Blatant Reality

The experts are predicting another busy hurricane season this year.

Looks like the same predictions they did for 2006, yet their prediction proved completely wrong.

Mike Huckabee says that it would be a mistake to nominate Mitt Romney as the GOP’s presidential candidate because of his past changes on issues.

“Let’s assume everything is hunky dory with his views now,” he said. “The problem is not so much where he is but where he was and the fact that that’s a change and not just on that issue but on a number of others. What’s problematic is that it does represent a dramatic shift and the obvious thing that a Democrat[ic] opponent will do to him is to say he shifted once, will he shift again?”

Its a valid concern.

Some people are up in arms about how global warming may lead to famines in many countries. However, one must realize that global warming will also increase food production in many places.

However, a rise in global temperatures would increase food production in most industrialized countries, which mostly have colder climates, said Jacques Diouf the director general of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization.

Also, hunger should not be an issue in the world today. According to WorldHunger.org, there is enough food in the world to feed everyone. The only problem is getting the food there and eliminating unnecessary waste.

Here’s the second part of his story about bringing a food shipment to Baqubah.

The first part can be found here.

An Iraqi interpreter was interview by Michael J. Totten about his feelings on the events in Iraq.

MJT: What’s it like out there now for the average Iraqi?

 

Hammer: If you give average Iraqis electricity right now it will be enough. This is the most important thing. Give them power for seven days in a row and there will be no fights.

 

After the US came and Saddam fell they earned 3 dollars a month. Now they earn between 100 and 700 dollars a month.

 

Giving them electricity would reduce violence. If you don’t believe me, ask yourself what would happen to this Army base if the power was cut off forever and the soldiers had to spend the rest of their lives in Iraq. Do think think these soldiers would still behave normally?

 

Iraqis are paid to set up IEDs. They do it so they can buy gas for their generator and cool off their house or leave the country. Their hands do this, not their minds.

 

TV is the most interesting thing to Iraqis. They learn everything from the TV. Right now they only have one hour of electricity every day. Do you know what they watch? Al Jazeera. Al Jazeera pushes them to fight. If they got TV the whole day they would watch many things. Their minds would be influenced by something other than terrorist propaganda.

 

Right now they have no electricity. They have no dreams. Nothing. And Saddam messed with their minds. For more than 30 years he poisoned their minds.

 

You can’t understand Iraq because you can’t get inside their mind. When you get inside their mind…it is a crazy mind.

Even though this guy has some very strong pro-American leanings, his thoughts and ideas are still valid.

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled yesterday that vote swapping (or vote pairing) is protected by the first amendment.

Writing for the panel, Judge Raymond Fisher said, among other things, that “any agreements that paired users may have reached about swapping votes were also constitutionally protected. Such agreements — like the e-mails that preceded them — involved people’s opinions on “campaigns for political office,” which are precisely where the First Amendment ‘has its fullest and most urgent application.’ … whatever the wisdom of using vote-swapping agreements to communicate these positions, such agreements plainly differ from conventional (and illegal) vote buying, which conveys no message other than the parties; willingness to exchange votes for money (or some other form of private profit.)”

The article has many links on the background of the case and vote swapping in itself.

This is good resource to see when all the debates and forums are going to take place for either side.

The Rasmussen Report found that even though Hillary may be leading the Democrats in their primary, she is still tied with the GOP frontrunners.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone shows former Big Apple Mayor Rudy Giuliani with a statistically insignificant one-point lead over the former First Lady, 46% to 45%. Former U.S. Senator Fred Thompson posts exactly the same numbers when matched against Clinton. It’s Thompson 46% Clinton 45%.

However, when Obama or Edwards is paired up with Thompson or Giuliani, the Democrats have a major lead. What does this mean for Republicans? Pray that Hillary gets nominated for the Democratic presidential candidate.

Yep, in their most recent poll, the New York Times finds that 48% of those polled consider themselves as conservatives. That is the highest percentage this poll has gotten in the past 15 years it has been conducted! This record high has only been tied twice, in polls conducted in the months of June and November in 1996.

Also, those who consider themselves to be liberals is at its lowest point in the past 15 years at 15%! This record low has only being tied once, in December of 1995.

Now remember that these polls can be misleading. For example, even though the conservative/liberal percentages stood at 45% to 20% respectively at the time of the 2006 election, conservatives still got annihilated at the polls. Therefore, take these poll results with a grain of salt.

Complete poll results located here.

(Conservative/Liberal results located on page 14)

The New York Times recently conducted a poll and found that support for the war has risen since May.

When a New York Times poll found that the number of Americans who think it was right for the United States to go to war in Iraq rose from 35 percent in May to percent 42 percent in mid-July, rather than promptly report the new poll findings, the paper conducted another poll. As the Times’ Janet Elder wrote Sunday, the increased support for the decision to go to war was “counterintuitive” and because it “could not be easily explained, the paper went back and did another poll on the very same subject.”

 

Round Two found that 42 percent of voters think America was right to go into Iraq, while the percentage of those polled who said that it was wrong to go to war had fallen from 61 percent to 51 percent. The headline for Elder’s piece read, “Same Question, Different Answer. Hmmm.” But it should have read: “America’s Paper of Record Out of Touch With American Public.”

Get the complete NYT poll here.