President Bush said that America is "addicted to foreign oil". He is right.
President Bush wants us to dramatically cut our dependence on foreign oil. So do we. However, the Democrats in Congress have been and are passing legislation and implementing policies that force us to remain addicted to foreign oil and prevent us from using those natural resources we have been blessed with.
America depends on cheap and reliable power to fuel our growth. Fossil fuels are the life blood of a strong and growing American economy. High cost and unreliable power will bring down our economy. Wind and solar are currently high cost and unreliable sources of power.
Since the Democrats took control of Congress two years ago the price of gasoline, energy and food have dramatically risen. Gasoline alone has gone from $2.19 a gallon in 2006 to $4.00 a gallon today. Is there a relationship, or cause and effect, between the policies of Democrats and the rise in price of gas since they took control? We believe so.
Are Democrats by design forcing us to remain "addicted" to foreign oil? We believe the answer is a resounding yes.
So how does America break the addiction to foreign oil? This question is the basis of the current debate in Congress and among Americans as they fill up their cars and trucks every day.
The two sides are in the debate are: 1. drill for our own oil now and 2. conserve fuel and use alternative energy sources - wind and solar.
Book Review: Why We're Not Emergent (By Two Guys Who Should Be), written by Kevin DeYoung and Ted Kluck. Published by Moody Publishers, 2008.
My father took me skeet shooting for the first time when I was eleven years old. For some, the words “skeet shooting” may conjure images of fancy gun clubs with expensive shotguns and the automated traps that toss clay pigeons at pre-determined heights and speeds, but we were not of that level of sophistication. We bought a box of clay pigeons at the local K-Mart, found an open field, and tossed the clay pigeons with a plastic, hand-held device that we had purchased for $4.00. My shotgun was a single-shot 12 gauge that my dad had purchased at J.C. Penneys for $12.00.
With my first skeet shooting experience, I learned something about the difficulty of hitting a moving target. After much practice, I was able to anticipate the trajectory of the target, keep the gun steady, and concentrate to the point where I could diminish to powder a great number of the sailing discs. But hitting a moving target, such as those clay pigeons, continues to be a great deal more difficult than hitting a stationary target.
Let us suppose that when my father took me to that open field on that day many years ago, that he had said, “Son, we don't want to be limited to just a little clay pigeon as a target. That just seems to be too confining. Our target today is going to be every inch of ground, and every tree, and every blade of grass within the forty acres of this open field.” As an eleven-year-old, I may have been initially excited about the potential for churning up so much earth and the destruction that would be caused by repeated blasts of birdshot, but I would have eventually tired of the endeavor, probably prior to destroying the first acre. In the end, I would have come to the conclusion that hitting a stationary target that is not clearly limited and defined is even more difficult than hitting a moving target.
Kevin DeYoung and Ted Kluck encountered a similarly unlimited and undefined target when they decided to write a book about the current emergent Christianity movement. Much like trying to spray birdshot over every inch of a forty acre field, addressing the fallacies posited by the emerging or emergent church is a tiring endeavor, because the emergent church prefers to be a target with no limit or definition. Limiting and defining their movement would require the proponents of the the emergent movement to use propositions, statements that can be seen as either true or false. Addressing the fallacies of any movement requires that the movement be defined and defining a movement which seeks to avoid definition is, as DeYoung aptly puts it, like “nailing Jell-O to a wall.” After reading Why We're Not Emergent, I have become convinced that not only is it possible to nail Jell-O to a wall, but that DeYoung and Kluck must be the two best Jell-O nailers in existence. I hope that they take that as the compliment it was intended to be.
The very green Sarasota Herald-Tribune editorial board in their May 13, 2008 column "Same old drill" does not want us to take our own oil out of our own land. We thought that made absolutely no sense.
Now the same editorial board does not want us, in their column "Nuclear power needs attention", to replace existing coal, oil and natural gas power plants with nuclear power plants. This not only makes no sense it is senseless.
So we can't drill for our own oil, mine our own coal and extract natural gas from off shore and Alaska reservoirs. We can't build coal fired, oil fired and natural gas fired plants because they produce green house gases, which the editorial board and environmentalists say cause global warming (go here to read about how we are entering a global cooling period). And now we can't build nuclear power plants that produce zero carbon emissions.
So what is their brilliant solution to our energy crisis? "it is the energy we don't use -- conservation -- that will buy time for renewable strategies."
Does this kind of Pollyanna statement make you want to burn your copy of the Sarasota Herald-Tribune? Well don't because it may add to your carbon footprint and we wouldn't want that would we?
Now we have not built a new nuclear power plant in over 30 years because of, you guessed it, the environmentalists, onerous government regulation, trial lawyers, and liberal media mouthpieces like the Sarasota Herald-Tribune.
Existing nuclear power plants need replacing and new plants using current technology need to be built. The Herald-Tribune states, "As Progress Energy explained, recent reactor designs use "fewer moving parts and more passive fail-safe cooling systems that rely on natural forces of gravity, natural circulation, etc., instead of power supplies and motor-driven components."
The Herald-Tribune does not even talk about the tremendous success of nuclear powered Navy ships in their article. There you have floating nuclear reactors on submarines and aircraft carriers, with thousands of sailors and Marines within yards of the reactors and no incidents, deaths, or accidents. What about that?
As the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) points out, "Nuclear plants are the lowest-cost producer of baseload electricity. The average production cost of 1.76 cents per kilowatt-hour includes the costs of operating and maintaining the plant, purchasing fuel and paying for the management of used fuel."
U.S. nuclear plants are well-designed, operated by trained personnel, defended against attack and prepared in the event of an emergency.
In terms of nuclear waste the NEI points out, "Under an integrated management approach, used nuclear fuel will remain stored at nuclear power plants in the near term. Eventually, the government will recycle it and place the unusable end product in a repository at Yucca Mountain, Nev.
The solutions to our short term and long term energy needs must include all forms of energy production. We must drill for our own oil and natural gas for national security reasons, not concerns about global warming. We must mine our greatest U.S. wholly owned resource - coal. We must expand clean coal technology research. We must dramatically expand our nuclear power capacity to eventually replace our current coal, oil and natural gas fired plants. And yes we should include solar and wind power in those limited areas where it makes sense.
Our nation, our economy and our way of life depends on cheap and reliable power. Let's get moving now and drill, mine and build more nuclear power plants. We must for the future of our children and grandchildren.
While the veterans community throughout the United States and Florida get ready to hold Memorial Day services and in our own Sarasota County we will dedicate a new national cemetery to honor those who gave the last full measure of devotion, the Sarasota Herald-Tribune decides to run a story on a dysfunctional, dishonorably discharged Iraqi war veteran who is a felon.
The Sarasota Herald-Tribune should be ashamed of themselves for publishing "The spoils of Iraq war". It is one thing to be against the war against Radical Islam. It is another thing to, at this haloed time with malice and forethought, present a story of a dysfunctional former soldier who has a bone to pick with our military.
This smacks of the infamous 1971 Winter Soldier Conference in Detroit hosted by Senator John Kerry. The purpose of the conference was not only to discredit the war against communism in Vietnam but to discredit America's soldiers. It was highly successful. At the conference Vietnam veterans were called baby killers, murders of civilians, guilty of war crimes, portrayed as dysfunctional drug users and psychologically damaged because of PTSD.
All of these false accusations have been proved wrong. But the myths persist even to today.
This article is the Sarasota Herald-Tribune's Winter Soldier Conference part two. Here they are trying to paint soldiers who have served honorably as dysfunctional and shamefully use Private Earl Coffey to do so.
We have hundreds of Iraqi veterans in our community who have not stolen money while on active duty, have never been court-martialed, are still serving or were honorably discharged, came back to the United States and began a life working hard, supporting loving families and raising children.
As a Vietnam Veteran, I know how these brave soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines who served honorably in Iraq and Afghanistan must feel when they read this story. I felt it in the 1970s.
The anger that wells up and disbelief that any newspaper would want to highlight the dysfunctional over the true heroes. The heroes that they and we left behind in Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam, Korea, WW II, WWI, the Civil War and the American Revolution.
We will continue to recognize our local Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans who gave the last full measure of devotion on Memorial Day, May 26th. We will dedicate our new national cemetery on June 1st. We will recognize those that serve and all veterans as the heroes that they are.
We will continue to support our military, our veterans, their families and their orphaned children.
As Abraham Lincoln said on November 19, 1863 a cold winters day in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania when he dedicated a new national cemetery, "But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate - we cannot consecrate - we cannot hallow - this ground...It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us - that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion - that we here highly resolve that theses dead shall not have died in vain - that this nation under God, shall have a new birth of freedom - and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."
God Bless our military, our veterans, their families and orphaned children.
Another Comparison Between John Hagee and Jeremiah Wright
Written by Cisco
Sunday, 18 May 2008
John Hagee's endorsement of John McCain has prompted Frank Rich of the New York Times to make a rather labored and ill-fitting comparison between Hagee and Barack Obama's long-time pastor, Jeremiah Wright. Rich's comparison is ill-fitting in that, while Jeremiah Wright was Obama's pastor for more than twenty years, Hagee has never been McCain's pastor. Indeed, I rather doubt that McCain has more than a vague idea of who Hagee is, and is certainly ignorant of what Hagee teaches at Cornerstone Church in San Antonio.
But even though Rich's comparison is lacking substance and is an obvious attempt to stir up a fire storm similar to that caused by Obama's relationship with a pastor who is fond of asking God to damn America, I think that there are some legitimate comparisons to be made between Jeremiah Wright and John Hagee. Rich's feeble attack on McCain gives us a platform for scrutinizing the very real faults of one of our so-called Evangelical leaders.
A Salute to Our Nurses, During National Nurse's Week
Written by Cisco
Thursday, 08 May 2008
When one lives in the Midwest, the weather that you encounter on Easter Sunday each year tends to vary drastically. This variation is, of course, partly due to Easter's temperamental adherence to the lunar calendar and it's resulting random-seeming hopping from date to date on our solar calendar. But in the Midwest one also encounters great variability in weather patterns during March and April. I recall one year in which my son's Easter egg hunt was carried out in the middle of a snow storm – hardly the type of weather that comes to mind when one thinks of Easter.
In stark contrast to that white Easter of which no one dreams was the Easter Sunday in 1986. The day was sunny with just a smattering of lofty, white clouds. The temperature hovered in the seventies and there was a light breeze blowing. It was an Easter Sunday of a kind that we wish all Easter Sundays to be – a day perfectly prepared for the wearing of newly-purchased Spring outfits to church and for the consumption of chocolate bunnies without too much attending melted mess.
With the backdrop of the latest edition of God's annual creation of Spring, I held in my arms His latest creation, my daughter, Natalie. She had been born just a few hours prior, and as I looked at her through tear-clouded eyes, I marveled at her beauty. Twenty-two years later, my recollection of that emotion-filled day still centers on her perfect button-nose. Natalie was perfect in every aspect save the most critical: she was not alive. Natalie was stillborn.
The second round of the NBA playoffs begins today, so it is time to review our predictions from the first round and make further foolish predictions for the upcoming games. First, let's review the first round.
Celtics/Hawks. This one is yet to be decided and I was dumb enough to say that Atlanta had absolutely no chance. My only saving grace is that absolutely everybody else said the same thing. No one expected this series to be competitive and certainly no one expected it to go seven games. Like a moron, I boldly predicted that the Celtics would sweep. I would possibly have been more accurate if I had actually listened to my own keys for success. First, I said that better coaching is a key, and yet I ignored the painfully obvious fact that Doc Rivers is a bumbling idiot. Secondly, I said that mental toughness was a key, and I was thinking that Kevin Garnett was indeed mentally tough. Now I realize that Garnett has mistakenly decided that he should automatically be coronated as champion without going through the difficulties of the playoffs because the poor baby had a difficult time in Minnesota. I still think that Boston will win game seven, but I would be very happy if I were wrong.
Dennis Rodman is once again in trouble with the law. He was arrested on Wednesday night, April 30th, at a hotel in Century City, California, and was booked on suspicion of domestic violence. The spokesman for the Los Angeles police department stated that “During the investigation, police learned he (speaking of Rodman) had hit a woman and she suffered injuries to her arms.” A few hours after Rodman's arrest, he was released on $50,000 bail.
I would guess that even the most casual fan of the NBA was not surprised upon hearing that Rodman was once again arrested, but apparently Rodman's agent, Steve Simon, does not qualify as a casual fan. Upon hearing of Rodman's arrest, Simon made the following comment: “The legal process will sort itself out. I'm kind of waiting for the facts to unfold because it's really uncharacteristic for him.” I initially thought that Simon was either delusional, or totally ignorant of Rodman's history, or trying to play the straight man to Rodman's “comedic” antics in order to get booked at the Improv. But upon further review, I think that I understand the point that Simon was attempting to make, and I have to admit that I am in total agreement with Simon's assessment of Rodman's latest problems. Allow me to explain.
Book Review: A Matter of Honor. Written by William C. Hammond. Published by Cumberland House, 2007.
I am always amazed by the manner in which so-called book reviewers can make casual comparisons to Patrick O'Brian and C.S. Forester. If a novelist happens to write a historical novel that has a setting of the late 18th century and early 19th century naval wars, then they are automatically compared to the two greatest writers of the genre who gave us the gifts of Jack Aubrey, Stephen Maturin, and Horatio Hornblower. I suspect that this tendency for comparison is just an indication of laziness on the part of book reviewers, since making unwarranted comparisons is a great deal easier than actually generating an original thought.
There are a number of current writers who do provide us with some fairly good historical novels based on seafaring life during the American Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars. Julian Stockwin's novels about a seaman named Kydd are readable and Stockwin seems to become a better writer with each installment. Jay Worrall's two books have provided an entertaining perspective with a Quaker twist. S. Thomas Russell made a good showing with his first attempt, Under Enemy Colors, and I look forward to reading what he has in the future.
There are a number of other writers who have chosen this genre and they are churning out unreadable garbage. Alexander Kent has provided us with a series of very forgettable novels. Dewey Lambdin continues to have books published in spite of the fact that he is neither a writer, nor a historian, nor a remotely intelligent individual. By the way, he seems to have a rather unhealthy attachment to cats.
