McCain VP Pick No Friend to Polar Bears
By Sarah Lai Stirland August 29, 2008 | 1:18:52 PM Categories: Election '08
Alaska Governor Sarah Palin has ignored research showing that polar bear populations are declining in the quest to plumb new sources of energy, according to scientists, and environmental groups who fought to put the bears on the endangered species list.
Sen. John McCain tapped Alaska Governor Sarah Palin to be his vice presidential candidate Friday. Palin is only the second woman to be on a major party's ticket as VP -- the first was Geraldine Ferraro, who ran with Democrat Walter Mondale in 1984.
Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, pictured here, disagrees with John McCain on drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. She's for it, he's against it.
"The governor's going to support senator McCain's policies," says Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a senior campaign advisor.
Photo: Associated Press/Al Grillo
The 44-year-old Palin, a beauty pageant winner and former mayor of a small town in Alaska, is an advocate of drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. She has infuriated environmentalists for her support of the aerial shooting of wolves as a way to build up herds of moose and caribou. She's also sued the Interior Department for putting polar bears on the endangered species list.
In the lawsuit, filed this month in federal district court in the District of Columbia, Palin argues that the government's move to list polar bears as endangered is not based on sound science, and restricts oil and natural gas development. The Interior Department had put the bears on the list in response to a lawsuit filed by environmental groups, who argued that the bears are being threatened by global warming.
In an interview on the conservative CNN talk show hosted by Glenn Beck earlier this year, Palin said that she was worried that environmentalists are using the Endangered Species Act to block the extraction of oil and gas.
"In fact, the number of polar bears has risen dramatically over the past 30 years," she said. "Our fear (is) that extreme environmentalists will use this tool, the ESA, to eventually curtail or halt the North Slope production of very rich resources that America needs."
But biologists who have studied polar bear populations counter that the facts simply do not support Palin's assertion that polar bear populations are on the rise.
"Polar bear populations have not been increasing for the past 30 years, and that's a well-known fact," said Ian Stirling, an emeritus scientist with Canada's Department of the Environment and an adjunct professor at the University of Alberta in an interview. Stirling has studied polar bears for 37 years -- the longest of anyone.
In fact, the polar bear population has actually declined by 20 percent in Alaska's Southern Beaufort Sea since the mid-1980s, he says, referring to peer-reviewed research that he's conducted with other scientists for the US Geological Survey. The reason: Loss of their habitat in the form of melting ice.
The population decline in the area is one of six documented declining populations. In all, there are 19 distinct populations of polar bears, but not all of those populations have been surveyed.
The research reports with this information have been available to Palin for more than a year, Stirling says.
"There is currently no way to drill for oil in polar bear seas without imperiling the polar bears," said Kassie Siegel, climate program director for the Center for Biological Diversity. "Polar bears that come into contact with spilled oil will become coated with oil, will attempt to groom themselves to remove it... and will almost certainly die."
Palin has stated that her opposition to the polar bear listing is based on a scientific review from the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. Yet documents released by a FOIA request show that the state's biologists agreed with the Interior Department about the polar bear's habitat.
Senator McCain believes that protecting polar bears is important, but that using the endangered species act may not be the best approach to solving the problem -- rather enacting climate change legislation is, says Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a senior advisor to McCain. He added that Palin will support McCain's policies.
"McCain has said many times that policy must be based on sound science," he said. "We will see a difference from the past eight years."
"The governor is going to support senator McCain's policies," Holtz-Eakin said in an interview.
In a statement on the Palin pick, the McCain campaign called her a "tough executive who has demonstrated during her time in office that she is ready to be president, and that "she has brought Republicans and Democrats together within her administration and has a record of delivering on the change and reform that we need in Washington."
The McCain campaign also praised Palin for being independent-minded and standing up to oil companies, yet at the same time "fighting for the development of new energy resources."
Conservative blogs hailed the choice Friday, gleeful at the outrage Palin's election sparked among liberals. The mood around the offices of Townhall.com is sort of like that of Christmastime," wrote blogger Matt Lewis. "Everyone is ecstatic. The pick was perfect, and the execution flawless ... You can tell this is a good pick by the way conservatives love it -- and by the way liberal blogs hate it!"
As the governor of a state that's renowned for valuing civil liberties, Palin received praise from the American Civil Liberties Union this May for letting a bill pass that prohibits the funding of the implementation of REAL-ID, a federal law that requires states to comply with certain technical standards when issuing drivers' licenses.
Governor's Information
Alaska Governor Sarah Palin
Born: February 11, 1964
Birth State: Idaho
Party: Republican
Spouse: Todd Palin
Family: Married Todd Palin; five children
Religion: Christian
School(s): University of Idaho
Address: State Capitol
P.O. Box 110001
Juneau, AK
99811-0001
Phone: 907/465-3500
Fax: 907/465-3532
Governor Sarah Palin made history on Dec. 4, 2006, when she took office. The 11th governor of Alaska, she is the first woman to hold the office.
Her top priorities are resource development, education and workforce development, public health and safety, and transportation and infrastructure development. Under her leadership, Alaska invested $5 billion in state savings, overhauled education funding, and implemented the Senior Benefits Program to provide support for low-income older Alaskans. She created Alaska's Petroleum Systems Integrity Office to oversee maintenance of oil and gas equipment, facilities and infrastructure, and a Climate Change Subcabinet to prepare a climate change strategy for Alaska.
Palin's administration passed major legislation that began a competitive process to construct a gas pipeline and overhauled state ethics laws. Palin is chair of the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission, a multi-state agency that promotes conservation and efficient recovery of domestic oil and natural gas resources while protecting health, safety and environment. She also serves as chair of the National Governors Association Natural Resources Committee. Prior to her election as governor, Palin served two terms on the Wasilla City Council and two terms as the mayor/manager of Wasilla. During her tenure, she reduced property tax levels while increasing services and made Wasilla a business friendly environment, drawing in new industry. She has served as chair of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, which regulates Alaska's most valuable non-renewable resources. She was elected by her peers to serve as president of the Alaska Conference of Mayors.
Sarah Heath Palin arrived in Alaska with her family in 1964, when her parents came to teach school in Skagway. She received a Bachelor of Science degree in communications-journalism from the University of Idaho in 1987. Palin, who graduated from Wasilla High School in 1982, has lived in Skagway, Eagle River and Wasilla. She is married to Todd Palin, a lifelong Alaskan who is a production operator on the North Slope and a four-time champion of the Iron Dog, the world's longest snow machine race. Todd and Sarah fish in Bristol Bay with their children – Track, Bristol, Willow, Piper and Trig. Through Todd's Yup'ik grandmother, Alaska's Native heritage plays an important role in their family. Track enlisted in the U.S. Army on Sept. 11, 2007.
Palin is a lifetime member of the NRA and enjoys hunting, fishing, Alaska history, and all that Alaska's great outdoors has to offer.
________________________________________
Saturday, August 30, 2008
Friday, August 1, 2008
MORE ON OBAMA
August 01, 2008
Why I'm Thanking God for Obama
By Kyle-Anne Shiver
Every day, for the past several months, I've made a habit in my morning prayers of thanking God for the emergence of Barack Obama. Not because my hope is in Obama, but because my hope is always, unequivocally in God.
As so many have noted, 2008 is not an ordinary American election.
Rather than two people with different policy positions vying for the President's job, we have one man who understands he's a mere mortal like the rest of us, and one man, who seems to think he is a god.
And y'all know what I'm talkin' about here.
Many of Barack's followers manifest troubling signs of regarding him as at least a demigod. Even while refraining from saying outright that they think he's a god, their belief comes through in the strange messianic iconography of their Obama-glorifying posters, videos and music. Belief in the godlike nature of Barack's powers comes through in their faith in the vast promises he or his surrogates make about the change that's going to come about, not if, but when he becomes president, not just of our Country, but the whole darned world, oceans and all. Or so he seems to think.
The seas will recede. The planet will heal. Everyone will love America again. The sick will all be cured by socialized medicine. The poor will cease to exist. The rich will give all their money to Africa. The government will become efficient. Sin won't happen. The yellow brick road will lead to the White House, not a fantasy land. And the Emperor's clothes will suddenly materialize so that the whole world will actually see something there.
The bottom line here is that Barack Obama does not seem to be running against John McCain. He seems to think he's too big for that. As he told a roomful of Congressional Democrats this week, behind closed doors, he is no longer a mere man, he's "become a symbol of the possibility of America." Considering the scope of the promises he is making and the hope he is offering not only America, but the rest of the world to boot, Barack Obama seems to be running against a far higher power than himself.
Barack Obama actually appears to be running against God. By claiming that he can do things only God can do, like heal "broken souls" and fill up "holes" in people's hearts, make all "divisions" go away and disperse with all inconvenient "distractions," Barack Obama claims power that no mortal man, and certainly no mere president has ever had, or ever will have, no matter how much money he has to spend or how brilliant or how able he may be.
Most rational human beings know this without thinking hard.
That's why this isn't an ordinary election, and why it is becoming more absurd by the hour.
But this is a terrific opportunity for all of us mortal Americans who still love this Country and happen to think that our Founders were onto something quite exceptional in the history of human civilization. This election will not pit Democrats against Republicans, but those who love America against those who just love Barack and think he is the one they've been waiting for to finally close the deal and secure their love for an America perfected by the politics of Barack Obama.
Utopian Claims that Materialize as Misery
For years now, I've occasionally fallen victim to discouragement over strides the rainbow Marxists have made in America and around the world. The Berlin Wall was barely in its shallow grave before communism's sepulchral cries of resurgence began to be heard in places far and near. The Soviet Block was barely broken before western Europeans began doing their best to emulate it and enshrine another form of it's tyranny by binding treaty.
The greatest single Marxist victory has been the systematic re-write of the movement's own bloody history, carried out by leftists in America and western Europe. After WWII, Hitler's Germany was scrubbed clean of its National Socialist underpinnings, and entire generations have been told that Fascism was the polar opposite of Communism. For the past eight years, with the new resurgence of American conservatism, leftists have bombarded the public from sympathetic press pulpits and university lecterns with their "Bush is Hitler" agitprop. And a great many fools have swallowed this lie whole hog.
As Pope Benedict foretold in 2003, in his treatise on the sleeping ambitions of worldwide communism:
"Let us not forget that Marxism, as the one great political force of our twentieth century, made its appearance with the claim to be bringing a new world of freedom and of free people. This very promise of knowing the scientifically guaranteed way to freedom, and of creating the new world, drew to it many of the boldest spirits of our age; ultimately it even appeared as the force through which the Christian teaching of redemption could be transformed into a realistic practical means for liberation - as the force that could bring the Kingdom of God as the true kingdom of men. The collapse of realist socialism in the East European states has not quite laid aside all such hopes, and here and there they still subsist, silently awaiting some new form."
-- Pope Benedict XVI; Truth and Tolerance; p. 233; emphases mine.
Just because this monstrous system puts on a new and younger face does not render it more benign.
Empty Resume, Empty Promises
Obama has arisen from nothingness, from one accomplishment-free political gig to another, propped up by leftists adulators and sycophants, to offer a perfect portrait of socialism's eternal snare. Forget God; put your hope in mankind. Human arrogance and narcissistic pride. From the fall in the Garden to the present, from generation to generation, Satan's delusion holds sway with many.
Barack Obama is walking, talking, breathing narcissism. The iconography of his campaign is nothing, if not the glorification of Obama, a solitary, quite mortal man. They must glorify Obama's image because, in reality, he has no accomplishments that bear mention.
Obama struts his nothingness with grace; even his detractors admit that.
What could more openly and more amply demonstrate the absolute emptiness of socialism's promise than the perfectly empty resume of its newest hero?
What could possibly more adequately prove the personalized utopianism of his followers than that they believe in a man who has borne no fruitful action?
Barack Obama offers "collective salvation" in the form of socialist government interventions in every sphere of life, from starting-at-birth state education, to socialized, universal health care, to a tripling of the already failing AmeriCorps. This socialist answer to all that ails mankind isn't anything new. It's old, tried, and just as untrue now as in its beginning.
Beware the man who promises what man simply lacks the power to bestow.
"The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule it."
-- H. L. Mencken
Time and time and time again, this has proven true. Time and time again, new men arise in varying disguise, making the same promises, urging the same change.
God or Barack? This ain't rocket science.
The lesson in socialism's long, failed and scandalous history is actually very simple, I think, not rocket science at all.
Life, as God created it, is basically unfair.
Beginning at the very reality that each human being is unique, without exact duplication anywhere, anytime. Even in the case of identical twins, uniqueness begins at the moment of birth, as each twin experiences a separate reality in his or her environment. With uniqueness comes individuality and at every moment of life, unfairness.
No matter the measure one chooses, whether genetic beauty or physical strength, native intelligence or agility, inherited wealth or power, the benefits bestowed by one's parents or the lack of these. In every single aspect of human life, no matter where one is born or what happens thereafter outside one's control, life is not fair.
I perceive that within the heart of every socialist lies an insurmountable resentment over this basic fact, which is always aimed squarely at God, who made things this way. Arrogant man wants to be like God and design things his own way.
Two thousand years ago, however, Jesus of Nazareth offered the eternal solution to the paradox of unfairness and inequality:
Speaking of God's judgment, Jesus said,
From everyone to whom much has been given, much will be required; and from the one to whom much has been entrusted, even more will be demanded.
-- The Gospel of Luke 12:48 (New Revised Standard Version)
All who follow the same God, whether Jewish or Christian, see plainly that God's judgment has nothing whatsoever to do with one's station or gifts in this life, but only with what each individual does with what he is given.
It is certainly no accident that socialism has made its greatest advances among secular people, divorced from God by their own choice, and that today in America, it is the progressive secularists, the hardened socialists and communists, and many radical elements in our society that back Barack Obama's rise. For many of these people, hope in God died long ago.
The salvation that Obama offers comes in the form of radically changing America to a utopian state, which he contends will fix our "broken souls." That simply is not within the province of his abilities.
As Pope Benedict has so wisely and emphatically stated:
Wherever politics tries to be redemptive, it is promising too much. Where it wishes to do the work of God, it becomes, not divine, but demonic.
-- Truth and Tolerance; p. 116
Barack Obama stands front and center now, offering the age-old false promise that mankind can save itself through "collective redemption," and simply because he employs Christian language and symbols, no genuine lovers of God will be fooled.
Hope in God?
Or hope in Obama?
I thank God every day for giving us Americans such a clear and easy choice. Perhaps He is simply using Barack Obama to separate a bit of chaff from the grain.
Kyle-Anne Shiver is an independent citizen journalist and a frequent contributor to American Thinker. She welcomes your comments at kyleanneshiver.com.
Page Printed from: http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/08/why_im_thanking_god_for_obama.html at August 01, 2008 - 11:09:52 PM EDT
Why I'm Thanking God for Obama
By Kyle-Anne Shiver
Every day, for the past several months, I've made a habit in my morning prayers of thanking God for the emergence of Barack Obama. Not because my hope is in Obama, but because my hope is always, unequivocally in God.
As so many have noted, 2008 is not an ordinary American election.
Rather than two people with different policy positions vying for the President's job, we have one man who understands he's a mere mortal like the rest of us, and one man, who seems to think he is a god.
And y'all know what I'm talkin' about here.
Many of Barack's followers manifest troubling signs of regarding him as at least a demigod. Even while refraining from saying outright that they think he's a god, their belief comes through in the strange messianic iconography of their Obama-glorifying posters, videos and music. Belief in the godlike nature of Barack's powers comes through in their faith in the vast promises he or his surrogates make about the change that's going to come about, not if, but when he becomes president, not just of our Country, but the whole darned world, oceans and all. Or so he seems to think.
The seas will recede. The planet will heal. Everyone will love America again. The sick will all be cured by socialized medicine. The poor will cease to exist. The rich will give all their money to Africa. The government will become efficient. Sin won't happen. The yellow brick road will lead to the White House, not a fantasy land. And the Emperor's clothes will suddenly materialize so that the whole world will actually see something there.
The bottom line here is that Barack Obama does not seem to be running against John McCain. He seems to think he's too big for that. As he told a roomful of Congressional Democrats this week, behind closed doors, he is no longer a mere man, he's "become a symbol of the possibility of America." Considering the scope of the promises he is making and the hope he is offering not only America, but the rest of the world to boot, Barack Obama seems to be running against a far higher power than himself.
Barack Obama actually appears to be running against God. By claiming that he can do things only God can do, like heal "broken souls" and fill up "holes" in people's hearts, make all "divisions" go away and disperse with all inconvenient "distractions," Barack Obama claims power that no mortal man, and certainly no mere president has ever had, or ever will have, no matter how much money he has to spend or how brilliant or how able he may be.
Most rational human beings know this without thinking hard.
That's why this isn't an ordinary election, and why it is becoming more absurd by the hour.
But this is a terrific opportunity for all of us mortal Americans who still love this Country and happen to think that our Founders were onto something quite exceptional in the history of human civilization. This election will not pit Democrats against Republicans, but those who love America against those who just love Barack and think he is the one they've been waiting for to finally close the deal and secure their love for an America perfected by the politics of Barack Obama.
Utopian Claims that Materialize as Misery
For years now, I've occasionally fallen victim to discouragement over strides the rainbow Marxists have made in America and around the world. The Berlin Wall was barely in its shallow grave before communism's sepulchral cries of resurgence began to be heard in places far and near. The Soviet Block was barely broken before western Europeans began doing their best to emulate it and enshrine another form of it's tyranny by binding treaty.
The greatest single Marxist victory has been the systematic re-write of the movement's own bloody history, carried out by leftists in America and western Europe. After WWII, Hitler's Germany was scrubbed clean of its National Socialist underpinnings, and entire generations have been told that Fascism was the polar opposite of Communism. For the past eight years, with the new resurgence of American conservatism, leftists have bombarded the public from sympathetic press pulpits and university lecterns with their "Bush is Hitler" agitprop. And a great many fools have swallowed this lie whole hog.
As Pope Benedict foretold in 2003, in his treatise on the sleeping ambitions of worldwide communism:
"Let us not forget that Marxism, as the one great political force of our twentieth century, made its appearance with the claim to be bringing a new world of freedom and of free people. This very promise of knowing the scientifically guaranteed way to freedom, and of creating the new world, drew to it many of the boldest spirits of our age; ultimately it even appeared as the force through which the Christian teaching of redemption could be transformed into a realistic practical means for liberation - as the force that could bring the Kingdom of God as the true kingdom of men. The collapse of realist socialism in the East European states has not quite laid aside all such hopes, and here and there they still subsist, silently awaiting some new form."
-- Pope Benedict XVI; Truth and Tolerance; p. 233; emphases mine.
Just because this monstrous system puts on a new and younger face does not render it more benign.
Empty Resume, Empty Promises
Obama has arisen from nothingness, from one accomplishment-free political gig to another, propped up by leftists adulators and sycophants, to offer a perfect portrait of socialism's eternal snare. Forget God; put your hope in mankind. Human arrogance and narcissistic pride. From the fall in the Garden to the present, from generation to generation, Satan's delusion holds sway with many.
Barack Obama is walking, talking, breathing narcissism. The iconography of his campaign is nothing, if not the glorification of Obama, a solitary, quite mortal man. They must glorify Obama's image because, in reality, he has no accomplishments that bear mention.
Obama struts his nothingness with grace; even his detractors admit that.
What could more openly and more amply demonstrate the absolute emptiness of socialism's promise than the perfectly empty resume of its newest hero?
What could possibly more adequately prove the personalized utopianism of his followers than that they believe in a man who has borne no fruitful action?
Barack Obama offers "collective salvation" in the form of socialist government interventions in every sphere of life, from starting-at-birth state education, to socialized, universal health care, to a tripling of the already failing AmeriCorps. This socialist answer to all that ails mankind isn't anything new. It's old, tried, and just as untrue now as in its beginning.
Beware the man who promises what man simply lacks the power to bestow.
"The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule it."
-- H. L. Mencken
Time and time and time again, this has proven true. Time and time again, new men arise in varying disguise, making the same promises, urging the same change.
God or Barack? This ain't rocket science.
The lesson in socialism's long, failed and scandalous history is actually very simple, I think, not rocket science at all.
Life, as God created it, is basically unfair.
Beginning at the very reality that each human being is unique, without exact duplication anywhere, anytime. Even in the case of identical twins, uniqueness begins at the moment of birth, as each twin experiences a separate reality in his or her environment. With uniqueness comes individuality and at every moment of life, unfairness.
No matter the measure one chooses, whether genetic beauty or physical strength, native intelligence or agility, inherited wealth or power, the benefits bestowed by one's parents or the lack of these. In every single aspect of human life, no matter where one is born or what happens thereafter outside one's control, life is not fair.
I perceive that within the heart of every socialist lies an insurmountable resentment over this basic fact, which is always aimed squarely at God, who made things this way. Arrogant man wants to be like God and design things his own way.
Two thousand years ago, however, Jesus of Nazareth offered the eternal solution to the paradox of unfairness and inequality:
Speaking of God's judgment, Jesus said,
From everyone to whom much has been given, much will be required; and from the one to whom much has been entrusted, even more will be demanded.
-- The Gospel of Luke 12:48 (New Revised Standard Version)
All who follow the same God, whether Jewish or Christian, see plainly that God's judgment has nothing whatsoever to do with one's station or gifts in this life, but only with what each individual does with what he is given.
It is certainly no accident that socialism has made its greatest advances among secular people, divorced from God by their own choice, and that today in America, it is the progressive secularists, the hardened socialists and communists, and many radical elements in our society that back Barack Obama's rise. For many of these people, hope in God died long ago.
The salvation that Obama offers comes in the form of radically changing America to a utopian state, which he contends will fix our "broken souls." That simply is not within the province of his abilities.
As Pope Benedict has so wisely and emphatically stated:
Wherever politics tries to be redemptive, it is promising too much. Where it wishes to do the work of God, it becomes, not divine, but demonic.
-- Truth and Tolerance; p. 116
Barack Obama stands front and center now, offering the age-old false promise that mankind can save itself through "collective redemption," and simply because he employs Christian language and symbols, no genuine lovers of God will be fooled.
Hope in God?
Or hope in Obama?
I thank God every day for giving us Americans such a clear and easy choice. Perhaps He is simply using Barack Obama to separate a bit of chaff from the grain.
Kyle-Anne Shiver is an independent citizen journalist and a frequent contributor to American Thinker. She welcomes your comments at kyleanneshiver.com.
Page Printed from: http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/08/why_im_thanking_god_for_obama.html at August 01, 2008 - 11:09:52 PM EDT
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