Or alternatively titled: “Why I Question Science to Begin With”
Hey cat lovers, do you have your high blood pressure medicine near by? Because you’re probably going to need it – get this, scientists NOW claim that CATS, of all things, are causing Global Warming, oops, I mean, Climate Change (I must remember to use the current terminology. After all, it began as Global Cooling, then Global Warming and now it’s Climate Change. Darn that cyclical weather).
Domestic cats, officially considered an invasive species, kill at least a hundred million birds in the US every year—dwarfing the number killed by wind turbines. They’re also responsible for at least 33 avian extinctions worldwide. A recent Smithsonian Institution study found that cats caused 79 percent of deaths of juvenile catbirds in the suburbs of Washington, DC. Bad news, since birds are key to protecting ecosystems from the stresses of climate change—a 2010 study found that they save plants from marauding insects that proliferate as the world warms.
But wait, it gets better. Mother Jones even provides a video to “back” up the claim, complete with a graph! (*gasp* NOT a graph. It MUST be legit then!!!)
Hold on, it gets even better … apparently, not only do cats CAUSE Climate Change but they’re also multiplying BECAUSE OF Climate Change.
Droves of cats and kittens are swarming into animal shelters nationwide, and global warming is to blame, according to one pet adoption group.
Several shelters operated by a national adoption organization called Pets Across America reported a 30 percent increase in intakes of cats and kittens from 2005 to 2006, and other shelters across the nation have reported similar spikes of stray, owned and feral cats.
The cause of this feline flood is an extended cat breeding season thanks to the world’s warming temperatures, according to the group, which is one of the country’s oldest and largest animal welfare organizations.
And just when you thought it couldn’t get even more bizarre, there is this response from a cat activist:
I honestly don’t know whether to laugh or lower my opinion of this country’s intelligence level another point.
Seriously. Seriously??
I suppose, now, to save the planet, we need to kill off all the cats. I wonder what PETA would think of that proposal?
*SIGH*
Once again – Global Warming is Natural – Not Man-Made. We need to definitely work on keeping our pollution to a minimum but to assume that we humans, or even a species, are big enough, or even important enough, to impact our planet is ludicrous.
“I cannot guarantee that those (Social Security) checks go out on August 3rd if we haven’t resolved this issue, because there may simply not be money in the coffers to do it.” – President Obama.
Can you believe the president is stooping so low as to scare our seniors half to death by saying that? I mean, the whole “sky is falling unless we raise taxes” ruse is in the Democrat playbook, but to blatantly lie to people and scare seniors who DEPEND on those social security checks to LIVE just to make the situation even more dire and to support his out-of-control spending problem is really quite despicable.
Look. We have enough money to not only pay our seniors, AND Military personnel, AND to pay our debt, the problem comes with paying the REST of the bills this administration seems determined to keep on the books at all costs.
It all boils down to priorities. And this White House has no clue what that even means.
We have the $200 billion coming into the federal government every month. It takes $35 billion — I’m sorry, billion dollars — we have $35 billion that we must use to service the debt, $50 billion that we must use to write those Social Security checks, $2.9 billion to pay for our military personnel, and then other essentials.
You prioritize. Our president essentially suggested the other day that he’s not able to prioritize. As the chief executive of our nation, he cannot prioritize, and that’s why he suggested that Social Security checks may not be written come August 2nd if that debt ceiling isn’t increased.
No. You pay for the essentials first and then the non-essentials have to get cut. They have to wait. That — that’s just reality
Mark Levin suggested we shut down the National Parks for a month. Why not shut down the Department of Education for a month? After all, it’s summer – school is not even in session. What about revoking, or freezing, a lot of these grants that go out to various organizations for “research” purposes. I think paying off our obligations are a bit more important than experiments, don’t you?
The point is, we have options. We can cut/freeze programs until we figure this mess out. It would inconvenience some folks and some people would lose their jobs, but we’re going to have to do this sooner or later – it’s not going to get any easier as time goes on.
At some point, we are going to have to address Social Security. The money that comes out of our paychecks for Social Security is not even going toward YOUR own Social Security, it’s going to pay for seniors RIGHT NOW, EVERY MONTH. It’s a survive-by-the-seat-of-my-pants program that barely gets by month-by-month. And it’s largely because our government has squandered it away over the past several decades and now, there’s simply nothing left to draw FROM. We have to take it from people NOW.
This president is so weak and wishy-washy I can hardly stand looking, or listening to him anymore – I no have respect for the man. None. He’s a man-child that needs to grow the hell up! (Evidenced by this hissy fit and walking out of talks because he has been so used to getting his way that now that he has real, logical opposition, he’s throwing a temper tantrum. WAH. What a cry baby).
And by the way, it’s not only US citizens that are getting fed up with Obama – the Arabs are pretty disappointed, too.
Based on the survey, which placed Obama’s favorable ratings across the Arab world at 10% or less, any hope that Obama could improve relations is all but gone.
(Not that I care what Arabs think of us, I just find the irony of the situation humorous. Because Obama was convinced he was God’s answer to foreign relations, if we JUST humble ourselves and bow down to their demands then SURELY they would love us. *snort* Moron).
It amazes me how gullible people are. They listen to politicians and believe every word that comes out of their mouths. They simply sit in front of their TV’s and dumbly nod their agreement without even thinking through what the morons are even saying to begin with. And if you really pay attention, you’ll notice that a lot of them contradict themselves and don’t even make sense half the time they open their mouths.
The left consistently scream at us that tax hikes are good for the economy and tax cuts are bad for the economy. Let’s debunk a few of those lies by dissecting some of their historical “proofs.”
Tax Lie 1) 1982: Ronald Reagan’s tax hikes helped the economy.
The truth: This is nonsense. The economy remained mired in misery inherited from Jimmy Carter. The economy began to recover a year later. 1983 was when the massive tax cuts of Jack Kemp and William Roth, and embraced by President Reagan, lifted the American economy like a rocketship. Supply side economics unleashed the American economy.
Tax Lie 2) 1990: George Herbert Walker Bush and the Luxury Tax.
The truth: Democrats badgered President Bush to raise taxes on luxury items such as yachts and watches. All this did was cause the rich to tighten their belts. Makers of yachts and watches were decimated. Middle class people saw their businesses collapse. In 1993, Bill Clinton had the luxury tax repealed.
Tax Lie 3) 1993: Bill Clinton’s tax hikes helped the economy.
The truth: Bill Clinton had nothing to do with the economy of the 1990s. The Internet revolution created massive wealth that Americans alive at the time may never see again. This was the third wave behind the agricultural and industrial revolutions.
Giving Clinton the credit is as laughable as praising him for balancing budgets and reforming welfare. That was Newt Gingrich and Republican Governors. [Let’s not forget that Clinton’s administration was a Republican House AND Senate]. Clinton was utterly irrelevant. [And reaped the benefits of the Republicans’ decisions].
Liberals deeply believe in higher spending. Raising the debt limit is not to avoid default. Raising the debt limit gives them more money to spend on their priorities. They want more social programs. America going bankrupt is irrelevant to them. They need people dependent on government so they can govern in perpetuity. Democrats did not offer a budget in 2010 or 2011. They will spend at all costs for their supporters, the country be damned.
Please read that last paragraph again. I’ll wait …
Obama has NO INTEREST in balancing anything. He has NO INTEREST in cuts. All he wants to do is spend and build his voting base.
Folks. I’m not trying to scare you but we really have to be realistic here – we CAN’T keep giving this man a blank check. He is bankrupting our country. It’s time to take our heads out of the sand and FIX this.
We can’t close our $1.5 trillion deficit overnight, but we must get as close as we can as soon as we can. Little nibbles here and there over 10 years (spun to sound like they’re huge budget cuts) aren’t anywhere near enough. I know from experience that cutting government spending isn’t easy. As governor, I made the largest veto cuts in my state’s history, and I didn’t make many friends doing it. But we will never recover, we will never get free of devastating debt, unless we make tough choices now. We don’t hear talk like this from leaders in D.C. or from those running for office because they say what they think we want to hear rather than what must be said.
We are in desperate need of real leadership, but President Obama’s solution to everything is to grow government by borrowing more money, spending more money, printing more money, and taxing our job creators. He once said that he “believes in American Exceptionalism…just as the Greeks believe in Greek Exceptionalism.” Well, the path he has us on will make us just as “exceptional” as Greece – debt crisis, stagnation, permanent high unemployment, and all.
As we approach 2012, there are important lessons we can learn from all of this. First, we should never entrust the White House to a far-left ideologue who has no appreciation or even understanding of the free market and limited government principles that made this country economically strong. Second, the office of the presidency is too important for on-the-job training. It requires a strong chief executive who has been entrusted with real authority in the past and has achieved a proven track record of positive measurable accomplishments. Leaders are expected to give good speeches, but leadership is so much more than oratory. Real leadership requires deeds even more than words. It means taking on the problems no one else wants to tackle. It means providing vision and guidance, inspiring people to action, bringing everyone to the table, and with a servant’s heart dedicating oneself to striking agreements that keep faith with our Constitution and with the ordinary citizens who entrusted you with power. It means bucking the status quo, fighting the corrupt powers that be, serving the common good, and leaving the country better than you found it. Most of us don’t see a lot of that real leadership in D.C., and it’s profoundly disappointing.
But let me tell you where real hope lies. It’s not the hopey-changey stuff we heard about in 2008. Real hope comes from realizing how God has blessed our exceptional nation, and then doing something about it. We have been blessed with natural resources, hardworking entrepreneurs, and a Constitution that preserves the greatest form of government ever devised by man. If we develop those natural resources, allow our entrepreneurs to keep and invest more of what they earn, and adhere to the time-tested truths of our Constitution, we will prosper and endure.
But first and foremost we must tackle our debt. We don’t have the luxury of playing politics as usual. We need real leaders who will put aside their own political self-interest to do what is right for the nation. And if they don’t emerge… well, America has a do-over in November 2012.
ADDED: By the way, one of my favorite political blogs, Biblical Conservatism, is devoting this week to dissecting liberal talking points. He’s carefully, and systematically, breaking down liberal arguments over trying to raise the debt ceiling and/or that raising taxes will somehow “save” us. Please take a moment to read these because the White House? Is totally lying to you. Don’t fall for their lies a moment longer.
Here is Senator Rubio’s speech to Congress (beginning at the 3:00 minute mark). Watch it. LISTEN to it. He perfectly sums up what is wrong with our country and debunks the “talking points” the Democrats are trying to make us believe – again.
What really made an impression? When he quotes from a study that compiled all of the “millionaires”, (which, incidentally, Obama classifies anyone who makes over $250,000 a year a millionaire – by WHOSE math, Mr. President??), the oil companies, the jet owners, etc. and if we were to take every penny they made in the next year, demanded they turn it over to the government, it would sustain us for almost 10 days.
Ten days. It would pay for almost 10 days of our insane government spending. And then what? These “wealthy” individuals have nothing left, there is nothing more to give. And they’re the ones who create jobs. So, the jobs they would have created if we just left them alone? Are gone. Which only makes our 9.2% unemployment even worse.
It’s a vicious cycle and we MUST stop it. If we don’t stop this insane spending, it will only get worse – it will NEVER get better. Our country is like a huge money pit. We keep throwing more money into the pit, but the problems continue to grow. We can’t continue this madness.
I mean, let’s bring this analogy down to the average Jane/Joe level:
You have a mountain of debt. You’ve taken out a second mortgage and have maxed out your home equity loan. You have two car payments on vehicles that aren’t even worth the balance you have left to pay. You have three credit cards that have all been maxed out. Everything you make goes to pay the interest on these outstanding loans ONLY. And you can’t even pay all of THAT because you need some money left over to pay for food, phone, utilities.
You are at your wit’s end. It’s time to take serious steps to getting out of debt. Would you:
A. Apply for more credit cards?
B. Take more loans in order to pay down on the existing loans?
C. Immediately cut out all non-essential items in your life and apply that extra money to the least amount owed?
D. DO NOT SPEND ANY MORE MONEY.
Obviously, a rational person would pick C and D.
Our government insists on choosing options A and B.
Do you see how asinine those options are when things are in dire straits?
And yet … here we are.
We need some conservatives, with balls, to get in there and clean up this mess. We need to stop spending, get rid of non-essential government programs, and restructure existing programs (yes, even entitlements. You think I EXPECT to receive Social Security when I reach that age? Oh hell to the no. There’s NO MONEY LEFT FOR MY GENERATION).
That’s it, folks. THOSE are our options. Any politician that tries to tell you that we can get past this debt issue WITHOUT cutting spending? Is blatantly lying to you. They’re telling you what you want to hear.
It’s time to open our eyes, roll up our sleeves and get this problem under control before we sink to Greece levels.
It’s time we started acting like GROWN UPS and stop expecting the government to take care of us.
One last thought: I WANT MARCO RUBIO AS OUR NEXT PRESIDENT. I know he’s not running (this round), but THIS is the type of person we need in the White House to clean up Obama’s “Hope and Change” crap.
Rush Limbaugh was in Joplin Missouri yesterday and gave this motivational speech:
Whether you like Rush or not is irrelevant. (Do I like Rush? Meh. I think he takes his satire too far at times, but his messages are pretty powerful. Don’t disagree with me if you’ve only heard snippets of his show a few times in your entire life. It’s not an “informed” opinion if you’re not informed). LISTEN to his message. It’s about how great America is and how this country provides opportunities for everyone – it’s up to the individuals whether they take those opportunities or not. (Notice I said “take them,” not stand there with their hands out and expect someone else to give it to them).
Rush delivered a message about American Exceptionalism that focused on the uniqueness of our country’s founding 235 years ago. He spoke of the importance of freedom as well as America’s tradition of helping those in need.
Though I appreciate Rush making an appearance and giving the good people in Joplin a much-needed boost, I think pulling a semi full of his tea was a little tacky. Granted, he gave it out for free, but still, it seems a little unsavory to advertise one’s wares in a disaster zone.
At any rate, I thought it was a good speech and thought I would pass it along. It seems the “trend” nowadays is to make America out to be the bad guy and I think it’s high time we start fighting back and REMINDING people just how great this country is.
I skimmed through the comments on The Blaze’s article and I find it terribly interesting that liberals can do nothing but insult the man. They never give a REASON why they dislike someone, it’s always the same “he’s ugly,” “he’s an idiot,” comments.
I always want to say, “Dude, what’s your issue? Who cares what the man looks like or how you rate his intelligence, what exactly is your beef with what he is saying??
I mean, let’s be rational a moment, shall we? WHAT exactly about Rush’s speech offends people so much? He talks about how GREAT America is. He talks about the power of the INDIVIDUAL. He talks about America’s sacrifices and strength. He talks about how Joplin will rebuild and be better than ever and how they will set an example to the rest of the country about how INDIVIDUALS, how PEOPLE will come together and make it happen because that’s what people do when there’s work to be done – they roll up their sleeves and they get it done.
They’re not EXPECTING the government to do it for them.
What exactly is there to take offense to?
I think people who take offense at motivational speeches like these are so entrenched in their own hateful biases that they can’t see beyond their self-imposed bitterness.
So apparently, the Obama administration is collecting “evidence” via mystery shoppers so they can blame doctors when ObamaCare fails. I’m also quite certain that the “survey” is being put together so that the Obama administration will have sob stories to produce during the 2012 elections.
Mark my words.
The “official” reason they are even doing this is because there is an increasing alarm over the shortage of primary care doctors. And there’s a shortage of primary care doctors because the doctors know that if they take patients on ObamaCare, they will lose money because ObamaCare reimburses only a fraction of the cost and being the government, their reimbursement will likely be slow coming.
Anyone who thinks it’s a doctor’s duty to help them for FREE needs to wake up from la-la land. The real world doesn’t work that way, no matter how much we WANT it to.
Obama administration officials are recruiting a team of “mystery shoppers” to pose as patients, call doctors’ offices and request appointments to see how difficult it is for people to get care when they need it.
The administration says the survey will address a “critical public policy problem”: the increasing shortage of primary care doctors, including specialists in internal medicine and family practice. It will also try to discover whether doctors are accepting patients with private insurance while turning away those in government health programs that pay lower reimbursement rates.
The government is predicting that 30 million Americans will gain health coverage when the new law (just typing that leaves a sour taste in my mouth) goes into effect.
‘These newly insured Americans will need to seek out new primary care physicians, further exacerbating the already growing problem’ of a shortage of such physicians in the United States, the Department of Health and Human Services said in a description of the project prepared for the White House.
Here’s how the government deception, oops, program, works: The mystery shopper will call a doctor’s office and will ask to see if the doctor is accepting new patients and if so, how long will they have to wait in order to see the doctor. If the shopper is asked what sort of problems they’re having, the shopper is instructed to say they have a fever, are coughing up green phlegm with a little blood in it. In other calls, they will request an annual checkup or a sports’ physical.
I would imagine most doctors would be reluctant to see a patient already spewing blood and would refer them to an urgent care of the emergency room to begin with, but you know, that only makes sense and apparently this administration doesn’t understand common sense so, go figure.
The government is eager to know whether doctors give different answers to callers depending on whether they have public insurance, like Medicaid, or private insurance, like Blue Cross and Blue Shield.
Access to care has been a concern in Massachusetts, which provides coverage under a state program cited by many in Congress as a model for President Obama’s health care overhaul.
In a recent study, the Massachusetts Medical Society found that 53 percent of family physicians and 51 percent of internal medicine physicians were not accepting new patients. When new patients could get appointments, they faced long waits, averaging 36 days to see family doctors and 48 days for internists.
Just another reason not to vote for Romney since he made the template for ObamaCare.
I wonder what will happen if (when) the Obama administration discovers that fewer doctors are accepting government health insurance? Will they MAKE them accept them? They can’t MAKE a private citizen, in their private practice DO anything they don’t want to do. I’m sure some doctors will comply with the “suggestion to take more government-insured patients,” but I’m betting MORE doctors just opt to quit their practice altogether. Why stay in a high-stress industry where you don’t get paid enough to recoup your expenses? Why stay in business if it’s more stressful to try and make ends meet because you’re not being paid enough to make your business stay afloat and just throw in the towel and give up?
And where does that leave us regular Janes and Johns? Fewer doctors and long, long, LONG wait times. Which means more people will not get the help they need and more people will either get sick and/or die.
Sounds like a heck of a deal to me.
And people being people? Will take advantage of the “free” health care and will request a doctor for every little sniffle because after all, it’s FREE! There will be no incentive to stay healthy because going to the doctor (one who will eventually see you), is FREE! Yippee!
Never mind that that “free” healthcare is costing what few taxpayers are left what little pennies they have left.
*sigh* Look. Our health care system is out of control right now. I will not dispute that. It’s expensive and there are indeed people who desperately need health care but aren’t getting it that have fallen through the cracks. But ObamaCare, which is designed to basically screw the doctors and make everyone pay for everyone else, is simply not going to work. It defies every economic factor – business just doesn’t work the way Democrats WANT it to work. It just doesn’t.
So what’s the alternative? For those that claim the GOP haven’t offered any alternatives … I’m here to say they have. The Republicans have been presenting these options from the very beginning but because it didn’t suit the lame-stream media’s agenda of making people more dependent on the government, they didn’t widely report these alternatives.
We have to clean up this mess and replace ObamaCare with something that will be fair to ALL people and that will not scare doctors away.
The question is – who’s got the balls to actually DO it?
I don’t care what side of the fence you stand on, the concept behind this video, the sheer mindless drones that this betrays, has GOT to scare you, at least a little bit.
Granted, this is pretty dramatic. But maybe things like this will be what it takes to WAKE PEOPLE UP – our government would love to control us like this and I don’t know about you guys? But I have NO desire to become a puppet on a string, thank you very much.
I thought these videos were interesting: What would Reagan do.
It’s pretty refreshing to see a president who isn’t afraid to stand up and take the hits for our country, isn’t it. It’s time to elect someone who will defend our country, reinforce our values and STOP apologizing for our country.
(Just in case I lost you, I’m talking about Obama here).
We need to stop kowtowing to political correctness, and to foreign (and domestic!) dictators.
They call it the “dilemma zone.” That point in time when you’re driving down the street and the light turns to yellow. You have exactly 1/2 second to decide if you’re going to run the light, or slam on your brakes. Do you have time? What does your internal clock tell you? Because we all know that yellow lights stay on for five seconds.
Give or take a click or two.
What would you do if you didn’t know how long the yellow light would stay on? I’m betting you would stop – better safe than sorry, right?
MoDOT (Missouri Department of Transportation) is changing traffic signal times in response to a new Federal study that found we need more time to stop. It’s not because of what we drive, because newer cars are getting better at stopping.
MoDOT’s Tom Blair said, “Cars do stop, just as well or better than they have in the past. [Chris Hayes interjected] This is our problem. [Blair added] This is our problem. Our motorists, myself included, we need more time to stop. We have too many things that distract us from doing our due diligence which is being an alert driver.”
So MoDOT is adapting to how we react when approaching an intersection. Engineers call it the dilemma zone. We all get that feeling when the light turns yellow, ‘can I make it?’ A lot of it depends on how fast you’re going. So MoDOT is changing yellow lights to make it comfortable for you to stop and they’re basing it on the average speeds people are going.”
MoDOT implemented the longer yellow light experiment at an intersection in Arnold, Missouri to see if fewer people would be caught running a red light.
Last May, Arnold cited 709 people for running a red light on camera.
May 2011? Arnold cited 17 people.
So, will MoDOT implement longer yellow lights throughout Missouri?
MoDOT’s Tom Blair cautioned, “I think the jury’s still out, Chris, on the reduction of red light violations that we’ve seen in 141 in the city of Arnold. We have to see 2-3 months, 6 months, a year from now, does that continue to produce that? Or do all the motorists just re-adapt and now they start running the new red light time?
And that’s precisely what I think will happen. I think the lower number of people caught running red lights in the example above is because the longer duration allowed more people to cross the intersection before it turned red. I also think it temporarily confused people and they slowed down out of caution.
I also firmly think that people WILL adapt and we will soon be back to the exact same situation we’re in now – people will take chances because people inherently think they can get away with it. So overall? I don’t think lengthening the amount of time the yellow light is on will make a huge difference one way or another.
But the part that really gets my blood boiling about this entire piece? MoDOT wants to lengthen the yellow lights because “we have too many things that distract us from doing our due diligence which is being an alert driver.”
Because we’re distracted with something other than driving, we need more time to stop.
What. The. Hell.
So, in answer to the fact that too many people are distracted when they drive is to give people MORE time to finish what they’re doing and bring their attention back to driving.
Because driving is a SECONDARY priority, you see.
Are you kidding me??
Here’s an idea – CUT OUT THE DISTRACTIONS AND FOCUS ON DRIVING, MORONS.WHY must we allow for these dangerous distractions? Why must we excuse people’s responsibility to drive safely? Why don’t we focus on educating and warning people about keeping their eyes on the road instead of pandering to the idiots who would prefer to use their cars as mobile offices?
It drives me bonkers whenever we give people an excuse not to take responsibility for their actions and choices.
Making the yellow light sequence longer is not going to force people to become better drivers. They will just adapt to the longer time period and continue to be piss-poor drivers. Because bottom line? People nowadays don’t think about how their bad habits will affect other people. Because the world nowadays is all about ME, ME, ME.
People need to start caring, and respecting, other people. We need to start training people, because the message got lost somewhere over the years, to be courteous and polite to each other, both on and off the road. Pandering to people’s bad choices will never solve the problem.
So apparently, the Obama administration is collecting “evidence” 
Write From Karen 