Time, It Was… And What A Time It Was

 

Run For The Cure

When we started Grand Rants, the premise was something Alan, Stoutcat, and I came up with together: “Our World Discussed.” Sometimes we get caught up in the day-to-day current events , and when that happens, we sometimes lose sight of the fact that ”Our World” is more than just about politics. So we periodically put together something that we hope you all can relate to, be it humor-based or serious. Sadly, this is one of the latter.

And I share this with you all, not to elicit sympathy, for I am fine.  Rather, it’s to share an experience that is a part of life and, in this case, the acknowledgment of  the passages that mark our lives. There’s something gained for every loss. Sometimes the gain is realized prior to the loss, other gains aren’t realized until afterward.

If I may…

I recently found out that my childhood sweetheart has passed away.  I’ll call her “Kathy.” She was just 55 years old when she passed. I came upon the news in a jarring way. I was trying to locate her to share some news about a mutual friend. While doing a Google search, I came upon an article in her alma mater publication in the “In Memoriam” section. Further research uncovered that she died of Breast Cancer.

Kathy and I remained good friends as our lives took different paths. We kept in touch over the years. But when she married a young man from England and moved there to start a family, I knew our contact would slowly ebb. Still, we kept in touch. It was during those years that I realized what a kindred spirit she was. My love for her as a young man was based on passion. My love for her as an adult was based in appreciation and respect.

What bothers me most about this is that her death may have been avoidable:  She discovered a lump on one of her breasts at a stage that should have been treatable, although there are never any guarantees where cancer is concerned. But by the time she was able to get a biopsy, the cancer had metastasized, spreading to lymph nodes. She died while waiting for medical treatment under England’s socialized medicine. And that is why I wanted to share this with all of you.

She and her husband didn’t have the means to fly to the United States for treatment. Indeed, they didn’t think it necessary until she was finally seen at a clinic in England and given the news.  “Go home and prepare your family” she was told.  This is what socialized medicine is like.

We are not out of the woods in this country regarding nationalized health Nancy Pelosi has made it clear she intends to ram this down our throats. For her and for President Obama, this is more about saving face and ego than it is doing the right thing. I encourage all of our readers to continue to write or otherwise contact your U.S. Representatives and state categorically what Obama and Pelosi refuse to acknowledge: The system of healthcare we have is the best in the world and can be made even better, but not by destroying it.

In memory of Kathy, I’m sponsoring a young lady who will be running in next month’s 3rd annual Marathon To Finish Breast Cancer in Jacksonville, Florida.

Kathy will live on in my memory.  Sadly, that’s all I have left as it dawned on me since her passing that I have no photographs of her. Somewhere during one of my moves, they must have slipped away.

As a young man, I used to play songs for her on my guitar. One came to mind as I sat down to write this. The lyrics struck me as especially poignant:

“Time it was
And what a time it was
A time of innocence
A time of confidences…

Long ago (it must be)
I have a photograph.
Preserve your memories:
They’re all that’s left you…”

Gerry Ashley

Bin Laden Endorses Al Gore On Global Warming

Osama Bin Laden Endorsing Al Gore For Global Warming Czar

You know things aren’t going well when you wake up in the morning to find that the newest “celebrity endorser” for your elaborate global warming scam turns out to be Osama Bin Laden. The audio tape announcing the support  has been verified as Bin Laden’s voice.

But that’s Al Gore’s lot in life. Visions of becoming President by riding Bill Clinton’s coattails went up in smoke when America decided they had had enough of the Philanderer-In-Chief.

Now, visions of becoming a Billionaire are in doubt. Week after week, we are finding that more and more of the global warming data Gore relied on to make his movie “An Incovenient Truth” turned out to be heavily falsified. In short, Al Gore Lied to propagate his Global Warming scam.

Weather patterns over the past ten years are actually showing a return to normal after a 10 year stretch of slightly above. Bad news if you’re a global warming guru, poised to make billions on the sale of Carbon Credits.

And now, his biggest supporter is Osama Bin Laden.

There really IS a God, ladies and gentlemen. And, as it so happens, God has a sense of humor.

Gore was unavailable for comment, but an aid, speaking on the conditions of anonymity said Gore will address the falsified data and the Bin Laden endorsement at his Global Warming Seminar in Virginia this weekend.

A second endorsement is expected shortly from North Korean leader Kim Jong Il.

_______________________________________________________

UPDATE:

Hope & Strange

The Al Gore Global Warming Seminar, scheduled for Saturday in Richmond, Virginia has been cancelled due to the expected blizzard which is forecast to hit that state and be the largest snowstorm to hit that state in the past 20 years.  Gore’s staff is looking at rescheduling the conference… perhaps in August.

Gerry Ashley

Statist Of The Union: Reading Between The Lies

Obama’s Getting Angry And Desperate… And It’s Showing

SOTU: The Most Audacious Lies Yet

The pundits are all having their say on President Obama’s latest campaign speech, not-so-cleverly disguised as  Wednesday night’s ”State of the Union” speech. We’ve already heard the points made eloquently by the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and others.  I fully expect Mark Levin, the brilliant author of “Liberty and Tyranny” to have a full-on stroke on tonight’s radio program (if he hasn’t already). If anyone can put last night’s Obamanation into perspective, it will be Levin. I only hope EMTs will be present in the studio.

Let’s start with the bottom line: Obama’s speeches mean nothing any more. That was evident last night when he told the most audacious lies about transparency and accountability (via his claim about not hiring lobbyists to staff positions). That was the first time I’ve ever heard a President’s State of the Union speech draw laughter from both sides of the aisle when he was attempting to make a serious point.

Gerry and Alan Respond to the SOTU

 

Gerry reacts to President Obama’s first State of the Union address:

Wow… I had planned a satirical response to the SOTU message, but after viewing Obama’s speech last night, I find no humor in this at all.  It’s not deserving of being treated with  humor. It needs to be treated with utter disdain.
 
Obama and Biden are flying into Tampa, Florida this morning for a speech this afternoon and a presentation of a grant to start construction on a high-speed commuter rail between Tampa and Orlando. If I lived in that area and he were speaking in the room next door, I don’t think I could bring myself to take 10 steps to share the air inside that room with him. He’s turning into a toxic fireball… the antagonist in a B-movie about the attempted hijacking of our government, like a bad movie directed by Alan Smithee.

I need to walk away from the speech or else I will have a stroke. Seriously.  

Alan responds:

I didn’t watch it… But as you know, there’s a bad moon a rising… Interesting that Pelosi is going to charge ahead with health care… She says thay if the conservatives close the gate they’ll jump the fence… If the fence is too high, they’ll pole vault over it, and if it’s still too high, they’ll parachute in… (Seriously, that’s what she said.)

At this point, the gloves are coming off between the American people and the American government. The arrogance of these politicians is about to turn into hubris…

That being said, we should stress peaceful dissent… When the American people figure out that we don’t owe $12 trillion, but instead nearly $100 trillion, there could be Hell to pay. And that’s especially true if the Health Care Bill goes through with a tax exemptions for unions.

Obama Is AWESOME!

 

Jim Geraghty thinks so, and he may just be correct:

Stoutcat

H/T: Instapundit

Peaceful Transition of Power in Honduras

 
UPDATE: U.S. ambassador booed at inauguration.

Roberto Micheletti, interrim President of Honduras, steps down today to allow for the peaceful transition of power to the newly elected president of the tiny nation, Porfirio Lobo Sosa. You may recall that Micheletti was appointed after former President Zelaya attempted to overturn the country’s election process  (with the assistance of President Obama’s favorite thug, Hugo Chavez of Venezuela) and was promptly, unceremoniously, and constitutionally removed from office.

President Micheletti immediately went to work to ensure that a new president would be elected according to the Honduran constitution, which occurred without incident in late November of 2009. The result of that election is that Porfirio Lobo Sosa is being sworn into his new office today.

Meanwhile Micheletti, having vacated the Presidential Palace, attended a Mass today, held to give gratitude to God and to celebrate the survival of Honduran democracy throughout the crisis perpetrated by ousted President Zelaya. At the basilica, President Micheletti was greeted with a hero’s welcome and a well-deserved two minute standing ovation.

And where is the United States while all this is happening in a tiny democracy well within our sphere of influence? Why isn’t Joe Biden one of the dignitaries congratulating Micheletti for helping to save the democratic and constitutional process of his nation? And why isn’t Hillary Clinton standing front and center as Lobo Sosa is sworn in?

Once again America’s devotion and long-time support of democracy and freedom is ignored by our President in favor of being loved by thugs like Chavez and Ahmadhinejad. All through their constitutional crisis, America should have been standing by the side of constiutionality in Honduras. But we weren’t there. In fact, we were actively criticizing the ouster, the appointment of Micheletti, and Zelaya’s exile. We even cut off aid to Honduras, which in my opinion is shameful.

As a result, Honduras pulled itself through its crisis without any help from anyone, in what used to be thought of as a “thoroughly American way”. Perhaps it’s time for us to cede that high ground to Micheletti and the people of Honduras. They deserve the accolade.

And we do not.

Stoutcat

Former Surgeon General Warns Seniors

 

When trying to shove a disastrously bad healthcare bill down our throats, if you’ve lost E. C. Everett Koop, you’ve lost senior America.

Stoutcat

H/T: Confederate Yankee

Discredited Scientific Theory Receives Yet Another Blow

 

Those poor AGW “scientists” and their supporters. The whole ClimateGate scandal was bad enough, with the embarrassing release of emails from the University of East Anglia Climate Research Unit which strongly suggest that scientists there conspired to hide research results detrimental to the claims of man-made global warming, and to discover ways to “fix” the outcome of experiments to support the agendas of  major global-warming advocacy groups desperate to show that global warming is real.

Then came GlacierGate:

…in which it is revealed that a prediction in the last international panel report that the Himalayan glaciers could all disappear by 2035 was wildly exaggerated. Some of the biggest glaciers in the Himalayas are so massive and so high it would actually take them 300 years to melt.

It was a grievous error, and the way it got into the panel’s 2007 report only compounded the offence. It was based on a casual remark by a single Indian scientist, Syed Hasnain, that found its way into a World Wildlife Fund study (which gave it the respectability of appearing in print), and thence into the panel’s 2007 report.

To add idiocy to the insult and injury above, we now have AmazonGate! James Delingpole of the Telegraph reports that:

…not content with having lied to us about shrinking glaciers, increasing hurricanes, and rising sea levels, the IPCC’s latest assessment report also told us a complete load of porkies about the danger posed by climate change to the Amazon rainforest.

Amazingly Predictably, the path leads right back to ClimateGate and the IPCC (support the agendas of major global-warming advocacy groups) as well as to GlacierGate (using an advocacy group’s suspect “report” as a basis for scientific conclusion).

And just what is AmazonGate? Within the IPCC report is an alarming claim that as much as 40% of the Amazon rainforests could be affected (adversely, of course) by even a slight reduction in precipitation. While this claim sounds both drastic and sweeping, it turns out that this claim is from another WWF study. Written by learned climate scientists? Of course not! Written by a policy wonk and a freelance journalist, to advance a specific agenda, with no scientific basis at all.

How long will it take for the sheer ineptitude of these so-called “climate scientists” to pull down the whole “global warming” scam? I mean, even Al Gore isn’t this stupid. Is he?

Stoutcat

UPDATE: HotAir is on the case as well.

UPDATE II: More excellent information on AmazonGate can be found at EU Referendum here and here.

H/T: FreeRepublic

Bipartisan Commission Gives Obama “F”

 Obama Gets “F” For Failing To Protect U.S. From Bio-Terror 

"It's Not About Me..."

 President Obama’s failure as POTUS is now documented by a bipartison commission. In an article published today on  Fox News,  Judith Miller writes:

 In a 19-page report card being published Tuesday, the Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction, Proliferation and Terrorism, chaired by former Senators Bob Graham, a Democrat from Florida, and Jim Talent, a Missouri Republican, gives the new administration the grade of “F” for failing to take key steps the commission outlined just over a year ago in its initial report.

Say, isn’t that a rather important part of his job? Maybe if he wasn’t spending so much time:  

• Picking Czars and Czardines in order to bypass those pesky Senate confirmation hearings 
• Trying to spend us into oblivion with a pork-riddled stimulus package nobody read before signing 
• Nationalizing banks and automakers
• Scheming behind closed doors how to force-feed us a Health Care Reform program the vast majority don’t want
• Attempting to shove Cap and Trade down our throats
• Traveling around the world embarassing us with the SAY WHAT tour (Symbolic All-Year World Healing Apology Tour)
• Reminding us in speech after speech that it’s not about him…

 …perhaps he’d have had time to follow the recommendations that were provided to him last year: 

Specifically, the commission concludes that the Obama administration… has failed to pay consistent and urgent attention to increasing the nation’s ability to respond quickly and effectively to a germ attack that would inflict massive casualties on the nation. 

In fairness, the commission faults the past three administrations (Both Bush administrations and the Clinton Administration) for having “failed to pay consistent and urgent attention to increasing the nation’s ability to respond quickly and effectively to a germ attack that would inflict massive casualties on the nation.”

  But Obama’s administration was the first to have the benefit of a report with recommendations to be followed. None of the recommendations were acted on.

 In, perhaps, the most chilling condemnation of the report, the commission states:

“[U]nless nations acted decisively and urgently, it was more likely than not that a WMD will be used in a terrorist attack somewhere in the world by the end of 2013, and that the terrorists’ weapon of choice would be biological, rather than nuclear.” 

The commission cited how the Obama administration’s delayed response to the H1N1 virus demonstrated that the U.S. was “woefully behind in its ability to rapidly produce rapidly vaccines and therapeutics, essential steps for adequately responding to a biological threat, whether natural or man-made.” 

The report also mentioned that, even though Obama’s administration had time to prepare, the epidemic peaked “before most Americans had access to vaccine.” Considering that a bio-terrorist attack would likely provide no warning, this is not very comforting.

 I doubt we’ll hear POTUS address this during his State of the Union message. 

 Several days ago, while addressing a jobs and economic town hall meeting in Elyria, Ohio, President Obama insisted, ‘It’s not about me, folks…” as he repeatedly referred to himself throughout what amounted to just another empty campaign speech. 

 Well, when it comes to failing to protect our country, it IS about you, Mr. President.  Read the report. And this is one failure you can’t try to palm off on George W. Bush. That dog just won’t hunt anymore.

 This report is all about you, Mr. President.

 Gerry Ashley

Aid To Haiti: Heroes And Villains

Where’s Hugo when he’s really needed?

There are those who step up to the plate in times of crisis. Then there are those who simply turn their heads and pretend not to see. This is what separates the “Do-ers” from the “Talkers.”

Case in point: When Haiti was struck by the devastating 7.0+ Earthquake on January 12th, the United States was amongst the first to respond with aid in the form of search and rescue, medical and food–as usual. Other countries were also quick to respond, but the bulk of the assistance arrived from the U.S. This should come as no surprise, given our response to the tsunami victims several years ago as well as all the other international tragedies requiring humanitarian response. It’s what we do.

It should also come as no surprise that there are those who are eager to criticize us. The man President Obama wanted so desperately to be buddies with in Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, wins the prize as the world’s biggest absentee and hypocrite. 

To date, Venezuela has donated absolutely nothing to the relief efforts in Haiti, while the Unites States has made the largest contribution in money, food, supplies and military support. The military support is for the sole purpose of helping to provide security in the stricken area where desperation has caused people to resort to unspeakable brutality on each other as they scramble for food, shelter and aid.

Here’s a breakdown of the top countries making donations to the relief effort: