Another Assault on Christmas.

It looked as if, this year, things might be different. Maybe this would be the year the assault on Christmas would ease up a bit.

According to a recent story in Reuters , Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims in Britain joined with the Equality and Human Rights Commission to issue a statement urging Britain's Christian community to enjoy Christmas without worrying about offending non-Christians.

Trevor Phillips, chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, said,
"That's why I asked leaders in different religious communities to join me in saying:It's time to stop being daft about Christmas. It's fine to celebrate and it's fine for Christ to be star of the show.".

He also said, "Let's stop being silly about a Christian Christmas," referring to a tendency to play down the traditional celebrations of the birth of Christ for fear of offending minorities in multicultural Britain.

But, as religious leaders were issuing this statement, it seems, they had forgotten to include the environmentalists. Their assault on Christmas continues. In a BBC NEWS report Manchester, England researchers calculated the production, processing and transportation costs of the traditional turkey dinner in Britain.Researchers estimate a dinner for eight generates 20kg (44lbs) of carbon dioxide emissions.They arrived at the total emissions figure by assuming one third of the UK population eats a typical Christmas meal.

According to the BBC NEWS story, project leader professor Adisa Azapagic, from the University of Manchester, said: "Food production and processing are responsible for three quarters of the total carbon footprint, with the largest proportion - 60% - being related to the life cycle of the turkey".

All stages in the supply chain have been considered, including raising the turkey, growing the vegetables, food storage, consumer shopping, cooking the meal at home and waste management.

"This includes the emissions of carbon dioxide due to energy consumption along the turkey supply chain and the emissions of methane and nitrous oxide generated due to the agricultural activities to raise the turkey."

So now, we learn that having your Christmas dinner leaves an enormous "carbon footprint".
I wonder when some scientists will calculate the "carbon footprint" left behind from the same Christmas dinners in the U.S.

The Left will stop at nothing in denigrating the traditions of Western civilization. To them,if you try to enjoy the traditional family get-together you'll be destroying the planet. We all know this craziness isn't limited to Britain....it's going on here as well.

There's a story on the Alliance Defense Fund website about city officials in Mount Pleasant, Michigan changing the name of its Dickens Christmas Festival to “Dickens Holiday Festival” after the local school district enacted a policy banning the word “Christmas.” The Mount Pleasant School District enacted a policy that purportedly bans the use of the words “Christmas,” “Santa,” and “nativity” so that a festival named after Charles Dickens’ classic book, A Christmas Carol, has to be renamed a ‘holiday’ festival.

I received an email from my sister-in-law that sums up the situation:

"To All My Democrat Friends:

Please accept with no obligation, implied or explicit, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low-stress, non-addictive, gender-neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, or secular practices of your choice, with respect for the religious/secular persuasion and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all.
 I also wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2008, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make America great. Not to imply that America is necessarily greater than any other country nor the only America in the Western Hemisphere. Also, this wish is made without regard to the race, creed, color, age, physical ability, religious faith or sexual preference of the wishee.

To My Republican Friends:
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!"

Barack Oblivion

Not so long ago,the Presidential campaign of the Democratic Party's latest wunderkind, Senator Barack Obama, was in trouble. It was as if Hillary were unstoppable and his chances of winning the election were vanishing faster than a box of Krispy Kreme donuts at police headquarters.

Then, along came Oprah.

Now, everywhere he goes, people flock to see him.
Of course, the crowds only come to see Oprah. It's unlikely that Obama could have drawn 25,000 people, as he did in South Carolina, without her.

Surprisingly, un-presidential, he's becoming too dependent on her and it looks as if she's the one who's running the show.

Going to Obama's website, you'll see more Oprah and less information about where the man stands on the issues. While Ms. Winfrey may have the power to propel an author's book sells through the roof with her endorsement, I think a Presidential campaign will prove to be different. Like the "Rock the Vote" campaigns of previous elections, in the end,very little will change. The Democrats won't take any votes from the Republicans. Obama may take a few voters from Hillary's camp, but not enough to win the nomination. He isn't as well known as Clinton and it's unlikely the Democrats will trust the election to a relative new comer.

He may return again to run again in 2012, but, by then, the bloom will have fallen off the rose.

A Puzzle.

This past June and July, the work I was doing on this blog was of a satirical nature.Starting with foreign-exchange-student-expelled and ending with democrats-converge-on-nc , it was an absurd story, which involved, among other things, an arm wrestling contest in Iceland between President George Bush and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
Now, a part of that episode has been getting a rather large number of hits this past week and I'm at a loss to understand way. For some unknown reason, the post My Interview with an Icelander is getting a lot of attention. I know this because this blog is tracked by Google Analytics.
I also find it odd that whoever is hitting that post is not going to the other episodes in the story.
No one has left a comment and only one of the hits came from Iceland itself. Maybe someone will fill me in.

Mitt Romney's Speech on Religion in America

As a Catholic, I am very often uncomfortable with the influence that Protestant Evangelicals hold over the Republican Party and the Conservative agenda. It goes without saying that I find myself at odds with quite a number of their religious and theological beliefs. I share a few of their political goals, though certainly not all.I share the Evangelicals' views on abortion, though I don't understand why their pro-life stance doesn't include the abolition of the death penalty.

I cannot support their ideas on the teaching of Creationism or prayer in the public schools.

Now, it appears that some Evangelicals would have me believe that a vote for Mormon Mitt Romney would be a vote for a cultist and non-Christian.They say that the Mormons are not true Christians, never stopping to think that this Catholic may feel the same way about their Protestant views. I have a theological bone to pick with both Protestants and Mormons, but that would not prevent me from voting for a qualified candidate of either religion.

Mitt Romney's speech on religion in America was the work of a true spokesman.......we need more like him in politics today.

Anyone who has not read the text of his speech can do so by going to this link. Romney's Speech.

Getting Inside the Candidates' Heads.

In an article published in the L.A. Times, neuropsychiatrist Dr.Daniel G. Amen suggests that, just as a presidential candidate's physical health can be taken into consideration during an election, a candidate's brain health should be a factor as well. He "want[s] our elected leaders to be some of the "brain healthiest people" in the land." and believes giving the candidates brain scans isn't off limits.

Behaviors such as, "Rudy Giuliani's messy personal life, John McCain's temper and Hillary Clinton's inability to seem authentic" can be evidence of underlying brain dysfunction.

Dr. Amen believes that both President Clinton and President George W. Bush have shown clear brain pathology.
He says:

"President Clinton's moral lapses and problems with bad judgment and excitement-seeking behavior -- indicative of problems in the prefrontal cortex -- eventually led to his impeachment and a poisonous political divisiveness in the U.S. The prefrontal cortex houses the brain's supervisor, involved with conscience, forethought, planning, attention span and judgment.
One could argue that our current president's struggles with language and emotional rigidity are symptoms of temporal lobe pathology. The temporal lobes, underneath your temples and behind your eyes, are involved with language, mood stability, reading social cues and emotional flexibility."

If what he says is true....that certain behaviors can show evidence of brain dysfunction ("Sometimes people with messy personal lives have low prefrontal cortex activity associated with poor judgment; sometimes people with temper problems have brain damage and impulse control problems; sometimes people who struggle with authenticity have trouble really seeing things from someone else's perspective."), then we can do as we've always done when choosing a candidate; let's just look at past behavior.

That should give a good indication whether or not the person has a problem with "poor judgment", "impulse control problems" or "trouble really seeing things from someone else's perspective". There's really no need to go to such extreme measures as brain scans.