With the nation’s capital enduring the worst snow storm since 1922, the final nails are being driven into global warming’s coffin. Thank God. Reading the following article offers a glimpse into the diabolical goals of the movement. But be sure of this: the radical left’s enduring hatred of all things capitalist will motivate similar attacks in the future. Thus, we should never forget how close we may have come to economic suicide. Happy reading:
“The great global warming collapse”
“As the science scandals keep coming, the air has gone out of the climate-change movement”
By Margaret Wente, Published on Friday, Feb. 05, 2010
“In 2007, the most comprehensive report to date on global warming, issued by the respected United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, made a shocking claim: The Himalayan glaciers could melt away as soon as 2035.
These glaciers provide the headwaters for Asia’s nine largest rivers and lifelines for the more than one billion people who live downstream. Melting ice and snow would create mass flooding, followed by mass drought. The glacier story was reported around the world. Last December, a spokesman for the World Wildlife Fund, an environmental pressure group, warned, ‘The deal reached at Copenhagen will have huge ramifications for the lives of hundreds of millions of people who are already highly vulnerable due to widespread poverty.’ To dramatize their country’s plight, Nepal’s top politicians strapped on oxygen tanks and held a cabinet meeting on Mount Everest.
But the claim was rubbish, and the world’s top glaciologists knew it. It was based not on rigorously peer-reviewed science but on an anecdotal report by the WWF itself. When its background came to light on the eve of Copenhagen, Rajendra Pachauri, the head of the IPCC, shrugged it off. But now, even leading scientists and environmental groups admit the IPCC is facing a crisis of credibility that makes the Climategate affair look like small change.
‘The global warming movement as we have known it is dead,’ the brilliant analyst Walter Russell Mead says in his blog on The American Interest. It was done in by a combination of bad science and bad politics.
The impetus for the Copenhagen conference was that the science makes it imperative for us to act. But even if that were true – and even if we knew what to do – a global deal was never in the cards. As Mr. Mead writes, ‘The global warming movement proposed a complex set of international agreements involving vast transfers of funds, intrusive regulations in national economies, and substantial changes to the domestic political economies of most countries on the planet.’ Copenhagen was never going to produce a breakthrough. It was a dead end.
And now, the science scandals just keep on coming. First there was the vast cache of e-mails leaked from the University of East Anglia, home of a crucial research unit responsible for collecting temperature data. Although not fatal to the science, they revealed a snakepit of scheming to keep contradictory research from being published, make imperfect data look better, and withhold information from unfriendly third parties. If science is supposed to be open and transparent, these guys acted as if they had a lot to hide.
Despite widespread efforts to play down the Climategate e-mails, they were very damaging. An investigation by the British newspaper The Guardian – among the most aggressive advocates for action on climate change – has found that a series of measurements from Chinese weather stations were seriously flawed, and that documents relating to them could not be produced.
Meantime, the IPCC – the body widely regarded, until now, as the ultimate authority on climate science – is looking worse and worse. After it was forced to retract its claim about melting glaciers, Mr. Pachauri dismissed the error as a one-off. But other IPCC claims have turned out to be just as groundless.
For example, it warned that large tracts of the Amazon rain forest might be wiped out by global warming because they are extremely susceptible to even modest decreases in rainfall. The sole source for that claim, reports The Sunday Times of London, was a magazine article written by a pair of climate activists, one of whom worked for the WWF. One scientist contacted by the Times, a specialist in tropical forest ecology, called the article ‘a mess.’
Worse still, the Times has discovered that Mr. Pachauri’s own Energy and Resources Unit, based in New Delhi, has collected millions in grants to study the effects of glacial melting – all on the strength of that bogus glacier claim, which happens to have been endorsed by the same scientist who now runs the unit that got the money. Even so, the IPCC chief is hanging tough. He insists the attacks on him are being orchestrated by companies facing lower profits.
Until now, anyone who questioned the credibility of the IPCC was labelled as a climate skeptic, or worse. But many climate scientists now sense a sinking ship, and they’re bailing out. Among them is Andrew Weaver, a climatologist at the University of Victoria who acknowledges that the climate body has crossed the line into advocacy. Even Britain’s Greenpeace has called for Mr. Pachauri’s resignation. India says it will establish its own body to monitor the effects of global warming because it ‘cannot rely’ on the IPCC.
None of this is to say that global warming isn’t real, or that human activity doesn’t play a role, or that the IPCC is entirely wrong, or that measures to curb greenhouse-gas emissions aren’t valid. But the strategy pursued by activists (including scientists who have crossed the line into advocacy) has turned out to be fatally flawed.
By exaggerating the certainties, papering over the gaps, demonizing the skeptics and peddling tales of imminent catastrophe, they’ve discredited the entire climate-change movement. The political damage will be severe. As Mr. Mead succinctly puts it: ‘Skeptics up, Obama down, cap-and-trade dead.’ That also goes for Canada, whose climate policies are inevitably tied to those of the United States.
‘I don’t think it’s healthy to dismiss proper skepticism,’ says John Beddington, the chief scientific adviser to the British government. He is a staunch believer in man-made climate change, but he also points out the complexity of climate science. ‘Science grows and improves in the light of criticism. There is a fundamental uncertainty about climate change prediction that can’t be changed.’ In his view, it’s time to stop circling the wagons and throw open the doors. How much the public will keep caring is another matter.”
(Ms. Wente joined The Globe and Mail in 1986 and has been a full-time columnist since 1999. She is also the author of the book An Accidental Canadian: Reflections on My Home and (Not) Native Land.)
The Heritage Foundation’s Amanda Reinecker lays bare the charade of President Obama’s so-called spending freeze:
A Grim Fiscal Forecast
February 2, 2010 | By Amanda Reinecker
“In his State of the Union address last week, President Obama vowed that his administration would enforce a three-year spending freeze to help dig the country out of a ‘massive fiscal hole.’ But the President’s spending freeze would only apply to one-eighth of all spending and save a mere $15 billion. That’s just a drop in the bucket, especially considering the $3.8 trillion 2011 budget proposal the White House released on Monday. According to these figures, freeze or no freeze, that ‘massive fiscal hole’ is about to get much deeper.
The President’s new budget commits the nation to ‘trillions more in spending than taxpayers can afford,’ points out Heritage Foundation budget policy analyst Brian Riedl. $2 trillion more, to be exact. With all this new spending, the ‘freeze’ will do little to address the record budget deficit projected for fiscal 2010. In fact, the deficit will continue to hover at levels not seen since World War II for the next ten years.
Instead of real solutions, the budget proposal offers more of the same (operative word “more”). As Heritage’s Conn Carroll explains, it is ‘full of billions of dollars in new spending, for failed government programs, higher taxes on American families and businesses, and deficit spending for as far as the eye can see.’
These aggressive spending measures would be unaffordable even during good budget times. Rather than attempting to spend its way out of debt, which is an inherently flawed concept, Riedl suggests that the federal government adopt some genuine spending reforms. These would include:
Taking back leftover funds from TARP and the failed stimulus bill;
Enacting tough spending caps — not temporary spending freezes — to help lawmakers prioritize where money is allocated;
Disclosing the massive unfunded obligations of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid and outline long-term budgets for these programs;
Reforming entitlement programs, which currently present the greatest domestic challenge our nation faces.
‘Currently, the President’s budget does nothing to address the nation’s serious short-term and long-term fiscal problems — and indeed makes them worse,’ writes Riedl. Though not easy, Riedl’s proposed reforms would permanently reduce the deficit and present a better alternative to record government and enormous tax increases.”
President Barack Obama just released his proposed budget for the coming fiscal year and if you haven’t read the numbers yet you’d better sit down. The bad news is neatly summarized in an Associated Press subhead: “Record spending, record deficit.” A full third of Obama’s $3.8 trillion proffer will be funded with borrowed money. That’s $1.3 trillion more red ink, give or take a few hundred billion. The audacity of it all makes you want to laugh, or cry.
Worse yet are the President’s estimated deficits over the next decade. According to the New York Times News Service, “By President Obama’s own optimistic projections, U.S. deficits will not return to what are widely considered sustainable levels over the next ten years.” Eleven years out and beyond things get worse as entitlement spending on the Baby Boomers shifts into high gear.
Such “planning” is nothing less than the gradual yet inevitable implosion of our economy. If America continues on her current “spend now and pay later” path, sometime in the not too distant future our national debt will simply overwhelm us. The government will have but two choices: default on the debt payments or attempt to raise taxes to European levels. It will be like deciding to cut off your hand all at once, or one little piece at a time.
In the meantime, concerned citizens must digest more unwelcome news. The Washington Times is reporting that the Obama administration is planning to expand federal manpower to record levels. During this time of budgetary madness, our government will soon have “the largest federal workforce in modern history.” By year’s end, 2.15 million Americans will be working for Uncle Sam, a robust figure that does not include military personnel. Prudent politicians might think of trimming payrolls at a time like this, but don’t hold your breath.
Budgetary problems haunt governments at every level. It seems that not a day goes by without a story about state, county, or city money woes. My local paper just today published this exciting news about another case of money mismanagement. “The California State Teachers Retirement System is in serious trouble, with a widening long-term funding gap.” It seems California’s ever generous Legislature in 2001 boosted retirement benefits beyond sensible levels. As with the Feds and every other government entity, it’s only a matter of time until the money runs out.
These spending problems are easy to understand. Politicians have come to see their role as philanthropists, lavishly dishing out benefits to folks whose votes can be bought. Citizens on the receiving end of all this largesse grow accustomed to the freebees and howl like banshees at the slightest suggestion of curtailing the gravy trains. Ever increasing spending, and eventual bankruptcy, are the results.
The solution is also simple enough. Demand that every able-bodied American pull his or her own weight. Get government back within the confines of the Constitution. Let personal responsibility reign. If that sounds unrealistic, understand this: after the collapse we’ll wish to God we’d taken action sooner.
Fresh from a week of smackdowns redheaded step-children rarely endure, President Obama made the best of a bad political climate as he addressed the nation last night. Saying nothing new and little believable, Obama droned on for longer than most Americans cared to listen. If you believe he’s going to cut spending, help the middle class, or pass healthcare reform…I’ve got this nice bridge for sale. Like an over-cooked potato, our President is done but he doesn’t know it. We’ve looked at the change he’s bringing and said, “My God, NO!”
My two local papers ran nearly identical headlines, each one trumpeting Obama’s declaration, “I don’t quit.” Bummer. Here’s a man who needs to follow in Richard Nixon’s footsteps, only in the first term. Of course, to their credit, socialists, communists, Marxists and liberals in general do stay the course. While the rest of us are working and raising families, they unceasingly push their unholy agendas. So, the one thing Americans can take to heart is the President’s pledge to keep slugging.
Come to think of it, that may be the best thing to happen to conservatism since Ronald Reagan. Another 10 months of bailouts, failed stimulus programs, beyond-belief government spending and blatant, in-your-face vote buying of Senators and Representatives and Alan Keyes might win an election. Democratic legislators up for reelection in the fall may have been all smiles last night, but you can bet John Edwards’ marriage license their support for Obama’s agenda is fragile at best. Push on Mr. President! The Republican Party needs all the help it can get.
Speaking of cost savings, according to the Associated Press, ”The Democratic-controlled Senate has muscled through a plan to allow the government to go a whopping $1.9 trillion deeper in debt.” The debt ceiling now stands at an unfathomable $14.3 trillion. The $1.9 trillion — enough to run the entire federal government for a full year when Stain Man was in the Oval Office – will barely fund Obama’s slash and burn fiscal policy past the mid-term elections. Barring sanity returning to the budget process, lawmakers will need to raise the nation’s debt ceiling again this December.
How deep is the hole? According to the Associated Press, “That’s about $45,000 for every American.” Adding insult to injury, Senate Democrats passed this nation-killing bill less than 24 hours after President Obama said concerning the spiraling debt, “I will issue an executive order that will allow us to go forward, because I refuse to pass this problem on to another generation of Americans.” Too late Mr. President.
The State of the Union can be summed up in three words: House Of Cards. Worse, the Left’s borrow and spend strategy stretches before us as far as the eye can see. The AP confirmed that “New estimates released by the Congressional Budget Office on Tuesday show that the U.S. this year could run a deficit matching last year’s record $1.4 trillion shortfall.” To paraphrase Obama’s spiritual mentor, sooner or later these chickens will come home to roost. If Americans cannot or will not vote these sham artists out of office ASAP, then we’ll deserve what we get. Think Germany 1923.
The upset victory of now Senator Scott Brown in Massachusetts was only part of what has to be the left’s worst week in years. The latest jobs report is dismal at best. Not satisfied with seeing his healthcare takeover go up in smoke, President Obama now wants to take on America’s banking system. The stock market had it’s worst three days in anyone’s memory. And the icing on the cake? John Edwards came clean about his fathering a child with a campaign staffer while his wife battled cancer. Gee, liberals better not ask, “What now?”
After pouring hundreds of billions into “shovel ready” projects — and now that healthcare reform is dead – the Obama administration is vowing to focus on jobs, raising the obvious question: “What have they been doing over the past year?” The latest jobless report is cause for alarm. CNNmoney.com today announced that “A total of 43 states reported rising jobless rates in December…” President Obama must be wondering if he can still blame George Bush for that one. Can anyone spell “double-dip recession”?
Investors sure can. The stock market this week sank like Ted Kennedy’s automobile. Losing 5% over a mere three sessions, traders were said to be worrying “that the White House bank plan and China’s lending curbs” will strike a blow to the nation’s economy, according to CNNmoney.com. Worry isn’t a strong enough term, really. If the Chinese stop lending to their biggest dupe, uh customer — that would be our federal government — we’ll all be eating grass.
Any hope that the administration would change course and let the private sector create jobs was dashed when “Senate Democrats…proposed allowing the federal government to borrow an additional $1.9 trillion to pay its bills, a record increase that would permit the national debt to reach $14.3 trillion,” according to the Associated Press. Are these guys kidding? Sadly, no. Drunk with power and addicted to spending, Senate liberals couldn’t change course to save their souls, or the country’s future.
Think I’m exaggerating? Digest how Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Montana, explained his reason to plunge America further in debt. Said Baucus, “We have gone to the restaurant. We have eaten the meal. Now the only question is whether we will pay the check.” No Senator, the question is, “When will you realize that spending enormous sums of borrowed money without generating jobs or growing the economy can only end in financial catastrophe?” The foolhardiness of our elected leaders is at once monumental and tragic.
Well, there you have it, the perfect storm of liberals’ nightmares. It remains for us to make the entire year of 2010 a bad dream for the left. Unless Obama, Reid and Pelosi begin thinking and acting like statesmen concerned only for the welfare of the country — and don’t hold your breath on that one — they’ll keep beating the same dead horses: more government, more ineffective spending, and more wasteful programs. Such a course could put Republicans in control of the House and Senate once again. Finally, a sweet dream.
Posted by Jerry Pomeroy as Politics at 5:51 PM UTC
Republican Scott Brown’s victory in the special election to fill Ted Kennedy’s vacant Senate seat boggles the mind. Massachusetts is a Democratic bastion. Brown’s vanquished opponent, Democrat Martha Coakley, is a statewide office holder (Attorney General) and well-known compared to Brown. Just three weeks ago Coakley enjoyed a double-digit lead in polls that seemed to foreshadow a sure thing: a Democrat would fill Ted Kennedy’s place. So much for sure things.
The electoral upset has enormous implications. Now the Democrats are one vote shy of the filibuster-proof 60 they have enjoyed since the landslide Democratic win in 2008, meaning healthcare, cap and trade, and a host of other left-leaning initiatives might be dead in the water. Obamacare is especially vulnerable; Brown openly campaigned against it. Many pundits are saying that strategy was the 1,000 pound weight that broke Oakley’s back.
It’s a whole new ballgame in Washington. Various news reports quoting prominent Democrats reveal a huge ripple effect cursing through the party in power. This, for instance, was published by Politico.com just today:
“Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) told a local reporter, ‘It’s probably back to the drawing board on health care, which is unfortunate.’ Rep. Bill Delahunt (D-Mass.) told MSNBC this morning he will advise Democratic leaders to scrap the big bill and move small, more popular pieces that can attract Republicans. And Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) said his leadership is ‘whistling past the graveyard’ if they think Brown’s win won’t force a rethinking of the health care plan.”
Just what caused Brown’s surprise win? To be sure, Coakley could have run a better campaign and the DNC could have come to her aid sooner. But focusing on such election minutiae misses the big point. The nation has gotten a good look at President Obama and doesn’t like what it sees. Period. This election didn’t pit Democrat against Republican. It wasn’t a referendum on big government or reckless and unprecedented spending, although those issues played a minor roll. What the Massachusetts voters rejected was socialism, plain and simple. In the rush of Obama’s first few months he was able to takeover banks and car companies and spend phenomenal amounts of money, but that parade is over.
Republicans, independents and Reagan Democrats voted for liberty yesterday. Therein lies a lesson for Republicans. Most Americans are fed up with business as usual in Washington. Both parties have been guilty of feathering their own nests with a profusion of earmarks and perks. Both parties continue to consolidate power in the nation’s capitol. And, both parties have suffered because of their self-serving ways. When Bill Clinton took office in 1993 the Democrats controlled both Houses of Congress. When he left office 8 years later, the Republicans were in the majority. The same is true of George W. Bush, and Obama is following in his two predecessors’ footsteps.
What the nation wants is more local control, less government, more choice, and more individual responsibility — in other words, conservatism. Those were the issues Scott Brown campaigned on. The result may have surprised the casual observer, but in fact was no fluke. As Ronald Reagan proved, conservatism has deep roots in America. For the Republican Party, this is no time to talk about consensus, coalition building, or reaching across the isle. Now is the time to give American voters what they are clearly clamoring for: conservative candidates espousing conservative policies based on conservative principles. If it can succeed in Massachusetts — and it did – the Republican strategy for the November elections is clear: move to the right, campaign from the right, and govern from the right.
In case you are among the few who still think Mother Earth is threatened by Global Warming, The Times OnLine has good news. Yesterday’s published report of yet more United Nations chicanery is nail number 10,000 in the coffin of Climate Change hysterics. As it turns out, glaciers in the Himalayas are not melting at the speed of light nor is the sky falling. Good grief, can we put this lie to bed once and for all and enjoy the third coldest winter in 30 years? Probably not. And, why are these Global Warming rebuttals never (rarely?) found in American newspapers? Hmmm…enjoy the article:
From The Sunday Times, January 17, 2010
“World misled over Himalayan glacier meltdown”
By Jonathan Leake and Chris Hastings
“A WARNING that climate change will melt most of the Himalayan glaciers by 2035 is likely to be retracted after a series of scientific blunders by the United Nations body that issued it.
Two years ago the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued a benchmark report that was claimed to incorporate the latest and most detailed research into the impact of global warming. A central claim was the world’s glaciers were melting so fast that those in the Himalayas could vanish by 2035.
In the past few days the scientists behind the warning have admitted that it was based on a news story in the New Scientist, a popular science journal, published eight years before the IPCC’s 2007 report.
It has also emerged that the New Scientist report was itself based on a short telephone interview with Syed Hasnain, a little-known Indian scientist then based at Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi.
Hasnain has since admitted that the claim was ’speculation’ and was not supported by any formal research. If confirmed it would be one of the most serious failures yet seen in climate research. The IPCC was set up precisely to ensure that world leaders had the best possible scientific advice on climate change.
Professor Murari Lal, who oversaw the chapter on glaciers in the IPCC report, said he would recommend that the claim about glaciers be dropped: ‘If Hasnain says officially that he never asserted this, or that it is a wrong presumption, than I will recommend that the assertion about Himalayan glaciers be removed from future IPCC assessments.’
The IPCC’s reliance on Hasnain’s 1999 interview has been highlighted by Fred Pearce, the journalist who carried out the original interview for the New Scientist. Pearce said he rang Hasnain in India in 1999 after spotting his claims in an Indian magazine. Pearce said: ‘Hasnain told me then that he was bringing a report containing those numbers to Britain. The report had not been peer reviewed or formally published in a scientific journal and it had no formal status so I reported his work on that basis. Since then I have obtained a copy and it does not say what Hasnain said. In other words it does not mention 2035 as a date by which any Himalayan glaciers will melt. However, he did make clear that his comments related only to part of the Himalayan glaciers, not the whole massif.’
The New Scientist report was apparently forgotten until 2005 when WWF cited it in a report called An Overview of Glaciers, Glacier Retreat, and Subsequent Impacts in Nepal, India and China. The report credited Hasnain’s 1999 interview with the New Scientist. But it was a campaigning report rather than an academic paper so it was not subjected to any formal scientific review. Despite this it rapidly became a key source for the IPCC when Lal and his colleagues came to write the section on the Himalayas.
When finally published, the IPCC report did give its source as the WWF study but went further, suggesting the likelihood of the glaciers melting was ‘very high’. The IPCC defines this as having a probability of greater than 90%.
The report read: ‘Glaciers in the Himalaya are receding faster than in any other part of the world and, if the present rate continues, the likelihood of them disappearing by the year 2035 and perhaps sooner is very high if the Earth keeps warming at the current rate.’
However, glaciologists find such figures inherently ludicrous, pointing out that most Himalayan glaciers are hundreds of feet thick and could not melt fast enough to vanish by 2035 unless there was a huge global temperature rise. The maximum rate of decline in thickness seen in glaciers at the moment is 2-3 feet a year and most are far lower.
Professor Julian Dowdeswell, director of the Scott Polar Research Institute at Cambridge University, said: ‘Even a small glacier such as the Dokriani glacier is up to 120 metres [394ft] thick. A big one would be several hundred metres thick and tens of kilometres long. The average is 300 metres thick so to melt one even at 5 metres a year would take 60 years. That is a lot faster than anything we are seeing now so the idea of losing it all by 2035 is unrealistically high.’
Some scientists have questioned how the IPCC could have allowed such a mistake into print. Perhaps the most likely reason was lack of expertise. Lal himself admits he knows little about glaciers. ‘I am not an expert on glaciers.and I have not visited the region so I have to rely on credible published research. The comments in the WWF report were made by a respected Indian scientist and it was reasonable to assume he knew what he was talking about,’ he said.
Rajendra Pachauri, the IPCC chairman, has previously dismissed criticism of the Himalayas claim as ‘voodoo science’.
Last week the IPCC refused to comment so it has yet to explain how someone who admits to little expertise on glaciers was overseeing such a report. Perhaps its one consolation is that the blunder was spotted by climate scientists who quickly made it public.
The lead role in that process was played by Graham Cogley, a geographer from Trent University in Ontario, Canada, who had long been unhappy with the IPCC’s finding.
He traced the IPCC claim back to the New Scientist and then contacted Pearce. Pearce then re-interviewed Hasnain, who confirmed that his 1999 comments had been ’speculative’, and published the update in the New Scientist.
Cogley said: ‘The reality, that the glaciers are wasting away, is bad enough. But they are not wasting away at the rate suggested by this speculative remark and the IPCC report. The problem is that nobody who studied this material bothered chasing the trail back to the original point when the claim first arose. It is ultimately a trail that leads back to a magazine article and that is not the sort of thing you want to end up in an IPCC report.’
Pearce said the IPCC’s reliance on the WWF was ‘immensely lazy’ and the organisation need to explain itself or back up its prediction with another scientific source. Hasnain could not be reached for comment.
The revelation is the latest crack to appear in the scientific concensus over climate change. It follows the so-called climate-gate scandal, where British scientists apparently tried to prevent other researchers from accessing key date. Last week another row broke out when the Met Office criticised suggestions that sea levels were likely to rise 1.9m by 2100, suggesting much lower increases were likely.”
During the last several decades, liberal Democrats have dominated California politics, but the pinnacle of their power was reached in the first years of this century. Gray Davis was Governor, all 5 statewide offices were held by Democrats and both state legislatures were dominated by Democrats. California had become the Petri dish of liberal wish fulfillment.
Budgets were crafted on the belief that tax revenue would continually increase. Large percentages of state spending were allocated to education and welfare regardless of economic conditions. And, state workers were granted some of the sweetest salaries and benefit packages on the planet. In fact, the retirement plans put in place in 2001 are so rich the Golden State faces near certain bankruptcy.
This looming debt — by some accounts over $200 billion of unfunded liabilities – was the first thing to catch Arnold Schwarzenegger’s attention when he became Governor in November 2003. However, Arnold’s attempt to move California’s employees from a Defined Benefit plan to a more sustainable 401k program failed at the ballot box, sealing California’s fate.
The budget deficits of the last few years will be with us perpetually, or at least until the gravy train is derailed or California declares bankruptcy. Don’t think so? Then listen to Willie Brown. Writing for his hometown newspaper, Brown said:
“If we as a state want to make a New Year’s resolution, I suggest taking a good look at the California we have created. From our out-of-sync tax system to our out-of-control civil service, it’s time for politicians to begin an honest dialogue about what we’ve become.
Take the civil service.
The system was set up so politicians like me couldn’t come in and fire the people (relatives) hired by the guy they beat and replace them with their own friends and relatives.
Over the years, however, the civil service system has changed from one that protects jobs to one that runs the show.
The deal used to be that civil servants were paid less than private sector workers in exchange for an understanding that they had job security for life.
But we politicians, pushed by our friends in labor, gradually expanded pay and benefits to private-sector levels while keeping the job protections and layering on incredibly generous retirement packages that pay ex-workers almost as much as current workers.
Talking about this is politically unpopular and potentially even career suicide for most officeholders. But at some point, someone is going to have to get honest about the fact that 80 percent of the state, county and city budget deficits are due to employee costs.
Either we do something about it at the ballot box, or a judge will do something about in Bankruptcy Court. And if you think I’m kidding, just look at Vallejo.”
Talk about closing the barn door after the horses have left! Willie Brown embodies California liberalism, having served in the California Assembly for over 30 years, 15 as Speaker. He was San Francisco’s Mayor for 8 more tax and spend years. Once the chief architect of massive state government, now Brown is singing a different tune.
At least it’s the right song. But alas, now reduced to the role of columnist for the San Fransisco Chronicle, Brown, like the rest of us, can only stand at a distance and scream that the sky is falling on our beloved state. California’s penance has only begun. When the collapse happens, blame Willie Brown.
Brit Hume had the audacity to suggest a change of religions for disgraced golfer Tiger Woods. How dare he! Never mind that Buddism (Woods’ current religion of choice) offers no concept of forgiveness, mainly because Buddism has no concept of sin. Anywho, following Hume’s remark all heck broke loose. Christianity is simply taboo to the American left. Here’s Ann Coulter’s take on the situation:
IF YOU CAN FIND A BETTER DEAL, TAKE IT!
by Ann Coulter, published January 6, 2010
“Someone mentioned Christianity on television recently and liberals reacted with their usual howls of rage and blinking incomprehension.
On a Fox News panel discussing Tiger Woods, Brit Hume said, perfectly accurately:
‘The extent to which he can recover, it seems to me, depends on his faith. He is said to be a Buddhist. I don’t think that faith offers the kind of forgiveness and redemption that is offered by the Christian faith. So, my message to Tiger would be, “Tiger, turn to the Christian faith and you can make a total recovery and be a great example to the world.”‘
Hume’s words, being 100 percent factually correct, sent liberals into a tizzy of sputtering rage, once again illustrating liberals’ copious ignorance of Christianity. (Also illustrating the words of the Bible: ‘How is it you do not understand me when I speak? It is because you cannot bear to listen to my words.’ John 8:43.)
In The Washington Post, Tom Shales demanded that Hume apologize, saying he had ‘dissed about half a billion Buddhists on the planet.’
Is Buddhism about forgiveness? Because, if so, Buddhists had better start demanding corrections from every book, magazine article and blog posting ever written on the subject, which claims Buddhists don’t believe in God, but try to become their own gods.
I can’t imagine that anyone thinks Tiger’s problem was that he didn’t sufficiently think of himself as a god, especially after that final putt in the Arnold Palmer Invitational last year.
In light of Shales’ warning Hume about ‘what people are saying’ about him, I hope Hume’s a Christian, but that’s not apparent from his inarguable description of Christianity. Of course, given the reaction to his remarks, apparently one has to be a regular New Testament scholar to have so much as a passing familiarity with the basic concept of Christianity.
On MSNBC, David Shuster invoked the ’separation of church and television’ (a phrase that also doesn’t appear in the Constitution), bitterly complaining that Hume had brought up Christianity ‘out-of-the-blue’ on ‘a political talk show.’
Why on earth would Hume mention religion while discussing a public figure who had fallen from grace and was in need of redemption and forgiveness? Boy, talk about coming out of left field!
What religion — what topic — induces this sort of babbling idiocy? (If liberals really want to keep people from hearing about God, they should give Him his own show on MSNBC.)
Most perplexing was columnist Dan Savage’s indignant accusation that Hume was claiming that Christianity ‘offers the best deal — it gives you the get-out-of-adultery-free card that other religions just can’t.’
In fact, that’s exactly what Christianity does. It’s the best deal in the universe. (I know it seems strange that a self-described atheist and ‘radical sex advice columnist faggot’ like Savage would miss the central point of Christianity, but there it is.)
God sent his only son to get the crap beaten out of him, die for our sins and rise from the dead. If you believe that, you’re in. Your sins are washed away from you — sins even worse than adultery! — because of the cross.
‘He canceled the record of the charges against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross.’ Colossians 2:14.
Surely you remember the cross, liberals — the symbol banned by ACLU lawsuits from public property throughout the land?
Christianity is simultaneously the easiest religion in the world and the hardest religion in the world.
In the no-frills, economy-class version, you don’t need a church, a teacher, candles, incense, special food or clothing; you don’t need to pass a test or prove yourself in any way. All you’ll need is a Bible (in order to grasp the amazing deal you’re getting) and probably a water baptism, though even that’s disputed.
You can be washing the dishes or walking your dog or just sitting there minding your business hating Susan Sarandon and accept that God sent his only son to die for your sins and rise from the dead … and you’re in!
‘Because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.’ Romans 10:9.
If you do that, every rotten, sinful thing you’ve ever done is gone from you. You’re every bit as much a Christian as the pope or Billy Graham.
No fine print, no ‘your mileage may vary,’ no blackout dates. God ought to do a TV spot: ‘I’m God Almighty, and if you can find a better deal than the one I’m offering, take it.’
The Gospel makes this point approximately 1,000 times. Here are a few examples at random:
‘For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.’ John 3:16.
‘For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God.’ Ephesians 2:8.
‘For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.’ Romans 6:23.
In a boiling rage, liberals constantly accuse Christians of being ‘judgmental.’ No, we’re relieved.
Christianity is also the hardest religion in the world because, if you believe Christ died for your sins and rose from the dead, you have no choice but to give your life entirely over to Him. No more sexual promiscuity, no lying, no cheating, no stealing, no killing inconvenient old people or unborn babies — no doing what all the other kids do.
And no more caring what the world thinks of you — because, as Jesus warned in a prophecy constantly fulfilled by liberals: The world will hate you.
With Christianity, your sins are forgiven, the slate is wiped clean and your eternal life is guaranteed through nothing you did yourself, even though you don’t deserve it. It’s the best deal in the universe.”