What does the price of free coffee have to do with anything? Please study the pictured sign and tell me what you see. How does this relate to the price of tea in China? Well, the point of all this non-sense is to highlight what many people don't see when they are presented with explanations for why we are being forced to accept nonsensical explanations for our current energy policies. Once again my friend David has done an excellent job of doing just that. Once you read his piece, go back to the picture and see if it makes more sense.
"Where's the global warming?
As I sit here this morning in supposedly sub-tropical Louisiana, it is
overcast, the temperature is 46 degrees, the wind chill is 40 degrees,
and it may well drop into the upper 30's tonight. According to an
article I saw recently, the US is having the second coldest Spring in
recorded history.
This fact, along with the knowledge that the
average temperature has
been dropping now for 10 years, doesn't give a lot
of credence to the
Global Warming "scientists", now does it? Particularly
when one adds in
the fact that the same guys were saying in the 1970's that
we were
entering a new Ice Age.
I have never bought into the fact
that climate change, whichever way it
may be changing, is caused by anything
mankind is doing for several
reasons, primarily the fact that 1,000 years
ago it was much, much
warmer throughout the entire world than even the
global warming fanatics
are predicting for our future. Normans at that time
settled in
Greenland, note the name they gave the place, and farmed there
for 300
years until the climate turned colder again. Greenland today is
nothing
much more than an ice cap.
The warm weather at that time
certainly wasn't caused by Viking SUV's
and Russian coal fired electrical
plants, now was it?
Yet, contradictory to all evidence, this
administration and a cabal of
fanatics continues to, shall we say,
inconvenience us to prevent "global
warming". Regulation after regulation
are being initiated in order to
force us to "go green." Gas prices have
gone up from $1.80 a gallon
when Bush went out of office to what they are
today. We continue to
import a great deal of our oil even though we have
more oil here than
all of the Middle East, yet we are not allowed to drill
for most of it.
The Obama administration claims that we have imported
less oil in the
past couple of years and this is true, but it is due to only
one thing,
that being the discovery of the massive oil fields in the
Dakotas. It
is all on private land and they have not yet come up with a way
to stop
or reduce the production of the oil there. Nonetheless, it is not
nearly
enough. We could be completely energy independent within three years
if
the administration would let the oil companies and independent drillers
bring our own oil out of the ground....but they won't. One of the first
things Obama did when he took office was to cancel a number of oil
leases Bush had granted. Why do you suppose he did that and why do you
suppose he continues to stifle drilling?
You are being forced to
drive tiny little cars which greatly increase
your chances of being killed
or severely injured in an accident.
Utility bills are going up as coal
plants are being closed and nuclear
power plant permits are being denied.
Meat prices have risen
significantly because corn normally used for feed is
being diverted to
the ethanol industry, which of course is subsidized by the
federal
government. Without those billions in subsidies, your gas prices
would
be much higher. But how are the subsidies funded? They are funded
from
your tax dollars, that's how.
Ah yes, good old ethanol (pardon
the incomplete sentence). It destroys
small engines, is exceptionally hard
on and reduces the life span of
your car engines, gives you worse gas
mileage, and substantially cuts
your power, but have no fear, the government
is going to fix it. The
EPA wants to increase the percentage of ethanol in
your gas from 10% to
15%. What is the benefit? Well, ethanol in your gas
reduces the so
called "greenhouse gasses" by 1/19 of 1%. Unfortunately,
when one
considers the pollution caused by the manufacture of ethanol, the
reduction changes from a positive, if one could call it that, to a
negative.
It is almost as if a certain political ideology is deliberately
attempting to strangle our economy and negatively affect our lifestyle.
It's either that or they are all insane, which is a distinct
possibility. Perhaps it is a combination of both. I am unable to find,
when all of the negatives and positives are added up, a single thing
which is being done which actually benefits the economy or the welfare
of the whole of the people.
So why and how is all of this being
done? The only conclusion I can
reach is that it is being perpetrated by a
group which craves total
power over the populace and is assisted by others
who reside in a
permanent bubble of cognitive dissonance that does not allow
them to
perceive reality. Furthermore, it is facilitated by a large
percentage
of the population which has no idea what is happening to them
because
their focus of concentration is on their favorite sports teams and
sit coms.
Well, enough for now. I had originally intended to only
comment on the
weather, but as usual, got a little carried away with my
dialogue."
David
"People who like this sort of thing will find this the sort of thing they like."
-- Abraham Lincoln
Pappys Ponderings
A quiet place to ponder the possibilities.
Monday, May 6, 2013
Tuesday, March 26, 2013
Civilization Revisited
par·a·digm (p
r
-d
m
, -d
m
)
r
-d
m
, -d
m
)
n 3. A set of assumptions, concepts, values, and practices that constitutes a way of viewing reality for the community that shares them, especially in an intellectual discipline.
What are we really considering when we ask our Supreme Court to rule on such things as marriage? Have these questions come up before in other civilizations? Why is it necessary to ask and answer these questions over and over? To answer these questions I must first state that I have chosen in my life to operate from the paradigm that Creator God knows what is best for His creation. The problem arises when we consider that God created us with a will to chose what paradigm we will follow. He endowed us with a knowledge of his omnipotent presence and His desire that we follow the rules he set down for His creation, but we can choose to set our own rules and worship the creation instead of the Creator. Look at your history. Every major civilization that has come and gone on this planet has, at some point, decided that the creation should set the rules, and in doing so has set in motion its predictable decline and ultimate destruction. We here in the United States are no different. History would tell us with the visible warnings of crumbling ruins that the Holy scripture is correct when it states that Creator God will not tolerate our aberrant choices. Yet we find ourselves there once again, self-centered and haughty in our belief that because more and more people are choosing to embrace aberrant behavior as a lifestyle that all of us should acquiesce and legitimize the behaviors with a ruling by the highest court in our land.
Let's go back to Rome around 60 A.D. The Apostle Paul in his letter to the Christian Church meeting in Rome comments on this very issue in Chapter 1 of his letter. (The text is from the New Living Translation)
God’s Anger at Sin
18 But God shows his anger from heaven against all sinful, wicked people who suppress the truth by their wickedness.[i] 19 They know the truth about God because he has made it obvious to them. 20 For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God.
21 Yes, they knew God, but they wouldn’t worship him as God or even give him thanks. And they began to think up foolish ideas of what God was like. As a result, their minds became dark and confused. 22 Claiming to be wise, they instead became utter fools. 23 And instead of worshiping the glorious, ever-living God, they worshiped idols made to look like mere people and birds and animals and reptiles.
24 So God abandoned them to do whatever shameful things their hearts desired. As a result, they did vile and degrading things with each other’s bodies. 25 They traded the truth about God for a lie. So they worshiped and served the things God created instead of the Creator himself, who is worthy of eternal praise! Amen. 26 That is why God abandoned them to their shameful desires. Even the women turned against the natural way to have sex and instead indulged in sex with each other. 27 And the men, instead of having normal sexual relations with women, burned with lust for each other. Men did shameful things with other men, and as a result of this sin, they suffered within themselves the penalty they deserved.
28 Since they thought it foolish to acknowledge God, he abandoned them to their foolish thinking and let them do things that should never be done. 29 Their lives became full of every kind of wickedness, sin, greed, hate, envy, murder, quarreling, deception, malicious behavior, and gossip. 30 They are backstabbers, haters of God, insolent, proud, and boastful. They invent new ways of sinning, and they disobey their parents. 31 They refuse to understand, break their promises, are heartless, and have no mercy. 32 They know God’s justice requires that those who do these things deserve to die, yet they do them anyway. Worse yet, they encourage others to do them, too.
It is not normal or natural, it is a paradigm choice of those who refuse to acknowledge a loving God and his perfect plan for His creation. Our nation (and each individual in it) must choose what paradigm to follow. I am only an old sinner saved by the Grace of God through his Son Jesus Christ, but I have never regretted my choice and I pray that others will examine themselves and see that Jesus Christ is the only way to fill the natural longing to have a relationship with Creator God.
Tuesday, March 19, 2013
What really happened?
This entire editorial commentary was published by Rabbi Pruzansky on November 12, 2012. http://rabbipruzansky.com/2012/11/07/the-decline-and-fall-of-the-american-empire/ . I am going to present excerpts from this piece as teasers hoping that you will be inclined to read the entire piece.
"The most charitable way of explaining the election results of 2012 is
that Americans voted for the status quo – for the incumbent President
and for a divided Congress. They must enjoy gridlock, partisanship,
incompetence, economic stagnation and avoidance of responsibility. And
fewer people voted. As I write, with almost all the votes counted,
President Obama has won fewer votes than John McCain won in 2008, and
more than ten million off his own 2008 total. (Note: this was written
the day after the election. The final results indicate that Romney
exceeded McCain’s total by less than one million votes, while Obama
received almost four million votes fewer than he did in 2008 – the first
time in history that a president won a second term with fewer votes than
he scored in his first victory. RSP)
But as we awake from the nightmare, it is important to eschew the facile
explanations for the Romney defeat that will prevail among the
chattering classes. Romney did not lose because of the effects of
Hurricane Sandy that devastated this area, nor did he lose because he
ran a poor campaign, nor did he lose because the Republicans could have
chosen better candidates, nor did he lose because Obama benefited from a
slight uptick in the economy due to the business cycle.
Romney lost because he didn’t get enough votes to win."
The simplest reason why Romney lost was because it is impossible to
compete against free stuff. Every businessman knows this; that is why
the “loss leader” or the giveaway is such a powerful marketing tool.
Obama’s America is one in which free stuff is given away: the adults
among the 47,000,000 on food stamps clearly recognized for whom they
should vote, and so they did, by the tens of millions; those who –
courtesy of Obama – receive two full years of unemployment benefits
(which, of course, both disincentivizes looking for work and also
motivates people to work off the books while collecting their windfall)
surely know for whom to vote; so too those who anticipate “free” health
care, who expect the government to pay their mortgages, who look for the
government to give them jobs. The lure of free stuff is irresistible."
"The most charitable way of explaining the election results of 2012 is
that Americans voted for the status quo – for the incumbent President
and for a divided Congress. They must enjoy gridlock, partisanship,
incompetence, economic stagnation and avoidance of responsibility. And
fewer people voted. As I write, with almost all the votes counted,
President Obama has won fewer votes than John McCain won in 2008, and
more than ten million off his own 2008 total. (Note: this was written
the day after the election. The final results indicate that Romney
exceeded McCain’s total by less than one million votes, while Obama
received almost four million votes fewer than he did in 2008 – the first
time in history that a president won a second term with fewer votes than
he scored in his first victory. RSP)
But as we awake from the nightmare, it is important to eschew the facile
explanations for the Romney defeat that will prevail among the
chattering classes. Romney did not lose because of the effects of
Hurricane Sandy that devastated this area, nor did he lose because he
ran a poor campaign, nor did he lose because the Republicans could have
chosen better candidates, nor did he lose because Obama benefited from a
slight uptick in the economy due to the business cycle.
Romney lost because he didn’t get enough votes to win."
"Ronald Reagan himself could not win an election in today’s America.
The simplest reason why Romney lost was because it is impossible to
compete against free stuff. Every businessman knows this; that is why
the “loss leader” or the giveaway is such a powerful marketing tool.
Obama’s America is one in which free stuff is given away: the adults
among the 47,000,000 on food stamps clearly recognized for whom they
should vote, and so they did, by the tens of millions; those who –
courtesy of Obama – receive two full years of unemployment benefits
(which, of course, both disincentivizes looking for work and also
motivates people to work off the books while collecting their windfall)
surely know for whom to vote; so too those who anticipate “free” health
care, who expect the government to pay their mortgages, who look for the
government to give them jobs. The lure of free stuff is irresistible."
The Rabbi's entire blog entry is well worth reading. I hope you will take the time to do so.
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