Well, that is, presuming this fundraiser takes place in the Golden State, but given Mrs. Boxer’s travel schedule, unless she’s hawking her book, she’s probably in Washington, D.C. a place she seems to prefer to the jurisdiction she ostensibly represents.  With Ma’am unable to muster more than 50% in the polls in a state where Obama topped 60%, she’s looking for some outside help:

To help with the warmth of money, Boxer will have Al Gore headline a fundraiser for her next weekend.

Clever use  of the word, “warmth,” Mr. Malcolm (who wrote the words above).  Seems that wherever global warmist Al Gore gives a speech, record cold weather comes with him.

Well, so now we know where he’s going to emerge from hibernation.  And while his pet cause is taking on water faster than the Titanic after hitting an iceberg, he probably still has some credibility among the global warming dead-enders in the Golden State.

Do wonder how environmental zealotry will help Mrs. Boxer outside the circles where she’ll do well no matter what.  But, beyond those deep blue enclaves in the Hollywood and Bay Areas, most people in this state are more concerned with other issues.

More on the polls mentioned in the article above anon.  Had seen the survey results earlier in the day, then Instapundit linked the article above and well that line quoted above inspired a post.

The Global Warming Hoax Of The Century continues to crumble…

More trouble looms for the IPCC. The body may need to revise statements made in its Fourth Assessment Report on hurricanes and global warming.  A statistical analysis of the raw data shows that the claims that global hurricane activity has increased cannot be supported.

Les Hatton once fixed weather models at the Met Office. Having studied Maths at Cambridge, he completed his PhD as metereologist: his PhD was the study of tornadoes and waterspouts. He’s a fellow of the Royal Meterological Society, currently teaches at the University of Kingston, and is well known in the software engineering community – his studies include critical systems analysis.

Hatton has released what he describes as an ‘A-level’ statistical analysis, which tests six IPCC statements against raw data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric (NOAA) Administration.  He’s published all the raw data and invites criticism, but warns he is neither “a warmist nor a denialist”, but a scientist.

Hatton performed a z-test statistical analysis of the period 1999-2009 against 1946-2009 to test the six conclusions. He also ran the data ending with what the IPCC had available in 2007. He found that North Atlantic hurricane activity increased significantly, but the increase was counterbalanced by diminished activity in the East Pacific, where hurricane-strength storms are 50 per cent more prevalent. The West Pacific showed no significant change. Overall, the declines balance the increases.

“When you average the number of storms and their strength, it almost exactly balances.” This isn’t indicative of an increase in atmospheric energy manifesting itself in storms.

I’d like nothing more than to see Al Gore charged with fraud by an international tribunal…. or economic crimes against humanity.  Either one that lands him in jail the quickest.  Maybe a Saudi jail??

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

UPDATE (from Dan): So, where are the global warmists left to be discredited? They’ve been hiding the decline (in temperatures), exaggerating the melting of Himalayan glaciers and the devastation of the Amazon rain forest and now they’ve been doctoring data about hurricanes. Wonder if they made any predictions about tornadoes.

Perhaps, it’s because as a boy, I loved the musical 1776, I long ago became a fan of John Adams and appreciated his accomplishments before David McCullough‘s biography climbed the bestseller charts and alerted many Americans to the greatness of the short-tempered man from Massachusetts.  And only recently did I truly appreciate the greatness of his predecessor in the White House, the man whose greatness, in days of yore, was a staple of a public school education in these United States.  I kind of got my education in the Founders backwards.

It seems that, as Bruce said, “The American liberal wants us to forget about Washington.”  They tell us he was a mere place holder in the White House and that during the Revolutionary War, he lost more battles than he won.  In so doing, they ignore how much he did as President to secure the survival of this fledgling nation.

While they are indeed right that as general, he did lose more battles than he won.  He learned how to manage defeat so as to prevent those battlefield losses from becoming military catastrophes, inspiring his troops–and his fellow Americans then and now–by example, showing us how to face the vicissitudes of life for we all must face defeats and setbacks from time to time.

George Washington never gave up in situations where we could understand even the strongest of men turning tail.  And that is why the Crossing of the Delaware and Valley Forge were so important.  In succeeding winters, when it seemed all was lost, he held his troops together so they might survive to fight in the spring, well, in the first case, so they might first fight in dead of winter.

Thanks to Bruce for reminding us who we honor today.  Hopefully one week hence on the real anniversary of his birth, I’ll offer a more comprehensive testimonial, but for now let us remember this great man for his resilience, that he fought on when all seemed lost.

Such was my thought when I read this post, New White House communications strategy: More retorts to Republicans, more ‘high-profile’ Obama events, on the Washington Examiner.  To gain more traction for the agenda with the American people, Obama just need make a few “messaging adjustments“:

The messaging adjustments are the result of an end-of-the-year analysis in which White House advisers said the president’s communications team had not taken the initiative often enough and had allowed drawn-out debates in Congress, and relentless criticism by Republicans, to drown out his message.

Drown out his message?  Huh?  It got out there just fine.  It’s that the people just plain didn’t like it, most of us at least.

Instead of adjusting the message, perhaps they need to change it altogether.  Another post on that very web-site shows that Americans want smaller government, so maybe that’s why the Obama message is not playing as well  with the American people as did his campaign.  His agenda is for big government; his campaign focused on changing a Washington “living beyond its means”:

Donald Douglas at American Power blog notes other questions and responses [in a New York Times/CBS News survey] that suggest the president’s position with the public is vastly more negative than the Times’ leads its readers to believe. A strong majority, 56 percent, say they prefer a “smaller government with fewer services,” and nearly 60 percent say “government is doing too many things better left to businesses and individuals.”

Maybe if their message reflected that reality, it would better resonate with the American people.

It’s a sad sign about the current White House that they recognize  a problem, they believe they need only shift the communication strategy, instead of shifting the governing agenda.

Like us, Little Miss Attilla was not surprised that former Vice President Cheney favors lifting the ban on gays serving openly in our armed forces:

This is the guy whose daughter-in-law was the first same-sex partner at official state dinners in any Presidential administration.

Of course Cheney thinks that the change should be considered as soon as the military authorities figure out how to implement a new approach. And given the fact that the Israelis and the British have managed it, there’s really no reason we can’t.

Nice to see a lot of the bloggers and blogresses on the right coming out against DADT.

(H/t:  Instapundit.)

Evan Bayh to retire.

At the beginning of the year, his seat was considered safe for the Democrats. Given the demographics of the state, you have to move this one from lean Democrat to lean Republican.

UPDATE: Barone weighs in:

Going into this cycle, [Bayh] looked like a sure bet for reelection.

Where does this leave Democrats in the 2010 Senate contests? Not in very good shape. The North Dakota seat held by Democrat Byron Dorgan seems sure to go to Republican John Hoeven. The Delaware seat held by Ted Kaufman (appointed to replace Joe Biden) seems very, very likely to go to Republican Mike Castle. The Indiana seat held by Bayh seems now very likely to go to a Republican.

Read the whole thing!

UPDATE FROM BRUCE (GayPatriot): Word is coming from Maryland that US Sen. Barbara Mikulski is also going to retire in the next few days.  Tsunami.

UP-UPDATE (from Dan): Let’s hope Michael Steele runs for the open seat.

You remember John Brennan, who recently castigated those who would question the wisdom of the current Administration’s mishandling of terrorists as trying “to score political points, instead of coming together to keep us safe” and this is just “[p]olitically motivated criticism and unfounded fear-mongering” which “only serve the goals of al-Qaeda”. You know, as if there were no validity to the criticism, and the only way someone could possibly ever criticize such an inept handling of our enemy is if he were simply wanting to see America fail and al-Qaeda win. Nice to see we’ve got such a level-headed guy keeping us safe, no?

Anyway, this weekend at the Islamic Center of New York University, in response to a question about the recidivism rate of erstwhile Guantanamo-based terrorists, in equating these murderers and enemies of the United States to common criminals (and the 50% recidivism rate of “the American penal system”), Brennan flippantly says, “20% isn’t bad.”

Many will jump on the soundbite and simply criticize Brennan’s continued lack of concern for most American’s fear of any terrorists being granted a second opportunity to kill us all. But they’ll miss the more dramatic point of his response: That these enemies are basically no different than the prisoners who are incarcerated for stealing cars, selling drugs, or kiting checks.

Does Brennan (and does the current Administration) see no difference?

-Nick (ColoradoPatriot, from HQ)

I’m ticked off that we have to remember Presidents Washington & Lincoln in the same breath as Carter, Obama, Buchanan & Polk.  Let’s never forget that we are SUPPOSED to mark today as Washington’s Birthday.  And let’s learn something while we are at it, eh? (via UnionLeader.com)

Today is not Presidents’ Day. The holiday’s official title is George Washington’s Birthday. It is a day for celebrating the Father of our Country, whose greatness is often forgotten.

Few Americans know that George Washington never received more than elementary-level schooling. But he was a whiz at math, and his sharp mind and appetite for adventure led him to surveying, then to the Army.

Incredibly, in his first military adventure, the totally untrained soldier led an attack on a French force near the Ohio River, killing a French ambassador. Thus began the French and Indian War. Washington was captured and signed a statement, written in French, admitting to what were basically war crimes. In his next battle, Washington advised Gen. Edward Braddock to avoid traditional battle lines in an open field. Braddock ignored him, and the Indians slaughtered the British, killing Braddock. London blamed the colonials, including Washington.

Today, a young soldier’s career probably would be over — if he ever got into the Army with such little education to begin with. Washington soldiered on, eventually leading a small force of mostly militiamen to victory over the greatest military power the world had ever seen.

In 1788, a popular song in the new United States of America was “Great Washington shall rule the land.” But Washington wanted nothing of it. He was nearly broke and needed to restore his farm to profitability. But without campaigning for the job, he was unanimously elected President. He wrote of the results: “My movements to the chair of government will be accompanied by feelings not unlike those of a culprit who is going to the place of his execution … .”

On his ride to New York City, then the capital, he was serenaded by citizens singing, “Welcome, mighty chief!” Had he sought them, dictatorial powers were his for the taking. But on his inauguration, he wore a plain brown suit fitting of an average American, the first step in his plan to establish that Presidents were citizen executives, nothing more.

“As the first of everything in our situation will serve to establish a precedent, it is devoutly wished on my part, that these precedents may be fixed on true principles,” he wrote to James Madison. Following his principles, he spent the next eight years retiring the national debt, avoiding foreign entanglements and trying to ensure the stability of the young national government.

When he retired, George Washington was reviled by a large portion of the citizens who owed him their freedom. To avoid war, he had accepted a humiliating treaty with Britain. The newly formed opposition press brutally attacked and mocked him. But Washington never responded. He let the press and the people deride him as he rode home to Mount Vernon, where he died two years later.

Today, George Washington is the dour old man on the dollar bill. In his time, he was a colossus, the general who risked everything to defeat an empire, only to reject his own crown and retire to his farm after ensuring that no one would have the power he refused to take for himself. We owe him everything. Let us remember that, if not every day, at least on this one.

The American liberal wants us to forget about Washington.  He stood for individual freedom and liberty and the power of the people to overthrow tyranny.  They want to marginalize him and give him the “Alinsky Treatment.”

Not on my watch.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

Yep, I’ll be at CPAC this coming Wednesday through Sunday.   And so will GOProud…

GOProud will be the only gay organization co-sponsoring the 2010 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).  As most of you know, CPAC is the nation’s premier annual gathering of conservatives and GOProud is honored to have the opporunity to represent gay conservatives and our straight allies at this important event.

GOProud will be at CPAC standing up for the values of gay conservatives and I write to you today asking you to stand with GOProud. 

If you are going to be in DC for CPAC, please join us.  Below is a run-down of some of our plans for CPAC.  Whether you will be here for CPAC or won’t please support GOProud’s work -  Click here to contribute.

Wednesday, February 17, 6 pm – 8 pm – Join us for an informal happy hour at the Dupont Hotel Bar.  Click here for directions.  This will give GOProud folks a chance to meet and get to know each other before CPAC starts on Thursday. (We expect we’ll get together Thursday – Saturday nights too.  Stop by the GOProud booth any day during CPAC to see what’s planned for that evening.)

Thursday, February 18 – Saturday, February 20 - The focus of our CPAC efforts will be our GOProud information booth in the exhibit area near radio row.  This is our opportunity to talk about GOProud’s mission, answer questions, and grow our organization.  Please support GOProud’s CPAC booth by making a contribution to this important effort today

Saturday, February 20, 11 am - GOProud’s Jimmy LaSalvia will speak to CPAC about “Using Technology to Mobilize Conservatives.”  Click here for more information.

We hope that you will join us next week at CPAC!  There’s still time to register here.  If you can’t make it to Washington, we still need your help.  Remember, only one CPAC co-sponsor represents gay conservatives and their allies.  Please support GOProud today.  Click here to contribute.

In addition, I’ll be a speaker at a Blogger-Free-For-All panel hosted by BankofKev.  The panel is Thursday at 4:00PM.  Please come by the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel to say hello and support GOProud this week.

Oh yeah, I’ll be blogging and hopefully doing some videopodcasts too!  The one speech I’m definitely going to liveblog: MARCOOOO RUUUUBIOOOOO!

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

Last week, I so liked a piece that Conservative Blogress Diva Regent Neo-neocon posted on Pajamas I printed it out.  Just read it again.  She really got at a phenomenon afflicting the chattering classes, often described as Palin Derangement Syndrome, but sometimes known by its more common name, “Palin-hatred”.

Last week, many of the former Alaska Governor’s detractors, rushed to judge her, smearing her speech, attacking a bracelet she wore and attempting the ancient art of palmistry on her exposed palm.  Neo-neocon found this rush to judgment par for the course when it comes to this charismatic conservative woman:

This rush to judgment is not the exception but rather the rule when criticizing Sarah. Palin-hatred is as old — and as persistent — as her presence on the national scene (that’s “hatred,” as distinguished from mere disagreement on issues). There have been countless explanations for it. If anything, the phenomenon is over-determined, representing a toxic brew of class warfare, misogyny, envy (much of this coming from women), and elitism.

One of the many things that so infuriates Palin-haters is that she has not adopted the proper veneer of bland sameness that most people in public life affect, a smoothness that often serves to even out idiosyncrasies of accent and regionalism. Ms. Palin refuses to do this. She sports not only a bracelet that marks her as the proud mother of a son who has been in the military, but an accent that marks her as from the far north and simultaneously as “country.”

Many people read the latter as “uneducated,” and therefore “stupid.” The assumption is that Palin doesn’t change these things — she continues to drop her “g’s” at the end of “ing” words, for example — because she cannot do so, rather than because she chooses not to do so. But that assumption may be as incorrect as so many of the other assumptions about Palin.

Those many false assumptions. Guess it’s that her detractors have a hard time understanding her appeal because, well, she’s just not the type of woman who’s supposed to succeed.  She’s conservative, she loves her husband (who happens to be hot), she has a passel of children, she doesn’t read Derrida (and thankfully, probably doesn’t know who he is).

Just read the whole thing, this diva (Neo-neocon) is onto something.

Whenever I watch a classic movie with one of the stars of yore, Katharine Hepburn, James Cagney, Humphrey Bogart, James Stewart, John Wayne, Bette Davis (once she had entered her thirties), I notice how few of them were handsome in the classic sense. Clark Gable was kind of the exception that proved the rule. But, the striking John Gavin never made it big.

Nor have other lookers, female as well as male. Paul Walker is nice to look at, but outside of the Fast and the Furious films, he hasn’t really been able to pack audiences in.  It’s not good looks which determine how much box office a star can bank.  It’s something else, something that no one can really put their finger on, but everyone kind of knows it when they see it, that “it” that makes a movie star.

At a party Saturday night, celebrating the release of the most enjoyable Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief, this issue was raised in a conversation amongst a clique of conservative cinephiles. We all agreed that Sandra Bullock had it. And while an attractive woman (at least according to my straight friends contend) she’s not a Jessica (Alba, Biel or Simpson). Her breakthrough picture, Speed, came out the year she turned 30, supposedly past her prime for a Hollywood starlet.

Playing a middle-aged mother, she is carrying the Blind Side toward a quarter-of-a-billion dollar domestic box office, the eighth highest grossing film of 2009.  Still, while a good actress, very good in this movie, she does not rise to the level of Meryl Streep, Laura Linney, Alfre Woodard or Kathy Bates.

That said, she has something which turns mediocre scripts like that for Two Weeks Notice into most enjoyable movies.  And even in movies with, well, unsalvagable stories, like All About Steve, it takes you a while to realize just how bad the movie is, because, well, she commands your attention.

Nine years ago, in reviewing Moulin Rogue!, Owen Glieberman came closest to defining that “it” that everyone in Hollywood wishes they cold reduce to a formula:  ”As the courtesan Satine, Nicole Kidman has an accomplished whiplash-dominatrix style but not, perhaps, the eccentric dynamism of a true star.”  Eccentric dynamism, yeah that’s it, but what exactly is “eccentric dynamism”?

UPDATE:  An actress friend offers this insight on Miss Bullock:

She is approachable and likeable. Woman see her as not-too-pretty, friendly, real and someone you could go out and gossip/hang with and yet she seems to have just enough sex appeal for the guys. It’s hard to find that combo. She also is very funny and laughs at herself. She hits the right notes for both sexes to enjoy her. I think she allows her personality to come thru her performances which helps to make her successful.

Hm.. I thought the eeeevil torture advocate was supposed to be against us.

Oh that’s right, he’s got a long history of supporting homosexuals (including his daughter). One wonders whenever this great man will get any sort of credit or respect from the gay “community”. Probably the day after its leadership is wrested away from the angry Leftist mob currently in charge. Dream on, huh?

-Nick (ColoradoPatriot, from HQ)