novatownhall blog

The situation of the polygamist Mormons in Texas in disgusting.  This is religious persecution, pure and simple.  The Washington Compost reports that the anonymous call that precipitated the raid was a hoax.  It is for precisely this reason that an anonymous call is not sufficient justification for a search and seizure.  Having found no evidence of abuse, the state “will say that the culture of the church, which encouraged girls to marry and bear children in their early teens, was a danger to any child immersed in it.” 

Such a theory is ridiculous.  It seems to me that encouraging people to delay marriage, contrary to the God-given sex drive which comes in one’s early teens, and teaching the “safe sex” lie rather than celibacy outside of marriage, which is the standard liberal line, is far more of a danger to children.  Despite condoms and other means of protection, pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases are still a threat to teenagers who have sex.  (Abortion is not risk-free to the mother — to the child, of course, it is fatal.  Having a baby out of wedlock is a ticket to poverty for mother and child.)  But if women only have sex with their husbands, and husbands only have sex with their wives, there are no such dangers. 

Young marriages, and arranged marriages, have been the norm around the world for a very long time.  Only now, in our Western culture, is it considered bad.  There’s that cultural arrogance that the liberals are so fond of point out.  Where is the vaunted liberal tolerance when it comes to religious conservatives?  Oh, yes, that is reserved for those religious conservatives who hate America and are not White.

Oddly enough, even Texas Law allows young teens to get married.  If it is allowed by state law, how can the state argue that it is a danger?  The worst possible prosecution for an actual crime might be that they did not get a marriage licenses — which is only a misdemeanor.

But here is the crux of the state’s dilemma: it must argue that minors’ getting married is harmful enough that it must be controlled by the state, but minors’ having sex outside of marriage is not.

Well, being a Hokie myself, I’m no fan of BC football, but I have to admit that the Falcon’s choice of Boston College quarterback Matt Ryan to replace the idiot (C)Hokie Michael Vick is a good one.  Last October, Tech went to the God-forsaken “prevent defense,” and Ryan took advantage of that stupidity in brilliant fashion.  (In the Dec. 1 rematch for the ACC Championship, however, Tech did not repeat their earlier stupidity, and kept the pressure on Ryan the whole game, winning 30-16.)

The Rams have also made a fantastic choice in UVa’s defensive end Chris Long, son of Hall-of-Fame Raider Howie Long.

I am very impressed that the first round was dominated by linemen.  “Seven tackles were taken in the draft’s first 21 picks, and eight in the first round. Seven defensive linemen were selected in the opening round.”  (WaPo)  It does a team no good to have and excellent quarterback and receivers if the receivers cannot run their routes before the quarterback is sacked or flushed out of the pocket.  It does no good to have a running back without a line to make holes and provide lead blocking.

One of the most impressive wins I’ve seen was a few years back when the underdog Redskins crushed the Dallas Cowboys.  On each running play, the Redskins linemen were getting five yards upfield before the running back passed through the holes they made.  On the other hand, in Virginia Tech’s national championship game in 2005, the Hokies took the lead by rushing the football.  They had a bigger and stronger offensive line than Florida State’s defense could handle.  But it was Vick’s last game, and they wanted to make it the Michael Vick Show, so they went back to the pass.  The Criminol’s defensive line, smaller and faster than the Chokie’s offensive line, ran right around the outside and sacked Vick.  Game over.

I’ll take the best lineman and with a mediochre backfield over the reverse any day.

It appears that some in the U.S. enviro-whackos-r-us crowd are beginning to see the light. The first part of the equation is there is no scientific proof that we cause global warming. The second part is that wind power, solar power etc is too inefficient to meet our energy needs. What we need is a return to the energy source of that we abandoned in the 70′s, nuclear power. Patrick Moore says:

there is no proof global warming is caused by humans, but it is likely enough that the world should turn to nuclear power

A nuclear power plant creates less nuclear waste than a coal burning power plant. The amount carbon 14 released directly into the atmosphere far and away exceeds the amount of nuclear material created by a nuclear plant. Then there are the other pollutants created by burning of fossil fuels such as coal.

Life has not been good to Al Gore, first he gets stuck as vice-vice president, third in line after Hillary Clinton while ol’ Bubba is frisking interns, then he loses the election despite the media being in the tank for him, a more or less peaceful world and a good domestic economy. Now Gore is proving to be one of the more famous snake oil salesmen in history. If the oceans would just hurry up and rise already. In the mean time food is getting scarce due to the emerging bio-fuels fiasco:

One factor being blamed for the price hikes is the use of government subsidies to promote the use of corn for ethanol production. An estimated 30% of America’s corn crop now goes to fuel, not food.

“I don’t think anybody knows precisely how much ethanol contributes to the run-up in food prices, but the contribution is clearly substantial,” a professor of applied economics and law at the University of Minnesota, C. Ford Runge, said.

This means of energy production is turning out to be grossly inefficient, and does not reduce the CO2 emissions. In fact considering the amount of energy needed to created a gallon of biofuel, it more than likely will become a net increase.

This form of energy does have a plus side I am sure in the eyes of the left wing enviro-whackos, it will starve out all those pesky poor people and finally cause that long needed population draw down. Not to worry though, because the middles class will become poor paying for food due to this plan. We will still have poor people, the future of the Democrat party is ensured.

In the meantime this is turning out to be an embarrassment for Gore, the swami of the environmental movement, he has a Nobel peace prise and an Oscar to prove it.

Mr. Senauer said climate change advocates, such as Vice President Gore, need to distance themselves from ethanol to avoid tarnishing the effort against global warming.

but

In an interview last year, Mr. Gore expressed his support for corn-based ethanol

Ooops! Guess he should have thought this one through first a bit. First time for everything, this would have been a good place to start.

Considering the impact this is having we need to look at Japan and other first world countries to see what passes for energy policy outside the U.S., being we do not have an energy policy. Japan seek to get 60% of their power from nuclear energy by 2030. Part the the drive to increase nuclear power is to decrease CO2 emissions. Something the one would expect the enviro-whackos to applaud, but no, they obviously would prefer to see us living in yurts, and all that implies.

Interesting column in the UK Times: The Democrats have squandered the chance of a lifetime:

Under pressure in a Democratic primary, Mr Obama has sounded just like any other tax-raising, government-loving Democratic politician. Worse, he has revealed himself to be a member of that special subset of the party’s liberal elite – a well-educated man with a serious superiority complex.

His worst moment of the campaign was when he was caught telling liberal sophisticates about his anthropological observations on the campaign trail…

The myth that Obama transcends politics and ideology has been smashed, permanently. From himself, his wife, and their friends, there is now a rich audio and video trail of evidence that will be used extensively in the fall to demonstrate that John McCain is the only candidate for president Americans should feel comfortable with.

How ironic that McCain, the least attractive candidate for so many Republicans, will be able to position himself as the candidate Americans can relate to. I guess that’s the best the GOP can hope for in a Democrat year.

UPDATE: More on the same theme here:

As people begin to learn about this just-arrived pretender, the magic dissipates. He spent six weeks in Pennsylvania. Outspent Hillary more than two to one. Ran close to 10,000 television ads — spending more than anyone in any race in the history of the state — and lost by 10 points.

And not because he insufficiently demagogued NAFTA or the other “issues.” It was because of those “distractions” — i.e., the things that most reveal character and core beliefs.

Obama had a good thing going when he was simply a guy with a good speaking style. Now, the tabula rasa has been filled in.

“A children’s story of marijuana.” Heh heh heh.

You don’t have to be a high-baby stoner to appreciate it, but it probably helps. A lot.

The “environmental” movement jumped the whale shark long ago, and is in the process of jumping the Loch Ness Monster:

Sunspot activity has not resumed up after hitting an 11-year low in March last year, raising fears that — far from warming — the globe is about to return to an Ice Age, says an Australian-American scientist…

“This is the fastest temperature change in the instrumental record, and it puts us back to where we were in 1930,” Chapman wrote in The Australian Wednesday. “If the temperature does not soon recover, we will have to conclude that global warming is over.”

The global cooling scam of the 1970s morphed into the global warming scam of the 1990s, which is now transitioning into the indeterminate environmental freak out scam of the current age.

The point is to make everyone susceptible to behavior modification.

And because the actual environment refuses to cooperate with the ideological framing, eco-freaks are now attempting to re-brand the ineffable threat under the more plausible rationale of “climate change.”

This is a pretty safe approach, given the established concept of “seasons,” which much of humanity is prone to accept, considering what happens all the time around us. The cleverness of this approach will be measured by the extent to which normal people can be convinced that the weather should serve as a reason to reverse the gains that technology has brought to human civilization.

It turned out to be a pretty fantastic trip aboard the Tenacious charter boat of Deale, Maryland.

(The full photo round up is over at Digital Camel.)

Captain Jacob Henderson (left) and First Mate Karl of the Tenacious are definitely the bomb. I will eventually be posting a video of the trip but suffice it to say for now that these two combine excellent fishing skills with outstanding customer relations. If you’ve ever been out on a Chesapeake charter boat, you know the latter is not part of the typical skill set. If you are planning a family outing, and especially one that might involve kids or normal goofball adults who don’t like to get yelled at simply because they only go fishing once a year, you can’t go wrong with the Tenacious.

I’ve been out on many, many fishing boats all over the country, and I’ve only met one or two other crews that were nearly as good as these two guys.

Kevin (right), the Digital Camel majordomo who put the trip together, and his brother Steve, who is the mischievous sort of elder brother, and with whom I naturally therefore have an affinity.

We had seven fishermen, and caught the limit of one BIG striper each. Most were 34″-39″ and heavy. Everyone went home with many pounds of rockfish fillets. A good day. Go read more about it!