Final Roberts Vote

Final vote came in at 78-22

All 55 Republicans voted Yes.

23 Democrats (a majority) voted Yes while 22 voted No.

Dems voting Yes

Max Baucus of Montana
Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico
Robert Byrd of West Virginia
Tom Carper of Delaware
Kent Conrad of North Dakota
Christopher Dodd of Connecticut
Byron Dorgan of North Dakota
Russ Feingold of Wisconsin
James Jeffords of Vermont
Tim Johnson of South Dakota
Herb Kohl of Wisconsin
Mary Landrieu of Louisiana
Patrick Leahy of Vermont
Carl Levin of Michigan
Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut
Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas
Patty Murray of Washington
Ben Nelson of Nebraska
Bill Nelson of Florida
Mark Pryor of Arkansas
Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia
Ken Salazar of Colorado
Ron Wyden of Oregon

Dems voting No.

Daniel Akaka of Hawaii
Evan Bayh of Indiana
Joseph Biden of Delaware
Barbara Boxer of California
Maria Cantwell of Washington
Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York
Jon Corzine of New Jersey
Mark Dayton of Minnesota
Dick Durbin of Illinois
Dianne Feinstein of California
Tom Harkin of Iowa
Daniel Inouye of Hawaii
Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts
John Kerry of Massachusetts
Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey
Barbara Mikulski of Maryland
Barack Obama of Illinois
Jack Reed of Rhode Island
Harry Reid of Nevada
Paul Sarbanes of Maryland
Charles Schumer of New York
Debbie Stabenow of Michigan.

Things About Liberals I Don't Understand

Ok, I can hear the wisecracks already. There are literally thousands of things that are confusing about liberals. But in all seriousness, there does seem to be a very strange attitude among some on the left.

To illustrate lets look at a couple of the more divisive issues of the day, Iraq and Social Security Reform.

Now let me make it clear that I completely understand and even respect that there are those who oppose the President on these issues.

When it comes to Iraq for example, I understand that there are people who think the policies are wrong and most are sincere in those views. Certainly there are a small number of people who either support our enemies outright or oppose simply because they hate Bush.

But I do accept that most of those opposed to Iraq do so for honest reasons. Some think its just the wrong policy, some are pure pacifist, some are pure internationalists.

I think they are wrong, but I accept the sincerity of their views.

The same is true on the issue of Social Security. Again, there are a few who are simply knee jerk opponents to anything Bush does. But most are sincere in their views. Some think that this is just the wrong solution, some are honestly dedicated to big government or don't like or trust the capitalist system.

So even if I think they are ill advised, I understand how they could arrive at a different view than my own.

But what I don't understand is what they do next, which is to remain so completely focused on opposing Bush or attacking policies that they can't provide alternatives or to accept the good that has come from these programs.

For example, even if you hated every step of the Iraq war, how can you not see free elections as good ?

Or even if you think the current proposals are wrong, how can you deny that there IS a problem depending in Social Security ?

These aren't abstract theories, these are facts. There WERE free elections in a country where people used to be shot for not saluting fast enough.

As to Social Security, it's just pure math. There are simply fewer people now supporting retired persons and there will be even fewer in the future.

When you go from 6 people supporting each check to 2 people supporting each check, you're gonna have a problem. Period.

Although as a conservative I'm happy to see the left spin off into insanity it seems to me they would do a lot better to acknowledge when things go well or to offer alternatives rather than simply oppose.

Then again maybe 'Senator' Daschle and 'President' Kerry are right ?

Faith and Atheism Part Two

In Part I we discussed how the Universe came to be according to both religious and non religious viewpoints. We saw how it requires much more faith to be non religious than to be religious.

So now we ask where did the Earth and humanity come from ?

Again, as a Christian, the answer is easy.

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. (Genesis Chapter 1).

Other faiths have different language, but the premise is the same, creation by a Supreme Being.

Now lets look at the atheist/agnostic view.

First we need to have the Earth. This requires that the expanding matter of the exploded blob (see Part I) somehow slows down enough to form into a solar system.

This is the accretion disk theory, which holds that a solar system is formed when a chunk of matter starts spinning and condensing into stars and planets. But there is a little problem with the theory leading to life.

According to astronomers, most of the early stars were very unstable, and many exploded, destroying the budding solar system and sending deadly radiation for light years around.

Since Earth and our solar system is supposed to be billions of years old, we would have needed stability from a fairly early point in the formation of the universe. We needed not just stability in our own system, but also in surrounding ones.

If a nearby star explodes, we are just as dead as we are if our own does. Radiation would kill life and could destabilize our own Sun.

So in a universe of instability we needed superb stability.

Then we needed just the right solar system to form. One that had outer planets large enough to protect the inner ones from outside intruders (comets, meteors, etc) yet not so large that a binary star system formed.

Then we needed a planet to develop at just the right distance from the sun. Close enough so that water would form yet far enough away to be cool enough for life to form. If the planet moves a degree of distance either way and all bets are off.

Then we needed the planet to have the right amount of water and gases to allow for the proper chemicals to form to create the first life.
Then we needed that basic life to evolve into the massively complex thing that is the human body.

And we needed this human evolution to happen in a period equal to less than 1% of the life of the universe. The most complex development all happening in the smallest period of time.

I'm not even going to try to count how many leaps of faith that requires.

Faith And Atheism Part One

It is my position that a lack of religious belief requires more faith than being religious. Let's start with one of the basic questions of life, where did we come from ? How did we come to be here and where did the Universe come from.

As a Christian, I look no further than Genesis for my basic answer. An omnipotent and omniscient Supreme Being, also known as God, created the entire universe and everything in it.

To quote:

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light (Genesis Chapter 1)

So basically in the space of a couple pages, I have my answer.

The same holds true for those of other religions. Judaism and Islam basically adopt the same Genesis story. There are of course some minor differences during the creation and some big ones afterwards, but we are all on the same page in terms of Divine Creation.

The Eastern religions (Buddhism, Hinduism, Confucianism, Shinto, etc) are a little more ethereal on the creation story but all follow some basic creation by a God or Gods.

Thus for a religious person the only leap of faith required is to accept that there is a Supreme Being that created the Universe and everything in it. He is responsible for all of the complexities of the physical universe and the amazing thing that is life.

It should be noted that despite what some would contend, being religious does not require one to ignore all scientific theories about the universe. We are perfectly content to accept that once the Universe was set into motion that certain rules were established to govern what happens next.

But we hold to the simple leap of faith that the start of the whole thing was Divine in nature.

So what about agnostics or atheists ?

The most commonly accepted theory is the Big Bang Theory. So we start out with a very, very small blob of matter, inside of which is everything that makes up the entire universe.

But this theory leaves a couple of big questions from the very start. First off, where did this matter come from, and secondly what is outside it if everything in the universe is inside it.

Where it came from is a pretty big question to answer. If we go by strictly scientific answers for the creation and evolution of the universe, then that creation and evolution must be governed by the laws of science.

One of the biggest rules is the First Law of Thermodynamics, which states that matter can neither be created nor destroyed. So where did the matter contained in this blob come from ??Some scientists have tried to get around this by using the expanding/collapsing universe theory.

This holds that the universe is constantly in flux, something like a rubber band. It expands for billions of years until it reaches a maximum point and then it collapses back until it is the little blob again.

But this does not explain where the "first" universe came from. For purposes of this discussion we will assume that we are talking about the first universe. In that case there is no clear scientific explanation of where "Universe Prime" came from.

But to be fair, as Christians we make a leap of faith in accepting the existence of God, so those who follow a scientific theory can make a leap of faith that we just don't understand yet where this first universe came from.

This leads us to the second question, if the entire universe is contained inside this little blob of matter, then what is outside that blob ??Since science holds that the universe is going to expand into the area outside this blob then we need to have something for it to expand into.

Indeed, if the 'recycling universe' theory is true then we have already had several universes expand and contract, so there has to be something out there.So far the only explanation that has been offered is that there is no matter outside the universe and we are too meager of mind to comprehend what is really out there (if in fact there is anything out there to comprehend).

Again, religion makes a leap of faith, so we can allow science to do so as well. So that makes two leaps of faith, one for where the universe first came from and a second for what is outside the universe.If we bend over to be fair we could argue that this makes it a tie so far since as Christians we make a leap of faith that God exists and also a leap for where he came from.

But back to the science theory of the universe. We have this blob of matter sitting there, with nothing around it and of course no beings to interfere with it. According to the Big Bang Theory the universal blob sat at rest for a period of time and they it suddenly exploded into expansion.

This runs into a problem with another law of science, this time it is Newtons First Law of Motion which holds that a body at rest remains at rest, and a body in motion remains in its current motion so long as it is not acted upon by an outside force.So we have a universal blob at rest, no external force acts on it and yet somehow it suddenly explodes into expansion.

Again, while the expanding/contracting universe rule would provide energy for expansion in later universes, it does not explain how the first universe expanded.So we now have a third leap of faith, that somehow the universe violated yet another basic rule of the universe without any external factor at play.

In Part II we will look at the development of the Earth and life on this planet.

Would You Believe......

Don Adams aka Maxwell Smart is dead at the age of 82...

Katrina Relief Thoughts

Needless to say for now we need to focus our efforts on recovery from Katrina and preparation for Rita, but regarding the attacks on Bush.

Just a few thoughts, thanks to some intrepid reporting from people in the storm region.

On Friday night before the storm hit Max Mayfield of the National Hurricane Center took the unprecedented action of calling Nagin and Blanco personally to plead with them to begin MANDATORY evacuation of New Orleans and they said they'd take it under consideration. This was after the NOAA buoy 240 miles south had recorded 68' waves before it was destroyed.

President Bush spent Friday afternoon and evening in meetings with his advisors and administrators drafting all of the paperwork required for a state to request federal assistance (and not be in violation of the Posse Comitatus Act or having to enact the Insurgency Act).

Just before midnight Friday evening the President called Governor Blanco and pleaded with her to sign the request papers so the federal government and the military could legally begin mobilization and call up. He was told that they didn't think it
necessary for the federal government to be involved yet.

After the President's final call to the governor she held meetings with her staff to discuss the political ramifications of bringing federal forces. It was decided that if they allowed federal assistance it would make it look as if they had failed so it was agreed upon that the feds would not be invited in.

Saturday before the storm hit the President again called Blanco and Nagin requesting they please sign the papers requesting federal assistance, that they declare the state an emergency area, and begin mandatory evacuation.

After a personal plea from the President, Nagin agreed to order an evacuation, but it would not be a full mandatory evacuation, and the governor still refused to sign the papers requesting and authorizing federal action. In frustration the President declared the area a national disaster area before the state of Louisiana did so he could legally begin some advanced preparations.

Now, I am not suggesting that Bush or FEMA were perfect, far from it and there should be a major investigation of what went wrong.

But while we are at it, let's look at some other areas too.

Throw in that over half the federal aid of the past decade to New Orleans for levee construction, maintenance, and repair was diverted to fund a marina and support the gambling ships.

Toss in the investigation that will look into why the emergency preparedness plan submitted to the federal government for funding and published on the city's website was never implemented...

In fact may have been bogus for the purpose of gaining additional federal funding as we now learn that the organizations identified in the plan were never contacted or coordinated into any planning - though the document implies that they were.

The suffering people of New Orleans need to be asking some hard questions as do we all, but they better start with why Blanco refused to even sign the multi-state mutual aid pack activation documents until Wednesday which further delayed the legal deployment of National Guard from adjoining states.

Or maybe ask why Nagin keeps harping that the President should have commandeered 500 Greyhound busses to help him when according to his own emergency plan and documents he claimed to have over 500 busses at his disposal to use between the local school busses and the city transportation busses - but he never raised a finger to prepare them or activate them.

This is a sad time for all of us to see that a major city has all but been destroyed and thousands of people have died with hundreds of thousands more suffering, but it's certainly not a time for people to be pointing fingers and trying to find a bigger dog to blame for local corruption and incompetence.

Katrina Polls

Interesting results coming in on the approval ratings of Governors in the gulf region.

Governors Perry (Texas), Babour (Mississippi), Riley (Alabama) and Bush (Florida) have all seen major spikes in their approval rating. More than 20 point hikes.

Governor Blanco of Louisiana has seen her rating plunge by 20 points.

Constitution Day

Today is Constitution Day, a celebration of the longest enduring Constitutional government ever.

So take a moment to reflect on how lucky we are to live in this great nation.

We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Left Hate Sites Do It Again

The left wing hate sites are at it again.

For days they have been screaming for Bush to accept responsibility for the federal response to Katrina.

Now that he has, they are calling for him to resign, rather than praising him for stepping up to the plate.

President Bush had the courage to accept responsibility for the failure of the federal reponse. No such response has come from either Governor Blanco or Mayor Nagin.

Radical Leftists Go Too Far

For some time now I have been concerned about the rantings on many of the leftist web sites. Not the mainstream ones, but the more radical ones.

These are people who hate anyone who dares to disagree with them, and I have been trying to find a way to really describe how they think.

Today, I found it, ironically enough on one of the sites.

The following statement was made, and widely agreed with.....

"Democrats would've taken care of Katrina victims from the get go. That would've been our first impulse, our first instinct. Republicans had to be shamed into helping people."

(www.dailykos.com)

Now most people on either side of the spectrum would dismiss this as patently ridiculous, just as we would dismiss the reverse.

We as a whole recognize that while we disagree with those on the other side of the debate, we accept that they are on the whole good and decent people who care just as much as we do.

As I've said, I do not equate mainstream liberals with these views. I strongly disagree with people like Kerry or Clinton, but I don't think they are evil.

But for the ultra-radical left, nobody who disagrees with them can be good. Only they hold virtue, only their view is acceptable.

September 11, Never Forget

Let us never forget the sacrifice many of our fellow citizens made that day.



Let us never lose our resolve that it shall not happen again.

Illegals Get Licenses in California ??

The California legislature has once again passed a bill to give illegals drivers licenses.

Luckily Governor Arnold will veto it.

When will they figure it out ?

Liberal vs Conservative Fundraising

Over the past week I have been greatly angered by those on the left chosing to make the Katrina disaster another reason to bash Bush, Republicans, conservatives, business, etc.

I have refrained from making many comments because I didn't want to fall into their trap, nor did I want to give any publicity to them. I will be doing a more general overview of liberals and conservatives and their attitudes, but for now I will settle for this.

Over the past week or so, both liberal and conservative blogs have done fundraising drives. These donations are, of course, in addition to any other donations to Red Cross or other charities.

And what are the numbers ??

Liberal blogs: around 150,000 dollars raised at last tally.

Conservative blogs: Almost 1,500,000 dollars raised.

Now I am not going to say that this makes liberals more or less generous than conservatives because they very well may be donating elsewhere.

But it does raise an eyebrow or two about liberal compassion.

Left Does It Again ?

Ok, they've gone over the top again.....

According to Jesse Jackson and company, the term refugee is racist.

Here's the article, I'm not gonna try to explain the logic, or lack thereof.

Refugee

Now if we were to pursue this ridiculous topic it is worth considering that most of the attention and rescue efforts has been focused on largely black New Orleans while the largely white Mississippi coastal area is a distant second in attentntion

Chief Justice Roberts !!

Moving quickly President Bush has nominated John Roberts for Chief Justice of the United States to succeed the late great William Rehnquist.

This is a great move which will allow Roberts to be in place by early October.

Bush will now be able to pick someone else for the O'Connor seat, but she has said she will stay in place until that person is confirmed, so there will be no vacancies on the court.

Don't Forget The Animals

While obviously the first and primary focus of the rescue efforts in the Gulf Coast region should be on people, we shouldn't forget the animals either.

Thousands of pets have been left stranded by families who had no time to do anything but run.

There is a wonderful organization working to help and I hope you will too.

Noah's Wish

Rehnquist Dead

BREAKING NEWS

Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist has died at his home at the age of 81.

He died Saturday evening at his home in suburban Virginia, said Supreme Court spokeswoman Kathy Arberg.

A statement from the spokeswoman said he was surrounded by his three children when he died in Arlington.

"The Chief Justice battled thyroid cancer since being diagnosed last October and continued to perform his dues on the court until a precipitous decline in his health the last couple of days,"

This is a major major event. Hearings for Roberts nomination were set to start on Tuesday but will now likely be delayed.

No speculation tonight on nominees, just respectful silence in memory

Katrina

Hard for me to post much when so many people are suffering in the Gulf States.

So just a plea to please give to whatever charity you can.

Remember Your Good Luck

First off, sorry for the lack of posts, my hard drive died earlier this week and it took time to rebuild.

Normally I would be very upset at dealing with such a problem, but not this week. Looking at the people of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, I realize how lucky I am.

So remember, the next time you are going to complain that you got caught in traffic, or spilled your drink, or paid a little more for gas.

Consider what you did do today.

If you woke up in your own bed knowing where your loved ones are.

If you took a real shower with no worry about where the water was coming from.

If you got breakfast out of your kitchen.

If you had the ability to drive somewhere, even if it was in bad traffic.

If the stores, restaurants, banks and gas stations near you were open and working.

If you lived your life the same way you have for the past year.

If you did any of these things, you are the envy of thousands, if not millions in the region impacted by Katrina.

And as you remember how lucky you are, please find a charity to donate some money or time or supplies to so we can help out our fellow human beings.