RedStateEclectic

Murray Sabrin

Ron Paul Republican, Senatorial candidate Murray Sabrin, is having a money bomb today.  Think about helping him out.

Bloomberg: End of the Oil Age

Bloomberg.com dated today

QUOTE "This is what the end of the age of oil means," says Reinert, 60, who plans the vehicles Toyota will make in a quarter century as national manager for advanced technology at the U.S. sales unit in Torrance, California. "The car-based culture, the business-as- usual of building cars and trucks, is going to change dramatically."

Since Henry Ford introduced the moving assembly line in 1913, the world's automakers have relied on a single source of power--the gasoline-dependent internal combustion engine. Today, the twin threats of $100-a-barrel oil and global warming are convulsing an industry addicted to cheap, abundant petroleum. Auto companies, already hurt in 2007 by the lowest U.S. demand in a decade, are struggling to perfect cars that run on ethanol, diesel, natural gas, hydrogen and household electricity. They're under the gun from California and more than a dozen other states to cut carbon exhaust by 2020 with vehicles that must get 44 miles per gallon (19 kilometers per liter) of gasoline, about double today's average. On Dec. 19, President George W. Bush signed a law that mandates fuel-efficiency of 35 mpg nationwide by that year. UNQUOTE

Moose Jaw Wheat Market Scoop

From The Moose Jaw Times Herald (I kid you not, and even weirder, it is pertinent.)

Don't you just hate it when grain market specialists have that deer-in-the-headlights look and have their hands in the 'I surrender position', while expert farmers have to go with the 'protect your testicles' hands-in-their-pockets body language?

QUOTE  Weather poses the biggest risk to farm incomes this year, according to the Canadian Wheat Board’s weather specialist.
    “You can grow pretty well any crop you want this year and get a decent return,” said Bruce Burnett, wheat board director of market analysis.
    “The only threat is weather.”
    Low global stocks of grain, an event that normally pushes up grain prices,  have existed for years with no impact on price levels, he told a wheat board market outlook seminar in Moose Jaw Thursday.
    “Everybody was asleep at the switch. We’ve eaten ourselves out of the global food surpluses we had,” said Burnett.
    “Suddenly, there’s a demand for grain.” UNQUOTE

Back Among the Living

Thanks to Deb who has been posting today...  I woke up last night suffering from a nasty case of gastrointeritis (the stomach flue).  My husband woke up about an hour later with the same problem.  Not sure if it was something we both ate last night, or the same bug my 4 year old had earlier in the week.  Regardless, after a day spent resting in between episodes, I'm finally starting to feel a little better.  Now to rehydrate.  I'll try to get back to posting tonight, although it could be tomorrow before you see much from me.

LLE

Fat Bottomed Girls You Make The Rockin' World Go Round

Definately OFF TOPIC but worth a read since it contains one of the best snarky comebacks I have ever heard.  For Racu: An Anecdote.

Dedicated to all smart, funny, good-hearted people everywhere, especially the women and girls, of a certain BMI. AND it's likely the only time I will ever link to a Wiccan web site, but you have to tip your  hat to hilariously good snark wherever it is found. Who knew "heretics" could be so witty?

Oh, and here is Queen's classic Fat Bottomed Girls.

ROFLMAO After I post I'm gonna go read it again!

Ron Paul's Letter in Today's WSJ

The Dollar is a Big Element of U.S. Security

Wall Street Journal 02/29/2008

I was delighted to read in Judy Shelton's op-ed, "Security and the Falling Dollar" (Feb. 15), that at long last the security implications of the dollar's collapse have made their way into the mainstream media. The dollar's strength (or lack thereof) has been of paramount concern to me, and the subject of many of my statements over the past several years. Decades of manipulation by the Federal Reserve have benefited the government and certain politically-connected firms, while gradually destroying the purchasing power of middle-class Americans. Despite numerous warnings in the past, it is only now at a point of acute crisis that Washington insiders are beginning to awaken to the reality of the end of dollar hegemony.

While I desire reform of our current monetary system, my own proposals have not been as all-encompassing as Ms. Shelton's suggestion to return to a Bretton Woods-style system. Her recommendation, though, that gold backing should make up a component of a future monetary system, is one that we would all do well to heed. My own legislative proposals focus around eliminating the taxes and laws that dissuade individuals and institutions from using gold as currency or as a backing for currency. By allowing market processes to determine the issuance of currency, we can allow individuals to decide for themselves what currency they wish to use. This would lead to a gradual reintroduction of sound money and avoid the market shocks that occur when monetary decisions are mandated by government fiat.

Rep. Ron Paul (R., Texas)
Washington

Why I'll Never Vote For McCain

There are actually quite a number of reasons, but as a Traditional Byzantine Catholic, this one tops my list.

It also begs the question of why are some prejudices more acceptable than others?

The Catholic League's Bill Donohue, the media's arbiter for all matters relating to what is most nicely called  "anti-Catholic bigotry," is quite furious about McCain's warm embrace of Pastor Hagee:

QUOTE: McCAIN EMBRACES BIGOT

Catholic League president Bill Donohue addressed this today:

"There are plenty of staunch evangelical leaders who are pro-Israel, but are not anti-Catholic. John Hagee is not one of them. Indeed, for the past few decades, he has waged an unrelenting war against the Catholic Church. For example, he likes calling it 'The Great Whore,' an 'apostate church,' the 'anti-Christ,' and a 'false cult system' . . . .

"In Hagee's latest book, Jerusalem Countdown, he calls Hitler a Catholic who murdered Jews while the Catholic Church did nothing. 'The sell-out of Catholicism to Hitler began not with the people but with the Vatican itself,' *** he writes. . . .

Senator Obama has repudiated the endorsement of Louis Farrakhan, another bigot. McCain should follow suit and retract his embrace of Hagee.

Whenever Bill Donohue attacks Democrats as being anti-Catholic -- during, for the instance, the grave matter of the Edwards campaign's hiring of Amanda Marcotte and Melissa McEwan as campaign bloggers -- Donohue was ubiquitous, treated with the utmost respect. Donohue's righteous protests over John McCain's embrace of such a stark, hateful anti-Catholic bigot merit at least as much attention as the Edwards Blogger Scandal, to put it mildly.

UPDATE VI: I interviewed The Catholic League's President, Bill Donohue, regarding the McCain/Hagee connection. The write-up on the interview is here; the podcast can be heard here. UNQUOTE

_____________________________________________________________________

***   If any of our readers believe this lie, please read The Myth of Hitler's Pope by Lew Rockwell's Thomas E. Woods, Jr.

One thing I have learned since having become a Catholic and after having studied my faith more fully is this: where there are unreasonable attacks against the Church, there is either ignorance or a malignant heart. Scratch the surface of someone who gets their kicks (or paychecks) slandering the Church or presenting it as some sort of ossified dinosaur that's too stupid and reactionary to figure out that Truth changes, and you'll find one of a few things:

• a hellfire and brimstone Protestant raised on English myths rooted in anti-Spain and anti-Catholic sentiments;

• a Marxist, Socialist, or other breed of leftist;
• a radical feminist;
• someone who wants to normalize homosexuality;
• someone who promotes abortion and/or the use of abortion-causing contraception;

• the kind of person who worships "goddesses" and "forces" or otherwise engages in New Age hoodoo;

• a cynical kid raised in our secular materialist world who's read his socialist-penned schoolbooks and believes that "religion" is the cause of all evil and that assertions of Truth violate the principles of "cultural diversity" and lead one to be a "hater" (or one of those kids all grown up but who's never opened a book since having left high school or hasn't read anything that wasn't assigned to him by his university's Women's Studies Department).

Flogging Hillary

From North Star Writer's Group's Dan Calabrese comes another well-deserved scourging for Miz Clinton. He hints that she has blown her shot at the Democratic nomination.

I suppose I should be ashamed of any hint of schadenfreude, especially during Lent, but dang it, I surely love to see that smug-faced, yuppie-scum climber trying to deal with her own bad karma.

( Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.)

Be sure and click over & read the whole thing. It's a good one.

QUOTE  How did the Clinton people manage to run such an embarrassingly bad campaign? Inquiring minds want to know.

But it’s really not that hard to figure out. In truth, they had nothing to work with – a problem that was only exacerbated by the fact that they were so thoroughly convinced of the opposite.With the spectacular flop that has been her presidential campaign, the myth of Hillary Clinton at last unravels. She was none of the things that so many people seemed convinced she was. She was really not all that smart. She was certainly not all that tough. And as much as she and her true believers wanted to think otherwise, she wasn’t popular – not even among Democrats. UNQUOTE

Papa Geno's Herb Farm

Papa Geno is now taking orders for Spring 2008 delivery of seeds, herbs, scented geraniums and veggies. Order a little bit of rural Nebraska for your garden.

Note: I don't get any kickbacks, I just like their web site, am longing for Spring, and think maybe RSE readers would enjoy a little piece of the Eclectic Red State known as Nebraska in their home garden, wherever in the wide world that may be!

    

Oh Dear, This is Just Sad...

From MyWay.com

WASHINGTON (AP) - QUOTE  President Bush said Thursday the country is not recession-bound and, despite expressing concern about slowing economic growth, rejected for now any additional stimulus efforts. "We acted robustly," he said. UNQUOTE

and

QUOTE  On one issue particularly worrisome to American consumers, there are indications that paying $4 for a gallon of gasoline is not out of the question once the summer driving season arrives. Asked about that, Bush said "That's interesting. I hadn't heard that. ... I know it's high now." UNQUOTE