Royal Wisdom

"There's an old saying that it is better to light a candle than curse the darkness."
                                                                   Queen Elizabeth                                                                                                   
Yes, your Majesty, that is precisely what God did in Bethlehem.

Merry Christmas!

Last Night

Note to Self at Crunch Time

It's Crunch Time. Every year I vow to have everything done well ahead and every year I violate my vow. It's that time. And when the self-inflicted pressure begins to ratchet up, I can get grumpy. Not exactly the Christmas spirit. 

A short verse in Daily Guideposts this morning caught my eye as an antidote to short circuit the "grumps":

10 Give generously to them and do so without a grudging heart; then because of this the Lord your God will bless you in all your work and in everything you put your hand to. 11 There will always be poor people in the land. Therefore I command you to be openhanded toward your fellow Israelites who are poor and needy in your land.

                                                                                                                      Deuteronomy 15:10-11

I can't solve the problems of the poor or even those of my own family and friends, but I can give without a grudging heart of my time, talent, treasure and attitude and thereby receive what is really at the heart of Christmas. God did so in sending His Son, so it's the least I can do. 

Greater Love Hath No Man ...

At the start of the week when we celebrate God's personal entry into this dark corner of the universe which ultimately ended with the greatest sacrifice of all, we need to remember the name and face of this young man too. 

Sophomore Zaevion Dobson was a 15-year old who lived in Knoxville, Tennessee, He was a football player, a leader and a great kid say those who knew him. And earlier this week, during a random gang shooting into a crowd of kids, Zaevion's actions were described thusly:  

"Knoxville Police Chief David Rausch broke down at a press conference discussing the young man’s heroism: 'Zaevion Dobson, a 15-year-old Fulton High School student and football player, was struck and killed after he had jumped on top of three girls to shield them…to shield them from the shooters.'

A teary-eyed and choked-up Rausch paused for several seconds before he could finish the sentence."

And so should we all be saddened by the loss of this fine young man to thugs. I hope the young women he saved will never forget his face or his life given so that they might live. I am certain that the One who sent His Son took notice and will never forget. 

www.breitbart.com/sports/2015/12/19/hs-football-player-killed-shielding-three-girls-from-shooters/

Christmas is Coming

Earth's Guardian

Bill Whittle has an interesting segment at PJTV.com talking about why the earth may be alone in the universe as a life-supporting planet despite the fact that there are probably millions of similar planets out there and it's the moon. That I wasn't expecting. 

He reports that the moon was formed in a gigantic collision with another similar-sized planet early on and the debris that flew off was captured by earth's gravitational pull and coalesced into the moon. Since then it has done two important things.

First, it is a shield. As Whittle notes, if you look at all the craters on the moon you must realize that all of those would have hit earth but for our celestial guardian and developing life in a constant artillery barrage is not easy to do. A second shield function is that the moon has enough of its own gravitational field that it deflects the orbit of extinction-sized asteroids, comets, etc. and most often causes a near-miss with earth.

The second function performed by the moon is that exerts just enough gravitational pull on the earth to keep the earth's axis canted at exactly the right angle to produce seasons and tides, both of which refresh life on earth on a seasonal basis. 

Bill chalks all this up to an astounding occurrence of chance. Sounds to me as if it's almost like someone planned it. Hmm...

It's All About Climate Change

We all now know that the biggest threat the world faces is Global Warming, so a fatwa by ISIS to murder Downs Syndrome kids and the subsequent killing of 38 children is of no significance. I am glad that in the end there is a Judge to whom this does matter. A lot. 

www.breitbart.com/national-security/2015/12/14/islamic-state-issues-fatwa-children-syndrome-murders-38-disabled-infants/

By Their Fruit You Shall Know Them

An interesting poll was released by the Huffington Post concerning America's views of Islam. Across the board, with only minor difference between political parties, the answer was "Not so much." David French has an interesting piece in National Review about the poll wondering if the influence of 2 million Americans who have served in Islamic countries since 9/11 has been a major factor. He thinks the answer is probably "yes."

French describes a religion and the culture that is "shockingly broken":
 

Yes, they were in the middle of a war — but speaking from my own experience — the war was conducted from within a culture that was shockingly broken. I expected the jihadists to be evil, but even I couldn’t fathom the depths of their depravity. And it was all occurring against the backdrop of a brutally violent and intolerant culture. Women were beaten almost as an afterthought, there was a near-total lack of empathy for even friends and neighbors, lying was endemic, and sexual abuse was rampant. Even more disturbingly, it seemed that every problem was exacerbated the more religious and pious a person (or village) became.

Although French is willing to allow that there may be exceptions to this judgment, he nevertheless has not seen many (or any) that run counter to his characterization:

While it’s certainly unfair to judge Indonesia or Malaysia by the standards of Iraq or Afghanistan, it’s very hard to shake the power of lived experience, nor should we necessarily try. After all, when we hear stories from Syria, Yemen, Gaza, the Sinai, Libya, Nigeria, Somalia, Mali, Pakistan, and elsewhere they all fit the same depressing template of the American conflict zones. Nor is the dazzlingly wealthy veneer of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, or the other Gulf States all that impressive. 

 

Islam arose as a desert religion, just as harsh and oppressive as its birthplace. Time has not mellowed it. There are many Muslims who just want to live their lives in peace. I know some. But there are far too many in whom religious zeal burns with the intensity of the desert sun and withers and kills anything it touches that is unprotected. We cannot afford to turn a blind eye to a religion and its followers like that. 

www.nationalreview.com/corner/428349/hidden-reason-why-americans-dislike-islam-david-french

And Then There Are Statistics.

Nobody can argue that Planned Parenthood isn't clever. A poll done by USA Today/Suffolk University asked respondents the question: 

“Do you think federal funding for Planned Parenthood should be eliminated – yes or no?” 

PP has been spinning about all the "other" wonderful services for women it provides - wink, wink - and the survey results came back with a "no." One wonders if there was any behind-the- scenes coordination. I'm sure not.

Robert Morris University then did another poll and re-framed the question thusly:

“Congressional Republicans favor shifting Planned Parenthood federal funds to community clinics that perform the same services, but do not perform abortions. Would you say you support or oppose this plan?"

Framed this way, 53% of respondents said they supported the Republican plan. Not surprisingly, the media is not reporting this poll.  

News media - yeah right! Rubio had it right at the last debate - the propaganda arm of the Democratic Party. 

townhall.com/tipsheet/cortneyobrien/2015/12/12/new-more-accurately-worded-poll-shows-majority-wants-to-defund-planned-parenthood-n2092593

A Little Budget Matter Has Come Up

Obamacare "authorized" and paid for (with deficit dollars) a Medicaid expansion for the states to subsidize health care for people above the then current Medicaid income levels. Oregon, of course, grabbed at this "free" gift. Shoulda read the fine print. 

The U.S. Senate voted to kill this Federal subsidy to the 30 states who opted into this program. Even if Obama vetoes it this time, it will happen. Thus, Oregon will have to come up with the bucks to fund it or throw people off the health care dole. This is on top of a $20 billion + PERS unfunded liability (which would take 27% of all the gross income earned by everyone in the state to cover) and repaying the Feds the $300M for the Cover Oregon website which never was. Yup, that's how Blue States are run. 

townhall.com/columnists/nicholashorton/2015/12/10/how-the-senate-just-changed-the-obamacare-debate-forever-n2092170

Chimpanzees, Typewriters, etc., etc.

I was siting here feeling guilty while pondering this graphic until I read about the recent Climate Change conference in Paris. Many of the world's leaders came together and collectively exhaled enough hot air to accelerate the process of Global Warming by several years, but there was one gem by none other than John Kerry! Wonder of wonders, the Hero of Vietnam, the Distinguished Senator from Maine, the Uber Secretary of State, was honest about what effect U.S. efforts alone would have on the supposed course of the Great Warm Up:

" … The fact is that even if every American citizen biked to work, carpooled to school, used only solar panels to power their homes, if we each planted a dozen trees, if we somehow eliminated all of our domestic greenhouse gas emissions, guess what – that still wouldn’t be enough to offset the carbon pollution coming from the rest of the world.


If all the industrial nations went down to zero emissions –- remember what I just said, all the industrial emissions went down to zero emissions -– it wouldn’t be enough, not when more than 65% of the world’s carbon pollution comes from the developing world."

Still feeling guilty? Nah. Since China and India have made it pretty clear that they won't be contributing to solving the "crisis", I'd get my order into Amazon now for a case of tanning lotion and a beach umbrella. Lemonade anyone?

www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/12/09/why-bother-john-kerry-admits-american-co2-cuts-would-be-pointless/

What Does It Matter?

So saith Hillary. Here's why:

“I just tried you on the phone but you were all in with S [apparent reference to then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton],” reads the email, from Panetta’s chief of staff Jeremy Bash. “After consulting with General Dempsey, General Ham and the Joint Staff, we have identified the forces that could move to Benghazi. They are spinning up as we speak.”

This was shortly after the attack started. It ended almost 8 hours later. The State Department and Hillary never replied. 

If this chronology is correct, which can be verified because the House Select Committee on Benghazi does have the un-redacted version, then Hillary's political career (and others) should be over and she should go down in American history with the likes of Benedict Arnold.

www.foxnews.com/world/2015/12/09/spinning-up-as-speak-email-shows-pentagon-was-ready-to-roll-as-benghazi-attack/?intcmp=hpbt2

Errata: Bassackwards

In my December 6 post "Bassackwards" I stated that a reporterrette mused that the recently deceased female terrorist might have been acting out of post-menopausal depression. My sharp-eyed wife suggested that I perhaps meant post-postpartum depression, as the shooter had recently had a baby and, of course, she is right. May the record so reflect. 

                                                 (Tip o' the hat to Clover Stein)

Never Forget

The Pot Calling the Kettle Black

The New York Times ran a front page-editorial on Friday, purportedly in response to the San Bernadino jihadist terror shootings, confirming the suspicions of Second Amendment supporters, shouting it's time to confiscate all guns! Now the Times'  fellow liberal dreadnought, The Washington Post, has weighed in and told the Grey Lady that it's editorial, ahem, hurts the gun control effort, which translated means, "Shhh - you'll tip off the rubes!" 

Sorry Posties but the cat has been out of the bag for awhile that you guys are using the frog/slow-boil approach when it comes to "gun control" as anybody with half a brain (a diminishing number it would seem) has understood that you just want to disarm good guys, and inexplicably leave the field to the bad ones. Not gonna happen.

 www.breitbart.com/big-journalism/2015/12/05/wapo-nyt-hurting-gun-control-cause-calling-confiscation-front-page/

Not Living Life as Usual

Matt Barber in Townhall today says that, "Not all Muslims are terrorists, but that most terrorists are Muslims." He goes on to make his case by quoting Brigitte Gabriel, a world-renowned national security expert whose focus area is Islamic terrorism. Gabriel says that:

" ... there are 1.2 billion Muslims in the world. Of them, intelligence agencies estimate that 15-25 percent are orthodox Muslims, meaning they actually follow the teachings of the Quran."

She continues:

“That leaves 75 percent of [Muslims being] peaceful people, but when you look at 15-25 percent of the world’s Muslim population, you’re looking at 180 million to 300 million people dedicated to the destruction of Western civilization. That is as big as the United States,” she concludes.


Barber then adds:

"Indeed, with these harrowing numbers in mind it’s no surprise that there have been nearly 27,500 terrorist attacks worldwide committed by faithful Muslims since 9/11.

There have been zero committed by faithful Christians." (Emphasis added)

Barber and Gabriel are right. The United States and the West need to drop the PC blinders, look reality in the face, and roll up their collective sleeves for a long, messy, and protracted struggle with a sizable minority around the world. It's a very different kind of war but one which will have, at some point in the future, real winners and real losers and all the consequences for each. We did not ask for this fight but we had better win it.

Take Two of These

There's a lot of pain in this world but scientists may have come up with a breakthrough at managing the chronic pain that afflicts some of us feel via reverse engineering.

Amazingly enough, some people in the world never feel pain because of a genetic mutation that results in a lack of ion channels (Nav1.7 channels) transporting sodium across sensory nerves. The first thought was that drugs to block the Nav1.7 channels would yield huge gains in pain management, but there was only limited success with these compounds. 

Researchers went back to the drawing board and, using mice genetically modified to block the Nav1.7 channels, did further research that discovered a second major physical condition present in these unfeeling mice -  substantially more genes that trigger the manufacture of opioid peptides, which are natural painkillers that our bodies produce. 

With this discovery in hand, they went to a human volunteer who suffered from the Nav1.7 mutation and gave her a drug (naxalone) which blocked the opioid peptides and voila', for the first time in 39 years she was able to feel pain!

The reverse, of course, should be true and apparently it is. If you give a human synthetic opioids together with Nav1.7 channel blockers there is very substantial relief from chronic pain. 

More research is needed to assure that there are no long or short term side effects but it looks like a promising new approach to pain management may have arrived none too soon.

www.newscientist.com/article/dn28623-woman-who-has-never-felt-pain-experiences-it-for-the-first-time/

A Cancer Grows in Brooklyn - and A Lot of Other Places

Former FBI counter-terrorism agent John Guandolo says that a large majority of the 2,200 mosques and Islamic centers in the U.S. are part of the jihadi network. His proof? Property records around the country show that this number are owned by the North American Islamic Trust, aka the Muslim Brotherhood Bank. But wait - there's more!
 
Guandolo went on to connect the dots:

"... the San Bernardino terrorists attended the Islamic Center of Riverside, which he said was a “a Muslim Brotherhood Center.” He noted that the Boston Bombers attended the Islamic Society of Boston, which he said was a subsidiary of the Islamic Society of North America that was founded by an al-Qaeda guy who used to advise former President Bill Clinton and former Vice President Al Gore and is now in prison."

He further described the practical consequences of this network:

" ... the San Bernardino terrorist, the UC Merced stabber, the Chattanooga shooter, and the Boston Bombers can all be traced back to such Islamic Centers where “they were supported and trained.”

These people are absolutely dedicated to doing whatever it takes to turn this country into an Islamic Sharia republic. It's not just the ISIS and al-Qaeda types but the Saudis and other "friends" who are involved. The sooner we get serious about energy independence using all our available resources, the sooner we can deal with this metastasizing cancer that wants to kill our country.

www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/12/04/breitbart-news-daily-ex-fbi-counterterrorism-agent-vast-majority-of-us-mosquesislamic-centers-part-of-jihadi-network/

Bassackwards

Paraphrasing King Solomon, "All is drivel." I'm referring to much of the media coverage of the San Bernadino shooting. 

First the media and their Ruling Class masters were in full-throated denial that it could have been Islamic terrorism. Then, when the details began to emerge that made it incontrovertibly clear that it was, they have simply continued. One reporterette went so far as to surmise that it was because Mrs. Killer was post-menopausal. Amazing. 

From start to finish, of course, the media and the Left have all joined in another chorus of "We need more gun control!" This refrain should really be sub-titled, "We want to confiscate everybody's guns!" for that's what they really mean. Joy Overbeck, writing in Townhall, neatly disposes of this with one paragraph in a piece today:

Actually, the gun-haters in the media, the Democrat party, and the Daily News have it exactly backwards. Bad guys will always be able to get whatever weapons they choose. Proof: the cities with the strictest gun laws like Chicago, New York, and Detroit have the most gun crime. When bad guys are bent on massacre, they understandably prefer that they are the only ones with guns. They may be insane, but they’re not stupid.

Of course reality and facts have never deterred the Left from their march to their imagined Camelot, with its unicorns and rainbows and this total sense of unreality shows no signs of abating. It's the rest of us that I worry about if we are lulled into inaction by the incessant secondhand smoke from our liberal anti-reality stoners.  


townhall.com/columnists/joyoverbeck/2015/12/04/ny-post-headline-god-isnt-a-fixer-but-man-is-n2089067/page/2

He Appointed Who?

The old saw is "Don't listen to what I say; watch what I do." Well, what President Obama says (or doesn't say) about terrorism is bad enough, but what he is doing is even worse. 

The President just appointed Robert Malley, a known sympathizer of Hamas, as his point person in charge of anti-ISIS operations. Just to refresh your recollection, Hamas is the terror branch of the PLO and is responsible for both the tunnels into Israel and rocketing that country. Talk about the fox guarding the hen house! In fact, Malley helped arranged for $1 billion to flow to Hamas. Both he and his family go back a long way in their anti-Israel/pro-Arabic sympathies, including some serious bad guys. 

It is now very apparent whose side this Administration is on and it's not that of U.S. citizens or our interests. Watch for more from Obama Unchained in his last year in office. This is getting very dangerous. 

pjmedia.com/trending/2015/12/3/obama-names-hamas-sympathizer-as-new-isis-czar

Earth to Boxer

The day after the San Bernadino terrorist shootings, California Senator Barbara Boxer said that sensible gun control laws work and California proves it. Excuse me? Fourteen dead bodies in your home state says it doesn't.

www.breitbart.com/california/2015/12/03/senator-boxer-sensible-gun-laws-work-california-proves/