Over the past 30 years:

Which party blocked the development of new sources of petroleum?-- Democrat
Which party blocked drilling in ANWR?-- Democrat
Which party blocked drilling off the coast of Florida?-- Democrat
Which party blocked drilling off of the east coast?-- Democrat
Which party blocked drilling off of the west coast?-- Democrat
Which party blocked drilling off the Alaskan coast?-- Democrat
Which party blocked building oil refineries?-- Democrat
Which party blocked clean nuclear energy production?-- Democrat
Which party blocked clean coal production?-- Democrat

That’s about the complete list.  Oh, liberals do like wind power but not if it’s in a liberal state like California. i.e. wind turbines obstruct their scenic views.  Interestingly the state of Texas who has perhaps the least environmental restrictions has the most wind turbines.

Bernie Ward, the most prominent liberal voice on Bay Area talk radio for more than two decades, admitted Thursday to distribution of child pornography by e-mail in a plea deal that will send him to federal prison for at least five years.

Ward, 57, a former Roman Catholic priest, was a fixture on KGO-AM 810 for three hours every weeknight, known in recent years for his fervent denunciations of President Bush and the war in Iraq during his news talk show. He also hosted “God Talk,” a Sunday morning program on religion, and was a prolific fundraiser for the station’s charity drives.

But his career disintegrated Dec. 6 with the unsealing of a federal grand jury indictment, issued three months earlier, that charged him with two counts of distributing and one count of receiving Internet images of child pornography. KGO fired him Dec. 31.

At a 30-minute hearing in federal court in San Francisco, Ward admitted he was guilty of a single charge of distributing child pornography, saying it involved “exchanging an image of a minor engaged in sexually explicit activity” in December 2004. The plea agreement he signed, quoted in court, contained an admission that he had sent between 15 and 150 pornographic images via e-mail.

...Ward initially pleaded not guilty and said he had downloaded a few pornographic images over several weeks as research for a book on hypocrisy among Americans who preach morality in public.

I wonder how you-know-who missed this one.  You think it’s because Ward is a liberal??

Now that another Earth Day has come and gone, let’s look at some environmentalist predictions that they would prefer we forget.

At the first Earth Day celebration, in 1969, environmentalist Nigel Calder warned, “The threat of a new ice age must now stand alongside nuclear war as a likely source of wholesale death and misery for mankind.” C.C. Wallen of the World Meteorological Organization said, “The cooling since 1940 has been large enough and consistent enough that it will not soon be reversed.” In 1968, professor Paul Ehrlich, Vice President Gore’s hero and mentor, predicted there would be a major food shortage in the U.S. and “in the 1970s ... hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death.” Ehrlich forecasted that 65 million Americans would die of starvation between 1980 and 1989, and by 1999 the U.S. population would have declined to 22.6 million. Ehrlich’s predictions about England were gloomier: “If I were a gambler, I would take even money that England will not exist in the year 2000.”

Here are my questions: In 1970, when environmentalists were making predictions of manmade global cooling and the threat of an ice age and millions of Americans starving to death, what kind of government policy should we have undertaken to prevent such a calamity? When Ehrlich predicted that England would not exist in the year 2000, what steps should the British Parliament have taken in 1970 to prevent such a dire outcome? In 1939, when the U.S. Department of the Interior warned that we only had oil supplies for another 13 years, what actions should President Roosevelt have taken? Finally, what makes us think that environmental alarmism is any more correct now that they have switched their tune to manmade global warming?

Read the whole thing.

From Pennsylvania to Nebraska and from Europe to New Zealand, there is growing and fierce opposition to plans to fluoridate public drinking water, fueled by a battery of shocking new studies that seriously question a practice routine among U.S. municipalities for nearly the last 50 years

Although the American Dental Association and CDC are avid proponents of flouride there is a growing body of contrary evidence.

A study released in February by the Collaborative on Health and the Environments Learning and Development Disabilities Initiative found excessive ingestion of fluoride can decrease thyroid hormone levels. It also cited a recent Chinese study that links lower IQ levels in children with fluoridated drinking water.

In 2006, the National Academy of Sciences found the Environmental Protection Agency’s maximum standard for fluoride of 4 milligrams per liter could cause health problems such as dental fluorosis and weakened bones over a lifetime of consumption.

The EPA’s Headquarters Professionals Union, made up of scientists, lawyers and other professionals, also now opposes community fluoridation.

In January, the New York State Dental Journal reported fluoride overexposure is resulting in children developing tooth disorders including white spots, brownish discoloration and pitting. It also warned children 6 months to 3 years should consume no more than ¼ of a gram of fluoride per day – the equivalent of one 8 ounce glass of water in a fluoridated community.

Sometime ago I read that flouride was a waste product from some manufacturing product and the flouride promotion as a dental aid was just a scheme for disposing of it.

The fluoride added to public drinking water is actually fluorosilic acid. It is described by critics as an industrial waste product. Supporters prefer to call it an industry byproduct. Most of it has come from Florida’s phosphate fertilizer industry.

So is flouride safe or not?  Although the government has confirmed its use, the government has been wrong before so it’s probably wise to limit ones exposure to flouride.

In 1965, a landmark year in the fluoridation debate, the federal government determined fluoride was safe in drinking water at levels as high as 4 ppm. Officially, that is still the government’s threshold of safety on the high side. Yet, in 2006, the National Research Council determined 4 ppm was unsafe and couldn’t assert with certitude that even half that level was safe.

On the basis of the NRC’s review, the Georgia-based Lillie Center last year filed an ethics complaint against the CDC Division of Oral Health. In its complaint the center charged the CDC with “mislead[ing] the public concerning the results of studies about harm from ingesting fluoride,” and “omit[ting] vital information in its information disseminated to the public concerning vulnerable population groups that are particularly susceptible to harm from fluoride.”

Read the whole thing.

But the problem for the enigmatic Obama is that his wife gives every indication of broadly subscribing to the Reverend Wright’s world view, albeit without the profanity and accompanying pelvic thrusts.

Is it possible that Michelle devotion to Wright was the reason that they attended his church?  This mindset is brought out in Michelle’s Princeton undergraduate thesis

.“A separationist is more likely to have a realistic impression of the plight of the Black lower class because of the likelihood that a separationist is more closely associated with the Black lower class than are integrationist. By actually working with the Black lower class or within their communities as a result of their ideologies, a separationist may better understand the desparation of their situation and feel more hopeless about a resolution as opposed to an integrationist who is ignorant to their plight.”

Michelle in speechs has made other disconcerting and empty headed remarks

.“We left corporate America, which is a lot of what we’re asking young people to do. Don’t go into corporate America.”

In 2008, we are still a nation that is too divided. We live in isolation, and because of that isolation, we fear one another. We don’t know our neighbors, we don’t talk, we believe our pain is our own. We don’t realize that the struggles and challenges of all of us are the same.

Having this women as the first lady in the White House influencing the president should be additonal cause for concern if Obama gets elected.

But the problem for the enigmatic Obama is that his wife gives every indication of broadly subscribing to the Reverend Wright’s world view, albeit without the profanity and accompanying pelvic thrusts.

Is it possible that Michelle devotion to Wright was the reason that they attended his church?  This mindset is brought out in Michelle’s Princeton undergraduate thesis

.“A separationist is more likely to have a realistic impression of the plight of the Black lower class because of the likelihood that a separationist is more closely associated with the Black lower class than are integrationist. By actually working with the Black lower class or within their communities as a result of their ideologies, a separationist may better understand the desparation of their situation and feel more hopeless about a resolution as opposed to an integrationist who is ignorant to their plight.”

Michelle in speechs has made other disconcerting and empty headed remarks

.“We left corporate America, which is a lot of what we’re asking young people to do. Don’t go into corporate America.”

In 2008, we are still a nation that is too divided. We live in isolation, and because of that isolation, we fear one another. We don’t know our neighbors, we don’t talk, we believe our pain is our own. We don’t realize that the struggles and challenges of all of us are the same.

Having this women as the first lady in the White House influencing the president should be additonal cause for concern if Obama gets elected.

Failed asylum seekers are sneaking out of Britain - because they are fed up with the poor healthcare and bad weather.

Scores have been caught trying to break past border controls in recent weeks, according to immigration staff.  The majority of those who have been found are from Afghanistan and Iraq, said Les Williams, a chief immigration officer for the UK Border Agency.

He said: “One thing we have noticed recently is people trying to leave the country.

“We cannot explain exactly why they are trying to go, but when some of these people were questioned they said they wanted to go to a warmer country as they are fed up with the English weather and fed up with their treatment on the NHS.”

For the reason given that some of these people might be criminals, the British government is trying to impede the exodus.

A spokesman for the Home Office added that they took any attempt to evade border control seriously, and were implementing “a hi-tech system for counting people in and out of the country”.

However, as critics point out, those who are found not to be criminals must have costly deportation proceedings begun against them.

Mark Wallace, campaign director for the Taxpayers’ Alliance, said: “At a time when police are overstretched and taxpayers are paying far too much we are spending millions stopping these people leaving the country.

“It is lunacy and makes us even more of a laughing stock.”

Others claim failed asylum seekers leaving voluntarily is probably the best hope the Home Office has of clearing a backlog of 285,000 cases.

Some of the comments to this article would seem to show that many native Brits are in empathy with the people who want to leave.  A sampling:

One thing we have noticed recently is people trying to leave the country.” Crikey! They can’t stand Incapability Brown either.

It’s all part of Gordon’s cunning plan to get rid of asylum seekers.  Turn this country into a complete toilet and they’ll all go running home. You have to hand it to him, he’s trying his best, and succeeding.

Sounds very familiar… just the same reasons many Brits have left the UK

From the Drug War Chronicle,

Aroused by videos of young people using salvia divinorum on YouTube and spurred on by law enforcement eager not to miss an opportunity, legislators across the country have this year been raising the alarm about the fast- and short-acting hallucinogenic herb, despite the lack of any evidence that its use is harmful. In the latest outbreaks of salvia mania, the South Carolina and Florida Houses have passed a bill to criminalize the plant, a Massachusetts town has banned it, and police in North Dakota—one of a handful of states where it is already illegal—announced their first salvia bust.

Some of you North Dakotans may be pleased (or alarmed) to know that your state is one of the front line leaders in the Drug War.

North Dakota law enforcement had its chance earlier this month, when they arrested a Bismarck man for possessing eight ounces of salvia leaf. (The drug is most commonly ingested by smoking salvia extracts, which are significantly more potent than the leaf.) Kenneth Rau has been charged with salvia possession with intent to deliver in what North Dakota cops believe is the state’s first salvia bust.

Now, they’re looking for more, Lt. Bob Haas of the Bismarck Police told WDAY-TV6 News. “It sure looks like there could be a market, based on the amount he had. This is the first we’ve seen of it.”

Even some towns and cities are getting in on the act.

The most recent is West Bridgewater, Massachusetts, where city selectmen voted to ban the plant this week. Although Massachusetts is among the states considering action against the member of the mint family, the state was not moving fast enough for the West Bridgewater folks.

“What makes Salvia divinorum dangerous is that it has hallucinogenic properties like LSD and it can be purchased on the same Web site where you find Beanie Babies and baseball cards,” Selectman Matthew Albanese said. “I can’t imagine why the Drug Enforcement Agency has Salvia listed as a ‘drug/chemical of concern’ as opposed to a ‘controlled substance,’” Albanese said.

Albanese might have asked the DEA. The Chronicle did three weeks ago, and DEA spokesperson Rogene Waite told us that the agency is following procedure by evaluating eight factors listed in the Controlled Substances Act in determining whether or not to schedule a drug. Unlike Massachusetts selectman or various state legislatures, (this time at least) the DEA seems to actually be waiting for evidence before it acts.

One can only wait and wonder with chagrin what plant will be selected next to banned.  Perhaps broccoli which I don’t like anyway.  I used to smoke corn silk when I was young so that may be a prospect.  Imagining corn on the prohibited list illustrates the folly that the drug war has become.

A grandmother performed her own tooth extractions in despair after being turned away by 12 dentists.

Elizabeth Green, 76, was in agony with two front teeth and after a fruitless search for an NHS practitioner, resorted to DIY.

Her case is the latest of many to highlight the dwindling availability of NHS dental treatment.

But you can get private sector dental care if you can afford it.

Mrs Green, a former chef, said it was made plain to her that if she could pay for treatment she would have been welcomed.

“I feel so angry,” she said. “I’ve worked all my life and paid taxes and then when I need help I can’t get it.”

Cashill writes:

I am weary, Lord, of all the complaining and caterwauling, all the cranky e-mails that tell me Fred is too lazy and Rudy is too sleazy and John is too wily and Mitt is too wobbly and Mike is too cagey and Ron is too crazy and Duncan is too dreary and Tom is too Johnny-one-note.

And none of these Republicans, by some calculus or another, is conservative enough or charismatic enough, and all of them, alas, will come a cropper in the face of just about any Democrat not named Chris Dodd.

And this, Lord, is what I hear from my right-wing friends. I ask You, have they drunk so deeply of the mainstream Kool Aid that they lost their minds or at the very least their memories?

Do they not understand that this is best crop of candidates any party has put up in years, possibly ever?

Cashill then goes on to review the candidates from years past, the review being too length to post here.

Cashill then concludes with:

So thank you, Lord, for this and so very much more, especially for Hillary. Come Election Day, she will remind us all why, regardless of what we are, we are not Democrats.

Read the whole thing.