Thoughts On A Sunday

BeezleBub and I made a trip to the local multi-mega-cineplex last night to see Ghost Rider. Man, we could use a dude like that in Iraq. We'd be scaring the be-Jesus...uh...be-Allah out of the jihadis, harahabis, and Ba'athist insurgents.

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BeezleBub started a week of vacation from school this weekend. He'll be heading down to the WP In-Laws for a few days to meet up with his lifelong friend from the southwest part of the state.

With him gone it will be a quiet around here. Too quiet. But it will be a little easier for me while he's gone only because I won't need to get up quite as early as I usually do when he's in school.

He hasn't even left yet and I'm already looking forward to his return.

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I expect the number of visits to New Hampshire from presidential hopefuls to ramp up to an even higher level as the warm weather approaches. If nothing else we'll see a number of candidates visiting sugar houses – sheds where sap from sugar maples is boiled down to make maple syrup – in an effort to look countrified for the voters. Frankly, boys an girls, it rarely works. We can tell when they're faking it.

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Doug at Granite Grok writes about another scientist that gets it in regards to global warming. Of course poor fellow's job may be in jeopardy because he isn't falling in line with the 'consensus' that It's-All-The-Fault-Of-The-Evil-Humans.

One thing that I've noticed is that of all of the climate scientists out there, the meteorologists tend to doubt that what global warming is taking place is anything but a natural phenomenon, part of a long cycle that is now on the upswing.

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Friday night's 20/20 ran a two hour episode that talked about how the media sells fear, making it seem that we are far worse off than we've ever been in our history. It covered such things as the overweening and overblown fear of immunizations - (“It causes autism!”), terrorism - (“We're all gonna die!”), and fear itself - (“Nobody anywhere is safe from anything!”)

John Stossel, one of my favorite mythbusters, covered a wide range of topics in this broadcast. He even goes over how, when it comes to some people (particularly injury lawyers), science doesn't mean a damn thing. One example he uses is the fear about silicone breast implants and the lawsuits about them that bankrupted Dow Chemical, even though there wasn't one bit of verifiable scientific evidence that they caused any of the health problems attributed to them. Emotion – fear - won out over scientific evidence.

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And speaking of 'health problems', the latest effort by Democrats to turn the Granite State into the Granny State made it one step closer to becoming law.

The New Hampshire State Senate passed a law banning smoking in restaurants, bars, pubs, and other such establishments. The vote was 17-7, with the majority Democrats carrying the day. There's also proposed legislation in the New Hampshire House that would ban trans-fats.

Should the Dems succeed in these efforts, I expect these 'do-gooders' will then go after ice cream, hot dogs, fried clams, alcoholic beverages of all kinds, because any and all of these things can cause bad health.

During the Senate debate about the smoking ban one senator, Lou D'Allesandro, stated “If it even saves one life, it will be worth it.” The problem is that they will use that sentiment to justify all of the other measures they want to enact. The problem is that legislation cannot cure stupid, and that's exactly what they want to do. Most folks are smart enough not to do the things the Dems say we need to be protected against. But the Dems figure that we're all too stupid to make our own decisions, so they'll make them for us.

Now that's stupid.

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From Kerplunk comes a list of ten signs that prove whether or not you're a Moral Idiot.

The test I like to use for those believing that sign number 3 is true is to say, “So, you're saying that Nazi Germany's culture of state-run genocide and conquest was as valid as ours?” You'd be surprised at how many then backpedal some. You'd be even more surprised at how many answer “yes.”

The argument could be made by some that the US was no different during its expansion west, but the US government didn't set up death camps, gas showers, and ovens to eradicated the Indians. There are parts of our history that we aren't proud of, but we mustn't make the all-too-often made mistake of judging 19^th Century actions by 21^st Century moralities and standards.

(H/T Blogmeister USA)

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There's plenty of other good posts over at Kerplunk, too, including a series on 10 Institutions That Ruin The World. So far 7 of the 10 in the series have been posted.

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Blogmeister Pam ( who pointed us to Kerplunk) also has an interesting take on the Democrat's definition of arrogance and how it applies only to Republicans.

According to Hillary, our present President is arrogance personified. However, he is anything but, to whit he said:

"A leader is somebody who is willing to take positions based on principle, not polls or focus groups."

This is something that Hillary has conveniently forgotten: her husband was more of a weathervane and not a man of principle. Give me a man of principle any day. If that's arrogance, so be it.

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Now I'm off to watch the Oscars!