Tiger and Barack

Lisa Schiffren wrote an article on the American Thinker back on December 8 titled "Tiger, Barack, and the Law of Transitivity." It's quite interesting in its premise: the squeaky-clean image of Tiger Woods was a creation of businesses interested in extracting money from the public, and is very similar to the image created for Barack Obama leading up to the election of 2008. In both cases the image that was created, and widely believed, was significantly different from the personal reality of the individual. Give it a read.

"If I were watching the public's disgust with the newly revealed Tiger Woods from an office in the West Wing, I'd be concerned. Because Barack Obama is about as completely manufactured a political character as this nation has seen. His meteoric rise, without the inconvenience of a public record or accomplishments, and the public's willing suspension of critical evaluation of his résumé allowed his handlers and the media to project whatever they wanted to on his unfurrowed brow."

"What Were You Thinking?"

Global Climate Change

What's your take on the issue? Do you believe, as that great climatologist AlGore preaches, that we are in a man-caused time of warming that requires us to drastically curtail our economy in order to "save the planet?" Or do you perceive climate change as naturally occurring, a cyclical series of warming and cooling that has been going on since God created the earth?

Well, you might be interested in an interview with someone who has vastly more credibility than AlGore, a man with years of experience in the field of climatology. It may well be that this man is right, and that the public has been fed a 'bill of goods' for less-than-honorable purposes by politicians eager to control their lives. Read the interview with Dr. Reid Bryson, a man who holds the 30th PHD ever granted in the field of Meteorology. Read his credentials, consider what he says, and then ask yourself why Al Gore refuses to debate anyone who holds an opinion at odds with his own.

You might also, if you're a thinking person who would rather make up your own mind, consider this article at the American Thinker that calls into question the motivation of those who would lead us back into the dark ages. Oh, and be sure to read the comments.

"What Were You Thinking?"

"Government Can Fix It"

"What Were You Thinking?"

Threat or Hot Air?

For more than thirty years, Chuck Colson has been working for prisoner rehabilitation and reform of the prison system in the United States.  He has also been a keen observer of the spiritual state of the country, and after having been involved as an insider in the political system, has been able to make some observations in that arena.  On Monday he shared this BreakPoint article with his readers:

    Just recently, the Environmental Protection Agency ruled that carbon dioxide and five other greenhouse gases are "pollutants that threaten public health and welfare." The "threat" comes from the effects of man-made global warming.

    This ruling is the first step in regulating the very gas that makes life on Earth possible. If that sounds odd to you, it should. A lot of what is going on here has little, if anything, to do with public health.

    The EPA's "endangerment finding" classified CO2 under the Clean Air Act as a pollutant. EPA administrator Sheila Jackson said, "Greenhouse-gas pollution is a serious problem now and for future generations."

    There are many scientists who would disagree. The agency's findings came at a time when the science surrounding man-made global warming is more hotly debated than ever.

    For starters, there are good reasons to doubt whether, in fact, the globe is getting warmer. The data, as opposed to computer models, strongly suggests that the globe has been cooling for the better part of a decade. This inconvenient fact may be why the preferred expression has gone from "global warming" to "climate change."

    But history teaches us that climate is always changing. So the question becomes: What causes climate change? Again, many leading climate scientists insist, with ample evidence to back it up, that the warming that occurred during the 20th century resulted from natural causes and cycles.

    Finally there are those, like the Danish researcher Bjorn Lomborg, who insist that even if human activity is contributing to a warming trend, trying to regulate CO2 is the wrong approach. Lomborg says that "cutting CO2 simply doesn't matter much for most of the world's important issues." Lomborg says the goal should be "to do better for people and the environment." Thus, we should emphasize developing technologies that mitigate the harmful effects of rising temperatures and developing alternative energy sources.

    While these are all good points that are worthy of serious consideration, this issue isn't principally about science and sound policy. It's about reinventing the way people, especially Americans, live. The global warming crowd wants to change where we live, what we drive, and even what we eat.

    The kind of coercion needed to pull that off can only come about by using what Britain's Hadley Center, itself a proponent of man-made global warming, calls "misleading . . . apocalyptic rhetoric." Rhetoric such as Congressman Harry Waxman telling NPR that the North Pole was in danger of evaporating.

    Sadly, the biggest victims of this misleading rhetoric will be the world's poor. As Lomborg points out, "Carbon remains the only way for developing countries to work their way out of poverty. . . . No green energy source is inexpensive enough to replace coal now." And as I've said often on BreakPoint, from a Christian point of view, morally sound approaches to the environment must consider the plight of the poor.

    Calling CO2, a part of the natural ecosystem, a "threat" to public health brushes aside these concerns and lets the would-be social engineers get to work - work that may create serious problems now and for future generations.

It is a shame that so few people are willing to examine the motives of those who are pushing for such short-sighted public policies.

 

"What Were You Thinking?"