Let Freedom Ring

I want to end the year with an optimistic article by historian Victor Davis Hanson. Despite being told numerous times that America was going to soon be eclipsed by the New World Power du Jour, we have soldiered on and continued to lead the world again and again. Americans are a resilient people and while we have made mistakes, we reinvent ourselves as necessary and come out even stronger. You can never forcibly harness the restless energy of 308,000,000 people, but you can inspire them and, when inspired, America is a force to be reckoned with. Inspiration starts with God and that's where we need to start 2011. We have lost our way for a little while, but I am certain that with God's help, we will again be the America that leads the world. Happy New Year.

 townhall.com/columnists/VictorDavisHanson/2010/12/30/the_american_21st_century

Merry Christmas!

It's Time

It's no longer time for politics. Economics can wait. Wars can stop. It's time to consider. I am the Light of the world. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness can never extinguish it. Consider God stepped into human history and it has never been the same since. Consider and be still before Him. Merry Christmas!

Put a Little Light in Your Heart - and Your Neighbor's

Oregon in the winter is a pretty gloomy place - gray and rain, rain and gray. Christmas lights help dispel the gloom and now here's a story that says that whether or not a neighborhood turns on the lights is an indicator of its "social capital" e.g. - how well people care for each other. The story is ironic for me because although I like Christmas lights, I hate putting them up. Clover gave me the gift several years ago of hiring our neighbor's son to do it, which has been delightful. So consider putting them up yourself, or hiring someone, but however you get it done, invest a little social capital in your neighborhood.

 www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9K73N680&show_article=1

More Sun and Fun in the Caribbean

Here's a story that is easy to miss in the hustle and bustle of the Christmas season but is going to cause problems for the U.S. in the months ahead. The ever-lovable Hugo Chavez was granted dictatorial powers in Venezuela by the Legislative Assembly. Generally speaking, once these powers are acquired tin-horn dictators don't usually go gently into the night. Hugo was facing a situation where his popularity was ebbing and an election was approaching, so this neatly resolved the conundrum. BTW, Venezuela is in the top ten oil producers in the world and supplies about 10% of total U.S. oil imports. He is also busy trying to install mini-Hugos around Central and South America, loves Cuba and China, buying advanced arms, and is snuggling up to Iran including cooperation on "peaceful" nuclear power. Feliz Navidad!

www.reuters.com/article/idUSN1729156220101217

No Good Deed Will Go Unpunished

We're from the government and we're here to help you! Tell that to the two Good Samaritans who used a raft to rescue a struggling deer from an icy river with a raft while a "natural resources" police officer (game warden apparently would be too simple a title) looked on. When they got the freezing animal to safety, the NRPO (Ner-Po, Nerd-Poo?) calmly walked over and ticketed the pair for not wearing life jackets, even though they were over the age where one was required. Yup, that's what makes this country great! Sheesh. The Good Sams plan to fight the ticket.
 
baltimore.cbslocal.com/2010/12/17/good-samaritans-face-fine-after-rescuing-deer-from-icy-water/

Things are Starting to Look Up in Afghanistan

Here is a post originally in the LA Times that says things are starting to look up in the Afghan theater. The Taliban operating in the southern part of the country (Helmland) were surprised at the capabilities and ferocity of the new American forces. That would probably be the U.S. Marines of whom there are now 15,000-20,000 down south. They are indeed both capable and ferocious. Semper fi guys!

 www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/pete-mansoor-and-max-boot-report-afghanistan_523435.html

El Camino Real - An Advent Reflection

Advent is the time of preparation for the coming of Christ. For four consecutive Sundays we go on a journey of preparation for God entering this world in human form to draw the mundane and broken upward into the divine. This is supernatural stuff of which I speak and too easily forgotten in the tinsel and tawdriness in which Christmas is now wrapped. Indeed, we can no longer even call it Christmas but rather "Winter Holiday" or some other lame title devoid of meaning but oh so politically correct. El Camino Real - The King's Highway. This is the road He took and the one that we too should take during Advent for faith, love, hope and joy are in the High Country and not easily reached. You may be surprised by what you find on your journey.

BBQ Pork Anyone?

Fox News reports that Rep. Harold Rogers (R - Ky), aka the "Prince of Pork", has been appointed by House Republicans as Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee for the incoming Congress. Great. Let me phrase this carfully - NO PORK!!!!!! NO EARMARKS!!!!!! CUT THE DARN BUDGET!!!!!! Ah, I feel better now. But the Republican Old Guard had better get the message. They screwed this up once before and if they do it again, they won't be in office the next time. Pass the coleslaw!

politics.foxnews.mobi/quickPage.html?page=23888&external=615453.proteus.fma

Set Sail with the Dawn Treader

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader opens today at theaters. I am a C.S. Lewis fan and this is my favorite book of the Chronicles of Narnia. I have included a link to an article by Dr. Ted Baehr that gives you some good background on the story line. It's definitely not just a children's yarn, so if you are looking for a great holiday movie, this would be the one to see.

www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=237353

Bush Lied...Well Not So Much

Julian Assange is a loathsome little fleck of fecal material who should at a minimum spend the rest of his rotten little life in prison for terrorism. Having said that, the WikiLeaked dox do put the lie to the Left's mantra about George Bush, "Bush lied; people died." Consider:

"Wired magazine's contributing editor Noah Shachtman -- a nonresident fellow at the liberal Brookings Institution -- researched the 400,000 WikiLeaked documents released in October. Here's what he found: "By late 2003, even the Bush White House's staunchest defenders were starting to give up on the idea that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. But WikiLeaks' newly-released Iraq war documents reveal that for years afterward, U.S. troops continued to find chemical weapons labs, encounter insurgent specialists in toxins and uncover weapons of mass destruction (emphasis added). ... Chemical weapons, especially, did not vanish from the Iraqi battlefield. Remnants of Saddam's toxic arsenal, largely destroyed after the Gulf War, remained. Jihadists, insurgents and foreign (possibly Iranian) agitators turned to these stockpiles during the Iraq conflict -- and may have brewed up their own deadly agents."
In 2008, our military shipped out of Iraq -- on 37 flights in 3,500 barrels -- what even The Associated Press called "the last major remnant of Saddam Hussein's nuclear program": 550 metric tons of the supposedly nonexistent yellowcake. The New York Sun editorialized: "The uranium issue is not a trivial one, because Iraq, sitting on vast oil reserves, has no peaceful need for nuclear power. ... To leave this nuclear material sitting around the Middle East in the hands of Saddam ... would have been too big a risk."

The "Bush lied" crowd isn't concerned with the security of the U.S., which means the security of folks like you and me. They want to score their cheap political points and the don't care who gets hurt. As big a threat as Assange is to the the United States, these folks are worse.

townhall.com/columnists/LarryElder/2010/12/09/the_wikileaks_vindication_of_george_w_bush/page/2

Why Me? Why Me?

In a quote-without comment (on my part) item from today's WSJ Best of the Web:

"Why Me? I'm So Complacent!
In a USA Today op-ed, Tom Krattenmaker of Portland, Ore., "a writer specializing in religion in public life," puzzles over why a terrorist would consider bombing his city:

For several good reasons, many of us Portlanders are having a hard time wrapping our minds around the horrific thought of a 19-year-old from the local suburbs wanting to kill and destroy. Why would Portland, of all places, be the site of a terror attack?

The "People's Republic of Portland"--so dubbed for its liberal ways--seems so utterly different from New York, Mumbai, London, or the other places that one associates with terrorist attacks. Portland is so much smaller, light years from the figurative front lines. This is a laid-back city where the red-hot rhetoric around terrorism, Islam, the "ground zero mosque," and the like runs cooler. It's a place where a live-and-let-live spirit extends ample latitude to anyone who might otherwise stand out--whether it's for wearing a Santa hat and pedaling around on a unicycle playing bagpipes (which my wife actually witnessed last year), covering every inch of your arm with tattoos, or wearing a head scarf and praying at a mosque rather than a church or synagogue.

This guy really needs to get out more. Portland is liberal, welcoming of weirdos, and munificent toward Muslims, and he thinks that sets it apart--from New York? And how self-absorbed do you have to be to think, almost a decade after 9/11, that terrorists won't target you because of your "live-and-let-live spirit"?"

online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703296604576005542958085686.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_MIDDLETopOpinion

To Where in a Handbasket?

As Portland goes, so goes the rest of the state. Well, here's a new report that shows where Portland is going economically and it doesn't bode well for the rest of the state.

Basically, a new economic study shows that Portland has gone from near parity with other big Western cities in the 1970s to way down the list when it comes to income. The report notes:

"The sobering report says Multnomah County, the state's main economic engine, ranked second from last in private-sector job creation among 194 Western counties and five multicounty areas from 1997 to 2009. Per capita incomes in metro Seattle, Denver and Minneapolis exceed those in greater Portland by 16 to 21 percent..."


Interestingly, the Clark County, Washington area just across the Columbia showed more growth than Portland. Surely it couldn't be all the state and local taxes could it? Nah - and don't call me Shirley!


Portland officials can blow smoke all day long about "green jobs" and the "creative class" but at the end of the day, more high-paying manufacturing and other jobs have left than have located here and Portland is becoming a green version of the Rust Belt cities of the East and Midwest. I would remind them mold is green too. 

www.oregonlive.com/business/index.ssf/2010/12/portland_area_wages_job_creati.html

A Penny for Your Thoughts?

As it turns out, Obama's commitment to reducing the deficit isn't worth even a penny. Take a look at the video and get a very graphic view of how big the deficit really is and the itsy bitsy, teeny weeny austerity measures pledged by the administration.

wimp.com/budgetcuts/

(Tip 'o the hat to Al Lyons)

Proof of the Dems Great Job with the Economy

No Gas for You!

A new study finds that the gases used for surgical anesthesia have the same effect on global warming as a million cars. I guess that means I can drive an SUV to the hospital but I can't be put out for my surgery. Well, no price is too high to protect the polar bears! Al Gore, we'll be watching the next time you get cut.
 
www.express.co.uk/posts/view/215352/Global-warming-What-a-gas-surgery-is-now-being-blamed

Mystery Missile Shot

A couple of weeks ago someone popped a missile about 35 miles offshore from Los Angeles. It was filmed by a television helicopter that happened to be in the area. Some have tried to brush it off as a jet contrail. Some alarmists said that it was fired by a Chinese missile sub as a warning to the U.S. I think the real story is starting to emerge and not surprisingly it was one of ours.

The National Geospatial Intelligence Agency is tasked with providing accurate navigation for the U.S. armed forces. www1.nga.mil/Pages/Default.aspx In late October this agency issued a notice to mariners of "intermittent missile firings" in the eastern Pacific off California. www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=235013  It is undoubtedly a coincidence that the area where this missile was launched was directly off the Navy's Pt. Mugu sea warfare test center which describes itself as a:

" ... unique coastal location offers an isolated area, which encompasses 36,000 square-miles of fully instrumented and integrated sea test range for the testing and evaluation of weapons and aircraft systems. San Nicolas Island, 60 miles offshore, further extends this coverage and provides an airfield for launching full-scale target drone aircraft and an emergency divert aircraft operating on the range."

Thus the launch site was well within the 60-mile boundary of this facility. So what's going on?

The U.S. has been worried for a long time about the growing anti-satellite capability of a number of countries, China chief among them. Our military is heavily dependent on GPS navigation, satellite imagery, and satellite communications links. It would be a real problem if several of our satellites were taken out by an adversary, particulary in the early stages of a conflict. What to do?

My guess is that the answer was tested a few weeks ago off Pt. Mugu - a nav sat launched from one of our ballistic missile subs. This explains the copter sighting, the notice to mariners, and the reluctance of the government to talk about it. Such a satellite and launch capability would allow us to pre-position these nav sats around the world on our ballistic missile subs and as soon as one was needed, up it would go. I am open to other interpretations of what happened but this fits the facts better than anything else. It's also a great idea.

Glo ... I Mean Climate Change Conference Held in Cancun

Bet you didn't know that the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change is being held right now in Cancun, Mexico. Why Cancun you say? Well, why not and besides, it's c-o-l-d in much of the rest of the world. Oh I forgot - it's "climate change" and not "global warming" any more. But we still know what it really means, don't we? So hoist a margarita or daiquiri to the rest of us freezing our tooties off in the nether regions of the world not yet affected by the name-that-cannot-be-mentioned!
 unfccc.int/2860.php