As I write this, Lieberman Must Go has 35,000+ signatures on this petition:

We CANNOT tolerate a leader of the Senate Democratic Caucus who supports George Bush and McCain’s War in Iraq. We CANNOT tolerate a Democratic chairman of the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee who endorses and stumps for McCain. We call on the Senate Democratic Steering Committee to strip Joe Lieberman of his chairmanship and his leadership role.

Which action, of course, would also probably strip the Democrats of their Senate majority, at least until January – either the petitioners don’t realise this, or they are supremely confident in picking up a net of at least one Senate seat in November. Still, it is a bit arrogant for them to make that presumption – the time to strip Lieberman, if that is to be done, would be in January, and then only if the Democrats have 51 seats without him. I’ll bet they get to 350,000 signatures in short order, so great is the leftwing hatred of President Bush and of anyone who doesn’t hate him as the left does.

Please note that they are calling it “George Bush and McCain’s War in Iraq” – it is, of course, America’s campaign in Iraq, part of America’s fight in the War on Terrorism, but so hatefilled is the left these days that they are not animated by a desire of what is best for America, but by a desire of what is most harmful to President Bush and his possible GOP successor, John McCain. There is also the rank moral cowardice of making such a statement – it is the left saying, “its not me!”; as if one can be a true and loyal American citizen and not be morally responsible for all of the acts of the United States of America. Only a traitor can really say of Iraq that it is not his campaign – but it remains America’s campaign, even if a traitor eschews it; a traitor, or someone so hate filled that they don’t understand what they are actually doing.

And before anyone out there says I’m exaggerating about the hate, herewith some samples from the signatures:

Awful person…He is among the biggest scumbags on the planet…He’s is worsre than a traitor…Lieberman has set the reality of self serving, despicable politicians at a new plateau…His country is Israel not the USA.

How many of our young men and women must die to defend Israel and the powerful AIPAC?…Are peoplle like him mindless idiots or hellbent on destroying America?…A totally classless jerk…Joe Liberman’s position is more in line with Israel’s than US’s…AIPAC is his allegiance. He takes his orders from them…He is a traiter, but more than that, he is such a non human…Not only must he go, strip him of his citizenship…This man is a menace to society…Joe belongs in the GOP-aipac section…Joe go live in Israel now. You are a war monger supreme…more loyal to Israel than to our country…

I think that pretty much says it all – fanatic hatred destroying the souls of those on the left to the point where they don’t even realise they’re slipping into anti-Semitism…

John McCain’s new ad, Purpose.

Can’t win for losing with these nuts:

Faced with a surge in the number of proposed solar power plants, the federal government has placed a moratorium on new solar projects on public land until it studies their environmental impact, which is expected to take about two years.

The Bureau of Land Management says an extensive environmental study is needed to determine how large solar plants might affect millions of acres it oversees in six Western states — Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and Utah.

But the decision to freeze new solar proposals temporarily, reached late last month, has caused widespread concern in the alternative-energy industry, as fledgling solar companies must wait to see if they can realize their hopes of harnessing power from swaths of sun-baked public land, just as the demand for viable alternative energy is accelerating.

“It doesn’t make any sense,” said Holly Gordon, vice president for legislative and regulatory affairs for Ausra, a solar thermal energy company in Palo Alto, Calif. “The Bureau of Land Management land has some of the best solar resources in the world. This could completely stunt the growth of the industry”…

…Alex Daue, an outreach coordinator for the Wilderness Society, an environmental conservation group, praised the government for assessing the implications of large-scale solar development.

Some enviros say “go solar” and then other say “halt construction because there’s a squirrel out there”(and yes, the fate of a rat with a fluffy tail – ie, a squirrel – is one of the concerns). Pick one, already. Life ain’t perfect and there’s always a trade-off – in order to go solor we are going to have to actually build stuff, which will mean that part of that natural environment you whackos are always on about will have to be modified for human use…but the payoff will be less greenhouse emissions and thus we’ll be “fixing” that global warming nonsense you’ve been having a heart attack about lately.

Been an interesting week – stocks drop, oil rockets up, Iraq improves massively, Obama caught short again and again…and while we can’t execute a child molestor, it appears that we can keep our guns, so shooting a child molestor is not entirely out of the question.

Discuss these and anything else you’d like.

Excellently illustrated recently in a debate between Donna Brazile (who is actually a very smart woman, but she’s got little to work with these days) and Bill Bennett on CNN’s Situation Room, as noted by Catholics in the Public Square:

WOLF BLITZER: If you had been at that news conference, Bill, and you had a chance to ask one question, today, what would you have asked, if you were a reporter?

BILL BENNETT: I think when he brought up Chicago I would have said “why are you to the left of NARAL, Barbara Boxer and Diane Feinstein when it comes to abortion? Are you really there?” Not that it’s the only issue in the campaign, but I gotta question the guy’s moral judgment, who doesn’t see a problem with killing a baby after it’s been born after eight months.

DONNA BRAZILE: But he’s had an opportunity in several debates to talk about his position on abortion —

BENNETT: What is the answer to that question?

BRAZILE: Bill, look —

BENNETT: What is the answer?!

BRAZILE: You want to have a conversation about narrow issues —

BENNETT: That is not: that is fundamental!

BRAZILE: It is a fundamental issue, but the American people want to talk about gas prices …

More accurately, the American people are concerned with gas prices; it is Democrats who want to talk about it, because Obama and his Democrats have no actual plan for energy, but do feel they can score cheap points off the issue, as well as keep people off the subject of Obama’s manifest incapacity to be President of the United States. That aside, this also shows the very smallness of modern Democrats. Leave foreign affairs to the UN; use the military as a social services agency and please lets talk about gas prices as if the price of a gallon of gas is the largest issue in the whole, wide world. Truth is, it only modestly annoys me once per week when I fill up the tank – but even then I can pat myself on the back for not purchasing an SUV, as so many liberals do (one of the larger problems I noted in getting around Santa Monica, CA is the massive number of SUVs clogging the roads in that oh, so liberal city). Most of the time, the price of gas doesn’t come up – what with worries over the old man’s health, the purchase of a new dog and, you know, that life thingy that we’re supposed to be doing instead of worrying about gas prices.

Meanwhile, a very large number of my fellow human beings will be murdered this year, mostly because some people have been suckered into thinking that its no big deal to kill the unborn. Somehow, the death of a human being looms a little larger in the grand scheme of things than the difference between $3.25 and $4.25 a gallon…

Seems that the good people of San Francisco, in a bid to remain on the cutting edge of what passes for humor on the left, want to name a new sewage treatment plant after President Bush. A reader over at NRO’s The Corner answers the suggestion:

That’s perfect. A facility that does a dirty but necessary job that disgusts the liberals who played a big part in creating the mess (see Rich Lowry’s book, Legacy: Paying the Price for the Clinton Years), thereby protecting them in spite of themselves, should absolutely be named after Bush.

The liberals don’t get it – all their insults, hatred and lies do absolutely nothing to President Bush. He’s got the thickest skin in politics and given that he’s a Christian, he’s probably going to pray for the people who want to do this. What kind of nastiness must a person have invited into their life to think that this is a good thing to do?

Pity these poor creatures – they become a sadder spectacle all the time.

We need a President we can rely on to figure out what needs to be done, and then have the courage to stick with it, even if it proves unpopular at times. The situation in Iraq is giving us our strongest test of this for Obama and McCain:

The number of weekly attacks in Iraq has dropped from about 1,200 a week in June 2007 to about 200 a week now, the commander of the tactical unit responsible for command and control of operations in Iraq said June 23.

Mirroring this reduction in violence has been a 70 percent decrease in roadside-bomb attacks and an 85 percent spike in the number of weapons caches Coalition forces have found over the past year, Army Lt. Gen. Lloyd J. Austin III, commander of Multi-National Corps – Iraq, told reporters via satellite from Baghdad at a Pentagon news conference.

“I attribute most of these hard-fought gains in security to a few key factors: our Coalition forces aggressively pursuing the enemy, the improving capability of the Iraqi Security Forces, and the Iraqi people participating in the rebuilding process of Iraq,” he said.

But the general tempered his optimism, characterizing security improvements as fragile gains that coalition troops are attempting to solidify as they build the capabilities of their Iraqi counterparts.

“While the improved security is a great achievement, we clearly understand that our progress is fragile, and we continue to work to make this progress irreversible,” he said.

The general praised coalition troops for having al-Qaida “on its heels,” yet he identified the organization as the “primary threat” remaining in Iraq. The terrorist group yesterday launched an attack in Baqouba that killed at least 15 people, including several police officers, and wounded dozens of others.

“Even though we assess that they are on the run, they are still capable of launching spectacular attacks,” Austin said, noting yesterday’s bombing in the Diyala province city. “As a result, our operations in the north are focused on defeating their capability to perform these attacks.”

It must be emphasised again and again just what Obama said on the floor of the United States Senate on January 30, 2007:

The time for waiting in Iraq is over. The days of our open-ended commitment must come to a close. And the need to bring this war to an end is here.

That is why today, I’m introducing the Iraq War De-escalation Act of 2007.

This plan would not only place a cap on the number of troops in Iraq and stop the escalation, more importantly, it would begin a phased redeployment of U.S. forces with the goal of removing of all U.S. combat forces from Iraq by March 31st, 2008 – consistent with the expectations of the bipartisan Iraq study group that the President has so assiduously ignored.(emphasis added)

If Obama and his Democrats had been able to implement their defeatist plan, then the last US soldier would have left Iraq about 7 weeks ago…and all of the success of the surge would not have happened. In other words, if Obama had got his wish, al-Qaeda in Iraq would not be on the run but would, instead, have patiently waited for us to leave and then struck out from its safe havens in Anbar province, Basra and Sadr City to take over Iraq entirely. Instead of American victory and surging Iraqi liberty, we’d have a new Afghanistan on steriods.

And now lets contrast Obama with McCain’s statement from January 12, 2007:

We should make no mistake – the potentially catastrophic consequences of failure demand that we do all we can to prevail in Iraq. A substantial and sustained increase in U.S. forces in Baghdad and Anbar province is necessary to bring down the toxic levels of violence there.

There is much agreement that the dire situation in Iraq demands a political solution. That is true. But we must also realize what it will take to enable any political solution. It is simply impossible for meaningful political and economic activity to take place in an environment as riddled with violence as Baghdad is today. Security is the precondition for political and economic progress.

Until the government and its coalition allies can protect the population, the Iraqi people will increasingly turn to extra-governmental forces, especially Sunni and Shiite militias, for protection. Only when the government has a monopoly on the legitimate use of force will its authority have meaning, and only when its authority has meaning can political activity have the results we seek.

The presence of additional coalition forces would allow the Iraqi government to do what it cannot accomplish today on its own – impose its rule throughout the country. They can do this by engaging in traditional counterinsurgency activities aimed at protecting the population and breaking the cycle of violence. In bringing greater security to Iraq, and chiefly to Baghdad, our forces would give the government a fighting chance to pursue reconciliation.

McCain was 100% right, Obama was 100% wrong – its not that they had a slight difference of opinion here, good people. Obama wanted us out as quickly as possible, McCain wanted us to stay as long as necessary for us to prevail. Obama’s plan would have ensured our defeat in Iraq and risked a longer, bloodier war in the future; because McCain’s plan prevailed we’ve now got victory in Iraq and a real chance to completely change the socio-political dynamic in the Middle East. Who do you want as President in January – the man who was completely wrong, or the man who was completely right?

The case where the SC ruled that we can’t execute someone for raping a child:

As a father, I believe there is no more sacred responsibility in American society than that of protecting the innocence of our children. I have spent over twenty-five years in Congress fighting for stronger criminal sentences for those who exploit and harm our children. Today’s Supreme Court ruling is an assault on law enforcement’s efforts to punish these heinous felons for the most despicable crime. That there is a judge anywhere in America who does not believe that the rape of a child represents the most heinous of crimes, which is deserving of the most serious of punishments, is profoundly disturbing.

I have to say that its not particularly disturbing to me – there is a longstanding strain of thought amongst some judges that they really know better than anyone else, so no real surprise that the Supreme Court has ruled itself smarter than the people of Louisiana in this matter. The absurdity of the decision is very clear – unless capital punishment is in and of itself unconstitutional there is no rationale for a court to interfere with the particular reasons a jurisdiction imposes the death penalty as long as the trial and sentencing are in accordance with the United States Constitution. The people of Lousiana have determined that those who rape children put their own lives a jeopardy, and everyone outside Louisiana should just shut their traps about it unless they want to move to Louisiana and, by participating in Louisiana’s politics, work to change the law. But never let it be said that the Court is shy about sticking its nose in where it doesn’t belong.

That said, I’d like to remind everyone that I am an opponent of the death penalty – killing the SOB who raped a child won’t actually help the raped child and by putting the criminal at risk of death for rape we merely, in my view, increase the risk that it will be a rape/murder in order to dispose of the prime witness to the crime. Should such a proposal come up here in Nevada, I would work against it and vote against it – but its none of my particular business what the people of Louisiana decide, just at its none of theirs what we Nevadans decide. America does need a large dose of “mind your own business” education. What I am most disturbed with here is the judicial usurpation of the rights of the States, and the people. We are either free people ruling ourselves, or we are mere automatons carrying out the instructions of our judges – if this SC ruling is allowed to stand, then we will have surrendered another part of our precious right to self government.

This ruling also provides us with another strong reason for voting for John McCain in November – with McCain, we might get to a solid 5 conservative Justices, and thus start having a Court which obeys the Constitution at all times…with Obama, we’ll probably get to a solid 5 liberal Justices who will do the bidding of the kook left in matters of law. The choices in November are quite stark, and this case might end up playing a larger role than most expect at this point in time.

From NRO’s The Corner:

A friend on the Hill writes:

Today marked a new low for the way congressional Democrats deal with national security. This morning, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and the House Permanent Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming held a joint hearing on a “National Intelligence Assessment” on global climate change. This analysis was ordered by the Democratic Congress last year and was issued a few weeks ago. Some highlights (or low-lights) from the hearing:

1) In response to a question by Global Warming Committee member Greg Walden (R-OR), the Intelligence Community admitted they had “low to medium confidence” in the accuracy of this estimate because intelligence officers lack the expertise to write such an estimate (it was mostly contracted out to other organizations) and climate change science is so uncertain. As Walden started to ask about why an analysis of such low reliability was issued, Congressman Ed Markey (D-MA), the Global Warming Committee Chairman, cut him off and told him he was out of time even though Markey let all the previous Democrats speak substantially past their time limits.

2) Intelligence Committee Ranking Member Peter asked what intelligence was used for this estimate and whether intelligence collection requirements were prepared. National Intelligence Council Chairman Thomas Fingar said no clandestine intelligence was used and that intelligence officers extrapolated what would happen if the “mid-level estimates” by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change were correct. When Hoekstra asked why the U.S. Intelligence Community would write an major analysis of low to medium confidence that contained no intelligence, Fingar answered, “because you [Congress] told us to.”

3) Hoekstra noted that intelligence assessments of high confidence have proven to be wrong and he wondered why an intelligence assessment of low to medium confidence would even be published. In an attempt to dispel the debate over confidence, Intelligence Committee member Congresswoman Anna Eshoo (D-CA) responded by noting that the 2002 Iraq WMD NIE had high confidence in its findings. Some Republicans thought Rep. Eshoo’s statement actually made their case about the futility of issuing an intelligence assessment that intelligence officers cannot fully back.

If Obama gets in, we can expect mountains of nonsense like this – a whole slew of laws, hearings, regulations and campaigns which sound like they’re about something, but are really about liberals burnishing their own self-image. One of the many problems with liberals is that their ranks are heavily laced with bureaucrats, lawyers, judges, activists, community organizers…people who, in short, don’t actually do anything in the sense of actually producing an end product usable by Joe Average. Of course there is an intelligence estimate on global warming…because it is the biggest threat we face, and we’re going to really go after it, including the CIA! And liberals who thought this up will pat themselves on the back and thing they’ve done something – just as they do after they recycle, or vote for a guy who will increase government spending.

The irrationality here is astounding, but not actually surprising – given that the Democrats (who absurdly call themselves “the reality based community” on the strength of their rejection of Christian teaching on abortion and sexuality) have cut themselves off from the source of reason and are adrift on a sea of inconsequential, mental cobweb spinning. The more one thinks about it, the more silly the whole concept of allowing a Democrat to run the show becomes – they just don’t have what it takes to run a government…heck, they don’t have what it takes to run a boy scout troop (that does take some personal responsibility, ya know?).

For energy independence, as noted by Jonathan Adler at NRO:

Speaking Monday at Fresno State University in California, Sen. John McCain put forward what may be the most promising and important energy-policy proposal of the campaign: a $300 million prize for the development of advanced battery technology. “In the quest for alternatives to oil, our government has thrown around enough money subsidizing special interests and excusing failure,” he noted. Yet rather than have Washington pick winners and losers from within the energy industry, McCain suggested that the government should reward innovation and actual achievement. “From now on, we will encourage heroic efforts in engineering, and we will reward the greatest success.”

As outlined by McCain, the prize would be paid the first innovator to develop a battery technology that “leapfrogs” existing electric car and plug-in hybrid technology, in terms of size, capacity, power, and cost. The aim is a battery technology that capable of powering motor vehicles at 30 percent of current costs. This would be a significant technical breakthrough, greatly enhancing the ability of battery-powered vehicles to compete in the marketplace.

Government-sponsored prizes for innovation are based upon the same principle as the patent system: Encourage innovation by rewarding inventors and entrepreneurs with the promise of super-competitive returns. A patent provides such a reward by giving the innovator a temporary monopoly for his invention. A prize goes one step further by placing a bounty on a particular type of innovation, increasing incentives for potential investors.

$300 million is a good deal of money, and I wish now that I’d bothered to study engineering and that sort of stuff like my Dad wanted me to (well, he never said, study engineering, but I got the distinct impression that the man who worked on the space program and the Stealth fighter wanted very much for one of his children to follow in his footsteps). Be that as it may, it is a great incentive and rather than having some bureaucrat – under pressure from whomever donated the most – select which research programs to subsidize, just throw the prize out there and left people self-select themselves for the effort, and the reward (’cause it wouldn’t just be that $300 million – there would also be the patent rights, and the bonanza of cash for that). This is the sort of real change McCain offers as opposed to Obama’s false change, which is really just warmed-over Carterism.

Now, any techno-geeks out there in the audience have any ideas on how to leapfrog to this new technology?