The Anchoress

I’m still trying to keep to my new pledge of only writing about politics when it intersects with religion, but it does seem only fair to note that, Old Europe, which has been struggling all along with its restrictions, has finally admitted that, President Bush was right to keep America out of the Kyoto treaty.

That’s all I’m going to say. Bush was right. Lots of numbers simply should not be trusted enough to build policy on them.

And he also was effective on the environment in ways you never heard about in the mainstream media.

Bush was also right about Gitmo, which the press and the President-Elect seem to be discovering.

Bush was also right - and courageous - about the surge in Iraq, where…ummm…we seem to have achieved a quiet and roundly ignored victory, as demonstrated here, and here, and here.

I still call for his impeachment.

Meanwhile, President-Elect Obama, who is accustomed to only the loftiest and most positive pearls dropped in his direction by the self-destroyed and excessively besotted press, is getting a small taste of what it’s like to be the hated American President. It will be interesting to watch him grow into the office.

Did I mention, btw, that Bush was right?

Gateway Pundit: White House Declares Strategic Victory
Jules Crittenden: War is Over Indicator #52

There is mounting evidence that Obama’s two best-selling books, Dreams of My Father and The Audacity of Hope were in fact ghost-written.

Dr. Jack Cashill first raised the question earlier in the month, and made a compelling (but not convincing) argument that the author of both books was not Barack Obama, but prolific author, upstanding Chicago citizen and unrepentant domestic terrorist Bill Ayers.

Now, Cashill shores up his thesis with more detail.

Cashill is wrong when he says Obama contributed “not one word” to the Harvard Law Review - it has been determined that he contributed at least this piece, on abortion rights - while he was editor, there.

However, this is pretty interesting. Remember, the Obama books are lyrical, gorgeous bits of writing, well-crafted and moving, with an impressive seamlessness:

In 1990 Obama also contributed an essay to a book published by the University of Illinois at Springfield, an anthology called After Alinsky: Community Organizing in Illinois.

Although the essay covers many of the issues raised in Dreams and uses some of the memoir’s techniques, it does so without a hint of style, sophistication, or promise. The following two excerpts capture Obama’s range or lack thereof:

“Moreover, such approaches can and have become thinly veiled excuses for cutting back on social programs, which are anathema to a conservative agenda.”

“But organizing the black community faces enormous problems as well . . . and the urban landscape is littered with the skeletons of previous efforts.”

These cliché-choked sentences go beyond the merely unpromising to the fully ungrammatical. “Organizing” does not “face.” “Efforts” do not leave “skeletons.” “Agendas” do not have “anathemas.” Indeed, the essay is clunky, pedestrian, and wonkish, a B- paper in a freshman comp class.
…
The evidence strongly suggests that Ayers transformed the stumbling literalist of “Why Organize” into the sophisticated postmodernist of Dreams, and he did not so not by tutoring Obama, but by rewriting his text. The Ayers’ quotes that follow come from an essay of his, “Narrative Push/Narrative Pull.” The Obama quotes come from Dreams:…

It’s a long piece, difficult to excerpt, but do read it. No, it is not conclusive. But it is intriguing enough to raise legitimate doubt about Obama’s authorship, and Ayer’s input.

“Why does that matter,” you ask, “Ted Sorenson ghost-wrote Profiles in Courage for John F. Kennedy. Most books at that level are ghost written!”

True. But Ted Sorenson is not Bill Ayers, and - most problematically - Obama has spent a good chunk of time suggesting that his association with Ayers was casual, happenstance and shallow.

A man does not ghost-write two books for you and remain a casual acquaintance. More likely, this is a fellow you’ve spent a great deal of time with, shared meals and bottles of wine with, and spoken to in depth about your deepest beliefs and yearnings.

If Cashill is correct, and Bill Ayers wrote Barack Obama’s books, it matters, because it demonstrates Obama’s comfort level with a man who cheerfully trods upon the flag while admitting that he wishes he’d blown up more buildings and terrorized more of his fellow citizens; a man who is still actively engaged in pursuing “revolution” within America, albeit revolution from within the safety of the establishment and tenure - revolution through the classroom rather than the streets.

Obama has said Ayers would “have no part in my administration.” He doesn’t have to have a part in Obama’s administration. Good friends are good friends. They have your ear whether in an official capacity or not.

So…take it for what it’s worth. As I said, there is no smoking gun, and Cashill cannot wholly close his case. But he does open a door to some serious wondering.

Which, come to think of it, leaves me to wondering something else…how come a global economic crisis that just two weeks ago was the most pressing concern in the whole wide world has all but fallen off the map, to be replaced by…Joe the Plumber?

Kind of weird, isn’t that?

UPDATED: Reader EW notes that the authorship question is also important because people like her mother - and Christopher Buckley - are voting for Obama on the strength of his writing. I have a friend who also was quite impassioned about Obama, writing, “did you read those books,” as an argument for a vote. Good point, EW.

UPDATE II: The debate goes on. Ann Althouse examines Cashill and finds his assertions - as I do - interesting but not convincing. So does NRO’s Andrew McCarthy, although Adler, over there, says “come on, this guy has no credibility.” And, seeing this, I say it is very fair to question whether Cashill is capable of making a truly fair and unbiased analysis. So…I remain unconvinced and wondering.

A few weeks ago, I emailed Jim at Gateway Pundit, who I recall having what seemed like hundreds of links to past ACORN bad-behavior, in terms of voter registration fraud, voter intimidation, vote supression (tire slashing on election day) and more, and I said, “you should put together one large post that has ALL of your ACORN links.”

He wrote back that it sounded like a good idea, and now he has an approximation of that up at Pajamas Media. I think he has even more links but had no more room for them.

Go read Jim’s piece - it is exhaustive:

Although the organization prides itself for its registration efforts, it also has a long history of scandal. In the state of Missouri in 1986, 12 ACORN members were convicted of voter fraud. But that case was not an isolated incident in the state. In December 2004, in St. Louis, six volunteers pleaded guilty of dozens of election law violations for filling out registration cards with names of dead people and other bogus information. Authorities launched an earlier investigation after noticing that among the new voters was longtime St. Louis alderman Albert “Red” Villa, who died in 1990. The volunteers worked for “Operation Big Vote” — a branch of ACORN — in St. Louis.

On February 10, 2005, Nonaresa Montgomery, a paid worker who ran Operation Big Vote during the run-up to the 2001 mayoral primary, was found guilty of vote fraud. Montgomery hired about 30 workers to do fraudulent voter-registration canvassing. Instead of knocking on doors, the volunteers sat at a St. Louis fast food restaurant and wrote out names and information from an outdated voter list. About 1,500 fraudulent voter registration cards were turned in.

In October 2006, St. Louis election officials discovered at least 1,492 “potentially fraudulent” voter registration cards. They were all turned in by ACORN volunteers.

In November 2006, 20,000 to 35,000 questionable voter registration forms were turned in by ACORN officials in Missouri. Most all of these were from St. Louis and Kansas City areas, where ACORN purportedly sought to help empower the “disenfranchised” minorities living there. But the ACORN workers weren’t just told to register new voters. The workers admitted on camera that they were coached to tell registrants to vote for Democrat Claire McCaskill.

In 2007, in Kansas City, Missouri, four ACORN employees were indicted for fraud. In April of this year eight ACORN employees in St. Louis city and county pleaded guilty to federal election fraud for submitting bogus voter registrations.

And, that was just Missouri.

It goes on. And the mainstream press is paying a little lipservice to the voter registration mess, because they have to, but no one in the MSM-left is actually investigating this stuff. That’s left to lowly bloggers, like Jim. Do read the whole thing.

Instapundit rightly asks, “where is the Justice Department on this?” Good question. Can’t the Attorney General launch an investigation? This is not happening why? Call them here, don’t bother emailing. Jennifer Rubin says it is inconceivable that the press refuses to ask Obama about any of this. She writes:

If the voters want such a president they will have him, but he should first explain himself and justify why his participation in and assistance to such an enterprise should not be serious grounds to question his fitness for office.

We won’t hold our breath.

More on Obama and ACORN at WSJ. And more, still at IBD. Not at ABC, CBS, CNN, etc….

I get emails from people on the left instructing me to carefully discuss ACORN’s voter “registration” fraud, it’s not “voter fraud.”

Please, kids. It is absolutely meant to be registration fraud so vast that it cannot be contained, in order than enough these fraudulent votes may (and are already being) cast. How can you feel good about this?

I have no faith in this electoral outcome, not in Ohio, not in Pennsylvania. The integrity of our electoral system has been completely broken down by people like Ohio SecState Jennifer Brunner and others.

But just think about this for a second. If Obama wins, there will be some grumbling about voter fraud, but the press will pooh-pooh it. I have no idea if the GOP will go to courts. They’re so weird, who knows what they’d do?

But I’m going to make one of my famous predictions, here, even though I think I’ve only gotten one right, that Hillary would cry in New Hampshire. Now I predict: if Obama loses, he will then play the chutzpah card (and giving this it will be true chutzpah) - he’ll announce that “because the electoral process was indeed compromised…” (by his own supporters) he’s going to challenge the votes.

And then all the lawyers will troop in.

Gay Patriot has state-by-state, fraud-by-fraud. And please go read Fausta.

Also, I mentioned it below but it bears repeating: in Wisconsin, an 8th grade English textbook has 15 pages on Obama and his “service” to his nation. 15 pages. In a brand-new textbook. He’s not even president, but I bet no president has 15 pages…especially in an ENGLISH textbook? I sent that link to a friend who wrote back:

This is no accident. So .. learn well this Sherlock Holmes Ian Fleming truth …
Once is happenstance
Twice is coincidence
Three times is enemy action

Now, come on, you leftwing readers of this blog…you don’t think 15 pages in a textbook before a guy is even elected is a bit Soviet in style?

Oh, and don’t miss this must read: Stanley Kurtz on Obama funding the likes of Rev. Wright. The press will ignore, but you need to know this stuff.

I’m amused. I shouldn’t be, particularly over this stuff, but I am. This is so damned unbelievable. And I’m taking the longview, because nothing that’s happening now will be understood in its proper context for a while.

My pal who wrote the Holmesian quote above is an “end times” believer and he closed his missive with a line I loved: who would have thought the end times would be so stupid?

Heh.

I don’t believe we’re in end-times. But we are in interesting times. Disorientation is the order of the day. Outright diabolical, that disorientation!

And yet…I still feel pretty good. Such a battle is going on, all around us! In the air, even.

Michelle Malkin has more.

The Duh-question of the day: is Obama getting off easy? The man has not been asked a challenging question in two years.

The ACLU is pressuring Virginia to just allow illegal voting, dammit!. Buster just received his absentee ballot. It was not difficult to manage. But apparently the ACLU thinks Obama’s supporters - all those smart kids going to college - are too stupid to have managed it.

Now that the narrative has been established, we hear that Dana Milbank never thought the shouter meant “kill Obama”. Took him to mean, “kill Ayers.” Oh.

Graphic via Beldar

My latest piece for Pajamas Media, entitled, Psychologists Want to Purge Your Brain of Un-Green Thoughts, is up and running; it looks at how the anti-establishment renegades of 1968 now want you, forty years on, to fall in line and conform to the “environmental crisis” mentality they’ve been so aggressively pushing:

Forty years after enlightened baby boomers and academics decried conformity and told the world to ignore “the establishment,” to not kowtow to “the man,” to “rap about problems to find solutions,” and to “not guilt-trip or judge other people’s life choices,” those same sorts — the now firmly ensconced “establishment” pretending otherwise — are wondering why they can’t get people to fall in line and do as they’re told to do and think as they’re told to think with respect to the environment and the “crisis” of “climate change,” the “crisis” which used to be called “global warming” until the news got out that the earth has been cooling for the last ten years and the arctic ice is refusing to melt.

Now, these establishment Boomers want you to kowtow to “the man.” They’ll brook no open discussions and they prefer you would learn to judge others — and to scold them — for their own good and for the planet’s.

To encourage you in those noble endeavors, the new establishment is bringing in the psychologists…“We know how to change behavior and attitudes. That is what we do,” says Yale University psychologist Alan Kazdin, association president. “We know what messages will work and what will not.”

It’s link-loaded and wait til you read the remarks of some of these psychologists and what they want you to do. It will, like, blow your mind, man!

The piece was written before the presidential conventions and the anti-Palin temper-tantrum of the past ten days, or I would have alluded to some of the relevant hypocrisy toward lockstepping, therein, as well. Read the whole thing.

Jules Crittenden: is writing about global cooling today. Really. Expect a colder winter. I wonder if congress and Mrs Pelosi and Mr. Reid will insist, still, that drilling here at home will not help us out with heating oil bills this year, and the next, and the next, until the better energies are in place?

Glenn Reynolds: links to some interesting info on hydropower.
Also read: Sisu

Supped out last night with some friends and one of them, a political maven, greeted me with,

“have you been watching the convention? It’s such garbage! Remember when it used to be fun? You’d have gavel-to-gavel coverage, you’d get to watch the platform fight - the roll call - it was great fun and you really got to see these people in action. It’s all so scripted and polished and safe, now.”

Understand, this pal, Diane, is a true TV News junkie - much more so than I ever was. She has always watched the Sunday Gasbag programs; she’s been addicted to nightly news and cable news for as long as I have known her.

When her oldest was 3 or 4 years old he used to wander around the house growling out, ala Chris Matthews, “yer watching Hardball!”

She is a passionate observer of history; she knows everything about both the Kennedy clan and the Reagans, she can quote obscure lines from Hubert Humphrey, Adlai Stevenson and Barry Goldwater. She follows the dense stories everyone else gives up on.

This is a woman who does not need to be coaxed into watching a political showcase; she’s there for it - no matter what the party - but she is completely underwhelmed by what is being presented on television, in the papers and even online, in this election cycle. If SHE is not watching the convention, then the press has a problem.

I confessed to my friend that I had not tuned into the convention much at all; partly because we only have one television in this house and the young adults were involved in a “Dexter” marathon of their own creation, and partly because I find so much of it tedious and time-wasting Why invest hours in a PR event, when you can get the highlights from blogs and youtube? I don’t feel an overwhelming need to experience all of this “as it happens.”

“Besides,” I told her, “it doesn’t sound like - up til now - there has been much worth watching, besides the hissy fits and adolescent dramatics of Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews.”

“Oh, gawd, those two are unwatchable,” my friend said. “I used to love Chris Matthews and now he’s just this sniveling little crankpot. And Olbermann is unhinged. They’re eating each other over there, with Scarborough and Schuster taking tabs on who’ll emerge on top, and fighting for scraps. And they’re SO in the tank for Obama, they’re not even trying to hide it any more! I’ve never seen anything like it!”

We moved on to a discussion of a local school board issue, which was - in the end - more interesting to talk about than Limbaugh, Obama, Saul Alinsky, McCain’s veep or whether - as one of my Irish auntie’s has long-claimed - Joe Biden really did have doll hair implants.

Today’s email brought this from another friend:

Amazing to watch Bill Clinton wag his finger at the audience again. I think this is most important - Bill Clinton revealed the denial which prevails on the Democrat Partisan mindset, when he said ‘we brought you peace and prosperity’ in reference to his tenure in the 1990’s.

The Problem remains for the Democrats who fail to recognize that there wasn’t peace (that Bill Clinton’s claim is a big fat lie), as Al Qaeda repeatedly attacked an killed Americans at will, and the Clinton negligently ignored the threats enabling the danger.

Well, that’s true. I wrote a long time ago that “Clintonian peace” meant “Al Qaeda attacks us or our interests about every 18 months and we ignore it, until they get so emboldened that they figure they can attack us on our soil.” Clinton didn’t push the Kyoto treaty, either but people forget that.

This friend is also very perturbed at how easily the press has managed - over the last 8 years - to completely distort the realities of Bush’s presidency. He sent me this excellent summation of what has beentrue or false within the Bush presidency, and I thanked him for that. For a while I have felt like I am the only one willing to defend the president (I sometimes get emails from the left accusing me of being Barbara Bush, which is amusing) so it is really good to see others putting some facts down on paper. I doubt anyone will otherwise remember - in light of all the economic gloom-and-dooming by the press - what the realities have been. Does anyone even know that recession the press has been predicting, claiming and wrapping itself around for the past two years is still on hold as the GDP just increased by 3.3%? (Interestingly, the headline and the first two paragraphs on that economic story has changed as I’ve written this piece; it was initially a “good news” headline, with a positive lede. Now it is a “bad news” headline, with a negative lede, because as we know - there will be no good news allowed out until President Bush is out of office.)

But you know - the truth is, history will tell us more about Bush’s presidency - or Clinton’s - than any screeds or polemics. We should concern ourselves more with the men before us, McCain and Obama, and what seems to be a growing issue of free speech (and even media intimidation) in America.

McCain has his weaknesses, and they are many and some are pretty troubling, but he also has some serious strengths but - as near as I can tell - he is not trying to intimidate and shut down dissent the way Team Obama seems to be.

Hey, we’ve heard for 8 years that “dissent is the highest form of patriotism” - is that only true when the president has an R after his name?

Nancy Pelosi wants to limit the means by which congress can use alternative media. Others - apparently connected to Clintons - are blocking the DVD release of the ABC film, The Path to 9/11.

Olbermann, apparently miffed to have MSNBC allowing any perspective but his own on that network, tried to “wrap up” the commentary of a former McCain operative, who dared to suggest that the Clintons will vote for McCain, not Obama. (Matthews - taking the high road - groused that this fellow was ‘hanging his reputation as a pundit’ on the claim, which cracked me up. As though pundits have exemplary reputations, as though none of them have ever said anything equally, if not more, provocative!)

We’ve heard for 8 years that Bush is a “Nazifascist.” Right after 9/11, Tim Robbins warned the nation about the “chill wind” that was blowing throughout the nation, stifling free speech. He preached it, he wrote a play about it…and ironically, no one ever shut him up or shut him down for it. Because it was a false claim.

Now, we’re seeing real efforts to shut down the free speech of real people daring to dissent, or daring to ask uncomfortable questions. Al Gore wants no questions about Global Warming; he told the press to stop reporting dissenting views. Obama wants no questions about his past associations with domestic terrorists. His wife quotes Saul Alinksy, but there is “no story” there.

I enjoyed our supper last night, but I came home and the television was free, but I still was not interested in turning the thing on.

Instead, I recorded a podcast of morning prayer. Praying felt like a much more important and productive use of time, than sitting around watching illusionists, ego-maniacs and petty tyrants parade before us.

A 9 minute video is usually not my speed, but this one’s clever and fast-moving.

The light sabers and “Kentucky Fried Analogy” cracked me up. (H/T Bookworm, who features another - succinct and entertaining - vid by one of the players, here.) I don’t know who this guy is, but he’s smart, charismatic as hell, and has beautiful eyes and a great smile.

Bookworm is also calling olly-olly-oxen-free to “secret conservatives” in Marin County and elsewhere.

It’s a sad thing, isn’t it, when Americans must be afraid to discuss their political affiliations with their fellow Americans for fear of economic or social repercussions? It’s that “chill wind” Tim Robbins worried about, only it’s not Bush making people afraid to speak freely.

Once again, boys and girls, as before:

The fascist is whoever is trying to shut you up, shut you down, dis-employ you, silence you, cripple you or marginalize you for the crime of daring to fall out of step with the party and the conventional wisdom. Beware of them.

Hey, what is the deal with Obama? Are journalists not supposed to ask tough questions of him? Do they dare not challenge him or be cast as ‘watercarrying’ for McCain? That’s pretty chintzy. And why won’t he do some townhalls with McCain? Even the Moron Bush did townhalls with Gore and Kerry. Obama can’t do what Bush did?

Tom Elia notes William Daley’s interesting slip-up on Obama.

Exxon-Mccain/Obama-Exxon, all I know is I want enough heating oil to see us all through the next few winters, as the planet is not really warming but cooling. Which one will find and refine the oil?

Confederate Yankee: I can haz Jerusalem?

Excellent news from Iraq; Mookie is packing it in. Not that that anyone cares, but we’re basically victorious over there. Lots of heroic men and women have worked hard to weaken Al Qaeda in Iraq and elsewhere.

You remember AlQaeda, right? Ten years ago this week, they bombed US Embassies in Tanzania and Kenya. Not that we did much about it at the time. But it is worth noting, they haven’t done that to us again, nor any of these other things, since 9/11. I blame Bush.

You remember Bush, right? The guy who goes to Asia and tells China to free her people, while the press jeers, the guy who, while in Asia also meets with Democracy Activists in Burma and gets ignored for it, the guy who drew enormous and supportive crowds in Korea, while the American press yawned?

Sure, you remember Bush! He’s the guy whose life was threatened along with Barack Obama’s but only the threat to Obama was newsworthy for a very long time at CNN. Bush? You mean the creepy moron who will be charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity as soon as congress can figure out how to do that without exposing itself or having to put some of its own members under oath?

Yeah, that guy! The guy who does more than just talk about freedom and progress. The guy who has brought real hope and change to people all over the world, and yes, here in America. But you don’t want to hear it. It’s the wrong and inconvenient narrative, the embargoed one.

More Stem Cell Advances: treating ten more diseases using stem cells derived from skin cells and marrow. No embryos required.

Ed Morrissey on Obama and the Catholic Conundrum. Yes, the A-as-in-abortion word shows up. I have a related piece over at PJM, if you’re interested.

A new Obama salute? I wouldn’t call it a salute. It kind of puts me in mind of dancing to the Y.M.C.A song, but some people are unsettled by it. Instapundit has an amusing round-up.

Inflation in the news: No, not Obama’s tire inflation, not economic inflation, but an inflatable church for the vacationers. I suggest you not sit on your keys.

Michael Totten has an Israeli in Kosovo - also, note that Michael supports himself on donations, and if you like his stuff, he could use your help with the paypal button.

Something you don’t hear about everyday: A newly consecrated virgin in the USA

Maggie’s Farm has put together some great links that you’ll want to check out. Smart and fun stuff, as ever, from that gang.

I always appreciate a decent play on words.

Is Hillary going to make a move? As Auntie Lillie would say, “Shasssh…” we all knew she would.

Things are just getting started. After two years of this nonstop campaigning, things are really just getting started. I still say we’re in for surprises on both tickets.

From The Corner: 25 Ways You Can Tell if You’re a Racist. Apparently just not voting for Obama will do it.

It’s going to be interesting watching the press if Obama does not get into the White House. They’re going to shake their heads and talk about how America is a racist country. And they will do it with absolutely no sense of irony in that their industry is essentially run by white men and white women, who populate the network and print editorial boards. They will wag their fingers and label America “a nation of 50% racists” (and 50% nobles) and then they’ll go home to their elite ghettos and feel very, very fine about themselves and their ideals, and never consider that Les Moonves could have hired Lester Holt over Katie Couric but didn’t, even when I told him he should. (Les never listens to me!) They also won’t consider that maybe some of us, initially intrigued by Obama, took a closer look and said, “ummm…what’s he actually done, though? What does he stand for?” No. If Obama does not float your boat, it’s only because you’re a racist. Got that? Even Bill and Hillary. Racists.

Of course Bill Clinton is not a racist, and neither is Hillary. They’re capable of playing the same race card that was played against Bill, but that’s the nature of identity politics, isn’t it? As soon as things get rough, you throw out a foul label, it muddies the waters and all meaningful conversation is put to a stop while the accuser sneers and the accused is supposed to go, “homina-homina-homina” ala Jackie Gleason.

Clinton should not even have to defend himself from the charge, and I think he’s wrong to entertain it seriously. He should flip it off - as in be flippant - because from what I can tell from my email, right now anyone who has questions or concerns about Obama is “a racist,” period, full stop.

Of course, back when I had questions and concerns about Hillary (or I didn’t like Couric on CBS News) I was “a self-hating woman who was afraid of ’strong, powerful females,’” so I guess I’m expanding, or something. If only the Democrats can bring a gay veep into the mix, then I can be accused of homophobia, too - in one year I’ll have made the gynophobic-racist-homophobe trifecta! I’ll share the prize money, guys!

Sorry for the rant. We’re still a bit under the weather, here.

Continuing the mental health day - some links you might like, a little off the beaten trail - and little commentary:
“Being hated is like voodoo, it only works if you feel hated.”

The Pelosi, unwilling to allow a vote she cannot control, defines the term “petty tyrant,” and demonstrates again that she’d rather adjourn than serve, that her congress is content to do nothing, , at all, rather than work out solutions.

Can UK survive multiculturalism? Good question, good piece. I think you can survive it as long as multiculturalism celebrates the totality of the mosaic, rather than each individual tile. But no one listens to me…

Ace reporter John Allen looks at The Pope and the Pill 40 years after Paul VI’s prophetic encyclical, Humanae Vitae

Steve Schippert finds the Administration leaking information about Iraq. Good thing the press ignores it!

A new translation of the mass has been approved; it’s really more of a return to the more accurate translation of the Latin which we learned right after the Second Vatican Council. Interestingly, I started using the old/now new “Lord I am not worthy” a few years ago - quite spontaneously - as it leaked out of the recesses of my memory, and just went with it. These changes will not be difficult to get used to and will be more precise and focused responses.

Glenn Reynolds watches Barack Obama play his cards. Is Obama a megalomaniac? Does he play his Ace from the bottom of the deck? As Jake Tapper notes - there is name-calling going on, but it ain’t via the McCain camp.

How Green is my politics? That depends.

Hip-Hop Eucharist: Because why appreciate what is timeless when you can stay in the fashion?

Tom Elia looks at the unspoken second line about big oil reports. Interesting.

At 3AM we all look better than we should.

My tires are inflated just fine, thanks. Maybe less hot air would help in the battle about “climate change.”

Vacation must come soon!

Serious question, here - I am just wondering.

Seems scientists have found a way to pull carbon out of the atmosphere and dispose of it.

Which I guess could mean the “climate change” problem has a tentative “solution.”

But…if you pull out too much carbon, won’t you affect the trees and plants? Don’t they take in carbon and release oxygen?

And should we be screwing with the atmosphere for the sake of a very unsettled “science” that no one can prove?

Dude, Where’s my Sunspots.

Two interesting science stories that make you go “hmmmmm….”

First from Instapundit: Much of Earth’s oil reserves can be traced to a single volcanic eruption, scientists say.

Second - and if this is real - it is both fascinating and and ethanol idea I can really get behind: a video about making fuel, even jet fuel from algea.

Like I said, if it’s real…cooooooool.

I still reject the “climate change” hysteria; but alternative energy ideas are always worth exploring.