Random Right Wing Rantings

Why? Because I live in a world where I hear the other side all day long and I know this stuff will really stick in the craw of some people. It's just good fun to lump all of this together and watch folks have conniption fits. Enjoy.

• The House Subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality had to cancel a hearing entitled “Climate Change: Are Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Human Activities Contributing to a Warming of the Planet?” Why was it canceled? Washington DC was struck by an ice storm. You can't make this stuff up.
• I'm currently reading Michael Crichton's book against global warming, State of Fear. I've just started but it's already more interesting than the Da Vinci Code, though both books do start with a college geek-type guy and a French chick in France. The difference is that Crichton knew to kill off the geek in the first chapter. If only…
  
• Do you remember the Sacajawea dollar coin? How about the Susan B. Anthony silver dollar? Neither do I. And I would be all for a dollar coin since, according to the General Accounting Office, the annual savings of replacing the $1 banknote with a $1 coin would be $747 million. Per year! So I was pleased to hear that this year the US Mint will release new versions of the dollar coin with the faces of the presidents, in order, starting with George Washington. Four new presidential dollars will be released each year, kind of like the 50-states quarters. These coins also have a rare feature - inscriptions on the outside edge. Now if only the Treasury Department would stop printing five billion $1 bills each year, we could start saving some money.
  
• What does it say about you if you stand to gain from a Chosin Reservoir or Tet Offensive kind of American loss? It's scary that so many US politicians are eager for some sign of failure in Iraq. Most bothersome is that the clearest sign of failure in the minds of most Americans is the death of American troops. This leaves anti-Iraq, Bush-bashing, second-guessing political hacks in the position to benefit from American soldiers dying, and the more the better. If we had a catastrophic loss of hundreds or even thousands of people in our military, it would guarantee the election of a certain type of candidate and doom anyone who has ever supported the war. I'll don't think I could live with myself if I knew that I stand to gain from hundreds and hundreds of flag-draped coffins.
• On the other hand, if we do turn the corner in Iraq and the American people are able to wrap their minds around it, there's only a handful of presidential candidates that could survive that kind of good news: Hillary Clinton (perhaps the only Democrat currently running that fits this category), Rudy Giuliani, John McCain, and only a couple of conservative dark horses.
• Did you catch this new show on Fox News Channel from the creators of 24? It's kind of the conservative version of the Daily Show with Jon Stewart.
  
• Since everyone is chomping at the bit to get out of Iraq, I demand that we bring the troops home from South Korea, Germany, Japan, and Cuba. We've occupied these nations for 287 years collectively and I say enough is enough! Oh, wait, those are places where we won (or at least broke even) and it has been in our strategic interest to stay there. In a case like Japan, the nation's disposition changed radically and has become one of our closest allies. So never mind, and sorry about the mistake. The next time I call for the "troops to come home," I'll stop thinking in the here and now, check my facts first, and ponder how things might be 10, 20 or 50 years down the road.
• Czech president Vaclav Klaus came out and said that Global Warming is nonsense. He said, "Environmentalism as a metaphysical ideology and as a worldview has absolutely nothing to do with natural sciences or with the climate. Sadly, it has nothing to do with social sciences either. Still, it is becoming fashionable and this fact scares me." Along with Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Australia's Prime Minister John Howard, Klaus just made my (very short) list of world leaders I can really respect. Keep trying there Ahmadinejad!