By now, you all know my stance on global warming and environmentalism. If you don’t then you clearly don’t know me. I have been trying to keep quiet about it latelty in the hopes that this past winter would shut up the lunatics out there…

But sometimes things go too far. This month’s TIME magazine did just that, and I stand with all of the other veterans and active duty personnel out there who are outraged by TIME’s aweful and distasteful cover art. To belittle and trivialize the flag and our military in the name of global warming is truly, truly a horrible thing to do.

My usual message applies here. Anybody who believes this garbage can kiss my ass. I’m sick and tired of all of the TV stations inundating us with green this and green that. I am tired of Al Gore. I am tired of carbon, greenhouse gases and Toyota Priuses. The next person who whines about saving the planet is likely to find my foot up their ass… It’s a scam, and the sad part is that people who haven’t gotten it by now aren’t ever going to get it. They’re going to continue to line Al Gore’s pockets while taking down my quality of life.

Well I’m sorry, but TIME broke this Camel’s back, and I’m not going to stay quiet about this any longer. It makes no difference to me. Dem, Republican, Hillary Clinton or John McCain. Any politician who speaks of global warming, global climate change or environmentalism is politically dead to me. And any party that endorses a politician who believes this crap is done as far as I am concerned.

This assault on my freedom and my way of life was bad enough, but now to assault and insult us like TIME has done this month… It’s one step too far.

As a final thought, here’s what National Center for Public Policy Research has to say:

Green Politicization of Iwo Jima Photo Condemned by Black Veteran 

Washington, D.C. - Kevin L. Martin, a member of the Project 21 black leadership network and a U.S. Navy veteran, is joining fellow veterans in denouncing the Earth Day-related cover art on the April 21 issue of Time magazine.Time altered the famous flag-raising photo from Iwo Jima is altered to show Marines raising a tree rather than the American flag to highlight an article promoting activism favoring increased regulation to fight perceived man-made global warming.

“For Time to compare the politically-driven hoax about the severity of man-made global warming to one of most pivotal moments in American history is a slap in the face to the brave men who fought their way up Iwo Jima’s Mount Suribachi to plant our flag and send a clear message that victory in the long war in the Pacific was achievable,” said Martin. “To callously use a famous military image so important to our nation’s veterans with seemingly no concern for its impact on them shows just how far those promoters of this hoax will go.”

In describing the reasoning behind politicizing Joe Rosenthal’s Pulitzer Prize-winning photo, Time managing editor Richard Stengel told MSNBC host Joe Scarborough: “We wanted to do something that was prescriptive… And by using that famous Iwo Jima image and saying basically what we have to do is what we did before World War II by creating a great national effort, national endeavor, to combat this problem. Using cap-and-trade policy and using new research into renewable energy and having an efficiency surge with energy all across the country.”

A proposal under debate in the Senate would create a “cap-and-trade” policy designed to limit emissions of greenhouse gases. Reducing energy use by U.S. manufacturers will have a braking effect on jobs and income.

Commenting on the Time cover, Iwo Jima veteran Donald Mates told the Business and Media Institute: “The Second World War we knew was there. Some say there is global warming, some say there isn’t. And to stick a tree in place of a flag on the Iwo Jima picture is just sacrilegious.” John Keith Wells, the Marine lieutenant who led the platoon that scaled Mount Suribaci and raised the American flag, opined: “That global warming in the biggest joke I’ve ever known.”

“It is a shame that Time magazine is belittling the heroism of our World War II veterans to push for policies that may bring back unhappy homefront memories of that era such as food and energy rationing,” added Project 21’s Martin. “There has yet to be a real scientific debate on the contributions of man to any sort of global warming. The crusade by environmental activists and the willing complicity of media such as Time magazine is resulting in misguided policies. Reducing of production and exploration in the short run is going to raise prices and limit access to resources, while risky long-term schemes such as biofuels will pit stomachs against gas tanks. Is it also lost on Time that the war in the Pacific was based in part on access to energy resources?”

 

 

Ok, so I feel bad because I haven’t written much for a while. It’s not that I don’t enjoy writing. It’s not that I don’t have a million things to talk about.

The problem is that I can’t help but to feel defeated, and that’s a hard thing to get over. I watch the news every morning and listen to talk radio all day long, and all I hear about is the degradation of the country that I love. I have worked so hard, but in the end, I can’t help but to wonder what went wrong.

I think that this all started with the “nomination” of John McCain. Sure, fine, he’s a Republican and he’s far superior to either Obama or Clinton; but the only thing that crosses my mind whenever I see him or hear him speak is “is this the best we could do?”

We are a great country with lots of great people. The past year that I have spent blogging has introduced me to some of the bets people I have ever had the pleasure to meet. There are millions of people out there, and not all of them are colossal pains in the ass. Many people are like you and I - people who want to do good things and live in a great country.

And yet, is this the best we could do?

The three people running for the top office and one of which who will lead this country over the next four to eight years are all people that I wouldn’t trust to run a 7-11 let alone this nation. I mean, really, how could this have happened? Sure, I lamented the loss of Fred Thompson, but him aside, there were far better choices out there than John McCain.

In my battle for tobacco rights, I have gotten to know McCain’s idea of freedom, and it isn’t good. If he knew a damned thing about what it means to live free and be free, he would never have made the choices he has regarding tobacco. While this is just one of many things, it is simply an example that I have become quite familiar with. This has shown me what McCain thinks about free speech (plus throw in McCain-Feingold to top it off) free choice, and free markets. And this is the man that Conservatives (Republicans) chose as their man? Give me a break!

I keep asking myself how I can be active in this fight. How I can continue to put so much energy into something when the “power of the people” really doesn’t amount to a whole lot next to the power of politics?

Don’t get me wrong, I’ll still fight, I’m just not sure what route to take these days. Do you fight for McCain and keep the dems from taking over and driving us off the cliff (so McCain can drive us off a shorter cliff)? Or do I fight for the dems with the hopes that they’ll spark off some sort of radical revolution? or do I fight for a third party and keep the ideals that I hold dear?

Sadly we’re in a lose-lose-lose situation here and I’m starting to think the best thing we can do is fight at the bottom and hope it works its way up. Build conservative towns and cities. Hope that the counties and states follow. After all, if anybody ever reads the words of our founding fathers, the states are supposed to have the power anyway - not the feds. Sadly we’ve lost our way and become a federal government with 50 smaller subdivisions…

Not the country we were intended to be, I can tell you that much.

I have been reading the federalist papers lately, and it amazes me how smart those guys really were. But where are they now? I guess they’re us - us little people who are out here blogging and making our social commentaries… But there’s a piece missing and i can’t quite put my finger on what it is.

Is it apathy? Do people just not care enough to take action on a large scale?

Is it fear? Are we too demoralized? or maybe people just like it this way… I don’t know.

Either way, I’m still in the fight, I’m just not sure where to take it…

Any ideas?

If the nanny state zealots were actually interested in public health issues, they would stop chasing down smokers, trans fats, obesity etc and start addressing the dangers of cell phone usage.

Let’s forget the fact that people on their phones are responsible for hurting themselves or others when behind he wheel… A renowned cancer expert and top nerosurgeon is now saying that cell phone usage is more dangerous than smoking. This is on top of the French and German governments calling for reduced cell phone usage and the European Environment Agency making the same call.

From The Independent:

Mobile phones ‘more dangerous than smoking’

Mobile phones could kill far more people than smoking or asbestos, a study by an award-winning cancer expert has concluded. He says people should avoid using them wherever possible and that governments and the mobile phone industry must take “immediate steps” to reduce exposure to their radiation…

He admits that mobiles can save lives in emergencies, but concludes that “there is a significant and increasing body of evidence for a link between mobile phone usage and certain brain tumours”. He believes this will be “definitively proven” in the next decade…

“It is anticipated that this danger has far broader public health ramifications than asbestos and smoking,” says Professor Khurana, who told the IoS his assessment is partly based on the fact that three billion people now use the phones worldwide, three times as many as smoke.

Pretty effn’ fantastic, isn’t it?

Hello? Can you hear me now? Hello? HELLO?!