It's that time of year

To All My Liberal Friends:

Please accept with no obligation, implied or explicit, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low-stress, non-addictive, gender-neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, or secular practices of your choice, with respect for the religious/secular persuasion and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all. I also wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2010, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make America great. Not to imply that America is necessarily greater than any other country nor the only America in the Western Hemisphere. Also, this wish is made without regard to the race, creed, color, age, physical ability, religious faith or sexual preference of the wishee.



To All My Conservative Friends:
MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Copenhagen video

Those of you not living in a cave know that the big climate change summit opened this past week in Copenhagen. Thousands of Very Important People flew in by private jet (140+ new flights last week alone) and were whisked away in limos(1200 and counting, but to be fair 5 are hybrid vehicles) to the conference where they would talk about how to lower carbon outputs. The conference opened with a "save the world" video (typical in it's "won't somebody please save the children" theme, you can view it here). I thought the video needed some improvement, so I improved it. The result is below. Hey climate alarmists....FTFY.

Kristallnacht

This. Also, here.

Overreaction? Perhaps. But really, after the shameful Goldstone Report from the UN, how far are we really from having leftists lobby to have products labeled "Judenfrei"?

Maybe the President is growing up

And maybe he'll finally grow into the office and LEAD as best for America without feeling the incessant need to bash his predecessor at every opportunity for political gain. The presidency is a killing job, and I can hope the realities of the life and death decisions that the president must make are finally imprinting themselves onto President Obama. 9/11 changed George W. Bush into a determined leader (one can argue weather the path he chose was best or not, although I think history is going to judge him much better than we tend to do in the here and now), Thank God Obama hasn't faced that sort of a tragedy, but maybe he's finally growing into the job, transitioning from politician into leader. I hope it is so.

"proliferation may increase the risk of catastrophe. Terrorism has long been a tactic, but modern technology allows a few small men with outsized rage to murder innocents on a horrific scale....

"We must begin by acknowledging the hard truth that we will not eradicate violent conflict in our lifetimes. There will be times when nations – acting individually or in concert – will find the use of force not only necessary but morally justified.

"But as a head of state sworn to protect and defend my nation,...I face the world as it is, and cannot stand idle in the face of threats to the American people. For make no mistake: evil does exist in the world. A non-violent movement could not have halted Hitler’s armies. Negotiations cannot convince al Qaeda’s leaders to lay down their arms.

"So yes, the instruments of war do have a role to play in preserving the peace....

"But it is also incumbent upon all of us to insist that nations like Iran and North Korea do not game the system. Those who claim to respect international law cannot avert their eyes when those laws are flouted. Those who care for their own security cannot ignore the danger of an arms race in the Middle East or East Asia. Those who seek peace cannot stand idly by as nations arm themselves for nuclear war.”

-- President Barack Obama, Nobel Peace Prize speech, Oslo, Norway, Dec. 10, 2009

--

"Our second goal is to prevent regimes that sponsor terror from threatening America or our friends and allies with weapons of mass destruction....

"North Korea is a regime arming with missiles and weapons of mass destruction, while starving its citizens.

"Iran aggressively pursues these weapons and exports terror, while an unelected few repress the Iranian people's hope for freedom....

"States like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world. By seeking weapons of mass destruction, these regimes pose a grave and growing danger. They could provide these arms to terrorists, giving them the means to match their hatred. They could attack our allies or attempt to blackmail the United States. In any of these cases, the price of indifference would be catastrophic.

"We will work closely with our coalition to deny terrorists and their state sponsors the materials, technology and expertise to make and deliver weapons of mass destruction....

"We'll be deliberate, yet time is not on our side. I will not wait on events while dangers gather. I will not stand by as peril draws closer and closer. The United States of America will not permit the world's most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world's most destructive weapons.”

-- George W. Bush, State of the Union speech, Washington, D.C., Jan. 29, 2002


Hat tip to Bill Kristol, this is really his post

Try to imagine all life as you know it stopping instantaneously and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light.

The post title, of course, is from the movie Ghostbusters, referring to what would happen if the Ghostbusters crossed the streams of energy from their proton packs.


On the other hand, the crossing of these "streams" strikes me as a cause for celebration:




Slowly but surely, America is becoming aware of the danger to our nation posed by our president's extremism.


H/T to NRO for the Ghostbusters' allusion.