Time 2 Escape Daily for Wednesday, Jan 4, 2012

I did something different last night. I went for a walk. It was just a block or two, and I had a destination in mind. My precinct caucus was held last night and I attended. It was such a sacrifice, too, being that I had to walk somewhere while the weather was being so gentle to us Eastern Iowans (it hasn't snowed YET in Cedar Rapids!).

For months, I was hoping to be the speaker for Herman Cain. The speakers for Ron Paul, Mitt Romney, and Rick Santorum were announced... Wait, what about the other candidates? I asked the caucus leader if I could say anything about Herman Cain. My request was rejected. It was then that I made my statement, in front of 87 people: "Why not?" Sure, that looks like a question, but really, it was a statement. I could have mentioned anyone, actually, not just Herman Cain. I could have mentioned Sarah Palin or Chris Christie; the statement would still have the same meaning. Who decides/decided what Republicans really want in a candidate to run against the incumbent in the White House? Maybe that explains how Santorum only lost by 8 votes overall in Iowa against the guy the GOP and media elite really want.

Of course, the first caucus in the country wasn't the only news that kept me awake too long last night. The Iranian saber-rattling is unsettling. Building a nuke, threatening to shut off the oil spigot by blocking the Strait of Hormuz... Well, it is all the more reason why who is chosen to be President next November is all important right now. We will need a Commander-in-Chief that we can depend on to protect our freedom. Is our current President up to the task?

In the mean time, many of us are asking what we need to do to live a better life. And the two stories that I included today are right on the money, because it really comes down to having the personal freedom to do what you can to be successful. Think about that! Because I love you, I'm just sayin'...

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The News Stories:

Mitt Romney Squeaks Out Narrow Victory in Iowa
From Newsmax.com ~ By Martin Gould ~ Tuesday, 03 Jan 2012 10:20 PM

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney won the Iowa GOP caucus early Wednesday morning by just eight votes after an intense three-way battle throughout Tuesday evening that underscored the depth of opposition to him within the Republican Party.

The race had shaped up as a two-way dead heat between Romney and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum with Iowa GOP chairman Matt Strawn announcing Romney’s victory shortly after 2:30 EST. The final vote total for Romney was 30,015 to Santorum’s 30,007.

The decision Tuesday night by Iowa Republican caucus-goers followed 354 days of campaigning and an estimated 900 events, according to Iowa officials. Candidates spent the final days of campaigning before the first-in-the-nation vote in one last-gasp scramble, traveling from town to city.

The vote was so close that Romney could not effectively claim a decisive victory, especially as Santorum’s dramatic effort suggested the depth of the “anyone-but-Romney” movement within in the GOP. Santorum wasn’t even considered a viable candidate 10 days ago. READ MORE

Gingrich Praises Santorum in Defeat
From Newsmax.com ~ By Paul Scicchitano ~ Tuesday, 03 Jan 2012 11:19 PM

With a likely fourth-place finish in Iowa, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich vowed to continue his campaign at least through the New Hampshire primary.

“I am delighted to be here tonight and I think that we are at the beginning of an extraordinarily important campaign,” Gingrich told supporters with wife Callista by his side.

“The ultimate goal of this campaign has to be to replace Barack Obama and get America back on the right track. But let’s be clear: one of the things which became obvious in the last few weeks in Iowa is that there will be a great debate in the Republican Party before we are prepared to have a great debate with Barack Obama.”

Gingrich congratulated former Sen. Rick Santorum not only on his apparent victory in Iowa, but for waging “a great, positive campaign “ in sharp contrast to his words for former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney whom he described as a “liar” earlier in the day for a slew of negative advertisements, many of which were directed at Gingrich. READ MORE

Iranian War Drums
From FrontPageMag.com ~ By Stephen Brown ~ Jan 4th, 2012

After threatening only days ago to close the Strait of Hormuz, through which twenty percent of the world’s oil supplies moves, the Iranian government has once again engaged in ominous sabre-rattling.

The mullah regime’s latest threat involves a warning to the United States on Tuesday not to send its naval task force group, headed by the aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis, back to the Persian Gulf. The Stennis had already left Gulf waters last week en route to the Afghan war theater and is now “somewhere between Oman and Pakistan.”

“I advise, recommend and warn them [the Americans] over the return of this carrier to the Persian Gulf because we are not in the habit of warning more than once,” Iranian Army Chief Ataollah Salehi reportedly stated.

The reason for Iran’s latest bellicose outburst is that the Obama administration is implementing a strict set of sanctions that could seriously damage, even topple, the Iranian government. The latest punitive measures are being imposed because Iran is still refusing, despite worldwide condemnation, to give up its nuclear weapons program. The fact Iran may be as little as a year away from developing its first nuclear weapon accounts for the sanctions’ severity. The International Atomic Energy Commission also reported recently that Iranian scientists are “working to design a nuclear warhead.” READ MORE

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Columnists and Their Commentaries:

Ron Paul’s Soros Defense Plan
From FrontPageMag.com ~ By Daniel Greenfield ~ Jan 2nd, 2012

It was recently observed that Ron Paul was to the left of Obama on national security and the best evidence for that statement can be found when one year ago Ron Paul joined forces with Barney Frank on a proposal to gut national defense via a panel of experts, quite a few of whom were tied to George Soros.

In July 2010, Barney Frank and Ron Paul co-authored a Huffington Post article rolling out their Sustainable Defense Task Force. The Task Force “consisting of experts on military expenditures that span the ideological spectrum” would recommend a trillion dollars in defense cuts. The experts, however, didn’t quite “span the ideological spectrum” — more like float under it.    READ MORE

I love greed ~ By Walter Williams
Walter E. Williams explains the beauty, necessity of 'enlightened self-interest'
From WND ~ Jan 3, 2012

WALTER E. WILLIAMS

Free-market capitalism is relatively new in human history. Prior to the rise of capitalism, the way people amassed great wealth was by looting, plundering and enslaving their fellow man. Capitalism made it possible to become wealthy by serving one’s fellow man. Capitalists seek to discover what people want and then produce it as efficiently as possible. Free-market capitalism is ruthless in its profit-and-loss discipline. This explains much of the hostility toward free-market capitalism; some of it is held by businessmen. [Adam] Smith recognized this hostility when he said, “People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.” He was hinting at government-backed crony capitalism, which has come to characterize much of today’s businesses. READ MORE

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From the Blogs:

Made to make a difference ~ By Ralph Marston
From The Daily Motivator ~ Tuesday, January 3, 2012

This Daily Motivator seems to go well with Walter Williams' column, "I love greed" (see above).

Doing only what is easy and convenient, comfortable and free of challenge, doesn’t get you very far. Chasing after something for nothing ends up getting you nothing of real value.

In order to experience true fulfillment in any undertaking, you must invest yourself in it. It is your active participation and contribution to life that makes it so good to live.

If you continually take the easy way out, avoiding effort, challenge and commitment, you’ll end up being very disappointed. You are made to make a difference, so embrace every opportunity to do so.

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Don't be afraid!

WE the PEOPLE

are the MOB
ONE NATION UNDER GOD

YOU ARE NOT ALONE!
johnny2k's Tea Party Gear

A less perfect union ~ By Walter E. Williams

Major states like California, New York, Illinois, Ohio and New Jersey – and the federal government – are on the verge of bankruptcy. Large cities like Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, Washington, D.C., Newark and Detroit are facing bankruptcy, as well. Does that tell you something? It tells me that we can no longer afford to do what we've done in the past. We must make large cuts in spending. Spending on public employee salaries is just a drop in the bucket.

I have posted several columns in the last few days regarding the public employee unions. Professor Walter Williams adds one more column to the mix that I am hoping people will see. The problem is, politicians, mostly Democrat, get large campaign contributions from labor unions, and then when in office, they make sure that the unions are rewarded.

Until the chaos began in Madison, Wisconsin, I had never given much thought to public-sector employee unions. It was an issue that had not seen the light of day in the press. But thanks to Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker taking on the unions, and the protests that resulted in Madison, I have been learning a lot about what amounts to a massive scam on the taxpayers. You will not only want to read the this column in full, but also the stories shown below under RELATED STORIES (if you haven't already!). It will help you to connect the dots like I have.

RELATED STORIES:
Unions' collective disregard for taxpayers ~ By Herman Cain
A union of corruption ~ By Patrice Lewis
Here's something worth protesting ~ By Erik Rush

A less perfect union

WALTER E. WILLIAMS

By Walter E. Williams

March 02, 2011 ~ 1:00 am Eastern

© 2011

With all of the union strife in Wisconsin, Indiana and New Jersey, and indications of more to come, it might be time to shed a bit of light on unions as an economic unit.

First, let's get one important matter out of the way. I value freedom of association, and non-association, even in ways that are not always popular and often deemed despicable. I support a person's right to be a member or not be a member of a labor union. From my view, the only controversy regarding unions is what they should be permitted and not permitted to do.

According to the Department of Labor, most union members today work for state, local and federal government. Close to 40 percent of public employees are unionized. As such, they represent a powerful political force in elections. If you're a candidate for governor, mayor or city councilman, you surely want the votes and campaign contributions from public employee unions. In my view, that's no problem. The problem arises after you win office and sit down to bargain over the pay and working conditions with unions that voted for you.

Given the relationship between politicians and public employee unions, we should not be surprised that public employee wages and benefits often average 45 percent higher than their counterparts in the private sector. Often they receive pension and health-care benefits making little or no contribution.

How is it that public employee unions have such a leg up on their private-sector brethren? The answer is not rocket science. Employers in the private sector have a bottom line. If they overcompensate their employees, company profits will sink. The company might even face bankruptcy.

READ FULL STORY at WorldNetDaily.com

Be sure to check out
johnny2k's Tea Party Gear!

Fewer manufacturing jobs a good thing ~ By Walter E. Williams

U.S. manufacturing employment peaked at 19.5 million jobs in 1979. Since 1979, the manufacturing workforce has shrunk by 40 percent, and there's every indication that manufacturing employment will continue to shrink. Because of automation, the U.S. worker is now three times as productive as in 1980 and twice as productive as in 2000. It's productivity gains, rather than outsourcing and imports, that explains most of our manufacturing job loss.

Walter E. Williams explains that America's manufacturing production is really not down like people think it is. Though the number of people employed in manufacturing has been drastically reduced by 40% since 1979, Walter explains why that may not really be a bad thing.

Fewer manufacturing jobs a good thing

WALTER E. WILLIAMS

By Walter E. Williams

January 05, 2011 ~ 1:00 am Eastern

© 2011

So many statements we accept as true, plausible or beyond question; but are they? Let's look at a couple of important ones: global warming and U.S. manufacturing decline.

In 2000, Dr. David Viner of University of East Anglia's disgraced Climatic Research Unit advised, "Within a few years winter snowfall will become a very rare and exciting event," and "Children just aren't going to know what snow is." Britain's Meteorological Office said this December was "almost certain" to become the coldest since records began in 1910. Paul Michaelwaite, forecaster for NetWeather.tv, said, "It is looking like this winter could be in the top 20 cold winters in the last 100 years."

In reference to the last decade of the Earth's cooling, geologist Dr. Don J. Easterbrook, emeritus professor at Western Washington University, says, "Recent solar changes suggest that it could be fairly severe, perhaps more like the 1880 to 1915 cool cycle than the more moderate 1945-1977 cool cycle. A more drastic cooling, similar to that during the Dalton and Maunder minimums, could plunge the Earth into another Little Ice Age, but only time will tell if that is likely." Global warming hype is nothing less than a gambit for more government control over our lives.

How about statements like these: "The United States got to where it is today by making things." "There's nothing made here anymore." "One-third of the nation's manufacturing jobs have vanished in the past decade." These statements suggest that we are no longer the world's top manufacturer; we have all but turned into a nation of "hamburger flippers."

READ FULL STORY at WorldNetDaily.com

Be sure to check out
johnny2k's Tea Party Gear!

Time for an amicable separation ~ By Walter E. Williams

Is Walter Williams suggesting that States start seceding from the United States?

The bottom-line question for all of us is: Should we part company or continue trying to forcibly impose our wills on one another? My preference is a restoration of the constitutional values of limited government that made us a great nation.

By Walter E. Williams

Posted: April 07, 2010 ~ 1:00 am Eastern

© 2010

Here's the question asked in my September 2000 column titled "It's time to part company": "If one group of people prefers government control and management of people's lives and another prefers liberty and a desire to be left alone, should they be required to fight, antagonize one another, risk bloodshed and loss of life in order to impose their preferences, or should they be able to peaceably part company and go their separate ways?"

The problem our nation faces is very much like a marriage where one partner has broken, and has no intention of keeping, the marital vows. Of course, the marriage can remain intact as one party tries to impose his will on the other and engage in the deviousness of one-upsmanship. Rather than submission by one party or domestic violence, a more peaceable alternative is separation.

I believe we are nearing a point where there are enough irreconcilable differences between those Americans who want to control other Americans and those Americans who want to be left alone that separation is the only peaceable alternative. Just as in a marriage where vows are broken, our human-rights protections guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution have been grossly violated by a government instituted to protect them. The Democrat-controlled Washington is simply an escalation of a process that has been in full stride for at least two decades. There is no evidence that Americans who are responsible for and support constitutional abrogation have any intention of mending their ways.

READ FULL STORY at WorldNetDaily.com

Be sure to check out johnny2k's Tea Party Gear!

Beer or wine? How government brings conflict ~ By Walter E. Williams

The good Professor Williams explains how government creates conflicts and division. His examples are easy to understand, and perfectly illustrates his point.

As our nation forsakes our founders' wisdom of constitutional limitations placed on Washington, we raise the potential for conflict.

By Walter E. Williams

Posted: March 31, 2010 ~ 1:00 am Eastern

© 2010

Different Americans have different and often intense preferences for all kinds of goods and services. Some of us have strong preferences for beer and distaste for wine while others have the opposite preference -- strong preferences for wine and distaste for beer. Some of us hate three-piece suits and love blue jeans while others love three-piece suits and hate blue jeans. When's the last time you heard of beer drinkers in conflict with wine drinkers, or three-piece suit lovers in conflict with lovers of blue jeans? It seldom if ever happens because beer and blue jean lovers get what they want. Wine and three-piece suit lovers get what they want and they all can live in peace with one another.

It would be easy to create conflict among these people. Instead of free choice and private decision-making, clothing and beverage decisions could be made in the political arena. In other words, have a democratic majority-rule process to decide what drinks and clothing would be allowed. Then we would see wine lovers organized against beer lovers, and blue jean lovers organized against three-piece suit lovers. Conflict would emerge solely because the decision was made in the political arena. Why? The prime feature of political decision-making is that it's a zero-sum game. One person's gain is of necessity another person's loss. That is if wine lovers won, beer lovers lose. As such, political decision-making and allocation of resources is conflict enhancing, while market decision-making and allocation is conflict reducing. The greater the number of decisions made in the political arena, the greater the potential for conflict.

READ FULL STORY at WorldNetDaily.com

Be sure to check out johnny2k's Tea Party Gear!

Congress' legalized corruption ~ By Walter E. Williams

Lobbyists - with big money behind them - are in control of what Congress does. Does it make you wonder if it matters who is elected? Hmmm... a question worth pondering...

Okay, I'm done pondering. The answer is, YES, it DOES matter who we elect! We need to find people that will stick to the constitution, and not be bought off. Well, that is the hard part. Who's going to vote for some "loser" that doesn't care about money and power?

Hopefully, our nation's constitutional reawakening will begin to deliver us from the precipice. There is no constitutional authority for two-thirds to three-quarters of what Congress does. Our Constitution's father, James Madison, explained, "The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government, are few and defined ... (to be) exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce."

By Walter E. Williams

Posted: March 24, 2010 ~ 1:00 am Eastern

© 2010

If there is anything good to say about Democratic control of the White House, Senate and House of Representatives, it's that their extraordinarily brazen, heavy-handed acts have aroused a level of constitutional interest among the American people that has been dormant for far too long. Part of this heightened interest is seen in the strength of the tea-party movement around the nation. Another is the angry reception that many congressmen received at their district town-hall meetings. Yet another is seen by the exchanges on the nation's most popular radio talk shows such as Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Mark Levin and others. Then there's the rising popularity of conservative/libertarian television shows such as Glenn Beck, John Stossel and Fox News.

While the odds-on favorite is that the Republicans will do well in the fall elections, Americans who want constitutional government should not see Republican control as a solution to what our founders would have called "a long train of abuses and usurpations." Solutions to our nation's problems require correct diagnostics and answers to questions like: Why did 2008 presidential and congressional candidates spend over $5 billion campaigning for office? Why did special interests pay Washington lobbyists over $3 billion that same year?

What are reasons why corporations, unions and other interest groups fork over these billions of dollars to lobbyists and into the campaign coffers of politicians?

One might say that these groups are simply extraordinarily civic-minded Americans who have a deep and abiding interest in elected officials living up to their oath of office to uphold and defend the U.S. Constitution. Another response is these politicians, and the people who spend billions of dollars on them, just love participating in the political process. If you believe either of these explanations, you're probably a candidate for some medicine, a straitjacket and a padded cell.

A far better explanation for the billions going to the campaign coffers of Washington politicians and lobbyist lies in the awesome government power and control over business, property, employment and other areas of our lives. Having such power, Washington politicians are in the position to grant favors and commit acts that if committed by a private person would land him in jail.

READ FULL STORY at WorldNetDaily.com

Be sure to check out johnny2k's Tea Party Gear!

Who's the greater threat – the rich or politicians? ~ By Walter E. Williams

Walter E. Williams explains how politicians and their supporters use the politics of envy to pit us against the rich, the reason why they do that, and the danger that leads our country to.

We Americans have forgotten founder Thomas Paine's warning that "Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one."

By Walter E. Williams

Posted: March 03, 2010 ~ 1:00 am Eastern

© 2010

Bill Gates is the world's richest person, but what kind of power does he have over you? Can he force your kid to go to a school you do not want him to attend? Can he deny you the right to braid hair in your home for a living? It turns out that a local politician, who might deny us the right to earn a living and dictates which school our kid attends, has far greater power over our lives than any rich person. Rich people can gain power over us, but to do so, they must get permission from our elected representatives at the federal, state or local levels. For example, I might wish to purchase sugar from a Caribbean producer, but America's sugar lobby pays congressmen hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions to impose sugar import tariffs and quotas, forcing me and every other American to purchase their more expensive sugar.

Politicians love pitting us against the rich. All by themselves, the rich have absolutely no power over us. To rip us off, they need the might of Congress to rig the economic game. It's a slick political sleight-of-hand where politicians and their allies amongst the intellectuals, talking heads and the news media get us caught up in the politics of envy as part of their agenda for greater control over our lives.

The sugar lobby is just one example among thousands. Just ask yourself: Who were the major recipients of the billions of taxpayer bailout dollars, the so-called Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP)? The top recipients of TARP handouts included companies such as Citibank, AIG, Goldman Sachs and General Motors. Their top management are paid tens of millions dollars to run companies that were on the verge of bankruptcy, were it not for billions of dollars in taxpayer money. Politicians preach the politics of envy whilst reaching into the ordinary man's pockets, through the IRS, and handing it over to their favorite rich people and others who make large contributions to their election efforts.

READ FULL STORY at WorldNetDaily.com

Be sure to check out johnny2k's Tea Party Gear!

Our climate czar's faith in fraud ~ By Walter E. Williams

The religion of consensus science continues to unravel for the global warming fraud. Professor Williams correctly points out that the EPA and the global warming czar, Carol Browner shouldn't continue to be "spending billions of dollars and enacting economically crippling regulations in the name of fighting global warming."

Given all the false claims and evidence pointing to scientific fraud, I don't think it wise to continue spending billions of dollars and enacting economically crippling regulations in the name of fighting global warming. At the minimum, we should stop the Environmental Protection Agency from going on with their plans to regulate carbon emissions.

By Walter E. Williams

Posted: February 24, 2010 ~ 1:00 am Eastern

© 2010

Private industry and governments around the world have spent trillions of dollars in the name of saving our planet from manmade global warming. Academic institutions, think tanks and schools have altered their curricula and agenda to accommodate what was seen as the global warming "consensus."

Mounting evidence suggests that claims of manmade global warming might turn out to be the greatest hoax in mankind's history. Immune and hostile to the evidence, President Barack Obama's administration and most of the U.S. Congress sides with Climate Czar Carol Browner, who says, "I'm sticking with the 2,500 scientists. These people have been studying this issue for a very long time and agree this problem is real."

The scientists whom Browner references are associated with the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC. Let's look some of what they told us. The 2007 IPCC report, which won them a Nobel Peace Prize, said that the probability of Himalayan glaciers "disappearing by the year 2035 and perhaps sooner is very high" as a result of manmade global warming. Recently, IPCC was forced to retract their glacier-disappearance claim, which was made on the basis of a non-scientific magazine article. When critics initially questioned the prediction, Rajendra Pachauri, IPCC's chairman, dismissed them as "voodoo scientists."

The IPCC also had to retract its claim that up to 40 percent of the Amazonian forests were at risk from global warming and would likely be replaced by "tropical savannas" if temperatures continued to rise. The IPCC claim was based on a paper co-authored by the World Wildlife Fund and the International Union for Conservation of Nature, two environmental activist groups.

READ FULL STORY at WorldNetDaily.com

Black conservatism on the march? ~ By Ellis Washington

Commentary from WorldNetDaily

By Ellis Washington

Posted: February 06, 2010 ~ 1:00 am Eastern

© 2010

No greater injury can be done to any youth than to let him feel that because he belongs to this or that race he will be advanced in life regardless of his own merits or efforts.


Do what you can with what you have and never be satisfied.


~ Booker T. Washington

Prologue

This column analyzes the state of black conservatism in America today. Black conservatism stresses traditionalism, robust patriotism, free-market capitalism and aggressive social conservatism within the context of the black church. Principally, black conservatism emphasizes personal responsibilities, irrelative of socioeconomic class and institutional racism. In the tradition of African-American politics and intellectual life, black conservatives tend to support the self-help/moral philosophy of Booker T. Washington (1856-1915) as contrasted with the activist/progressive philosophy of W.E.B. Du Bois (1868-1963).

Analysis

For many black conservatives, the singular objective is to bring social redemption and economic success to the black community. Four core concepts of black conservatism are cited in the important book "Black and Right: The Bold New Voice of Black Conservatives in America," editors Stan Faryna, Brad Stetson and Joseph G. Conti. They are:

• The pursuit of educational and professional excellence as a means of advancement within the society;

• Policies that promote safety and security in the community beyond the typical casting of a criminal as a "victim" of societal racism;

• Local economic development through free enterprise rather than looking to the federal government for assistance;

• Empowerment of the individual via self-improvement (virtue), conscience and supernatural grace.

While the actual numbers of black conservatives is difficult to deduce, a useful list of black conservative groups can be found at: Black Conservatism and Who is your favorite Black Conservative?"

In February 2008 I drafted a series of strategies and proposals for affecting a quantifiable black presence in the Republican Party, which was published in WorldNetDaily.com. Later I sent this article to all 50 Republican Political Action Committees in America and to the Republican National Committee. Here are some excerpts:

My main intent is to help the Republican Party return to being the party of Lincoln, the party of the disenfranchised, not by government largess no matter how well-intentioned, but by helping black people to help themselves. In my weekly column on WorldNetDaily, I delineate many strategies that can help the Republican Party recapture the majority black vote they once enjoyed from 1870-1932, after which time blacks left the party en masse in the early 1930s at the urging of W.E.B. Du Bois and the NAACP to vote for FDR.

Black people have voted Democrat at over 90 percent ever since that time. With your help, I want to change that tragic scenario that has so decimated the real and vested interests of black people all over America. …

The response from the RNC and all 50 GOPAC organizations? Absolutely nothing! How can the GOP reclaim the black vote if they don't give a damn about black intellectuals like me?!

READ FULL STORY >

Why climate-change alarmists can't tell the truth ~ By Walter E. Williams

Commentary from WorldNetDaily

By Walter E. Williams Posted: February 03, 2010 ~ 1:00 am Eastern © 2010 John Coleman, founder of the Weather Channel, in an hour-long television documentary titled "Global Warming: The Other Side," presents evidence that our National Climatic Data Center has been manipulating weather data just as the now disgraced and under investigation British University of East Anglia Climate Research Unit. The NCDC is a division of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Its manipulated climate data is used by the Goddard Institute of Space Studies, which is a division of the National Aeronautical and Space Administration. John Coleman's blockbuster five-part series can be seen online. The Coleman documentary presents research by computer expert E. Michael Smith and Certified Consulting Meteorologist Joseph D'Aleo. During the 1960s and into the 1980s, the number of stations used for calculating global surface temperatures was about 6,000. By 1990, the number of stations dropped rapidly to about 1,500. Most of the stations lost were in the colder regions of the Earth. Not adjusting for their loss made temperatures appear to be higher than was in fact the case. According to Science & Environmental Policy Project, Russia reported that CRU was ignoring data from colder regions of Russia, even though these stations were still reporting data. That means data loss was not simply the result of station closings but deliberate decisions by CRU to ignore them in order to hype their global-warming claims. D'Aleo and Smith report that our NCDC engaged in similar deceptive activity where they have dropped stations, particularly in colder climates, higher elevations or closer to the polar regions. Temperatures are now simply projected for these colder stations from other stations, usually in warmer climates. Mounting evidence of scientific fraud might make little difference in terms of the response to manmade global-warming hysteria. Why? Vested economic and political interests have emerged where trillions of dollars and social control are at stake. Therefore, many people who recognize the scientific fraud underlying global warming claims are likely to defend it anyway. Automobile companies have invested billions in research and investment in producing "green cars." General Electric and Phillips have spent millions lobbying Congress to outlaw incandescent bulbs so that they can force us to buy costly compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs). Farmers and ethanol manufacturers have gotten Congress to enact laws mandating greater use of their product, not to mention massive subsidies. Thousands of major corporations around the world have taken steps to reduce carbon emissions, including giants like IBM, Nike, Coca-Cola and BP, the oil giant. Companies like Google, Yahoo and Dell have vowed to become "carbon neutral." Mounting evidence of scientific fraud might make little difference in terms of the response to manmade global-warming hysteria. Why? Vested economic and political interests have emerged where trillions of dollars and social control are at stake. Therefore, many people who recognize the scientific fraud underlying global warming claims are likely to defend it anyway. Automobile companies have invested billions in research and investment in producing "green cars." General Electric and Phillips have spent millions lobbying Congress to outlaw incandescent bulbs so that they can force us to buy costly compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs). Farmers and ethanol manufacturers have gotten Congress to enact laws mandating greater use of their product, not to mention massive subsidies. Thousands of major corporations around the world have taken steps to reduce carbon emissions, including giants like IBM, Nike, Coca-Cola and BP, the oil giant. Companies like Google, Yahoo and Dell have vowed to become "carbon neutral." READ FULL STORY >

Haiti's avoidable death toll ~ By Walter E. Williams

Commentary from WorldNetDaily

By Walter E. Williams Posted: January 20, 2010 ~ 1:00 am Eastern © 2010 Some expect Haiti's 7.0 earthquake death toll to reach over 200,000 lives. Why the high death toll? Northern California's 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake was more violent, measuring 7.1 on the Richter scale, resulting in 63 deaths and 3,757 injuries. The 1906 San Francisco earthquake measured 7.8 on the Richter scale, about eight times more violent than Haiti's, and cost 3,000 lives. As tragic as the Haitian calamity is, it is merely symptomatic of a far deeper tragedy that's completely ignored, namely self-inflicted poverty. The reason why natural disasters take fewer lives in our country is because we have greater wealth. It's our wealth that permits us to build stronger homes and office buildings. When a natural disaster hits us, our wealth provides the emergency personnel, heavy machinery and medical services to reduce the death toll and suffering. Haitians cannot afford the life-saving tools that we Americans take for granted. President Barack Obama called the quake "especially cruel and incomprehensible." He would be closer to the truth if he had said that the Haitian political and economic climate that make Haitians helpless in the face of natural disasters are "especially cruel and incomprehensible." The biggest reason for Haiti being one of the world's poorest countries is its restrictions on economic liberty. Let's look at some of it. According to the 2009 Index of Economic Freedom, authorization is required for some foreign investments, such as in electricity, water, public health and telecommunications. Authorization requires bribing public officials and, as a result, Haiti's monopolistic telephone services can at best be labeled primitive. That might explain the difficulty Haitian-Americans have in finding out about their loved ones. READ FULL STORY >

The myth about U.S. manufacturing ~ By Walter E. Williams

Commentary from WorldNetDaily

By Walter E. Williams Posted: January 06, 2010 ~ 1:00 am Eastern © 2010 Here's a sample of last week's news reporting: "A new decade is about to start …," "What better way to start a new year and decade …," and "ABC 'World News' Decade Look-Back." One would think that the first decade of the third millennium came to an end midnight Dec. 31 and the new decade began a minute after midnight. The truth of the matter is that we must wait another year before the new decade begins at 12:01 a.m. Jan. 1, 2011. Just do the math: The end of 2001 was the first year of the decade; the end of 2002 completed the second year and so forth. The end of 2009 completes the ninth year and the end of 2010 completes the 10th year and the end of the decade. One minute after midnight Jan. 1, 2011, begins the second decade of the third millennium. Many reporters and talking heads will read this column and will still refer to 2010 as the new decade. My question: What is the most suitable characterization we can give them? I think it's the same characterization we would make of a person who's shown that an object is white and he insists upon calling it black – stupid. Then there's the person who agrees that 2010 does not begin the next decade but prefers to say it's the next decade anyway. For that person, reality is optional. Then there's the person who steadfastly holds that 2010 begins the next decade because that's what most people believe. He might be a politician. Politicians, businessmen and labor-union spokesmen have whined about the decline in U.S. manufacturing. Before looking into what they say is the sad decline in U.S. manufacturing, let's examine what has happened in agriculture. In 1790, farmers were 90 percent of the U.S. labor force. By 1900, only about 41 percent of our labor force was employed in agriculture. By 2008, less than 3 percent of Americans are employed in agriculture. What would you have Congress do in the face of this precipitous loss of agricultural jobs? One thing Congress could do is outlaw all of the technological advances and machinery that have made our farmers the world's most productive. Our farmers are so productive that if needed, they could feed the entire world. READ FULL STORY >

'Rushed' to the hospital ~ By Kathy Shaidle

Commentary from WorldNetDaily

By Kathy Shaidle Posted: January 02, 2010 ~ 11:36 am Eastern © 2010 This column was going to be fairly low key. The days between Christmas and New Years are the no man's land of conservative talk radio – a week of substitute hosts and "best of's" as most of the stars take a break. Then late Wednesday night, news spread that Rush Limbaugh had been hospitalized in Hawaii, suffering from chest pains. Immediately, the blogs and Twitter were abuzz. I set up a special search column on TweetDeck, using the hashtag #rushlimbaugh. After about ten minutes, I had to close it down. The calls for prayers and the "get well soon" messages and comments were interspersed with hateful "death wishes" and nasty jokes from leftists. Radio Equalizer's Brian Maloney reprinted some of these messages at his blog, censoring a few of them out of necessity. Not surprisingly, someone at the unreliable and mostly liberal megasite Wikipedia even edited Limbaugh's entry to pronounce him dead! Some of the fans' responses to the hatred were extraordinary. One commenter said: "Rush is irreplaceable. If he needs a heart transplant, he can have mine." Another noted on Twitter: "So Rush Limbaugh can't say he wants Obama to fail but liberals can say they want Rush Limbaugh to die?" My favorite: "The same people who want Rush to die want to run our health care!" Ed Morrissey at HotAir remembered an email he'd received from Limbaugh during a personal crisis; it offered an insight into the "real" Rush and made for touching reading. The next day – when the searches for "Rush Limbaugh" reached the "volcanic" level at Google Trends – the irony of the situation hit me. Who do millions of us turn to when there's bad news? Rush Limbaugh. But who do we turn to if Rush isn't around, because Rush is the "bad news"? In this case, few of the other "big names" were scheduled to be on the air either. Bill Bennett was, however, and he offered his best wishes to Rush on his radio show, and at the National Review's blog, The Corner. He was joined by regular Rush Limbaugh substitute host, Mark Steyn, who wrote:

Rush took a rotting, abandoned hulk – AM radio – and reinvented it as a new conservative medium. Critics such as our former colleague David Frum miss the larger point: It's not just about his opinions on this or that policy issue or candidate, but about a strategic savvy few other folks on our side of the aisle can demonstrate. I owe him a lot personally, and I hope he rests up for whatever time he needs and then comes back and sticks it to the naysayers till mid-century.

Dr. Walter E. Williams sat in for Rush on Thursday afternoon and offered listeners a brief update on Limbaugh's condition:

"Rush is in good and stable condition, comfortable – as comfortable as one can be in a hospital while on vacation – and he's in good hands."

Then came New Years Day and good news: Rush was released from hospital. At a televised press conference, he explained that a battery of tests showed no sign of coronary disease, and a heart attack was ruled out as the cause of his chest pains (FREE video). (You can also the video below this story.) While the origin of his discomfort remains a mystery, Rush was certain of one thing: "I don't think there's one thing wrong with the American health care system." Rush also posted a special message to his fans at his web site, thanking them for their "prayers and good thoughts" – and promising to return to the "Golden EIB Microphone" mid-week. There was some other news in the world of talk radio, of course, although none so dramatic. READ FULL STORY >

January 01, 2010 - Rush Limbaugh Speaks to Reporters in Hawaii About His Chest Pains

Video provided by mghoft

We've been had ~ By Walter E. Williams

Commentary from WorldNetDaily

By Walter E. Williams Posted: December 09, 2009 ~ 1:00 am Eastern © 2009 Last year, my column "Global warming rope-a-dope" (Dec. 24, 2008) started out: "Americans have been rope-a-doped into believing that global warming is going to destroy the planet. Scientists who have been skeptical about manmade global warming have been called traitors or handmaidens of big oil." New evidence proves that climatologists and environmental-policy advocates have not only fed us lies and engaged in scientific and academic fraud, but committed criminal acts as well. Last month, Russian computer hackers obtained thousands of e-mails from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in England. CRU has the world's largest temperature data set. In collaboration with scientists around the world, including the U.S., its research and mathematical models form the basis of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's 2007 global-warming report. The e-mails involved communication among climate researchers and policy advocates around the world who brazenly discuss both the destruction and hiding of data that does not support their global-warming claims. They discuss criminally deleting data rather than comply with Freedom of Information Act requests. There's also discussion of faking data for journals such as Nature, conspiring to keep opposing science out of peer-reviewed journals (which they controlled the editorial boards), and using statistical "tricks" to hide the cooling period of the last 10 years. One e-mail said, "The fact is we can't account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can't." Another said, "It would be nice to try to 'contain' the putative 'MWP,' even if we don't yet have a hemispheric mean reconstruction available that far back." MWP refers to the Medieval Warm Period (800 A.D. to 1300 A.D.) when the Earth was much warmer than it is now. This bothers the global warmers because they can't blame the temperature increase a thousand years ago on SUVs, coal-burning power plants, incandescent bulbs and 60-inch TV screens. READ FULL STORY >

When elites make our decisions for us ~ By Walter E. Williams

Commentary from WorldNetDaily

By Walter E. Williams Posted: December 02, 2009 ~ 1:00 am Eastern © 2009 The ultimate constraint we all face is knowledge – what we know and don't know. The knowledge problem is pervasive and by no means trivial as hinted at by just a few examples. You've purchased a house. Was it the best deal you could have gotten? Was there some other house you could have purchased that 10 years later would not have needed extensive repairs or was in a community with more likable neighbors and a better environment for your children? What about the person you married? Was there another person who would have made for a more pleasing spouse? Though these are important questions, the most intelligent answer you can give to all of them is: "I don't know." Since you don't know the answers, who do you think, here on Earth, is likely to know and whom would you like to make these decisions for you – Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, George Bush, a czar appointed by Obama or a committee of Washington bureaucrats? I bet that if these people were to forcibly make housing or marital decisions for us, most would deem it tyranny. READ FULL STORY >

Why the left excuses communist horrors ~ By Walter E. Williams

From WorldNetDaily

By Walter E. Williams Posted: November 18, 2009 ~ 1:00 am Eastern © 2009 Last Tuesday, I had the pleasurable task of being master of ceremonies for the Atlas Economic Research Foundation dinner in Washington, D.C., that celebrated the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Founded in 1981, the Atlas Foundation assists the formation of free-market think tanks around the world to spread the ideas of personal liberty, private property rights and limited government. So far, they have been successful in at least 70 countries. Attending the two-day celebration were think-tank representatives from many of these countries, including those from Croatia, Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Mozambique, South Korea, Russia and Brazil. Alan Kors, University of Pennsylvania history professor, gave the evening's keynote address. What he revealed about the dereliction and character weakness of academics, intellectuals, media elites and politicians is by no means complimentary, but worse than that, dangerous. Professor Kors said that over the years, he has frequently asked students how many deaths were caused by Josef Stalin and Mao Zedong and their successors. Routinely, they gave numbers in the thousands. Kors says that's equivalent to saying the Nazis are responsible for the deaths of just a few hundred Jews. But here's the record: Nazis were responsible for the deaths of 20 million of their own people and those in nations they conquered. Between 1917 and 1983, Stalin and his successors murdered, or were otherwise responsible for the deaths of, 62 million of their own people. Between 1949 and 1987, Mao Zedong and his successors were responsible for the deaths of 76 million Chinese. Professor Kors asks, why are the horrors of Nazism so well-known and widely condemned, but not those of socialism and communism? For decades after World War II, people have hunted down and sought punishment for Nazi murderers. How much hunting down and seeking punishment for Stalinist and Maoist murderers has there been? In Europe, especially Germany, hoisting the swastika-emblazoned Nazi flag is a crime. It's acceptable to hoist and march under a flag emblazoned with the former USSR's hammer and sickle. Even in the U.S., it's acceptable to praise mass murderers, as Anita Dunn, President Obama's communications director, did in a commencement address for St. Andrews Episcopal High School at Washington National Cathedral where she said Mao was one of her heroes. Whether it's the academic community, the media elite or politicians, there is a great tolerance for the ideas of socialism – a system that has caused more deaths and human misery than all other systems combined. [CLICK HERE TO READ MORE]

What really caused the Great Depression ~ By Walter E. Williams

From WorldNetDaily

By Walter E. Williams Posted: November 04, 2009 ~ 1:00 am Eastern © 2009 Steve H. Hanke is a professor of Applied Economics at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and senior fellow at the Cato Institute in Washington, D.C., and writes frequently for Globe Asia and Forbes magazine. Professor Hanke starts off his "Hu versus Sarkozy" article (Globe Asia, November 2009) with a warning. There is no more reliable rule than the 95 percent rule: 95 percent of what you read about economics and finance is either wrong or irrelevant. The article contrasts the Chinese versus the French responses to the financial crisis, but the major focus is on economic myths. Hanke says that the most repeated statement about the cause of the U.S. Great Depression is that it was caused by the October 1929 stock market crash. How could that be? By April 1930, the stock market had recovered to its pre-crash level. What is not taught in history books is the Great Depression was caused by a massive government failure. The most important part of that failure were the actions by the Federal Reserve Bank that led to the contraction of the money supply by 25 percent. Then, in the name of saving jobs, Congress enacted the Smoot-Hawley Act in June 1930, which increased U.S. tariffs by more than 50 percent. Other nations retaliated and world trade collapsed. U.S. unemployment rose from 8 percent in 1930 to 25 percent in 1933. In 1932, the Herbert Hoover administration and a Democratic Congress imposed the largest tax increase in U.S. history, raising the top tax rate on income from 25 percent to 63 percent. The Roosevelt administration followed these destructive policies with New Deal legislation that massively regulated the economy and extended the Great Depression to after World War II. Have today's politicians and their economic advisers learned anything from yesteryear's policy that turned what would have been a short, sharp downturn in the economy into a 16-year affair? The answer is very little. Professor Hanke argues that the chief enabler of both the Great Depression and our latest economic downturn is the Federal Reserve Bank, who sees itself as America's systemic risk regulator. This is the world upside down, Hanke explains: The Federal Reserve is the systemic risk. [CLICK HERE TO READ MORE]

Why America is exceptional ~ By Walter E. Williams

From WorldNetDaily

By Walter E. Williams Posted: October 21, 2009 ~ 1:00 am Eastern © 2009 Americans are harder workers, more philanthropic, individualistic, self-reliant, anti-government than people in most other countries. We've turned what was an 18th-century Third World nation into the freest and most prosperous nation in mankind's entire history. Throughout our history, the United States has been a magnet for immigrants around the world. What accounts for what some have called American exceptionalism? We Americans, as human beings, are no different from any other people, including Germans, Russians, Chinese, Africans and other people who have produced tyrannical regimes such as those of Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Idi Amin. As such we are just as capable of committing acts of gross evil that have been a part of mankind throughout history. We've not been a perfect nation, but we've never approached the level of hideousness seen in other nations. That's despite the fact that our population consists of people who have for centuries been trying to slaughter one another in their home countries, whether it's between the French and Germans, English and Irish, Japanese and Chinese, Palestinians and Jews, or Igbos and the Hausa of Nigeria. Thrown into the American mosaic are religions that have been in conflict for centuries such as Catholic and Protestant, and Christian and Muslim. The question is: Why is the United States an exception and will it remain so? At the heart of the American idea is the deep distrust and suspicion the founders of our nation had for government, distrust and suspicion not shared as much by today's Americans. Some of the founders' distrust is seen in our Constitution's language, such as Congress shall not: abridge, infringe, deny, disparage, violate and deny. If the founders did not believe Congress would abuse our God-given rights, they would not have provided those protections. After all, one would not expect to find a Bill of Rights in heaven; it would be an affront to God. Other founder distrust for government is found in the Constitution's separation of powers, checks and balances and the several anti-majoritarian provisions, such as the Electoral College and the requirement that three-quarters of state legislatures ratify changes in the Constitution. [CLICK HERE TO READ MORE]