Who Needs OPEC?

If this is even half true, it's going to completely change US relations with the Middle East.

America is sitting on top of a super massive 200 billion barrel Oil Field that could potentially make America Energy Independent and until now has largely gone unnoticed. Thanks to new technology the Bakken Formation in North Dakota could boost America’s Oil reserves by an incredible 10 times, giving western economies the trump card against OPEC’s short squeeze on oil supply and making Iranian and Venezuelan threats of disrupted supply irrelevant.

Whatcha wanna bet the Party of the Donkey will try to block drilling, preferring to cozy up to people like Bashar al-Assad and Ahmadinnerjacket?

The Sound of Lefty Heads Exploding

Gotta love it!

The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS to us political junkies) handed the Bush administration, and the President himself, a resounding defeat today.

BDS sufferers, rejoice! Bushitler got smacked down by the Courts!

But, wait... the case dealt with the International Court of Justice (ICJ), long the darling of the left. And the SCOTUS ruling was that Bush could not, I say again, could not order the state of Texas to obey an ICJ order.

So a defeat of Bush is also a defeat for the legality of ICJ orders within the US.

In other words, to say that SCOTUS was wrong is to say that President Bush was right.

I can hear BDS sufferers crying into their pillows now.

Happy Easter!

He Is Risen

1 Now after the Sabbath, as the first day of the week began to dawn, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to see the tomb. 2 And behold, there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door,^[a] and sat on it. 3 His countenance was like lightning, and his clothing as white as snow. 4 And the guards shook for fear of him, and became like dead men.
5 But the angel answered and said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. 6 He is not here; for He is risen, as He said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay. 7 And go quickly and tell His disciples that He is risen from the dead, and indeed He is going before you into Galilee; there you will see Him. Behold, I have told you.”
8 So they went out quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy, and ran to bring His disciples word.

The Women Worship the Risen Lord

9 And as they went to tell His disciples,^[b] behold, Jesus met them, saying, “Rejoice!” So they came and held Him by the feet and worshiped Him. 10 Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid. Go and tell My brethren to go to Galilee, and there they will see Me.”

(Matthew 28:1-10, NKJV)

VDH on Obama

Mr. Victor Davis Hanson, whose use of language and intellectual capacity remind me strongly of the late great William F. Buckley, explains Obama's larger problem:

The problem is instead the environment that he heretofore has navigated in — prep school, the Ivy League, the regional identity politics of Chicago, or Illinois liberalism — is hardly representative of his own country. So what he can say among sympathizers and friends will not be excused or contextualized by average others who don't know him and won't give him the latitude he is accustomed to and apparently has counted on.

The problem is similar to one that plagued the elder Bush's re-election campaign, when he was apparently fascinated by a supermarket bar-code scanner, something which the public was by that time very familiar with. The problem is that Bush, and now Obama, are shown to be largely out of touch with everyday Americans.

Obama probably thought that his pretty little speech, which would have--and indeed did--impress his friends in the media and rank-and-file lefties would also impress Joe Average, who didn't go to Harvard, has never lived overseas, and drives a pick-up to work... drives it himself, of course, because he doesn't have a chauffeur.

Obama thought wrong. And therein lies his problem.

Obama Blew It

That's the summary from an LA Times author:

In fact, I'd say that considering the nation's undivided attention to this all-important speech, which gave him an unrivaled opportunity to lift us out of racial and racist thinking, Obama blew it.

I am sure that lots of folks expect these to be the words of some white conservative, but no. The article was penned by Michael Meyers, who identifies himself as black in the article, and who is listed at the bottom of the article as "executive director of the New York Civil Rights Coalition and a former assistant national director of the NAACP."

I think Obama better not give up his Senate seat.

Mainstreaming the Fringe

Sorry I haven't been around for a while, an injury to my hand (which even required a late-night trip to the ER) has made typing problematic.

However, it's given me time to ruminate on Obama, Wright, and the future of the Party of the Donkey. And what I decided is, it ain't good.

The Democrats have always had their fringe elements--think Michael Moore, MoveOn, Cindy Sheehan, and Cynthia McKinney--just as the Republicans have--such as the John Birch Society. However, the Democrats have always done a fair-to-good job of keeping these elements more or less at arm's length; close enough to gain support from them and their supporters, but far enough away that the Party itself isn't truly "identified" with these fringes, at least not in the minds of the swing voter (political junkies like myself are a different matter).

However, with the revelations (no pun intended) about Wright, the Party of the Donkey is in a real bind. If they do end up nominating Obama, they will be drawing the fringe elements so close to the "mainstream" of the party that in the minds of many of the all-important swing voters, they will become the Party that represents the most odious and obnoxious of Wright's views. That label will then drive a large number of swing voters away.

On the other hand, if they choose to nominate Hillary--which is still numerically possible--they'll anger the very fringe elements that Wright stands for, possibly even causing them to leave the party. While that would keep the Democrats from being labeled as embracing the fringe elements, that would doom the Democrats' chances in the general election.

A party of principle would repudiate the fringe, as the GOP did years ago under the prodding of the late great WFB, pushing away the support of the John Birch Society. However, the amount of ink, both physical and electronic, spilled in defending Obama and Wright leads me to believe that such principle does not exist in today's Democratic party. The pursuit of power is all, principle is unimportant, it seems.

Unfortunately for the Donkeys, the pursuit of power will, in this case, likely lead to a bad end for the Party.

Democratic Congress Leads Foreign Diplomat to Conclude"America Is An Unreliable Ally"

So much for the Party of the Donkey making everyone love America:

Cyclical slowdowns are one thing. What depresses politicians in both countries is their biggest trading partner's protectionist mood. A Mexican minister who is a strong supporter of NAFTA and who has been dealing with Washington for the past two decades says that on a recent visit to the United States' Congress he found an “almost xenophobic” mood of a kind that he had never before encountered.

That chimes with the frustrations of Colombia's government, which having negotiated a free-trade agreement with the United States has found it blocked by the Democrats in Congress. The message from the Democratic campaign is that “America is an unreliable ally”, says a veteran Latin American diplomat who spent many years working closely with the United States' government.

I don't think much more needs to be added to that (except the colored emphasis which I already added).

The Audacity of Hope: A Second-Generational Query (An open letter to Senator Obama)

Dr. Robert P. George, McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence at Princeton University, has been one of the great defenders of the sanctity of life and traditional marriage in our time. One of his students, Sherif Gergis, a 2008 Princeton Graduate and Rhodes Scholar, has written a powerful letter to U.S. Senator Barack Obama on the subject of the protection of unborn human life. Professor George has asked that the following letter be read carefully and distributed widely.

Dear Senator Obama:

As an immigrant from Kenya, your father found new hope in America’s noble principles and vast opportunities. The same promise brought my parents here from Egypt when I was still too young to thank them. Now you have inspired my generation with your vision of a country united around the same ideals of liberty and justice, “filled with hope and possibility for all Americans.”

But do you mean it?

As a legislator, you have opposed every effort to protect unborn human life. Shockingly, you even opposed a bill to protect the lives of babies who, having survived an attempted abortion, are born alive. Despite your party’s broad support for legal abortion and its public funding, most Democrats (including Senator Clinton) did not oppose the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act. You, however, opposed it. Your vision of America seems to eliminate “hope and possibility” for a whole class of Americans: the youngest and most vulnerable. You would deny them the most basic protection of justice, the most elementary equality of opportunity: the right to be born.

As a prerequisite for any other right, the right to life is the great civil-rights issue of our time. It is what slavery and segregation were to generations past. Our response to this issue is the measure of our fidelity to a defining American principle: “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life.”

You have asked me to vote for you. In turn, may I ask you three simple questions? They are straightforward questions of fact about abortion. They are at the heart of the debate. In fairness, I believe that you owe the people you would lead a good-faith answer to each:

1. The heart whose beating is stilled in every abortion — is it a human heart?

2. The tiny limbs torn by the abortionist’s scalpel — are they human limbs?

3. The blood that flows from the fetus’s veins — is it human blood?

If the stopped heart is a human heart, if the torn limbs are human limbs, if the spilled blood is human blood, can there be any denying that what is killed in an abortion is a human being? In your vision for America, the license to kill that human being is a right. You have worked to protect that “right” at every turn. But can there be a right to deny some human beings life or the equal protection of the law?

Of course, some do deny that every human being has a right to life. They say that size or degree of development or dependence can make a difference. But the same was once said of color. Some say that abortion is a “necessary evil.” But the same was once said of slavery. Some say that prohibiting abortion would only harm women by driving it underground. But to assume so is truly to play the politics of fear. A compassionate society would never accept these false alternatives. A compassionate society would protect both mother and child, coming to the aid of women in need rather than calling violence against their children the answer to their problems.

Can we become a society that does not sacrifice some people to help others? Or is that hope too audacious? You have said that abortion is necessary to protect women’s equality. But surely we can do better. Surely we can build an America where the equality of some is not purchased with the blood of others. Or would that mean too much change from politics as usual?

Can we provide every member of the human family equal protection under the law? Your record as a legislator gives a resounding answer: No, we can’t. That is the answer the Confederacy gave the Union, the answer segregationists gave young children, the answer a complacent bus driver once gave a defiant Rosa Parks. But a different answer brought your father from Kenya so many years ago; a different answer brought my family from Egypt some years later. Now is your chance, Senator Obama, to make good on the spontaneous slogan of your campaign, to adopt the more American and more humane answer to the question of whether we can secure liberty and justice for all: Yes, we can.

(Crosspost at Liberal Implosion)

South American Terrorists May Have Uranium

Just what we need, terrorists in our own hemisphere, supported by totalitarian dictator Hugo Chavez, with the makings of a nuclear device.

(CNN) -- Evidence found in computers seized in a raid over the weekend suggests that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez recently gave the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia $300 million, Colombia's national police chief said Monday.

Speaking at a news conference, Gen. Oscar Naranjo also said evidence in the computers suggests FARC had given Chavez 100 million pesos when he was a jailed rebel leader.

FARC has fought to overthrow the Colombian government for 40 years.

Chavez had no immediate response to the allegations involving him.

Naranjo said other evidence in the computers suggests FARC purchased 50 kilograms of uranium this month.

But we can rest easy... President Obama plans to bomb Pakistan.

General Wes Clark Endorses Laura Bush for President

Okay, that's not exactly what Wes Clark said, but it still works:

If you look at what Hillary Clinton has done during her time as the First Lady of the United States, her travel to 80 countries, her representing the U.S. abroad, plus her years in the Senate, I think she's the most experienced and capable person in the race, not only for representing am abroad, but for dealing with the tough issues of national security.

By that reasoning, Laura Bush, Barbara Bush, or Nancy Reagan should have been elected Commander-In-Chief.

In short, it's full of holes, and I expect McCain's campaign to rip it to shreds very soon.

Cross-posted at Liberal Implosion.

No More Buckley

The intellectual father of conservatism, Mr. William F. Buckley, Jr., passed away this morning, appropriately, at his desk.

In a way, this is a sadder day than when Mr. Reagan died, because the argument can be made that without Buckley, there never would have been a Reagan Revolution. At the very least, it would not have looked the same.

National Review Online, naturally, has much more.

Godspeed, Mr. Buckley.

Oops! Guess the Planet isn't Warming After All

This just in, global warming is proven wrong once again:

Over the past year, anecdotal evidence for a cooling planet has exploded. China has its coldest winter in 100 years. Baghdad sees its first snow in all recorded history. North America has the most snowcover in 50 years, with places like Wisconsin the highest since record-keeping began. Record levels of Antarctic sea ice, record cold in Minnesota, Texas, Florida, Mexico, Australia, Iran, Greece, South Africa, Greenland, Argentina, Chile -- the list goes on and on.

No more than anecdotal evidence, to be sure. But now, that evidence has been supplanted by hard scientific fact. All four major global temperature tracking outlets (Hadley, NASA's GISS, UAH, RSS) have released updated data. All show that over the past year, global temperatures have dropped precipitously.

Meteorologist Anthony Watts compiled the results of all the sources. The total amount of cooling ranges from 0.65C up to 0.75C -- a value large enough to erase nearly all the global warming recorded over the past 100 years. All in one year time. For all sources, it's the single fastest temperature change ever recorded, either up or down.

Admittedly, one year's data is not a trend, but given that this past year has reversed all the cooling claimed thus far, it puts yet another nail in the coffin of man-made global warming.

Of course, that's why they stopped calling it "global warming" and started using "global climate change." Just one problem with that... if the planet is cooling, we want more greenhouse gases, not less, and all the proposals from the Goreacle and his followers are aimed at reducing them.

In other words, their policies would make the global cooling trend worse. But, don't worry, they'll have a solution for that problem... one that involves even more government intrusion into your life.

To a lefty, it matters not what the problem is, the answer is always more government. Even if government has caused or exacerbated the problem.

Breaking: Nancy Reagan Hospitalized

Still developing, here's what we know right now:

SANTA MONICA, Calif. (AP) - Nancy Reagan's spokeswoman says the former first lady is staying overnight in the hospital after falling in her home in Bel-Air.

Spokeswoman Joanne Drake says the 87-year-old Reagan was taken to St. John's Health Center in Santa Monica for examination Sunday. Doctors determined she did not break a hip as feared.

Drake says Reagan is staying in the same room where former President Ronald Reagan stayed after he broke his hip at home in 2001.

Everyone please pray for the former First Lady.

Rep. Lantos Passes Away

Courtesy Fox News:

WASHINGTON — Rep. Tom Lantos, who as a teenager twice escaped from a Nazi-run forced labor camp in Hungary and became the only Holocaust survivor to win a seat in Congress, has died. He was 80.

Spokeswoman Lynne Weil said Lantos, a Californian, died early Monday at the Bethesda Naval Medical Center in suburban Maryland. He was surrounded by his wife, Annette, two daughters, and many of his 17 grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

Annette Lantos said in a statement that her husband's life was "defined by courage, optimism, and unwavering dedication to his principles and to his family."

Lantos, a Democrat who chaired the House Foreign Affairs Committee, disclosed last month that he had been diagnosed with cancer of the esophagus. He said at the time that he would serve out his 14th term but would not seek re-election in his Northern California district, which takes in the southwest portion of San Francisco and suburbs to the south including Lantos' home of San Mateo.

President Bush praised Lantos in a statement as "a man of character and a champion of human rights."

"After immigrating to America more than six decades ago, he worked to help oppressed people around the world have the opportunity to live in freedom," Bush said. "As the only Holocaust survivor to serve in Congress, Tom was a living reminder that we must never turn a blind eye to the suffering of the innocent at the hands of evil men."

Flags were lowered to half-staff at the White House and U.S. Capitol.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said, "Tom Lantos was a true American hero. He was the embodiment of what it meant to have one's freedom denied and then to find it and to insist that America stand for spreading freedom and prosperity to others."

Speaking to reporters at the State Department, she said, "He was also a dear, dear friend and I am personally quite devastated by his loss."

Godspeed, Congressman.

Enforcing Liberal Orthodoxy

Open mouth, insert donkey's hoof seems to be the reasoning behind the latest move made by the Democratic National Committee.

A bit of background is needed. The Party of the Donkey doesn't choose a nominee the way the GOP does... not only to the voters get to vote, but, in a move straight out of Mao or Lenin's Communist Party, the Party Members get two votes... one in their state primary, like all good citizens, and another one at the Convention; they're called "superdelegates." I guess the Donkeys don't want to leave the choice of the direction of the party up to, you know, the "little people."

Now comes the insert hoof part. Senator Joe Lieberman, who is a reliable lefty on basically every domestic policy, has been stripped of "superdelegate" status for the awful crime of (gasp) endorsing a Republican! And of course, this comes after the same Party of the Donkey kicked him out because he (gasp) supported the war in Iraq!

Just more evidence that the lefties support free speech only when it agrees with the Party Line.

(Cross-posted at Liberal Implosion)

Why Congress is Critical This Year

From CQ:

Between now and November, John McCain can make all the speeches and do all the reaching out he deems necessary to assuage the concerns of the conservative base of the Republican Party. He can even turn his considerable skills at political combat against the Democrats. It might help get him elected, or it might not. If it does, come next January he still will have to begin governing in the face of wider Democratic majorities in Congress, and he still will have to choose between success and failure.

In that instance, he will choose success. And it will be an easy choice for him to make because on a whole range of issues, both substantively and stylistically, he and the Democrats will measure success in the same way.

That, neighbors, is why we need to get as many conservatives in Congress as we can. No matter who wins, we'll have someone in the Oval Office who is just fine "working with" lefties, and that is bad news for the country.

Read the whole article... link, as usual, in the title.

New Thoughts on McCain

I have just finished reading the text of McCain's speech, and some commentary from those I trust, and I've come to a conclusion.

He hasn't sold me on voting for him. But I am now open to being sold. A lot of it will depend on who McCain picks to surround himself with. I am still concerned with the former Mexican official that is in his campaign.

However, in his speech today, he did acknowledge that he needs conservatives to win, and made some concessions, especially on immigration, that would be hard to weasel out of without everyone realizing that's what he is doing... and, thus, destroying his chances for re-election. So at least in a prospective first term for President McCain, we shouldn't have any amnesty bills signed.

We will see how things go.

Even If You Don't Vote for McCain, PLEASE VOTE!

As has been pointed out by two excellent posts on NRO's Corner today, even for those like me who cringe at the thought of marking our ballot next to "John McCain," it is critically important that you still vote. Perhaps even more so for those of us who don't want to vote for the McRINO.

Simply put, if we can install a conservative enough Congress, even President Hillary would have a hard time getting her socialist programs through... and even if we don't take a majority, every conservative voice added will help that.

So, my advice... write in Fred Thompson (or your favored candidate), and then vote for the most conservative people in each of the other races. I have a feeling we'll need them.

Why McCain Cannot Win

Okay, so he's now the official frontrunner. Senator John McCain still cannot possibly win the Oval Office.

First of all, he has devoted far too much time and energy into attacking--yes, attacking--the values of those whose votes he now needs. From deriding opponents of his immigration bill as racists to his embrace of socialist rhetoric (i.e. using "managed for profit" as an insult), McCain has done his level best to push the base of the GOP away from him.

Second, he currently enjoys favorable media coverage, because out of the GOP candidates, he is the one closest to the media's own views... something which should open any true conservative's eyes. However, once it comes down to him vs. Obama or Hillary, the media will turn against him. If McCain thinks Romney's "attack" ads are bad, wait till he sees what the media will dig up on him once the conventions are over.

Third, a large portion of his support comes from Democrats and "independents" voting in open primaries. The idea that these people would vote for him over Obama or Hillary fails the laugh test... one-on-one against a real Democrat, McCain's support among Democrats will disappear faster than an ice cream cone in a Phoenix summer.

Simply put, nominating McCain is a recipe for defeat, just like nominating Bob Dole was. It seems that every few elections, we need to remind the GOP what happens to those who stray too far from the conservative base, and it looks like it's gonna be this election.

A Prophet or Profit?

Oh, it think the blood is going to shoot out of my eye balls over this one. This weekend in Atlanta, GA is the first ever "New Baptist Covenant Celebration" conference. It is the brain child of Southern Baptist rejects/former US Presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton. Their goal is to unite the many baptists through out the United States who apparently have lost faith in the continued growth of the Southern Baptist Convention as it remains one of the most conservative denominational groups today. The elder former President said in his opening remarks, "For the first time in more than 160 years, we're convening a major convocation of Baptists throughout an entire continent without any threat to our unity or to our freedom brought by differences of race, politics, geography or the legalistic interpretation of Scriptures," according to Baptist Press.

Now, as bad as this is...various apostate and liberal so called "baptist" groups gathering to bash the SBC; that isn't even the worst thing. The high light of the day (and someone had to be high to decide on this one) was the awarding of former Vice President and Presidential Election Sore-Loser Algore with the "Baptist of the Year Award". Yes, i said "Baptist of the Year"...which apparently was not something that the vast majority of baptists had a say so in since i never got a ballot.

Robert Parhman, the Executive Director of the Baptist Center of Ethics (another SBC reject who left on his own accord) went as far as to refer to Algore as a...and this is where the head gets ready to explode a "baptist prophet" according to Baptist Press. No, really, i didn't stutter and i'm not making it up, Algore was called a "baptist prophet".



In Parham's introduction of the Profit maker, he said, "We have with us today a Baptist prophet who is so unacceptable that the Baptist establishment in his hometown of Nashville neither acknowledged his winning the Nobel Peace Prize nor honored with coverage his notable Nobel lecture...Prophets are unacceptable because their truth is inconvenient." Obviously, this was a slam on the Southern Baptist Convention which is based largely out of the great city of Nashville.

The Profit Algore went on to say in his speech that some Baptist spokesmen deny the reality of global warming because they are locked in a coalition with rich and powerful people who take advantage of the poor for economic profit. Yeah, that's right...i'm in a coalition with rich and powerful people to take advantage of the poor for economic profit. I'm just rolling in the dough here in my 3 bedroom home where i can just build up my carbon footprint!

If i was only the Profit maker like Algore, i could simply fly private jets across country, have someone drive me around in an SUV, and rest comfortably in my 10,000 square foot house when i finally get time to rest. No, instead i'm too busy trying to take advantate of the poor for my own profit according to the bitter ex-VP!

Just for the record Mr. Parham, a prophet is one who declares the truth of God to point people toward God. A prophet of God preaches to save the soul...not to "save the earth". If Algore is your idea of what "Baptist of the Year" is, i'm thankful that you have decided to abandon my Southern Baptist Convention...and i'm glad we were not invited.