Oklahomans know a Brown Recluse Spider can take your life.  In Washington, the Senate’s newest Republican, Scott Brown, apparently in newbie ignorance, is taking our economy by voting to increase “unsustainable” debt thus destabilize US currency.  Oklahoma Senator Coburn could have helped Brown understand the facts.

Brown, elected in Massachusetts last month with help from TEA (Taxed Enough Already) Party generated contributions nationwide sided with Democrats on a $15 billion continuing stimulus collection of tax cuts and highway spending promoted as a jobs bill, but which adds more pressure to a quivering currency.
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Brown joined four other Republicans, 55 Democrats and two independents to overcome a procedural hurdle that sets up a final vote later this week.  The bill includes a tax credit for businesses that hire unemployed workers, subsidies for state and local construction bonds and $19.5 billion to shore up a highway-construction fund.

Brown said the bill was not perfect but would help put people back to work.

Most observers believe he is seriously misinformed.  Government doesn’t create jobs; it only feeds itself by sucking the life out of economic growth like an ever growing tumor upon the prosperity of the people.

Brown said, "I hope my vote today is a strong step toward restoring bipartisanship in Washington."

How stupid is this guy?  Compromising character is not commendable.

Monday U.S. Senator Tom Coburn, M.D. (R-OK) voting against a motion to advance the bill said, “This bill will create debt, not jobs.  Congress continues to arrogantly assume bills such as this will create more jobs than if we let Americans families and businesses keep their own money.  This is press release legislation for members of Congress who want to project empathy while avoiding the hard work of prioritizing spending and putting our nation on a sustainable course.”

Dr. Coburn noted the bill borrows $47 billion over the next ten years without identifying any wasteful programs for elimination.

“If this bill were such a fantastic product, why did the Senate hold no hearings to examine its effects?  No testimony or studies were offered to show how, or if, this bill will create jobs.  Finally, the majority brought this bill to a vote without allowing any amendments.  No business or family would make long-term decisions so cavalierly.  The Senate should turn its attention to restraining spending and let American families and entrepreneurs decide how to best create jobs with their own money,” Dr. Coburn said.

By the way, Senator Coburn could teach Senator Brown a thing or two, if Brown is finished preening in front of the television cameras.  Celebrity is such a shallow transient thing.

Can Conservatives get their campaign donations back from Brown?  Why don’t we have hearings on all; government spending, health care proposals, bailouts, and all the closed door deals Democrats have done from the time this Administration took power?

Here is a basic Senator Brown may have missed.  Any involuntary taking from private citizens by government is plunder.

As the Frenchman Frederic Bastiat wrote in 1850, “Legal plunder can be committed in an infinite number of ways.  Thus we have an infinite number of plans for organizing it; tariffs, protection, benefits, subsidies, encouragements, progressive taxation, public schools, guaranteed jobs, guaranteed profits, minimum wages, a right to relief, a right to the tools of labor, free credit, and so on, and so on.  All these plans as a whole – with their common aim of legal plunder – constitute socialism.”

Naming the Brown Recluse Spider the “Massachusetts Brown Bull” is appropriate.  It is small and apparently harmless until it bits you like a duplicitous politician.

The best quote from Tiger Woods’ latest image release is credited to his wife Elin. 
Woods said, “As Elin pointed out to me, my real apology to her will not
come in the form of words; it will come from my behavior over time.”

Yes indeed.

Woods’ credibility is shot because people believed a decade of imaging for profit now proven to be bull-hockey.  It is not all Mr. Woods fault, but we were betrayed longer than any thinking person would have believed possible in the information age.

As I wrote December 13, “Consider that in practical application conspiracy is no more than the coalescing of common interest purposed for profit or power.”  People knew Woods was acting the whore in betraying his family, but apparently motivated by profit, that truth was hidden– by many people starting with Woods, his inner circle and extending to include tour officials, sponsors and many who claim to be sports reporters (wink, wink).

Tiger Woods lied during yesterday’s show and tell when he said, “I have always tried to be a private person.”  It becomes laughable when he asserts, “I still believe it is right to shield my family from the public spotlight.”

No you have not tried to be a private person.  What has been done Mr. Woods is selling one image to the public for personal profit while living another secret life.  That makes you a two-faced fool, not a pitifully private person besieged by public media.

Do we get three wishes by rubbing the fat belly of celebrity worship?

Tiger Woods and President Barack Hussein Obama were reviewed by Lisa Schiffren in an American Thinker article December 8 titled, “Tiger, Barack, and the Law of Transitivity.”  It examines celebrity worship and the cost of betrayal and notes “if this comprehensive charade can be sustained for a decade as Woods and those around him amassed billions, it can happen elsewhere.  It can happen right in front of our eyes.

“… Barack Obama is about as completely manufactured a political character as this nation has seen.  His meteoric rise, without the inconvenience of a public record or accomplishments, and the public’s willing suspension of critical evaluation of his resume allowed his handlers and the media to project whatever they wanted to on his unfurrowed brow,” Schiffren continued.

At least Tiger Woods can play golf. 

I am still trying to discover the basis of Obama’s credibility.  It can’t be his birth, his parents or his childhood.  It might be his education and teaching ability, but all of those records are hidden. 

Maybe it is because President Obama will bow to any non-Caucasian in authority anywhere in the world.

Tiger Woods can recover his honor by honoring his marriage vows, wife and children.  She may not allow him back, but if Woods loves family and believes in virtue, the beginning is to do whatever it takes to win his wife Elin’s trust – on his knees as necessary.

How hard could it be for a billionaire to bring the family with him on tour?  Live with her.  Travel with her and the children.  Be a real man and a real father, Mr. Woods just as your father spent his time to love, teach and raise you. (Or was that a lie as well?)

Only consistent actions over time grow credibility after betrayal.  Even the most hedonistic objects of adulation proud of their own messianic complex can learn over time.  (For Christians at least, hope springs eternal.)

Still playing "bouncy" during "celebrity rehab" or other some other vacation doesn’t cut it and it never will. 

When I testified before the United States Senate on December 6, 2006, I stated that the public was “vastly misinformed” on global warming and that “there is no sound scientific basis for predicting future climate change with any degree of certainty.”
 
Looks like I was right. Since the Climategate scandal broke, the global warming hoax has collapsed like a house of rotten cards.

The Earth has not warmed appreciably for the last decade. There is no significant evidence that our climate has changed, or that the mild warming of the last 150 years can be attributed to anything other than natural variation. The Poles aren’t melting, polar bears are thriving, and last year’s Atlantic hurricane season was below average in activity. And this bitter winter has brought home to Oklahomans the undeniable truth that cold weather is inherently more inclement than warm. The Christmas Eve blizzard of 2009 was directly responsible for the deaths of at least nine people, and seven more died as a result of the storm that peaked on January 29.
 
I received little thanks for telling the truth as I saw it. I was called a “professwhore” and a “denier” who didn’t care about the environment or the future. I was accosted by angry students. The Provost at the University of Oklahoma removed my freshman geology course from the list of approved general education courses. And contrary to popular belief, I have received no money from any energy company.
 
In October of 2006, a group of senior meteorologists at OU publicly claimed that I was attempting to deliberately misinform people. But the Climategate e-mails demonstrate that it’s not skeptics like me who have been misleading and misinforming the public. Climate researchers conspired to suppress the publication of dissenting views. Data were distorted and hidden for political purposes. The IPCC, that supposed bastion of objective and reliable science, has been revealed to be a political body that tendentiously manipulates data for ideological reasons. And we are just now learning that some of the IPCC’s wild predictions were not based upon scientific study, but upon speculative and self-serving claims invented by environmental advocacy groups.
 
The Oklahoma Climatological Survey (OCS) is charged with providing the Legislature and the people of Oklahoma with accurate information and forecasts on climatic trends. In October of 2007, OCS released a statement on climate change. Modestly described as “a definitive statement on global climate change,” this report asserted “the climate will continue to warm through the 21st century.” Contemplate that while you’re shoveling snow off your driveway or chipping ice from your windshield.
 
We’re not supposed to confuse weather with climate. But the 2007 OCS proclamation explicitly predicted “warmer winters” and “fewer cold-air outbreaks and extremes.” The authors of the OCS report were wrong. The second half of 2009 was “exceptionally cool,” and last October was the coldest October in Oklahoma since recordkeeping began in the year 1895.
 
As a result of the misinformation provided by the OCS, Oklahoma was ill-prepared for the severe winter weather we are currently experiencing. Ironically, Ken Crawford (then state climatologist) was one of the people who publicly accused me of deliberately misinforming people.
 
Subsequently, there has been no apparent retraction or modification of the OCS’s misleading statement on climate change.

Why was Professor Deming, a geologist, able to get it right, while the professional climatologists got it wrong? The OCS report relied upon junk science produced by the IPCC. Political ideology was substituted for science. And intolerance produces bad science. If the meteorologists had listened to skeptics, they might have learned something. Instead, they closed their minds and asserted their pedantic authority. Now they are left with a shameful and embarrassing debacle. The people and State of Oklahoma would have been better served by constructive engagement and collaboration. 

About the author:
David Deming is a geologist, an associate professor of arts and sciences at the University of Oklahoma, and an adjunct scholar at the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs. His books, Science and Technology in World History: The Ancient World and Classical Civilization, and Science and Technology in World History: Early Christianity, the Rise of Islam and the Middle Ages, are scheduled to be published this summer.

Sometime Sunday afternoon, former conservative State Representative Tim Pope passed away of a heart attack. Tim was 52 years old and had been married to his wonderful wife LaDonna for many years. They have 3 daughters, all adults with some grandchildren.

I probably first met Tim around 1988 as he was running for House District 98 which encompassed Mustang, parts of Yukon and a little area South of the South Canadian River.  He was the first Republican ever elected to that seat.

Tim served from 1989 through 2002 before deciding to run for State Labor Commissioner in 2002. He had a lifetime conservative rating of 87 on the Oklahoma Constitution Newspaper’s Conservative Index, an impressive accomplishment for anyone in office that many years.  There have probably not been more than a dozen lawmakers score that high over the past 30 years.

Tim was an aggressive conservative lawmaker who was always willing to speak his mind.  Several years ago he took the moral high ground when it came to exposing the homosexual agenda, which resulted in him being a target of the hateful homosexuals long before State Representative Sally Kern was elected to office.  Anyone that is outspoken and aggressive like Tim will have both detractors as well as those of us who liked him and respected him for his courage and willingness to mix it up, rather than play life cautiously, hiding behind the issues of the day.

Following his years of service in the legislature, Tim did political consulting work and coached several of his clients to victory, many times against the better financed establishment candidates in Republican primaries as well as victories against Democrats.  He was hard hitting and was well equipped for the rough and tumble world of politics, a competition which is both a science and art.

In an effort to inform citizens of Jim Roth’s county commissioner district, Tim sent out a robotic phone call suggesting Roth was using his position to advance the homosexual agenda.  The robo call stated a couple of facts then asked citizens to call one of two phone numbers if they agreed or disagreed with Commissioner Roth’s agenda.  That phone call ended up by having Attorney General Drew Edmondson file a legal action against Tim seeking what I believe was a $10,000,000 judgment.

The complaint was not that Tim misrepresented any facts, but that he violated the no call laws by not including his phone number in the script.  That suit finally ended up in some level of state court where the Edmondson machine was willing to settle for what I believe was a $5,000 fine.  Tim, still believing he had done nothing wrong appealed in federal court to the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver where the case was thrown out.  The Court declared the law that was supposedly broken was to apply to commercial calls and not political calls which, by the way, is the purest meaning of the First Amendment’s free speech provision.

Tim was elected to serve as President of the Oklahoma Republican Assembly (OKRA) a state affiliate of the National Federation of Republican Assemblies.  It was during his tenure as President that he formed a PAC which decided to help Brent Rinehart win the election against then County Commissioner Cornet, a rather liberal Republican.

Rinehart won the primary and went on to win in the general election against the Democrat.  If I remember correctly, Tim was accused by AG Edmondson of violating campaign finance laws by taking money from three contributors for the PAC which was then used to help elect Rinehart.

The problem was that each of those 3 contributors had already given the maximum of $5,000 to Rinehart’s campaign.  I had always believed if Tim did not know they had given the full amount or if he did not promise them it would be used for the Rinehart race when he was soliciting the contributions, there would have been no violation of the law.  The legal wrangling went on for several years and Tim finally pleaded guilty, agreeing to pay a small fine.  The real damage was the near $200,000 in legal expenses which caused Tim to declare bankruptcy.

I personally believe Tim never intended to break any law. I believe he was so aggressive that it was more likely that he may have gotten careless in his efforts to work for one of his clients or perhaps it was a friend.  I have never seen the evidence so I have no opinion on the validity of the case.

With that conviction it made Tim somewhat radioactive as far as consulting for candidates knowing any opponent would use that against a candidate who would hire Tim.  The sad thing is that AG Edmondson was successful in taking out, at least temporarily, one of the best conservative consultants in the state. I visited with Tim for a while on Monday, the first of February while down at the Capitol and he expressed his desire to get some time between his fight with Edmondson and when he could use his skills again to help elect conservatives to office.

There were a couple of times I didn’t want to see one of his candidates elected to office and it would always cause a little friction between us, as he was always loyal and worked hard for his client.  But Tim was not one to hold a grudge and we would soon find ourselves working together on an issue or on behalf of some other good candidate.

I considered Tim one of the good guys, a friend and am really going to miss him. I believe the funeral will be on Monday, February 22nd.  Oklahoma has lost one of its better citizens.  Please keep LaDonna and the other members of the family in your prayers.

In an editorial on January 30th The Oklahoman took a swipe as Senator Brogdon, claiming him to be a populist candidate. Brogdon, one of three Republican candidates for governor, is proposing legislation to prevent the Turnpike Authority from having the ability to raise tolls without legislative approval.  The Oklahoman said: “We remind Brogdon and his supporters that tolls not only pay for turnpike maintenance but Highway Patrol services as well. Thus, taxpayers aren’t required to fund maintenance or patrols. That burden goes solely to turnpike users, many of them from out of state.”

I would suggest the Oklahoman doesn’t need to provide that 3rd grade information to Senator Brogdon or any of his supporters, they understand the issues perfectly well. The reminding should go in this case from Brogdon toward the Oklahoman.  One of the reasons the Colonists fought our war of Independence was over the issue of “taxation without representation.” To the Oklahoman:  When do we hold elections for members of the Turnpike Authority?  Those unelected, nameless and faceless bureaucrats have the AUTHORITY to raise the costs, not only on the unemployed, but also on all the rest of us, without any accountability to the citizens. That is akin to “taxation without representation.”

This nameless faceless bunch at the Authority raised the fees last year, suggesting the increases were needed. A reliable source informed me that the Turnpike Authority was still operating in the black without the increase. In addition, based on their budget, it appears that the Turnpike Authority has been turning over several million dollars each year to ODOT. I must ask why and on what authority?

Brogdon is correct to want to bring legislative oversight to the Turnpike Authority, because lawmakers are not nameless faceless bureaucrats. We know who they are and they stand accountable to the citizens every two and four years.

If the Turnpike Authority is wisely using their fees and the revenues are insufficient, then the legislature can approve an increase, but the Authority should have to justify such and not act like an bunch of elitists, accountable to no one. The Oklahoman is wrong on this one and Senator Brogdon is right on again.