High finance, explained clearly and completely - in three easy graphs.

Is this the same Sarah Palin who, as governor of a state rich in oil and natural gas resources, advocates drilling in ANWR and has pledged to support oil companies who want to drill in Alaska’s coastal waters? Is she the same Sarah Palin who, as the Republican Party’s vice presidential candidate, inspired enthusiastic crowds on the campaign trail to chant, “Drill, baby drill?” Indeed she is. What many have overlooked is that nearly every time Gov. Palin said, “Drill, baby, drill,” she also said that drilling is just one component of her “all of the above” approach to domestic energy production. And it is an energy policy which draws on diverse energy resources which the governor promotes as the pathway to U.S. energy independence.

The plan, as revealed by Palin energy advisor and executive director of the Alaska Energy Authority (AEA) Steven Haagenson, is not so much a plan of action as it is an atlas of the state’s resources which local communities may use to develop their own solutions. The 245-page document (available online as a 33 MB pdf file) is titled “Alaska Energy: A First Step Toward Energy Independence.” The strategy being used by Gov. Palin and her energy advisor is to get citizens involved in deciding which energy solutions they believe are best suited for their own respective Alaskan communities.

The Palin Administration approach is consistent with the smaller-government-is-better philosophy preached by Ronald Reagan and embraced by the Alaska governor. It rejects the “one size fits all” method and instead recognizes that the relative level of energy use and cost varies across Alaska. The first step taken by Haagenson’s team was to identify each Alaskan community’s current energy needs for electricity, heating, and transportation. AEA held 28 town hall Meetings around the state where they asked residents what resources near their community could be developed to help lower energy costs, which resources should not be developed and why not. Once the team had collected all of the answers to their questions, they developed a resources matrix for each community, identifying the potential resources as hydroelectric, in-river hydro, wind, solar, wave, tidal, biomass, geothermal, municipal waste, natural gas, propane, coal, diesel, coal bed methane, and nuclear. Also identified were opportunities for gasification and production of Fischer-Tropsch liquids.

Then AEA consulted with energy experts at the University of Alaska and elsewhere to identify technologies, options and limitations for each resource. After identifying appropriate technologies for each fuel, the capital, operating and maintenance costs for each technology were calculated and adjusted by region. The result is what AEA calls a “focusing tool” for each community to use to evaluate its relative options for generating electricity and heat through the use of locally available resources. Haagenson considers this to be a critical step. AEA intends for the process to occur in stages, allowing the state to provide its help with maximum support from Alaskans who have bought into the plan. It is a bottom-up approach which starts at the local level by involving citizens directly in creating energy solutions which in turn can be developed into regional and statewide energy plans.

Can the Palin Plan meet her announced goal of having half of Alaska’s power come from renewables by 2025? A key factor the plan has in its favor is that Alaska is rich in exploitable sources of renewable energy. To be successful, a plan’s goals must be achievable, and hers certainly is, considering that 25% of Alaska’s energy use is already derived from renewable sources.

The 49th state has the highest wind-power potential in the country, and some small wind projects are already providing power to some isolated villages. Some Railbelt utility companies are exploring wind power possibilities.

Alaska also has a large tidal and wave energy potential. Current estimates are that half of the United States’ tidal potential and three quarters of its wave energy potential belongs to Alaska. About a dozen companies are engaged in research and development work on wave and tidal energy in the state. Chris Rose, director of the Renewable Energy Alaska Project (REAP), says that these technologies could be commercially feasible as soon as 2014 to 2016.

Although Alaska has very cold winters, a significant amount of heat is just waiting under the ground to provide the geothermal component of Gov. Palin’s energy plan. The advantage of this energy resource is that new technologies are not required to tap into it. In some areas of the state, the geothermal sources are located in relatively close proximity to transmission lines, so large construction projects would not be needed.

About one-fourth of Alaska’s electric power already comes from hydroelectric sources, and there is good potential for expanding it. Huge dams will probably not be built, however. Small hydro projects which supply communities along Alaska’s rivers (the state has about 12,000 rivers) are the more likely scenario.

There is also great biomass potential in The Land of the Midnight Sun. One major source is fish oil, some 8 million gallons of which a year is being used in parts of the state as an alternative to diesel fuel. It has been estimated that another 13 million gallons is being dumped into the ocean yearly in the form of unprocessed fish waste. Biofuel energy potential also exists in Alaska in the form of garbage, forests and agricultural land.

Gov. Palin’s energy plan will be attacked by those of her critics who find only flaws in anything she does. Some will denounce it as being too grandiose, and others will say that it doesn’t go far enough. But these are people who are obsessed with destroying her politically. They could care less about the relative merits of any initiative which has her name attached. But some of her critics, those who are not driven by hatred, will judge this plan fairly. It has already been welcomed by members of some environmental groups. Knee-jerk “conservatives” who reject anything which even remotely appears to be “green” will use the plan as “evidence” that Sarah Palin is not a “true” conservative.

More open-minded conservatives, those who actually read the plan and see how it lets citizens choose which energy resources they want for their own communities, will find much to like in it. Many will also realize that the federal government, especially one so solidly in the hands of the Democrats, will make it increasingly difficult for Alaska to expand its oil and gas production. Indeed, the incoming Secretary of Energy has made no secret of the fact that he’s a big fan of higher gasoline taxes. Given the slightest excuse to raise the tax, an Obama administration is a sure bet to do so, and the Democrat Congress will be only too eager to rubber stamp it. Rather than just cry in their beer over it, Palin and her energy team appear to be doing all they can to develop the diverse resources their state has available to meet Alaska’s growing energy needs.

Sarah Palin has taken a major step here. The plan will solve some real-world energy problems, including those of those small and isolated communities which have to rely on diesel fuel, which is much more expensive in Alaska than in the lower 48. The plan plays to the state’s strengths, which include a bounty of energy resources, both renewable and not. The bottom-up approach the governor’s energy team used will assure strong public support, since the people of Alaska played such an important part in its development.

Politically, this has to be scored as a win-win for Gov. Palin. It demonstrates to the grassroots of the environmental movement that perhaps she isn’t out to shoot Mother Nature with a moose gun after all, as she has been portrayed by some of its more radical elements. It also provides compelling evidence that she is an able government executive who formulates innovative policies and builds teams of capable people to implement those initiatives. It exposes those who have wrongly portrayed her as an incompetent dunce as the fools that they are. And it proves to those who have argued that she should quietly retire to Alaska and build her resume rather than answer her media critics, that she can easily do both. This is, after all, a woman who multitasks with two BlackBerrys.

Sarah Palin is determined to make Alaska the nation’s energy leader and show the other 49 states how it is done. If her energy plan is a success - and first impressions are that it will be - she will become an even more formidable force, not only in her state of Alaska, but on the big stage of national politics as well.

- JP

It’s a season not only for big ideas (very few of them new) in public policy. It’s also a season in which we’ll try out a lot of them, in the naive hope that society will become a much better place as a result.

Why is this a naive hope? Because the most recent episodes of grand faith in technocracy (the New Deal and the Great Society) produced results that, while sometimes interesting, were always supremely costly. It takes a hubristic government, infatuated with its own capabilities, to spend the kind of dollar amounts that are simply beyond comprehension. The current debate over fiscal stimulus proves that yet again.

The other way for society to innovate, of course, is through private enterprise. This never goes out of style, although government has very effective tools at its disposal for weakening and defunding it. When allowed to work, however, it always produces results that are very interesting and economically very efficient.

We can see this dichotomy yet again in one of the most important items that we’ll all be discussing for the next few years: how to encourage a green/hybrid economy in the US.

With characteristic hubris, the New Technocrats who are coming to power in Washington refer not to encouraging green technology, but indeed of transforming the whole US economy to a green/hybrid one.

What can this mean? To judge from past statements by such as Rahm Emanuel, the objective is for the US to consume one half as much gasoline ten years from now as we do today.

That’s it in a nutshell. We’ll know we have a green/hybrid economy when we stop using gasoline. Let’s unpack this along a few dimensions.

What’s bad about gasoline? Two things: first, it comes from petroleum, which we have to buy from people we don’t like and who don’t like us, namely terror-sponsoring states in the Middle East. Second, burning gasoline emits fossil carbon into the atmosphere.

It’s no good to solve the first problem by producing more petroleum domestically, or moving to alternatives that are also based on fossil-carbon, like natural gas or gasified coal, because they run afoul of the second problem.

And it’s no good to solve the second problem by pointing out that anthropogenic global warming may in fact be a much smaller effect than global cooling produced by variations in solar radiation. This causes people to suspect that you’re a bad person at heart, which disqualifies you from participating in the debate.

So we know we have to find something that we can use instead of gasoline. What do we actually use gasoline for? Primarily to run our automobiles. There are many important secondary uses for petroleum products, but proportionally the big problem to solve is motor transport.

Well, I can imagine how private enterprise would react if the cost of motor transport were suddenly made prohibitively expensive (say, by increasing the Federal gasoline tax to the point that gasoline costs as much as it does in Europe, about $8/gallon, as incoming Energy Secretary Steven Chu has advocated): people would find ways to run our economy without driving as much. Over the course of a generation, this would result in comprehensive changes in land use and in the structure of employment.

Among other things, it means that the coming enormous “investments” in “infrastructure” are going to be a total waste of time and money. An economy that seeks to minimize the use of motor transport will derive minimal benefit from new roads and bridges.

But that’s not really what people are thinking. They’re thinking about how to electrify cars and trucks.

Soon enough, the thinking goes, all of the new vehicles we produce and drive will run on electric motors fed by batteries that are recharged from household electric power. (The alternative dream, hydrogen-based fuel cells, is too many grand leaps away from reality.)

The big problem we need to solve here, is batteries. The whole dream of a green/hybrid economy rests on whether or not we can store electricity much more safely and cost-effectively than we can today. (Forget about the safe-disposal problem, as new battery materials aren’t likely to be environmentally benign: that’s a problem we won’t confront at least until after the next Presidential election.)

There’s also a big problem with generating the electricity that will be used to power vehicles. As a practical matter, it’s going to be produced by burning coal because we know we don’t like nuclear power. Wind and solar will continue to attract massive investment, but they’re far less efficient than coal today for a variety of reasons.

Another big thing we’re talking about doing is a “national grid,” or a new generation of electric-power transmission infrastructure. Why would that be useful? Because, the thinking goes, we can install solar and wind-power collection capacity where the sun shines brightest and the wind blows strongest, and then transport it over new, improved power lines to everywhere in America.

So in sum, these are the three components of a new green/hybrid economy: new battery technology; new solar/wind technology; and new ways of moving electrical power.

It’s a considerable understatement to say that all of these objectives are incremental refinements of ideas that have been around for decades. None of them represents revolutionary thinking, and none of them is truly innovative. As I said upfront, when you place your faith in established experts, you get inefficient, conventional thinking.

To be sure, there are many people in the technocracy who have observed the near-magical power of the profit motive to produce truly radical innovation. That’s why such people are constantly on the lookout for “market solutions” and “public-private partnerships” to solve problems that are framed in conventional, non-radical ways.

One of those people is John McCain, who during the campaign proposed the ridiculous idea of offering a $300 million bounty to whoever produced a much better battery for automobiles. Why ridiculous? Because that sum of money pales in comparison to the riches that such an achievement will garner. We don’t need economic incentives to solve this problem. The incentives are already there. The problem is just hard. A real solution to the problem may be totally different from anything that John McCain or anyone like him even imagines.

Here’s the real nut of the problem: since we’ve chosen as a nation to hurtle down the path of seeking solutions to technically hard problems by brute force, we face a grave danger of wasting a whole generation’s worth of economic resources.

Far, far worse, we also face the biggest danger of technocratic, government-driven solutions to hard problems: because of the political stakes involved, such programs are too big to fail. Whatever they produce will be deemed a success, and its use will be mandated.

Why is that a danger? Here’s why:

Because we may produce a motor-transport solution that is economically less efficient than the current petroleum-based one.

That’s a very simple but profound statement. Don’t gloss over it too quickly.

If we come up with solid (and unforeseen) technological breakthroughs in battery, solar and wind technology, they will only be worth implementing on a grand scale if they make the total economic cost of driving vehicles far less than it is today. Not the same or a little better or a little worse. They will need to be much better.

If we can achieve that, then the dream of a green/hybrid economy actually will rise up to the claims being made for it, which amount to nothing less than an economic renaissance for American industry. But if we don’t produce those grand breakthroughs, then the green/hybrid economy will impoverish America for a generation.

The naive faith of experts is that, by simply spending enough money and giving enough fancy speeches (and perhaps by passing out a green/hybrid version of Gerald Ford’s WIN buttons), we’ll make the breakthroughs in basic science and technology that decades of private effort have so far failed to produce.

But research activity that is driven by private enterprise either has to pay off or it doesn’t get pursued. This is a powerful mechanism which prevents waste.

Research activity that’s driven by government and politics doesn’t have that automatic waste-prevention system built into it. We face the danger of building a green/hybrid economy that will bankrupt us even faster than trillion-dollar deficits will.

I remember him well.  My grandfather’s hands were large – in fact, they were huge.  You couldn’t shake his hand, without feeling awed by the strength of his grip.  This, indeed, was a great man.

As prominent as his career came to be, he was far more interested in his grandchildren.  As important as he was to Hearst’s success, he was far more interested in being a success at home.  As many times as he met with the leaders of industry, he was far more interested in meeting my teacher or my coach.  As often as he traveled to meetings throughout the country, he was far more interested in driving my grandmother to the grocery store and her doctor’s appointments.  This, indeed, was a great man.

Before he died, my grandfather taught me much.  I learned from him, that . . .

Truly great men don’t need to be told that they’re great.   In fact, it’s often the case that great men are told they aren’t.

Truly great men make decisions – consider, deliberate, decide and, then, act.  Their decisions are often difficult – after all, you don’t need great men to make easy decisions.

Truly great men are willing to let the wisdom that only time provides judge the merit of their actions.

Truly great men are rarely interested in the visceral views of the many and far more interested in the sage views of the few.

Truly great men do not become ensconced in the pomp and circumstance of their position, but will gladly surrender to their faith, integrity and passion to do what’s right.

Truly great men recognize that leadership is less about getting others to follow and far more about empowering others to lead.

Truly great men humbly accept when the job is done, assured in the way they have done the job.

On Tuesday, a truly great man will humbly accept that his job is done, assured in the way he has done his job.   For a grateful nation and for my family which you kept safe, President Bush, I say thank you and Godspeed.  Suffice it to say, we all now know another truly great man.

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/129470

My thoughts instantly went to ‘why’ and all I could think of is:  The One must have called up Olmert and Livini and said: “All you Evil Juice.  Stop it now and withdraw, or two seconds after I take the office on Tuesday, The USA cuts off all aid to Israel, especailly all military materiel.”

Y’all know by now that I’m one of The Evil Juice…………. I have a deep feeling that The One is gonna cut off most, if not all aid to Israel anyway.

On a totally unrelated note, 99.9% of the media in American and around the world are not reporting on the violence being perpetrated against Jews in the streets and when they do report something, there is no way any of the outlets will say it was Muslims doing anything wrong.

Here’s the latest…….. The articles linked below have the AP saying there are anti-Muslim attacks on a par with anti-Jewish violence and The EJP quoting an agency saying that there have been 66 attacks against Jewish residents over the past 3 weeks.

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2009/01/16/europe/EU-France-Anti-Semitic-Attack.ph  and  http://www.ejpress.org/article/33817

Paris:  A gent was about to have his car stolen as he got into it (carjacking)… turns out he made the (almost fatal) mistake of wearing his Star Of David chain and when the “masked thieves” saw that, they went apesh**, stabbing the man and screaming death to Israel and Die Jew.

I want somebody to show me ONE instance of an unprovoked or under attack already Jewish civilian attacking a Muslim civilian on the streets …. show me ONE.  If it happened, don’t you think the Muslims would have had “a little bit” to say about it?  Hmmmmmm ?  If it happened, the peace-loving people would have immediately launched themselves with every weapon they could get their hands on at every Jew they could find in any city anywhere.

I think I’ll go to the range tomorrow for some stress relief.

Pelosi Open to Prosecution of Bush Administration Officials

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is receptive to the idea of prosecuting some Bush administration officials, while letting others who are accused of misdeeds leave office without prosecution, she told Chris Wallace in an interview on “FOX News Sunday.”

“I think you look at each item and see what is a violation of the law and do we even have a right to ignore it,” the California Democrat said. “And other things that are maybe time that is spent better looking to the future rather than to the past.”

There’s a quote out there by Alexis de Tocqueville: The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public’s money. It’s quite popular, despite the fact that Congress has been busily bribing the public with the public’s money since… oh, about the American Civil War. But never mind that now: I submit to all of you that the true reason that the American Republic has endured, public bribing by the legislature or no, is because of a very simple rule: political defeats do not end the game.

This cannot be emphasized enough, and it doesn’t get emphasized at all. Every time that the White House changes hands, we get to read self-congratulatory epistles about how wonderfully easy and simple and painless is the transfer of power. No tanks in the street, no tense moments at the various government agencies as the crop of old political appointees leave office to make room for the new crop of political appointees; there’s not even a mob. But do you know why that happens? It happens because the people leaving those jobs and positions are well aware that, when they get home, there won’t be a squad of masked gunmen from the opposing faction there to murder, rape, beat up, arrest, or drag into internal exile themselves and their families.

I do not exaggerate. This can happen. Read up on a historical example of same - trust me, the Founding Fathers knew about this; that and the French Revolution is why they all mostly hated political parties in the beginning - and ask yourself whether there’s been some sort of genetic mutation in the last two thousand years that would preclude the same thing happening here. Hint: there isn’t. This is a road we not only don’t want to go down; we don’t even want to admit that there’s a road in the first place.

Some of our lurkers are saying something right now on the order of Yeah, but these guys are guilty of war crimes! The problem with that is - well, there’s two problems. First off, the people who say that are usually possessed of other forms of mental derangement, including the one that they’re somehow good people for being against toppling dictators and protecting oppressed ethnic minorities. The second one, and the one that I was originally thinking of, is that they’re a subfaction of a political faction, which makes their opinion automatically suspect when it comes to putting another political faction in jail. Put another way: just because you think that prosecuting a different strategy in the GWOT should earn the offender a lengthy prison term doesn’t actually mean that you’re right. No matter how many people pander to your delusion.

Don’t like the way that I completely dismissed your attitude on this? Excellent: I don’t much like the way that the Democrats endlessly campaigned against a war that they supported when it was their guy in charge, and that they will support when it’s their guy in charge again. Guess what? I’m dealing with my dislike. I’m not planning an elaborate set of show trials when we take back Congress again - which we will - because that’s not how I understand the game is supposed to be played. Ask yourself this, o lurkers: do you really want to change the rules?

Really?

Crossposted at Moe Lane.

Because of this, the Russians are in a hurry - since they see themselves as being in a race against time. As an Obama Presidency began to appear likely last fall, I offered the guidepost that in terms of international problems, “Russia won’t be the worst, but they’ll be the first.”

And indeed, it literally only took a few hours after the election results were in for Putin sock-puppet President Dmitri Medvedev to immediately issue a challenge, threatening to put nuclear-capable missiles in the Kaliningrad enclave - as an “or else” with regard to the missile defense agreement with Poland (and the Czech Republic).

More recently, there has been this ongoing “gas crisis” which has threatened to freeze Europe solid in the middle of winter - and a rather harsh one at that.

Now, Russia has quietly announced plans to establish naval bases in Syria, Libya, and Yemen.

More below the fold.

There’s a news item tucked quietly into the Monday (1/18) edition of The Moscow Times:

Naval Bases Planned for Libya, Syria

Russia has decided to establish naval bases in Libya, Syria and Yemen within a few years, a military official said Friday, in a sign of Moscow’s growing foreign policy ambitions.

“It is difficult to say how much time it will take to create the bases for our fleet in these countries, but within a few years this will be done without question,” the unidentified military official told Itar-Tass.

“The political decision on this question has been taken,” the official said.

As noted above, the Russians are in a hurry. And clearly they regard political developments over here as a stroke of incredible good fortune. And they are obviously moving quickly to take advantage of that good fortune.

So I guess a good question for our incoming President on this one would be, “What do you intend to DO about this?”

So as President Bush’s tenure comes to the end, I want to pause and thank the man from Texas for all that he’s done during his tenure.  I’m sure there will be many who will write about the missed opportunities of the Bush Administration and the mistakes that he has made.  My intention, however, is to give my own favorite moments of the Bush presidency as a tribute to his many successes.

1.  His transition in 2000 and 2001:  Unlike the reality show freak parade that the Obama transition has become with its imaginary “Office of the President-Elect” and shirtless photos, spam lovefests, and more scandals than one can count, George W. Bush entered the presidency with class and grace.  After a close election and nightmare of a recount with hanging chads, George W. Bush stayed low-key and respectful of Al Gore, Bill Clinton and the outgoing administration.  He also showed real humility and class in his inaugural speech and really set out to heal the nation from a point of humility.  This is a far cry from the attempts to heal the nation from the pinnacle of hubris as Mr. Obama has done.

2.  Standing in the rubble of the World Trade Center:  This for me was one of the most memorable moments of his presidency.  The compassion and courage in the face of such evil and destruction demonstrated to the world that George W. Bush was selected to be the President “for such a time as this.”  He was quite simply the right man at the right time.  His speeches to congress and the National Cathedral during the same time period also showed the stature, clear-sightedness and resolve of the newly minted President.

3.  His Supreme Court appointments (not counting Harriet Myers!):  John Roberts and Sam Alito have demonstrated that they are good solid conservative judges.  President Bush’s other judicial appointments to the federal bench were also solid and will impact our legal system for years to come.  Nowhere is that more evident, however, than the Supreme Court.  We seriously came within 1 vote of a conservative majority on the court for the first time in decades.  Sadly, many conservatives shot themselves in the foot by not voting for McCain when the truth is that he would most likely have given us that 5th vote. 

4.   Ban on Partial-birth abortion:  President Bush signed this federal ban into law, which was finally upheld by the Supreme Court with the new Bush appointees.  This is a huge victory for the unborn and a big step forward for our nation.  Surely we can do better than stabbing infants in the skull, sucking their brains out and then dismembering them in the name of convenience and choice.

5.  Tax Cuts:  Thank you Mr. President for the tax cuts that made a noticeable difference in my own life.  The increased child tax credit has been a blessing to this father of three and won’t soon be forgotten.  Although we still struggle to pay the bills in this high-taxed state of NJ, I’m sure my taxes will go even higher in 2009 with the one-two combo of Corzine and Obama.

6.  Iraq:  I don’t see Iraq as a mistake.  Call me a zealot and extremist if you like, but this was a step that had to be taken and only President Bush had the courage to do it.  President Clinton made the same statements as President Bush on Iraq.  The difference was that he only bombed the country’s random aspirin factories whenever a sex scandal involving him began to heat up and never took anything seriously.  President Bush liberated millions of people from a genocidal madman who supported terrorism around the world financially and used WMDs on his own people.  Removing him from power was the right thing to do.  President Bush continued to show tremendous courage and humility by taking the criticism the media handed him and standing resolute in his position regarding this war.  That determination led to the surge and the successful resolution of the war (unless Barry screws it up.)

7.  The War on Terror & Gitmo:  President Bush gets it.  Evil exists and needs to be dealt with.  Unlike the rest of the fickle country, this president remembered what 9-11-01 felt like.  If most of us take a moment and think back or re-watch some of the video footage from that day, we will remember how we also felt.  President Bush took the fight to international terrorism like nobody ever has.  In a world of weak-kneed and wobbly leaders, President Bush was a solid rock of good standing against the forces of evil.  As a result, he liberated millions of people from the oppression of the Taliban in the war with Afghanistan. 

Even Gitmo, despite all of the nonsense from the media, has helped to thwart several follow-up attacks and kept the American people safe.  President Bush understands that when you are dealing with evil men who want to strap bombs to their chest in order to kill you, you don’t offer them tea and scones and politely ask them their thoughts on international politics.  Thankfully, we had a real man in charge for the last 8 years who was willing to fight evil with every ounce of his strength.  His re-structuring of the intelligence community and of the military itself will be a blessing to our nation for years to come as we continue to deal with the scourge of terrorism. This country and indeed this world owes him a great deal of gratitude.

8.  Standing for faith and freedom around the globe:  President Bush has been very open about his own Christian faith.  His wearing a bracelet from the Voice of the Martyrs organization saying “Pray for China” to the Beijing Olympics was just another example of that.  Throughout his administration he has pressured China and other anti-Christian countries to allow religious freedom in their country for persecuted Christians.

9.  Africa:  While liberals like to claim that they care, they do very little beyond talk.  President Bush has done more for the continent of Africa than any president in American history.  From his initiatives to deal with HIV/AIDS to his speaking out against the genocide in the Sudan and elsewhere, President Bush has led the way.  While Barack Obama was supporting a communist anti-Christian zealot for president in Kenya and ignoring his own brother living in poverty, President Bush was making the poverty and genocide on the African continent a priority.

10.  HUMILITY:  While Barack Obama continues to spend all of his time making out with the camera and showing off his beach body, President Bush has been doing some very impressive things behind the scenes.  President Bush has demonstrated time and time again a tremendous humility and grace that is so necessary in a president.  His countless private visits with wounded soldiers and their families go unreported because President Bush refuses to invite the press along or even alert them to his visits.  Contrast this with the incoming president who refused to visit with sick soldiers during the campaign because he wasn’t permitted to bring cameras along.  President Bush is substance while Barack Obama is style.  He is the real deal.  A good caring patriotic man who continues to sacrifice of his time and reputation for the nation he loves.  History will judge this man far differently than the vain talking heads in the media.  In a world that favors the flavor of the month, President Bush stood firm.

President Bush and Vice President Cheney have served humbly and with honor throughout these 8 years.  I didn’t agree with everything that they did, but I know without a shadow of a doubt that they always had the country’s best interests at heart.  For 8 years, we could go to bed at night knowing that President Bush was in control and that he would do everything in his power to keep us safe.  I’m afraid that is a luxury that we simply won’t have during the next 4 years.  For now, however, I would like to thank President Bush for all that he’s done and wish him well as he returns to private life.

May God Bless President George W. Bush!

I wish I were kidding, but I’m not. Someone has carefully - painstakingly - searched out each gender specific reference and replaced them: person in place of man; he or she in place of he; chair in place of chairman…you get the picture.

This is the kind of meaningless gesture of which liberals are fond. They can point to this exercise in futility to show how sensitive they are to gender issues without actually accomplishing anything of value. Or doing any thing crazy like actually showing some respect to the opposite gender (Sarah Palin ring a bell?).

That being said, if they’re set on doing this, they ought to go all out and do it right. I’d like to offer a suggestion. Rather than replace “he” with “he or she, ” which is awkward, I suggest we a whole new third person pronoun, “s**t,” which is a combination of “s/he” and “it,” all cleaned up to make it suitable for children.

Consider this excerpt from RCW 4.24.040 and Code 1881 s 1226.

…he s**t shall do it at such time and in such manner, and shall take such care of it to prevent it from spreading and doing damage to other persons’ property, as a prudent and careful man person would do, and if he s**t fails so to do he s**t shall be liable in an action on the case to any person suffering damage thereby to the full amount of such damage.

Works nicely, don’t you think?

S**t. I would have to say that pretty much sums up how I feel about our Legislature wasting their time on this pointless, well, s**t. To the Labor and Commerce Committee, however, it was so important that they considered it as one of their first pieces of business.

The legislature could be considering the supplemental budget, passing cuts that would start saving the State money right now. Instead, they’re working on this.

S**t indeed.

Cross posted at It’s Only Words

Feast your boredom on the Barack Obama Inauguration Speech Generator!!!

http://www.atom.com/spotlights/inauguration_speech_generator/

Don’t pretend you’re too good for this.

Here’s mine:

My fellow Americans, today is a scintillating day. You have shown the world that “hope” is not just another word for “pixie dust”, and that “change” is not only something we can believe in again, but something we can actually prance.

Today we celebrate, but let there be no mistake – America faces nefarious and discombobulated challenges like never before. Our economy is positively spiffing. Americans can barely afford their mortgages, let alone have enough money left over for terrorists. Our healthcare system is artful. If your shiny metal rear is sick and you don’t have insurance, you might as well call a bloodsucking lawyer. And America’s image overseas is tarnished like a CHANGE HOPE. But sallying forth together we can right this ship, and set a course for Candy Mountain (!).

Finally, I must thank my auspicious family, my saucy campaign volunteers, but most of all, I want to thank Libertarians for making this historic occasion possible. Of course, I must also thank you, President Bush, for years of lurking the American people. Without your felicitous efforts, none of this would have been possible.

If it weren’t for internet schlop, I’d never make it through the day.
And yes, I realize you’ve all probably seen this by now…but that doesn’t make it any less fun!

Cookies for the best speech. YES YOU CAN!!! YES YOU CAN!!!

~A