Timothy Birdnow

A Revolution in Muddy Brown

The Army Corps of Engineers held water in reservoirs during the spring despite high snow pack and compelling evidence that flooding was immanent. According to this article in the Great Plains Examiner:

"The period between March 20 and May 6 has been difficult for the Army Corps of Engineers to explain. During that span, the Corps' water managers kept river levels low and stockpiled near-record amounts of water behind the three upper basin dams on the Missouri River, despite evidence that the Rocky Mountains were holding a lot more snow than normal. The reservoirs were so full by early May that they couldn't contain the late-spring rainfall that pounded Montana and the Dakotas."

The New Weimar Family

Married couples no longer head a majority of families in the United States, according to Census Bureau data. According to an AP story, married couples represent only 48% of households, based on data from the 2010 census.

Palestinians? What Palestinians!

Who owns Palestine? This is no idle question; the region has been the source of wars through all of history. Men have been fighting over that tiny strip of land since the Chaldeans, and the concept of ownership remains hazy in the minds of modern men. Today the Jews hold large segments of it, and they are being challenged by the "Palestinians", Muslim peoples who claim Israel "stole" it from them. Who has the more valid claim?

The Winds of the Apocalypse

There is talk of an ultimatum being issued by Shiite Iran to the House of Saud, demanding they stop assisting the Bahrainian royals in their efforts to suppress a Shia revolution. What does this mean?

Boehner’s Boner

Many conservative pundits - most notably Andrew Stiles at National Review Online - are touting the budget deal as a great victory for the GOP. Sorry, but I beg to differ. I fear we have yet again been duped by the Democrats and the GOP party establishment. Let me take the Stiles piece and deconstruct it line by line.

Innocence Lost

In Aldous Huxley's 1932 novel Brave New World we are given a glimpse of the dysfunctional "utopia" planned by the Progressives. It is a glittering facade, a meaningless wasteland where cheap thrills, drugs, and sexual excess are employed to control and occupy a shallow and largely mindless rabble. The ruling class subjugates the public with complex propaganda schemes, with sleep teaching, mind control, body modification, and sex, sex, sex.

Out of Season

I used to tease Global Warming Alarmists with calls for a nuclear war; a small nuclear exchange between, say, India and Pakistan would give us all the global cooling we could want. Turns out that the crazy computer gamers have actually suggested I'm right.

Lies, Damned Lies, and the St. Louis Science Center

"Apocalyptic predictions require, to be taken seriously, higher standards of evidence than do assertions on other matters where the stakes are not as great." --Carl Sagan, Foreign Affairs Winter 1983-84 The Jesuits are said to have a guiding motto "give me a child until he is nine and he will be mine for life". The point being that the fundamental assumptions and prejudices of the man are forged in the crucible of childhood, hand fed, as it were. They are not the product of careful observation and reasoning, but rather dribble into the psyche of the child, and thus shape the man. Once set, they are very difficult to remove.

The Catholic Church teaches that homosexual behavior is a sin

Now, do not misunderstand; latent homosexual tendencies are not sinful, but rather temptations. The Catholic position is that homosexuality, like marital infidelity or gluttony, is not sinful until acted out. Is a recovering alcoholic guilty of the sin of drunkenness? No, but if he wallows in his drunkenness he is committing a sin.

Shrieking Against His Creed in Cancun

The latest climate comedy in Cancun, where the world has gathered to celebrate the spring break festivities a little early, opened with a prayer to the Mayan Jaguar goddess Ixchel.

Russian Designs on Azerbaijan

It is quite instructive to read Russia's Bolshevik paper of record Pravda. Had Condoleezza Rice read Pravda rather than CIA reports she would have known that Russia was planning to invade our ally Georgia in 2008, for example. Pravda telegraphed that invasion, and anyone who read the former Communist Party organ would have knows SOMETHING was up, but Condi didn't "waste her time" on the tabloid commie rag (there are numerous stories about UFOs and other tabloid trash mixed in with some solid reporting) so she was caught flat-footed, giving us that deer-in-the-headlights stare when asked what happened and why the U.S. didn't take action. Obviously some folks at Langley didn't believe the Russians were serious.

The Rat takes the Cheese

Not Big Milk, mind you; not the giant agricultural cooperatives and corporate farms that make up a large part of Big Ethanol and harvest crops of greenbacks for the Democrat Party but with the small dairy farmer, the guy who gets up at 4 a.m. to hit the stables, milk his cows by hand, and work into the wee hours to maintain his farm. The current administration has been engaged in an all-out assault on the dairy industry.

Sliding into the Banana Republican Abyss

When Gen. Winfield Scott landed his troops on the beaches near Vera Cruz in what was to be the drive to capture Mexico City and end the Mexican War, he was happily surprised to encounter no resistance on the beachhead. Antonio Lopez de Santa Ana was engaged up north with Zachary Taylor, suffering an ignoble defeat at Buena Vista (which the Napoleon of the West, in a glorious display of chutzpah, announced as a victory over the American forces) and was unable to oppose Scott's landing, but this does not explain why nobody managed to greet the U.S. troops on the beach and protect the Halls of Montezuma. The Americans met no opposition because the Mexican troops not accompanying Santa Ana were busy fighting to suppress the "Polko" rebellion.

The Bonfire of the Vanities

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, speaking last week at an Iftar dinner to celebrate breaking the Ramadan fast, condemned a plan by the Reverend Terry Jones of the Dove World Outreach Center of Gainesville, Florida, to burn the Koran. Secretary Clinton was just one member of the Obama Administration who has come out against this action by a pastor with a flock of fifty.

Faith of His Father’s; is Barack Obama a Christian?

There is an ongoing dispute about the religion of Barack Hussein Obama; is he Christian as he claims, or a Moslem? Nearly one in five Americans believe he is Muslim; and this number has the mainstream news media in near hysterics. We are told that we have to take his word for it, because this is a matter of personal belief and who he claims to be is who he must be. Or so the media says. But Islam is notorious for allowing deceit in matters pertaining to infidels. Consider Quran 6:22 066.002

The Faith of Obama

Barack Hussein Obama, chairman of the People's United States (PUS) and Glorious Leader of the Supreme Soviet of America, has proclaimed that the GOP's opposition to his scheme to extend welfare benefits, er, unemployment beyond the two year mark without providing to pay for them is somehow evidence of a lack of faith in the People by Republicans.

Alienation and the Cult of the Left

When religious cults recruit individuals, the first thing they do is make the novitiate sever all ties to their former lives. This involves cutting off family, friends, all of the emotional support structure, thus making the individual vulnerable to "reprogramming" by the collectivist entity that seeks to recreate them. What cults engage in is the work of remaking the individual in the image of the collective, of alienating them to their intimates for the purposes of bonding them to their new social peers.

Honoring Stalin at the D-Day Memorial

In Bedford, Virginia, the United States honors her brave soldiers who stormed Omaha beach on D-Day. This memorial commemorates her valiant efforts to rid the world of Nazism, that heinous doctrine of uber-statism and tyranny. Yet on this 66th anniversary the memorial board quietly erected a monument to an even greater evil, a tyrant who murdered even more innocent people than ever the Third Reich and Herr Hitler.

Global Warming Grows Pacific Islands

For the last ten thousand years sea levels have been rising. Since the end of the last ice age (or rather the beginning of the interglacial period we are now currently enjoying, since we are clearly STILL in an ice age) the sea levels have risen, with an average during the 20th century of about 1.8 millimeters per year (according to the IPCC) or 1.48 millimeters per year according to Berge-Nguyen et al., give or take a few (they increased in the late '90's due to the unusually warm El Nino but have since dropped back down.)

A Hunger for Power

The House of Representatives of the United States passed HR2749 on July 29, 2009, a bill entitled The Food Safety Enhancement Act of 2009. This innocuous sounding legislation, introduced by radical Rep. John Dingle (Democrat from Michigan) was designed to give greater authority to the Food and Drug Administration 'To amend the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act to improve the safety of food in the global market, and for other purposes" or to grant the FDA the power to decide what and how Americans will eat.