Say Anything Blog

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Those Global Warming folks have their eyes directed completely inwards, from the atmosphere to the Earth’s surface and have been ignoring all the far more massive influences that affect Earth and Earth’s climate from within and without.

Let’s start with the Earth’s Magnetic Core

Rapid changes in the churning movement of Earth’s liquid outer core are weakening the magnetic field in some regions of the planet’s surface, a new study says.

“What is so surprising is that rapid, almost sudden, changes take place in the Earth’s magnetic field,” said study co-author Nils Olsen, a geophysicist at the Danish National Space Center in Copenhagen.

The findings suggest similarly quick changes are simultaneously occurring in the liquid metal, 1,900 miles (3,000 kilometers) below the surface, he said.

The swirling flow of molten iron and nickel around Earth’s solid center triggers an electrical current, which generates the planet’s magnetic field.

Yes, in the raucous blowback from the McCain-Bush Comprehensive Immigration Reform a.k.a. Amnesty for Si se puede! Illegals, McCain first told Americans to just calm down. Then, after getting an earful at each Townhall meeting he attended, he told us he gotten the message.

Apparently not.

McCain, Obama court Hispanic voters

“It will be my top priority yesterday, today and tomorrow,” McCain said. “We have to secure our borders ... but we also must proceed with a temporary worker program that is verifiable and truly temporary. We must also understand that 12 million people are here, and they are here illegally, and they are God’s children.” He promised to address the issue in “a humane and compassionate fashion.”

It doesn’t take a crystal ball to see that the corpse of Amnesty for Illegals will be revived by a President McCain and there won’t be a damn thing the rest of America has to say about it… because ... don’t ya know… he’s Republican.

These emotional outbursts ... are just what male chauvinists say about woman’s incapacity to coolly assess a situation.

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.—Presidential campaigns use all sorts of sophisticated operations against their opponents, but Barack Obama is also relying on some good, old-fashioned lucky charms.

The presumptive Democratic nominee said Monday that he carries around a few trinkets supporters have handed him at campaign appearances along the way _ including a “lucky poker chip” and a Native American eagle.

“They’ll hand it to you and they’ll say, ‘I want you to be well, but I want you to fight for me,’” Obama said at a campaign stop here, where he pulled some of the items from a pocket. “And they’ll talk about not having health care for their family, or they’ll talk about being laid off.”

He said those are the moments when he knows the exhaustive campaign is worth it.

“If you’ve been talking to somebody like that, then you want to work harder if you’re asking them to vote for you,” he said.

CounterPunch Diary
“Hero" John McCain as Phony and Collaborator: What Really Happened When He Was a POW?

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Sen. McCain stunned onlookers at the hearing when he moved forward to the witness table and warmly embraced Bui Tin as if he was a long, lost brother.

“Was that hug for Bui Tin, a Vietnamese official responsible for the torture of some American prisoners of war, a message ‘please don’t give them my records?’” one activist questioned at the time.

In any case, many of McCain’s fellow Vietnam War POWs were aghast, not to mention former POWs of World War II and Korea, who could, only in some instances after decades, forgive but never forget the inhumanity of their captors--certainly not to the point of embracing them.

By ALEXANDER COCKBURN

John McCain’s been getting kid-glove treatment from the press for years, ever since he wriggled free of the Keating scandal and his profitable association – another collaboration, you might say—with the nation’s top bank swindler in the 1980s. But nothing equals the astounding tact with which his claque on the press bus avoids the topic of McCain’s collaborating with his Vietnamese captors after he’d been shot down.

How McCain behaved when he was a prisoner is key. McCain is probably the most unstable man ever to have got this close to the White House. He’s one election away from it. Republican senator Thad Cochrane has openly said he trembles at the thought of an unstable McCain in the Oval Office with his finger on the nuclear trigger.

What if a private memory of years of collaboration in his prison camp gnaws at McCain, and bursts out in his paroxysms of uncontrollable fury, his rantings about “gooks” and his terrifying commitment to a hundred years of war in Iraq. What if “the hero” knows he’s a phony?
Doug Valentine has written the definitive history of the Phoenix Program in Vietnam. He knows about the POW experience. His dad, an Army man, was captured by the Japanese and sent to a POW camp in the Philippines for forced labor. Many of his mates died. Doug wrote a marvelous book about it, The Hotel Tacloban.

Now Valentine has picked up the unexploded bomb lying on McCain’s campaign trail this year. As he points out, he’s not the first. Rumors and charges have long swirled around McCain’s conduct as a prisoner. Fellow prisoners have given the lie to McCain’s claims. But Valentine has assembled the dossier. It’s devastating. We’re running it in our current CounterPunch newsletter and we strongly urge you to subscribe.

Some excerpts from Valentine’s indictment.

“War is one thing, collaborating with the enemy is another; it is a legitimate campaign issue that strikes at the heart of McCain’s character. . .or lack thereof. In occupied countries like Iraq, or France in World War II, collaboration to that extent spells an automatic death sentence.. . .The question is: What kind of collaborator was John McCain, the admitted war criminal who will hate the Vietnamese for the rest of his life?

“Put it another way: how psychologically twisted is McCain? And what actually happened to him in his POW camp that twisted him? Was it abuse, as he claims, or was it the fact that he collaborated and has to cover up? Covering-up can take a lot of energy. The truth is lurking there in his subconscious, waiting to explode. ”

“McCain had a unique POW experience. Initially, he was taken to the infamous Hanoi Hilton prison camp, where he was interrogated. By McCain’s own account, after three or four days he cracked. He promised his Vietnamese captors, “I’ll give you military information if you will take me to the hospital ...

“His Vietnamese captors soon realized their POW, John Sidney McCain III, came from a well-bred line in the American military elite. . .The Vietnamese realized, this poor stooge has propaganda value. The admiral’s boy was used to special treatment, and his captors knew that. They were working him.”

“. . .two weeks into his stay at the Vietnamese hospital, the Hanoi press began quoting him. It was not ‘name rank and serial number, or kill me’. as specified by the military code of conduct. McCain divulged specific military information: he gave the name of the aircraft carrier on which he was based, the number of U.S. pilots that had been lost, the number of aircraft in his flight formation, as well as information about the location of rescue ships.”

“…McCain was held for five and half years. The first two weeks’ behavior might have been pragmatism, but McCain soon became North Vietnam’s go-to collaborator…..McCain cooperated with the North Vietnamese for a period of three years. His situation isn’t as innocuous as that of the French barber who cuts the hair of the German occupier. McCain was repaying his captors for their kindness and mercy.

“This is the lesson of McCain’s experience as a POW: a true politician, a hollow man, his only allegiance is to power. The Vietnamese, like McCain’s campaign contributors today, protected and promoted him, and, in return, he danced to their tune. . .”

Author Peter Schweizer wanted to know if there could be a link between a person’s political leanings and illegal drug use. His eye-opening finding: Liberals are five times more likely than conservatives to use marijuana and cocaine.

Schweizer, a research fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, writes in his new book “Makers and Takers”:

“Academic studies have found that those on the political left are five times more likely to use marijuana and cocaine … Another survey found that Democrats were five times more likely to use marijuana than Republicans…

“A study published in the American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse found that among heavy drug users, the ratio of Democrats to Republicans was more than 8 to 1.”

Yet another survey found a “direct and linear relationship” between liberalism and the use of any illicit drug.

Naturally, I am shocked—shocked to read of such a wide disparity.

Then again, it would go far to explain the brain-dead policies of the Left and their being stuck on stupid so very often.

Didn’t your Daddy ever tell you never to argue with someone who was drunk or just plain stupid?

But one question remains: were they Liberal / Stupid before taking the drugs, or after?

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According to the blog entry below, this is the company’s explanation:

An Ohio blog, Plunderbund, was the first up with this and in this post, you can see the response from the creator of the item:

Dear Joseph,

Thank you for your email and your forthright feedback. No, this is not a joke, and our intention is not to offend.

Our objective is three fold:

1} Provide a cuddly toy for the millions of Obama fans to take a little piece of their favorite candidate home with them.

2} Have a means for children to become a part of the political process with a cuddly plush toy all their own.

3| Contribute a pivotal article of presidential election memoribilia.

After test marketing our product, we found a majority of our customer base finds our plush toy fun and loveable.

By virtue of our plush toy now temporarily out of stock, we’ve had to expedite a new order of inventory to meet the needs of our customers who want TheSockObama.

Joseph, again we thank you and appreciate your interest in the TheSockObama.

Regards,

Dave & Ellee
http://www.thesockobama.com

It’s going to be a long, dirty fight to November, and regardless of how it turns out, Americans are sooooooo screwed.

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With our political prospects in the next 4 years or so looking dim, whatever the outcome of the election, I thought I’d turn our thoughts to the past, when life was a little simpler and the concept of romantic love was sought after.  And the gal who gave us the soundtrack to love was none other than Edith Piaf, singing her wonderful ‘La vie en Rose’

Des yeux qui font baissers les miens.
Un rir’ qui se perd sur la bouch’,
Voilà ... Voilà…
Le portrait sans retouch’,
De l’homme auquel j’appartiens.
Il me parle tout bas
Je vois la vie en rose

- Those eyes, which make me lower mine.
-That laugh, which vanishes on the lips.
- The unretouched portrait
- Of the man to whom I belong.
- When he takes me in his arms
- He murmurs to me
- I see life in pink.

Il me dit des mots d’amour
Des mots de tous les jours
Et ça m’fait quelque chose.
Il est entré dans mon coeur,
Une part de bonheur,
Dont je connais la cause.

C’est lui par moi, Moi par lui dans la vie
Il me l’a dit, l’a juré, pour la vie.
Et, dès que je l’aperçois
Alors je sens en moi
Mon coeur qui bat.
Des nuits d’amour à en mourir
Un grand bonheur qui prend sa place,
Les ennuies, les chagrins s’effacent,
Heureux, heureux pour mon plaisir.
Quand il me prend dans ses bras…
la vie..en rose.

- He speaks so lovingly.
- In everyday words .
- And that does things to me.
- He has opened my heart,
- To a share of happiness,
- Of which, I alone know the cause.
- He is for me, I am for him In this life.
- He tells me so, has sworn it, for life.
- And, as soon as I realise it
- Then inside myself. I feel..
- My heart beating.
- The nights of love to die for,

- A great happiness Which just happens.
- Erasing all sadness And tedium,
- Happy, happy at my own pleasure.
- When he takes me in his arms
- He speaks to me so softly...and I see,
- life in Pink

Hands down, Joe Arpaio is the toughest sheriff in America. And although he is most well-known for his tough treatment of prisoners, Arpaio has over 30 years experience with different federal drug enforcement agencies, and, as the former head of border and drug enforcement in Texas and Arizona, he is one of the country’s leading experts on how to shut down illegal immigration and cross-border drug trafficking.

[see Newsmax dot com]

His is a hard-core, no-frills approach to incarceration, with 10,000 Maricopa County, Ariz., prisoners held in old Army surplus tents, fed on bologna sandwiches, and clothed in black-and-white striped, old-style prison uniforms and pink underwear.

His prisoners have worked on chain gangs, and they are forbidden fancy gyms, cigarettes, entertaining television and even salt and pepper.

Although prisoners would not agree, Arpaio, 76, has become an American folk hero of penology.

His new book, “Joe’s Law: America’s Toughest Sheriff Takes on Illegal Immigration, Drugs and Everything Else That Threatens America,” co-authored with Len Sherman, presents a bold new approach to finally, once and for all, shutting down America’s borders to criminal Mexican people-smugglers, fence-jumpers and drug peddlers.

Despite his experience, neither politician nor president has ever asked Joe Arpaio what we should do to plug up America’s sieve-like borders. He recently revealed his plan to Newsmax in an exclusive interview.

McCain: Bloomberg VP a Possibility

Wednesday, June 11, 2008 10:47 AM

By: Jim Meyers

Republican presidential nominee-in-waiting John McCain praised New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg during a visit to the Big Apple and hinted that Bloomberg could be considered as a possible running mate.

Bloomberg is leaving office next year due to term limits and has been rumored to be mulling a run for governor in New York. Asked about that speculation, McCain told the New York Post:

“Do I think he could serve the state of New York and the country well? Of course.”

When asked about the possibility of Bloomberg, an Independent, running as the GOP’s vice presidential candidate, McCain refused to rule it out, saying: “We don’t talk about our vice- presidential possibilities. But he added: “I appreciate Mayor Bloomberg enormously and the great job he’s done as mayor.”

As Newsmax’s Insider Report disclosed last week, a source close to the mayor told an interviewer that after a recent breakfast meeting between McCain and Bloomberg, the mayor was on McCain’s “short list” for the vice presidential slot.

McCain also had praise for former GOP rival Rudy Giuliani, who endorsed McCain after dropping out as a presidential candidate, and told the Post he would have a role in a McCain administration.

McCain even had nice words to say about Hillary Clinton, noting that she has “reached across the aisle” and worked with McCain on several issues.

But he said Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is promoting a “radical” and “partisan” agenda.

© 2008 Newsmax. All rights reserved.

This CBC report was filed over a year ago, but now that gas prices are skyrocketing, perhaps it’s time to consider our options.

Solar energy may not be a cure-all, many days in northern regions are over cast, but using solar as an adjunct to existing installations in places like the American Southwest or Florida would substantially reduce our need to burn fossil fuels.

I recall several stories about the M-16 and how troops have decried it as a weapon and the undersized round that it fires-- the 5.56 mm.

In one, long ago, when the M-16 was just being introduced in Vietnam, a Marine instructor was said to have had his troops gathered around the elevated wooden platform the USMC often uses during instruction, and in the midst of his introduction of the M-16, hurled it to the ground and spat invectives at it.

The reason for his ire what that the M-16 was prone to jamming, was relatively delicate in construction, particularly the gas feed tube and the forward grips, and the round was subject to being deflected by brush, small trees and vegetation.

No doubt he was comparing the M-16 to its heavier predecessor, the M-14, which fired the heavier and harder-hitting 7.62mm x 51mm NATO round. 

In close combat it was heavy enough and robust enough to use as a war club.  The reasons the military gave for replacing the M-14 was that the rounds (or bullets) were heavier and troops could carry fewer of them.  A big disadvantage when many firefights were with an unseen enemy and the troops response was to ‘pray and spray’ fully-automatic fire in the enemies’ general direction.

Still, many have maintained their criticism of the M-16 and its progeny, the M-4, as being prone to jamming and firing too weak a cartridge.

In response to complaints from troops about the M855, the Army’s Picatinny Arsenal in New Jersey assigned a team of soldiers, scientists, doctors and engineers to examine the round’s effectiveness. The team’s findings, announced in May 2006, concluded there were no commercially available rounds of similar size better than the M855.

But Anthony Milavic, a retired Marine Corps major, said the Army buried the study’s most important conclusion: that larger-caliber bullets are more potent.

”It was manipulated,” says Milavic, a Vietnam veteran who manages an online military affairs forum called MILINET. ”Everybody knows there are bullets out there that are better.”

Officials at Picatinny Arsenal declined to be interviewed. In an e-mailed response to questions, they called the M855 “an overall good performer.” Studies are being conducted to see if it can be made more lethal without violating the Hague Convention, they said.

Larger rounds are not necessarily better, they also said. Other factors such as the weather, the amount of light and the bullet’s angle of entry also figure into how lethal a single shot may be.

Heavier rounds also mean more weight for soldiers to carry, as well as more recoil — the backward kick created when a round is fired. That long has been a serious issue for the military, which has troops of varied size and strength.

The M14 rifle used by Joe Higgins was once destined to be the weapon of choice for all U.S. military personnel. When switched to the automatic fire mode, the M14 could shoot several hundred rounds a minute. But most soldiers could not control the gun, and in the mid-1960s it gave way to the M16 and its smaller cartridge. The few remaining M14s are used by snipers and marksman.

A seemingly tone-deaf Republican White House and RNC fiddle while the GOP’s Rome burns.  We’ve had three election cycles resulting in stunning losses each time, losing much of the ground that had been gained since 1994 and Newt Gingrich’s Contract with America. 

The Answer is being shouted out, like the AFLAC duck, without being heard: RINO’s (Republicans in Name Only) , stealth-Leftists, or false Republicans have ruined the party Brand by promising Conservative policy during elections and voting like Leftists once sent to Washington.

Conservative voters, after being kicked in the teeth by a succession of betrayals (runaway spending, cancerous governmental growth, Dubai Ports, Harriet Miers and of course, the Amnesty for Illegal Aliens fiasco, have been staying home in droves. 

In Rob’s earlier post Mark Levin To Conservative Politicians: Cut Ties To RNC, McCain And Run On Your Own we discussed the damage to the Republican Brand and how this vacuum in leadership promises to keep Conservatives out of office in the foreseeable future.

Lynn Woolley, of HUMAN EVENTS, takes this issue dead on in his unsurprisingly-named Busting the Republican Brand:

(Bush) busted the Republican brand by expanding the Education Department and creating an entire new department (Homeland Security).  He lost the battle to fix entitlements and responded by creating a new one, the pharmaceutical benefit, and by expanding middle-class welfare through CHIP insurance.  For six years, he failed to wield his veto pen as the Republican Congress spent the country silly and tacked on billions of dollars in earmarks.  9/11 exposed the deterioration of our military prowess that occurred under the watch of his father and Bill Clinton. 

Now here’s the really strange part of all this:

The more leftward Bush has turned, the more the Democrats and the media have branded him an archconservative.  So Bush’s failures have been ascribed to conservative policies when they have been nothing of the kind.

This is exactly the point I have been making with some mixed results in penetration.

The election of someone such as Barack Obama would ensure that most of the Bush policies (with the notable exception of the war) would be retained and expanded.  Where Bush gave us a new entitlement, Obama would give us nationalized healthcare.  Where Bush spent big, Obama would spend bigger.

Obama would give us a third Bush term.

McCain would give us open borders, amnesty for illegal aliens and just slightly less climate-change socialism than we would get from Obama.  What’s the difference?  Only that Obama will be true to his brand.  He will faithfully provide higher taxes and bigger government.  McCain, as Bush has done, will bust the brand and give us pretty much the same thing.

Woolley leads us up to the point without having to spell it out for us—yet for some it still needs to be spelled out. 

McCain would destroy the distinction between being a Republican and a Leftist.  Like him, they would become one and the same and the only difference between him and Hillary and Obama would be the degree to how far Left America would be dragged.

The key difference in the damage, however, is that under, McCain, the damage would be ascribed to the Republican Party, no matter how much they were really caused by the likes of Reid and Pelosi. 

Noone would have any reason to vote Republican in the foreseeable future, and after the new crushing brown wave of legalized Mexican voters, noone would be able to.

That is the not-so-obvious danger of a McCain presidency.

There is no doubt that the J.K. Rowling series on the boy Wizard Harry Potter is a resounding success and wildly popular with children the world over.

Harry and his friends have become the new heros and heroines in the eyes of the younger generation.

Is there cause for concern?

Perhaps.

As depicted, Harry and his fellow students are good, everyday folk and the villians evil in their own right.  In Rowlings’ world, certainly there is evil, but the source of the power that makes any charm, spell or incantation effective is left unspoken.

If the children reading the Harry Potter series can be made to understand that these stories are pure fantasy and essentially kids don’t try this at home, all can enjoy Rowlings’ work without further concern.

But that does not seem to be how it is working out for many children who read the books and watch the films.

Two British reports on this phenomenon show us the obvious: popular forms of occult entertainment “have fueled a rapidly growing interest in witchcraft among children.” Naturally, the island’s Pagan Federation is pleased. Though it refuses to admit new members under age 18, ”it deals with an average of 100 inquiries a month from youngsters who want to become witches, and claims it has occasionally been ‘swamped’ with calls.” (TV shows fuel children’s interest in witchcraft)

Berit Kjos writes further on this topic at his (or her?) page Harry Potter Lures Kids to Witchcraft with Praise from Christian Leaders

My particular concern with this series is with how appealingly it has been packaged.  The storyline, the acting, the characters, the filmography and even the score, written by John Williams of Star Wars and Superman fame—all are superb.

It is natural that children wish to emulate their heroes and heroines, just as previous generations stimulated young men to want to become cops, or cowboys or soldiers by the likes of the Lone Ranger, Roy Rogers, Elliott Ness or John Wayne.

Now those positive role models have been chased from the public screens, and bumbling father figures and Queer Eye for the Straight Guy substituted in their place.

Likewise, any positive mention of Christianity is being hunted down and eradicated from public view and chased out of schools via the persistent efforts of ACLU lawyers.

Positive mentions of Islam, Wicca and Gaia worship are replacing what you or I knew growing up.

America can only be great so long as it is good.  Following the Wiccan, paganistic rituals—not as depicted so cleanly in the Harry Potter series, but with the devil worship and use of blood—can never have a positive or innocuous result.

Bottom line, IMHO, is that if your children enjoy the works of J.K. Rowling, be sure to spell out to them that this is fantasy and counsel them to keep a sharp eye out for the differences between good and evil.

Developed initially for the military for night fighting, infra red and heat detection has new and frightening applications, such as that depicted here.