 1.5 degrees F. Have the Boston suburbs really experienced three times the warming of the global average?