And the Count Is.....

Headline on the cover of USA Today last week said that the government of these United States declared that 71% of households filled out their census report. So if the government already knew how many folks there were in the country why did they need to spend all those dollars to send out a census to begin with?

Will Rogers once said that he didn't need to write his comedy routines from scratch he just had to talk about what the government was currently doing.

Bush Leaguers

At a hearing Wednesday, House Energy and Commerce Committee chairman Henry Waxman, a California Democrat, and Health Subcommittee chairman Frank Pallone, a New Jersey Democrat, called on baseball and its players to agree to bar major leaguers from using chew, dip or similar products during games.

Now one might ask just what does chewing tobacco have to do with energy and commerce? I guess you could say that baseball is a commercial enterprise, and you could also say that it is an inefficient use of energy for players to try to keep from sliding around on tobacco juice in the dugout. Now as to the health issues – last time I looked chewing tobacco was legal in this country, and whether a person chooses to chew tobacco or not is up to their own discretion.

So what is a true waste of time and energy and has no commercial value? A couple of ‘bush leaguers’ trying to make it into the majors!

“If everybody minded their own business the world would go around a great deal faster than it does.” The Queen, Alice in Wonderland

A group of what I am sure are well meaning environmentalist’s calls for a denial of special roadless rules in Colorado. The group is pushing President Obama to turn down Colorado Governor Bill Ritter’s request that would make exceptions to the enforcement of the rules for coal mines, ski areas and fire prevention projects near towns.

Sounds reasonable if these folks were living here in Colorado and experiencing Colorado but these folks are from South Carolina and their reasoning without ever having seen the millions of acres of forests in our State is: “What is at risk is the loss of what makes Colorado so special to the rest of the country.”

So South Carolinian's want Colorado to stay as pristine as they imagine it to be. Those evil coal companies and ski resorts – who needs them – certainly not those in South Carolina. And just what is their argument when it comes to fighting forest fires?

The South Carolinian’s are worried about 50,000 acres of ‘pristine’ forest here in Colorado that would be affected. As I sit here in Durango, at the edge of 2.2 million acres of the San Juan National Forest which sits within a state with 15 million acres of National Forest and an additional few million acres of designated Wilderness Areas I have to question South Carolina’s motives. Oh, that’s right, they are experts after all with their one National Forest – the Frances Marion and Sumter National Forest and its 629,000 acres – I guess 50,000 acres does seem like a lot to them when it comes right down to it.

The Iceage Cometh

And in Local News….

2 glaciers have been reported missing from Glacier Park, Montana. News flash – they have been found in our backyard here in Durango where the snow is still on the ground in mid-April and the last snowfall was 2 days ago.

Back to the missing glaciers in the National Park: According to sources who believe such things the 2 missing glaciers are not really missing they are “below the 25 acre threshold of what REAL glacier's sizes should be", and the only reason for this phenomenon is……wait for it…..climate change! According to the ‘experts’ at the USGS glaciers in the park have been shrinking since the 1960’s. Yes, you can believe it folks! The Earth has been warming since the last ice age!!!

As for me I am just happy that we are not heading into another mini ice age – although you wouldn’t be able to tell that from the winter we have had here in D-town. Oh, just a minute! Another news flash: Volcanoes are erupting in Iceland and filling the skies with ash causing cancellation of airplane flights all over Europe and ash could seen as far away as the U.S. Could this be the dawn of a new ice age? We will keep you posted…

Capitalism is Freedom and Anything Else is Socialism

A recent article in the Wall Street Journal by Frank Thomas (Conservatives and the Market for Alienation) took the stance that the true producers in this country were the blue collar workers and that larger government control over business was necessary.

According to Mr. Thomas workers wear blue collars and they are the true producers of goods and services in the United States. But do blue collar workers design the product, create accounting systems necessary to track costs for producing the product or to track sales of the product, decide where the product should be sold, decide what enhancements are necessary for the product to be more effective, or for that matter even where the product should be built?

Why do you think times are worse for blue-collar workers, Mr. Thomas? Could it be because businesses are trying to produce products at a lower cost and can do so by out-sourcing blue-collar work to foreign countries? Could it possibly be that prohibitive taxation by big government is causing this push? Could it be because Unions have a stranglehold on the companies that have not moved to right-to-work States? Mr. Thomas’ problem is he still lives in a perceived past that has Republicans as ‘evil fat cats’ sitting behind a big table in a board room with a bunch of other ‘evil fat cats’ trying to figure out how to take advantage of the workers in their company.

Mr. Thomas, take an Economics 101 class and figure out just who the producers in this country are. Businesses are trying to lower costs so that they will be able to sell more of their products to consumers, and in doing so their company is more profitable and they can spend some of those profits on research and development. They can also share those profits with stockholders in their company, which brings in more stockholders. Wall Street is not evil. Big business is not evil. Big government is evil.

In this country now there are loud voices in support of an expanded role for government. These are policies that have failed time and again; policies that lessen the capacity for human fulfillment and well-being; policies that put individuals in subservience to the state; policies that leech away our inalienable right to be free to choose. The Tea Party protesters are pushing back against those loud voices – we should not be taken lightly.

The Media Gets it Wrong Again: So What Else is New?

Within the past 50 years the U.S. Supreme Court Justices have agreed with each other more than 75% of the time and in certain decades more than 80% of the time Justices vote 9-0 on cases before them. Looking at the current Court configuration since Justice Sotomayor was confirmed and sat down on 10/10/09 there have been 38 cases brought before the Court and only ONCE have the Justices voted along Conservative-Liberal ideological lines.

Presidents have no idea of what they are really getting when they nominate who they think will be a conservative or liberal as President Obama must be realizing right about now with Sotomayor voting with Chief Justice Roberts on numerous occasions, and in one case wrote an concurring opinion with him. Another example of a Justice nomination that didn't quite go as planned was Ronald Reagan's nomination of Sandra Day O'Connor - who turned out to vote very liberally on numerous issues but still fell within the 75% 9-0 unanimous decisions of the past 50 years.

The media has portrayed the Justices as an 'us-against-them' mentality when it just isn't there. Just as the Ginsberg and Scalia families who have been best friends for decades.

Islamic Fundamentalism

1. Shovel Ready
2. Transparent
3. Czar
4. Tweet
5. App
6. Teachable Moment
7. In these economic times
8. Stimulus
9. Toxic Assets
10. Too big to fail

These are some of the words that Lake Superior University in Michigan chose as words to be banned from now on due to overuse and incorrect usage. The students come up with this list every year and it is fun and does not mean anything more than it is - some young people coming up with words that they are sick of hearing. They do not propose that the words actually be banned.

This week the President of the United States, who promised to protect and defend the Constitution, decided that free speech had its limitations when it came to the terms 'Islamic Fundamentlism' and 'Islamic Radicalism.' He has banned them - banned as in never hearing or reading them in the media or from his office staff. Now I do not know how he plans on enforcing this, but as an ex professor of Political Science he should know better. Both phases have been used historically in Universities, at the United Nations, in the media...basically everywhere to explain the difference between Arab Nationalism and Islamic Fundamentalism.

As a former student of Political Science one of my favorite series of lectures was an attempt to explain the thinking among the Arab community with regards to the Qu'ran and Sharia's Law. The series of lectures was given by a Professor from the Middle East. Basically he said there were two types of interpretations throughout the Muslim world of the Qu'ran and Shariah's Law. Depending on how a person did the interpretation they fell into the category of an Arab Nationalist or an Islamic Fundamentalist.

What is the difference between Arab Nationalism and Islamic Fundamentalism? Based on the lectures a very simple explanation is: Arab Nationalism is a celebration of the glories of the Arab civilization, the language and literature of the Arabs, and calling for rejuvenation and political union in the Arab world. At the core of the ideology is bringing certain Western concepts into the Arab world - Modernity, Progress and Socialism. The term Arab is chosen by the Nationalists to replace the word Islamic to separate them from the more radical fundamentalists.

One of the most defining characteristics of Islamic fundamentalism is the belief in the re-opening of the gates of Ijihad. Fundamentalists are not interested in Modernity, Progress and Socialism, and not interested in associating with non-Muslims. Fundamentalists hold that the problems of the world stem from secular influences and that the path to peace and justice lies in a return to the original message of Islam with a rejection of religious innovation. Finally, any Muslim that does not follow the Fundamentalist's interpretation of the Qu'ran or Sharia's Law should be killed, and it should should be considered justified and not considered to be a crime.

I should clarify that these interpretations are mine and based on lectures that impressed me so much I still think of them whenever I hear the words Islamic Fundamentalists or Islamic Radicals. If the President of the United States chooses not to hear those words, for whatever reason, that is certainly his right - a right guaranteed to him in the Constitution. If he tries to prevent others from hearing those words then his oath of office to 'preserve, protect and defend the Constitution' has been violated.