Information on my six books
NASA UFO Files Revealed On Science Channel Special
Excerpt: Since the 1960s, when NASA astronauts first left the confines of Earth to begin exploration above and beyond our planet, their cameras have captured some amazing sights. Some of those moments will be revealed Tuesday night on the Science Channel's "NASA's Unexplained Files," the final episode of its month-long "Are We Alone?" series. Spanning the Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, Skylab and space shuttle programs, astronauts saw unusual lights and objects, some considered unidentified flying objects or UFOs. (If this had shown up earlier in the day, I’d think it was to boost the show’s ratings, but since the story showed up on HuffPo after the program aired.... I guess I’ll have to wait for it in reruns. I suspect there is intelligent life out there, somewhere, but currently, I don’t believe there is any convincing evidence of it. [Sidenote: we’ve all experienced horrid nightmares. One I remember clearly was standing in a field, watching what appeared to be a battle directly overhead between two opposing air forces in a cloudless, moonless sky. Suddenly, both sides are swept from the sky by a wave-front of blue light. And, sliding up the sky from the horizon came rank after rank of shining lights. By the time the foremost rank had reached the zenith of the sky—and they were still coming without end and the curved front rank kept expanding to reach the horizon to both sides and outnumbered the visible stars—I awoke screaming. Because no combination of Earthly powers could have built that many spaceships in secret.] Ron P.)
EPA Proposes First-Ever Climate Rules
Excerpt: The Environmental Protection Agency proposed limits on greenhouse-gas emissions from new power plants on Tuesday, taking the first major regulatory action to address climate change as promised by President Obama's administration soon after he took office in 2009. But in a comment that stunned environmentalists, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said the administration has “no plans” to issue similar regulations for existing power plants, which produce the bulk of U.S. carbon emissions attributed to climate change. (Wink, wink, nudge, nudge: he’ll have more flexibility after the election. No doubt the process of determining the next set of regulations will be as transparent as the process was this time (like looking through stone, in other words). Ron P. )
Pic de Bugarach: French commune home to 20,000 ‘doomsday cultists’ awaiting alien salvation
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/pic-bugarach-french-commune-home-20-000-doomsday-210932058.html
Excerpt: An estimated 20,000 New Age believers who say the "upside down" mountain is home to aliens who will rescue them from an impending apocalypse have saturated a small French commune near the foot of the picturesque Pic de Bugarach.
Things banned on NY tests
Homer Wright, Elderly Chicago Man, Arrested For Shooting Burglar
Excerpt: Residents on Chicago's South Side are "outraged" Tuesday after their elderly neighbor was arrested for shooting a man who tried to break into his home. Police told ABC Chicago that 19-year-old Anthony Robinson was breaking into the home of 80-year-old Homer Wright Monday morning when Wright shot the intruder. (Since the shot burglar is black, Homer is lucky he is too, or a raving crowd of thousands led by Rev. Al and Rev. Jesse, egged on by the media, would descend on him. And BO would say the burglar could look like his son. ~Bob.)
Elderly Vet Fights Off Would-be Carjacker in Lincoln Park: Suspect is Brother of Slain Detroit Police Officer
Excerpt: It turns out Bowens just got out of prison in December and has as many priors as he does tattoos -- numerous bank robberies, larcenies and stolen cars. "He indicated that he targeted the elderly couple because of their age," Lincoln Park Police Sergeant Joseph Lavis said in court. "He felt that they would offer little or no resistance."
DEA: Wannabe Cartel Hit Squad Included Former U.S. Soldiers
Excerpt: A DEA sting operation targeting a cell of would-be cartel assassins ended in a violent warehouse showdown over the weekend. Among their ranks: one active-duty Army soldier, and one former G.I.
Toulouse gunman’s father threatens to sue France
Excerpt: The father of Mohamed Mehra, the man who confessed to killing seven people in a 10-day killing spree in south-west France, told FRANCE 24 on Tuesday that he wants to take the French state to court for failing to capture his son alive.
Excerpt: Islamic militants with ties to terror group al-Qaida have launched the "ethnic cleansing of minority Christians" in Syria, forcing tens of thousands of people to flee the embattled Syrian city of Homs and other areas, aid workers confirmed Tuesday, March 27. At least 90 percent of Christians living in Homs have fled after "fanatics" forced them to leave their homes, said Dutch aid group 'Kerk in Nood', or Church in Need. (Well, just so they don't become Islamophobic. ~Bob.)
Egyptian Cleric Muhammad Hussein Yaaqub Calls for the Implementation of Islamic Punishments in Egypt: Execution, Crucifixion, and the Amputation of Opposite Hands and Feet
Excerpt: The [hiraba] punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger, and who strive to spread corruption in the land, is for them to be executed, or to be crucified, or to have their hand and foot chopped off on opposite sides, or to be banished from the land. The implementation of this punishment will guarantee security. (Ah, the media-endorsed freedom fighters of the Arab Spring. ~Bob.)
Syria: Muslim cleric says it is permissible to kill Alawite women and children
Excerpt: Is it permissible to kill 'Alawites – their women and their children – in retaliation for their actions? Muhammad Badi' Moussa : Yes, my brother. We have issued a communiqué to the 'Alawites, in which we gave them a strong warning, which may be the last.
Former dean of Islamic Law at Saudi university misunderstands Islam, says Islamic law permits possession of slaves
Excerpt: Of course this is not really a misunderstanding at all. Muhammad owned slaves, and the Qur’an takes the existence of slavery for granted, even as it enjoins the freeing of slaves under certain circumstances, such as the breaking of an oath: “Allah will not call you to account for what is futile in your oaths, but He will call you to account for your deliberate oaths: for expiation, feed ten indigent persons, on a scale of the average for the food of your families; or clothe them; or give a slave his freedom” (5:89).
Excerpt: Almost everyone involved in health care will tell you that the greatest problem in our system is that we pay on a fee-for-service basis. Almost everyone is wrong. The logic is obvious – paying a fee for a service encourages providers to get more fees by providing more services. Ergo, we consume too much and spend too much. Ipso facto, getting rid of fee-for-service would result in fewer services and less spending. Case closed. Well, maybe not. In fact, almost everything we do in the course of our economic lives, we do on a fee-for-service basis.
Prosecutors: Democratic campaign treasurer embezzled at least $7 million from multiple clients
Excerpt: Well, if they want a Democrat who is supposed to be good with money to replace her, I hear Jon Corzine is available. ~Bob. Excerpt: A longtime California Democratic campaign treasurer embezzled at least $7 million from as many as 50 clients including politicians, local officials and other political entities in a scheme that continued for more than 10 years, according to a new court filing by federal prosecutors. Kinde Durkee, who spent two decades working for scores of campaigns in California and was Sen. Dianne Feinstein's campaign treasurer, was charged with five new counts of mail fraud in the court filing late Tuesday. (It sounds like she just took her patronage off the top rather than form a company to get subsidized loans and insider deals. Without all those middlemen, it may have even saved the California taxpayers many times that many dollars. Just good Democrat efficiency. Ron P.)
AUSTRIA: Guess who’s setting fires to Christian landmarks in Vienna?
Excerpt: The Turkish Fire Devils were spotted by several people on their last escapade: setting fire to the laying-in hall next to the cemetery in Josefstadt. All the eye-witnesses agree that the perpetrators were Turks. (Hope this doesn’t make the Christians there Islamophobic! ~Bob.)
Another Vision to Solve the Budget Crisis
Excerpt: It has now been 1,064 days since the U.S. Senate passed a budget, the national debt is nearing $16 trillion, and the deficit is at $3 trillion. In the face of this mess, the Republican Study Committee (RSC) yesterday unveiled its plan to balance the budget in five years, and it does so with entitlement reforms, sharp and aggressive spending cuts, avoiding tax hikes, including pro-growth tax reform, and providing for a strong national defense.
Interesting: Sinners In the Hands of Anthony Kennedy: The left cries foul as the right uses the federal courts to do as the left has done for years. by Erick Erickson
Excerpt: Justice Anthony Kennedy opened his mouth and uttered his first question on the issue of the individual mandate. He asked, “Can you create commerce in order to regulate it?” The question, the second asked yesterday morning, bothered the left. … All of this, however, overshadows a more important issue — how the hell did a constitutional, democratic republic come to depend on the whims of one man in a black robe who nobody ever elected to anything? (If the government can require you to buy health insurance, it can require you to buy a gun. ~Bob.)
Excerpt: A check I made this morning suggests that the answer is yes, if coal is an issue in this election, it could swing close states. Here’s a simple chart of the closeness of a state’s 2008 Presidential election result vs the state’s coal use as a percentage.
The War on Wisconsin by Michelle Malkin
Excerpt: The yearlong campaign of union thuggery, family harassment and intimidation of Republican donors and businesses is about to escalate even further. This is the price the Right pays for doing the right thing. (If Wisconsin taxpayers want to see what the results of a recall will be, they need only look south to Illinois, where Gov. Pat Quinn, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the public employee unions, now admits the state is close to fiscal collapse. Anyone who votes to recall Walker can save trouble by adding a signed blank check to the ballot box. ~Bob.)
Worth Reading: Western Survival Depends on Western Pride by David J. Rusin
Excerpt: Claude Guéant, the French interior minister, sparked a firestorm last month when he praised Western values as “superior” to the oppressive ones found elsewhere, namely the Islamic world. Yet the controversy did more to spotlight an area in which the West clearly trails its rivals: self-confidence. If a government official cannot extol the unique virtues of freedom and equality that define Western life without being cast as a bigot by the politically correct, how can they be safeguarded against the highly motivated forces of Islamism, which doubt neither the superiority of their own principles nor the righteousness of imposing them on others?
Worth Reading: Back to the Future? By Thomas Sowell
Excerpt: When a 1942 Supreme Court decision that most people never heard of makes the front page of the New York Times in 2012, you know that something unusual is going on. What makes that 1942 case -- Wickard v. Filburn -- important today is that it stretched the federal government's power so far that the Obama administration is using it as an argument to claim before today's Supreme Court that it has the legal authority to impose ObamaCare mandates on individuals. … Once it was established that the federal government could regulate not only interstate commerce itself, but anything with any potential effect on interstate commerce, the Tenth Amendment's limitations on the powers of the federal government virtually disappeared.
Tweet from Elisha @ThisGirlisRight
I guess if we want to know what Obama's plans are for America, we should ask Putin.
Rep. Bobby Rush escorted from floor after wearing 'hoodie' http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/house/218691-rep-bobby-rush-kicked-off-house-floor-for-wearing-hoodie
Excerpt: Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Ill.) on Wednesday morning was escorted off the House floor after removing his suit jacket to reveal a "hoodie," then putting the hood of his sweatshirt on his head to protest the Trayvon Martin killing in Florida. A photo of Rush can be seen here. "Racial profiling has to stop," Rush said. "Just because someone wears a hoodie does not make them a hoodlum." Rush also put on sunglasses. (Meanwhile, TV this morning reported that police in Chicago are looking for a suspect wearing a hooded sweatshirt. I missed which of the daily crime log it was for. Three men were shot to death in one apartment, biz as usual in Blagobamaville, but I don’t think that’s it as no one saw the perps. ~Bob.)
Polls: Obama Stronger, Still Vulnerable in Swing States
Excerpt: In Quinnipiac's last collective look at the presidential race in the three states, in late November and early December, Obama trailed Romney in Florida and Ohio and he led by a statistically insignificant margin in Pennsylvania. Quinnipiac has polled each state since then, finding better numbers for the president. But while Obama has jumped ahead, he is under the critical 50-percent threshold in each state, and his lead in Pennsylvania remains inside the margin of error.
Quote from The Patriot Post
"Occupy Wall Street announced it was broke, saying they 'don't have enough money to meet our recurring budgets.' Remember back when sitting around doing nothing didn't cost a dime?" --Fred Thompson
Romney Myth-Busting
Excerpt: At a time when conservative ire against Obama boils, it would be shocking if Romney encounters serious difficulty winning over or energizing the base. In South Carolina, which delivered a stinging rejection to the GOP front-runner, 86 percent of Republicans said they would support Romney if he emerged as the nominee—a solid tally, given the acrimonious primary. (For comparison’s sake, exit polls showed only 73 percent of Pennsylvania Democratic primary voters would support Obama against John McCain in 2008.
The Health Care Case's Legal Maze
Excerpt: But the health care case is complicated, and the Court is considering a series of legal questions with interrelated answers. It could uphold or strike down the law, but it could also throw the suit out or perform surgery on health care reform. Here are a few of the possible outcomes: (Obviously composed before this week’s SCOTUS arguments began, this article includes an excellent chart of the possible outcomes. The article continues below the chart. Although the authors make no specific predictions, clearly they expect Obamacare to be generally upheld; let's hope their crystal ball is no better than anyone else's. Ron P.)
Occupy San Diego Offering $12 Per Hour To Join Their Protests…
MSNBC's Convenient Ellipses Make Zimmerman Look Racist
Excerpt: In a published report bylined "msnbc.com Staff and NBC News," a quote attributed to Trayvon Martin shooter George Zimmerman, appears to be purposefully distorted by the left to read as though Zimmerman is a racist. A full reading of the transcript of the quoted 911 call suggests nothing of the kind. (Not the first time they’ve skewed coverage to fit their narrative. I think it was MSNBC that showed a guy legally carrying a rifle outside an Obama speech. The coverage suggested that Obama was in danger from racists. They only showed the guy from the waist down, so viewers couldn’t see he was black. ~Bob.)
Myths of the "Free Rider" Health Care Problem
Excerpt: The contention that the individual mandate is necessary, because it solves the “free-rider” problem, is worthy of further examination: because it suffers from numerous conceptual and factual flaws.
Two Stabbings at Occupy San Francisco
Excerpt: Warmer weather has brought back the occupiers and with them fresh criminal behavior. There have been two stabbings at the Occupy SF camp in two nights.
Insurance switch to save Onalaska district $800k
Excerpt: A switch in health insurance providers will save more than $800,000 for the Onalaska School District and its employees. After considering bids from a number of providers, school officials dropped longtime carrier WEA Trust. (Another Wisconsin taxpayer win from Walker. WEA is the Teachers Union trust. ~Bob.)
Excerpt: Jeremy Lin reached out to terminated ESPN editor Anthony Federico, author of the much maligned “chink in the armor” headline on the company’s mobile site. The two had lunch at a Manhattan restaurant and discussed their “shared Christian values.” (Federico’s wife is Asian. Publications need a computer program like “Spell Check,” call it “PC Check” to find words that might be non-PC in some capacity. Remember the guy who was fired in DC for using the word “niggardly,” by folks ignorant of the fact that it has no connection to the “N” word? He was then rehired because it turned out he was Gay, thus very PC after all. ~Bob.)
Excerpt: A woman in Multan was hospitalised on Monday with burns she suffered in an acid attack allegedly by her husband to stop her from continuing a job. (hope this doesn’t make her Islamophobic. ~Bob.)
Afghanistan: Hundreds of Women, Girls Jailed for 'Moral Crimes'
Excerpt: The Afghan government should release the approximately 400 women and girls imprisoned in Afghanistan for “moral crimes,” Human Rights Watch said in a new report released today. … These “crimes” usually involve flight from unlawful forced marriage or domestic violence.
Excerpt: Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., proved the unnamed butt of a joke at the Supreme Court hearing today, as the courtroom chuckled at Justice Scalia's suggestion that the court overturn the "Cornhusker Kickback" because it amounted to bribery. Scalia used the Cornhusker Kickback in a question about the principle of severability. "[I]f we struck down nothing in this legislation but the -- what you call the corn husker kickback, okay, we find that to violate the constitutional proscription of venality, okay?" Scalia said, drawing laughter throughout the courtroom. Venality means "the quality or principle of being for sale," and is associated with bribery.
Excerpt: The founder of the Council of American Islamic Relations (CAIR), Omar Ahmad, communicated that directive in 1998, in addressing a group of American Muslims. He added that “the Quran should be the highest authority in America and Islam the only accepted religion on earth” Since making that declaration, Islamic sharia law continues to spread throughout the Western world in areas such as the UK, Spain, Australia, Canada, France…and the United States.
Hamas' Parent Comes to America
Excerpt: Get caught providing aid to Hamas and you'll find yourself hauled into federal court where a lengthy prison sentence awaits. Win elected office in Egypt as part of the Muslim Brotherhood's political party – the parent organization of Hamas – and you'll find yourself flown to Washington to be feted by academics and government officials.
Justices poised to strike down entire healthcare law
Excerpt: The Supreme Court's conservative justices said Wednesday they are prepared to strike down President Obama’s healthcare law entirely. Picking up where they left off Tuesday, the conservatives said they thought a decision striking down the law's controversial individual mandate to purchase health insurance means the whole statute should fall with it. (Let’s hope we aren’t counting un-hatched foul here. ~Bob.)
The Cultural Contradictions of Democracy The main threats to democracy lie within liberal societies themselves. By Vladislav Inozemtsev
Excerpt: In the late 1980s, at Cold War’s end, many believed that democracy, as obvious political best practice and key driver of strategic success, would without doubt spread and ultimately become universal. A prominent advocate of this prediction, Francis Fukuyama, stated his view in more careful and conditional terms than the many who did not read his fine print, but nuance aside, the coming global triumph of democracy was in those days a widespread expectation that many prominent observers, not least Samuel Huntington with his earlier “third wave” analysis, played a part in bringing about.
Another one done run off from the Democrat plantation. Loose the dogs. ~Bob. Excerpt: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s niece is criticizing the Rev. Al Sharpton and the Rev. Jesse Jackson for politicizing the Trayvon Martin shooting and leveraging racial tensions to rile up Americans. Conservative activist Dr. Alveda King, now the director of African-American outreach at Priests for Life and the founder of King For America, said she hopes Sharpton and Jackson stop “stirring up the people without positive solutions” in Sanford, Fla., and elsewhere in the U.S.
VIDEO: Joe Biden Mistakenly Thanks Dr. Pepper
Excerpt: Really. (He meant to thank Scott Community College President Dr. Theresa Paper)
Global Warming Models Are Wrong Again: The observed response of the climate to more CO2 is not in good agreement with predictions.
Excerpt: The lack of any statistically significant warming for over a decade has made it more difficult for the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and its supporters to demonize the atmospheric gas CO2 which is released when fossil fuels are burned. The burning of fossil fuels has been one reason for an increase of CO2 levels in the atmosphere to around 395 ppm (or parts per million), up from preindustrial levels of about 280 ppm. CO2 is not a pollutant. Life on earth flourished for hundreds of millions of years at much higher CO2 levels than we see today.
Man arrested in Kuwait for insulting Prophet Mohammad on Twitter
Excerpt: Kuwaiti authorities arrested a man late on Tuesday for insulting the Prophet Mohammad via his Twitter account, the Interior Ministry said, in a rare case of alleged blasphemy in the Gulf Arab state using social media. Blasphemy is illegal in Kuwait under the 1961 press and publications law, but it is not punishable by death as in neighboring Saudi Arabia, where the case of a columnist facing similar accusations has drawn international attention. (The future of the US if they get their way. ~Bob.)
Don’t Blame Verrilli for Supreme Court Health-Care Stumble
Excerpt: It would have been much better had Verrilli raised these precedents—especially the ones involving the framers—when he was confronted with the claim that Congress has never required anyone to purchase anything before. But one can see why he might have chosen the more cautious route, since citing the precedents would have required him to squarely admit that “Yes, Virginia (and Florida), there is a government power to make us buy broccoli.” (And thus to make us buy guns? ~Bob. The view from the left is that Obama screwed his lawyer's presentation of the case for Obamacare. In the historical cases cited here, most were imposed on corporations rather than individuals, and in no case were individuals forced to take up the occupations impacted, so compliance was voluntary. State militias and naval forces were expected to provide their own personal arms (musket, pistol, bayonet, powder, shot, etc.) from their pay except in time of war. So, in fact, there HAVE been times when the government—usually state governments, not the federal government—has required persons to purchase and maintain firearms. There has NEVER been a case previously where the federal government has required every living person within the borders to buy any type of product or service. Ron P.)
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Robert A. Hall
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