RedStateEclectic

Misty ...

... as played by the tune's originator, the great Erroll Louis Garner.

Just take a little break:

 

The Jason Lewis Show

I happened to hear a few scrambled evening radio snippets of some guy who sounded intriguing. Upon tracking him down through the station’s call letters, I discovered that it was Jason Lewis. I then listened to some of his podcasts. His ideas are much more in line with my political philosophy than those of Limbaugh/Shamity et al. He’s also written a book: Power Divided is Power Checked: The Argument for States' Rights

It turns out that he even interviewed Ron Paul back in ‘07. He was not on the same page in all respects but it was a decent interview for the most part. His more recent interviews sound much more in line with Ron Paul’s philosophy and Dr. Paul even gets positive mention from time to time.

Here’s a segment of the show where Mr. Lewis questions our “foreign interventionism”. In a different segment, he interviews a retired military colonel (Why is it always the retired ones?) who espouses the same (2nd half of segment). Col. Doug McGregor, author of the book, Breaking the Phalanx, asserts that we’ve established a “narco-state” in Kabul that’s exponentially larger than it was before we were in the area which helps fund terrorism.

“We have to understand that these interventions are really self-defeating. you know, you said that ‘we were defeated”. I would argue that we have defeated ourselves.”

A very interesting interview.

Here are more segments if interested.

The PATRIOT Act is Not Conservative

Jack Hunter (aka “The Southern Avenger”), nails it again:

The Age of Ron Paul

Ah yes.  I remember the sudden influx of Ron Paul YouTube videos 4 years ago.  They’ve always been good at revving up the true believers; the question is: 1) are they realistic?; 2) will they appeal to non-true believers?

Apt to Be Just a Little Too Square ...

... well, see for yourself.

Is the term "square" being used anymore, at all? When I use it, I seem to be looked at as if I were apt to be just a little too square:

 

Acid Rain (2) - A German Perspective

"Acid Rain" - German: "Saurer Regen"

The superb Pierre Gosselin reminds us in his NoTricksZone blog:

In the early 1980s, the science was settled. Germany's forests were dying and would disappear in just a few years. The culprit: man. Today the forests are healthier than ever. [...]

There are so many parallels to today’s modern climate hysteria. Again, back then there was “consensus”, all the scientists agreed, there was no denying the catastrophe, and politicians called it a grave threat that required immediate action. Fear gripped Germany. Environmentalists, union leaders, church leaders, citizens, politicians, etc. marched on the streets and demanded the government take action. The culprit was clear: emissions from industry and man were producing acid-rain that was chemically searing forests.

In his post, Pierre Gosselin renders in English the highlights of an acid-rain documentary (available only in French and German) that

takes a look back at one of the greatest environmental hysterias ever to grip a population: Waldsterben (forest dieback), a.k.a. acid rain.

Make sure to read the source.

See also Acid Rain (1) - An American Perspective.

Acid Rain (1) - An American Perspective

Acid rain ("saurer Regen"), and purportedly inescapably associated with it "Waldsterben" ("dying forests"), used to be the Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) of the 1980s in Germany. The country was in almost mass psychotic fear of an impending man-made apocalypse.

Now, for the US-American perspective:

In 1994, the US-Congress-mandated National Acid Precipitation Assessment Program (NAPAP), involving hundreds of scientists conducting extensive laboratory and field investigations around the country, published these results on acid rain in North America:

• Acid rain has not injured forests in either the U.S. or Canada.

• Acid rain has had no observable effect on human health.

• Acid rain has not injured crops, and may even have a positive effect on some crops.

• Acid rain has acidified only a very small number of lakes, and these can be restored to health by liming.

Conclusion of a Heartland Institute survey article on the NAPAP results from 1994:

In the scientific community, the NAPAP findings are accepted as
authoritative. But the environmental movement, having sold acid rain as
an urgent problem requiring your immediate financial contribution, chooses simply to ignore the study.

The acid rain provisions of the Clean Air Act Amendments will add billions of dollars a year to the utility bills of homeowners and businesses, yet the benefits in terms of environmental protection and human health will be negligible.

The story of acid rain demonstrates a painful truth about the modem
environmental movement: Too often, good sciences imply doesn‘t matter.
According to one insider interviewed on 60 Minutes in 1990, “The
environmental community has spent almost no effort attempting to even
monitor the progress [of NAPAP]. . .  We have been working on trying
to get legislation in Washington.” Politicians, under heavy pressure from
media and the environmental lobby, also chose to ignore the NAPAP
report. The U.S. Senate spent just one hour discussing the report for
which it spent $500 million in taxpayers’ money. Incredibly, the report
was never even presented to the House of Representatives.

Senator John Glenn (D-Ohio) scolded his colleagues with words that
could have been directed to the environmental movement as well:
"We spend over $500 million on the most definitive study of acid
precipitation that has ever been done in the history of the world and
then we do not want to listen to what [the experts] say."

The NAPAP study, to summarize, found that claims of the destructive
effects of acid rain are much exaggerated. Acid ruin poses little or no
threat toforests, crops. human health, or lakes. Once again, billions of
dollars are wasted battling a problem that doesn’t exist.

Go to the excellent source.

The Real Problem With Mitt Romney

(Relax Twitter - it's a joke!)

Some people believe that Mitt Romney is unfit to be president because the health reform he instituted as Massachusetts governor included an individual mandate.

I believe Romney is unfit to be president because he used a PowerPoint presentation to defend it.

Read the whole thing!

Eric Dondero - Libertarian Republican

Bwah ha ha ha ha ha! 

You know it's election time when Donderooooo rears his silly head and starts trolling for attention from the right.  I have often been tempted to write a piece about this silly little man, but quite found him to be just not worth the time.

Wesley at The Humble Libertarian seems to have summed Eric Dondero up for me though.

 

Rafal Blechacz Plays Chopin

I hope you don't mind the German jabbering which contains little more than the audible English statements by Blechacz. The longest stretch of German dubbing explains that Blechacz consciously ignored media reporting of the Chopin competition to keep just the right inner artistic tension ahead of his performances, and that no runner-up was announced, when Blechacz was declared the winner. I find both Blechacz's interpretation of Chopin as well as the optical studies of his play quite fascinating.