Waste to Energy

Turning Garbage to Power

Hat tip: The Tank at National Review Online

We’ve all been drowned in the hype about biofuels. Well, researchers working on behalf of the Army have found a way to turn garbage into an electricity-generating fuel for use in Iraq. It seems that the extreme summer heat over there may be quite a help to the process. Should the system work, it could cut down on the number of fuel convoys, and therefore potential targets for terrorists. The technology probably has application to various Third World and hurricane cleanup energy needs as well.

I wonder how the antiwar leftists would react to this?

Barack Obama "Friends" Video

This is really funny if you are conservative and educational if you are left wing. Video courtesy of The Nose on Your Face via Ace.

RPV Convention

Yes, I was there. And yes, I was the one with those goofy sunglasses that had the hologram of an elephant.



By now, news of all the events, happenings, and mishaps can be found on any of a number of Virginia blogs. Just click on any of my ODBA links randomly and you will find some synopsis.

Personally, I was there to vote, but also the event was a lot of fun for me. I met a bunch of my fellow bloggers and caught up with some old friends. Sorry I didn’t get to meet more of my blog colleagues. Thanks to the Fairfax County Republican Committee for providing a bus. Thanks also to all the people driving on I-95 for not creating some sort of traffic nightmare and making us late. ;)

My main complaints about the convention had to do with time management as well as organization. From where I was sitting (with the Fairfax County people, in the back), it was pretty hard to hear. I was getting up to walk around just to get better acoustics. Heck, the Fairfax CITY people had better seating! And why couldn’t we just hear all the speeches and vote just once? Maybe we could have had our keynote speech while all the votes were being counted. Naaah, that would have been too logical.

Congratulations to former Gov. Jim Gilmore on his nomination for U.S. Senate, and to Del. Jeff Frederick on his winning the chairmanship of the RPV. The District conventions had shown that the Republican base was quite unhappy with a lot of the leadership and brought in a lot of change. I think the election of Jeff Frederick (as well as the strong showing for Del. Bob Marshall) reflects the dissatisfaction (or maybe crankiness) of the base. In many ways, I feel bad for former Lt. Gov. and Chairman John Hager, who took over the RPV at a bad time.

My only warning to Jeff Frederick is that revolutions have a way of eating their own children. Now that he has won, expectations will be very high for him to deliver results, and deliver them fast. I hope all Virginia Republicans come together for victory this fall, because any sense of “soreness” will only hurt our new leadership (and then we have to start all over again for an even more disadvantaged position).

What Do You Do in a Chair?

"EAT WAFFLES!"

. . . or so my three-year-old son says.

“Hey! I Resemble that Remark!”

Barack Neville Obama Doth Protest too Much

By now we’ve all read about President George W. Bush’s speech before the Israeli Knesset, in which he said:

This struggle is waged with the technology of the 21st century, but at its core it is an ancient battle between good and evil. The killers claim the mantle of Islam, but they are not religious men. No one who prays to the God of Abraham could strap a suicide vest to an innocent child, or blow up guiltless guests at a Passover Seder, or fly planes into office buildings filled with unsuspecting workers. In truth, the men who carry out these savage acts serve no higher goal than their own desire for power. They accept no God before themselves. And they reserve a special hatred for the most ardent defenders of liberty, including Americans and Israelis.

And that is why the founding charter of Hamas calls for the "elimination" of Israel.
And that is why the followers of Hezbollah chant "Death to Israel, Death to America!" That is why Osama bin Laden teaches that "the killing of Jews and Americans is one of the biggest duties." And that is why the President of Iran dreams of returning the Middle East to the Middle Ages and calls for Israel to be wiped off the map.

There are good and decent people who cannot fathom the darkness in these men and try to explain away their words. It's natural, but it is deadly wrong. As witnesses to evil in the past, we carry a solemn responsibility to take these words seriously. Jews and Americans have seen the consequences of disregarding the words of leaders who espouse hatred. And that is a mistake the world must not repeat in the 21st century.

Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along. We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: "Lord, if I could only have talked to Hitler, all this might have been avoided." We have an obligation to call this what it is -- the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history. (Applause.)

[Emphasis added.]

We all know that Barack Obama and his allies on the left have taken the President’s words rather personally, as if the President were calling Senator Obama an appeaser, even though the President did not mention Senator Obama. What is so funny is that there are plenty of elements within Israeli politics that are appeasement oriented.

Bruce Ramsey, the editor of the Seattle Times makes excuses for Obama this way (via Little Green Footballs, emphasis theirs):

Democrats are rebuking President Bush for saying in his speech to the Knesset, here, that to “negotiate with terrorists and radicals” is “appeasement.” The Democrats took it as a slap at Barack Obama. What bothers me is the continual reference to Hitler and his National Socialists, particularly the British and French accommodation at the Munich Conference of 1938.

What Hitler was demanding was not unreasonable. He wanted the German-speaking areas of Europe under German authority. He had just annexed Austria, which was German-speaking, without bloodshed. There were two more small pieces of Germanic territory: the free city of Danzig and the Sudetenland, a border area of what is now the Czech Republic.

See also more comments from Ace of Spades.

Remember the joke that was told about the French a couple of years ago? It went like this – FRENCH TERROR ALERT! The French have raised their alert level from “Run” to “Hide.” The only two levels higher than these are “Surrender” and “Collaborate.” Well, it seems that today’s leftists have gone pretty much from “Surrender” to Collaborate.” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) characterized our efforts in Iraq as “lost” pretty recently, and many foreign policy advisors in Sen. Obama’s Presidential campaign team are open sympathizers with the terrorist group Hamas. And let’s not get into the actions of the unhinged left, as enumerated by Concrete Bob.

Can’t any of them recognize our successes, or at least express a desire for us to win? I guess not, which may explain why the good young Senator, and his apologists, doth protest too much.

Tenth District Convention Shocker!

Civil and parliamentary, with fairness to speakers. Greg has the details.

I was there, and not only ran into Greg, but also Joe and John. And I ate too many donut holes thanks to Bob McDonnell's campaign. Overall, it was a good day.

Yom Ha'Atzmaut

Happy Birthday Israel!

The State of Israel came into existence on the 5th day of the Hebrew month of Iyar, 5708 (May 14, 1948). Immediately afterwards, the surrounding Arab countries declared war, and, miraculously, the fledgling state survived. Israel went on to survive the wars of 1956, 1967, and 1973, as well as numerous wars of attrition. Here is a map of the original U.N. partition:

You can see that the area reserved for the "Jewish State" was very small indeed and was pretty much set up for failure. Jerusalem was also not contiguous to the rest of the Israeli territory. You can easily find comprehensive histories of what has happened since then with a simple web search.

On a personal note, my mother was born in Israel and her high school education was interrupted by the Israeli War for Independence. I have a lot of family there, including a grandfather who is now 105 years old.

Thanks to my fellow bloggers who support Israel and it's right to a safe and secure existence.

When Is Mark Warner Moving to Florida?

Inheritance Tax Hypocrisy

I saw an interesting item in the Wall Street Journal this past weekend about the late Senator Howard Metzenbaum of Ohio. Metzenbaum, who passed away recently at age 90, was a Democrat from Ohio, and was known for his leftist voting record and his baseless attacks on Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. He was also a self-made millionaire who made his fortune in parking lots, according to the article.

What’s so interesting about Metzenbaum and his ilk is the issue of inheritance tax avoidance. Here’s what the Journal had to say:

But we come today not to judge the late Senator, only to praise him for one last act of personal financial acumen. Though a lifelong Ohioan, the Senator moved to Florida in 2002, according to a declaration of domicile filed with the Broward County Clerk's office in 2003. In doing so, he avoided paying his home state's income tax (top rate: 6.55%).

More important as he neared the end of his life, the former Senator also saved his family from paying Ohio's death tax, which features one of the highest state rates (7%) and lowest asset thresholds – $338,333 – in the country. Florida famously has no income or estate tax, which is one reason other than the climate that it is home to so many northern-born retirees.

Howard Metzenbaum thus denied the state in which he lived most of his life a parting financial gift. But he has at least provided the rest of us with a teaching moment in tax policy. If a liberal lion like Metzenbaum is willing to relocate late in life to avoid his state's death tax, maybe living politicians in Ohio will better understand how their confiscatory tax laws are driving its citizens to warmer climes.

Another leftist dinosaur, Ted Kennedy, has a hard time explaining why his wealthy family pays so little of the inheritance tax with which the rest of us poor peons are saddled. See the video here. (I think Brian has run this before.)

This brings us to Mark Warner. As we know, Warner ran with a promise not to raise taxes. He lied. He also told us about how he was going to repeal the death tax. Well, as Jim Gilmore and Bob Marshall can probably remind us, Warner lied about that too. Amazingly, Mark Warner has applied his fortune to a foundation, in this case to provide health care to poor communities, or so his web site says. Of course, wealthy people also start these foundations to avoid paying taxes.

Thanks to the tax cuts enacted under Bill Clinton and especially George W. Bush, the amount of wealth in this country has increased, and with it an explosive growth in philanthropic foundations. I do not deny that these foundations (including Mark Warner’s) do a lot of good, but leftists like Warner are being hypocritical by raising taxes on the rest of us who do not have the means to set up this kind of tax avoidance.

Of course, this foundation money may not be subject to inheritance taxes. So Mark Warner gets some reprieve that way. But I wonder, has the former Governor drawn up a will? Is there more money that will be shielded from inheritance taxes? I think it is high time he makes a full disclosure.

I do not wish Mark Warner to win the U.S. Senate race in Virginia, but I will not be so mean as to wish him an early and untimely death. That being said, will Mark Warner also make the move to income- and inheritance-free Florida one of these years?

Taxing Wright-Off

An Ill-Gotten Capital Loss

So we’ve all heard how Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) is so shocked at the words of his (former?) pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright. “Enough,” declares the Democratic Presidential hopeful. But it’s only now that you’ve had enough? What have you been thinking the last 20 or so years? For that matter, what has everyone else been thinking?

The one thing we should not say about Wright’s statements is that they are really anything new. Wright himself alludes to black liberation theology, particularly James Cone, who is known for his hateful rhetoric. From what I have gathered, many of the left-wing churches (and this is not limited to any ethnic community) have either looked the other way, or outright (out-Wright?) condoned and approved this sort of thing. It’s either a sense of “solidarity” with a left-wing cause, channeling anger at conservatives, or a sense of self-ashamed guilt. I also find it ironic that Wright talks a great game about oppression and slavery, but then associates with Louis Farrakhan (born Louis Eugene Walcott), a person who voluntarily joined a religion that was most responsible for putting blacks in “chains.”

The fact is, Obama knows quite well what Wright and his ilk have been about all these years. However, the congregation over which Wright presided represented an important stepping stone for a young lawyer with political ambitions, and besides, who would really challenge his associations? After all, that would be “racist!”

Even worse, this kind of behavior has been subsidized by all of us. Here’s what ABC News reported:

The bulk of his remarks addressed, however, different groups seeing each other as deficient. He acted out the differences between marching bands at predominantly black and predominantly white colleges. "Africans have a different meter, and Africans have a different tonality," he said. Europeans have seven tones, Africans have five. White people clap differently than black people. "Africans and African-Americans are right-brained, subject-oriented in their learning style," he said. "They have a different way of learning." And so on.

This is really not any different from what university students as well as workers in government and private industry are being fed day after day, year after year. In fact, universities, private corporations, and government agencies at all levels pay over $1,000 per hour for the privilege of hearing this sort of drivel.

You don’t believe me? Check out this article from the March 2000 issue of Reason Magazine called “Thought Reform 101" by Alan Charles Kors. He describes one such “trainer,” Edwin J. Nichols, a man who has been hired by my employer numerous times. Here’s the training that your tax dollars have paid for:

What does Nichols believe? He believes that culture is genetically determined, and that blacks, Hispanics, and descendants of non-Jewish Middle-Eastern tribes place their "highest value" on "interpersonal relationships." In Africa, women are the equal of men. Whites were altered permanently by the Ice Age. They value objects highly, not people. That is why white men commit suicide so frequently when they are
downsized.

Nichols calls his science of value systems "axiology," and he believes that if managers and administrators understand these cultural differences, they can manage more effectively, understanding why, according to him, blacks attach no importance to being on time, while whites are compulsive about it. Whites are logical; blacks are intuitive and empathetic. Whites are frigid; blacks are warm and spontaneous. Whites are relentlessly acquisitive; nonwhites are in harmony with nature. White engineers, for example, care about their part of something; Asian engineers, managers should know, care about the whole. Whites are linear; nonwhites have a spiral conception of time. Nichols has a handout that he frequently uses. Whites, it explains, "know through counting and measuring"; Native Americans learn through "oneness"; Hispanics and Arabs "know through symbolic and imagery [sic]"; Asians "know through striving toward the transcendence [sic]." Asking nonwhites to act white in the workplace is fatal to organizational harmony. Understanding cultural axiology is essential to management for the 21st century. Now, reread his list of clients.

[Note that the list of clients is in the article.]

Strangely enough, the “Best of the Web Today” column in today’s Wall Street Journal online quoted Brit Hume from “Fox News Sunday.” Hume had no recollection of Rev. Jesse Jackson using the same kind of rhetoric. Hume continues with, “And I said that to him [Jackson] here the other day, and he said no, no, no, I'm not going to touch that.” Maybe that’s for good reason. Remember, Jesse “Shakedown” Jackson has embraced much of the same politics and theology as Wright, and has shaken down corporations and other entities to “hire” the kinds of trainers just like Nichols.

The real pity is that charlatans like Wright and Nichols actually distract minority communities from achieving real solutions Again, today’s Wall Street Journal had a great article about the real outrage affecting urban communities: The sad state of education. Somehow everyone misses the fact that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have sent their children to private schools in order to avoid the voters they take the most for granted. Heck, when you can count on the Jeremiah Wrights of this world creating a distraction, why not?

I once heard a great speaker on the topic of “environmental justice,” Dr. Christopher Foreman. He wrote a book called The Promise and Peril of Environmental Justice in which he also states that this is the kind of issue that distracts distressed urban communities from the real problems that they face such as high crime and failing school systems. Foreman, who happens to be black, was at the time a scholar at the Brookings Institution which is no right-wing think tank.

So basically, we pay for overpriced, crumbling schools in urban areas. We pay extra because of high crime that is not adequately prosecuted in many cities. We pay for bloated city bureaucracies. On top of it all, we also pay for hucksters and charlatans to teach us division and crackpot conspiracy theories. So, why are we all surprised only now?

Solidarity Forever?

The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) has a "tête à tête" with the California Nurses Association. Read about it at Intercepts.

Another Clinton Health Care Treatment

Saudi Arabia Gives Winged Pigs Free Use of Airspace

Jimmy Carter says Hamas is willing to accept Israel as a neighbor

Apparently, the pigs are still very much on the (Syrian) ground.

Robocall UPDATE

I posted yesterday about how I received a robocall from a leftist group called “American Family Voices,” and how these idiots referred to my Congressman as “Tom Wolfe” instead of Frank Wolf. Anyway, here are a couple of updates to the story:

1) I did call Rep. Wolf’s office, and yes, they had been notified by quite a number of people about this funny call. Congressman Wolf has not, in fact, changed his name.
2) Yesterday’s blog post was quoted in James Taranto’s “Best of the Web Today” column in the Wall Street Journal online! See item titled “From Bauhaus to the House of Representatives.” Thank you!

Fear not, dear reader. I am not "hooking up" with any anti-war group. I mean, they really flunked that "electric Kool-Aid acid test!" ;)

Famous Novelist Becomes Virginia Congressman

Based on a Phone Call I Received

I came home from work to find a robocall message from a group called “American Family Voices.” It said:

Under the watch of Bush-Cheney and Congressman Tom Wolfe, America has grown weaker. Despite billions of dollars spent to enrich private contractors in Iraq, not a single active duty or Reserve brigade in America is considered combat ready. Call Congressman Tom Wolfe at [district office number] and ask him what he is doing to change this. We can’t allow our military to be stretched so thin that we become vulnerable. Tell Congressman Tom Wolfe that something’s got to change.

[Emphasis added]

Now I do like some works of novelist Tom Wolfe, but I didn’t know he was also in Congress! Now you know this is a bit of snark, because, of course, the Congressman for the Tenth District of Virginia is, in fact, Frank Wolf. I checked his web page just now, and it does not show that he has changed his name. (Perhaps I will call his office during business hours tomorrow to confirm this.)

Now I looked up “American Family Voices,” and found some interesting information. Their director, one Mike Lux, is a former Clinton Administration official who started his organization with a lot of Big Labor funding. AFV has also received a lot of funding from leftist film producer Steve Bing (currently in a paternity dispute with actress Elizabeth Hurley). Lux is apparently collecting money for Democratic Presidential hopeful Sen. Hillary Clinton.

Now those of you familiar with the Virginia blogosphere know that this is the kind of idiocy we expect from the “Say no to war unless a Democrat is President” Clinton supporters like Nasty Leftist Schmuck (who certainly never will be "a man in full") and his moronic friends. Aside from the factually challenged message, it is obvious that these kinds of people can never appreciate the military victories, engineering accomplishments, and humanitarian work being performed by American military, civilians, and allies from a wide range of countries.

Clearly, the AFV people do not have “the right stuff.” They are so deranged by Bush hatred, they may well end up setting a “bonfire” to their “vanities.”

DC Madam Moving to Denmark

As Soon as She Gets Out of Jail

Hat tip: Ace

Convicted DC Madam Deborah Jean Palfrey has stated that she is moving to Denmark as soon as she finishes her prison sentence. Ms. Palfrey made the statement upon hearing the news that Denmark provides prostitutes for the elderly at nursing homes. “I have always wanted to help old people who can’t always help themselves,” said Ms. Palfrey. “’Escorting’ them to meet their basic needs is one way I can use my expertise to help society. I am glad that Denmark is enlightened enough to have a system in which my talents can be put to good use.”

Ms. Palfrey added that “Of course, I will not make it a requirement that anyone do anything illegal or immoral. Why would anyone say that my high-class health care workers would even think of such a thing?”

Elementary Thoughts XI

Wisdom from Ron's Seven-Year-Old Son

I think it's a very funny clock. I think it's tricky to tell time. I think it's curvy.

What happens if every hour it makes the house go into outer space?

[Daddy notes that he's really excited about the clock in the previous entry, but knows that Mommy would think it's a waste of money. Daddy actually does have a backwards clock in the office.]

For the Person Who Has Everything

The Dali Clock!

Available (appropriately?) at Stupid.com

Let's Turn Obama's Words Around

Shall We?

You go into these big cities in Illinois and, like a lot of big cities in the Midwest, the schools have been gone now for 45 years and nothing's replaced them...And they fell through the NEA administration, and the AFT administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not.

And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to crime or radical ministers or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-white sentiment or anti-Jewish sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

All of a sudden, it sounds offensive, right, Barack Hussein Obama, Jr.?

Water, Water, Everywhere

And Even a Drop or Two to Drink!

Our good friends at UCV posted an interesting item about the opening of a new water treatment facility in Iraq. The information, supplied by U.S. Central Command, speaks of how 60,000 people in the Iraqi town of Mahmudiyah now have clean water to drink.

As we know, lack of clean water is a huge problem in developing countries, and providing water treatment gives some of the biggest bang for the environmental buck. As we have seen here, though, most of the public attention is directed towards more scientifically shaky concepts like “global warming.”

What really gets me, though, is how many of today’s left wing “environmentalists” were against the liberation of Iraq. Not only did Saddam Hussein develop chemical weapons, fund terrorists, and murder hundreds of thousands of his own countrymen, but he also imposed vast environmental destruction. He deliberately drained marshlands in southern Iraq in order to punish the “marsh Arabs” of southern Iraq. He also played favorites with what populations got better access to clean water and electricity (not that any infrastructure was maintained properly). In fact, it is reasonable to attribute several thousand more deaths in Iraq to Saddam’s environmentally destructive practices.

Now that Iraq has been liberated from this thug and our troops, contractors, NGOs, and volunteers have helped to clean up the place, where is the gratitude from the lefties? Apparently, deranged hatred is more important!

Elementary Pranks

My wife and I were watching TV last night. I decided to get a glass of water and put some ice cubes in it. As I was drinking the water, I noticed it tasted funny. Then I saw something floating in the water. What was the stuff? Onion!

My seven-year-old had put onion in the ice tray (Monday, when my wife was making dinner and needed onion as an ingredient for something), filled it with water, and put it in the freezer. So when I got the ice, it slowly melted and released onion. He did admit to having pulled this as an April Fool's prank yesterday. I told him that it could have backfired if he got a glass of juice and put ice in it. He could have had "onion grape juice" or something like that. We can only just imagine the funny story he gets to tell his friends in school today!

As that Annals of Improbable Research always tells us, "Children are naturally good scientists. Help them stay that way."

You all can stop laughing now!