Liberals’ View of Darwin Unable to Evolve

…by  Ann Coulter

Amid the hoots at Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry for saying there were “gaps” in the theory of evolution, the strongest evidence for Darwinism presented by these soi-disant rationalists was a 9-year-old boy quoted in The New York Times.

After his mother had pushed him in front of Perry on the campaign trail and made him ask if Perry believed in evolution, the trained seal beamed at his Wicked Witch of the West mother, saying, “Evolution, I think, is correct!”

That’s the most extended discussion of Darwin’s theory to appear in the mainstream media in a quarter-century. More people know the precepts of kabala than know the basic elements of Darwinism.

There’s a reason the Darwin cult prefers catcalls to argument, even with a 9-year-old at the helm of their debate team.

Darwin’s theory was that a process of random mutation, sex and death, allowing the “fittest” to survive and reproduce, and the less fit to die without reproducing, would, over the course of billions of years, produce millions of species out of inert, primordial goo.

The vast majority of mutations are deleterious to the organism, so if the mutations were really random, then for every mutation that was desirable, there ought to be a staggering number that are undesirable.

Otherwise, the mutations aren’t random, they are deliberate — and then you get into all the hocus-pocus about “intelligent design” and will probably start speaking in tongues and going to NASCAR races.

We also ought to find a colossal number of transitional organisms in the fossil record — for example, a squirrel on its way to becoming a bat, or a bear becoming a whale. (Those are actual Darwinian claims.)

But that’s not what the fossil record shows. We don’t have fossils for any intermediate creatures in the process of evolving into something better. This is why the late Stephen Jay Gould of Harvard referred to the absence of transitional fossils as the “trade secret” of paleontology. (Lots of real scientific theories have “secrets.”)

If you get your news from the American news media, it will come as a surprise to learn that when Darwin first published “On the Origin of Species” in 1859, his most virulent opponents were not fundamentalist Christians, but paleontologists.

Unlike high school biology teachers lying to your children about evolution, Darwin was at least aware of what the fossil record ought to show if his theory were correct. He said there should be “interminable varieties, connecting together all the extinct and existing forms of life by the finest graduated steps.”

But far from showing gradual change with a species slowly developing novel characteristics and eventually becoming another species, as Darwin hypothesized, the fossil record showed vast numbers of new species suddenly appearing out of nowhere, remaining largely unchanged for millions of years, and then disappearing.

Darwin’s response was to say: Start looking! He blamed a fossil record that contradicted his theory on the “extreme imperfection of the geological record.”

One hundred and fifty years later, that record is a lot more complete. We now have fossils for about a quarter of a million species.

But things have only gotten worse for Darwin.

Thirty years ago (before it was illegal to question Darwinism), Dr. David Raup, a geologist at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, said that despite the vast expansion of the fossil record: “The situation hasn’t changed much.”

To the contrary, fossil discoveries since Darwin’s time have forced paleontologists to take back evidence of evolution. “Some of the classic cases of Darwinian change in the fossil record,” Raup said, “such as the evolution of the horse in North America, have had to be discarded or modified as a result of more detailed information.”

The scant fossil record in Darwin’s time had simply been arranged to show a Darwinian progression, but as more fossils were discovered, the true sequence turned out not to be Darwinian at all.

And yet, more than a century later, Darwin’s groupies haven’t evolved a better argument for the lack of fossil evidence.

To explain away the explosion of plants and animals during the Cambrian Period more than 500 million years ago, Darwiniacs asserted — without evidence — that there must have been soft-bodied creatures evolving like mad before then, but left no fossil record because of their squishy little microscopic bodies.

Then in 1984, “the dog ate our fossils” excuse collapsed, too. In a discovery The New York Times called “among the most spectacular in this century,” Chinese paleontologists discovered fossils just preceding the Cambrian era.

Despite being soft-bodied microscopic creatures — precisely the sort of animal the evolution cult claimed wouldn’t fossilize and therefore deprived them of crucial evidence — it turned out fossilization was not merely possible in the pre-Cambrian era, but positively ideal.

And yet the only thing paleontologists found there were a few worms. For 3 billion years, nothing but bacteria and worms, and then suddenly nearly all the phyla of animal life appeared within a narrow band of five million to 10 million years.

Even the eye simply materializes, fully formed, in the pre-Cambrian fossil record.

Jan Bergstrom, a paleontologist who examined the Chinese fossils, said the Cambrian Period was not “evolution,” it was “a revolution.”

So the Darwiniacs pretended they missed the newspaper that day.

Intelligent design scientists look at the evidence and develop their theories; Darwinists start with a theory and then rearrange the evidence.

These aren’t scientists. They are religious fanatics for whom evolution must be true so that they can explain to themselves why they are here, without God. (It’s an accident!)

Any evidence contradicting the primitive religion of Darwinism — including, for example, the entire fossil record — they explain away with non-scientific excuses like “the dog ate our fossils.”

FAIR USE NOTICE: This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Such material is made available in an effort to advance understanding of political, economic, scientific, and other issues of the day. We believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to:     http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html    If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

Rick Perry Causes Liberal Nightmares

Rick Perry: The God-Fearing, Know-Nothing, Pistol-Packing Embodiment of Liberals’ Worst Nightmares

The following article was written by Walter Shapiro for “The New Republic.” Ok, it’s a bit long, but I think it’s worth the read. Enjoy…

What Rick Perry has achieved in his inaugural strut on the political stage is unprecedented in the annals of modern conservative history from Barry Goldwater to Sarah Palin. It is not just that the Texas governor has dominated the news cycle, overshadowed the Iowa Straw Poll, vaulted over every GOP contender except Mitt Romney in the national polls, and reduced Karl Rove to sputtering frustration. All that is admittedly impressive for a first-time candidate whose name was familiar to only half of Republican voters just a few weeks ago.

But what sets Perry apart and earns him his niche in the far right corner of Mount Rushmore has nothing to do with the gyrations of the 2012 campaign. Indeed, Perry is not only a presidential candidate, but also a cowboy-booted sociological experiment. It is almost as if Perry’s political persona was constructed by bundling together all the fears and phantoms in the left-wing anxiety closet. Since the hysteria of the 1950s Red Scare, no Republican figure has matched Perry in his God-given ability to give liberals the heebie-jeebies. Others can rival the governor’s disdain for academic achievement (Palin), his cross-on-the-sleeve religiosity (Michele Bachmann and Mike Huckabee), and his antipathy to Social Security and Medicare (Paul Ryan and Barry Goldwater). But never before has a top-tier presidential candidate embodied the whole lethal package—and more:

1. Anti-Intellectualism. Liberals revere high SAT scores. That is why it is no accident that, over the past century, the Democrats have nominated for president five former college or law school professors (Woodrow Wilson, John W. Davis, George McGovern, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama) plus Hubert Humphrey, who was a graduate teaching fellow while working on a Ph.D.

Democrats snootily ridiculed George W. Bush’s scholarly performance, but compared to Perry, the 43rd president—who earned a B.A. from Yale and a Harvard M.B.A.—seems as well educated as John Stuart Mill. And Perry revels in this kind of comparison. Asked last week about how he differs from Bush, he tellingly replied, “He’s a Yale graduate. I’m a Texas A&M graduate.”

Perry plays this educational populism to the hilt. The official bio of the Texas governor boasts that at university he was a “senior yell leader and an animal science major.” A bootlegged copy of Perry’s college transcript is the antithesis of grade inflation, with the architect of the purported Texas jobs miracle receiving a “D” in “Principles of Economics.”

More ominous to progressive values is that Perry, as governor, has tried to run the state university system like a business, seemingly unaware that the European history program should be held to different standards than, say, the animal science department. Texas A&M, now headed by a former Perry chief of staff, actually rated professors based on whether they brought in more outside funding than they cost.

2. The God Card. Liberals should be nostalgic for the days when Ronald Reagan frequently invoked a non-denominational deity but rarely attended church. Even George W. Bush’s public religiosity was connected to a compelling biographical narrative—embracing Christ gave him the power to stop drinking.

But Perry, far more than Huckabee during his 2008 campaign, seems willfully oblivious to the reality that his personal theological beliefs are not universally held, even within the modern Republican Party. In April, as Texas suffered from a deadly combination of wildfires and drought, Perry issued a proclamation calling for three days of prayer for rain. And at his 30,000-person prayer meeting a week before he declared his candidacy, Perry embraced “the living Christ” and the “salvation agenda.” This evangelical rally was held in Houston, the same city where John Kennedy gave his famous full-throated defense of the separation of church and state during the 1960 campaign.

3. The Living Constitution. The GOP presidential field has more self-appointed constitutional scholars per capita than any group since the Founding Fathers assembled in Philadelphia. Not too long ago, Bachmann refused to fill out the entire 2010 Census form because she contended that it went beyond constitutional requirements.

But even by these standards, Perry stands out for his creative cut-and-paste approach to the Constitution. With the exception of the states-rights claims of the Tenth Amendment and the right-to-carry provisions of the Second Amendment, it seems like the rest of the document is more or less fair game to the governor. In an interview last year, Perry raised doubts about whether the Social Security system was constitutional. And in his book, Fed Up!, Perry ominously claims, “With the passage of the Sixteen and Seventeenth Amendments, states handed over a significant chunk of their sovereignty and wealth to the federal government.” Not since the days of William McKinley or even earlier has a serious presidential contender warned about the threat of a federal income tax and the direct election of senators.

4. Pistol-Packing President. For Eastern liberals (myself included), nothing is more baffling than the desire to carry around a metal cylinder with a trigger attached that could easily kill someone. This may explain why debates over gun control often seem far more cultural and theological than discussions of, say, tax policy.

What distinguishes Perry from his GOP rivals is the enthusiasm with which he embraces the lock-and-load ethos of the West. The Texas governor’s definition of academic freedom extends to his support of legislation that would allow college students to carry concealed weapons on campus. And Perry doesn’t just talk the talk; he also shoots the shot. While jogging last year in a heavily wooded area of Austin, Perry nailed a menacing coyote with a pistol that he carries during his workout routine to ward off snakes.

5. Daring to Call It Treason. Right-wing firebrand Ann Coulter violated one of the few remaining standards of acceptable political discourse when she titled her 2003 book, Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism. Coulter undoubtedly knew that shouting “Treason” in a crowded bookstore would conjure up the specter of a new McCarthyism.

This explains what was so scary about Perry’s claim that Ben Bernanke would be “almost treasonous” if he persisted in loosening monetary policy to ward off a double-dip recession. The combination—tarring the ultimate middle-of-the-road authority figure (Bernanke) with one of the most diabolical words in the political lexicon—proved poisonous. In contrast, Bachmann has been a far more disciplined campaigner, never resorting to this kind corrosive rhetoric against anyone not named Obama.

Based on his ten days as a candidate, the Texas governor lacks an internal governor to modulate what he says in off-the-cuff settings. Even on his best behavior in New Hampshire last week, Perry could not stop at the right-wing talking point that the scientific case for global warming is unproven. Instead, Perry had to go the extra conspiratorial step and claim, “There are a substantial number of scientists who have manipulated data so they will have dollars rolling into their projects.” Next time around, Perry might well call these supposedly corrupt climate scientists, who only exist in right-wing mythology, “almost treasonous” as well.

TO BE SURE, there’s more to Perry than his cowboy boots—footwear rarely worn on the Upper West Side or in Brookline—and his standard-issue “unproven theory” claptrap about evolution. And the problem with extrapolating a presidency from all these Perry-isms is that it is hard to tell at this stage in the campaign how much is conviction and how much is clever pandering to the Tea Party zealots. Personally, I am intrigued by the theory of Dave Mann, editor of the Texas Observer, that Perry’s only governing ideology is “crony capitalism.”

But whatever his underlying beliefs, Perry could give both Bachmann and Palin lessons in liberal baiting. The swagger and the bristling self-confidence suggest a political leader who is often wrong, but never in doubt. It is all so reminiscent of another wrong-way-Corrigan president. Intellectually, it is easy to remember the Texas-sized enmities that divide the Bushies and Perry. But emotionally, every time liberals hear that Perry twang and those dropped “g’s,” the instinct is to quake at stumbling into a horror-movie remake entitled, Mission Accomplished 2: Return to the White House.

Walter Shapiro is a special correspondent for The New Republic.

FAIR USE NOTICE: This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Such material is made available in an effort to advance understanding of political, economic, scientific, and other issues of the day. We believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to:     http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html    If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

Is the Storm Starting?

I try to follow a number of commentators and writers, people supposed to be much smarter than I am. So here’s Dick Morris, who is extremely familiar with what’s happening in our nations capitol and with the politics we are seeking to survive.

Dick is a voice crying in the wilderness about the coming inflation. He feels it will be the dominant legacy of the Obama presidency, and I cannot disagree with his arguments. He feels that Bush and Obama both helped create the high unemployment, but that Obama has driven us into inflation…all on his own.

Here’s what Dick has to say on www.DickMorris.com. It really angers me that the Feds exclude food and energy costs from the rate of inflation. How much have your groceries increased this past year…the past few months? What about energy? Tell me that the cost of gas isn’t affecting your lifestyle! It seems to me they are lying to us about inflation. Read on…

“The latest data indicates that prices soared in March at an annual rate of 6.5 percent, by far the highest increase in decades.  Half of the increase was in energy prices and one half point in higher food costs.  While the Federal Reserve Board focuses on the “core” inflation rate, that excludes these volatile items, American consumers dip into the same pocketbook to pay for food and fuel that they use to pay other prices.  

And there is little likelihood of any leveling off of the prices of either food or fuel.  The former is driven by the use of food for energy, diverting corn and other food crops from nutritional use.  The later is animated by the instability in the Middle East and North Africa, an international crisis that is likely to worsen in the coming year.  Indeed, should the disease that has brought down regimes in Egypt, Tunisia, and Yemen and is fighting to topple them in Bahrain, Syria, and Libya spreads further into Saudi Arabia, we could face huge increases in energy costs.

And don’t forget the likely upward pressure on interest rates.  The Fed is likely to end its QE-2 (quantitative easing 2) program in June.  No longer will it buy mortgage-backed and Treasury securities from banks into order to pump more money into the system.  Once the printing press stops, the Treasury will have to start borrowing real money from real lenders and pay real interest.  It will no longer be able to borrow back the money the Fed prints at nominal interest rates.  With Washington needing to borrow $40 billion a week to finance its deficit, the upward pressure on interest rates will be severe.

Then, there are health insurance costs.  With the onset of the requirements of Obamacare, the increase in premiums has averaged twenty percent, further raising costs of business.

Faced with these increases in fixed costs, businesses will have to raise prices.  But nobody will be able to pay them because the economy is terrible. That will trigger a loss of customers and ever higher prices to make up the gap.  This stagflation cycle is now upon us and will wipe out any gains that the so-called recovery may offer.

Annual inflation of 6.5% is just the beginning, just like $5 gas is just the beginning.  The inflationary forces Obama has unleashed by his record deficits and his virtual tripling of the money supply will batter the economy with a violence that will make his re-election impossible.

The storm is just starting.

A Burning Issue

Rich Galen is a columnist that I recommend reading. He writes a 3-times weekly column, the latest of which is copied below. If you find his writing as stimulating & interesting, as I do, please go to his site & sign up for his “Mullings Report”…you won’t be disappointed. I have copied today’s entire column, as he speaks to the burning of the Koran by a small Florida church, and it’s impact across the Muslim world. My question is the same as Rich’s below, “Where is the reaching out by Muslims to the families and colleagues of the people who were killed solely because a mob was incited to deadly violence?” Read on…& my thanks to Rich Galen for his courageous writing…

 

Mullings…An American Cyber-Column By Rich Galen®

Symmetry

That preacher in Florida who burned a Koran is a ______ (Fill in the Blank). On that, I think we can all agree.

The notion that a guy with a 30-person congregation can hold himself up as – literally – a judge, and some of his massive congregation as jury, to decide on the legitimacy of Islam as a religion would be laughable, except we don’t laugh about those things any more.

Both U.S. President Barack Obama and Afghan President Hamid Karzai condemned the actions of Terry Jones but Karzai’s comments were used as a match by Imams in Mosques across Afghanistan at Friday prayers to light the fires of an insane overreaction.

Yesterday Karzai issued a statement “calling on the US Congress to condemn a Christian preacher’s burning of the Koran.”

Ok. Fair’s fair. I would consider the U.S. Congress voting on such a resolution just as soon as Karzai issues a statement condemning the murder of innocent people in Mazar-e-Sharif and across his country.

In the attack at Mazar-e-Sharif, which is in northern Afghanistan, a mob of about 1,000 people stormed the United Nations compound, killed at least four guards and three U.N. staffers – none of whom were Americans.

Since Friday some 20 people have been killed across Afghanistan in demonstrations against Jones having burned a copy of the Koran in Florida.

Forget about Karzai. We know he’s a crook and a self-serving thug. Where are the condemnations of these wholly asymmetrical, unforgivable, and indefensible reactions to burning a book in who-knows-where Florida from Muslim leaders – clerics or not?

Where is the reaching out by Muslims to the families and colleagues of the people who were killed solely because a mob was incited to deadly violence in the belief that any Westerner is the same as every Westerner?

I have looked for exclamations of dismay for these assaults from people who hold themselves out to be leaders in the Islamic community. I’m not talking about Jeddah or Abu Dhabi. I’m talking about New York City or Nashville, Tennessee – two places where there have been local issues about building large Muslim community centers.

If demands to stop killing innocents in Afghanistan by Islamic leaders in the U.S. have been forthcoming, the reporting about them has been very thin, because I haven’t been able to find them.

U.S. journalists should be searching them out and asking them if they intend to go to their Mosques this coming Friday and denounce the attacks in Afghanistan, and if not, why not?

This thunderous silence by Muslims is not helpful to the cause of interdenominational understanding nor international peace.

I had the good fortune to have met with a man named Filaret Motco, a 43-year-old U.N. political officer, at that same compound in Mazar-e-Sharif when I was in Afghanistan as an official observer of the Presidential election in August, 2009.

Mr. Motco, a Romanian, took time out from his very busy work in the run-up to that election to brief me and the other team members from the International Republican Institute with whom I was travelling.

I’m pretty certain Mr. Motco didn’t know there is a place called “Gainesville, Florida” much less that a church named the “Dove World Outreach Center” is located there.

He will never know. He was one of the three U.N. staffers killed on Friday.

Here’s what I would recommend if I were asked what to do by a Muslim leader in the United States. I would seek out a local Christian Minister and a local Jewish Rabbi who are both well-known in their geographic community.

I would suggest they hold an interdenominational prayer service and then I would have them take a bible, have the Rabbi say a prayer over the Old Testament; have the Minister say a prayer over the New Testament; and then with great respect and solemnity, burn it.

This would certainly not be a pleasant ceremony, but it would demonstrate an appropriate level of symmetry between the two acts.

On the Secret Decoder Ring today: Links to the Washington Post’s look at Jones, the U.K. Guardian’s coverage of the assaults in Afghanistan, and to the letter I wrote to the U.N. station chief in Kabul.

Also a very telling sign at my gas station in Old Town Alexandria, Virginia and a Catchy Caption of the Day.

–END –
Copyright © 2011 Barrington Worldwide, LLC

FAIR USE NOTICE: This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Such material is made available in an effort to advance understanding of political, economic, scientific, and other issues of the day. We believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to:     http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html    If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

Glowing Reports…Gasp!

From “A Glowing Report on Radiation” to “They Blinded us with Science”…here are two fascinating articles stemming from Japan’s earthquake and the “shocking” reports of non-existent radiation. Even with today’s news reports of radiation, there are too many questions that don’t have answers.

In light of that, enjoy two very well researched and written articles on, gasp, potential benefits of radiation. I am fascinated by the Left’s attempts to twist info and provide mis-information…to promote their ideals and ideologies.

http://is.gd/bXyl2I

http://is.gd/IZRRTQ

Breaking News: I WAS NOT DRUNK TODAY!

Did you know I was not drunk today?

So…what was the first thing you thought of when you read that heading? Was he drunk yesterday? Is this a problem? How often does he get drunk? Well, let me put that to rest right now. I have never been drunk, ever! I don’t drink & never have. That headline was absolutely correct…but conveyed the totally wrong conclusion. Jump to conclusions, too quickly, and off you go in the completely wrong direction.

So when the local newspaper had the headline, which came  on a “Breaking News” bulletin to my Blackberry, what was I to think? The truncated headline read, “Breaking News:  Radiation on planes from Japan…” I had to click on the story to get the rest of the headline: “Radiation on planes from Japan to Sea-Tac not cause for concern, customs officials say.” No kidding.  Read it here:  http://is.gd/1Lm3y8

Go ahead, read the article…it goes on to say that they have uncovered “not one incident of any unusual radiation readings.”

So somebody, somewhere said that radiation had been detected in cargo arriving by planes…but nobody can find the origin of those claims. Good old internet, blogs and the ability to say whatever you want. I found reference to this “story” on AP and Bloomberg news service…but again, no source, no quotes, no…nothing!

Now about the “fact” that I wasn’t drunk today? Well, you can believe that tomorrow I will not be drunk either! Count on it. You can even quote me!

Japanese Nuclear Disaster…I Think Not

There is an incredible amount of misinformation and hyperbole flying around the internet and media right now about the Fukushima nuclear reactor situation. What is needed, in my humble opinion, is a simple, easy to understand, explanation of nuclear reactors and how they can be safely constructed and protected (from, ah, earthquakes!!).

Here is a wonderful (but long) explanation of those nuclear plants in Japan…& why there really isn’t much danger:  http://is.gd/WRag7L

These plants, as most nuclear plants today, are constructed to withstand incredible disasters…including earthquakes. The Japanese plants were built to withstand what was considered to be an extreme earthquake at 8.2. The good news is that they survived what is now being called a 9.0 earthquake. Ok…the cooling systems and backups failed, and what happened next is happening as predicted and…amazingly…is not as life-threatening nor dangerous to life as the evening news is forecasting. Here is an article, along with links to other articles, that explains, in layman’s terms, how these plants are constructed, and what is really happening.

After reading and studying this article, I agree…you will know more about today’s nuclear reactors than most news reporters seem to understand. (Check out the links at the end of the article for further information.)

Obviously, I am pro-nuclear. I happen to think this is a great way to produce power in today’s world. It has been a grave mistake for our nation to allow “extremists” (yes, I consider them extremists) to bring to a halt our progress with nuclear power. I happen to think there are terrific safeguards available today, and it is possible to provide nuclear power in safe ways. But then…this is one person’s opinion, and I’m welcome to it.

Now…if we can just get past the hyperbole and misinformation…perhaps the facts will begin to speak for themselves. Maybe…

Peace & Love in Wisconsin

So…if I understand this right, basically what Gov. Walker and his Wisconsin legislature did was to “undo” legislation passed by the Democrat legislature of 3-4 years ago. That legislation gave the public worker’s unions the rights that are now taken away. Funny…I don’t seem to remember the Republicans acting like what I’m seeing now. so now, if things don’t go your way, it’s okay to protest and get violent. Somehow, I just don’t get it. So, read on…
WISCONSIN GOES NUCLEAR – From John Hayward, Editor of “Human Events,” comes the following column…

“As everyone knows by now, the Democrats of the Wisconsin Senate fled their state over two weeks ago, in order to preserve the lavish benefits and collective bargaining privileges of the public unions they represent. The reason they chose this tactic is that Governor Scott Walker’s restrictions on collective bargaining were part of a budget bill, and Wisconsin requires three-fifths of the Senate to be present in order to establish a quorum for certain types of fiscal legislation.

“Governor Walker tried everything possible to entice the fugitive Democrats back to their posts, ranging from attempts to make a deal, to the threat of dispatching law enforcement to bring them back. The Democrats were utterly intransigent. The Governor always had an option to break the stalemate, and on Wednesday night, he finally took it. By removing certain fiscal legislation from the budget repair bill, Republicans were able to pass it without a three-fifths quorum.

“As Governor Walker repeats in a Wall Street Journal piece written for Thursday morning, his objective has always been to resolve his state’s $3.6 billion budget deficit without “massive layoffs or increases in property taxes.” If the Democrats’ quorum-busting tactics were allowed to prevail, they would surely have repeated the maneuver to prevent any “massive layoffs” against the unions they represent. This would leave no alternative but huge tax increases. The people of Wisconsin voted for Republicans who promised not to increase taxes. The end result would be taxation without representation. Any Wisconsin taxpayer foolish enough to support the Democrats should think long and hard about that.

“The fugitive Democrats can finally check out of their motels and come on home. I hope they remember to pack their cameras. There should be lots of peaceful, civil, enlightened discourse to photograph in Madison when they arrive.
— John Hayward (http://is.gd/M8HsxS )

Here are other columns writing about the “Peace & Love in Wisconsin”…

“Peace & Love”… http://is.gd/siB3YR

Civility…with death threats…http://is.gd/G6NAQQ

“Clogging the Wisconsin Capitol grounds and screaming angry chants, tens of thousands of undaunted pro-labor protesters descended on Madison again Saturday and vowed to focus on future elections now that contentious cuts to public worker union rights have become law.” Read on for more…http://is.gd/uNtHSB

America’s Finest Hour

I have followed Roy Williams, “The Wizard of Ads,” the author of “MondayMorningMemo”. Roy conducts the “Wizard Academy” in Texas, a non-tradtional business school attended by business owners, scientists, musicians, politicians and artists from every continent (except Antarctica). If you are interested in how to communicate better, I recommend you check him out (www.MondayMorningMemo.com). His “MondayMorningMemo” has long been a favorite of mine, & some day I am going to find a way to attend one of his seminars. Roy is a fascinating thinker, and has a fresh way of approaching communication from new perspectives. Here is this week’s “Memo”:

AMERICA’S FINEST HOUR

What makes us America?

If you were to name a single incident in American history that you feel was America’s finest hour, what would it be?

Would it be a moment of patriotic sacrifice?

“I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.”
- Nathan Hale, [Sept. 22, 1776]

A moment of relentless determination?

“Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!”
- Admiral David Farragut [Aug. 5, 1864]

A moment of far-flung vision, an impossible dream?

“I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth.”
- JFK [May 25, 1961]

“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today!”
– MLK, Jr. [Aug. 28, 1963]

A moment of come-from-behind-to-win?

“…twenty-eight seconds. The crowd going insane. Kharlamov. Shooting it into the American end again. Morrow is back there. Now Johnson. Nineteen seconds. Johnson over to Ramsey. Bilyaletdinov gets checked by Ramsey. McClanahan is there. The puck is still loose. Eleven seconds. You’ve got ten seconds. The countdown going on right now. Morrow up to Silk. Five seconds left in the game. Do you believe in miracles? Yes!”
– Al Michaels, [Feb. 22, 1980]

Pennie and I were having lunch with our friend Rich Mann when he made a casual comment that sent such tremors through me that I wondered if Austin was having an earthquake. I never told Rich about the impact of his 4 little words on me that day, but he opened my eyes to an American greatness that had previously been hiding in my blind spot.

The moment that defines America for me – the moment I’ll be proud of forever – was December 12, 2000, when no one started shooting.

Remember The Month of the Hanging Chads? Al Gore won the popular vote of the nation on November 7, 2000, but George W. Bush won Florida’s 25 electoral votes by a storybook-thin margin to gain the Presidency, 271 votes to 266. But the state laws of Florida required a recount due to the microscopic margin of victory.

On November 26, Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris certified Florida’s voting results, declaring Bush to have won the state of Florida by 537 votes.

Many people were upset by this because Katherine Harris had also served as co-chair of Bush’s election campaign.

Gore’s team won a court hearing to challenge the Katherine Harris results. The American people were confused, nervous and anxious.

On December 1, fully 3 weeks after Election Day, the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments over whether the Florida Supreme Court had overstepped its authority in managing the recount. A week later, Florida’s high court upheld their previous position.

Bush argued. Gore argued. And the leadership of our nation hung in the balance.

Finally, on December 12, the U.S. Supreme Court stopped the Florida recount, effectively declaring Bush to be the winner. That Supreme Court vote was 5 to 4.

And no one in America started shooting.

How many nations on this earth can rest in the knowledge that there will be a peaceful transfer of power, even in moments of heated disagreement?

“No one started shooting.”
– Rich Mann, Shogun Sushi, Austin, TX [Feb. 2001]

God Bless America…Roy H. Williams

Budgets and Assassinations

BUDGET REDUCTIONS – So a two-week budget appropriations bill has been passed…with staggering reductions? Well, when you get into millions and billions of dollars, it is all staggering to me. I don’t think we have any concept of what these numbers mean in relation to the entire multi-trillion dollar budget. Take a minute and watch this video. Very simply, the budget is explained, along with what these cuts mean. The video is dealing with $100 million in cuts…just extrapolate this to what the legislature just did…http://wimp.com/budgetcuts/
SHUTDOWN OR NOT…I guess time will tell, but the pressure is on. Many GOP Freshmen are standing firm. Can they hold to their mandate? This NYT article explores that potential… http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/01/us/politics/01freshmen.html?_r=1&nl=us&emc=politicsemailema1

TIME TO CHOOSE SIDES – As the missing Wisconsin senators hide out at the Clock Tower Resort in Chicago, Gov. Walker and  the GOP majority in the legislature show no sign of backing down. As this article says, this is now “a battle to the death… nothing short of victory would justify the sacrifice for either side.” America now watches and waits, as one of the most important and consequential political battle in ages unfolds. This battle’s consequences is “of preserving a political and economic order so crucial to the opportunity, growth and rosperity at the core of the American project.”  Read on…

http://spectator.org/archives/2011/02/28/hiding-out-at-the-clock-tower

AMERICANS KILLED…JIHADIST PIRACY ON THE HIGH SEAS – Last week 4 missionaries were killed by Muslim terrorists off the horn of Africa. Doug Giles is very lucid in his explanation of what is happening, and comparing it to what it might be called if we turned the tables on them in the same way. Hmmm…do we have a biased press today? You had to ask?? Read on here… http://clashradio.com/column.html

SOMALI PIRATES…ISLAMIC JIHAD – Raymond Ibrahim writes an exceptional article on what is the real cause of piracy today. It will help you understand what is happening off the coast of Africa, and why! Good background & history.

http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/what-piracy-this-is-the-same-old-jihad/?singlepage=true

PAKISTAN CHRISTIAN LEADER ASSASSINATED – Shahbaz Bahtti, Pakistan’s Federal Minister for Minorities Affairs, was Pakistan’s only Christian serving in the Islamic state’s government. Pakistan’s Taliban and al-Qaeda factions are claiming responsibility for the assassination, as he was shot on Wednesday morning. Mhatti’s influence in the west on behalf of Pakistan’s religious minorities was said to be huge. He worked for all minorities in Pakistan and was quite effective in his position. However he said that “the forces of violence” were prepared to kill him because “they wanted to impose their radical philosophy in Pakistan.” You can read more here…http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2011/marchweb-only/shahbazbhatti.html

TODAY’S NEWS…I would like to high recommend you put www.redState.com at the top of your “favorites” list. Here is a daily collection of news, from a conservative standpoint, from around the nation and world. Great reading, and it will help keep you informed! This site should be MUST reading for us.

FAIR USE NOTICE: This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Such material is made available in an effort to advance understanding of political, economic, scientific, and other issues of the day. We believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to:     http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html    If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.