Hat tip to Orbusmax for pointin out this piece from KGW.Com:

In the face of evidence agreed upon by hundreds of climate scientists, George Taylor holds firm. He does not believe human activities are the main cause of global climate change.

Taylor also holds a unique title: State Climatologist.

Taylor has held the title of “state climatologist” since 1991 when the legislature created a state climate office at OSU The university created the job title, not the state.

His opinions conflict not only with many other scientists, but with the state of Oregon’s policies.

So the governor wants to take that title from Taylor and make it a position that he would appoint.

In an exclusive interview with KGW-TV, Governor Ted Kulongoski confirmed he wants to take that title from Taylor. The governor said Taylor’s contradictions interfere with the state’s stated goals to reduce greenhouse gases, the accepted cause of global warming in the eyes of a vast majority of scientists.

“He is Oregon State University’s climatologist. He is not the state of Oregon’s climatologist,” Kulongoski said.

Kulongoski said the state needs a consistent message on reducing greenhouse gases to combat climate change.

The Governor says, “I just think there has to be somebody that says, ‘this is the state position on this.’”

So, what Kulongoski really wants is a mouthpiece, with a sheepskin that can lend his prognotications some credence.  He is not concerned with the science, but with the politics, and making sure that the person who holds the title of State Climatoligist parrots the orthodoxy of the Church of the Environment, and it’s Pontiff, AlGore.

Why stop with the State Climatologist?  Why not appoint Ehren Watada as head of the Oregon National Guard (assuming he is not in federal prison)?

Captain’s Quarters has a piece that nicely summarizes Rudy Giuliani’s place in the race for the Republican nomination.

John Podhoretz explains the surprising popularity of Rudy Giuliani in the early stages of the 2008 presidential primary campaign, writing that Republicans want to like Rudy — if he’ll let them. In his New York Post column, Podhoretz notes more than a few of the hurdles that Giuliani faces, but insists that neither conservatives nor Giuliani want to go to war over them:

Republicans not only like Rudy, they want to like him. Conservative Republicans want to like him. Socially conservative Republicans want to like him.

Rudy, by contrast, is trying to convince social conservatives that he’s their friend. They disagree on certain matters, he’ll say, but on the key issue of our time – the struggle of the West against Islamic extremism – they’ll never have a better or more staunch ally and leader.

And while his personal views on some issues may differ from theirs, he’ll appoint judges in the manner of Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, John Roberts and Samuel Alito – which is, in the end, most of what a president can do to support the ideas in which social conservatives deeply believe.

One of the arguments for supporting a moderate is that moderates have a better chance of winning general elections. Hillary Clinton knows that, which is why she antagonized the left-wing activist base of her party to build centrist credentials during her term in the Senate. They generally have a tough time in the primaries, however, because of real or perceived indifference or outright hostility to the party base. In Rudy’s case, we haven’t seen that kind of hostility, unlike John McCain in some instances where his frustration with conservatives got the best of him. Rudy doesn’t apologize for his positions, but he casts them in such a way as to build a consensus for leadership as the overriding consideration in the primaries.

I don’t agree with Giuliani on every issue.  But then, I didn’t agree with Reagan on every issue, either.  Rudy’s position on most issues correspond to mine.  One of the most important is the continued appointment of Constructionist judges to the Supreme Court.  He agrees that Border Security is paramount (though I would like to hear more details on what to do with the illegals already here).  His position on abortion is that the current law is established, but I gather that he would prefer that it be a matter left to the states.  He is law and order – just look at the change in New York city during his tenure.  And most of all, he has a sense of humor, and does not seem to take himself way too seriously.  And best of all, as a product of New York politics, any skeletons in his closet have long been exposed, and he has been on the national stage for years.

He is not my perfect candidate.  I truly wish that Newt Gingrich has a real chance in the race.  But Rudy seems to have the qualities that we need right now.  And, as a bonus, he can give the left a true fight for the state of New York’s electoral votes.

Courtesy of Der Spiegel:

(James) Lovelock is a chemist, inventor, author and visionary environmental guru. Using a detector he invented himself, he was the first to provide evidence of ozone-consuming fluorochlorohydrocarbons (FCHC) in the atmosphere. More importantly, Lovelock is the inventor of the famous “Gaia hypothosis,” which holds that the planet (which he named after the Greek goddess of the Earth, Gaia), constantly controls all of its systems on land, in the water and in the air in such a way as to preserve life — almost as if the earth itself were a living organism.

…

No world power, no scientist, no politician, no consumer forsaking his or her familiar comforts, and neither emissions trading nor wind energy nor biofuels will be capable of preventing the earth’s demise, he says. According to Lovelock, it will at best be possible to delay the catastrophe for a while — primarily through the massive expansion of nuclear energy.

…

“Our situation,” Lovelock says, “is similar to that of a boat that suddenly loses engine power shortly before reaching Niagara Falls. What’s the point of trying to repair the engine?” To save what it can, Lovelock believes, the world must embark on a completely different path. Most important, it must abandon the notion of “green romanticism.”

…

Lovelock has nothing but ridicule for environmentalists’ favorite issues, such as “sustainable development” and “renewable energy,” calling them “well-meaning nonsense.” He is convinced that wind and solar energy will never be even remotely capable of meeting worldwide energy needs. In China alone, for example, a new large coal power plant is put into operation every five days, imposing additional burdens on the atmosphere. The only solution, according to Lovelock, is the massive expansion of nuclear energy worldwide.

…

“Fanatical Greens” who confuse nuclear power with nuclear bombs, says Lovelock, have discredited this source of energy. Do-gooders, he adds, are concerned about pesticide residues in bananas and the link between mobile phones and cancer, all the while accepting CO2 poisoning as a necessary evil. “They strain out the mosquitoes while blithely swallowing camels,” he says.

There is so little that I can add to this.

No matter how you slice it, Nuclear Energy is the cleanest and most plentiful of all of our options with currently available technology.  Depending on who’s estimates you use, there are suffiecient Uranium reserves for up to 100 years, and other sources of fissionable materials that could last for serveral hundred years.

And research on Fusion power generation is ongoing, and will, someday, provide us with the ultimate achievement of limitless inexpensive energy.

State Senator Rosa Franklin (Prime Sponsor of 31 Bills this session, Seconday Sponsor on over 120) wrote a piece that appeared in today’s New Tribune, advocating an Income Tax for Washington State (SJR 8209 And SURPRISE SURPRISE, Sen. Kohl-Welles is a co-sponsor!, and SB 5150)

With our tax structure so heavily dependent on the sales tax, we have a double-edged sword. When times are flush, as they are now, we grow a reserve. When times turn lean – and make no mistake, they will someday – we face daunting budget choices.

Of course, what the good Senator seems to miss, is that in lean time, the people face daunting budget choices too.

Look, too, at what this means for families. Remember that the sales tax rate is the same for you and me and for everyone else in Washington, with very slight variations for local jurisdictions. Right now, those who earn less than $20,000 a year pay nearly 16 percent of their income in state and local taxes. On the other hand, those making more than $150,000 pay roughly 4 percent.

And again, the Senator misses the point, that a Sales Tax, as we current enjoy, is a CONSUMPTION TAX.  And with items such as Food not subject to sales tax, it falls predominantly on people with disposable income.  But, as they say, follow the money:  the last line of that statement says it all; citizens making over $150,000 are not paying as much in taxes, as a proportion of their income. 

It’s unfair that those who are least able to afford to pay are paying at a higher rate than those who can. It was unfair 20 years ago, and it will still be unfair 20 years from now. I’m not the first one to point this out, but I’d sure like to be the last. Fairness aside, doesn’t it make logical sense to tax according to income and not consumption?

First, a correction:  everyone pays the same RATE.  Lower income people are paying a higher PROPORTION.

As to logic, where is the logic in punishing achievement and investment?  A consupmtion tax that exempts essentials like food and medicine is the most fair and logical tax possible.  You buy a car, you pay some tax.  You buy a $2M yacht, you pay some tax.  You buy some peanut butter and bread, you pay no tax…

In a nutshell, this year’s measure, Senate Bill 5150, would lower the state sales tax to 3.5 percent. It would eliminate the state’s share of the property tax. And it would impose a graduated income tax on personal income of individuals, estates and trusts.

This is nothing more than an effort to finally move to what is (wrongly, in my estimation), a Progressive tax system.  That is to say, in plain english, The More You Make, The More You Pay.

What never seems to occur to the money grabbers is that if they were really concerened about the people on the bottom of the ladder, they could just exempt them from the sales tax completely.  Adjust the sales tax up about 1/2 a point (or whatever it would be to equalize the revenue) for the rest of us, and everyone wins.

Well, everyone but the bureaucrats and politicians who see a cow in the field, and can’t help themselves from trying to get some more milk out of it.

The Senator then throws in some meat, offering to also lower the state property tax a bit, and assuring us that only a vote of the people could change tax rates (like they can’t get around that).

I’ve been marching along the road to tax reform for a long time. I may not get to my destination this session, either. But if we continue to talk respectfully with clear minds, with taxpayers and with business about what’s fair and predictable and stable, we all can arrive at a better and stronger tax system.

Let’s hope she has to keep marching for a long time…

And just to inject a dose of reality into this (having just worked on my taxes earlier this week), courtesy of the IRS:

…you have the option of claiming either state and local income taxes or state and local sales taxes. (You can’t claim both.)

So, if the good Senator gets her way, theoretically, you could choose between deduction Sales Tax OR State Income Tax from your federal taxes, but not both.  Might as well move to Oregon, where you only get hit from one side…

Just DAYS after the Left had apoplectic fits over George Bush leaving the “-ic” off when referring to the Democrat Party, they local branch of that party proves his point (though he spinelessly denies it, and claims it was a honest mistake – oh well, my opinion of Mr. Bush is not glowing).

As Stefan Sharkansky noted over at Sound Politics noted yesterday:

The Senate Government Operations & Elections Committee holds a “public hearing” at 1:30pm today on several bills designed to cripple the people’s Constitutional right to initiative:

SB 5181 – Requiring signature gatherers to wear identification.
SB 5182 – Requiring signature gatherers to sign initiative and referendum petitions.
SB 5356 – Prohibiting payment of petition signature gatherers on a per-signature basis.
SB 5392 – Increasing the initiative filing fee.
SB 5418 – Requiring ballot titles to indicate tax consequences of the ballot measure.
SJR 8205 – Relating to the constitutional provisions regarding initiatives and referendums.

Most members of the public whose rights these bills aim to vaporize are too busy working to attend the hearing. But Tim Eyman, whom the anti-citizen coup-plotters in the permanent government love to hate, will be there. Watch live on TVW.

Thus proving that there is little, if anything “Democratic” about the party that calls itself “Democrat”, any more than the “Democratic Peoples Republic Of Korea” deserves appellation of Democratic OR Republic. But isn’t it funny that the farther left, and intolerant of dissent a movement goes, the more it tries to garb itself in the name “Democratic”, to try to hide their true intent?

Courtesy of DANEgerus:

“In the end more than they wanted freedom, they wanted security. When the Athenians finally wanted not to give to society but for society to give to them, when the freedom they wished for was freedom from responsibility, then Athens ceased to be free.”

– Edward Gibbon

Courtesy of Examiner.Com:

Although he frequently makes a point of finding something charitable to say about his opponents’ arguments, Sen. Barack Obama almost always ends up voting liberal.

“The arguments of liberals are more often grounded in reason and fact,” the Illinois Democrat wrote in “The Audacity of Hope,” a memoir published last year.

In my life to date, I have been able to have rational, reasonably unemotional conversations with (to the best of my recollection) 5 “liberals”.  In every other case, the conversations either begin or (fairly quickly) end with an increase in volume, and lowering of actual “reason and fact” into cliche and epithets.

In fact, I am disturbed that the left uses the phrase “Liberal” to describe itself, since the broad definition of Liberal means:

showing or characterized by broad-mindedness; “a broad political stance”; “generous and broad sympathies”; “a liberal newspaper”; “tolerant of his opponent’s opinions”

The Left is ANYTHING but tolerant.  No dissent is tolerated from party line.  You are part of THEIR SOLUTION, or you are part of the problem.

Not sure where Reason and Fact enter into it…