Putting Food in the Gas Tank - Save the Planet, Kill the People

Another case of societal desolation and starvation by global warmists --


Biofuels to increase poverty among Timorese

According to a report by Oxfam, growing crops for biofuel will remove land from food production and push up prices. In East Timor the government is prepared to turn over a sixth of the country’s arable land to biofuel crops.

Dili (AsiaNews/Agencies) – The government of East Timor has come under fire over its decision to turn over 100,000 hectares or a sixth of the country’s arable land to a $100 million ethanol project by an Indonesian company, GTLeste Biotech. The reason is that the replacement of traditional fuels with biofuels has dragged more millions people worldwide into poverty, this according to a report by the Oxfam aid agency.

Under the terms of the agreement, GTLeste Biotech is granted a 50-year lease over “unproductive land” with an option for another 50 years.

The government is touting the move as a major potential source of foreign cash that could generate more than 2,000 jobs.

The foreign company plans to grow sugar cane and other plants to produce ethanol.

But East Timor’s main opposition party has complained that the plan was made with little public consultation, arguing that the land in question cannot be unproductive if there are plans to grow sugar cane. Furthermore, it stressed that increasing food production is more important and that creating 2,000 jobs is not much for 100,000 hectares.

“We have learned from other countries that sugar cane plantations will have negative impacts on agriculture and farmers’' lives. Over 80 percent of Timorese are farmers, they live on agriculture, so the land is important for them,” said Maximus Tahu, from development watchdog La'o Hamutuk. “Our concern is that the project will contribute to the destruction of land fertility.”

In its report Oxfam accuses biofuel-oriented farming of removing land valuable for growing food. This in turn has contributed to the current food price hike, pushing an additional 30 million people into poverty.

The report's author, Oxfam's biofuel policy adviser Rob Bailey, criticised rich countries for using subsidies and tax breaks to encourage the use of food crops for alternative sources of energy like ethanol.

“If the fuel value for a crop exceeds its food value, then it will be used for fuel instead,” he said. The net result is that food supplies will be reduced and prices pushed up.

Don't think that this drive for forced poverty will end with the poor countries -- the global warmists and social engineers seeking to recreate man and the world are looking to destroy all of the contemporary world and send us all back to the 18th century.

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Wow, you really don't like John McCain, do you?

Well, I suppose I have gotten a bit surly at the fact that ours is supposed to be a system of self-government and democracy, where everyone is allowed to have his or her say, and yet, by the time that I got to have my say, that is, to cast my vote in a primary, there was nothing left to vote for. The nomination had already been decided — and not by a majority of the party, but by a plurality in a handful of unrepresentative states, including a large number of persons not even in the party, much less conservative.

And, yeah, I guess I am a little, um, ticked off when I hear folks from the establishment arrogantly and presumptuously give assurances that conservatives like me will simply suck it up and fall in line come November because we have no choice but to do so, leading me to think such intemperate thoughts as, “oh yeah, well eat sh*t and bark at the moon.”

And I suppose I have reached my last “last straw” when I comprehend and realize that the war we have patiently, but steadfastly, waged for these last 35 years, a war that I have been personally invested in and an active participant, is finally lost, and it will be lost by our own hands. Of course, we are not really cutting our own throats, merely those of millions of innocents who will continue to be slain as a result of the so-called electoral choice that we have made. We will sacrifice them, once again, on the altar of politics.

Does anyone really, in their heart of hearts, truly believe that John McCain will nominate someone who is even potentially anti-Roe?

It is going to take A WAR to get a potential anti-Roe nominee confirmed. To be sure, it will be a nuclear war to get the job done. The pro-abortion crowd will do anything and everything to stop such a nominee — it will dwarf the savaging of Bork and Thomas. Does anyone really think that McCain is going to want to be commander in chief of that war? Does anyone really think that McCain would go all out, balls to the walls, and take no prisoners to get an anti-Roe justice confirmed? Does anyone really think that McCain is going to want to go head-to-head with his “good friends” in the Senate, and thereby risk alienating them on other issues? Deep down, what do folks really think that a President McCain would do?

It is a war that we have waged with patience and perseverance for many, many years. And just like the chair got pulled out from under us in 1992, when we thought that were we on the edge of victory, only to be dealt a near-fatal blow with Casey, once again, we will give up hard fought ground, and be set back yet another 20 years.

Yes, things such as these do tend to make one a bit annoyed.

But we have been assured that McCain is the only guy that can beat Obama, and Obama is surely worse than Hitler! Or at least worse than George W.

Not when his supporters consistently berate and insult those whom they are trying to get to ignore their consciences and vote for McCain for reasons of political expediency. So enough of this “shut-up and get in line” nonsense.

In fact, conservatives will vote John "Most Electable" McCain ONLY if polls show in the final days that the election is very close. If the Dem is down by 10 points, then conservatives will NOT vote for McCain because he won’t need their vote. If the Dem is up by 10 points, then conservatives will NOT vote for McCain because it wouldn’t matter anyway if they did.

Either way, whichever candidate wins, we lose. On the morning of November 5, 2008, whomever we end up electing, Democrat or Republican, at least half of this country is going to start missing George W. and they will rue the day that they ever had a negative word to say about him.

The morning after the election, we will look at the newspaper with dread, saying to ourselves, “my God, what have we done?” President Obama . . . President McCain — the very thought gives you a stomachache - both of these causes a fair amount of unease and distrust.

But it is the sad history of mankind that we turn on the good and decent in preference to the evil and mediocre. You reap what you sow.

Man, you need to relax and take a breather!

Don’t worry. We’ll take a breather. We’ll take a nice long breather. Many will come to realize that their involvement in the political process has really been little more than a life-long breather; they will withdraw completely from the political process, having become thoroughly disgusted, so folks won’t need to worry about them anymore. They will continue to work in the real world, in the world away from politics, but they have been burned way too many times (and by those they thought were their friends) to ever again trust politics.
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It's all about ME!!!!

So the Supreme Court has done the astounding and has read the actual words of the Constitution (or, at least, five justices have). To realize that the Second Amendment really is a part of the Constitution and truly does protect an individual's right to own and possess firearms, if any "interpretation" is actually needed, one does not need to go any further than this Nation's founding. The precipitating event of the American Revolution was not "taxation without representation," it was a heavy-handed attempt by the then-lawful government at gun control. Certain government agents tried to seize the guns and ammunition that were being stored in Concord, but the people resisted. And that is when war broke out.

Meanwhile, I see that John McCain (or his staff anyway) has responded to this decision and a decision on campaign finance regulations.

"I applaud this decision as well as the overturning of the District of Columbia’s ban on handguns and limitations on the ability to use firearms for self-defense. Unlike Senator Obama, who refused to join me in signing a bipartisan amicus brief, I was pleased to express my support and call for the ruling issued today."

“Today's Supreme Court decision in Davis v. FEC does not affect the Court's landmark ruling in McConnell v. Federal Election Commission upholding the constitutionality of the soft money ban contained in BCRA. That ban is at the core of the reforms I worked for in the long bipartisan fight to pass campaign finance reform."

Why is it that, with McCain, it is always about him?? It is ALWAYS me, me, me, I, I, I.

Whenever he comments on any issue (or, to be more accurate, when his staff writes something in his name), the comments always include some statement about how McCain voted previously on the matter, or some claim that "he lead the way" on this or that. You see it too in his so-called "pro-life" statements -- he never simply makes a statement defending life or advocating a pro-life philosophy, instead, he always has to tell us what his voting record is on abotion. Indeed, McCain NEVER simply makes a statement promoting a given issue on the merits, it is always about him.

More and more it is clear that McCain is the same kind of boor that John Kerry and Bill Clinton are -- self-centered egomaniacs who think that the world revolves around them.

Election Results 2008 -- We Lose

John McCain is, at best, anti-abortion, not pro-life. There are, indeed, some folks (mostly those who really don't care too much about social issues) who are anti-abortion, but for some vague, not-thought-out reason, not because they think that it involves the purposeful killing of an innocent human being.

If they thought that it involved the purposeful killing of an innocent human being, they would not support "exceptions" like rape and incest (like McCain) and they would not support ESCR (like McCain), but of which involve such killing.

It is true that McCain has cast votes on various abortion issues, but has he really ever said much more on life issues other than the "yea" or "nay" signifying his Senate vote on those issues? Can anyone point me to any significant, substantial speech McCain has given defending life, or demonstrating that he has a profound understanding? Anytime I hear him mention it, all I hear him say is to repeat that he has a record of voting against abotion. That's it! A pro-life advocate McCain is not.

Yes, he voted for Alito and Roberts, just as he voted for Ginsburg and Breyer. On top of that, when he was part of a Republican majority in the Senate a couple of years ago, John "Gang of 14" McCain did practically NOTHING to get good judges confirmed.

As for whom President McCain might nominate, does anyone think that he will be more hardline on the judiciary than was Reagan, who gave us two of the three who wrote the plurality opinion in Casey, upholding Roe (Kennedy and O'Connor). The fact is that McCain himself is the David Souter of 2008 -- plenty of conservatives, including pro-lifers, fooling themselves and trying to fool us by insisting that he is solidly pro-life when he clearly is not.

Getting an anti-Roe justice confirmed would take a nuclear war in the Senate even if uber-prolife Pope Benedict himself were elected president. You really think that John "loves to work with Dems" McCain is going to want to go to war against a Democratic Senate just to get a pro-life, anti-Roe justice confirmed? HA!

Make no mistake -- this is 1992 all over again. With Obama, we lose. With McCain, we lose. The pro-life cause was set back an entire generation the moment that McCain reached the tipping point, and when some very foolish nationally prominent Catholics and pro-lifers decided to cast their (and our) lot with him.

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Sailing on the U.S.S. John Titanic

In the comment box, someone asked what I think of John McCain.

First posted on February 13th, 2008 --

Wow! What great facilities they have here on the Titanic! What a great ship this is! Yep, this is the best ship ever — sure to beat every other ship ever built!

What an unmitigated DISASTER the pro-McCain people have brought down upon us. You think Hillary has been getting pounded these last few days, losing by 30 point margins, 21 states to 10? Just wait till Obama starts popping McCain upside the head, and dancing and weaving, like a young Mohammed Ali at his prime against an over-the-hill, past-his-prime old-timer who can barely get up off the stool.

The comparison of Obama’s roaring victory rally with 20,000 strong and enthusiastic people ready to march, with McCain’s monotone funeral wake at a hotel conference room with a couple dozen bystanders and a few moderate dinosaurs standing behind him, could not be starker. An inspiring leader McCain ain’t.

All those centrist voters that McCain is counting on — those that made him supposedly the “most electable” — are all going to run to catch the Obama love train. Meanwhile, the McCainiacs are doing their best to alienate the right, rather than reconciling. So, those left behind will have little to no excitement or enthusiasm for “their guy.” Anybody really want to give their time or money to this sinking ship?

It’s going to be ugly.

OK, so the "Obama love train" did start to run into some troubles in late March, but it appears to be picking up steam again. Meanwhile, the prediction of the Obama camp being able to jab and jab and jab at will, with McCain flailing around seems to be right on the mark. Jurassic McCain is going to get pummeled.

McCain is a DISASTER, a total and complete DISASTER.

We are doomed. Maybe if every conservative votes for him — maybe — he might squeak by with a bare majority or plurality in the general election. And maybe the votes will be in the right states in order to get the necessary electoral votes. Or maybe all those centrist voters will decide to be a part of history, and the conservative votes will all be for naught.

But let’s not fool ourselves. If you actively support McCain before the election, if you vote for him in November, then do so with your eyes wide open. Do not pretend, and do not demand that others pretend, that he is something that he is not. Do not adopt the Clintonian tactic of disingenuously dismissing every flaw as if it does not exist and defending those aspects of McCain that you know are indefensible. Vote for him with your eyes wide open, and know exactly what it is you are doing, and why.

Don’t cry “betrayal” if McCain is elected. Go ahead, if you must, and fight to prevent a President Obama. But vote for him with your eyes wide open. A scorpion is always a scorpion, and a tiger is always a tiger, even if we hope for them to be something else.

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Will Things Get Worse or Better?

Let us start by going backward, to something I wrote more than a year ago regarding future prospects, electoral and otherwise. Looking at things today, what with the lightweight that is Barack Obama and the utter disaster that is John McCain, I cannot say that I was that far off --



Originally Posted May 15th, 2007

I wish it were not so, but it appears that politically and socially things will get worse -- much worse -- before they get better, if they get better.

Not only in this country, but throughout the world, we have one side who has rejected truth and another side that is too afraid to stand up for the truth. One side caught up in the dictatorship of relativism, with all its attendant horrors, and the other side is full of little more than self-interested cowardly fools -- at least on the political level.

I know that George W. and Dick Cheney both have a pair, but it is astounding that the rest of the organized Republican Party still has the ability to reproduce without a single testicle between them all. But I suppose it is even more astounding and miraculous that they are even able to live without any spine or intestines. I don't know, perhaps they are all human-worm hybrids, the product of some fantastic heretofore unreported breakthrough on the genetic front.

Now, on the other side, we have a party that clearly has the fortitude to fight, at least when the fight is not against the real enemies of the country or society, but they have abandoned any desire for truth, preferring to create their own truth to fit their objectives. They are a side that has abandoned even the truth of their own name, opening rejecting the democratic system in favor of eternal dissent when the majority vote does not go their way, advancing the cause of Marxist anarchism, or absolute rule by judges on high, destroying all concept of self-government. Everywhere you look, every traditional institution and thought is under attack. For examples, do we really need to go any further than their exultation of the slaughter of the most innocent and vulnerable among us?? For them to advance the death of one of these innocents is bad enough, but 45 million in this country alone? Is it really any wonder that their willful and knowing rejection of the truth of the life and humanity of these innocents would lead to their attack on the truth of other components of the most fundamental institution of society, namely the family?

But, previously, even that state of affairs did not prevent us all from coming together in common cause on occasion. However, since the advent of Clintonism, where truth is relative, especially with regard to language, and even "is" has different meanings, together with their "Move-on" comrades, destruction of their human-worm-hybrid opponents, and the tradition that they stand for, if they had spines to be able to stand, has been their number one objective. They are not deterred from this objective even by the fact that a very real and long-standing enemy (1,400 years) is ready and waiting to put half of them in a burka, while smiting the necks of a good proportion of the rest.

Hot, yes, but it will get a lot hotter before it gets better. After a lifetime of dissent and attack, regardless of the outcomes of democratic elections, does anyone really think that the Dems will lay down their weapons and join hands with the Republicans if the Republicans win in '08? And if the Dems win, does anyone really think that the Republicans, even being the worms that they are, will be in the mood to forgive and forget and get down on their knees and satisfy the Dems (RINOs aside)?

Things will get worse before they get better. And it would be bad enough if it was just us fighting amongst ourselves. But there is an external enemy reveling in this. People think that the war front is in Iraq. They think that the civil war is in Iraq. The problem with that way of thinking is that, for the enemy, Iraq is only a side show, a diversion. The most advantageous front for the enemy is right here in D.C., and that aspect of the war is being fought without the enemy having to engage a single suicide bomber -- our disunity and political and societal civil war right here at home has encouraged and emboldened the enemy enough to give him a generation of sustenance. And within a generation, even those anti-technology cave-dwellers will have been able to obtain at least one piece of certain highly sophisticated technology and then things will be really, really hot.

A New Blog

. . . wherein I discuss politics, culture, etc. instead of merely hijacking someone else's comment boxes.