Not if you successfully completed the 7th grade…
Is “Climate Change”
real? You bet it is! Want proof? Look out the nearest window. See any
dinosaurs? Good. Almost certainly, climate change figured into the extinction
of most, if not all of the dinosaurs. We’ve all been told that when the
“thunder lizards” walked the Earth, the entire world was a warm, tropical
paradise, with giant ferns, palm trees, giant bugs…you get it. Is the entire
world that way today? Sure you didn’t see any dinosaurs? Okay—just checking.
The dinosaurs really are extinct. Did the dinosaurs cause the “Climate Change”
that effected their demise? Did their cars do it? Their aerosol deodorant?
Their air conditioners? Doubtful. So can
we agree that “Dinosaur-made Climate Change” never took place? Great! In that
case, I have good news for you! THE SKY IS NOT FALLING!
To keep this short,
and easy to read, let’s break it all down this way: The Earth’s atmosphere is a
closed system—moist, warm air doesn’t continue to rise until it’s lost in outer
space. It’s all trapped within the Troposphere (the first of four layers
comprising our atmosphere, where all “weather” takes place). Every drop of
water that existed on the Earth’s surface since the year dot, is still here.
Every drop ever consumed by any human or animal was and still is excreted, and
evaporates back into the atmosphere where this natural distillation process
purifies and recycles it. Water in lakes, streams, ponds, lawns and yes, even
the ocean evaporates on a warm day—the warmer the day, the greater the rate of
evaporation. The warm, moist air rises in the atmosphere until it reaches a
much chillier elevation, at which point the water vapor, condensing as it
cools, freezes into vast masses of ice crystals, which we call clouds. Because
the Earth’s surface is unequally heated (half of the earth is always bathed in
sunshine, and warming as long as the sun shines, while the other half is dark,
and cools during that time that the sun isn’t shining), there are always warm
“thermals” rising from the surface, which, as the warm air rises above an
oncoming cloud bank, it "pushes" it back towards the earth's surface
melting the ice crystals which fall back to Earth as rain. Yes, it’s true that
there are regions of the planet that are presently going through a drought, but
there are regions elsewhere which have plenty of rainfall—more than people
living there are glad to see. Granted, this is probably a temporary condition,
as all climate cycles have thus far proven to be. Temporary, perhaps on a
geologic scale, but temporary nonetheless. It won’t be the end of the world,
just as it wasn’t when the ice ages came and went, or when Britain became too
chilly to grow grapes (during the 1500’s), or when Greenland ceased to be
green.
Too, if the polar ice
caps were to suddenly melt, as predicted by politician-turned-pseudoscientist,
Al Gore, you can likewise bet that NYC will NOT be flooded to a depth of 20
feet, as Gore contends. Not even 20 inches. In fact, as anyone who DIDN’T sleep
through a 7th grade science class will patiently explain to those who did, when
water freezes, it expands. When frozen water (ice) melts, it CONTRACTS. The
polar icecaps are not floating in the air above the ocean, they’re sitting on
the bottom of it, with only a tiny area (in proportion to their total size)
sticking out above the water. Just as a glass of ice water doesn’t flood your
house when the ice cubes melt in the glass, the polar icecaps won’t flood NYC.
Oh, yes—almost forgot. Every June, or July, we hear about the Arctic (not
Antarctic) icecap melting around the edges. Ever heard what happens around
November or December? No? Well, it all refreezes. Just like small lakes do in
temperate zones. Freeze in the winter, melt in the summer. The Antarctic icecap
is the same way. Because it’s south of the equator, the seasons are opposite
those of the northern hemisphere. There, summer starts in December, and winter
begins in June. This isn’t anything new,
caused by “Global Warming”—a fascinating account of early exploration of the
South Pole—called “South” chronicles Sir Ernest Shackleton’s voyages to
the Antarctic around the turn of the LAST century. One of the first automobiles
ever commercially produced was taken down there to see how it would function in
the extremely cold, snow and ice-packed environment (it didn’t). The point here
is, that he failed on two of his trips to arrive early enough during the
Antarctic summer, when the ocean was clear. On those occasions, his ships were
trapped in the ocean ice that formed while they were traveling MANY miles out
from land. They had to wait for Spring to melt the ocean sufficiently for the
ship in one case to make it back to civilization. On the other occasion, the
ice crushed the ship, and his expedition had to survive on an iceflow for the
entire winter, never making it to Antarctica. Wasn’t pretty.
“They” forget to mention any of this in global
warming circles, just like the “Ozone Hole”. When was the last time you heard
anything about that? Well, I’ll just fill you in, then. In 1954, when the Ozone
Hole was first discovered, real scientists (not “scientists” on grant money)
studied it, and learned that the Ozone Hole opens and begins to grow around the
Winter Solstice, and continues to do so until it finishes opening fully at the
time of the Summer Solstice Then it begins to gradually close up—closing
entirely by the Winter Solstice, when the cycle begins anew. Every year. Acid
Rain? Remember that? It was killing all of the lakes in the nation. When was
the last time you heard anything about that? How about Sulfur Dioxide which was
proved to “cause” “Acid Rain”? Know what happened? Scientists discovered that
Sulfur Dioxide is a major component of the exhaust from vehicles equipped with
catalytic converters. Vehicles without catalytic converters, not so much. Well,
environmentalists weren’t going to stand for the abolition of catalytic
converters no matter how “harmful” to the environment they might be. Not that
they ever were, of course. Thus, like the Ozone Hole, the catastrophe of Acid
Rain and Sulfur Dioxide fell off of the front pages of newspapers, forever.
Trust me, ten years from now, you won’t even remember man-made global warming.
There’ll be a new cause among rabid environmentalists, and their sociopathic, pandering
friends in Washington eager to get their hands on more of your money.
We must bear in mind,
if the National Weather Service admits it cannot predict the weather with any
accuracy beyond 10 days, what makes any of us think that politicians can
predict the weather a hundred years from now? How about their paid flunkies who
call themselves “scientists”--and receive annual grants in the tens of millions
of dollars to study “Climate Change”-- or bureaucrats who enforce
“regulations”? How can anyone predict the weather a century from now? Do you
believe that a “scientist” receiving millions of taxpayer dollars to study
“Man-Made Climate Change” would ever say, “No such thing…” and give back the
grant money? Would you? If man doesn’t understand weather well enough to
accurately predict it more than a week and a half out, can man--who only
occupies about 13% of the Earth's surface really claim to be the cause of
“Climate Change” any more than the dinosaurs were? Could he really do anything
about it even if he were? Doubtful.
The Gun Show
Loophole.
What is it?
A “loophole” in a law is a flaw in the wording that enables a
creative “interpretation” to permit breaking the law in some unanticipated way.
When the Brady Bill was being negotiated in both houses of
congress, a proviso added to the bill specifically exempting the transfer of privately owned
firearms to eligible buyers from the requirement of a pre-purchase background
check being required.
Why did they do this?
Because private individuals are given no access to the NICS
background check system and would be unable to perform the necessary
investigation into the potential buyer’s history.
Such transfer could be
performed by a licensed gun dealer, however , the law cannot force the licensed dealer to do the background check for a
private buyer, nor, if he does perform the background check for the
private buyer, could he be required to do it for free. In fact, he could charge WHATEVER he
wanted. The holder of the firearms
license isn’t in business to lose money by helping a private owner to compete
with him by selling his used rifle for $100 less than a new one that the dealer
has in stock. All the licensed dealer has to do is price his
background check fee high enough to drive up the cost of the privately owned
rifle until it’s more expensive than a new one. Then, the buyer would simply
abandon the private seller, and buy the new one from the gun shop.
Private owners of guns would find themselves unable to sell their
weapons to anyone but a licensed dealer, and dealers would be under no obligation to pay fair market value,
they could pay as little as they wanted, and the seller would have no choice
but to sell their $1000 rifle for pennies on the dollar, or turn it into the
local police for free.
So, what’s the solution?
If the government really wanted to address this issue—and I’m not
suggesting that they should--all they’d have to do is grant private sellers access
to the NICS system. Because the seller—licensed or not—doesn’t see any
confidential information, or learn the details surrounding the rejection of a
buyer, there’s no good reason for denying access to the NICS system to private
sellers. The federal government simply doesn’t want to. The truth is, the
government isn’t really concerned about guns “falling in to wrong hands”, its
only concerned with exercising greater control over access to guns by ANYBODY
but government.
I Didn’t
Shoot Anybody!
So Why is The Loss of MY RIGHTS Even Under Discussion?
In the once-free country in which I
grew up, we punished the guilty, not the innocent. It was a constitutional
republic. One’s constitutionally recognized rights were sacrosanct, and no
bureaucrat, or congressional bloodsucker, and certainly not any unidentified
individual with nothing to produce but forged identification occupying the
white house had ANY authority to take
ANY of our rights away.
Hell, in those days, anyone caught
entering the white house with forged ID was detained by the US Secret Service.
But that was a long time ago…
Today, the public school system
teaches kids that we live in a “democracy”, and those rights can be snatched
away if your congress critter is ordered to do so by a “majority” of fans of
Brittney Spears, or Lady GaGa—people who find the Kardashians and Justin Bieber
“interesting”. People whose knowledge of history/politics/world events/the US
Constitution is limited to what they learn about these subjects as they watch
“Dancing with the Stars”.
Well, boys and girls, NOBODY has any authority to vote away or
take away any of your rights. But, if they think you’re sufficiently “dumbed
down” to the point of not realizing this, they’ll happily keep you in the dark.
And, one by one, every one of your rights that seem to tie the hands of
government, will be “voted” away, until one day, the only right you have left is
the right to cringe and grovel at the feet of any jackbooted government thugs
who smash down your door in the middle of the night to “ask a few
questions”.
I’m truly sorry that a maniac flipped
out and killed those kids and adults at Sandy Hook. I can’t undo any of that. I
am tired of seeing myself, my friends and family, and every one of the rest of
the 80 or so million gun owners in this country demonized every time a lunatic
or a gang member kills someone.
In Albuquerque, where I live, the
public school system created its own police department. The officers are
trained and certified at the same academy as our city police. We have gangs
here. We have mentally ill people, too. We DON’T
have gun control—beyond what the federal government has saddled every state
with—and, more importantly, we DON’T
have school shootings.
So. If the President’s life is so
precious that he’s continually surrounded by bodyguards heavily armed—with “assault
weapons” (at taxpayer expense), and our Congress men and women and their
counterparts in the US Senate are entitled to constant armed protection—with “assault
weapons” (at taxpayer expense), why don’t ALL schools follow the example of
Albuquerque, and provide armed police to each campus. While many taxpayers
bristle at the idea of spending MILLIONS of dollars on “security” for elected
officials going on vacation (at taxpayer expense, of course), I don’t think ANY taxpayer would mind seeing their money
spent securing all of the nation’s schools, and protecting our nation’s
children.
There is a petition at the
President’s website posted by concerned citizens, asking (why anyone would have
to ask is beyond me) the President to protect our 2nd
Amendment rights. If you care about freedom please go there now and sign it. I
did. Many do not because they’re “afraid” they’ll be placed on “a list”. Trust
me, if you’ve EVER bought a gun from a dealer after 1968, you already ARE on a
list, because you filled out the form 4473, with all of your identification
information. You showed a VALID ID. You’re on the list. Now it’s time to Cowboy
Up and tell the government you want your constitutional rights respected and
retained—WITHOUT FURTHER INFRINGEMENT.
Obamanomics: Gimmes or Gotchas?
Social Security, Medicare and Entitlements
In
the national dialog, our elected officials have begun to blur the
distinctions between “entitlements”, Medicare and Social Security. They
have a reason for this, and as secrets go, it’s not really all that
“secret”.
First,
let’s end the confusion caused by calling Medicare and Social Security
“entitlements”. They’re not. In fact, there’s a HUGE difference between
Medicare, Social Security and Entitlements. Govt. has been stealing
money out of every paycheck issued since the 1930’s for Social Security,
and since the 1970’s for Medicare. We were forced into
“contributing” to these funds, under penalty of prison (or death, should
we resist arrest for “tax evasion”), but, they forced us into this for
our “own good”. In this way, we are able to “retire” on Social Security
and not be forced into poverty when we’re too old to work (LOL), and
Medicare was our “guarantee” we’d never have to choose between buying a
can of dog food for dinner, and paying for our life-saving medication.
Washington’s dirty little secret is
that none of the money paid into these programs exists anymore. It’s all been squandered on pork projects geared to get career politicians endlessly re-elected. Now, if Washington wants to return every nickel taken from us up to this point for both of these Ponzi schemes, and then abolish both of them, because they’re too expensive, GREAT! I’m sure I’m not alone in having NEVER wanted to be forced into contributing to these programs in the first place.
Washington’s dirty little secret is
that none of the money paid into these programs exists anymore. It’s all been squandered on pork projects geared to get career politicians endlessly re-elected. Now, if Washington wants to return every nickel taken from us up to this point for both of these Ponzi schemes, and then abolish both of them, because they’re too expensive, GREAT! I’m sure I’m not alone in having NEVER wanted to be forced into contributing to these programs in the first place.
Entitlements: (under
what Constitutional authority do these even exist?) are absolutely free
to the recipient. Want Welfare, Food Stamps, Subsidized Housing, WIC
Checks, Medicaid, SSI? If you have a pulse, you’re qualified! You
don’t have to “contribute” anything, you only have to demonstrate the
requisite level of poverty. You’re certainly not required to even look
for a job, and, God forbid, anyone should suggest that you be tested for
use of illegal drugs, and if you test positive, should be denied access
to the apparently bottomless pockets of the American taxpayer. No one
should ever be forced to "waste" their own money on food, and then have
to make do without their street drugs, right? Hell, you don’t even have
to be a US citizen, or even legally in the country in
order to receive “entitlements”. Alright, Mr. or Ms. Liberal Democrat,
RINO and country club, old school checked pants Republican, I know what
you’re thinking right now—“Hey, Leonard, I thought you were supposed to be a Christian! Aren’t Christians supposed to help feed and comfort the poor?” You’re absolutely right. We are. Because
any liberal (and most RINOS) will tell you the Constitution clearly
states: “…there shall be a separation of church and state…” I need go no
further than reiterating this very argument. The Government isn’t
Christian (or Jewish, or Moslem, or Buddhist, or Shintoist, Daoist or
any other “ist”) and is therefore required to NOT feed and comfort the
poor. That would, however, be intellectually dishonest. Anyone that has
actually read the Constitution will point out that it says no
such thing. It says “…Congress shall make no law respecting any
establishment of religion, nor prohibit the free practice thereof…” It’s
the only place in the entire document where religion is mentioned.
Christians do feed and comfort the poor, however. You can’t name a
Christian church that doesn’t do this. I’d be willing to bet you can’t
name a synagogue, mosque or temple that doesn’t, either. All a poor
person has to do is go to their house of worship, and ask. If they don’t
worship anyplace, then, perhaps, they should re-assess their
relationship with the Almighty. If nothing else, they could pretend to
worship someplace, just so they can take advantage of the kindness and
generosity of the legitimate worshippers. I’m sure that many recipients
of “entitlements” (not all) are already accustomed to telling whatever
lies they deem necessary in order to con others into or out of
something; cash, a meal, drugs, parole, whatever. It won’t require any
kind of a learning curve or challenge to their innate laziness, and will
certainly ease the burden on the taxpayers forced to fund these
unconstitutional programs.
While
we’ve touched on the subject of entitlements and those who are
illegally in the country, and before we move onto to other items, STOP
pretending that the children of illegal aliens are American citizens.
The US Supreme Court dealt with this in their 1898 decision, U.S. v.
Wong Kim Ark, held by a vote of 5-4 that a child of two legal resident
aliens is entitled to birthright citizenship BECAUSE both parents were
in the country LEGALLY at the time of the child’s birth.
I
know that it’s politically impossible after over 70 years of
entitlements to cut them off entirely, but how about cutting off illegal
aliens from this entitlement “gravy train”? As a nation, we’re broke!
We simply can’t afford to continue with this lunacy. It wouldn’t be all
that complicated to fix, either. Don’t have social workers commit
“racism” by asking an applicant whether or not they are citizens. When
you print the new entitlement application forms, add a line just above
the signature line that reads (in as many languages as you like) “I
acknowledge that it is a felony for anyone not legally in the US to
receive on his/her own or anyone else’s behalf, any publicly funded
“benefit” or any proceeds thereof. The penalty for violation of this is 5
years in a federal prison.” Of course, we’d have to find elected officials with the testicular fortitude to pass such a law…
