Category: issues

Good News: No Al Gore in Obama Administration

“Former Vice President Gore does not intend to seek or accept any formal position in government,” Gore spokeswoman Kalee Kreider said. “He feels very strong right now that the best thing for him to do is to build support for the bold changes that we have to make to solve the climate crisis.”

Finally, some good news. Al Gore will not be the Climate Czar for the Obama administration.

Let me be the first to say Thank Goodness. I don’t think I could stand Al Gore becoming relevant again and, besides, Al Gore’s proficiency at producing boredom is far more deadly than all the world’s CO2 emissions. So the world is far better off if this dolt just fades back into bearded annonimity where he belongs.

Unfortunately, despite the absense of Al Gore, Obama is still planning on regulating us back to the stone age. In fact Obama’s transition chief John Podesta is calling for:

an Energy Security Council within the White House to oversee climate change and clean energy initiatives. The czar and the council would coordinate agencies, including the Energy and Interior departments and the Environmental Protection Agency.

So, yea, don’t down your anti-depresent dosage quite yet.

And they wonder why they can’t win people over…

Seems the “NO ON PROP 8” supporters have been protesting and even fighting with police out in California. The protesters where disruptive enough that the Los Angeles Police Department had to declare a tactical alert which requires all available officers, including some from other precincts, to respond. Fox News even labeled it “rioting“, though that seems a bit excessive considering only a couple people were arrested and there doesn’t seem to be any property damage or injuries at this point… Here’s a link to the video, judge for yourself.

Either way this is pathetic on the part of the gay marriage proponents. I mean, when you throw tantrums and threaten people after you’ve lost an argument do you really think its going to change their mind?

P.s. Here’s a final thought… Now that we know what the gay marriage supporters will do after losing a ballot proposition, what do you think an Obama loss would have been like?

UPDATE: Malkin eventually picked up this story and has more details on the mayhem

UPDATE: Now they’re getting people fired simply for supporting Prop 8.

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: More details on the economic and personal aftermath associated with simply supporting Prop 8

Is the University of California about to destroy its own standards?

UPDATE: Soros and Ayres behind the group pushing the destruction of UC’s standards

It would seem so as the University of California Board of Regents is proposing the elimination of the SAT subject test as an admissions requirement.

The SAT subject tests asses how well a student performs in 20 different subjects ranging from advanced mathematics to language skills. This part of the SATs have become an important part of admissions at nearly all American colleges and universities. In fact, the Dean of admissions for Harvard has said that subject tests are “Better predictors than either high school grades or the SAT”.

So why in the world would the UC Board of Regents want to do this?

Well, you probably already guessed but this is all an underhanded attempt to reinstate affirmative action at UC despite the fact that race based admission policies were outlawed for California in 1996. The basic logic behind this proposal is that lower SAT standards combined with the lower gpa standards they are simultaneously proposing will make more minority applicants eligible and therefor increase ever-coveted diversity.

Now, as expected, the lowering of standards has pissed some people off, here is California Assemblyman Cameron Smyth’s objection for example, and rightfully so… But the funny thing in all of this, if there is anything funny about this, is that SAT subject tests actually help minorities get into college. You see, the SAT subject tests enable minority students to showcase their abilities in certain areas, such as the social sciences and language, that would other wise be overlooked.

Thus, and quite unexpectedly, there are people pissed off because this plan would, most likely, hurt diversity in the California University system. California Assemblyman Van Tran is a great example of someone in opposition to the proposal because it would actually hurt minority students, here is his opinion.

A concerned UC grad, who tipped me off about this situation, has also told me that the Regent’s meeting where they will be discussing this proposal is coming up in mid November. So everybody try to put as much pressure on the Regent’s as possible in order to keep them from willfully destroying UC’s admission standards.

Here is the contact information for the Regents:

Email: anne.shaw@ucop.edu

Phone: 520-987-9220

Fax: 520-987-9224

Website: http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/regents/

UPDATE: Michelle might want to put this issue on the conservative “to do” list…

UPDATE: There is now a website dedicated to the cause of saving UC’s Standards

Shocking degradation we all must fight against

First and foremost is the case of this video from Students for Life of America where they get Planned Parenthood to admit that they perform infanticide:

Please donate to them and help Students for Life fight infanticide and abortion if you are able.

The second case of shocking degradation is brought to us by our old media friends at the Los Angeles Times. You see, the LA Times happens to have a tape of Barack Obama giving a toast to terrorist mouthpiece Rashid Khalidi during a farewell diner in Khalidi’s honor back in 2003. Sounds like a huge news story right?

Well, not if your the Los Angeles Times I guess. They have refused to release the video to the public. Now, they’ve given several different reasons why since this story came to light but I think their motives are pretty obvious (especially if these claims prove to be true). They simply don’t want to hurt their candidate, sure the LA Times will say that they were the ones who first reported about the tape, but we all know that video of Obama praising a nut job like Khalidi would hurt him far more than a description of Obama speaking at an event involving a nut job like Khalidi, especially when that description is written by a hack organization like the LA Times.

There is a protest being organized against the LA Times today so try to make it if you can

The basic logic of the bailout/stimulus boys in DC

I think this video pretty much sums it up nicely:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZmHDEa0Y20

I guess what we really need are some IBM consultants? or at least some people who actually are accountable for results… (and we need them fast)

The Supreme Court is perfectly ok with voter fraud in Ohio… (the Court’s opinion included)

Or so it would seem, at first, as they granted her a stay on having to implement a system to prevent voter fraud. (Malkin found it first)

Here is the extremely short opinion of the court (link to official site for latest Supreme Court opinions):

On October 9, 2008, the United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio entered a temporary re-straining order (TRO) directing Jennifer Brunner, theOhio Secretary of State, to update Ohio’s Statewide Voter Registration Database (SWVRD) to comply with Section 303 of the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA), 116 Stat. 1708, 42 U. S. C. §15483(a)(5)(B)(i).* The United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit denied the Secretary’s motion to vacate the TRO. The Secretary has filed an application to stay the TRO with JUSTICE STEVENS as Circuit Justice for the Sixth Circuit, and he has referred the matter to the Court. The Secretary argues both that the District Court had no jurisdiction to enter the TRO and that its ruling on the merits was erroneous. We express no opinion on the question whether HAVA is being properly implemented. Respondents,however, are not sufficiently likely to prevail on the question whether Congress has authorized the District Courtto enforce Section 303 in an action brought by a private litigant to justify the issuance of a TRO. See Gonzaga Univ. v. Doe, 536 U. S. 273, 283 (2002); Alexander v. Sandoval, 532 U. S. 275, 286 (2001). We therefore grant the application for a stay and vacate the TRO.

*Title 42 U. S. C. §15483(a)(5)(B)(i) (2000 ed., Supp. V) states, inrelevant part:
“The chief State election official and the official responsible for the State motor vehicle authority of a State shall enter into an agreement to match information in the database of the statewide voter registrationsystem with information in the database of the motor vehicle authority to the extent required to enable each such official to verify the accuracy of the information provided on applications for voter registration.”

Basically, the high court doesn’t think the district court could rule on this because the high court doesn’t believe that there is a personal right to enforce the applicable provisions in the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA). Or, in other words, section 303 of HAVA gives no way for private citizens or groups to enforce its provisions and therefor the Ohio Republican Party, who brought the case, has no grounds to ask for temporary restraining order forcing Jennifer Brunner to update the state wide voter registration database.

Unfortunately, after reading through the opinion of the court, the previous cases they cited, and, most importantly, section 303 of the Help America Vote Act it appears that my first impression was wrong and the court is actually correct on this. It seems that the Ohio Republican Party has no legal way of forcing Jennifer Brunner to do her job and prevent voter fraud. Sadly the law that the Republican’s cited just isn’t adequate on the enforcement end. (Hotair’s interpretation)

So don’t blame the court this time, blame Jennifer Brunner the hack whose destroying democracy. Then again she’s not the only one…

It’s the end of the world! Oh wait…

No its not.

Not even close.

Yea the 778 point drop in the Dow is terrible, its even the biggest point drop ever according to CNN.

But that sure as heck doesn’t mean we are headed for another great depression.

Consider this, while the 778 point loss is the biggest point loss in history it is only about a 7% loss. Compare that to the stock market crash of 1987 where there was a 508 point drop which accounted for a massive 22.6% loss and there was no long drawn out depression which followed that incredible crash was there?

But, even beyond the crash of 87, today’s crash is relatively small in comparison with other market troubles of the past. After all, the 7% dropped we encountered today is only the 17th biggest drop of all time. This isn’t something that should keep you up at night, at least not as it stands now. Especially since this will most likely be sorted out in less than a week.

We should all know what is going to happen by now. It’s really quite simple and foreseeable. There will be news that another bailout bill is on the way, in fact there already is news of that, and the markets will regain some, if not a large amount, of their losses back. The bill will eventually pass since it doesn’t truly benefit either party to let these problems linger and that will reassure the markets and they will stabilize. Things won’t be good but they will be bearable again.

UPDATE: Oh look… the world isn’t coming to an end. Oh hey… what’s this? A stabilizing rebound of over 300 points? Who could’ve seen that coming?

Congress finally gets oil drilling right, by doing nothing.

It took forever but Congress has finally caved and will not stop new drilling for off-shore oil.

Good news I’d say.

But, of course, as anybody who knows anything about government can tell you, there is still a mile of red tape to get through before anybody can actually go and actually drill for oil offshore. The biggest problem is in getting congress to pass a revenue sharing bill which cuts the states in on the money that drilling will enevitably bring in. Until then its doubtfull that the states will allow any drilling…

But I’m hopeful.

After all this is a winning issue for the Republicans and a loser for the Dems so the Republicans will push this as hard as they can until its settled and the Dems, as evidenced by the surrender on the drilling ban, simply can’t afford to fight back too hard.

So, as I said before, good news.

P.s. I can’t wait to see what this does to oil prices