It's Global Warming, Of Course...

...but, otherwise, it would be ironic that today's prediction of the worst U.S. winter in 25 years harkens back to a time when we were just snapping out of climatists' expectation of a new Ice Age (personally, I remember January 1985 pretty well, since there was some question whether or not sextons could open a grave in which to bury my recently-deceased father).

And, if we still held in high esteem Judeo-Christian values, how ironic and sinful it would seem that folks are dying from the cold http://www.wreg.com/news/wreg-cold-deaths,0,5066667.story in places whose former senator and vice president is getting filthy rich promoting the idea that what's happening to them just isn't possible!

Meanwhile, I'm trying to corral the former stray cat turned household pet inside tonight where it's warm, worrying only that my heating bill will top $200 this month -- while folks in parts of the world worry that they'll run out of the fuel of which I'm in ample supply, and where some in parts of my state die from the cold perturbing my cats!

Sometimes, irony sucks!..

Apropos of Nothing and Everything...

...but it has now been more than 37 years since U.S. astronauts 'Gene' Cernan and Harrison Schmitt left the moon during Apollo 17 in December 1972, the last time humans have visited an extra-terrestrial place.
Thirty-seven years.
It is beyond comprehensible to me that -- in obvious contradiction to the advances of technology and science in the interim -- that we are in sight of the end of a manned U.S. presence in space. Soon we will be unable to send an American into earth orbit, let alone back to the moon. Which, in utter humility, I posit shows EXACTLY the value -- when ill-used -- of knowledge and technology. Nothing! A big, fat NOTHING!!!

An NFL Reflex

I don't think I've alluded to it since my initial 'blog post, but I spent 25 years, full-time and part-time, as a newspaper journalist/sportswriter/photographer. Concurrently (in part), I also have been a charter, season-ticket holder of the Tennessee Titans since their advent in this state as the Oilers in 1997, and was one of their 'beat writers' for four years. Thus, I have some experience that, while not integral, does make me conversant with the league and team, and their players.
That said, here's what I expect from the 2009 final weekend (albeit, played in 2010), and beyond:

• Titans running back Chris Johnson, who likely will be the NFL Offensive Player of the Year, WILL break the record for yards from scrimmage (rushing and receiving), but is 50:50 to gain the 128 running yards needed to achieve the 1,000-yard plateau (he would be just the sixth back to do it) in Seattle Sunday (the Seahawks' rush defense is pretty good!); his odds are no better than 1:5 of gaining the 234 he'll need to eclipse Eric Dickerson's single-season rushing mark.
• The New York Jets will benefit from two 'bye' weeks -- competing against 'resting' Indianapolis and Cincinnati -- to gain an AFC wild-card berth, and will become the tangible evidence that charging full NFL ticket prices for both pre-season and post-clinching football games is a leading factor in lengthening the NFL schedule. If the fans are going to pay 'meaningful' (to them) prices, the games better damn well be meaningful, too!
• The Detroit Lions will become the most-improved team in the history of the league, winning two games after a winless season in 2008. That's a .125 winning percentage, against one of .000 last year. Thus, the Lions are infinitely better than they were. But, wait till next year!

'Happy' New Year! (sigh)...

...Yeah, that's the definition of a day late and a dollar short, isn't it? Really, I wish I could do better.
There are a bunch of factors in my personal dread of the coming year:

• personally, one year ago, I was debt-free and putting aside a full one-third of my income monthly as savings and/or discretionary spending! Today, after buying a house last March -- and taking on the accompanying mortgage -- trading in my car for a newer model in August, and acceding to a couple of low-limit credit cards amidst all that, I have more debt than ever (though more assets, too!). Don't get me wrong, I love my house and feel lucky to be here. It's the best place I've ever lived besides the farm I grew up on. But, my financial options are tied in knots...
• I'm as un-enamored with our current federal administration as I expected to be when Barack Obama was elected president. He is everything I thought him to be: inexperienced, and arrogant about it (meaning he doesn't realize how out-of-his-league he is)!; left-wing to the border of Socialism; personally aloof, which along with his arrogance, almost makes you want him to fail until you realize it's MY COUNTRY, too, he'd be failing!; his failings are coming into view early, giving him plenty of time to recover before seeking re-election (Americans have such short, optimistic memories!) -- and 8 years of this sort of government may be fatally irreversible.
• I truly don't know what to do about money, which I fear will soon be almost worthless with the inevitable hyper-inflation that so many protest today won't really happen. Well, yes, it will! We've been pumping up the money supply since at least 1994, at a rate far out-stripping employment and productivity. I don't blame it on Obama, specifically -- it began with George H.W. Bush's 'no new taxes' dishonesty, and has continued through three presidencies since! -- but the current lack of realism about budgets and deficits is beyond scary. So, I don't know whether to hold cash in the safe, buy canned goods and non-perishables, lay in more ammo, or just spend it all and man the barricades! I DO have a long-tenured, public-employment job (teaching), so I may be able to ride out the high unemployment -- which will allow me to pay back my mortgage with worthless dollars! Alas, you might also find my starving, dessicated body on the living room floor.
• We've spent eight years and thousands of American lives opposing an implacable, Islamist foe to Western democracy, and are now led by political entities who think if you play nice and fair with it, it will respond in kind. If we wind up suffering terrorist victims in large numbers at home or in allied lands, how will we stand the guilt and regret that it would have been better to spend those lives gaining ground on some foreign battlefield toward irradicating the threat for future generations?
  

All in all, I expect 2010 to be a regrettable year. If I am wrong -- and I hope almost beyond hope that I am! -- I pray that I am around at its end to make amends. That is, I'm afraid, my best wish for you and yours, too.

The Humpty Dumpty Presidency

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall.

Humpty Dumpty had a big fall.

All the king's horses, and all the king's men

Couldn't put Humpty together again.

"...rarely has a candidate’s entire world view been so abruptly refuted in the first year of a presidency..."

It's enough, you know, almost to conclude that the Left, and Democrats, are wrong about what they think they know, isn't it?

(If only Leftists and Democrats entertained that thought as a possibility...)

If You've Lost Maureen Dowd..?

...See folks, it isn't just me!:

...We seemed to still be behind the curve and reactive, patting down grannies and 5-year-olds, confiscating snow globes and lip glosses...

In the words of Ed Morrissey, "Be sure to read Dowd’s entire column, a sentence I thought I’d never write..."

The Democrats' 'Recovery'

Can't help but get a little chuckle from Democratic 'sympathist' Steve Rosenthal's prescription for Democratic 'recovery' before their imminent 2010 electoral disaster. Read it here:

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1209/31035.html

My take on his 'suggestions':

• Stop whining. We agree right off the top. Any political party heard to be in full whine will largely be ignored. We all want to believe our own whines are more important than anyone else's. Thus, if the Democrats whine that we just don't understand all the wonderful things they intend for us with their higher taxes, health-care overhaul, energy-use deterrents, and apparent disdain for our intelligence, understand that we just don't want to hear it! We're too busy trying to make ends meet!
• Remember how big you won in 2008. Sorry, Steve, there's just no way to make this one play for you. Democrats -- and President Obama, in particular -- won in 2008 by lying to us! You downplayed the left-tilted agenda you had planned, pretended to be moderates, and sold us down the river once you were invested in power. If you think now 'owning' all those intrusive, government mandates is going to provide enough lipstick to cover that pig slop, you just go right ahead and make the 25% of the electorate who are true believers in the Social Democrat experiment your "permanent majority"! You might want to refigure your math, though.
• Don't be spooked by 2009... Instead, get organized in Congress and on the ground to move the Obama change agenda. What the voters said in the 2009 elections is that it's not about Obama or Congress; it's not about Democrats or Republicans. It is about us: real people with real problems that we want addressed. The frustration voiced by independents and Obama surge voters in 2009 should be of real concern. These voters are still looking for change to happen and will keep voting for change — regardless of party — or not voting at all, until something real happens. In the 2008 election, what mattered most to voters was the candidate's ability to "bring change," and the 34 percent of voters who cited this quality in exit polls nationally voted 89 percent for Obama...Listening to these "change" voters (or as a Republican acquaintance of mine calls them, "fix it" voters), it is clear they are frustrated, stressed and just want things in the country to get back on track. They are not interested in political expediency. Independents, Democratic base voters and the Obama surge voters want action, and they want the change they voted for in 2008. They want to see real leadership, not legislative gridlock. They don't want their elected officials to go back to the days of legislating "small things" (school uniforms come to mind). To win them back — to engage them at all in 2010 — Democrats need to pass real health care reform, then move aggressively on a jobs, jobs, jobs (it cannot be said enough) program with strong workers' rights. Do as candidate Obama said: Put people to work immediately to fix our schools, rebuild our transportation infrastructure and invest in green technology, energy efficiency and create more green jobs. Oh, please, please, PLEASE, do all of this! I quoted this almost in its entirety because it is so evidentiary of all the mis-interpretations Democrats make about their 'mandate'. Going back to my last point about the 25% or so of hard-Left voters who will support Obama and the Democrats in any case because Republicans/Conservatives are evil, ignorant, racist, misogynist, misanthropic cave-dwellers -- well, you're going to tickle them to death if you do all the things (if you can even manage to define them recognizably) recommended above.  But, I find it truly astonishing that leading Democrats apparently don't understand that they will, by doing so, alienate to some degree virtually every one of the remaining 75% of the hunter-gatherer/provider (for families and employees) types residing in their ignorant appreciation of the abundance of the past 200+ years of American self-reliance, capitalism, and personal freedom. To paraphrase a famous insouciance: We don't need no stinkin' mandates!
  
• Put Obama on the ballot in 2010 for African-Americans, Hispanics, single women and young voters. The Democratic base is not energized...Which Obama? The inscrutable one a majority of mostly liberal and independent-moderate votes elected a year ago because they thought his actions would echo his promises and words, or the one who has attempted to govern according to his statist sympathies? If it's the former -- well, you just spent several hundred words explaining why this is a non-starter with your 25% base. If you're expecting the latter -- good luck with that! If we have a do-over of the 2008 race, it'll be a LOT harder to fool a majority of voters into believing Obama's Democratic Party is anything but the left-most majority this country has ever elected. I don't think we'd do it again.
• Build it, and they will come. Organization is critical in midterm elections. The party with the superior infrastructure to persuade and turn out voters will win. Yep. And motivation is the foundation upon which organization is built. You might respect and accept the likes of MoveOn.org, and ACORN, as partners in participation, but the general public has, shall we say, moved on. Those groups have already motivated everyone they're likely to motivate. The rest of us just don't trust them to put anyone but themselves first. Hasn't happened yet, anyway! As for labor, well...it's not for nothin' that the major, national unions have seen growth only in the public sector. Union bosses and organizations have become little more than another level of bureaucracy to most of their subjects -- I mean, workers. Thus the affinity between statist government and union leadership: they represent pretty much the same structure, and pursue pretty much the same goals -- namely, more power for themselves. If you think the Obama Administration's abrogation of long-standing bankruptcy laws in order to invest General Motors and Chrysler went over popularly, you probably don't realize we all understand this was a sop to labor unions. Well, you're wrong, we do -- and few of us like a bully, especially one so fearsome as intimidates with the power of government behind it. Think of our votes as pebbles, and the ballot box as a slingshot, aimed smack at Goliath! If Democrats truly believe this is their moment to remake America, they are unknowingly past their high tide -- because there is nowhere near a solid majority of us who believe in our hearts that we've lived all these years in an America that requires remaking.