Bush Scores Yet Another Victory

I don't claim to be the smartest guy on the block, but I don't think I'm totally stupid either. And yet the Democrats and the liberal media must think I am. They keep asking Bush for a strategy and a plan and clear markers of progress. And yet, way last year, or was it the year before, we set out specific dates for election, constitution, election, and then full sovereignty. We have hit those targets almost exactly on the nose in each instance. Where is the headline "Bush - 4 for 4!" But you can imagine the uproar if we'd missed one of these dates by a month or two. Oh, my gosh!

Now we have new expectations. We will be putting Iraqi soldiers and policemen into postions of command that take US soldiers 3-5 years to attain. But it's way to slow for the Dems. Can anyone explain this to me. In simple sentences.

Gift Ideas for Big http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifReaders

If you have a reader in the house and you're trying to figure out some great gifts, don't ever think that your reader gets tired of getting "more books." If you aren't a reader yourself, it is probably a bit difficult to understand us. But we get at least as much, and probably more, enjoyment from a good book, that the rest of the folks get from a good TV program or round of golf.

Anyway, there are two easy ways to get a bunch of ideas for your reader if he or she is a Christian. Up at the top of the page is a little search engine for my blog. Just start typing in names like Randy Alcorn, Ted Dekker, Tim LaHaye. You can also just quickly tool through the archives. A few of the best reviews are down on the right column. You can also see some of my favorites linked to Amazon.

Or you might just jump over to my other blog which has lists of books recommended by folks like Chuck Colson, Dr. Dobson, Charles Swindol and others.

Hopefully among the hundreds of books on these two blogs, you'll find the perfect gift.

The Luckiest Man on Earth

Happy Holidays vs Merry Christmas

My answer to everyone who wishes me happy holidays is to say: "And a Merry Christmas to you, as well!" For my effort, one elf receives a tool belt. Or at least that is the contention of a new website http://www.saveanelf.com. For those who utter the Happy Holidays greeting, they have to live with the fact that they just killed an elf. This rather fun and silly way of dealing with the controversy beats the heck out of lawsuits and talking head arguments. So, Merry Christmas to all of you, and a Happy New Year, Too.

Narnia vs Kong vs Potter

If you like movies and you like horse races and you like to root for certain points of view as expressed by movies, prepare for the face-off of all time. The darkest of the Harry Potter series has been producing box office gross ahead of the other three. Score one for the secularists and the lovers of magic and the occult.

Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe debuts this week with enough pre-opening publicity to make it a sure hit. But will it outgross Harry Potter? If it does, the Christians will have struck another blow for more movies celebrating Christian history, fantasy, and life style movies. Imagine a trend where there were more movies showing Christian and pastors in a positive light than making fun of them.

King Kong, the remake, will hit theaters December 13. The DrudgeReport.com is predicting this will out draw Titanic to become the number 1 film of all time. Christians and secularists won't know how to root on this one. Peter Jackson became a hero to Christians with his wildly successful Lord of the Rings Trilogy. But King Kong can't be seen as a story with many Biblical themes.

If you want to keep score, check out http://www.boxofficemojo.com. This site is great for reviews, history, face-offs between movies, and the like. This really awful movie year will see a great closing month. Some other outstanding movies won't stand a chance.

Field Emission Display - Don't Buy Plasma or CRT Yet

My other favorite magazine, Wired, says that early 2006 will see the intro of FED television by Canon, working with Toshiba. Benefits include super thin, more accurate color, truer blacks, and smoother motion tracking. The technology requires using an inkjet to spray electronics directly onto the glass resulting in millions of microscopic electron emitters arranged in a grid on your screen. Please don't ask me for any more detail on how it works than that, but I'm going to wait a bit longer to buy my next TV.

New Telephone Invention May Change Everything

It is so annoying to hear our cordless phone going off somewhere in the house, then try to hunt it down before the 4th ring. Cell phones are worse, because there is only one handset for each phone number. At least with three phones in a two story house, the cordless landlines offer a respectible chance of success.

With this in mind, I offer my solution. Tethers. They have changed my life with regard to gas caps. I used to have to buy one every year or so. Why not attach a tether to each phone and attach the other end to a wall? Then you would always know where it is.

Let me know if you'd like to make an investment in my new product.

The Truth About Troop Casualties in Iraq

If anyone of a center or center left persuasion wonders why I am so skeptical about the mainstream media or the Democrats, here is another example. We keep hearing about the 15,000 "wounded" in Iraq. Here is the real story.

Statistics for Army hospitals treating Operation Iraqi Freedom casualties can be found here. From March 19, 2003, through May 31, 2005 there were 18,729 total evacuations to Army facilities, broken down for cause as follows:

Wounded in action (WIA): 2,527
Non-battle injuries (NBI): 5,444
Disease: 10,758
The number of amputations may be surprising to those who've never seen them reported before.
188 Army soldiers, 28 of whom are multiple amputees
60 Marines, 10 of whom are multiple amputees
4 Navy sailors, no multiple amputees
2 Air Force amputees, 1 of whom is a multiple amputee
Total of 254 service member amputees treated in Army hospitals
The numbers from Afghanistan are smaller:
Wounded in action (WIA): 122
Non-battle injuries (NBI): 408
Disease: 1,046

Total of 28 service member amputees treated in Army hospitals

HT to http://hughhewitt.com/

Cows, NOT Humans, to Blame for Global Warming

Almost 20 years ago my friend, Ron Guilbault, told me that the major sources of methane gas were cow flatulance and termites. He also maintained that one major volcanic eruuption creates more carbon dioxide than all the human effort since the beginning of humandom. Here is the most recent cow study

But a study by French scientists published this year warned that flatulent farm animals must shoulder some of the blame.

There are 1.4 billion cows worldwide, each producing 500 litres of methane a day and accounting for 14% of all emissions of the gas.

Carbon dioxide is by far the biggest contributor to climate change, but methane has 23 times the warming potential of CO2 so reducing its emission is also considered important.

Sure, it is a French study, but discounting that, surely there must be a way to pipe that methane into a storage facility and then pump into cars.

The Truth About Homeland Security

Sometimes I start to believe that Tim Russert of Meet the Press is trying real hard to be balanced in his reporting. And I acknowledge that you can't give a really deep answer to a complex issue in 10 minutes. However, today's program interviewed the Chair & Vice Chair of the 9/11 Commission, Tom Kean and Lee Hamilton, on their final report on terrorism & U.S. preparedness, "The 9/11 Commission Report: The Unfinished Agenda" The complete transcript is available. I take you to the middle.

MR. RUSSERT: I can just see my dad and millions of other Americans sitting here watching this program this morning saying, "What is going on?" It's been four years since September 11. You had your commission. You met, had a bipartisan unanimous vote, had these recommendations to allow emergency responders to talk with one another...

MR. KEAN: Yeah.

MR. RUSSERT: ...to give more money to areas of high risk, to have a unified command center and nothing's been done. What is the problem? Seriously, who's accountable?

MR. HAMILTON: Well, we've asked ourselves that question a good many times. I think in general what we will say tomorrow is that there is a lack of a sense of urgency. And that's what impresses us overall. I think what happens is sustainability is a very tough thing in our government just because there are so many competing priorities. We've got a war going on. We've got three wars going on, one in Afghanistan, one in Iraq and the war against terror, and it's awfully hard to keep people focused on something like this. What Tom and I and the other commissioners are saying is we have to get back to a real sense of urgency about protecting the safety and the security of the American people.

Here are my two biggest objections. Not once during the entire interview does he ask the gentlemen if the POTUS and the Congress should get an A for having given us four years without a single successful attack on US interests. At no time does he provide a list or ask for a list of the things that have been done correctly!!

This month's issue of Wired Magazine points out why no ideology or use of force will defeat America. Our capitalistic system rewards folks for coming up with ways to stop bad guys. The rewards are huge, thus the brains in business, not the ones in congress or the administration, will be working night and day to collect the bucks from the method or weapon that will stop these freaks.

The only thing besides fear itself that we have to fear, is that capitalism will become the underpinning of another major power who decides for illogical reasons that we are the enemy. Only a great capitalist country can ever defeat us, and a truly great capitalist society will not want to hurt us, because it will hurt a major market.

Read by Four - Step By Step Method Anyone Can Do

I was planning to write a book on this, create a series of CD's, set up classes, and otherwise market the idea into untold $millions for my family. Alas, there is only so much time, and I have a blog to write. So here it is for free.

I have successfully taught 3 of my children to read at the third grade level within one year of starting. One started at age 4 and a half. The other two started at age 3 and a half. My youngest boy read the first 4 books of the Bible by age 5, and the entire New Testament by age six. (Children's International Version which is a full translation.)

Sure, my kids are brilliant (at least according to me.) However, I maintain that this can be done with any child. Here are the steps. No Charge. No Come On.

1. Start teaching letters as soon as they will pay attention. Use Sesame Street, magnetic letters on the Fridge, blocks, electronic games, anything. At age 2 and a half, have dad sit with the soon to be genius for 10-20 minutes and study letters. I suggest dad, because it will be special time. Not that moms aren't special, just that the kid is probably getting lots of attention from mom with very little work. I suggest that this study be done on Dad's lap. Makes it even more special and desirable.

2. The first goal is to have the young reader recognize every letter by pointing to them as you say them . The second goal is to have them saying the letter when you point to it. These two exercises can be done simultaneously with some work on each done each day. Start with capitals. When they are 100% proficient, then do the lower case letters.

3. While this entire process is going on, begin to tell them what a few simple words are in their children's books as you read to them. Words like the, and, or, I, and Mom. This is so that they will begin to get the idea that the sets of letters they are seeing are more than just letters, but have word meanings.

4. At this point you will need a "reader." My personal favorite is the McGuffy's Readers, which are a reprint of a reader from the 19th Century. They are so different than anything else the child will be seeing, that they have a special intrigue. There is also much talk of God in these readers. Finally, they have phonics in an easy way to explain it.

5. Whatever reader you choose, begin with a few weeks of see and say. In other words, have the child learn words that they can associate with pictures. In the McGuffy's, these are words like pot, ax, dog, cat, and hat.

6. Don't do "see and say" for more than six or eight weeks. Begin to take the pictures away as soon as possible and introduce new words that don't have a picture. Again, the McGuffy's reader does this in a way that make the transition easy.

7. About 90 days into this process, begin to do phonics drills. I always started with "a" and worked on various "a" sounds before moving to "e"

8. During your story book reading time, point out the words they have learned as you see them. Very likely, they will begin to point them out as well.

9. You will be surprised at how quickly they begin to take over some of the reading of their stories, combining actual reading with memorization.

10. Within 1 year, they should be reading at about the 3rd grade level, if you do about 20 minutes per day, 4 days per week.

11. I'd love to get your comments and e-mails on this.

Oil Prices May Be On the Way Down - Way Down

One little known theory of commodities pricing is that what goes up fast, comes down fast. Be prepared for a precipitous fall in oil, gold, silver, and platinum.

Some oil executives worry prices may fall
By Jad Mouawad The New York Times
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 4, 2005

NEW YORK Hold on to your gas guzzlers: Cheap oil may once again be just around the corner. Even as consumers worry about high gasoline prices and rising heating bills, oil executives in London, Texas and Saudi Arabia seem to be concerned about a prospect of falling oil prices.

In a recent speech in Singapore, John Browne, the chief executive of BP, spoke of a possible sharp drop in prices and called current levels "unsustainably high."

John Hofmeister, head of Shell Oil in the United States, said during an interview, "This high price cycle is artificially inflated."

The notion of a steep falloff in energy prices may seem far-fetched.

After all, in the past year, the market has experienced crude oil prices that touched $70 a barrel; huge disruptions in the Gulf of Mexico; strong demand from the United States and from the world's fastest-growing market, China; continuing problems in producing Iraqi oil for export; and mounting tensions with Iran, a large OPEC exporter.

If anything, most of those situations would point to a sustained period of high energy prices. Most analysts said they expected crude oil prices to remain above $40 a barrel for the foreseeable future.

But the oil business has witnessed a succession of booms and busts, and oil companies have found it impossible to balance their future production with the world's need for oil. Too much capacity, and prices fall; too little, and they rise.

Today, producers are again under pressure to step up production and refining, and to increase investments to get more oil to the markets quickly. But oil executives and government ministers are concerned that if demand slowed down, even a little bit, those investments might create a large oversupply in two to three years, pushing prices down again.

Only a few years ago, the industry was dealing with a glut in production capacity, sluggish demand and a financial crisis in Asia. All of that led to an oil-price collapse in 1998, with futures contracts falling to about $10 a barrel.

Prices eventually rose, but the experience left a lasting impression among producers. As Saudi Arabia's oil minister, Ali al-Naimi, said recently at a news conference in Riyadh, "As producers, we don't want to build capacity without demand."

This recurring debate in the industry may seem odd. Recently, the theme has been the end of cheap oil, prompted by a surge in Chinese demand and a lack of spare production capacity. Traders' concerns that producers would struggle to catch up with consumer demand pushed prices to $60 a barrel from $30 in less than two years. Doomsayers saw signs that the world was running out of oil.

But there are indications that high oil prices may be coming to an end. After briefly topping $70 a barrel when Hurricane Katrina interrupted supplies from the Gulf of Mexico, prices have fallen on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Analysts at Citibank said oil might fall to $50 a barrel, and possibly less, in coming months.

There's more if you want it here

Who Makes Minimum Wage?

Some demagogues charge that jobs at Wal-Mart and McDonald's only pay the minimum wage. That's plain wrong, as are many other things said about jobs that start at the minimum wage. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics: Sixty-three percent of minimum wage workers receive raises within one year of employment, and only 15 percent still earn the minimum wage after three years. Moreover, only three percent of all hourly workers and two percent of wage and salary earners earn minimum wages. Most minimum wage earners are young -- 53 percent are between the ages of 16 and 24.

Furthermore, only 5.3 percent of minimum wage earners are from households below the official poverty line; 40 percent of minimum wage earners live in households with incomes of $60,000 and higher, and over 82 percent of minimum wage earners do not have dependents. -- Walter Williams

Hat Tip to John Hawkins

Can we take those stats and make them more real: Almost all minimum wage workers are just starting out on their first job, are very young, and live with someone who adds to their support. Moreover, 85% will no longer be earning the minimum 3 years from now. That last 15% are very likely also the secondary wage earner, and have reasons for staying where the wages are low. Very low skills, no effort to advance, poor work habits or attitude, other benefits on the job that are not paid in cash.

Right Wing News Offers List of Most Fascinating People in the Blogosphere

I'm not on the list, but since all of them are not that flattering, I may be glad to have been passed over. In any case, if you are politically conservative, and you would like a fun read check out this site

Truth About Global Warming Activists

Another site I love to visit is Junk Science. Here is the beginning of a new article out today.

The 11th annual meeting of global warming enthusiasts in Montreal isn’t turning out to be a very happy event. Even though this is the first opportunity for the burgeoning global climate bureaucracy to celebrate the full implementation of the Kyoto Protocol, the realities of science, economics and politics are raining on its parade.

First, a new study published this week in the journal Nature (Dec. 1) turns global warming alarmism on its head. British researchers reported that the ocean current responsible for the tropical winds that warm Europe’s climate has decreased by an estimated 30 percent since 1957. The headline of the New Scientist report (Nov. 30) on the study nicely captured its import, “Failing ocean current raises fear of mini ice age.”

That conclusion, however, doesn’t jibe at all with the reality of European climate, which began warming 200 years ago and is now setting the modern records for warm temperatures that the pro-Kyoto crowd likes to hyperventilate about. The European Environment Agency, in fact, claimed on Nov. 29 that Europe is currently facing

To read the rest, go here