GOVERNMENT & POLITICS

News From the Swamp: Missing That Over-Under

Millions of Americans observed Income Redistribution Day on Wednesday, spending countless hours and dollars first to figure and then file their federal income taxes. Of course, personal income taxes barely scratch the surface of paying for the cost of our rapidly metastasizing government. Furthermore, who knows much government really costs? Certainly not those in government.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released revised numbers on the so-called stimulus passed in February, saying the bill will cost taxpayers $356 billion, not the originally estimated $189 billion. Off by just a mere 53 percent. As Investor’s Business Daily notes, “[T]here are two immutable rules that govern federal programs: They will always cost more than lawmakers and presidents tell us they will, and once they’re in place, they’ll never go away.”

The CBO projects a deficit of $1.85 trillion for fiscal 2009 – nearly quadruple the previous annual record. We’re more than halfway there, too. The Treasury Department announced that through March, the deficit is just shy of $1 trillion.

Meanwhile, Citizens Against Government Waste released its 2009 Congressional Pig Book Tuesday, just in time to remind taxpayers that while the number of unconstitutional earmarks in the 2009 budget declined to 10,160 from 11,610 in 2008, the dollar amount for those earmarks increased from $17.2 billion to $19.6 billion. And the Tax Foundation estimates that Tax Freedom Day, that calendar date upon which Americans will have earned enough to pay for all federal, state and local taxes, occurred on 13 April this year – meaning citizens must work 103 days to pay for the cost of government. In 2008, that day was 21 April. On the other hand, if government operated on a balanced budget, the additional taxes would require that Americans work exclusively to fund the government until 29 May.

As for the revenue side, the government overestimated tax receipts. For example, in March 2008, regular corporations sent $32.6 billion to the IRS; in March 2009, that number was $3.4 billion. In fact, corporate income tax receipts are down 57 percent so far this fiscal year.

One result of such a shortfall almost certainly will be a tax increase on everyone. Martin Sullivan, a former economic aide in the Reagan administration, points out, “You just simply can’t tax the rich enough to make this all up.” Ronald Reagan himself observed, “Raising taxes will slow economic growth, reduce production, and destroy future jobs, making it more difficult for those without jobs to find them and more likely that those who now have jobs could lose them.” Unfortunately, that’s wisdom President Barack Obama will all too quickly throw under the “Hope ‘n’ Change Express.”

This Week’s ‘Alpha Jackass’ Award

“We cannot rebuild this economy on the same pile of sand. We must build our house upon a rock. We must lay a new foundation for growth and prosperity – a foundation that will move us from an era of borrow and spend to one where we save and invest.” –Barack Obama

Memo to BO: The foundation of our nation – the Constitution and free-market capitalism – is just fine. The fact that the “new foundation” will be built on debt owed by generations not yet born is the problem.

This Week’s ‘Braying Jackass’ Award

“The charitable donations claimed by the Bidens on their tax returns are not the sum of their annual contributions to charity. They donate to their church, and they contribute to their favorite causes with their time, as well as their checkbooks.” –a White House statement regarding the Bidens’ giving 0.69 percent ($1,885) of their 270,000 in income to charity in 2008. Hey, it was double what they gave in 2007, and far more than the niggardly $369 they averaged over a recent 10-year span. (By comparison, Joe Biden’s predecessor, Dick Cheney, recently donated 75 percent of his earnings – a whopping $6 million – to charitable causes.)

Meanwhile, the Obamas paid $855,000 in federal taxes and more than $77,000 in Illinois taxes on an income of more than $2.6 million, most of which came from book sales. They gave 6.5 percent to charity. Our question is, why didn’t they set a better example of what Joe Biden calls their “patriotic duty”? Surely they could have coughed up more than $855,000 in taxes.

New & Notable Legislation

In honor of tax season, Rep. Bill Delahunt (D-MA) and Sen. Mike Enzi (RINO-WI) are expected to introduce legislation Monday that would end tax-free shopping on the Internet. Currently, online shoppers who purchase from out-of-state vendors don’t always have to pay sales tax. The Constitution prohibits states from taxing interstate commerce, so many fiscally burdened (read: irresponsible) states are pushing the federal government to do their dirty work for them.

Rep. Ellen Tauscher (D-CA) introduced the Military Readiness Enhancement Act of 2009 (H.R. 1283), which will amend title 10 of the U.S. Code to repeal the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, which restricts open homosexuals from serving in the military. In other words, she’s proposing that we start using the military for social-engineering experiments. This prompted a letter to President Obama signed by 1,050 retired military officers, including 47 four-stars, requesting that the policy not be changed. These officers follow a noble tradition – George Washington himself ordered that homosexuals be “dismiss’d [from] the service with infamy.”

Hope ‘n’ Change: A Judicial Left Turn

It took President Obama exactly one nominee to prove that he intends to take the judicial system as far left and as anti-Christian as possible. In nominating Judge David Hamilton for elevation from a District Judge (appointed by President Clinton in 1994) to the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, Obama selected a jurist who decided in Hinrichs v. Bosma that “Allah” would be an acceptable term for God in the case of a non-sectarian prayer. On the other hand, prayers invoking Jesus Christ as Savior or otherwise divine were by definition sectarian and advanced the Christian religion.

 

Hamilton has also confounded the very Court of Appeals he has been nominated to by not allowing the state of Indiana to enforce its informed consent law on abortion, a move the Seventh Circuit called an “abuse of discretion.” Yet serving as a fundraiser for ACORN (even briefly, as Hamilton did) obviously trumps proper interpretation of the law, in Obama’s eyes.

A Thaw in Cuban Relations

While not completely abandoning the embargo that has been in effect since the Soviet Union had missiles pointing at the U.S. from just 90 miles away during the Kennedy administration, President Obama announced an easing of some sanctions against Cuba this week. Lifting the ban on telecommunications lines to the island may allow a boost in the nascent Cuban cell phone market, which only began last April when Raul Castro first allowed their use. The easing could also prove beneficial to broadcasters and Internet providers. Other changes will allow Americans with family members in Cuba to visit them on a more frequent basis.

Those in favor of maintaining restrictions against the Castro regime also blasted a recent visit by seven members of the Congressional Black Caucus – Reps. Barbara Lee (D-CA), Melvin Watt (D-NC), Michael Honda (D-CA), Laura Richardson (D-CA), Bobby Rush (D-IL), Marcia Fudge (D-OH) and Emanuel Cleaver (D-MO) – calling their fawning admiration of Fidel Castro inappropriate given Cuba’s treatment of its own Afro-Cuban minority community. Fellow members of Congress Lincoln and Mario Diaz-Balart – brothers who are natives of Cuba – termed Obama’s move a “serious mistake” that would only enrich the communist leadership. And as Heritage Foundation senior fellow Peter Brookes notes, “[I]n the end, it’s still the brothers Castro, Fidel and his successor Raul, who will decide whether there is an opening to the United States – or not.” For now, 11 million people remain prisoners of Cuban communism.

NATIONAL SECURITY

Navy 3, Pirates 0

As is well known by now, U.S. Navy SEAL snipers, in a display of true gun control, expertly dispatched three Somali pirates to Davy Jones’ locker with three shots on Sunday after the pirates exposed themselves while threatening their American captive, Captain Richard Phillips. (The Washington Post has more details on the SEALs’ actions.) A fourth pirate had surrendered earlier, after the pirates had agreed to allow the USS Bainbridge, from which the SEALs operated, to tow the lifeboat carrying themselves and Captain Phillips to calmer waters. One would think that the pirates, seeing themselves towed by a U.S. warship, might have known the game was up, but jihadi thugs, which more accurately describes the pirates, are not known for possessing powerful intellects.

President Obama, of course, displayed courage and leadership not seen since the days of President Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis, or so reported the Leftmedia. So desperate were the MSM to show that The One had the brass to handle his first real “international incident” (or was it just an “annoying distraction”?) that people could be forgiven for thinking that Obama himself squeezed off all three shots simultaneously. While the president deserves kudos for allowing the SEALs to take out the pirates, in truth his order allowed the SEALs to shoot only if Captain Phillips were threatened. Coupled with his total lack of comment both before and after the incident, the president’s “leadership” actually was a tad underwhelming. Since the Somalis continue to seize ships and have threatened to kill any captured Americans on sight, Obama now has the opportunity to rally international opinion against the pirates, encourage security tactics such as convoying, and, finally, to take the offensive against the pirates.

Department of Military Readiness: Recap(siz)ing the Budget

Last week, Defense Secretary Robert Gates released the Pentagon’s budget, one of the few aspects of the federal budget that remains constitutional. The buzzword: “Reform.” As a reminder, alarm klaxons should reverberate throughout the land whenever an Obama administration official utters that word. Crafted under what can only be described as an “elephant repellant” theory (“Hey, know why we haven’t seen any elephants around here? Because this stuff really works!”), the budget effectively dismisses conventional threats – the usual suspects, China, Russia, North Korea, Iran and the like – in lieu of an emphasis on unconventional threats.

To be sure, defense budgets should address unconventional conflicts – such as those ongoing in Afghanistan and Iraq – but they should also take balanced approaches toward all threats to national security, conventional or unconventional. Otherwise, over-focusing on one type of conflict will undoubtedly invite an adversary’s exploitation of the neglect of the other. An over-focus on unconventional threats, for instance, could easily lead to being caught off guard in a confrontation with a conventional enemy.

Budget winners include the Special Ops community (2,800 more personnel and additional equipment); Intel-Surveillance-Reconnaissance (ISR) platforms, including unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and manned ISR aircraft (50 more Predator “orbits,” as a minimum); helicopters, currently in high demand in Afghanistan; Littoral Combat Ships, key to counterinsurgency operations in coastal regions; and the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (total purchase plan of 2,443). The bulk of these are geared toward the unconventional fight.

Losers comprise “250 of the oldest tactical fighter aircraft” (i.e., F-15s and F-16s); the C-17 (production stopping at 205, total); the F-22 Raptor (187, total); a follow-on to the B-2 (only a handful of Stealth Bombers remain); the Navy’s DDG-1000 destroyer (a max of three more, total); missile defense ($1.4 billion cut); and TSAT (a very high bandwidth satellite system), the key enabler of the Army’s Future Combat System. Not only that, but the entire Future Combat System itself will be “restructured” – a word that should be treated with much the same trepidation as the term “reform.” Most of these, of course, favor the conventional fight.

The good news is that with so many vested constituent interests now in play – almost 100,000 jobs are at stake in the production of the F-22 alone, for instance – the Obama administration’s vision for reform is unlikely to sail through Congress unchallenged. The bad news is that far from remedying the problem, given historical precedents Congress will likely only make the problem worse.

North Korea, Iran Benefit From Obama’s Policies

Every bit in lockstep with Gates’ defense “reform” plan, and demonstrating an incredibly ironic naiveté, on the same day North Korea launched a long-range ballistic missile over the Japanese mainland, President Obama vowed not only to reduce our own supply of nuclear weapons, but also to promote passage of a comprehensive ban on all nuclear weapons testing. Along with Gates’ missile defense cut, Obama all but stapled a “kick me” sign on the back of U.S. strategic deterrence policy.

In a typical profile in courage, the UN Security Council issued a non-binding statement this week condemning the missile launch, agreeing to enforce sanctions imposed 30 months ago. North Korea wasn’t exactly quivering in fear, but rather declared that further talks on its nuclear weapons program are “useless” and that it will restart the Yongbyon nuclear plant for making arms-grade plutonium.

As for Iran, the Obama administration announced that it would drop the longstanding precondition that Tehran shut down its nuclear facilities before negotiations continue. Apparently, Obama actually meant one campaign promise – that he would engage Iran “without preconditions.”

Warfront With Jihadistan: CIA, NSA and D-PA

Three brief updates this week in our nation’s mild disagreement with those perpetrating what the Obama administration now calls “man-made disasters”: First, the CIA announced that it would no longer allow contractors to interrogate detainees and all secret overseas detention centers would be closed. Obama then released Bush administration memos regarding interrogation techniques. In the words of a former Bush official, “[T]hese are techniques that work, and by Obama’s action … we are telling the terrorists what they are … ensuring they can never be used again.” Gen. Michael Hayden, former CIA director, and Michael Mukasy, former attorney general, also eviscerated Obama’s decision: “The release of these opinions was unnecessary as a legal matter, and is unsound as a matter of policy. Its effect will be to invite the kind of institutional timidity and fear of recrimination that weakened intelligence gathering in the past, and that we came sorely to regret on Sept. 11, 2001.”

On the other hand, the administration granted long-sought immunity for CIA officials who had employed harsh interrogation techniques – including waterboarding – after the terrorist attacks on 9/11. Perhaps Obama realized he’s not on the campaign trail any more.

Second, the National Security Agency (NSA) and Justice Department concluded after reviewing the NSA’s terrorist surveillance that at times the agency exceeded legal limits by intercepting private e-mail messages and phone calls of Americans not suspected of terrorist activity. Yet the Wall Street Journal reports, “Attorney General Eric Holder has sought court approval to renew the NSA program after instituting new safeguards.”

Finally, Rep. John Murtha (D-PA), who slandered Marines for killing Iraqi citizens in Haditha “in cold blood,” won a court victory this week. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled that Marine Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich cannot file a defamation suit against Murtha because, as a congressman making the statements in his official capacity, Murtha is immune. Wuterich is the only Marine awaiting trial in the Haditha case. One defendant was acquitted, and charges against six others were dropped. Murtha inexplicably received the Navy’s Distinguished Public Service Award in March.

Second Amendment: Lying About Mexican Guns

Recent reports concerning the confiscation of “U.S.” firearms used by Mexican drug gangs are, if readers will pardon the pun, dopey. Of course, we expect just about anything emanating from the mouth of Hillary Clinton to contain little of substance or truth. Her allegations that 90 percent of the guns seized by drug agents in Mexico “originated in the U.S.” is just another example of her perfidy.

The drug lords are using a variety of weapons, some indeed manufactured in the U.S., but as Fox News reports, the vast majority are not of U.S. origin. The figure of 90 percent comes from an ATF report from 2007-08 in which Mexico submitted 11,000 guns for tracing. Of the 6,000 successfully traced, 5,114 came from the U.S. As Fox notes, however, “[I]n those same two years, according to the Mexican government, 29,000 guns were recovered at crime scenes.” In other words, “83 percent of the guns found at crime scenes in Mexico could not be traced to the U.S.” Most weapons come from the black market, Russian crime organizations, Central and South America as well as Asia, and even police and military deserters from the Mexican Army. But these facts didn’t stop The New York Times from trumpeting the 90 percent myth again this week. Tell a lie often enough…

Obama is simply laying the groundwork for a renewed ban on semiautomatic rifles. “I have not backed off at all from my belief that the assault weapons ban makes sense,” Obama said Thursday, though a White House spokesman assured Americans that Obama “respects the tradition of gun ownership in this country” (emphasis added). Furthermore, the Obama administration plans on addressing gun trafficking by pushing the Senate to ratify a treaty with Latin America restricting the illegal manufacture and trade in guns, ammunition and explosives, along with strict licensing requirements. Mexican drug lords will surely be respectful of such a treaty.

A more ominous border story is the March 2009 U.S. Southern Command report to Congress of increased coordination and cooperation between narco-terrorists, drug cartels and Islamo-terror groups such as al -Qa'ida, Hezbollah and Hamas. Admiral James Stavridis says these cooperative activities remain a distinct concern and that “Islamic terrorist networks are present” in the hemisphere. He reminded Congress that these groups have conducted attacks (e.g., JFK fuel pipelines) and remain capable of conducting operations within the U.S. and the hemisphere. We hope the Obama administration will remain vigilant against any possible “man-made disasters,” as they now prefer to designate terrorist attacks.

Fauxbama Photo Event Generates Positive Coverage

According to Minority Report’s Dave Hinz, “[T]hat wonderful cheering welcome that President Obama received with his unscheduled surprise visit to the troops in Iraq, was entirely a staged event.” One Army sergeant described the event this way: “We were pre-screened, asked by officials ‘Who voted for Obama?’, and then those who raised their hands were shuffled to the front of the receiving line. They even handed out digital cameras and asked them to hold them up.” As Hinz put it, “[P]olitical operatives from the Administration orchestrate a faux-cheering crowd of adoring military, right in front of the media covering the event.”

The Associated Press obliged, reporting, “President Barack Obama went for the defining television shot by capping his first extended foreign tour with a surprise visit to Iraq. He got it – pictures of hundreds of U.S. troops cheering wildly as he told them it was time for the Iraqis to take charge of their own future. The war-zone photo opportunity produced a stunning show of appreciation for Obama from military men and women who have made great sacrifices, many serving repeated tours in a highly unpopular war.”

It’s not hard to believe that all the “journalists” tagging along on this assignment failed to mention this charade. But when covering the teleconference President Bush set up a couple of years ago with soldiers who were shown on camera, discussing who would take what question, all the media could say was “Scandal!” As for Obama, he must have learned from this comparison with a real commander in chief.

BUSINESS & ECONOMY

Around the Nation: Some States to Raise Taxes

While the nation’s economic implosion leaves more Americans strapped for jobs and income, more states are refusing to trim their budget deficits and instead seek to confiscate additional tax money from an overburdened populace. The states most affected are those relying upon income tax and sales tax.

Reflecting the dearth of Democrats’ ideas for dealing with budgets and economics, California recently raised its income tax to the highest rate in the nation at 10.55 percent. New York is considering making the leap to that neighborhood as well. We’re sure it’s no coincidence that both states’ economies are also among the worst in the nation, with a correspondingly high population exodus to those states where jobs have flowered. In the meantime, the same old battle cries of “tax the rich” are raised along with Democrats’ too-clever-by-half schemes to keep defining “rich” down.

Governmental fiscal dereliction of duty also includes the federal actors, President Obama and his congressional yes men. They failed to limit their $787 billion “stimulus” debacle to prevent states from pocketing such federal deficit spending while maintaining their own deficits and still increasing taxes anyway. Instead, Obama would rather prevent GOP leaders like South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford from using federal funds to pay down debt instead of continuing Obama’s promises to pay for yesterday’s party with tomorrow’s money.

Regulatory Commissars: Hot Air and Black Paint

Apparently, good old common sense isn’t so common in California, where the state’s Air Resources Board (CARB) is pushing for a mandate governing tire inflation and requiring auto repair shops to include tire pressure checks in maintenance visits, oil changes and smog tests. As the argument goes, airing up tires could save 75 million gallons of gas per year while cutting tire demand by 700,000. Unfortunately, according to Pamela Williams, Vice President of the California Retailers Association, the new regulation could also add a $100-million burden to the state’s auto shops, which would be required to purchase tire inflation manuals. Strange – until now, auto shops knew how to check air pressure without a government mandate.

Meanwhile, black cars may soon become a relic of yesteryear as CARB also hopes to replace the popular color with heat-reflecting paints by 2016. Theoretically, these “cool paints” decrease the need for AC and reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Never mind that the proposed legislation is based on architectural energy-saving standards, which are not necessarily transferable to automobiles. According to paint suppliers, heat-reflecting pigments could also actually harm the environment thanks to their toxic heavy metals. Perhaps it’s time for a “no CARB” diet in California.

Green Jobs Cost Green and Jobs

The “green” movement might not be so economically stimulating after all. According to a new study examining the employment impact of Spain’s green initiative over the last eight years, for every green job created by government funding, the economy lost 2.2 private sector jobs. What’s more, of every 10 new green jobs, only one became permanent.

President Obama has offered Spain’s green program as a model for the United States to follow to spark our own economic recovery, but experts say the results here will be equally dismal. Dr. Gabriel Calzada, an economics professor at Juan Carlos University in Madrid and the study’s author, notes, “The study’s results show how such ‘green jobs’ policy clearly hinders Spain’s way out of the current economic crisis, even while U.S. politicians insist that rushing into such a scheme will ease their own emergence from the turmoil.”

Cato Institute senior fellow in environmental studies and University of Virginia professor of environmental sciences Pat Michaels agrees: “There is no reason to think things will be any different here…. We are creating inefficiencies.”

Despite the environmental edifice’s faulty design, however, there is no doubt the administration will persist in its construction. After all, the dash for government control rarely pauses to accommodate inconvenient truths.

CULTURE & POLICY

ABC Mocks the Second Amendment

ABC’s “20/20” featured a special report last Friday titled “If I Only Had a Gun” that took a look at how citizens who carry firearms for protection would fare against a determined mass murderer. Anchor Diane Sawyer intoned, “In all, last month, 53 people died in gun rampages in America. Over the past year, a surge in the purchase of new guns. Tonight, ABC News will bring you the result of a yearlong exploration of guns, self-defense and child safety. It’s called ‘If I Only Had a Gun.’ And police ask: If you had a gun, can you be sure you could use it in a crisis?”

In light of the recent mass shootings, this isn’t a bad question to ask. However, ABC could only come up with negative answers. After brief training, several citizens were put in simulations where a police office would burst into a room and start shooting paintballs at random. Each citizen failed to stop the shooter. We might point out that unarmed civilians haven’t stopped shooters, either. Also, contrary to ABC’s bit of propaganda, armed citizens defend themselves and their loved ones millions of times every year, often without firing a shot. (Author John Lott takes on such gun-grabbing “news” reports in his book, “The Bias Against Guns,” available at PatriotShop.US.)

Speaking of mass shootings, The Washington Post recently headlined, “Some Link Economy With Spate Of Killings.” And all this time we thought it was the guns…

NewsBusters editor Noel Sheppard asks, “Didn’t the Pittsburgh police killer Richard Poplawski recently lose his job? And didn’t he just have a fight with his mother who called the cops to have him removed from HER apartment? And wasn’t this an extremely paranoid and unstable person who got kicked out of the Marines for throwing a food tray at his drill sergeant? Yeah, but none of that matters as much as him recently posting at a white supremacist website a video of Glenn Beck discussing FEMA camps with Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tx.).”

Case in point: CNN’s Rick Sanchez blabbers, “That [recent Pittsburgh] tragedy involves a man who allegedly shot and killed three police officers in cold blood. Why? Because he was convinced, after no doubt watching Fox News and listening to right-wing radio, that quote, ‘Our rights were being infringed upon.’”

Faith and Family: Marriage Losses

Iowa became the third state in the country to legalize same-sex marriage, when the state Supreme Court ruled on 3 April to strike down the state marriage statute on constitutional grounds. Iowans who think that the courts have once again usurped their power to decide an issue through legislation have little recourse but a lengthy battle to amend the state constitution. In 1998, the Iowa legislature amended the state statute to define marriage as between a man and a woman. But in 2007, following a challenge by six same-sex couples, the Polk County district court ruled that the statute denied them equal protection when it refused to issue them marriage licenses. The ruling was set aside when Polk County appealed, but now the seven justices of the state Supreme Court have unanimously affirmed the lower court’s ruling.

Last week, Vermont followed suit, with one important distinction: It became the first state where the elected legislature, not the courts, decided to legalize same-sex marriage. Lawmakers overrode Republican Governor Jim Douglas’ veto of a bill legalizing same-sex marriage. Governor Douglas had made the argument that allowing such marriages in Vermont would essentially be meaningless, as they would not be afforded the protection federally or in other states. The legislature found his argument unpersuasive, however, and perhaps they are right – same-sex marriage is already legal in Massachusetts and Connecticut and is being considered in New Jersey, New Hampshire, New York and Maine. In addition, the Obama administration has announced its intention to overturn the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), signed into law by President Clinton in 1996, which states that only marriage between a man and a woman will be recognized on a federal level.

This may happen sooner than later. On the same day as the vote in Vermont, the District of Columbia city council, in a preliminary vote, unanimously decided to recognize same-sex nuptials performed elsewhere. While this by itself may not seem that important, it is significant in two ways: It’s a symbolic victory for same-sex marriage activists; it’s also subject to a 30-day review by Congress which, under Home Rule, has a say in the District’s laws. Proponents of same-sex marriage are hoping this will expedite the battle for repeal of DOMA. The city council’s final vote is expected on 5 May.

Climate Change This Week: Particle Man

John Holdren, a physicist recently confirmed as President Obama’s science advisor, has announced that the administration is exploring techniques to manipulate the environment in order to combat global warming. One of the suggestions, resembling the stuff of a sci-fi nightmare, is shooting pollution particles into the atmosphere to deflect the sun’s rays. Holdren acknowledged that such a measure could have dire consequences for the planet and may still not solve the greenhouse problem, but likened global warming to being “in a car with bad brakes driving toward a cliff in the fog.” Perhaps one can say the same of him and others who would even consider this option.

Hundreds of scientists continue to state that global warming may be the result of natural cycles. According to Dr. Joe D'Aleo of the International Climate and Environmental Change Assessment Project, “The Arctic temperatures undergo a cyclical change every 60 to 70 years tied to cycles on the sun and in the oceans.” Even Dr. Walter Meier of the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), who has been trying to prove that human activity is causing climate change, admits that he cannot prove that greenhouse emissions are directly causing the ice in the Arctic to recede.

Such contradictory evidence proves that scientific findings concerning global warming are by no means conclusive. For example, NASA is currently studying the “quiet sun” that we are experiencing. Quiet suns are the result of a drop in sunspots – enormous areas of magnetism on the sun’s surface that profoundly effect earth’s climate. Scientists are recording the fewest sunspots since 1913, and since they did not have the technology to study this phenomenon 100 years ago (and scientists admit they still do not fully understand the physics underlying it), they are eager to have this new opportunity to learn more about its effect on the planet.

Village Academic Curriculum: Obama Covers Jesus’ Name

“Georgetown University says it covered over the monogram ‘IHS’ – symbolizing the name of Jesus Christ – because it was inscribed on a pediment on the stage where President Obama spoke at the university on Tuesday and the White House had asked Georgetown to cover up all signs and symbols there,” reports CNSNews.com. Julie Green Bataille, associate vice president for communications at Georgetown, explained, “In coordinating the logistical arrangements for [Tuesday’s] event, Georgetown honored the White House staff’s request to cover all of the Georgetown University signage and symbols behind Gaston Hall stage.” When First Lady Laura Bush spoke in the same hall in 2006, however, the “IHS” was not covered.

Oddly enough, the speech Obama made at the Catholic university was the one referenced above in which he quoted Jesus’ parable about the house built on the sand versus the house built upon a rock. Georgetown had better look to its foundations.

And Last…

The Clintons continue to be a source of amusement around our humble shop, and this week was no different. Readers will recall that Madame Clinton ended her bid for the Democrat nomination last June while $25 million in debt, though almost half of that was owed to herself. On 31 December, that number was down to $5.9 million. As secretary of state, Hillary is limited in her fundraising ability, but apparently she has found one way to raise a little cash. Donors will be eligible for the chance to win one of three “exclusive prizes.” And as Fox News reports, “Hillary Clinton is so eager to pay off her campaign debt, she’s resorted to selling her husband – for a day, anyway.” That’s right, the grand prize, as described in an online promo, is “A truly once in a lifetime chance: you and a guest will spend a day with President Clinton and a weekend of fun filled adventure in New York.” Given Bill’s history, we’re a little surprised to see the words “fun filled adventure” describing a day with him when that day is sponsored by his wife. This could get Hillary close to paying off her debt. Close, but no cigar, anyway.