Weekly Updated RRStar Stats June 9, 2008

The content of the RRStar (online Rockford Register Star) blogs have an overwhelmingly liberal slant in both content, links, and quantity.

I established this blog in an attempt to provide Rockford with political balance and to demonstrate the type and quality of content the RRStar could offer to its readers.

Checking the stats of their political blogs it is clear that they need more of a balanced portfolio of political blogs.

Again, here are the political blogs available at the RRStar:

Applesauce is a prolific far left blog that addresses national issues. The content is mainly composed of links to the left wing of the blogosphere along with a short quips, photo, and video content. Occasionally there are longer posts that include opinions on the items linked. Comments are quickly answered, often with another quip.

In Chambers is a blog that covers Illinois state politics. It appears to be right of center but that could be the result of its adversarial nature to the current state administration. There is no real interaction in the comments.

Sweeny Report is a blog written by the Political Editor of the Register Star. Postings are sporadic, concentrating on local, state and national issues and are mainly short thoughts on events with few links.

Why We Vote is a group blog consisting of the thoughts of the members of the Register Star's voters opinion panel. The posts are mostly left of center (including those from the independents to date). The conservative member who was posting, sadly, passed away recently.

The Stats for June 1, 2008 through June 8, 2008:

* Applesauce 28 posts with 38 out links 9 YouTube.
* In Chambers 4 posts with 9 out links 0 YouTube.
* Sweeny Report 9 posts with 0 out links 1 YouTube.
* Why We Blog 0 posts (0 left, 0 right, 0 center) 0 out links 0 YouTube.

Totals since I started counting March 27, 2008 through June 8, 2008:

* Applesauce 261 posts with 346 out links 66 YouTube.
* In Chambers 43 posts with 280 out links 1 YouTube.
* Sweeny Report 61 posts with 20 out links 1 YouTube.
* Why We Blog 32 posts (28 left, 1 right, 4 center) 1 out links 0 YouTube.



If your interested in balance in the RRStar blogs keep coming back and let the RRStar know.
DKK

Let The Demonizing Begin -- Obama Begins The General

So if Obama is this post-partisan political God why does he spend so much time demonizing John McCain, George Bush, and the Republicans?

He is the politics of hate, the left's modus operandi -- you know the one where they say the Republicans are mean, evil, and refuse to debate the issues -- all the while being mean, evil and refusing to debate the issues.

I saw three reports of Obama speeches today and in all three reports Obama attacked his opponents in a manner approaching nastiness. He doesn't attack the policies but his attack frames in the lefty mode of making it personal -- he doesn't care about the people.

That works to fire up the base but the rest of us are going to get very sick of it very quickly!

Sorry if this post rambles -- right after the first sentence mind fog set in and I really lost it, I could hardly finish this post.
DKK

Wacko Ideology Nearly Kills Child

Parents love animals so much that they nearly kill their daughter.

As it stands, the 12-year-old girl “a degenerative bone condition said to have left her with the spine of an 80-year-old woman,” the Times of London reported.

They fed her a diet that was both meat-free and dairy-free. This was also Vitamin D-free, which led to decalcification, which “leads to the bones becoming brittle and can cause curvature of the spine,” the Times noted.

Let’s get this straight: Man is an omnivore.

We eat anything and we need just about everything to live.

This makes man the only animal that can survive on both poles and every place in between.

Quit politicizing food.

Charges may be brought against the girl’s parents. Noted the Times: “Last year, an American vegan couple were given a life sentence for starving their six-week-old baby to death. In 2001 two vegans from west London were sentenced to three years’ community rehabilitation after they admitted starving their baby to death.”

DKK

Don Surber -- Death by Vegetables

Chavez Guardsman Caught Aiding Terrorists -- Chavez Tries To Save Face, Calls For FARC to Quit

Colombia says it has arrested a Venezuelan national guard officer who was trying to deliver assault rifle ammunition to Marxist rebels.

The officer is said to have been captured along with three others in the southern Colombian province of Vichada, near the border with Venezuela.

The arrest comes at a time of tension between the two neighbours.

The Bogota government has accused Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez of supporting Colombia's Farc guerrillas.

The arrested officer, named as Manuel Agudo, was helping to carry 40,000 rounds of AK-47 ammunition along with another Venezuelan and two Colombians, Attorney General Mario Iguaran said.

Gateway Pundit -- Colombia Captures Venezuelan Guard Delivering Arms to FARC

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has called on Colombia's Farc rebels to end their four-decade struggle and release all their hostages.

Mr Chavez, whom Colombia has accused of financing the Farc, said they were "out of step" and their war was "history".

The Colombian government expressed surprise, but welcomed the statement.

The rebels are believed to be at their weakest point in years, following the death of their long-time leader, Manuel Marulanda, in March.

BBC News -- End struggle, Chavez urges Farc
DKK

Increased CO2 Leads To Greening Of The World

Planet Earth is on a roll! GPP is way up. NPP is way up. To the surprise of those who have been bearish on the planet, the data shows global production has been steadily climbing to record levels, ones not seen since these measurements began.

GPP is Gross Primary Production, a measure of the daily output of the global biosphere –the amount of new plant matter on land. NPP is Net Primary Production, an annual tally of the globe’s production. Biomass is booming. The planet is the greenest it’s been in decades, perhaps in centuries.

(...)
They found that over a period of almost two decades, the Earth as a whole became more bountiful by a whopping 6.2%. About 25% of the Earth’s vegetated landmass — almost 110 million square kilometres — enjoyed significant increases and only 7% showed significant declines.

(...)
Plants take the carbon from CO2 to bulk themselves up — carbon is the building block of life — and release the oxygen, which along with the plants, then sustain animal life. As summarized in a report last month, released along with a petition signed by 32,000 U. S. scientists who vouched for the benefits of CO2: “Higher CO2 enables plants to grow faster and larger and to live in drier climates. Plants provide food for animals, which are thereby also enhanced. The extent and diversity of plant and animal life have both increased substantially during the past half-century.”

From the 2004 abstract: Our results indicate that global changes in climate have eased several critical climatic constraints to plant growth, such that net primary production increased 6% (3.4 petagrams of carbon over 18 years) globally. The largest increase was in tropical ecosystems. Amazon rain forests accounted for 42% of the global increase in net primary production, owing mainly to decreased cloud cover and the resulting increase in solar radiation.

(...)
Doubling the jeopardy for Earth is man. Unlike the many scientists who welcome CO2 for its benefits, many other scientists and most governments believe carbon dioxide to be a dangerous pollutant that must be removed from the atmosphere at all costs. Governments around the world are now enacting massive programs in an effort to remove as much as 80% of the carbon dioxide emissions from the atmosphere.(...)
If these governments are right, they will have done us all a service. If they are wrong, the service could be all ill, with food production dropping world wide, and the countless ecological niches on which living creatures depend stressed.

Amazingly, although the risks of action are arguably at least as real as the risks of inaction, Canada and other countries are rushing into Earth-altering carbon schemes with nary a doubt. Environmentalists, who ordinarily would demand a full-fledged environmental assessment before a highway or a power plant can be built, are silent on the need to question proponents or examine alternatives.

Earth is on a roll. Governments are too. We will know soon enough if we’re rolled off a cliff.

Both Michelle Malkin Blog and Watts Up With That? linked to an article by Lawrence Solomon at the Financial Times. Watts Up included a link to a fascinating set of NASA images showing that increase in growth.

Let me reiterate what I have said before;

We really don't yet know what we are doing and we run the risk of destroying the basic structure of our civilization with many related deaths. If we can't manage to destroy a bacteria effectively how do we think we can destroy something as complex as the ecosystem.

DKK

Penn And Teller -- Call Bull Sh.. on Environmental Wacko's

Replay video | Share video | Watch more videos

Video from Curmudgeonly & Skeptical.
DKK

Rockford Red Cross 'Rock'n for the Red' Celebration Quickly Aproaching

Rock’n for the Red will be held on the North lawn of Davis Park Saturday, June 21, 2008
and runs noon until 11 pm. You can buy buttons, just $5 at the following locations:

• Kelley Williamson Mobil Gas Stations
• Rockford, IL Area Culver’s
• Logli Supermarkets Rockford
  
• Area Arts Council
• Kryptonite
• CJ’s Lounge
• Vinny’s on Block 5
• American Red Cross - Rock River Chapter

100% of the money made will go back to support your neighbors in the Rock River Valley. Click here to find out what bands are playing and when.

If you would like a yard sign to publicize the event you can get one by going to The American Red Cross -- Rock River Chapter Blog.

DKK

Energy Independence By 2030? DoE Scientist Says, 'Yes'

A scientist in the U.S. Department of Energy's science and energy research unit has said "Energy independence is a realistic goal for the United State of America," by 2030. There are, of course, a few caveats to that. First is that by the word "independence," he doesn't mean not using any oil entirely -- he means getting oil consumption down to a point where our usage is "not subject to restraining or directly influenced by others as consequence of the need for oil."

That, Greene says, is an issue of economics, not one of politics or the military (inasmuch as they can be separated). The key is to get the cost of importing oil down to one-percent or less of the U.S. GDP, which, by the way, is where it was during the heady we-can-take-baths-in-oil-there's-so-much-of-it decade of 1990-2000.

Greene thinks the Energy Independence Security Act will be the guide leading the way to this kind of oil independence, due to the CAFE increase, decreased demand for thirsty vehicles, and increased production and demand for biofuels and alternative energy cars. So now that the oil situation is licked, the only thing you'll need to worry about come 2030 is paying $12 for a cob of corn.

It's possible, but not if we don't;

Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less!

DKK

Autoblog -- Oil independence possible according to DoE scientist

Obama Proposes To Gut Military -- Why All These Failed Policies?

In the middle of a war on two fronts, Barack Obama plans to gut the military. He also wants to dismantle our nuclear arsenal. And he wants to keep you in the dark about it.
(...)

In a 132-word videotaped pledge (still viewable on YouTube), Obama agreed to hollow out the U.S. military by slashing both conventional and nuclear weapons.

The scope of his planned defense cuts, combined with his angry tone, is breathtaking. He sounds as if the military is the enemy, not the bad guys it's fighting.
(...)

His campaign Web site doesn't list a separate category for military or defense under "Issues." But search shows near-identical language there regarding nuclear weapons.

His plan, needless to say, is frighteningly irresponsible given the world threats.

(...)

Cutting allegedly "unproven" missile defense systems is music to Kim Jong Il's and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's ears, let alone all the PLA generals wishing our destruction.

Yet Obama wants to kill a program that's yielding success after success, with both sea- and land-based systems. The military just this week intercepted a ballistic missile near Hawaii in a sea-based missile defense test.

(...)

We've been down this road before. President Clinton pursued a denuclearization program, including his 1995 pledge to sign a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, and it led to him kicking open our nuclear labs to the Chinese, who proceeded to steal our warhead secrets and strengthen their own arsenal.

Like the Ben & Jerry's crowd that supports him, Obama believes "real" national security is "humanitarian foreign aid" — essentially using our troops as international meals-on-wheels in Africa.

We've been down that road before, too, in Somalia and elsewhere. Thanks, but we don't need a third Clinton, or a second Carter, term.

Seriously, the only thing I can figure is that Obama is hoping for hard core left, blacks, and kids who have no idea that these policy proposals have already been tired and failed miserably.
DKK
IBD -- Obama's Plan To Disarm The U.S.

Here is the video:

Now That's How You Win A War On Terrorism!

The deadliest terrorist networks in Southeast Asia have suffered significant setbacks in the past three years, weakened by aggressive policing, improved intelligence, enhanced military operations and an erosion of public support, government officials and counterterrorism specialists say.

Three years after the region’s last major strike — the attacks on three restaurants in Bali that killed three suicide bombers and 19 other people — American and Asian intelligence analysts say financial and logistical support from Al Qaeda to other groups in the region has long dried up, and the most lethal are scrambling for survival.

In Indonesia, since 2005 authorities have arrested more than 200 members of Jemaah Islamiyah, an Islamic group with ties to Al Qaeda. In the Philippines, an American-backed military campaign has the Abu Sayyaf Group, an Islamic extremist organization with links to Jemaah Islamiyah, clinging to footholds in the jungles of a handful of southern islands, officials said.

First it was al Qaeda in Iraq, the Taliban, then FARC in Columbia and now Abu Sayyaf -- that's how you win a War on Terror -- and now everyone wants Obama change? I really don't think most people understand that Obama's change means giving up these victories!

DKK

NYTimes -- Via Hugh Hewitt -- More Good News From The War Against Jihadism

US To Abandon Corrupt UN Human Rights Council

The United States has quietly informed Western allies of its intention to walk away from the U.N. Human Rights Council, diplomatic sources said on Friday.

The U.S. delegation has observer status, with the right to speak, in the 47-member state forum, which meets in Geneva, and has never stood for election to the Council since it was set up two years ago.

Diplomatic sources and rights activists said that U.S. officials had informed the European Union on Friday morning of its intention to halt its involvement in the Council.

"They said they were going to disengage totally," said one representative of a rights watchdog group.

In a Council debate on Friday on the situation in Myanmar, the United States failed to take the floor on a topic on which until now it has always been vocal, a possible sign that it had little further interest in the body. The Council replaced the widely discredited U.N. Commission on Human Rights.

But it is seen by critics as having fallen under control of a bloc of Islamic and African countries, which have a majority when backed by their frequent allies Russia, China and Cuba.

Ah yes! Those bastions of human rights found in Russia, China, and Cuba. Leave it to those and other brutish countries to presume to tell the US about our human rights record.

John McCain supports a "League of Democracies" that would pretty much make Russia, China, and Cuba irrelevant on the big security issues facing the world. Mr. Obama would prefer to work through an organization like the UN that has proved itself totally incapable of addressing the vital issues that mean life and death to so many on this planet.

DKK
American Thinker Blog -- US Walking away from Human Rights Forum