Ronald Wilson Reagan, 40th President of the United States, passed away on June 5th of 2004. This past week, Tuesday, February 6th, would have been Reagan’s 96th birthday.

And I still miss him. Perhaps I miss my youth; I was a young man with a beautiful young wife and my entire future ahead of me. Then and now, however, I realize that I never before or since felt as good about my country and as assured of its direction and the strength and goodness of our leadership than under Reagan’s guiding hand.

In my prior post I wrote, in response to a comment from Jenn:

Jenn: can I confess something? Until he passed away in 2004, in the back of my mind I was still comforted by his presence in my world. Of course I understood that he was stricken by Alzheimers and I read the occasional article about he and Nancy or perhaps the kids, and about his condition. Yet, the mere thought of him still living was still comforting. I found myself remarkably, absolutely stricken by his passing, almost like he was a member of my own family.

He was a politician; I never knew him and he never knew me. He had no idea I existed. Yet his death struck me almost as significantly as the passing of my own mother in 2002. How completely an oddity is that? — and it has always bothered me in some shadowy fashion.

Every word is true. But further: not only do I miss the leadership of Ronald Reagan, I also miss the simpler times, the unity of the GOP. And it’s gotten me to thinking even more.

Those of us on the Right side of the aisle are still looking, perhaps fruitlessly, for our next Ronald Reagan; likely we shall never find another and we should amend our minds to this.

But should we give up our Conservative values despite the fact that the GOP now appear to be a collective of seemingly-capitulist poll responders and wind sensors? If The Pledge did not occur would the GOP have taken any kind of a collective stance against the resolutions to condemn Bush’s addition of troops in Iraq?

I was taken to task recently for my sense of what has happened to the Republican Party and that I am apparently not a blind cheerleader for same or an apologist for President Bush but, considering the recent past and the tenure of the times how can I be such? As I have written time and again I shall be the first in line to praise when it is deserved, and also present to point out faults when they occur (see this post about Palestine). Everything is not all wine and roses.

And we will NOT get where we need to be as a party, in a fashion to honor our Conservative roots, unless we are willing to recognize and acknowledge our faults and, moreover, discern and decide to CORRECT these faults and place ourselves on the proper track.

But what IS that proper track?

Have we actually lost our way and forgotten what it is that we who vote Republican embrace?

I thought: I have an idea of what the GOP should stand for. I believe I know what it is that I should stand for as a Conservative. But can I actually find something that clearly states and makes clear the GOP Platform?

What do we as Republicans stand for, anyway? Do we even know? Can I find our platform?

Trust me: I have the temerity to posit the very next obvious question: if we can’t find and identify our platform, the basis for our very existence, we are in a whole very lot of trouble.

Sir: it was an honor to have been a citizen of the United States under your leadership.

Rest in peace and may God provide you with the comfort and ease you so deserve.

P.S.

Artist Chris Hopkins offers this poster here.

Thought all Canadians were warm, fuzzy, Kyoto Protocol socialists (a Canadian, after all, instigated the Kyoto Protocol process)? Not so. Just ask AB Freedom. Or, ask this scientist:

Dr. Tim Ball, Chairman of the Natural Resources Stewardship Project (www.nrsp.com), is a Victoria-based environmental consultant and former climatology professor at the University of Winnipeg. In Monday’s digital version of the Canada Free Press he writes that “Global warming is not due to human contribution of carbon dioxide.”

Go here to read his article.

Global Warming, as we think we know it, doesn’t exist. And I am not the only one trying to make people open up their eyes and see the truth. But few listen, despite the fact that I was the first Canadian Ph.D. in Climatology and I have an extensive background in climatology, especially the reconstruction of past climates and the impact of climate change on human history and the human condition. Few listen, even though I have a Ph.D, (Doctor of Science) from the University of London, England and was a climatology professor at the University of Winnipeg. For some reason (actually for many), the World is not listening. Here is why.

Dr. Ball then goes on:

Believe it or not, Global Warming is not due to human contribution of Carbon Dioxide (CO2). This in fact is the greatest deception in the history of science. We are wasting time, energy and trillions of dollars while creating unnecessary fear and consternation over an issue with no scientific justification. For example, Environment Canada brags about spending $3.7 billion in the last five years dealing with climate change almost all on propaganda trying to defend an indefensible scientific position while at the same time closing weather stations and failing to meet legislated pollution targets.

He then writes about the reasons the Global Warming Pimps (as I so adroitly term them) rule the day:

No doubt passive acceptance yields less stress, fewer personal attacks and makes career progress easier. What I have experienced in my personal life during the last years makes me understand why most people choose not to speak out; job security and fear of reprisals. Even in University, where free speech and challenge to prevailing wisdoms are supposedly encouraged, academics remain silent.

I once received a three page letter that my lawyer defined as libellous, from an academic colleague, saying I had no right to say what I was saying, especially in public lectures. Sadly, my experience is that universities are the most dogmatic and oppressive places in our society. This becomes progressively worse as they receive more and more funding from governments that demand a particular viewpoint.

Here’s the real issue at hand, which Dr. Ball readily addresses:

Meanwhile, politicians are being listened to, even though most of them have no knowledge or understanding of science, especially the science of climate and climate change. Hence, they are in no position to question a policy on climate change when it threatens the entire planet. Moreover, using fear and creating hysteria makes it very difficult to make calm rational decisions about issues needing attention.

A small interjection here: I am not scientist nor proclaim to be a Global Warming scholar. But I am intelligent enough to question the issue when I read and understand the sources of the GW hate and discontent. As Dr. Ball indicates, when SCIENTISTS cannot find it within themselves to do nothing but trod the politically correct line, then I must question most everything relating to the “science” of Global Warming.

Some more “insight” into the political efforts: the Calgary Herald wrote that Minister of the Environment of Canada, Christine Stewart, said: “No matter if the science is all phony, there are collateral environmental benefits. Climate change [provides] the greatest chance to bring about justice and equality in the world.”

“Justice and equality.” Translated: the Socialist redistribution of wealth and the collapse of Western Civilizations, or “okay, so even if we’re full of crap it’s all about pushing through our political agendas anyway, and Science and Truth be damned.”

Patrick Moore, the man who essentially started Green Peace in 1977 and now fronts Greenspirit, said “The Amazon is actually the least endangered forest in the world.” Moore continued: “This is where I really have a problem with modern-day environmentalism. It confuses opinion with what we know to be true, and disguises what are really political agendas with environmental rhetoric. The fact of the matter is: There is a larger percentage of the Amazon rain forest intact than there are most other forests in this world.”

Other interesting quotes:

— Petr Chylek(Professor of Physics and Atmospheric Science, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia), commenting on reports by other researchers that Greenland’s glaciers are melting. (Halifax Chronicle-Herald, August 22, 2001)

— Dr. William Gray (Professor of Atmospheric Sciences at Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado and leading expert of hurricane prediction), in an interview for the Denver Rocky Mountain News, November 28, 1999.

“Every scientist” subscribes to Global Warming? Go to http://www.oism.org for a petition signed by blocks of scientists questioning the science behind GW. Surveys of climatologists show similar skepticism.

Also: the IPCC did not prove that human activities are causing global warming. Alarmists frequently quote the executive summaries of reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a United Nations organization, to support their predictions. But here is what the IPCC’s latest report, Climate Change 2001, actually says about predicting the future climate:

The Earth’s atmosphere-ocean dynamics is chaotic: its evolution is sensitive to small perturbations in initial conditions. This sensitivity limits our ability to predict the detailed evolution of weather; inevitable errors and uncertainties in the starting conditions of a weather forecast amplify through the forecast. As well as uncertainty in initial conditions, such predictions are also degraded by errors and uncertainties in our ability to represent accurately the significant climate processes.”

So am I doing my best to DISPROVE Global Warming? Not necessarily; what I am indicating is that the statistics and information we have gathered evidently proves that weather patterns are changing. But that’s about all we can yet apparently prove.

But be leery when you hear or read of people speaking of “Global Warming” in terms of concretes and absolutes.

Where there is money there is agenda. And vice versa.

We have apparently become recently enamored of potential female Presidential candidates.

Of these candidates, for whom would you vote?

Just when I want to support President Bush, he does something insane like this (thanks to Little Green Footballs):

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – The United States will expand assistance to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to include about 8,500 members of his national security forces and possibly 1,000 Fatah fighters based in Jordan, U.S. documents show.

Providing non-lethal equipment and training to units of Abbas’s National Security Forces, and possibly the Jordan-based Badr Brigade could increase Washington’s role in the power struggle between Abbas’s Fatah faction and the governing Hamas movement.

U.S. assistance has largely been limited until now to around 4,000 members of Abbas’s presidential guard. But documents obtained by Reuters on Saturday showed that the U.S. government’s $86.4 million security assistance program could cover at least 13,500 troops loyal to Abbas.

The National Security Forces (NSF) is the largest security force under Abbas’s control and is viewed by many Palestinians to be the equivalent of an army, though it is poorly trained and equipped compared to the smaller presidential guard.

Under the U.S. security program, $76.4 million will fund “projects to transform and strengthen elements of the Palestinian Authority’s security structure, specifically the National Security Forces and Presidential Guard in an effort to improve public order and fight terror in the West Bank and Gaza,” the documents said.

“These projects have been developed in coordination with the office of the PA president (Abbas), and the overall plan enjoys the support of the government of Israel,” said the documents, marked “sensitive but unclassified.”

What? What? What??!

Hand me that balpeen hammer, I need to smack my forehead!

Well shoot, no one wants a strong Israel (including the Israeli government), so why the hell should we?

My God. What is happening on this planet?