American Troops Video

Mr. President sent me an email with a link to this video. He thought this video was a good tribute to the men and women serving overseas who won't be able to see their families over the holidays this year. Please remember them in your hearts and your prayers.

President Washington's Thanksgiving

I was going to save this post for Thanksgiving Day. However, I thought my readers might enjoy reflecting on this over the Thanksgiving Holiday. Reprinted below is the first national Thanksgiving Day proclamation under our U.S. Constitution as written by President George Washington. The transcript below is from the national archives. I think we forget that the reason we celebrate this day (besides the football) is to give thanks and prayer for the blessings we have received. This week, take some time and thank whatever creator you believe in for the gifts and blessings you have received, and I hope everyone has a safe and happy holiday.

City of New York, October 3, 1789

Whereas it is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly implore his protection and favor, and Whereas both Houses of Congress have by their joint Committee requested me “to recommend to the People of the United States a day of public thanks-giving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness.

Now therefore I do recommend and assign Thursday the 26^th day of November next to be devoted by the People of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being, who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be. That we may then all unite in rendering unto him our sincere and humble thanks, for his kind care and protection of the People of this country previous to their becoming a Nation, for the signal manifold mercies, and the favorable interpositions of his providence, which we experienced in the course and conclusion of the late war, for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty, which we have since enjoyed, for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enabled to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national One now lately instituted, for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge and in general for all the great and various favors which he hath been pleased to confer upon us.

And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech him to pardon our national and other transgressions, to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several relative duties properly and punctually, to render our national government a blessing to all the People, by constantly being a government of wise, just and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed, to protect and guide all Sovereigns and Nations (especially such as have shown kindness unto us) and to bless them with good government, peace, and concord. To promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science among them and Us, and generally to grant unto all Mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as he alone knows to be best.

Another Global Warming Study

This is just a quick post to point out an article on Newsbusters. I am keeping this post short in hopes that my regular man-made global warming readers will go check this article out. NASA and a team of university scientist have just completed a study on the Arctic climate. However, the results may not be what you would expect. As reported from Newsbusters' Noel Sheppard:

"A team of NASA and university scientists has detected an ongoing reversal in Arctic Ocean circulation triggered by atmospheric circulation changes that vary on decade-long time scales. The results suggest not all the large changes seen in Arctic climate in recent years are a result of long-term trends associated with global warming."


The article goes on to say that many of the changes in the Arctic climate that have been attributed to man-made global warming may in fact be natural cycles. It would appear that the Arctic climate has around a 10 year natural cycle that causes it to undergo its own fluctuations regardless of how much CO2 we are putting in the atmosphere.

The Greatest Scam in History!

Here is a hypothetical question: If a founder of the Weather Channel released a public statement calling the theory of Man-Made Global Warming the “greatest scam in history,” would the media cover it? Well, we can move this to the realm of actual questions because that is exactly what happened on November 7th. John Coleman, meteorologist and founder of the Weather Channel released a statement on his personal blog saying just that.


On Global Warming, Mr. Coleman also says he is,”…amazed, appalled and highly offended…,” by it. Mr. Coleman says he does not oppose environmentalism. This is a position I share. He goes on to say that:


“However, Global Warming, i.e. Climate Change, is not about environmentalism or politics. It is not a religion. It is not something you “believe in.” It is science; the science of meteorology. This is my field of life-long expertise. And I am telling you Global Warming is a non-event, a manufactured crisis and a total scam.”


This should be a pretty big strike against those who would have us hand over our energy policies to the United Nations. If Global Warming is a non-event as Mr. Coleman believes, then while we can continue to study global climate change, the focus should shift away from the realm of politics and back into the realm of science. Of course, this assumes that Mr. Coleman’s statements get out to the public.


I have been trying to watch for stories on the major networks talking about Mr. Coleman. Rush Limbaugh has covered it, as have Newsbusters and a website on climate change called ICECAP, and one NBC station in Augusta, GA. However, I haven’t been able to find coverage of Mr. Coleman on any of the other major news networks.


Here is an expert in the field of climatology who doesn’t believe in global warming. Without Mr. Coleman, one could argue that the Weather Channel may not have come into existence. Without the Weather Channel, where would the climatologist and weathermen employed by the Weather Channel be? Often when an expert disagrees with global warming, the “true-believers” attack the expert’s credentials, and not his or her statement. Surely we can skip that step this time and simply look at what Mr. Coleman said. If we question Mr. Coleman’s credentials, then I would argue there are no climatologist who should be believed or listened to on this topic.


We have an expert, a founder of the Weather Channel, who believes Global Warming is a scam and a hoax. Follow my link above and read his statement for yourself. Can we finally dispense with the “consensus” label and put man-made global warming back into the “scientific theory” category?

Book Review: My Grandfather's Son

I, like most Americans, know very little about the current Supreme Court Justices. While I try to follow their decisions, I don’t really know a lot about the people who make up the highest court in our nation. When My Grandfather's Son: A Memoir by Justice Clarence Thomas was released, I thought I might change that. After I heard an interview by Rush Limbaugh with Justice Thomas, I decided I had to read his book. If you aren’t familiar with Rush’s show, he rarely interviews people for his program. However, he aired a one and a half hour interview with Justice Thomas on his show (a record length for an interview on the Rush Limbaugh Show). After hearing the first part of the interview, I thought Justice Thomas sounded like a fascinating person, and his book reinforced that position.

My Grandfather’s Son is an autobiography of Justice Thomas that follows his life from birth in 1950’s Georgia to his confirmation on the Supreme Court during the senior George Bush’s administration. Clarence Thomas wouldn’t meet his biological dad until he was nine years old, and would only see him twice in his youth. His mother did the best she could to raise him, but by the time he was seven, she realized she couldn’t do it on her own. She sent him and his brother to live with their grandparents. They lived a few blocks down from his grandparents and Clarence Thomas describes walking down the street to move in with them. Both he and his brother carried a grocery sack that contained all of their possessions.

From that point on, Justice Thomas would always think of his Grandfather as his “Daddy”. His grandmother was called Aunt Tina (pronounced “Teenie”). These two would be the parents Justice Thomas would know the rest of his life. His Daddy was hard on him. He wouldn’t allow the two boys to join after school activities, and moved them to a family farm during the summer every year to work. He tried to instill in the boys a strong work ethic. Even though the college age Clarence Thomas would rebel against his Daddy, those lessons his Grandfather instilled in him stuck. Years later, when Clarence Thomas’s life was at its lowest point, he promised to dedicate the rest of it to his grandparents.

I was unaware how much race and racism factored into Clarence Thomas’ life. Through hard work, and his Daddy’s lessons, he was able to go to Holy Cross and then Yale Law School. However, upon graduating, the future Supreme Court Justice found out the true worth of his Yale Law degree. Employers assumed that he only got into Yale, and only graduated, because of race quotas. Because of that, no one wanted to hire him. Justice Thomas recounts taking a 15 cent price tag off a box of cigars and putting it on his diploma to remind him exactly how much the diploma was worth to him.

There has been a lot of discussion in interviews with the Justice regarding the brutal honesty he puts in his book. Even knowing that, I was surprised how much of the misfortune in his life he lays squarely at his own feet. His troubled adult relationship with “the only real father he ever knew”, a failed marriage, heavy drinking, and radical years in college he all blames on himself. Some of his failures could have probably been omitted from the book. However, Justice Thomas believes that he had to be honest so that others reading this book can see how low he sunk and perhaps give that reader hope. His discussion of the “Anita Hill scandal” is heartbreaking. I could feel his pain, and the pain his family and friends went through in the pages of this book.

My Grandfather’s Son is a page turning autobiography. The racism Justice Thomas faced (from southerners and liberals alike) is very much alive in the pages of this book. After reading this book, I found myself revolted by some figures that are still in D.C., and respecting others I hadn’t cared for before. I am old enough to just vaguely remember the conformation process Justice Thomas went through. Reading his recount of how it affected him and his family left me with tremendous respect for Justice Thomas. I recommend this book to anyone who is slightly interested in politics, or who likes a good biography. I can only hope there is a future Justice who reads this book and takes some lessons away from it.

Book Review: Power to the People

When I wrote my “Love America” post a week ago, it was inspired by Power to the People by Laura Ingraham. That post generated a lot of comments , and I hope people are as interested in the book that inspired the post.

In Power to the People, Mrs. Ingraham talks about some of the things that she feels have gone wrong in today’s society. Each chapter ends with a way everyday people can get more involved with the political process and thereby take power from the government. Ms. Ingraham argues that real power belongs to the people and not to Washington. Amendment X of the U.S. Constitution states, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people”{emphasis mine}. We need to remind our elected representatives of that important amendment.

The book is also semi-biographical. Each chapter talks about Ms. Ingraham’s life in some degree. Laura Ingraham discusses her own battle with cancer in a few portions of the book. However, Power to the People is not a biography. The focus of the book is not the author, but instead the reader.

Each chapter focuses on a single problem. Some of the chapters include “Power to the Family”, “Judging the Judges”, “Protecting the People”, and “School’s Out…of Control”. There were two chapters that I think may have stuck with me more than the others: Saving Our Pornified Culture and Taking the Real Power Trip. In “Saving our Pornified Culture, Ms. Ingraham talks about how our culture and entertainment standards now seem to revolve around sex and violence. When Fox News and CNN cover Nicole Richie and Paris Hilton as if they are world leaders, she may be onto something. I have already caught myself watching TV in an entirely new light.

In “Taking the Real Power Trip”, Ms. Ingraham discusses Christianity in her own life. This is a very powerful chapter. She talks about how her faith, and the outpouring of faith around her, got her throw some of her toughest times. When she wasn’t sure she could make it through the cancer treatments, her faith gave her the strength she needed. This chapter alone gave me a new respect for Laura Ingraham that I don’t think I would have gotten from simply hearing her on the radio, or seeing her on TV.

Power to the People is a very enjoyable and quick read. It is different from any other political-type book I have read. Most books talk about political philosophy and grand directions that nations need to follow. In Power to the People, Laura Ingraham lays out the direction our nation needs to go, and how we can get it there. Everyone who reads this book should be able to find a new way to get power away from Washington, and back into our hands.

New York to Issue Driver's License to Illeagl Aliens

This is the first line from a CNN article covering New York’s plan to give illegal aliens valid drivers license: The Bush administration and New York cut a deal Saturday to create a new generation of super-secure driver’s licenses for U. S. citizens, but also allow illegal immigrants to get a version. My first response: What?!

It seems what my high school Drivers Education teacher, and my license examiner told me is incorrect. Both of them informed me many times that driving was a privilege and not a right. However, the Governor of New York and his administration have argued that in New York it is the other way around, people (both citizens and illegal aliens) have the right to drive. Governor Spitzer is wrong. Driving is a privilege that is earned, not something that is freely given out. In many states, certain traffic violations can remove that privilege. However, the Governor believes that if you break the law to get into our country, you should be given a license.

I have read numerous articles on this subject over the last few days, and almost all say the same thing. The new id’s that New York wants to give away are suppose to be more secure, and these ID’s should make it harder for terrorist and those who want to harm us to travel in the United States. However, New York wants to give these new super secure driver’s licenses away to law breakers.

The new super secure driver’s licenses could allow illegal aliens to get jobs, get social services, get an education, and vote. Wait, you may not have caught that last item. These new illegal alien driver’s licenses would allow illegal aliens to vote. While these new ID’s will have a special “not a valid federal id” note, the New York Board of Elections says it will be more difficult to combat voter fraud under the Governor’s plan. The Board says it is unusual for the polling officials to check immigration status if the voter shows up with a valid driver’s license. Could this be the real reason the Governor is behind this issue?

If you happen to be searching for an issue that Republicans and Democrats don’t agree on, this is one. Many of the top Republican candidates have criticized this plan, some more harshly than others. However, according to the L.A. Times coverage of the Democratic debate, “…five of the seven candidates indicated they would support states issuing driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants.” Mrs. Clinton has flipped back and forth over the course of the debate as to whether she would support illegal alien driver’s licenses or not.

Driving is a privilege, ask any State Trooper. The Governor of New York wants to give a secure form of identification to someone who broke the law entering the United States. The Governor of New York is risking providing criminals with identification, encouraging voter fraud, and allowing terrorist easier movement in the United States under this clearly boneheaded idea.