Gay marriage: ENDA the world … as you know it?

The California Supreme Court ignored the will of millions of voters Thursday and legalized gay “marriage” in the state by throwing out precedent and existing law. In doing so, it has empowered an assault on the foundational freedoms of this country.

In scenes reminiscent of the Visigoths dancing in the ruins of Rome, spontaneous celebrations by gay “marriage” supporters broke out in San Francisco and other cities following the announcement of the court’s ruling. Reported the Associated Press:

“Our state now recognizes that an individual’s capacity to establish a loving and long-term committed relationship with another person and responsibly to care for and raise children does not depend upon the individual’s sexual orientation,” Chief Justice Ron George wrote for the court’s majority, which also included Justices Joyce Kennard, Kathryn Werdegar and Carlos Moreno.

The decision doesn’t settle the issue, as there is a movement to pass a constitutional amendment to keep marriage in its traditional form. If passed, the amendment would trump the court decision.

The court clearly overstepped its authority in making law for the entire state, a job that is supposed to be reserved for the Legislature. But the most troubling thing about the court decision is that it apparently did not even consider what I regard as the most important issue: that marriage is a religious matter.

The concept of male-female marriage has been around in one form or another in every culture throughout history. Marriage has always been considered primarily a religious ceremony. Governments traditionally have protected and regulated marriage because all states have an interest in the circumstances of creating and raising the next generation of citizens, but they have always taken their cues from the religions specific to their cultures.

I do not believe the gay marriage movement has ever been about “gay rights,” though many people have been lured into supporting it based on that slogan. If it were about particular rights, then we could have made a list and made a case in the legislatures of this land. But the fight has been about changing the very concept of marriage, a concept which was not invented by the state.

The real fight has been about using the government and other authorities to hammer away at traditional religion, particularly Christianity, and reducing its influence in this country:

• In the Senate, Edward Kennedy, Harry Reid and other liberals are pressing for passage of ENDA, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. Superficially well-intentioned, the law would prohibit discrimination against gays and any other non-heterosexual. The law makes no exception for the religious conscience of an employer or co-worker, and it provides for the government, at taxpayer expense, to be the primary enforcer of the law. In short, ENDA could force churches, private schools and individuals to choose between their religious convictions and possible financial ruin.
• In New Mexico in April, a couple of Christian wedding photographers were fined by authorities $6,600 for refusing to photograph a lesbian “commitment ceremony.”
• In 2002, Kodak fired a loyal 23-year employee who objected to pro-homosexual indoctrination and refused to attend “diversity” re-education.
• In 2005, Allstate fired a manager for writing, on his own time, a column critical of gay marriage.
• In 2004, an appeals court upheld Hewlett Packard’s firing of a Christian employee for posting anti-homosexual Bible verses in his cubicle after company officials placed pro-homosexual posters around the office as part of the company’s “diversity” program.
• Google made news for rejecting ads from Christian groups ChristianExodus and Stand to Reason, both of which opposed gay marriage.
• At Sandia National Laboratories, Christian employees were forbidden to use the employee bulletin board, ordered to remove religious screensavers and posters, and finally were prohibited from displaying family pictures after homosexuals complained that they found it “offensive” to see photos of traditional families.
• In 2005, the American Red Cross in San Diego fired an employee after he objected to a memo encouraging workers to help support Gay and Lesbian Pride Month. The e-mail he sent to his boss included the phrase, “I would like to start by stating that I am a Christian not willing to compromise my beliefs to promote the agenda of the homosexual community.” He added Bible verses including Galatians 6:7 and Joshua 24:15.

Gays certainly must have the same basic rights as anyone else. But there is no doubt in my mind that if gay marriage stands, it will be used to oppress Christians.

Supporters of gay marriage may think they’ve struck a blow for freedom, but what they’ve really done is laid a cornerstone for a state church.

Polar bears: ‘Threatened’ by what?

Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne on Wednesday announced that polar bears would be listed as a “threatened” species because of global warming.

Ever since Al Gore claimed that polar bears (which are so adept at swimming that biologists consider them a marine mammal) were drowning because of melting ice, environmentalists have been trying to use the Endangered Species Act as a hammer to help construct their global warming fantasy.

The bears’ supposedly melting habitat (the Arctic ice pack actually came back this past winter) was the excuse for listing.

The truth is, we don’t even know how many polar bears exist in the world, much less if they’ve declined. Some studies have found particular populations of the bear have declined in recent years, but other populations have grown, to the point that contacts with humans are increasing. (And the humans aren’t exactly happy about it. Imagine 1,200-pound possums.)

Also, there’s been no change recorded in the surface temperature of the Arctic. Unusual melting in past years has been attributed by most scientists to little-understood changes in deep ocean currents, not CO2 in the atmosphere.

Kempthorne in his announcement didn’t seem very clear about why the polar bear is threatened, other than melting Arctic ice, and it’s even less clear what this listing will do for the bears. Although, if similar protections of coyotes, wolves and cougars in several of the lower 48 states serve for precedent, it will probably mean human meddling will lead to an unnatural swelling in the population. Then somebody will be eaten — probably while jogging.

What will certainly happen, however, is environmentalists will now use this listing as another tool to block energy development, especially oil drilling. And it will further enforce the delusion that we know better than nature itself.

Clinton country: Racism is as racism does

Just a quick observation:

Sen. Barack Obama spends 20 years hanging out at a church whose pastor espouses views such as that white people created AIDS to kill black people and other racial tripe. …

Obama dismisses Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s racial nuttiness as typical of the feelings of black Americans, and therefore OK. …

Obama implies that poor white people, scared by illegal immigrants (i.e., non-whites), become bitter and “cling” to religion, guns and racial antipathy. …

Obama remains silent when he is endorsed by Hamas, the anti-Israel terror movement. …

Obama remains silent when a campaign adviser quits because it was found out he had met repeatedly with members of Hamas. …

Obama has never answered whether he is friends with Louis Farrakhan, the anti-Semitic leader of the Nation of Islam, even though his pastor and friend Jeremiah Wright has escorted Farrakhan to Libya and given him awards in the name of his church, where Obama is a longtime member. …

Obama brags that his middle name, Hussein, may help him win Muslim voters. …

Obama brags about how he is drawing the support of black voters. …

But Sen. Hillary Clinton is accused of being racist because she noted in an interview that she has received strong support from “hard-working Americans, white Americans,” which statistically is true.

Mr. Obama would do well to recall that Hillary has drawn 47 percent of Democratic voters, while he is losing support even among people previously inclined toward him. (Anyone seen Oprah on the campaign trail?)

The more he whines and tries to paint Hillary’s supporters as racists, the better John McCain is going to start looking to many Democrats.

McCain and global warming: Lots of hot air

“Maverick” John McCain continued to style himself as different from President Bush on the environment Monday, calling for a mandatory limit on greenhouse gases in the United States to fight “climate change.”

According to the New York Times:

“Instead of idly debating the precise extent of global warming, or the precise timeline of global warming, we need to deal with the central facts of rising temperatures, rising waters, and all the endless troubles that global warming will bring,” McCain said at a Vestas wind turbine manufacturing plant in Oregon, where the environment is a central issue for voters. “We stand warned by serious and credible scientists across the world that time is short and the dangers are great.”

We also stand warned by other, equally credible scientists that global warming is a hoax. But they don’t get space in the New York Times.

Then there are the actual numbers, which show there has been no warming in 10 years.

Then there is the prediction by German scientists just a few weeks ago that the global climate will cool for at least the next decade.

Oh, and the announcement by the U.N.’s climate bureau that this year will be colder than previously expected.

Etc. …

All these things don’t stop climate alarmists, of course, as we all know by now. Just yesterday, the L.A. Times tried to connect a high number of tornado deaths this year to global warming.

Tornadoes in the U.S. are formed when cold, dry air from the north meets warm, moist air from the south. Tornadoes do tend to increase later in the year because warmer air seems to add energy to the atmosphere, creating unstable conditions that can help tornado formation.

But, according to the L.A. Times, there were more deaths (115) by May of 1998 than this year. 1998 is notable as the second-hottest year on record. (The hottest was 1934, and the third hottest was 1921.) We’ve had 96 tornado deaths so far this year.

There have been 654 tornadoes so far this year. The year 1999 (the sixth hottest year) had more by this point in May, with 676 tornadoes. The highest number of deaths occurred in 1953 (the seventh hottest year), when there were 519 killed. Many of this year’s deaths are attributed to the fact that a number of tornadoes have occurred at night, when they are harder to spot and people thus less likely to get ample warning.

According to the Times article, over the past decade, there have been more wintertime tornadoes. This year, the winter has been exceptionally cold, and has seen an unusual number of tornadoes, so while warm air may be a factor in tornado formation, there clearly are some other factors involved.

All this just underscores the silliness of pointing to one weather event or cluster of weather events and saying “there’s global warming!” The Earth’s climate is far too complex and our understanding far too limited for such simple conclusions to hold up.

Yet, all three major presidential candidates have been trying to outdo each other in impressing voters with how quickly they will clamp down on “greenhouse gases,” which usually means carbon, even though it’s only the second most potent greenhouse gas and only responsible for a fraction of warming. (The primary greenhouse gas is water vapor, which we have absolutely no way of predicting, much less controlling.)

Man’s contribution to carbon dioxide is less than 5 percent of the annual CO2 emitted into the atmosphere anyway (which means the planet itself is responsible for 95 percent of all CO2), so the notion that we’ve caused warming is absurd on its face, regardless of any other points of contention. (See my previous post on this issue.)

So when the candidates for president promise to limit “greenhouse gases,” what they’re really promising is to limit industry, transportation, energy use and all manner of activities and goods that are needed in a thriving economy.

You think the economy’s crashing now? Just wait till one of these bozos gets his hands on the controls.

Oil prices: An election connection?

Could high oil prices be connected to an effort to manipulate the outcome of our presidential election?

A drop in economic activity and declining demand for oil will coincide with an increase in supply, resulting in lower prices, according to a Lehman Bros. report issued last week.

In the short run, Michael Waldron of Lehman says, pump prices will continue to rise, but beginning at the end of 2008, new refineries will start coming online in the Middle East, China and India, taking the price per barrel to about $83 in 2009, then as low as $70 in 2010.

The report notes that much of the increase in oil prices has been driven by sovereign wealth funds, perhaps encouraged by the weak dollar. These “commodity index flows” have totaled some $40 billion in the year to date, more than all of 2007.

Waldron estimates these flows into the energy commodities market are responsible for $20 to $30 of the increased price per barrel.

Much of the sovereign wealth fund money has come from the Middle East, according to the British newspaper the Telegraph.

In this election year, this is an important point considering the mileage Democrats have gotten and hope to continue to get out of blaming President Bush and his supposed oil connections for our current situation.

Consider that the war against terrorism has always been multifaceted and not confined to battlefields. Terrorists not only have access to large bank accounts courtesy of wealthy supporters in Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iran and other oil-rich countries, but they have used wealth as a tool to manipulate the media and politicians via front groups and lobbyists, in this country and others.

Just Friday, one of presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama’s advisers on Middle East policy, Rob Malley, resigned after reports surfaced that he had repeated contact with members of Hamas. The Obama campaign has insisted that Malley’s meetings were all undertaken with the full knowledge of the State Department.

Recently, Hamas political adviser Ahmed Yousef, asked about Hamas’ willingness to meet with either Democrat presidential candidate, came out with an endorsement of Obama’s candidacy: “We don’t mind -– actually we like Mr. Obama. We hope he will (win) the election and I do believe he is like John Kennedy, great man with great principle, and he has a vision to change America to make it in a position to lead the world community but not with domination and arrogance.”

Obama has spent a good chunk of his campaign denying that he is Muslim or has any connection to radical Muslims, yet Hamas has made it clear who the world’s terrorists are rooting for in the presidential race. That’s a fact, not a smear.

It’s also clear whom the terrorists hate: It’s Bush, Cheney and by extension the main part of the GOP, because Islamo-fascists around the globe are tired of getting their teeth kicked in. Obviously, they’d much rather have a morally obtuse, mentally soft milquetoast in the office, as Jimmy Carter was and they hope Obama will be.

Islamo-fascists wouldn’t be the first foreigners to try to sway American elections, if that’s what is going on. The Chinese make a sizable investment every four years (remember the mysteriously wealthy Buddhist monks who raised money for Bill Clinton). Before them, the Soviet Union was particularly skilled at making sure its people infiltrated the halls of power. Then there are ultrawealthy individuals like George Soros, whose hobby is crashing entire economies.

And the politicians just go along as dupes, willing or otherwise, occasionally making a show of calling for an investigation of oil companies, which own only 9 percent of the world’s oil fields and make about an 8 percent profit. This is all depressingly normal Washington politics.

But never have we had a presidential candidate who was so close to winning the White House with so many questionable anti-American associations and an endorsement from a terrorist group.

And now we’re facing record oil prices that are predicted not to ease until after the election, in large part due to Middle East funds.

Do we dare do the math on this?

Clinton country: She’s not dead yet

As the odds against Hillary Clinton grow seemingly insurmountable, there is no limit of pundits and politicians lining up to write her epitaph.

Unfortunately for all of them, Hillary’s still breathing, and she still has some options left.

The most likely is what Sean Hannity has dubbed “the nuclear option,” in which she will force a Democratic Party rules committee to decide whether to seat delegates from Michigan and Florida. Both states’ delegates had been refused seats at the upcoming convention because they had broken party rules and held their primaries too early.

Clinton won both states and wants the delegates, 366 altogether, counted. Barack Obama, who lost Florida and pulled his name off the ballot in Michigan, doesn’t want to give Clinton the chance to cut into his delegate lead.

Clinton may have an advantage with this strategy, as she has several allies, including former members of her husband’s administration, on the committee.

Merely seating the delegates from the two states won’t likely be enough for her to win the nomination. But it will bring her close enough to Obama’s totals to give her a shot at persuading the superdelegates, highly placed party officials who can completely overturn the vote tally if they wish, that she would stand a better chance in the general election against John McCain.

Obama has been unable to make much if any headway with Clinton’s constituency, and he is downright unpopular with many Americans because of his association with the racist anti-American Jeremiah Wright and the unrepentant terrorist William Ayers.

A possible contributing factor may be that Clinton’s raw determination to take Obama to the mat, in contrast with his perceived self-righteousness, will win her new fans. Many members of the mainstream media, who are in for Obama, see her as delusional, but in middle America, many voters are starting to admire her pluck.

Given the Democratic Party’s history and its members’ general feelings of entitlement, it shouldn’t be a surprise if the August convention devolves ultimately into a courtroom battle, possibly even rioting.

Whatever the final result, it seems Clinton, who has promised to spend more of her own money if needed to keep up with Obama, has crossed her Rubicon and won’t rest until she walks into the general election either with her shield or on it.

Oil prices: Tax holidays may be costly

It’s such a rare thing for politicians to actually attempt to help average people that voters may be feeling a bit overwhelmed at the sudden propagation of plans to cut back gasoline taxes.

Hillary Clinton and John McCain have both gotten behind the idea of a federal gasoline tax “holiday.” Now, several states, which often inflict much higher taxes than do the feds, are considering following suit.

The governor of Florida has been fighting to get a two-week drop of 10 cents in July. Legislators in Missouri, Texas and New York are also working on tax holiday proposals. The idea has also caught on in North Carolina and Indiana, where gubernatorial candidates have debated various proposals.

“It’s about trying to serve the people and trying to understand and have caring, compassionate hearts for what they’re dealing with at the kitchen table,” said Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, a Republican, according to the New York Times.

Presidential candidate Barack Obama, who has built his campaign on bringing “hope” and “change” to the middle class and poor, has dismissed the idea of a gas-tax holiday as a stunt.

He’s probably right that such efforts are just political moves designed to look good but not really allow government revenues to suffer. If any politicians were serious about lowering gas prices, federal and state taxes would be permanently limited, and Congress would stop obstructing drilling in our own oil fields.

And such tax holidays won’t likely produce much savings for consumers. For example, a 10-cent reduction in the sales tax over two weeks, for a car with a 15-gallon tank that was filled up three times in that holiday period would only produce a savings of $4.50.

Plus, there’s a great likelihood that such plans could backfire. When tax holidays were enacted in Illinois and Indiana in 2000, and Florida in 2004, drivers began hoarding gasoline, knowing that the price was going to go up again soon. The result was that demand rose, and so did the price of gasoline, even without the tax.

Only a permanent tax cut would provide any real long-term savings, but good luck finding politicians who are disciplined and honest enough to make the corresponding cuts to government spending that would allow a decrease of taxes.

A far better plan for helping consumers would be to inject some common sense into our energy discussions by abandoning goofy global warming legislation and low-efficiency “alternative” energy sources, developing our own resources and stop diverting corn for fuel, which has in turn driven up food prices across the board.

It’s probably the only thing Obama’s ever gotten right in his campaign, possibly in his entire career, but gas tax holidays, though popular, may turn out to be just costly gimmicks.

Oil prices: Who’s really the big bad here?

With prices at the pump rising daily, it’s very fashionable right now to blame oil companies, OPEC or even President Bush for our situation, but is that really placing blame where it belongs? Consider:

• Oil companies only make about 8 percent profit on gasoline, far lower profit than many companies make on their products.
• About 20 cents of the cost of each gallon of gasoline is federal taxes.
• Between 10 percent and 30 percent of the cost of gasoline is state taxes, depending where you live. In California, for example, each gallon has tacked on state and local sales tax, an excise tax, and an underground storage tank fee, for about 50 cents per gallon.
• Besides taxes, states and the federal government add to the refining costs with mandates about different fuel mixes at different times of year to try to moderate air pollution.
• The Democratic Party, in league with the environmentalist lobby, has been the primary source of laws blocking development of new, more efficient refineries.
• The cost of oil had been fairly stable for much of President Bush’s term in office. It began going up about the same time Congress was handed over to the Democratic Party majority, which has as a major policy plank the reduction of the oil supply to “save” the planet from global warming.
• The cost of crude oil has risen more than 60 cents per gallon since January, largely due to commodities traders speculating that the future oil supply will be reduced.
• It is estimated that more than 90 percent of oil fields in the world are controlled by governments, while oil companies own only about 9 percent.
• Democratic lawmakers, at the urging of environmentalists, have blocked any oil drilling in Alaska, off the West Coast and in the Gulf of Mexico, requiring us to import most of our oil.
• The largest sellers of oil to the United States are Canada and Mexico, non-OPEC nations.
• Democratic lawmakers have been the primary blockers of nuclear power and new hydroelectric dams, both of which are clean energy sources that would greatly decrease the national need for oil.
• Lawmakers have an incentive to keep oil prices high, both for the revenue and as a “stick” to help pass global warming legislation, which will further raise energy prices and increase legislators’ control over citizens’ private lives.
• The people who created this mess keep getting re-elected by US. …

So, now, who’s to blame? …

Global warming: Delayed!

The audacity of the global warming crowd knows no bounds.

Despite all the warnings about how temperatures are rising, icebergs melting, polar bears drowning and so on, many people have noticed that the average temperature has not risen for 10 years. And with NASA’s revision of its numbers a few months ago, warm-mongers can’t even claim any more that most of the hottest years have occurred since the mid-90s. Still, that hasn’t stopped them.

BUT …

The journal Nature now reports that German scientists using a new climate model have determined that the next decade is likely to see no warming.

Russian scientists have been saying for years that we’re headed for a cold spell based on known solar cycles.

The German scientists in the new study based their model on the action of ocean currents. If they are correct, that will mean there will have been no warming for two decades!

This would seem to support the Russian assertion, as well as the assertions of skeptics that man-made global warming is a great hoax.

BUT …

According to the scientists, this “natural cooling” (gee, doesn’t that imply that warming might be natural, too?) will only DELAY man-made global warming, which will resume again after the cooling. (Wouldn’t that make it … cyclical? Hmm.)

According to the BBC’s article, other pro-warming climate scientists welcome this study because it will help societies plan better for the future. (Read “global warming legislation will go forward no matter what!”)

My favorite quote, though:

“One message from our study is that in the short term, you can see changes in the global mean temperature that you might not expect given the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC),” said Noel Keenlyside from the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences at Kiel University.

That would be the U.N.’s IPCC he is saying got it wrong, ladies and gentlemen — the source of the claim that there is a scientific “consensus” on man-made warming. Whoops. …

The twisted thinking that has to be applied to prop up the global warming scam is like the minotaur’s labyrinth. I doubt we’ll see such furious gymnastics again until the Olympics.