The egotists and madmen who rule over us now have a cosmic scheme of destruction. 

This – at least accompanied by a beautiful picture – is from the Mail Online a few days ago: 

President Barack Obama is considering a radical plan to tackle global warming by firing  pollution particles into the stratosphere to deflect some of the sun’s heat.

The controversial experiment was touted yesterday as a possible last resort to help cool the Earth’s air by the president’s new science advisor John Holdren.

‘It’s got to be looked at. We don’t have the luxury of taking any approach off the table,’ said Mr Holdren, Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology.

Sunscreen: Could its rays be deflected as a last resort to beat global warming?

Holdren, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology, outlined the idea of shooting either sulphur dioxide particles, aluminium oxide dust or specially designed aerosols into the stratosphere – the upper level of the atmosphere between ten and 30 miles above the Earth’s surface.

It is hoped that this would cool the planet by artificially reflecting sunlight back into space before it can be absorbed.

Naval guns, rockets, high-flying aircraft and even hot air balloons have been put forward as possible ways of firing the agent into the air.

 

 

But he said he had raised the idea with the Obama administration and added: ‘We might get desperate enough to want to use it.’

Mr Holdren insisted that dramatic action is needed to halt climate change which he compared to being ‘in a car with bad brakes driving towards a cliff in a fog’.

There has been widespread resistance in the scientific community to attempts to deliberately modify the environment on such a large scale.

Opponents fear that tampering with the atmosphere’s delicate balance could have consequences that would be even worse than global warming.

Here is an extract from an article by Dr Tim Bell explaining the dangers of such an attempt:

We have accidentally eliminated the two most recent postings. To everyone who commented on either of them we apologize. We especially regret the loss of Gaza gets the mercy it doesn’t deserve, as we had three very good comments – one sympathetic to Hamas and two against Hamas, one of which was very rude about the Palestinians in general. We appreciated them all. 

Blind Spot: When Journalists Don’t Get Religion edited by Paul Marshall, Lela Gilbert, Roberta Green Ahmanson OUP New York 220 pages 

Shah and Toft repeatedly speak of a ‘vitality’ in contemporary religion.  To this vitality they ascribe a ‘resurgence in prophetic politics’.  What they mean by ‘prophetic politics’, it emerges, is any political movement with a moral cause, or a jumble of causes, some of them familiar enough as pretexts for left-wing activism.  ‘Sudan, sexual trafficking, debt forgiveness, AIDS, and North Korea’ are listed together as examples.  Certain nationalist movements are counted as ‘prophetic politics’ if the people concerned share a religion. ‘Hindu nationalism’ is mentioned. (Mentioning is deemed sufficient, discursive argument is lacking.)  What they are probably referring to is that while mainly-Hindu India is growing in wealth and power, it has a territorial dispute over Kashmir with its Muslim neighbor Pakistan. This dispute is certainly national, with origins in old and persistent religious conflict, but no new religious fervor is driving it.     

‘Jewish Zionism’ (is there any other kind?) is also thrown in. But Zionism has nothing to do with religion. It was conceived as, and continues to be, an entirely secular movement,  concerned with the recovery of the ancestral homeland of the Jews as a people, albeit a people uniquely defined by a specific religion.

Even localized revolutionary movements that notoriously name themselves Christian though they are in fact Marxist, are adduced as proof of religious resurgence. Indeed many a terrorist organization, particularly in South America, has been encouraged by priests who sanctify their incitement to murder by calling it ‘liberation theology’ (if they’re Catholic) or ‘liberal theology’ (if they’re Protestant).  But if the authors rejoice in this – and they imply that they do – on the grounds that anything done in the name of religion is a good thing because a nod to God is worth any price, all they are demonstrating is that much recent and contemporary religious activity is thoroughly undesirable to say the least. 

 ‘What’s important for liberals,’ Burt Prelutsky points out (rightly in our opinion) in Townhall today, ‘is that they feel good about themselves.’ The whole column is worth reading.  Here’s a part of it, on how liberals evade examination of the issues they embrace: 

I have yet to have anyone on the left enumerate the rights he lost because of the Patriot Act. I have yet to have any of them explain how it is that we invaded Iraq for oil but failed to confiscate even a single drop. Also, I have never had a liberal name all those countries that hate America because of George Bush…

I have also never had a leftist explain his love affair with socialism and communism, forms of tyranny which have led to unparalleled human misery wherever they have been introduced. But, then, what sort of freedom lovers side with the PLO, Hamas and Hezbollah, against Israel and make cultural icons of Fidel Castro and Che Guevara?

Silence is the same response I get when I have asked liberals, who allegedly favor honest elections, why they have never spoken out against ACORN, and why, although they pay lip service to free speech, people like David Horowitz and Ann Coulter require bodyguards when they appear on college campuses. And why is it that liberals, who already control newspapers, magazines and TV, are pushing for the “Fairness” Doctrine in a blatant, fascistic, attempt to keep conservative voices off the radio? …

If I had to describe liberals in a single word it would probably be “feminine.” In most cases, I wouldn’t regard that word as a pejorative. In its best sense, it conveys sensitivity and an emphasis on the emotional. As it relates to liberals, it simply means that feelings trump everything else. So it is that liberals love the idea of the U.N., excited by the notion of a lot of nations sitting down and talking out their problems, as if to a marriage counselor. Unfortunately, when dealing with evil nations with evil intentions, the U.N. is nothing better than a bad joke. Partly that’s because it is inept and partly because it’s as weak as its weakest link and, for good measure, is as corrupt as Chicago politics.  

 A democrat talks sense! 

 Mona Charen writes:

If Barack Obama is elected president and Democrats control large majorities in the House and Senate, the Obama/Pelosi/Reid triumvirate will move the country decisively in the direction of dying Europe – low productivity, high joblessness, low birth rates, high taxes, and limp foreign policies. The triumvirate will do this at a time when a vibrant America is more necessary than ever – with Iran seeking nuclear weapons, Pakistan teetering, al-Qaida regrouping, China and Russia telegraphing hostility, and Iraq just barely emerging into the sunshine. This election has become about far more than John McCain versus Barack Obama; it has become about whether the United States will remain the champion of freedom – economic and political – or whether we will join the queue of formerly great nations now struggling to pay for all the social welfare "benefits" their aging and lazy populations demand.

We concur.

IS AMERICA ABOUT TO SELL ITS BIRTHRIGHT – FREEDOM – FOR A POTTED MESSAGE – ‘Hope & Change’?

 The Obama campaign tries to misuse the law to silence criticism, exposure and opposition. A foretaste of what to expect if Obama wins the election?

JEFFERSON CITY – Gov. Matt Blunt today issued the following statement on news reports that have exposed plans by U.S. Senator Barack Obama to use Missouri law enforcement to threaten and intimidate his critics.

“St. Louis County Circuit Attorney Bob McCulloch, St. Louis City Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce, Jefferson County Sheriff Glenn Boyer, and Obama and the leader of his Missouri campaign Senator Claire McCaskill have attached the stench of police state tactics to the Obama-Biden campaign.

“What Senator Obama and his helpers are doing is scandalous beyond words, the party that claims to be the party of Thomas Jefferson is abusing the justice system and offices of public trust to silence political criticism with threats of prosecution and criminal punishment.

“This abuse of the law for intimidation insults the most sacred principles and ideals of Jefferson. I can think of nothing more offensive to Jefferson’s thinking than using the power of the state to deprive Americans of their civil rights. The only conceivable purpose of Messrs. McCulloch, Obama and the others is to frighten people away from expressing themselves, to chill free and open debate, to suppress support and donations to conservative organizations targeted by this anti-civil rights, to strangle criticism of Mr. Obama, to suppress ads about his support of higher taxes, and to choke out criticism on television, radio, the Internet, blogs, e-mail and daily conversation about the election.

“Barack Obama needs to grow up. Leftist blogs and others in the press constantly say false things about me and my family. Usually, we ignore false and scurrilous accusations because the purveyors have no credibility. When necessary, we refute them. Enlisting Missouri law enforcement to intimidate people and kill free debate is reminiscent of the Sedition Acts – not a free society.” 

Investor’s Business Daily today carries an article by Ernest S Christian in which he raises the question of whether the Democratic Party will ever recover from the huge mistake of nominating Barack Obama as its presidential candidate. 

The candidate Obama, in his view, is a ‘media-created virtual person’.  The real Barack Obama is a threat to the party that nominated him, to the nation, and – we would add – to the world.

He continues in part:

Why should Americans of African heritage invest their hopes, dreams and identities in a Chicago pol with an unsavory past replete with radicals, racketeers and racists, a borderline Marxist agenda and a doubtful attitude toward America — and with whom they have nothing in common other than skin color?

How many Reagan Democrats want a left-wing collectivist in the White House, especially one who has no respect for them and their values? Even "liberals" do not actually like to pay high taxes or want the economic pie to be made smaller.

And nobody looks forward to a more authoritarian government. Who, for example, wants a government bureaucrat telling them which doctors to use, what medical care they can receive and when?

How do the real people of America, those who do the work, raise the families, pay the taxes, defend the nation and make America the truly exceptional place that it is, feel about an arrogant young man whose self-esteem is so much greater than his accomplishments?

Do they want a president who has seldom held a real job, never run a business or done much of anything other than promote himself? And what about the young idealists preparing to cast their first votes? Do they really intend to vote for an illusion? Do any Americans want a president who regards himself as a citizen of the world and may have mixed loyalties?

The potential downside consequences of an Obama presidency are enormous. And on the upside, what is to be gained? The frisson of having voted to elect an African-American president? A last-minute slap at President Bush, who will be out of office in January anyway? A pointless protest against a war that is now being won and will soon be over?

Read the whole thing here.

 On the third anniversary of 9/11, Mark Steyn wrote the following, and what he wrote remains true on this, the seventh anniversary:

Three years after September 11th, the Islamist death cult is the love whose name no-one dare speak. And, if you can’t even bring yourself to identify your enemy, are you likely to defeat him? Can you even know him? He seems to know us pretty well. He understands the pressures he can bring to bear on Spain, and the Phillipines, and France, too. He’s come to appreciate the self-imposed constraints under which his enemy fights – the legalisms, the political correctness, the deference to ineffectual multilateralism. He’s revolted by the infidels’ decadence but he has to admit it’s enormously helpful: the useful idiots of the pro-gay, pro-feminist left are far more idiotic and far more useful to him than they ever were to Stalin. He’s figured out that while pluralistic open democracy might be a debased system of government next to Sharia, it has its moments: he had no idea quite so many westerners so loathed their own governments and, if not their own, then certainly America’s. And he never thought that, even in America, while one party is at war, the other party is at war with the very idea that there is a war. And even the party committed to war presides over a lethargic unreformed bureaucracy large chunks of which are determined to obstruct it.

So, despite the loss of the Afghan training camps  and Saddam and the Taliban and three-quarters of al-Qaeda’s leadership, it hasn’t been a bad three years: he has learned the limits of the west’s resolve, and all he has to do is put a bit of thought into exploiting it in the years ahead. A nuclear Iran will certainly help.