Every time I see this guy, I am more impressed by him. Clearly the biggest issue in the upcoming election is going to be ISLAMIC JIHAD. Rudy calls it Islamic Terror, close enough to show that he knows what we are against. He realizes that this is a global battle against an incompatable ideology (not a religion, because our understanding of religion is that it is a personal matter. Islam has a legal and political component to it; it is not a personal matter). While a number of candidates on the stage seem to have a pretty good grasp on the nature of our conflict, I still think that the only Republican that can win a national election in '08 is Rudy. Since I believe this, I think it is the absolute duty of every person who understands the rise of Islam to vote for him in the primary. In both of the debates between the Democrats, not a single mention of the word "Islam." Hell, a number of them even deny a "war on terror." Anyone sitting out in a general election because they don't like Rudy will be absolutely RESPONSIBLE for Hillary or Barack advocating tolerance of the Religion of Peace's war against liberty.

As for the abortion issue, GW is one of the most anti-abortion presidents that I can think of. What result? Nothing changing. This is because the ONLY influence a president can have on the issue is his (at least for this next election, hopefully not a "her") appointment of Justices to the Supreme Court. Why? Because when the Supreme Court usurped the power of the people to decide this issue in Roe, and upheld it with slight modification in Casey, it removed the decision from both the executive and legislative branches. Your members of Congress have more of an influence in the abortion debate, because they can at least vote to restrict the right to some degree, like they did when they banned partial birth abortions. But a president at this stage in history can only appoint judges that are of the originalist school of Constitutional jurisprudence, and hope that they will disregard Stare Decisis in this matter. So forget about his "pro-abortion" stance; he said he would appoint originalists, and I believe him. It would be political suicide for a re-election bid if he didn't. Finally, the judges you will get as a result of your protesting Rudy and staying at home will be far worse, and willing to invent even more "rights" that you will not like.

Rudy appeals to the center more than any other person running for the Republican nomination. Nominate a strong conservative, and you will end up with a strong socialist, I promise. The center is fed up with the words "Republican" and "conservative" right now, and if we want a chance to preserve our liberties from threats both internal and external, we need to do what it takes to win. Any move Rudy would potentially make regarding your sacred "social issues" that would anger his Republican base would remove any chance for re-election for him, and he knows it. So he won't touch those areas. The things he is talking about, Jihad, economy, conservative approach to government, are what he will implement, and the alternative is downright frightening.

Again, I will quote Goldwater and say "Grow up Conservatives." Do the right thing.

While there are a number of Republican candidates that I feel I could support in the upcoming presidential election, I am behind Rudy. While I know that many of my fellow conservatives have at least one problem with America's Mayor, I think a quote from Barry Goldwater is appropriate: "Let's grow up, conservatives."

We are going to have one hell of a time in this next election, and the only candidate that we can field that I feel can win is Rudy.  Supposedly, the country is divided into thirds: one conservative, one liberal, and one undecided. Face the facts, the Dems and the media have done pretty well over the last few years alienating the undecided third from the Republicans. So we go into the election with a distinct disadvantage. This is not the election to get conservative social policies through the electorate.

The platform that Rudy is running on is War on Jihad, and strong economy. These are areas all of us right of center can agree upon. And these are areas that the Republicans have obvious strengths over the Democrats (notice that not a single Dem will mention the word Islam; half of the candidates even deny a "war on terror")

Our party will get trounced unless we can convince the 1/3 undecideds that these are the most important issues of this election, which I believe we can, since they are. While the media will tell you time and time again that the GOP lost last year's midterm election because of Iraq, you know in your heart it was because too many of us (not me) stayed home to protest our representative's view on immigration. "Let's grow up, conservatives." If you stay home again this year because you can't stomach our nominee's view of abortion, you cede even more ground in the Congress (since many folks skipping the election because they don't like Rudy won't be voting for Congress), and the Executive....to Hillary!!!

The most anti-abortion candidate can do nothing more to stem or end abortion than to appoint Originalists to the Court, and this Rudy has stated he will do. The vast majority of Americans are against gay marriage, no president (at least on our side) would allow this to happen. No president wants to be a one term president; Rudy will guarantee a one-term-and-out showing if he does anything to offend you.

Enough people in America love Rudy enough to put every single state in play, should we nominate him. Enough people in America right now are fed up with Republicans to put every single state in the Democrats' reach, should we fail to nominate someone that can compete.

"Let's grow up, conservatives."

Ask anyone what the United States' best war was, the quick response will be WWII. Ask anyone what our worst war was, they will either say Vietnam, the conventional answer, or Iraq II, the fashionable answer.

What is the obvious difference between WWII and Vietnam or Iraq II? Well, I wasn't alive for Vietnam, but from what I hear it has to do with the tactics. In WWII, the United States fought the war how war has been successfully fought since the dawn of man; we convinced not only the enemy soldiers but the population behind them as well that no matter what they tried, continuing to fight would not be in their best interest.

Since the '60's, or arguably since Korea, our strategy has been to convince the enemy that we were sorry to have to fight them, but since we were there, we might as well give it a shot. Tough to convince anyone that we don't want to fight, but hell, we'll give it a shot, so give up while you can. 

Dresden, Berlin, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki disappeared not because there were enough "freedom fighters" there to make it worth our while, but rather because back during our "greatest generation" we knew that you won a war by making no longer worth the enemy's while to fight back. 

I didn't see Vietnam live, but watching Stanley Kubrick's "Full Metal Jacket," I was struck by the fact that the phrase "winning the hearts and minds" was featured in the movie, which means that the phrase was used at the time. Surely the communists in Vietnam realize what the Jihadists in Iraq realize today: it makes us sad in the US to kill people, so the more people that we are forced to kill, the less likely it is that we will see the mission to the end. 

Not to ring my own bell here, but I could have ended the war in Iraq in a matter of months, no nukes involved. Notify the locals that any city block that US soldiers receive enemy fire from will be bombed to the ground. Notify the people that the only way they can save their own lives is to report to the US soldiers whenever they notice Jihadists moving amognst their midsts. After a few neighborhoods got leveled, the people of Iraq would have noticed that it was in their best interests to cooperate. 

Oh, but that strategy would have made us feel bad; let's stick with the strategy that apologizes every time someone dies. Let's keep sticking our own men and women out in harms way, so that we don't offend anyone. Surely the more we convince the other side that we are unwilling to kill them, the more they will be convinced that it is their best interest to join our side.

Ya, right. The Iraqis are dealing with Jihadists that will kill anyone who opposes them, along with their families. They can either choose to join our side, which clearly isn't committed to do what it takes to win the war, or they can give in and support the fascists that will do anything to win. Tough choice. 

Whatever your view on the morality of the war in Iraq, surely you can agree that it is far more immoral to start a war that you know you cannot win. The US could win easily, but it feels too bad about it, so it chooses to lose. Now that's immoral. 

With all the witch doctors blaming more and more things for a supposed rise in temperatures (which I welcome here in MN), such as cars, factories, cow farts, rice, etc, it might warrant debate on whether we want to end modern life as we know it, just to save a few polar bears. And since I live in an area that was once under miles of ice, I want proof that modern life is going to end man's existence. It seems to me that the more primitive a society, the shittier their lives are (think Afghanistan, for instance).

Well, here's another voice of reason, from Wisconsin EC News

The Faithful Heretic
A Wisconsin Icon Pursues Tough Questions

Some people are lucky enough to enjoy their work, some are lucky enough to love it, and then there’s Reid Bryson. At age 86, he’s still hard at it every day, delving into the science some say he invented.

Reid A. Bryson holds the 30th PhD in Meteorology granted in the history of American education. Emeritus Professor and founding chairman of the University of Wisconsin Department of Meteorology—now the Department of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences—in the 1970s he became the first director of what’s now the UW’s Gaylord Nelson Institute of Environmental Studies. He’s a member of the United Nations Global 500 Roll of Honor—created, the U.N. says, to recognize “outstanding achievements in the protection and improvement of the environment.” He has authored five books and more than 230 other publications and was identified by the British Institute of Geographers as the most frequently cited climatologist in the world.

Long ago in the Army Air Corps, Bryson and a colleague prepared the aviation weather forecast that predicted discovery of the jet stream by a group of B-29s flying to and from Tokyo. Their warning to expect westerly winds at 168 knots earned Bryson and his friend a chewing out from a general—and the general’s apology the next day when he learned they were right. Bryson flew into a couple of typhoons in 1944, three years before the Weather Service officially did such things, and he prepared the forecast for the homeward flight of the Enola Gay. Back in Wisconsin, he built a program at the UW that’s trained some of the nation’s leading climatologists.

How Little We Know

Bryson is a believer in climate change, in that he’s as quick as anyone to acknowledge that Earth’s climate has done nothing but change throughout the planet’s existence. In fact, he took that knowledge a big step further, earlier than probably anyone else. Almost 40 years ago, Bryson stood before the American Association for the Advancement of Science and presented a paper saying human activity could alter climate.

“I was laughed off the platform for saying that,” he told Wisconsin Energy Cooperative News.

In the 1960s, Bryson’s idea was widely considered a radical proposition. But nowadays things have turned almost in the opposite direction: Hardly a day passes without some authority figure claiming that whatever the climate happens to be doing, human activity must be part of the explanation. And once again, Bryson is challenging the conventional wisdom.

“Climate’s always been changing and it’s been changing rapidly at various times, and so something was making it change in the past,” he told us in an interview this past winter. “Before there were enough people to make any difference at all, two million years ago, nobody was changing the climate, yet the climate was changing, okay?”

“All this argument is the temperature going up or not, it’s absurd,” Bryson continues. “Of course it’s going up. It has gone up since the early 1800s, before the Industrial Revolution, because we’re coming out of the Little Ice Age, not because we’re putting more carbon dioxide into the air.”

Little Ice Age? That’s what chased the Vikings out of Greenland after they’d farmed there for a few hundred years during the Mediaeval Warm Period, an earlier run of a few centuries when the planet was very likely warmer than it is now, without any help from industrial activity in making it that way. What’s called “proxy evidence”—assorted clues extrapolated from marine sediment cores, pollen specimens, and tree-ring data—helps reconstruct the climate in those times before instrumental temperature records existed.

We ask about that evidence, but Bryson says it’s second-tier stuff. “Don’t talk about proxies,” he says. “We have written evidence, eyeball evidence. When Eric the Red went to Greenland, how did he get there? It’s all written down.”

Bryson describes the navigational instructions provided for Norse mariners making their way from Europe to their settlements in Greenland. The place was named for a reason: The Norse farmed there from the 10th century to the 13th, a somewhat longer period than the United States has existed. But around 1200 the mariners’ instructions changed in a big way. Ice became a major navigational reference. Today, old Viking farmsteads are covered by glaciers.

Bryson mentions the retreat of Alpine glaciers, common grist for current headlines. “What do they find when the ice sheets retreat, in the Alps?”

We recall the two-year-old report saying a mature forest and agricultural water-management structures had been discovered emerging from the ice, seeing sunlight for the first time in thousands of years. Bryson interrupts excitedly.

“A silver mine! The guys had stacked up their tools because they were going to be back the next spring to mine more silver, only the snow never went,” he says. “There used to be less ice than now. It’s just getting back to normal.”

What Leads, What Follows?

What is normal? Maybe continuous change is the only thing that qualifies. There’s been warming over the past 150 years and even though it’s less than one degree, Celsius, something had to cause it. The usual suspect is the “greenhouse effect,” various atmospheric gases trapping solar energy, preventing it being reflected back into space.

We ask Bryson what could be making the key difference:

Q: Could you rank the things that have the most significant impact and where would you put carbon dioxide on the list?

A: Well let me give you one fact first. In the first 30 feet of the atmosphere, on the average, outward radiation from the Earth, which is what CO2 is supposed to affect, how much [of the reflected energy] is absorbed by water vapor? In the first 30 feet, 80 percent, okay?

Q: Eighty percent of the heat radiated back from the surface is absorbed in the first 30 feet by water vapor…

A: And how much is absorbed by carbon dioxide? Eight hundredths of one percent. One one-thousandth as important as water vapor. You can go outside and spit and have the same effect as doubling carbon dioxide.

This begs questions about the widely publicized mathematical models researchers run through supercomputers to generate climate scenarios 50 or 100 years in the future. Bryson says the data fed into the computers overemphasizes carbon dioxide and accounts poorly for the effects of clouds—water vapor. Asked to evaluate the models’ long-range predictive ability, he answers with another question: “Do you believe a five-day forecast?”

Bryson says he looks in the opposite direction, at past climate conditions, for clues to future climate behavior. Trying that approach in the weeks following our interview, Wisconsin Energy Cooperative News soon found six separate papers about Antarctic ice core studies, published in peer-reviewed scientific journals between 1999 and 2006. The ice core data allowed researchers to examine multiple climate changes reaching back over the past 650,000 years. All six studies found atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations tracking closely with temperatures, but with CO2 lagging behind changes in temperature, rather than leading them. The time lag between temperatures moving up—or down—and carbon dioxide following ranged from a few hundred to a few thousand years.

Man, Bush sure has pissed off a lot of innocent people. Just look what he did this time.

From www.iol.co.za

Islamabad - Radical Islamists have blown up 20 video shops in two cities of Pakistan's North Western Frontier Province (NWFP), while a bomb exploded outside a girls' school in the same region, local media reported on Friday.

Several small bombs exploded in the semi-tribal cities of Charsadda and Tangi on Thursday night, but caused no casualties, the Aaj news channel reported.

The explosions occurred days after the owners of the businesses received warnings from Taliban-styled radical Islamists to cease trading, calling  the sale and renting of movies and music videos un-Islamic.

In another incident, a bomb exploded at the main entrance of a girls' school in the small NWFP town of Gujrat, damaging the main gate, the Geo news channel reported.

The local administration said Islamic extremists had previously warned the staff of several girls' schools to close down educational facilities for girl students.

The NWFP province that buffers the eastern border of Afghanistan has suffered from a creeping radicalisation in recent months. Ideologically affiliated with Taliban in Afghanistan, local groups have begun to enforce a hardline interpretation of Islam.

Also targeted are barbers' shops that shave men - which is also considered un-Islamic - while female teachers and students are increasingly subject to harassment.

Charsadda was also the scene of a recent suicide bombing that killed 29 people and injured Interior Minister Aftab Sherpao. Suspicion has fallen upon tribal militants from the border area. - Sapa-dpa

 

More damning proof that man (well, as long as he's not located in China or India) has to be stopped.

Mars Is Warming, NASA Scientists Report

Data coincide with increasing solar output
Author: James M. Taylor
Published by: The Heartland Institute
Published in: Environment News
Publication date: November 2005

The planet Mars is undergoing significant global warming, new data from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) show, lending support to many climatologists' claims that the Earth's modest warming during the past century is due primarily to a recent upsurge in solar energy.

Martian Ice Shrinking Dramatically

According to a September 20 NASA news release, "for three Mars summers in a row, deposits of frozen carbon dioxide near Mars' south pole have shrunk from the previous year's size, suggesting a climate change in progress." Because a Martian year is approximately twice as long as an Earth year, the shrinking of the Martian polar ice cap has been ongoing for at least six Earth years.

The shrinking is substantial. According to Michael Malin, principal investigator for the Mars Orbiter Camera, the polar ice cap is shrinking at "a prodigious rate."

"The images, documenting changes from 1999 to 2005, suggest the climate on Mars is presently warmer, and perhaps getting warmer still, than it was several decades or centuries ago," reported Yahoo News on September 20.

Solar Link Possible

Scientists are not sure whether the Martian warming is entirely due to Mars-specific forces or may be the result of other forces, such as increasing solar output, which would explain much of the recent asserted warming of the Earth as well.

Sallie Baliunas, chair of the Science Advisory Board at the George C. Marshall Institute, said, "Pluto, like Mars, is also undergoing warming." However, Baliunas speculated it is "likely not the sun but long-term processes on Mars and Pluto" causing the warming. However, until more information is gathered, Baliunas said, it is difficult to know for sure.

Pat Michaels, past president of the American Association of State Climatologists and senior fellow at the Cato Institute, similarly expressed a desire for more information about the Martian climate. "What is the internal dynamic that is warming Mars?" asked Michaels. "Given the fact that there are not a lot of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions on Mars, and given the fact that new research indicates that 10 to 30 percent estimated conservatively of Earth's recent warming is due to increased solar output, the Martian warming may support that new research."

Models May Be Wrong

The new research mentioned by Michaels is the October 2 release of findings by Duke University scientists that "at least 10 to 30 percent of global warming measured during the past two decades may be due to increased solar output rather than factors such as increased heat-absorbing carbon dioxin gas released by various human activities."

"The problem is that Earth's atmosphere is not in thermodynamic equilibrium with the sun," Duke associate research scientist Nicola Scafetta explained in a Duke University news release. Moreover, "the longer the time period [that the Earth's atmosphere is not in thermodynamic equilibrium] the stronger the effect will be on the atmosphere, because it takes time to adapt."

Examining a 22-year interval of reliable solar data going back to 1980, the Duke scientists were able to filter out shorter-range effects that can influence surface temperatures but are not related to global warming. Such effects include volcanic eruptions and ocean current changes such as El Niño.

Applying their long-term data, the Duke scientists concluded, "the sun may have minimally contributed about 10 to 30 percent of the 1980-2002 global surface warming."

"[Greenhouse] gases would still give a contribution, but not so strong as was thought," Scafetta observed.

Several Forces Affect Temperature

"We don't know what the sun will do in the future," Scafetta added. "For now, if our analysis is correct, I think it is important to correct the climate models so that they include reliable sensitivity to solar activity."

Iain Murray, senior fellow and global warming specialist at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, said the Mars warming adds another level of uncertainty to claims that the Earth's modest recent warming is a result of human activity. "It is probably too much to claim that any one source is the principal driver of the warming trend on Earth," said Murray.

"The number of significant temperature forcings on the climate system grows yearly as we get to know more and more about it, but we really are at a very early stage of our exploration of this very complex system," Murray noted. "If all the estimates are true about the relative effects of forcings like the sun, black carbon, and greenhouse gases, then it is quite possible that we would have been in a sharply cooling phase over recent years were it not for these forcings. In which case, one might say, thank goodness for global warming!"

Alright, a new blog. What's the point? one might ask. Probably nothing more than a cathartic outlet for my views that don't get much play in the heart of Minneapolis, MN.

Who am I? An average white dude, aged 24 whole years, from a place called Eden Prairie, MN. EP is a place that has been rated one of the best places to live in the country, by one commentator or another. When I was young, it was just beginning its transition from farm land to suburb. Now its a rich-white-guy haven with a couple of Somolian colonies. Anyways, I went to Iowa State to get a marketing degree, and now I'm at Hamline University in St. Paul to get a law degree. Now I live in what is known as "Uptown," Minneapolis. Where I'm from, I was fairly cool. Here, I am probably the biggest square in town. And being located in Minnesota, I am at what appears to be the main front for Sharia law in the US.

In our republic, we sue people who are following the advice of the Feds and try and report suspicious behavior on our flights. Our cab drivers don't transport people who carry booze on their persons. Our cashiers don't ring up people who purchase pork. As if it warrants mention, we here in Minnesota sure value our diversity and multiculturalism.

What's my goal here? Probably not much more than to air my views on what's going on in our world here. Not everything that I post here is going to be completely thought through, not everything will be my final word on any subject. I grew up naturally inclined to vote Republican, obviously as a result of my parents generally conservative views. During the '04 presidential run, I switched from my inclination to support the Democrats. This resulted from the Democrats having primary debates, which the Republicans didn't have because GW was unchallenged. Well, I caught the bug, and got caught up in the rhetoric. Hell, everyone else at college was for the Dems, why shouldn't I have been. But of course, the longer I listened to what those people were actually saying, the more I realized that their conception of the world did not comport to what was patently obvious to me. So I was happy to inform my friends that John Kerry was not the only flip-flop, I was also one.

What are my views? Indifferent to somewhat-conservative on social issues, laissez faire-ish on economic issues, and probably what would currently be classified as "extremely right wing" on foreign policy (or, as I would call it, realistic). I have personal preferences on abortion, gay rights, and other morality issues, but would not consider any of these type of issues dispositive in deciding who to vote for. I am for free market principles, but feel that these need to be curtailed with limited regulation. And I am for a mighty military, and feel that Islamic expansion presents as great a threat as communism (having been alive for only the tail end of the Cold War, it's tough for me to make comparisons. The Soviets were on the way out by the time my memory developed).

To wrap it up, I'm a hockey-loving midwesterner who's a libertarian at heart with a touch of common sense. Pot smoking is not my business, shooting heroin is a problem. Gay sex doesn't concern me, undecided on gay marriage. From Robin Hood I get a strong hatred of taxes, but not of rich folks. I've always hated being told what to do, so the less government there is, the better. I'm all for equal opportunity; equal results come from individuals, not government. In the end, I am not foreclosed to changing my mind. If your argument trumps mine, I will adopt yours.