Computer climate models are the heart
of the problem of global warming predictions

Abortion As A Test of Conscience
by Paul M. Weyrich, columnist
HIS FINAL COLUMN BEFORE HE DIED

The President-elect appears to have stepped back from some of his campaign promises, but that is speculation. We shall see. Barck Obama did make a dogmatic statement regarding the so-called “Freedom of Choice” Act (FOCA). He said he will propose FOCA, which would eliminate all state and federal restrictions upon abortion. It would purport to force Christian hospitals to perform abortions or close. It would demand that physicians perform abortions or give up their practice. Whatever happened to freedom of conscience? A hallmark of professionalism in the United States has been that we never force anyone to violate his or her conscience in the performance of a duty. MORE>

Where Are Pols?
Nowhere near Obama.
by Michael Barone, National Review

Barack Obama and his family are vacationing in his native Hawaii, far from the wintry snows of Chicago — and far from almost every other American politician. There’s a metaphor here for how I think Obama is going to conduct himself as president: He’s going to try to keep his distance from other politicians, including his fellow Democrats. I see him trying to remain aloof from his party, much as Dwight Eisenhower did five decades ago. Like Eisenhower, I think he’s drawn the conclusion that his party needs him more than he needs his party. MORE>

American Czars; From Eggs to Automobiles
by George F. Will, Washington Post Op-Ed

In 1966, the price of eggs rose to a level that President Lyndon Johnson judged, God knows how, was too high. There were two culprits -- supply and demand -- and Johnson's agriculture secretary told him there was not much that could be done. LBJ, however, was a can-do fellow who directed the U.S. surgeon general to dampen demand by warning the nation about the hazards of cholesterol in eggs. Johnson, the last president with a direct political connection to Franklin Roosevelt, was picked by FDR in 1935 to be Texas director of the New Deal's National Youth Administration. MORE>

Cheap advice from a newspaper that supports failed experiments
by Peter Blewett, Milw Journal Sentinel opinion

In a recent editorial, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel attributed Milwaukee Public Schools' problems to a "dysfunctional school board" ("Restructuring needed," Dec. 21). It proposed eliminating the elected board and replacing it with an appointed one. This proposal is consistent with the paper's decade-long history of suggesting changes in governance are the key to increased student achievement. The editors are right that MPS faces enormous challenges: • Nearly 80% of our students come from poor, educationally disadvantaged backgrounds. MORE>

Resolutions ’09
by Hugh Hewitt, columnist

As a journalist disposed topositions of the (incoming) loyal opposition, I have a long list ofresolves for 2009. First, to be fair to the newpresident and his administration. Rescuing political journalism from the deep hole it entered in recent years means that center-right analysts will have to display an honesty that most of the entrenched left in the MSM abandoned in the years of the second Bush term and especially in the election of 2008. President-elect Obama could turn out to be a great president. If that is the case, the center-right has to be willing to mark and applaud his progress, especially as it brings successes in the long war against the Islamist jihadists. MORE>

The Unitarian Church and
Obama's Religious Upbringing
by Andrew Walden, columnist

With the media carefully pretending not to notice, Barack Obama's choice to hold a memorial service December 23 for his late grandmother Madelyn "Toot" Dunham at Honolulu's First Unitarian Church underlines one part of the story of Barack Obama's leftist religious upbringing. What is First Unitarian Church? Their website describes counter-recruitment efforts intended for "deconstructing the myth" ... "used in propaganda for the military (as with ads for Marine recruitment)." MORE>

Another Great Depression?
by Thomas Sowell, columnist

With both Barack Obama's supporters and the media looking forward to the new administration's policies being similar to President Franklin D. Roosevelt's policies during the 1930s depression, it may be useful to look at just what those policies were and-- more important-- what their consequences were. The prevailing view in many quarters is that the stock market crash of 1929 was a failure of the free market that led to massive unemployment in the 1930s-- and that it was intervention of Roosevelt's New Deal policies that rescued the economy. MORE>

My Triumph Over Kwanzaa!
by Ann Coulter, columnist

Is it just me, or does Kwanzaa seem to come earlier and earlier each year? This year, I believe my triumph over this synthetic holiday is nearly complete. The only mentions of Kwanzaa I've seen are humorous ones. Most important, for the first time in eight years, President George Bush appears not to have issued "Kwanzaa greetings" to honor this phony non-Christian holiday that is younger than I am. It is a fact that Kwanzaa was invented in 1966 by a black radical FBI stooge, Ron Karenga, aka Dr. Maulana Karenga. Karenga was a founder of United Slaves, a violent nationalist rival to the Black Panthers and a dupe of the FBI. MORE>

Global Warming Rope-a-Dope
by Walter E. Williams, columnist

Americans have been rope-a-doped into believing that global warming is going to destroy our planet. Scientists who have been skeptical about manmade global warming have been called traitors or handmaidens of big oil. The Washington Post asserted on May 28, 2006 that there were only "a handful of skeptics" of manmade climate fears. Bill Blakemore on Aug. 30, 2006 said, "After extensive searches, ABC News has found no such (scientific) debate on global warming." U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change Executive Secretary Yvo de Boer said it was "criminally irresponsible" to ignore the urgency of global warming. MORE>

Will newspapers deliver?
by Mark Belling, WISN 1130

With each passing week, fewer and fewer of you are reading this column the old fashioned way - holding up a newspaper printed on newsprint. In what appears to be a trend with no end, more and more of you are reading this column, and everything else in the "newspaper," online on a computer or other Internet device. This radical change in the delivery of news and information is profound and is the end of centuries of news and information printed on paper and distributed to the masses. MORE>

2008: With the bad came some good
by Jessica McBride, Waukesha Freeman

As the year winds to a close, let’s list the good things that happened in 2008. You might be tempted to ask: What good news? After all, we’ve suffered an economic 9/11. So, let’s deal with the bad news first. We’re giving billions of dollars away in bailouts to companies that won’t reveal what they’re spending it on. The government is taking over the free market (or saving it - depending on how you look at it). People are losing their jobs, house values are plummeting… MORE>

'Stimulus' Doesn't Have to Mean Pork
by Clifford Winston, Wall Street Journal

President-elect Barack Obama says he will create or protect some three million jobs by spending a massive amount of federal dollars to build roads and other "shovel ready" government projects across the country. The projects in this economic stimulus package, he says, will "not be based on politics and lobbying." Nice thought. But already Mr. Obama is facing pressure by public officials from coast to coast to run in the other direction. In recent weeks, for example, the U.S. Conference of Mayors forwarded to Congress a list of 11,391 infrastructure projects that, we are to believe, are "ready to go." MORE>

If You’re Going Through Hell, Keep Going
by Doug Giles, columnist

The economic times we are living in are rougher and scarier than Rosie just before getting bikini waxed. With our national cash crisis comes a bazillion other ancillary spiritual and physical spin-off problems. As a columnist, talk show host and minister I’m now getting my inbox inundated with emails asking me how to spiritually field this mucked up mess we’re mired in (that’s how bad it is . . . people are asking me for advice). What follows is my attempt to Dr. Phil you folks thru this crap-laden crunch we’re currently getting crushed by with seven hard learned lessons about God and life from the last 25 years of getting my butt kicked. MORE>