Under the Oak

Rowan Scarborough, of HumanEvents.com, is drawing attention to the fact that the White House is delaying making a tough decision about Afghanistan because it could hurt them in the Health Care debate on Capital Hill.

At the heart of the matter is spending. The White House has figured in big savings in defense spending over the next five years, creating more money for the president’s big domestic programs, primarily health care. Those savings come from, No. 1, terminating weapons programs, and, No. 2, bringing troops home from Iraq. . .But if troops freed up in Iraq simply move to Afghanistan, war costs will go up, not down, as will the huge federal deficit. And Obama’s whopping health care bill would likely run into more detractors on Capital Hill.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not entirely sure that I like the idea of us sending more troops to Af-Pak, but I definitely do NOT like that the President is delaying a vital war decision based on Obamacare’s floundering in Congress.

Think what you will about W, but at least the man could make bold decisions without biting his nails over his own political well being.

I’ve been thinking for a day or two how I might express my absolute disgust at the notion that strong opposition to Obamacare is based on race. This basic idea that opposing Obama = racism has been floating around almost since election night, but in the past week (out of desperation) it has been taken up by mainstream media (E.g., Dowd), former presidents, and congressmen. Thankfully, I don’t have to dig too deep to find the words because Michael Steele, chairman of the Republican National Committee, has beat me to it.

I actually kinda like Obama as a person. He seems like the kind of guy that it’d be fun to hang out with…maybe shoot some pool…play some chess. That kinda thing.

His crazy-liberal agenda. Not so much. And many (the majority) of Americans aren’t too keen on it either. For instance, I don’t know very many people willing to pay $1761/yr to SAVE THE PLANET from CERTAIN DOOM. On health care, the president stood before congress and claimed that a program which brings 30 million new insured patients, government regulation, and no rationing is “deficit neutral.” Given that this is MATHEMATICALLY IMPOSSIBLE, I think it is safe to say that Joe Wilson’s outburst, admittedly inappropriate in the room itself, was appropriately echoing through living rooms across the country.

Does opposing the President’s outrageous agenda make Joe Wilson, me, or anyone else a racist?

If so…well…then I’ll just have to be a racist…who doesn’t judge people based on something as silly as the color of their skin…err…yeah…one of those…

In other news: Obama has decided that making Putin and Mother Russia happy is more important than protecting ourselves and our allies from nuclear tipped missiles.

And to think, we’re not even 1/4 of the way through Obama’s presidency.

I’m no stranger to calling the police. I’m not sure what it is in my past that got me so comfortable with it, but I’ve probably dialed 911 a dozen or more times now. I don’t call to chit-chat, of course, but if a driver is erratic and endangering minivans full of kids, you’d better believe I’m talking to a dispatcher somewhere. If I’m working in a drive-thru and someone comes through so thoroughly drunk that they can’t remember how to pronounce ‘coke’, then you’d better believe I’m on the phone.

…and if I’m driving through a neighborhood one day and I see a man trying to force a door open with his shoulder, you’d better believe I’m gonna let the police know about it. I’ve been stolen from before and it is not a fun experience for the victim. That is exactly what someone saw and did in Cambridge, MA on Thursday of last week. According to the police report, when police arrived and asked for identification, the man refused and began shouting at the officers. The officers went outside to speak to the person who reported the possible crime, but the man followed on the front porch shouting at the officers and causing a small crowd to gather. When officers tried to calm the man, he continued shouting and being uncooperative with the officers who were still trying to investigate what, if any, crime took place. Eventually, they arrested the man for disorderly conduct. No big deal, right? A police officer deals with this kind of thing all the time, I imagine.

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President Obama is alleged to spend time reading 10 letters from ‘ordinary people’ each morning, and sometimes writes a couples sentences back!. Shocking!

I know. I know. Presidents can’t read all the mail. Ten letters is probably pretty good for someone who is so busy ‘changing’ the foundation of our country every day. I suppose it is the article itself that irks me. I seriously doubt that O’Donnel, who uses words for a living as I do, accidentally implies that Barack Obama is something other than an ‘ordinary person’. I couldn’t help but chuckle at this short paragraph:

He enclosed a photo of his dad. It was returned in a sealed plastic bag with Obama’s reply, he said.

This mentality is part of the reason I don’t believe that Communism is where we are headed after our pitstop at Socialism. In Communism, there is at least the vocabulary of equality (Comrade Obama doesn’t have near the ring that Mr. President does). Fascism is more likely.

Thomas Jefferson and John Adams would weep.

Of course, the first thing I see after reading that sickening article is another in which we are informed that the elites wish to have the federal government ‘rescue’ a failing industry – the newspaper industry.

John Holdren, Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, offers some insight into the kind of things being contemplated in the shadowy corners or our nation’s home office (bearing in mind that this is the politics-free branch of the West Wing).

“We’re talking about all these issues in the White House,” Holdren said. “There’s a very vigorous process going on of discussing all the options for addressing the energy climate challenge.”

Oh boy. Here we go. The Cult of Green strikes again, right? Oh, it gets better. You see  the “these issues” that he refers to are the questions that…you know…kinda crop up surrounding the use of climate altering technology to drastically cool the earth.

The concept of using technology to purposely cool the climate is called geoengineering. One option raised by Holdren and proposed by a Nobel Prize-winning scientist includes shooting pollution particles into the upper atmosphere to reflect the sun’s rays.

That’s right. We are going to tax farmers for cow farts and when that doesn’t work, we’ll…shoot pollution particles into the upper atmosphere? I’ve obviously missed some important bit of information between “burping worms are destroying the atmosphere” and “well what if we do this stuff…like…on purpose?”.

I suppose we can expect to see a lot of crazy stuff from folks like this, right? I mean sure, it sounds totally idiotic and counter-intuitive, but its the White House! These people are smart, politics-free, totally unbiased scientists, right? How could they be wrong?! And besides, even if they are, what harm could possibly come out of it?

But he said there could be grave side effects. Studies suggest that might include eating away a large chunk of the ozone layer above the poles and causing the Mediterranean and the Mideast to be much drier.

Or, if you will allow me to paraphrase the wording of the stuffy news guy on NPR this morning: “However, Holden did say that there could be permanent, predictable side effects including massive holes in the ozone layer and drastic global cooling.”

Now, don’t get me wrong. I don’t actually fear that these nuts are going to blast a hole in the ozone (what incredible arrogance it must take to make these predictions about the effect of human actions). What I do fear, however, is that the people advising the most powerful man in the world are totally insane. Combine that with the unavoidable impression since he took office that Obama hasn’t the foggiest idea what he is doing and is relying heavily on advisors like Holdren, and your initial chuckle upon hearing about a mad scientist in the White House will transform itself into a knot in your stomach as it did for me this morning as I lay in bed listening to the news.

How long before the Cult of Green gets really panicky and decides to start pushing for interplanetary colonization as a means to escape the warming monster? Before the end of the Obama administration is my guess.