You've GOT to be kidding me.

That man-made global warming Kool-aid must taste really good.

Obama left with little time to curb global warming

This takes the cake:

Ironically, 2008 is on pace to be a slightly cooler year in a steadily rising temperature trend line. Experts say it's thanks to a La Nina weather variation. While skeptics are already using it as evidence of some kind of cooling trend, it actually illustrates how fast the world is warming.

Are you serious?! The fact that it is cooling only proves that it's actually getting warmer.

This is Newspeak for sure.

It's about time

Larry Langford was arrested this morning on federal charges.

A special grand jury for several months has been investigating county bond deals and Langford's financial dealings. Langford was Jefferson County Commission president 2002-06...The [Langford] indictments are under seal, so details of the charges are not available.

Langford, LaPierre and Montgomery investment banker Bill Blount are accused in a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission lawsuit of not disclosing $156,000 in payments to Langford. The SEC has accused Blount of paying Langford through LaPierre as part of a plan to secure Jefferson County financial business when Langford was Jefferson County Commission president.

It's more bad publicity for Birmingham, but at least (hopefully) this crook will be brought to justice.

Challenged Ballots in Minnesota

Here are some of the ballots being challenged by both the Coleman and Franken campaigns in Minnesota. Some of these are pretty sad...they're helping to make the case for allowing fewer people to vote.

Challenged Ballots: You be the judge

They're admitting it

Not that it's worth much now.

Washington Post admits "tilt" in campaign coverage

At least they're owning up to it, for what that's worth. I won't hold my breath for any of the other major news outlets to do as much.

Meet the new boss...

...same as the old boss.

(I thought this post from my friend Winston was particularly appropriate, now that the election is over.)

The Messiah will take care of everything...

Obama's aunt is an illegal alien?

Michelle Malkin has the whole story.

She's made donations to his campaign (which is illegal, by the way). I think this is particularly revealing of the Messiah's true character:

Why was BHO letting her illegally redistribute her wealth to him, when he could have been helping her by getting her an immigration lawyer? If BHO had gotten her a lawyer, could they have appealed? Why then didn’t BHO help her out? When is he going to introduce an emergency private relief bill to give her a green card?

Pretty good questions. If he cared one whit about her, he would have helped her out (and certainly not accepted her campaign donations). Instead, he ignored her and kept quiet about her--because all he cares about is power.

Now we're "selfish!"

Obama's New Attack on Those Who Don't Want Higher Taxes: 'Selfishness'

"The reason that we want to do this, change our tax code, is not because I have anything against the rich," Obama said in Sarasota, Fla., yesterday.

Right.

Now he wants to guilt-trip us into becoming a socialist state. It's not going to work.

Rupert Murdoch says....

...that an Obama win could worsen the world financial crisis.

I'm not completely sold on "free trade" (I've read my share of Pat Buchanan), but I have to agree with him here:

[Murdoch] warned that an increase in protectionism in the US as suggested by some Democrats in Congress, would risk retaliation from China and could threaten world trade.

"For the past three or four years, some Democrats have been threatening to do things like put on extra tariffs (against Chinese imports) if they don't change their currency," Murdoch said.

"If it happened, it could set off retaliatory action which would certainly damage the world economy seriously."

Makes sense. Weaning ourselves off foreign imports and restoring our own manufacturing capabilities isn't something that can be done in one presidential term.

What a novel idea!

This guy should patent this and start selling it.

Boy shocked after man powers up campaign sign

That'll teach the little troublemaker.

To the Undecided Voter...

...from Neal Boortz.

It's pretty long, but worth the read.

Just let them try and outlaw those guns!

A lynching

Those far-left wackos sure are violent:

Palin effigy lynched in West Hollywood

I wonder what the reaction from these same people would be if someone hanged an effigy of the Chosen One.

There was even a guillotine--complete with President Bush's severed head--at a "Festival of Obama" rally in Denver yesterday:

Festival of Obama (from lookingattheleft.com)

It's usually amusing (and often frightening) to see photos that people take at these left-wing rallies. El Marco notes that he did not see a single anti-McCain or anti-Palin shirt--but there was plenty of anti-Bush signage. I really think Bush Derangement Syndrome should appear in the forthcoming DSM-V.

Nine days out

We're just over a week away from Election Day. I think the race is a lot closer than the mainstream media would like to admit. I'm still planning to hold my nose and vote for McCain/Palin, but lately (since the "bailout" abomination) I've been considering voting for Bob Barr (the Libertarian candidate) or Chuck Baldwin (the Constitution Party candidate). Since Alabama's a pretty safe bet for McCain, I'll feel a little more comfortable doing this. I don't think I would consider it if I lived in a battleground state.

This weekend I went to a gun show in Columbus, Ga. while visiting my parents. I decided to go ahead and get started on my black rifle--I bought a receiver for an AR-15 (it's a DoubleStar, from their STAR-15). I can order the rest of the pieces by mail or over the Internet, since the lower receiver is the only component that is regulated by the BATF. And, best of all, I've already got it in my hands--before the Messiah and the Ancient Cheerleader have a chance to ban me from buying it.

See where the global-warming bandwagon takes you?

What an idiot this guy was!

I'm Sure You Guys Can Deal

It's a rather old story, but I just stumbled upon it via passiveaggressivenotes.com.

Finally, a sensible ruling

The U.S. Supreme Court hasn't had the best track record recently, but they took a turn in the right direction today when they overturned the D.C. gun ban.

Justice Antonin Scalia’s opinion for the majority stressed that the Court was not casting doubt on long-standing bans on gun possession by felons or the mentally retarded, or laws barring guns from schools or government buildings, or laws putting conditions on gun sales.

In District of Columbia v. Heller (07-290), the Court nullified two provisions of the city of Washington’s strict 1976 gun control law: a flat ban on possessing a gun in one’s home, and a requirement that any gun — except one kept at a business — must be unloaded and disassembled or have a trigger lock in place. The Court said it was not passing on a part of the law requiring that guns be licensed.

There are still aspects of D.C.'s gun laws that I disagree with, particularly their requirement that all guns be licensed. But this ruling is a huge step in the right direction, because it further establishes and clarifies the individual right of citizens to own firearms. (Note that all the other amendments in the Bill of Rights grant individuals freedom from goverment control; the Second Amendment is the only one that has been construed--by some--as taking away an individual right. This is inconsistent at best.) Now that interpretation has been put to rest.

More here and here.

A fake border crossing park?!

This is outrageous. Three hours north of Mexico City (and 700 miles from the actual border), you can pay $10 to participate in a "live simulation-adventure that attempts to give participants a taste of what it's like for the thousands of Mexican and other Latin American undocumented migrants trying to enter the promised land of 'el norte.'"

"It's part of our culture, and it's important to know it," said Sergio Mendieta, a secondary school teacher from the state of Mexico.

Well, I guess the idea of a capitalistic venture like this is easier to swallow than the news a couple of years ago about the Mexican government handing out maps to aid illegal border-crossers.

From the daughter of a radical feminist...

She's revered as a trail-blazing feminist and author Alice Walker touched the lives of a generation of women. A champion of women's rights, she has always argued that motherhood is a form of servitude. But one woman didn't buy in to Alice's beliefs - her daughter, Rebecca, 38.

Here the writer describes what it was like to grow up as the daughter of a cultural icon, and why she feels so blessed to be the sort of woman 64-year-old Alice despises - a mother.

How my mother's fanatical views tore us apart

Wow.

(Hat tip: Michelle Malkin.)

Resumption

I apologize to all three of you who read this blog regularly for the lack of content over the last three months. Since my last post, I have procured a new job at a state institution of higher learning, and I thought it prudent to limit my blogging activity during this initial phase of employment. As I will soon be past the 90-day mark, I expect to resume regular posting in the near future. It should be fun, what with the election gearing up over the summer and the culture war in full swing, as usual...

Sammenhold

Has it really been two years since the Mohammed cartoon riots in Denmark? I guess so. Following Michelle Malkin's lead, I am reprinting the Kurt Westergaard cartoon that sparked that frightening conflagration.



Come on and issue a fatwa on me, you lunatics.

News from one of the "Jena 6"

Last year, teeming mobs of people called for the "Jena 6" to be freed...six black students who savagely beat a white student. Not held to the proper standard of justice, but SET FREE.

Well, let's see how much good that has done.

Jena 6 defendant facing assault charge--at his new school in Texas

A defendant in the Louisiana "Jena Six" case was arrested on suspicion of slamming a student's head into a bench at his new school in Texas, police said.

Bryant R. Purvis, 19, was arrested on a charge of assault causing bodily injury Wednesday after an altercation at Hebron High School. It began because Purvis believed a student had flattened his tires, Sgt. John Singleton said.

This should come as no surprise. The kid wasn't innocent to begin with; he's a thug, plain and simple. He should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

His mother had this to say:

Purvis' mother, Tina Jones, told the Alexandria Daily Town Talk newspaper that she wished her son could avoid such situations.

"I understand he gets frustrated," she said. "But he needed to walk away from this situation, being that he's already in a situation. It's very frustrating and upsetting to have to go through so much."

I don't think it's a stretch to read between the lines of those comments and infer that she has not disciplined him properly. She could have done her job as a parent when he was younger and taught him to walk away from such situations.

It won't surprise me at all if he winds up killing somebody down the line.

What a week!

This has been an interesting week. We saw John Edwards drop out of the race (thank God!) as well as Rudy Giulani (whose candidacy was disappointing, though not so much as Thompson's).

As Super Tuesday approaches, things are still up in the air on both sides. Personally, I would rather Hillary got the Democratic nomination over Obama. On the GOP side, ideally I'd like for Ron Paul to get the nomination, but I'll take Romney over Huckabee or McCain any day. The fact that the MSM is pretty much declaring McCain the frontrunner scares the daylights out of me. McCain will only sell out what's left of the Republican Party and continue (or accelerate) its move to the left. What alternative is left for this country's true conservatives?

"Global warming" alarmists...in Alabama?!

Well, I'm sure glad my alma mater isn't involved...

An organization called "Focus the Nation" is organizing a "teach-in" at colleges and universities across the country. I remember seeing advertisements for this group during the PetroSun Independence Bowl, and I worried (since we were playing in the game, after all) that the Capstone might be a part of this nonsense--but I neglected to look up the group and find out. Today I found them--and, thankfully, I discovered that The University of Alabama is not participating.

To be frank, these people (Focus the Nation) are nutjobs. They are "global-warming" zealots who have declared that the debate on the subject is over, and that mankind is directly responsible for every fluctuation of the earth's temperature and climate. These are the folks who treat it like a religion--you're either a true believer or a "denier." Never mind the hundreds of respected scientific minds who disagree. (Well, I guess they're not respected by this crowd.)

Anyway, there are a couple of other state schools that are jumping on the bandwagon. First? None other than our very own land-grant agricultural university--that's right, Alabama Polytechnic Institute, affectionately known (or maybe not so much) as the Barn: Auburn University.

Now, I'll give credit where credit is due: Auburn's website for its involvement in this event does claim that its organizers are trying to create a discussion about "the perceived controversy" and "what scientists do and don't know." Of course, the "perceived controversy" thing could just be an indoctrination for those who think (correctly) that the question is not settled. "Oh, there's no controversy, that's just what Evil Corporate America wants you to think. The icebergs are melting! The icebergs are melting!" But I'll give them the benefit of the doubt. And, you know, if there's any group in this state who could solve the planet's problems, it would have to be the farmers down in Lee County.

The other state schools involved are Alabama A&M and South Alabama. USA has a "core group of 5-6 volunteers who are working hard on this," according to Focus the Nation's site. Just five or six? That's good to know...maybe the folks down there are intelligent enough to see through the crap this group is spreading (although I have my doubts, since apparently they are considering Dennis Franchione for their head coaching position.)

At any rate, I'm relieved to see that my beloved Capstone will not be taking part in this idiocy. I'm sure there will be some hippies doing something unofficially, but at least the administration is not recognizing any of it. Roll Tide!

Thompson Drops Out

Fred Thompson dropped out of the race today. Oh well; his campaign was pretty disappointing, especially after all the hype before he actually declared his candidacy.

It is disheartening to see a good conservative go, though.

I think the only good candidates left are Paul and Romney...

Thoughts on McCain...

...from Mark Levin.

As I understand Victor Davis Hanson’s position, those of us who believe John McCain will cause severe damage to the conservative movement and the Republican party should hush up, or at least calm down, for this electoral juggernaut, who has managed to get 33 percent of the vote in South Carolina (despite backing by most of the establishment there) and is strong on the war in Iraq. And if we continue to bring attention to those issues that concern us — which are not insignificant to anyone who has worked in conservative circles for nearly 40 years — then we will destroy the party and Hillary Clinton will win, thereby losing the war on terror.

What an absurd argument! Levin essentially covers all the reasons I don't trust (and have never trusted) McCain.

With all due respect, this is absurd on many levels. If John McCain is nominated and loses, it is because he doesn’t appeal to enough Americans, including the base that he has repeatedly betrayed (as Thomas Sowell puts it) over a long period of time. The suggestion that McCain and McCain alone is capable of fighting this war, given his experience, seems to be the core of the concern.

Read on...

Hunter drops out; Ron Paul still going strong

I was disappointed to hear that Duncan Hunter dropped out of the race on Saturday. I suppose it was inevitable, though, and probably overdue as well. It's too bad candidates like Hunter don't have a realistic shot at the nomination--at least not in the current climate. But maybe Ron Paul will change all that.

Paul placed second in the Nevada caucuses this weekend. This is his strongest showing yet, and still the mainstream media pretends that he doesn't exist. I wonder how he will fare on Super Tuesday? Hopefully he'll do well enough that they will have to acknowledge him more openly.

I recently put a "Gun Owners 4 Paul" sticker on the back of my pickup truck. I don't completely agree with all of Ron's positions--namely his foreign policy ideas--but I have to confess that the more I read Pat Buchanan, the more sense his non-interventionist policy makes...so I might wind up joining that camp, too.

More on Paul and Buchanan later.

Welcome

Welcome to the Apopka Snake Ranch. If you understand the reference, you are truly unique (like me!). In this space, I hope to provide interesting commentary on the political and cultural events of the day. Please check back frequently!