Clipmarks | merrie's clips

Is Michelle Obama Responsible For The Wright Fiasco?

Tue, 06 May 2008 02:36:50 GMT

clipped by: merrie
clipper's remarks: What can it be that has kept Obama in Wright's pews, and at Wright's mercy, for so long and at such a heavy cost to his aspirations? Even if he pulls off a mathematical nomination victory, he has completely lost the first, fine, careless rapture of a post-racial and post-resentment political movement and mired us again in all the old rubbish that predates Dr. King. What a sad thing to behold.

Then, how is it that the loathsome Wright married him, baptized his children, and received donations from him? Could it possibly have anything, I wonder, to do with Mrs. Obama?

This obvious question is now becoming inescapable, and there is an inexcusable unwillingness among reporters to be the one to ask it. (One can picture Obama looking pained and sensitive and saying, "Keep my wife out of it,")

?Mrs. Obama's 1985 thesis influenced by?
"separationism" offered by Stokely Carmichael and Charles Hamilton in their 1967 screed Black Power: The Politics of Liberation in America.

Clip Source: www.slate.com

I invite you to look at the film of Farrakhan's sweating, yelling, paranoid face and to bear in mind that this depraved thug, who boasts of "dealing with" one of black America's moral heroes, is the man praised by Jeremiah Wright and referred to with respect as "Minister Farrakhan" by the senator who hopes to be the next president of the United States.

Nettled at last by the way in which this has upset his campaign, Sen. Obama last week cut the ties that bound him to his crackpot mentor. Well, high time. But those who profess relief at this should perhaps revisit what they thought (and wrote) about the earlier Philadelphia speech in which Obama was held to have achieved the same result with less trouble. If he was right last week, then the Philly speech was a failure on every level, and if it was a failure on every level, and thus left Obama hideously vulnerable to the very next speech made by his foaming pastor, then that must raise questions of eligibility for the highest office.

Tags: wright, farrakhan, michelle obama, separationism, liberation, black power

The Kentucky Derby Tragedy

Tue, 06 May 2008 01:44:40 GMT

clipped by: merrie
clipper's remarks: Third, we should ban the racing of 2- and 3-year-olds so popular on the U.S. track. In Europe, horses are typically raced later, when their "growth plates" (leg bones) are fully formed and they are less prone to injury. Greedy Americans don't want to spend the money to keep the horse "hanging around" (to wit, not earning money) until they are 4 or 5 years old, and so we race them before their legs are strong enough to handle injury.

Many horses are forced to live 23-7 in their stalls, except for the hour or so per day when they are exercised. The human equivalent would be tying someone to his or her bed for 23 hours per day, only letting them out to run for an hour. Wouldn't you go crazy under those circumstances?

I hope Eight Belles's death serves as something more than a one-day news story. I hope her sacrifice causes every fan of horse racing to stop patronizing the sport or betting on the mounts until major reforms take place.

Clip Source: www.usnews.com

I've been writing these past few weeks about horrendous and fatal equine accidents in the sport of three-day eventing. I own seven hunter/jumper show horses and maintain my own 40-acre horse farm.

There are several things that must be done immediately to spare further equine abuse and death. Mr. Squires touched on some of them, but not all. Yes, new forms of artificial track footing, which have been mandated in California, should be mandated nationwide.

Second, the trend toward breeding thinner-boned thoroughbreds should be banned immediately. Horses are bred for speed, which often means thin-boned legs. The thinner the bone, the more easily it breaks. Horses with broken or fractured legs don't always have to be "euthanized" (I prefer the term slaughter, since that's what it really is). They're often killed when owners decline the alternatives: huge veterinary or board bills to keep injured horses standing in hoists for a year or more to allow their bones to heal.

Tags: barbaro, eight belles, thoroughbred, horse racing, polytrack mandate, bred for speed, age requirement

Jaguars

Mon, 05 May 2008 22:34:52 GMT

clipped by: sahara

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

Clip Source: www.bigcatrescue.org

Hunted to extinction in the U.S. by 1940, the Jaguar is in trouble world wide, and two in particular are barely escaping death due to the rescue efforts of Big Cat Rescue.

Clip Source: away.com

Are Global Warmists Pulling A Cool Fast One?

Mon, 05 May 2008 10:14:49 GMT

clipped by: merrie
clipper's remarks: The New York Times rolled out Kevin Trenberth, a climate scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, in Boulder, CO. Tremberth told them that "the global climate will continue to be influenced in any particular decade by a mix of natural variability and the building greenhouse effect" and that "a cool phase does not mean the overall theory of dangerous human-driven warming is flawed."

And then added what appears to be the latest greenie talking point:

"Too many think global warming means monotonic relentless warming everywhere year after year. It does not happen that way."

Is anyone else noticing a trend developing here, beyond the "we never said that warming patterns would be steady" shuffle? Each explanation, whether by Willis, Keenlyside and Latif, Wood, or Trenberth implies that some climate forces natural are more formidable than those anthropogenic.

Clip Source: www.americanthinker.com

Now consider this -- it remains an alarmist imperative to disassociate falling global temperatures and speculation of a possible impending "little ice age" with the yellow dwarf star we orbit in general and the late start of Solar Cycle 24 specifically. For indeed, if we are moving into another solar minimum cycle and global temperatures continue to plummet while atmospheric CO₂ levels continue to rise, attendance at Al Gore's Scare-Story-Slide-Shows would quickly drop to close friends and family only. And with boat loads of very bad wealth-redistribution "climate change" legislation to pass in coming the years, a sympathetically alarmed press and populace remain essential during that time.

So what better way to buy time than to cloud the obvious solar connection by sacrificing their argument against a less threatening naturally occurring force? And then attributing that force to occasional periods of cooling by collectively admitting to its mitigating impact upon AGW forces?

Tags: solar cycle 24, agw, national ctr atmospheric research, co2, al gore

McCain-Jindal?

Mon, 05 May 2008 09:01:49 GMT

clipped by: merrie
clipper's remarks: Another McCain staffer called my attention to this finding in the latest Fox News poll: McCain led Obama in the straight match-up, 46 to 43. Voters were then asked to choose between two tickets, McCain-Romney vs. Obama-Clinton. Obama-Clinton won 47 to 41.

That reversal of a three-point McCain lead to a six-point deficit for the McCain ticket suggests what might happen (a) when the Democrats unite, and (b) if McCain were to choose a conventional running mate, who, as it were, reinforced the Republican brand for the ticket. As the McCain aide put it, this is what will happen if we run a traditional campaign; our numbers will gradually regress toward the (losing) generic Republican number.

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

Maybe that’s why, in separate conversations last week, no fewer than four McCain staffers and advisers mentioned as a possible vice-presidential pick the 36-year-old Louisiana governor, Bobby Jindal. They’re tempted by the idea of picking someone so young, with real accomplishments and a strong reformist streak.

It might also be a way to confront the issue of McCain’s age (71), which private polls and focus groups suggest could be a real problem. A Jindal pick would implicitly acknowledge the questions and raise the ante. The message would be: “You want generational change? You can get it with McCain-Jindal — without risking a liberal and inexperienced Obama as commander in chief.” I would add that it was after McCain spent considerable time with Jindal in New Orleans recently, and reportedly found him, as he has before, personally engaging and intellectually impressive, that the campaign’s informal name-dropping of Jindal began.

Tags: vice-prez, mccain, clinton, obama, jindal

NBC News Discovers Penguins At The North Pole?

Mon, 05 May 2008 07:15:37 GMT

clipped by: merrie
clipper's remarks: So much for science, as reported by NBC News.

Clip Source: voiceofthetimes.net

North Pole fables

ON THE NBC nightly news there was a heart-throb report of an attractive British teen-ager who had skied across the North Pole with her father to demonstrate how the Arctic ice pack is receding in the face of global warming. Oh, horror. Oh, how terrible.

The pictures were beautiful: Her pretty face, her gentle smile, her soft voice, her snow-crusted parka, the blue skies, the brilliant white ice, the cascading chunks of ice calving from glaciers, the two penguins standing on an ice flow.

Wait a minute. Penguins? At the North Pole?

Not that we ever heard of.

So much for science, as reported by NBC News.

Tags: nbc news, global wrming, north pole, penguins