Leany on Life -- April 2010

May is tomorrow. There's snow on the ground and it's still coming down. I drove to work in a blizzard yesterday . . .

Continued below
(Best viewed with a mind not clouded by the Kool-Aid)

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The John Galt Society

It can be discouraging to look around at who's running the show these days and wonder "Where have all the grown-ups gone?"

Take heart. There are still some people who are not drinking the Kool-aid. Here's where to find them. I would suggest going gown this list every day and printing off the most recent articles you haven't read to read over lunch.

Michelle Malkin
Michelle Malkin is a feisty conservative bastion. You loved her book "Unhinged" and you can read her columns here.
Ann Coulter
Ann posts her new column every Thursday, or you can browse her past columns.
George Will
What can you say? It's George Will. Read it.
Charles Krauthammer posts every Friday. Just a good, smart conservative columnist.
If you want someone who gets it just as right, but is easier to read, try Thomas Sowell, who just posts at random times.
Jonah Goldbert seldom disappoints.
David Limbaugh carries on the family tradition.

Jewish World Review has all these guys plus lots more good stuff.

Or you can go to radio show sites like
 Laura Ingraham's or Glenn Beck's or Rush Limbaugh's..

If you'd like you can study The Constitution while you wait.

Then there's always TownHall.com, NewsMax.com, The Drudge Report, FreeRepublic.com, World Net Daily, (which Medved calls World Nut Daily), News Busters, or National Review Online.

For the Lighter Appetite

If you have to read the news, I recommend The Nose on Your Face, news so fake you'd swear it came from the Mainstream Media. HT to Sid for the link.
Or there's always The Onion. (For the benefit of you Obama Supporters, it's a spoof.)

Dilbert.
Dave Barry's Column
Daryl Cagle's Index of Political Cartoons
About half of these cartoonists are liberal (Latin for wrong) but the art is usually good. (Fantastic, if you're used to the quality of art on this site.)

Or just follow the links above and to the right of this section (you can't have read all my archived articles already). If you have read all my articles (you need to get out more) go to my I'm Not Falling For It section.

Above all, try to stay calm. Eventually I may post something again.

Global Warming Update
4/30/10

May is tomorrow. There's snow on the ground and it's still coming down. I drove to work in a blizzard yesterday.

You know, I'd be perfectly willing to accept that it's a complex deal and colder temperatures don't prove there's no global warming . . . except that increased temperatures were the only proof they needed for global warming.

"No, wait, if we get the ball in the end zone, yeah, that's a touchdown. In order for you guys to score a touchdown you have to remain suspended with the ball above the end zone for an eight count while the team forms a perfect circle around you spaced at 36 degree intervals. If you can do that twice within two minutes then you get a touchdown . . . two whole points."

They expect us to believe in their religion of global warming (and pay our massive tithes to them) based on their complex computer models of predicted warming—computer models that were unable to predict the current cooling trend.

Miserable pricks.

Well, I guess the media got it right. They got their violence. Protestors in Arizona threw bottles at the police and vandalized the statehouse. Oh, wait a minute. That didn't happen at the tea parties. Those were democrats, protesting Arizona's law enforcing federal law that already exists. Does that still count?

Now that the criminal element has made its wishes known I'm sure the law will be repealed. "Hey, we were planning to implement this law, but since we see that it annoys people who are willing to break the law and cause violence I guess we'll change our mind and not do it. The system worked!"

Miserable pricks.

It's like a close personal friend of mine whose son broke up with his girlfriend. The girlfriend went all psycho in an effort to win him back. Of course my close personal friend's son said "Whoa, now that I see you're a psycho nut job I'm really sorry I dumped you."

Insanity is so attractive in a woman (and a voting bloc).

Jonah Goldberg makes a great point. Some crazy witch wrote an article saying it was now illegal to breathe Arizona without carrying proof that you're a citizen. Ignoring for the moment that that is not even remotely true, this same crazy woman had absolutely no problem with it being illegal to breathe without having health insurance.

Linda Greenhouse . . . emoted that Arizona has become a Nazi-esque "police state" where it is a crime to be "breathing while undocumented."

Now, I don't want to dwell on Greenhouse's gas since she not only misread the law, she literally read the wrong law (an earlier draft that was changed before passage, actually).

But that bit about "breathing while undocumented" strikes a chord. Because, you see, under ObamaCare, it is now something of a crime to "breath while uninsured," too.

Miserable prickette.

Here's a tired old trick Obama is constantly using. He'll cite "Basic values that we cherish as Americans." That's all well and good, but he's always selling something that violates those values. Typically he'll say we can't punish terrorists because that would violate BVTWCAA, or we can't expect illegal aliens to obey the law because that would violate BVTWCAA.

Yeah, like Obama has any clue about values or being American.

Miserable prick.

Here it is! Here comes the birth certificate insanity! You finally found it, right there in the title. Now run along and post your little rant on the Huffington Post.

For the rest of you with an attention span longer than a list of Biden's accomplishments, Barack Obama is not an American in any meaningful sense of the word. Sure he was born in America. Sure, his mom was an American. Sure, he's an American citizen. How hard is that to accomplish? He's the benificiary of a geographic accident that he shares with millions of snakes, mosquitoes, horseflies, and sewer rats.

I don't care if he was born in Peoria, Illinois to two blond-haired blue-eyed Presbyterian descendants of Mayflower pilgrims who take cookies to PTA meetings every week. Barack Obama is the furthest thing from an American you will ever encounter.

Tell me these words came out of the mouth of anyone with a clue about America. "I think at some point you have made enough money."

Michelle Malkin outlines what she accurately calls "the most revealing and clarifying 10 words of his control-freak administration." Obama talked about his version of the "American way" where "(Y)ou can just keep on making it if you're providing a good product or providing good service. We don't want people to stop, ah, fulfilling the core responsibilities of the financial system to help grow our economy."

Don't make me use the words "Salvador Allende" again. The government will decide whether what you're doing is worthy of being compensated? If it's really very profitable we have a big democrat contributor crony who will go ahead and take it over for you. Those words are astonishing coming from anybody, but the CEO of America?

Two words: Holy Freakencrap! 2012 cannot come quick enough. I don't ever want to hear again—ever from anyone—that George Bush was stupid.

Two more words (say it with me): Miserable prick. Miserable, miserable little prick.

Now that there's funny, I don't care who you are . . .

Here's the last blog note I had for this week. Years from now school children Googling (it may be called Obamaing by then) Frank Leany quotes will find this treasure:

The right combination of ignorance and arrogance can look like confidence.

Miserable . . . uh . . .

Well, so much for carrying on a theme. Isn't it ironic that the final part of cleaning up is what messed up the orderly structure? That's entropy for you.

Miserable entropy.

As you, the patriotic reader of Leany on Life, know, April 19th was the anniversary of the battles of Concord and Lexington. The left remembers it as the day Timothy McVeigh bombed the Murrah building in Oklahoma City.

Bill Clinton(pardon my language), in a move consistent with his complete lack of any class at all, used the occasion to bag on the tea parties (whom he call "hatriots"). He retread the same ground he did back when the bombing occurred, saying that conservatives exercising their right to free speech caused Timothy McVeigh to do violence. He said we needed to exercise some "personal responsibility" and keep our mouths shut.

I'm just going to let you sit and savor the irony of Bill Clinton lecturing anyone on personal responsibility.

Look, you know the deal. You've read all the excellent articles on Townhall.com and Jewish World Review. (While you were there you probably read all the excellent articles on Israel and what a train wreck Obama has made of that situation.)

Clinton says that a lot of crazies (then and now) are "saying that the biggest threat to our liberty and the cause of our domestic economic problem was the federal government itself." He didn't happen to mention that someone who said that was Thomas Jefferson.

You keep informed. You know the score. You know that violence is a left-wing thing. That's why they're projecting. Show me the liberal that's been the victim of right-wing violence. For every one that you might dig up (and Valerie Plame style fabrications—I felt bad because the guy next to me on the subway was reading a Glenn Beck book—don't count) there are a thousand examples of the left committing violence instead of talking about issues.

A good example (among many) is Michelle Malkin, who had to movebecasue of left-wing violence. People who disagreed with her politically thought it would be cool to publish her home address so crazies on the left could attack her and her family. That's how those monsters do "debate."

All of this nonsense is the same old thing: them just telling us to shut up.

I think rather than follow Bill Clinton's advice, I'm going to listen to what this lady said . . . or, more accurately, yelled:

I am sick and tired of people who say that if you debate and you disagree with this administration, somehow you’re not patriotic, and we should stand up and say, 'We are Americans! And we have a right to debate and disagree with ANY administration!'

You might have read somewhere that there are 100 people in the United States Senate. You might have also read that 41 is not a majority of 100.

Isn't it interesting that the demorats were freaking out about Scott Brown getting the 41st seat. They figured that would kill their socialized medicine. It's not that 41 votes would beat their 59 votes in a head on challenge. It's because with the Republicans having 41 seats the democrats would be forced to debate the merits of the bill.

That speaks volumes.

The democrats' ideas cannot survive debate.

You can't blame that old dog Clinton for running to lap up the same old vomit. It worked for him once before.

Bill Clinton (pardon my language) got elected in 1992 thanks to Ross Perot. If "Bill Clinton elected" seems a phrase that couldn't ever be uttered outside of horror fiction, what about the phrase "Bill Clinton re-elected?" What could possibly possess a nation that knew the man to vote for him again?

Timothy McVeigh.

Bill Clinton successfully parlayed that terrorist act into the doctrine that anyone who didn't blindly follow him was a terrorist. Look it up.

I am an idiot. You've seen those episodes of Cops (between going to the symphony and the opera, of course). The cops show up to arrest the husband for beating the crap out of his wife. That same wife starts beating on the cops to keep them from hauling the worthless pile of skin off to jail.

That's me. I heard Obama talking about opening leases up for offshore drilling. I was so anxious to be objective (arguably the same mentality that put that waste of skin in office) that I thought "Hmm, I may have to revise my opinion of the man." I actually thought he was capable of doing the right thing.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

The whole thing was a trick. Obama needs at least some Republican support for his Tax & Steal legislation. Pretending to advocate something that makes sense while never intending to make good on his promise was his deceitful way of getting that.

The maddening thing is that he'll most likely get it. As Ann Coulter aptly observed, never bet against the Republicans getting outwitted.

I was in Argentina during the Falkland Island war. The minute the war started the government shut down all English language material coming into the country (probably any material not written by their approved sources, but what I heard was all English language publications). The newspapers and weekly magazines were tracking the progress of the war. They talked about all the victories the Argentines had won and all of the British ships, planes and helicopters that they had destroyed. The headlines were reading "Estamos Ganando!" (We are winning.)

We were in downtown Buenos Aires and ran into an American journalist. He told us that the Argentines had sent out their biggest battleship, the Belgrano. The British had toyed with it, then finally just sank the thing. He said it was no contest at all.

After the war was over it was apparent that the British had never been behind. A lot of that destroyed equipment that had been on the graphics in the magazines magically showed back up and was sent back to England.

That was my first lesson in believing the press. Smart people know that you can't believe what you hear on the news. They can even use that fact to great advantage. During Desert Storm General Swarzkopf used CNN's faulty reporting to misinform the enemy.

While the Olympics were going on in Atlanta I turned on the TV at 2:00 am one Saturday morning to watch Rush Limbaugh. Instead of Rush they were running a special breaking news report. "All we know for certain at this point is that dozens are dead and hundreds are injured! It's bedlam here."

As it turns out, two people died, one of them from a heart attack while running toward the bombing.

The press doesn't always lie. But that's the safest way to bet.

There comes a time in the development cycle of any product when you have to shoot the engineer and ship the product.

What follows is where I am so far on my treatise on civility. I'm sick of it sitting there mocking me. I'll post it now and refine it later.

During our last Civil War rifled barrels were the new technology. We had to learn to deal with the difference that made in fighting battles. The rifles shot further and were more lethal, but we still did military maneuvers the way we always had. A lot of the carnage of that war could be attributed to the fact that the combat strategies and medical treatments had not yet caught up to that innovation.

In this civil war we are also struggling to deal with new tactics. These are accusations that we are uncivil, racist, and advocating violence.

I apologize for re-visiting this, but as I said, it is the new weapon, and we have to understand how to deal with to keep from getting slaughtered in this war. It's a boring and frustrating topic, but it's important. (And I actually do accidentally make some really great points.)

I'll take the journalistic upside-down pyramid approach here, so after the next paragraph you can quit reading the rest of this even-more-boring-than-usual diatribe.

Basic message: Do not shut up. Don't give in to their demands to keep your opinion to yourself. Don't give an inch. The more they tell you to shut up (by calling you a racist or saying your ideas will lead to violence or that you're coarsening the debate) the more you have to speak up. But be polite while you're doing it. Don't give them any opening to make credible accusations of advocating violence or even being rude.

I still haven't got this sorted out. I'm operating on the premise that if I can just throw enough words at the concept some of them will be in a combination that makes sense. I still don't have an equation or a diagram that clearly depicts how nasty you should be in any given situation. I suspect that I never will. It just might have stumbled on something in life that you can't refer to a manual on.

This came up again because Michael Medved wrote this article asking if Obama is wrong or outright evil? He makes some excellent points, mainly that we only undermine ourselves by calling him evil. We need to focus on his policies, not him.

Basically he says that it doesn't matter if he is evil, if we say he is we are hurting ourselves, not him.

This is the same thing we chatted about when you read that chapter in Bernard Goldberg's book. You remember, that one about Ann Coulter and what she said about the Jersey Girls. That's an excellent case for examination in this context. Goldberg said that Coulter's "nastiness" undermined our credibility. Credibility is the currency.

Kinda' the same thing that Medved is saying in his article. What she said was absolutely true and she was defending us against attacks they had made. We'll chat a little later about those aspects.

Oh, for crying out loud, just read the article already.

I guess that's the bottom line with civility in politics—it's a practical matter. You want to stand up for yourself, but don't be your own enemy.

It's a mistake you see all the time. The feminists do it. Their cause may be just, but their methods are turning off the people whose support they are trying to win. We made that mistake with Bill Clinton (pardon my language). If you bag on a guy too much, you create sympathy for him. You're doing him a favor.

You treat people kindly because you're a decent person, but you treat your enemies kindly in addition because trashing them makes you look bad.

(Understand that this advice is intended for you—I'm going to continue to bash the other side in as juvenile a way as I possibly can.)

You'd think it should be simple. Civility? Sure. It's like your mamma taught you. You should always be polite to everyone.

The problem comes in when 1) You aren't trashing them but they say you are, and 2) When you confuse being civil with rolling over to their will. Those are related because they make you do number 2 by doing number one . . . uh, so to speak.

But what constitutes being civil? It doesn't mean tipping over; it doesn't mean letting courtesy be defined by the person doing something that should be opposed. To that person anything less than rolling over is bad manners and intolerable.

It's like the Dr. Laura exchange I told you about. The guy called in asking " . . . so how do you stand up for what's right without being rude . . . ?" and Dr. Laura interrupted with "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa—whoa! I have four words for you: Welcome to my life." She explained that no matter what you do, they're going to say you are being rude. That doesn't mean you are rude. It's just a good way to shut you up.

So maybe it's all a question of definitions. Always be civil. But you can be polite and firm at the same time. Don't confuse being courteous and being a wimp. (More on that in the next section.)

Just understand that no matter how polite you are, calling you rude is an effective way to shut you up. It's a tactic. What they're saying is "Don't talk. You are not allowed to examine this."

Don't shut up.

The problem comes when the line gets moved. This is a trick the Republicans fall for every time. Being polite is not enough for the democrats. So, in the rush to prove to them that we're not rude, we give in to them. At first maybe it's something inconsequential. But the democrats we're dealing with see civility as a weakness. Once they can pull our strings by crying "rude!" they have us.

Then it becomes a death spiral and we find ourselves giving in to every demand they make. Hey, better that than having them say that we are taking politics to a coarser level, right?

I'm not the only one that thinks this is important. David Limbaugh wrote this article he calls Give me Niceness or Give me Death.

Be civil but don't be weak. Civility is the wrong word to describe being a wimp but that's how the opposition is going to define it. The word civility is the ruse.

The problem is that when you err on the side of weakness you don't ingratiate the people you're giving in to. Remember, they use accusations as a weapon and see civility as a weakness. They are happy they can control you that way, but they don't respect you. They despise you even more (remember Ellis on Die Hard).

Not only that, but when you err on that side the people who support you see it as a weakness. Think about Joe Wilson's outburst. We can debate about whether it was the right thing to do. But it did help him. He got a lot of support from not knuckling under. The only people he alienated were those who were already his enemies. So you can break the rules, then apologize. That's why God made apologizing.

Wow, this is taking forever to get through . . .

Why can't we all just get along? Well, because we're not going to tolerate evil.

Calling us rude is only one dimension of the strategy. Let's examine the Joe Wilson incident.

When Joe Wilson spouted "You lie!" that was bad manners. It was a breach of decorum and made him look discourteous to the President of the United States.

But take a look at what prompted the outburst. Obama's lying. Obama's matter-of-fact statement of something he knew was an outright lie.

You can see the brilliance of the strategy. You can only take so much before you have to erupt and say "You lie!"

They are trying to provoke us. Calling somebody a socialist is rude. So what do you call a socialist without being either 1) rude, or 2) dishonest?

Oh, sure. Everything's fine
4/19/10

Here's an article that follows that delayed consequence thread that I'm always flapping my gums about. He makes some great points, like Obama's got a pretty low standard for success if he measures it by whether or not flaming asteroids are coming out of the sky.

I'm sure there's a better analogy, but I always come back to the bus driver in High School. She used to hold the bus on a hill with the clutch. She figured she'd discovered an innovative way to accomplish what she wanted. Hey, look how much smoother this is than coming off the brake onto the gas. I don't have to heel-toe or use the parking brake.

All she saw was the immediate result she was after was being achieved. She had no clue about what she couldn't see—the clutch being destroyed.

It's all about What is seen and what is not seen.

Which brings us to the other point I'm always flapping my gums about.

Is Obama stupid or evil? Does he really not see that the clutch is melting away under his boot?

What Obama's doing is destroying the country (at a rate somewhat less than what flaming asteroids would accomplish). Does he think he's doing the right thing (stupid), or is he aware of the harm he's doing (evil) and going through with it anyway, for whatever reason?

Stupid or evil. There are no other choices.

Two summers ago I went with the scouts to Moab. While we were there we hiked up to the Delicate Arch to watch the moonrise. The last quarter mile of trail is carved into the side of a vertical cliff with a 50' drop off to your left. John, who, as you recall, is not the brightest scout in the patrol, was practicing jumping up on the cliff on the left (I'll post pictures shortly). That made his dad a little nervous and he asked him to stop. Apparently John's dad thought that the vertical drop to rock was a fairly dangerous cliff.

But the dangerous cliff was yet to come.

The Delicate arch sits on one side of a giant sandstone bowl. A domed ring comprises the rim of the bowl on the north side. Across from the arch is a domed area where people sit to look at the arch (or watch the moonrise over it).

That's the most dangerous cliff in the park.

The place where we were sitting was more or less level and about the size of a good-sized living room. Beyond that area the rock started to slope off, gently at first, but gradually getting to a shear face that went down 75' vertically. The scouts were horsing around chasing each other in that area, oblivious to the danger because . . . well, because they're scouts and they're bulletproof . . . but because the rock next to them isn't too much steeper than where they're standing and the and the area next too that isn't too much steeper than that and . . .

At some point the cliff becomes too steep, but by the time you are at that point it's too late and you are falling.

Here's the reason you don't find fences on those kinds of cliffs. The guy shows up to put up the fence. He walks over to mark where the fence is going to run. "Here? Nope. No reason for a fence here. Here? Nope, still not steep enough to be a danger. Here? Nope, no reason to . . . aaaaaaaaaaaaaaghhhhhhhhh!"

In Obama's mind it's silly to put a fence where it's safe.

"I'm not exaggerating," Obama told the crowd, "leaders of the Republican party, they called the passage of this bill 'Armageddon!' Armageddon. End of freedom as we know it. So after I signed the bill, I looked around to see if there were any asteroids falling, or some cracks opening up in the Earth. Turned out it was a nice day."

Those attending the rally burst into laughter and applause.

"Birds were chirping, folks were strolling down the mall . . . "

You need to listen to the audio. Obama's dismissal of the majority of the people that he's supposed to be governing is nothing short of appalling.

Obama's deception is intended to lull us into ignoring the cliff. We are alarmists, crying danger where no danger manifests itself . . . yet. No jackbooted government officials are kicking in doors. No tanks are rolling down the streets warning citizens to remain in their homes. The problem is that at that point it's too late to do anything about it. What good would it do to sound the alarm then?

The price of freedom is constant vigilance. Why do you think they post vigils on high ground way outside of town? Why not just wait in the saloon and deal with it when it gets there?

Here's one you hear all the time: "Democrats, Republicans, they're all the same."

You understand what a pile of crap that is. If you don’t, I'm afraid I'm not certified in the kind of medicine you need to function in society.

But think how cool it would be if it were true. Think how cool it is that it's true enough that you can even say that. We have Republicans, we have democrats, sometimes one's in charge, sometimes the other, usually it's a mix. And the government marches along without too much difference. That's American. The smooth transition of power.

In third world countries (and you're going to hear me use that phrase a lot more, because some group is trying to get us to stop saying it) they talk about the Socialists are in power or the Peronistas or the Hutzu clan or some other group has taken power. In America we have typically had Americans in power. We like that. We like the DOT and the FAA and the public education system and the DMV functioning like they always have.

In Trashcanistan (meaning third world countries) the people in power install their relatives and cronies in all the government posts to steal money as they see fit.

I'm telling you this so that someone sifting through the ashes of civilization might someday find this and say "Hey, look. Somebody had it figured out."

If you grew up in America and never visited Trashcanistan (or Louisiana) you can't imagine that cops aren't good guys. You can't fathom that a government official would treat you differently depending on who you're related to or who you're willing to give money to. You've never seen the kind of poverty and misery that comes when you have a government run not by the Rule of Law but by corrupt people who see the system as an opportunity to be kings at the expense of the citizens.

But you will.

The civility post is almost done. I just had to put up something on Tax Day.

I figured if I couldn't get in a post on civility some good old-fashioned Obama bashing was the next best thing.

I'm still crafting the next post here. It's dated 4/07, but it's not nearly finished, so I'm posting this so you won't go away empty handed. Maybe I shouldn't tell you, 'cause then you'll expect something worth reading. For all the time I've spent on it, it's still a mess.

But today we're going to chat about the democrats and their cries of "Party of no."

This is a Saddam Hussein trick. You remember back before the Persian Gulf War when Hussein invaded Kuwait. Bush said "You've gotta' get out or we're coming to get you." Hussein said "Wait, wait! I have a proposal for peace."

As it turns out Saddam's proposal was that he would stay in Kuwait, he'd annex the country, he'd get the oil and his men would get to rape all the women in Kuwait, and we would go home and leave him to do it. Naturally, Bush completely ignored the "offer" and proceeded to kick Hussein's ass worse than any world leader's ass has ever been kicked.

But here's the point, and you may have missed this at the time because it was given all the attention it deserved, namely as much attention as someone gives a flea in the road. After Hussein made the ridiculous proposal and Bush proceeded toward war Hussein said "Bush doesn't want peace! See? I offered him terms for peace and he refused them. He doesn't want peace!"

I'm pretty sure that Saddam Hussein, may he rot in Hell for eternity, was a democrat.

Gingrich says something about how we'd love to be the party of yes. But we're certainly not going to say yes just to be agreeable no matter how smelly the garbage the democrats offer.

It's the Saddam Hussein trick, plain and simple. Offer something completely, horrendously unacceptable, that you know we can never accept. Then when we do the logical thing and turn our nose up at it, scream "Gridlock! Obstructionist!"

I like the way Sarah Palin says it: "We are not the party of no. We are the party of Hell no!"

Democrats accuse us of wanting to divide the country. Please refer to the rule that says "You can a tell what a democrat is guilty of because that's what he accuses you of." They know how ridiculous that is. We would love to have a country united behind the Republican party and conservative ideals.

They want a united country? They want a united country like Venezuela. Hugo Chavez won the last election with over 90% of the vote. There are two kinds of people in Venezuela: Those who support Chavez, and those who are dead.

So honestly, if they don't come over to our side who are the ones really causing division in the country?

Some out-of-control caller told Michael Medved "Shame on Bill Bennett for saying that we should kill black babies . . . !"

Medved interrupted her and said that Bennett had never said any such thing.

"Yes he did! He said that we should kill . . . "

No ma'am, he never said any such thing. I'm not going to let you make such outrageous accusation without giving me some basis for why we should believe that.

"Well . . . he suggested it!"

How? Can you tell me what he said that suggested it?

"Well . . . he . . . I . . . maybe he . . . well . . . harumph! That's what he wants to do, anyway!"

Democrats somehow magically know what someone wants even though it's completely contrary to everything the person has ever said, written, or thought. They project their own feelings and make accusations. In their mind that accusation constitutes evidence of guilt (see Rather, Dan).

I cannot express the depth of my contempt for the tricks the democrats play. I hate cheats and liars.

Today Medved—the most reasonable talk show host on the radio today—said that he doesn't think the country is on the brink of disaster. I think the problem here is understanding brinks.

The brink we're talking about doesn't go level and then abruptly drop off. That kind of cliff is not the most dangerous. The brink we are on gradually gets steeper. By the time you realize you are falling it's too late. That's why it requires constant vigilance.

That's why we're not waiting until the asteroids that Obama is looking for are hurtling from the sky. We want to sound the alarm while something can still be done about it.

One Sunday when I was a teenager I was hanging out in the parking lot listening to the stereo with a couple of friends, I'll just call them, I don't know, say, Noel and Johnny, just to give them names, you know. Noel and Johnny were brothers, and we weren't doing anything wrong, except that Sunday School happened to be going on right about the same time that we had decided the stereo needed listening to.

On our way back in the church Noel and Johnny's mom came out to meet us. Noel, the younger brother whispered to Johnny "Let me handle this."

Cool, I thought. Noel's got a plan all worked out. This should be good.

When Elaine (as I'm calling Noel and Johnny's mother) asked "Where have you guys been?" Noel said "Oh, go mind your own business, you old nag."

Elaine, who under the best of circumstances wasn't the most rational human being on the planet, grabbed Noel by the hair and started slapping him, at the same time kicking Johnny and screaming "What? What did you say to me? Why you little. . . !"

I was thinking, that was your plan?

I was reminded of that by Hussein's offer to make "peace." Really? That's your plan?

I'm reminded of it again every time the democrats propose some kind of fake solution. "You don't like federally funded abortion? No problem, here's what we'll do. We'll just go ahead and leave that clause in just exactly like it always was, but we'll say that the bill has hundreds of ideas from Republicans. How's that?"

There has to be some kind of cosmic significance to Obama's middle name. Has to be.

Two days closer to summer, four more inches of snow.

I drove home in a blizzard last night. Whiteout conditions. Two days after Easter.

I came up on a stop sign at the bottom of a grade. The SUV wasn't stopping and it was a T-intersection, with a ditch and a fence across the way that I would go through before crashing into someone's back yard. I tried to slide around the corner, but ended up slamming into the curb, breaking a very expensive custom rim.

It's absolutely true that hotter temperatures in the summer result in deaths. But if you're telling me that, you're lying to me. Winter conditions always have and always will cause more death and destruction than summer heat.

This is a prevaricating trick that Al Gore has used before. During the 2000 election he was bagging on Bush, quoting some statistic about how many Texans didn’t have health insurance. W, who is half again smarter than Al Gore, said "You're asking the wrong question. No one in Texas goes without health care."

Same thing here. To quote some (absolutely true) statistics about the deaths caused by hot weather is to concentrate on the thorn instead of the rose. It's cooling the planet that would increase the deaths, expense, and property damage.

Of course, this little analysis completely ignores the fact that there's absolutely nothing man can do about the climate. The whole discussion about where we want to set the Earth's thermostat is patently absurd. The climate will do what it's going to do, no matter how much money Obama and Gore steal from us.

I figure Al Gore owes me about a thousand bucks.

We are two weeks into Spring and it dumped 5 inches of snow last night.

It was actually pretty cool. When the kids got up to find their Easter baskets there was a beautiful blanket of thick snow all over the landscape. Gave it kind of a Christmas feel.

Except that Christmas was a third of a year ago . . .

About a month ago we were talking about an upcoming field test at work. 'Joe' said that he didn't think the bit would drill . . . and he gave a number of feet. Someone else in the room said "Wanna' bet?" 'Joe' said "I would be willing to bet lunch on it." Everyone else in the room said "I want in on that bet." 'Joe' agreed, the meeting broke up, and everyone left, most of them immediately forgetting about the bet.

When I got back from the oilfield I was sitting in my office and 'Joe' walked in and dropped a stack of Subway cards on my desk. "What's this?" Lunch, 'Joe' said. I still didn't know. 'Joe' explained that he had bet lunch, he had lost, and he was paying up. So I distributed the cards to all the people who were in the meeting.

See, that's the way a bet works. A bet is a way of stating your level of confidence on something. You set the terms and after the event the loser pays up.

I shouldn't have to explain this, but I do just in case a democrat happens to stumble across this page. See, when you lose a bet you don't re-negotiate. If your football team lost you can't say "Well, I don't think the score should be the basis for whether they lost."

I'm talking about global warming. The liberals said "Global warming! Global warming!" We said, how do you figure? They said "Wanna' bet? Dude, the Earth's temperature is rising. You wanna' bet? Huh? Look at the Earth's temperature rising. Wanna' bet?"

Well, now that it's clear that the Earth is cooling the liberals are re-negotiating the bet. "Dude, just 'cause the Earth's temperature is cooling, that doesn't mean there's no global warming. Dude, you gotta' freakin' pay up!"

I'm glad I watched conference this weekend. It's handy to get support for your beliefs from an authoritative source.

We've always been pretty sure that Nancy Pelosi is the devil. In the Saturday morning session we go confirmation from the General Authority who said Satan is a broad in the land.