Talk about bringing back a lot of memories, both good, and bad. I decided to jump ahead and add a particularly chilling post from 2006. I can still remember lying in a hospital bed, typing it out with one finger on a borrowed laptop.  Reading it helps keep things in perspective.

“injured” – December 21, 2006 – Baghdad, Iraq

And here is further proof that I have been blogging since January, 2001.

This whole debacle is very instructive of the rather insidious and disgusting tactics of those on the left in this “debate.” One must either toe the leftist line or face righteous indignation from a group of contemptuous idelogs who feel their lockstep agenda trumps the personal freedoms of others. Sure, they welcome donations to worthwhile causes, as long as they are donations to their worthwhile causes. If one dares to break from the status quo they are met with outrageously outrageous outrage, spawning a smear campaign that knows no limits. In their quest for ideological dominance, there are no “rules of war” as long as the end results are achieved. They welcome “debate” as long as long as you fight for the same opinion they have.  If not, one faces immature foot stomping and temper tantrums the likes of which are typically only seen from young children before nap time. Instead of debate one gets repeated shouts of “shame!” which is the intellectual equivalent of child holding ones breath until they get their way. (I fully expect to get a “You’re not a woman, shut up” comment from this, which is nothing more than another sad and pathetic tactic at squelching any dissenting opinion on the matter.)

Komen, an organization whose sole mission is to help women survive cancer, has spent nearly 2 billion to the cause of saving women’s lives since 1982.  On the other hand, Planned Parenthood has a rather lucrative business of ending life at a rate of over 300,000 aborted babies a year. Although PP obviously performs other duties such as birth control, and STD services, there is a drastic difference between being committed to saving lives instead of ending them. Yet the loud and clear message being shouted by the indignant is that PP trumps Komen, the right to kill trumps the right to live. (This is a bit like the related topic that it is immoral to kill a violent criminal who has murdered another human being, yet moral to kill an unborn child who has harmed no one. If I ever attempted to harbor such views I would have to get up every morning to do yoga in order to contort myself into such pretzel logic.)

There are numerous lessons to take away from this. First, never, ever donate to a cause or organization with such an ideology. They’re like the Hotel California. You can check out, but your cash flow can never leave. If you dare to buck the trend, be prepared for righteous indignation.

Secondly, refuse to be silenced by such faux outrage. No excessive screams of “shame!” or other foot stomping behavior is worthy of submission to such a group of maniacal idelogs. Their perceived rights do not trump the intrinsic rights of others. Individuals and groups have the right to donate or NOT donate to whoever they damn well please, and no amount of shameless demagoguery changes that.

Lastly, instead of donating to this particularly popular genre of philanthropic causes, donate to an organization of outstanding conviction, of steadfast courage, and most importantly, that has testicular fortitude. No, I’m not talking about the Wounded Warrior Project. Donate to an organization like the Prostate Cancer Foundation. From the Daily Caller circa 2010:

According to estimates from the National Institutes of Health, in the United States in 2010, 207,090 women and 1,970 men will get new cases of breast cancer, while 39,840 women and 390 men will likely die from the disease. The estimated new cases of prostate cancer this year — all affecting men — is 217,730, while it is predicted 32,050 will die from the disease.

Dan Zenka, the Prostate Cancer Foundation’s vice president of communications, says the similarity in numbers is hard to ignore. “Prostate cancer is to men what breast cancer is to women,” he told The Daily Caller.

Breast cancer awareness advocates have done an inspired job getting out word and excitement for their cause. Despite their success, prostate cancer has been left in the dust — both in terms of awareness and federal funding. Case in point, prostate cancer research receives less than half of the funding breast cancer does.

In fiscal year 2009, breast cancer research received $872 million worth of federal funding, while prostate cancer received $390 million. It is estimated that fiscal year 2010 will end similarly, with breast cancer research getting $891 million and prostate cancer research receiving $399 million.

Even when it comes to private foundations, the picture is the same. For example, at the American Cancer Society, breast cancer receives about twice the number of grants as prostate cancer.

The vast inequalities between the two causes are astounding, yet continually fall on deaf ears.

Prostate cancer has no sexy, extravagant multi-million dollar marketing campaigns, no pink garbage cans, no 5k walks filled with pink ribbons. But more importantly, it has no public campaign of destruction between organizations that diminishes the noble cause to a mere perversion of ideology. I know where I’d rather send my money.

Lt. Col. Sherri Reed of West Point told The Associated Press that cadets are “purposefully exposed to different perspectives and cultures.”

“The National Prayer Breakfast Service will be pluralistic with Christians, Jewish, and Muslim cadets participating,” Reed said. “We are comfortable and confident that what retired Lt. Gen. Boykin will share about prayer, soldier care and selfless service, will be in keeping with the broad range of ideas normally considered by our cadets.”

Boykin backed out of the event on his own volition, according to a report from Fox News.

The retired lieutenant general has been on CAIR’s radar for casting Islam in a poor light, specifically in speeches in which he analogizing the War on Terror to a war against Satan.

CAIR and the group VoteVets.org pushed hard for a retraction of Boykin’s invitation to the event due to his “Islamophobic” views.

Huh? A Veterans organization has teamed up with CAIR to silence a General they deem insensitive to Islam? Apparently I’m behind the curve on this one.  VoteVets.org is an organization whose mission it is to push progressive causes under the false banner of being a Veterans advocacy organization.  I was given a heads up from Matt of Blackfive that the fine gentleman over at This Aint Hell have been onto this faux organization for years.  A few highlights:

• The organization thinks Iraq was a “pointless war.”  That’s not at all in line with the Veterans like me who served in Iraq.
• Apparently are big fans of both the Occupy movement and the IVAW, another faux Veterans group known for having mental patients pretend to be Veterans to push their agenda.
• Has no problem defrauding the IRS for its own political gain. Notice how all their donations go to Democrats.  I wonder how much money intended for Veterans gets funneled into their own political operations.

Like I said, just because an organization has the word “Vets” in it does not mean its a trustworthy group.  When in doubt, send to the organizations who I have had personal experience with during my recovery at Walter Reed.

SHAWANO, Wis. – Three people, including a 10-year-old child, were rescued from atop the roof of their car on Shawano Lake Saturday after it broke through the ice and sank in about 5 feet of water.

According to the Shawano County Sheriff’s Office:

Katie Atkinson, 24, of Round Lake, Ill., was trying to drive off the lake Saturday when she hit a soft patch and the car started to go under. The Shawano Fire Department responded in an airboat, and she was rescued along with 29-year-old Matthew Weso and the child.

The trio were wet but uninjured, according to the Sheriff’s Office. They were transported to Shawano Medical Center for evaluation.

Better stick to deer hunting.

For many of us, climate change is an abstract topic, as tedious as a droning Al Gore lecture complete with wonky charts.

But not if you’re a maple farmer in New England. The region has long provided a robust ecological niche for maple trees. But just a few decades of steadily warming weather has changed all that. Once-flourishing trees are shedding leaves too early in the season and producing sub-par sap.

Maple syrup—dark, minerally, its sweetness cut by a caramel edge—surely ranks among the great traditional foods on planet Earth. Climate change means we can no longer take it for granted. If current trends continue, maple syrup production could well be an historical memory by 2100.

In this video, Climate Desk’s James West profiles Martha Carlson, a 65-five-year-old maple farmer, retired teacher, and citizen-scientist who is documenting and publicizing the declining state of maple trees in New Hampshire. “We need lots of citizens to observe nature,” Carlson says at one point. I bet if we all opened our eyes like Carlson has, we’d find that climate change is affecting our own landscapes, too. And then maybe we’d be able to motivate our political class to actually do something about climate change.

So because of one woman’s decline in maple syrup production, the entire industry is doomed to end in the year 2100. (You probably thought I was kidding when I said how stupid this story is.)  So if her claims were true, then I should easily be able to find data backing up their claims that New England’s, and especially New Hampshire’s maple syrup production is on the decline. Right? Err, no actually.

United States maple syrup production in 2011 totaled 2.79 million gallons, up 43 percent from the revised 2010 total. The number of taps is estimated at 9.58 million, 3 percent above the 2010 revised total of 9.26 million. Yield per tap is estimated at 0.292 gallons, up 38 percent from the previous season’s revised yield. All States showed an increase in production from the previous year. Vermont led all States in production with 1.14 million gallons, an increase of 28 percent from 2010 and the highest level since 1945. Production in New York, at 564,000 gallons, secured New York’s place as the second in the nation.
Maine’s sugar makers produced 360,000 gallons of syrup in 2011 an increase of 14 percent from 2010. In New Hampshire, production is estimated at 120,000 gallons, highest in over 85 years. Connecticut and Massachusetts produced a combined total of 79,000 gallons, a significant increase of 108 percent from 2010. Pennsylvania production was a record high with an increase of 137 percent. Ohio producers reported excellent sap collecting conditions which produced the highest yield per tap that the State has seen since this statistic was first measured in 2001.

So she claims her area is on the decline, yet in 2011 they had their highest output in 85 years, and there was an increase in every single state.  At this point I have to ask, did anyone at Mother Jones take 5 minutes and actually research this topic before publishing? Did they even Google maple syrup production to see if it was in fact on the decline?  Obviously not. But hey, the world has grown accustomed to this type of  phony alarmist science (see Polar Bears, ice caps, snow, hail, etc).  The Mother Jones article is not science, it is opinion journalism masquerading as science (sounds familiar, doesn’t it).  This on the other hand, IS science:

Implications of twenty-first century climate change on Northeastern United States maple syrup production: impacts and adaptations

“Previous research on the impacts of maple syrup production in the Northeastern United States has been based on correlative relationships between syrup production and average temperature. Here a simple biologically and physically-based model of sapflow potential is used to assess observed changes in sapflow across the Northeastern US from 1980 to 2006; document the correspondence between these observations and independent downscaled  atmosphere ocean general circulation model (AOGCM) simulations of conditions during this period; and quantify changes in sapflow potential through 2100. The sapflow model is able to capture the spatial and temporal (in terms of the start date of sapflow) variations of sapflow that are observed across the Northeast. Likewise the AOGCM simulations reflect the mean number of sapflow days and the timing of sapflow during the 1980–2006 overlap period. Through the twenty-first century, warming winter temperatures will result in a decline in the number of sapflow days if traditional sap collection schedules are maintained. Under the A1fi emissions scenario the number of sapflow days decreases by up to 14 days. However, the changes in climate also translate the optimal timing of sap collection to earlier in the year. Across the region, the time period that maximizes the number of sapflows days becomes as much as 30 days earlier by 2100 under the A1fi emissions scenario. Provided this change is accounted for by modifying the start of the traditional sap collection schedule, there is essentially no net loss of sapflow days across the majority of the region, with a net increase of sapflow days indicated in the extreme north.”

Key words being “no net loss of sapflow days across the majority of the region, with a net increase of sapflow days indicated in the extreme north” through the year 2100.  Yet what does the above article say?  “No maple syrup by 2100.” Mother Jone’s article isn’t science.  It’s opinion journalism dressed up and passed off as science.  Al Gore would be proud.

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Martha Carlson, if you are reading this, I highly recommend you buy a copy of the North American Maple Syrup Producers Manual.  Pay particular attention to Chapter 5 – Managing Maple Trees For Sap Production, specifically pages 53-67.  It addresses the problems you describe and how to properly manage your maple forest for maximum production. Sorry, climate change is not one of the topics covered.