Big, Big Deficits

Gateway Pundit points out the graph below. The Obama budget will lead to a deficit four times larger the Bush’s:

Meanwhile Mr Rudd has left us with an extra $4500 of spending per head, Andrew Bolt asks:

How on earth are we going to pay all that back, with unemployment rising and growth falling?

Easy answer, with inflation and higher taxes.

America getting out of Iraq

President Obama has set August 2010 as the deadline to end US combat duties in Iraq but he will still leave 50,000 troops ( thats about double the size of Australia’s permanant army personnel) there until 2011:

US PRESIDENT Barack Obama has ordered an end to US combat in Iraq within 18 months.

“Let me say this as plainly as I can: by August 31, 2010 our combat mission in Iraq will end,” Mr Obama said, laying out a new war strategy at a US Marines base in North Carolina.

But angering some supporters, Mr Obama said up to 50,000 US troops, compared to the current 142,000-strong force, would remain in Iraq under a new mission until the end of 2011, nearly nine years after his predecessor George W Bush ordered an invasion to topple Saddam Hussein.

Considering that the real hard yacca is over its properly a good decision. Senator John Mcain approves too. However I wouldn’t be surprised if there are still considerable troops there long after 2011, especially if Iran becomes a problem, after all there are still US troops in Japan and Germany.

Women and men are different

Researchers have discovered something everyone has known for a long time, men and women are different.

WOMEN really are worse at reading maps than men. But before men get all high and mighty, it’s also been proven that men are hopeless at finding keys.

New research into which side of the brain men and women use has helped explain age-old theories – and arguments – about the differences between the genders, The Daily Telegraph reports.

But don’t worry ladies if you lose your way, a boob job will cheer you up:

MORE than 90 per cent of women who have cosmetic surgery such as boob jobs will feel better about themselves, a Sydney psychologist’s research reveals.

Doomers at it again

Apparently global warming is going to be so bad that the population is going to be reduced to 10% and we are going to be vegetarians:

ALLIGATORS bask off the English coast, the Sahara desert stretches into Europe and 10 per cent of humans are left.

Science fiction?

No, this is the doomsday prediction if global temperatures make a predicted rise of 4C in the next 100 years. Some fear it could happen by 2050.

Its based on a report in New Scientist written by someone called Gaia Vince.

OK if this is all going to happen by 2109 or 2050 can someone please tell me by how much temperature will increase by 2015 and 2030? I really would like to test the prediction.

However lets put any GW skepticism aside for the moment. Lets assume Sydney gets caught up in the latitudinal dry belts they mention. Will we then abandon Sydney and have to migrate to the tropics? Nope. Instead it will be far easier to build a couple more desalintion plants and introduce water recycling. Run everything with a couple of nukes too.

Investing in air conditioning and enjoy the sunshine I say.

The Winds of Destiny

It has never happened in all of human history before. Not even one time.

But one day soon, a group of pioneers will depart the slivers of land on this ocean planet and venture forth into a completely alien world, with no intention of ever returning to live on land.

In the past, we have gone there for voyages, but our hearts and our homes have always been on the shore – dry and relatively safe. Here, all crowded together on our continents where nearly seven billion people have crowded together, struggling and often fighting one another. But there are a few of us who today look outward on a vast and quite empty domain waiting for us. Here on land is a place where we have had no worry about air to breathe or choking on our own waste gasses. We have ventured to other slivers of land to stay. We have ventured to space, but not yet to stay. When the Atlantica II pioneers depart the pier of a small central Florida community in a few years hence, it will be the very first time in all of history, out of a 100 billion living souls, that any have dared to venture into a completely alien world – to stay.

It will be the cultural equivalent of a new epoch of mankind. From that small pier we as human beings will finally leap out of the cradle of civilization that has held us for more than 5,000 years. There we will find ourselves in a world where we have to master not only our shelter but also our air and wall-to-wall protection from a place outside that is totally alien and hostile to our lives.

I have thought about it hundreds of times. What it will be like to board that boat on that pier, surrounded by a small band of pioneers and point our boat due east. About 15 or so miles from shore, the skipper of that boat will help us to board the Dan Scott Taylor submarine waiting for transport to the Challenger Station – the hub of the fist human city on the ocean floor.

After having thought about it countless times, I can only imagine what it will be like to take in the last breath of fresh sea air, watch the sun climb high in the sky over us, and then bid it all goodbye. Our destiny is not here, but down in this vast frontier below. It will be the cradle of a totally new civilization of men and women and children and families. I have thought about the submarine rolling in the swells over the Community of Atlantica below. I have imagined what it will be like to slide into the submarine and close the heavy hatch after me, spinning its wheel and locking it into place.

It is not really difficult to imagine that, since the submarine is already in our possession and since I have made that trip in and out of her many times. And that is what makes this dream so electrifying. It is not a dream. We are holding and building the hardware. It is a reality that is slowly turning into the wind and about to catch the winds of destiny.

I fully plan to skipper the DST II down to the undersea community and dock her safely. There we will exit to our new human community. And there we intend to grow and prosper, commanding the planets greatest resource treasures – a place mostly unknown and seriously underappreciated today, a three dimensional world of vast importance to tomorrow’s generations. Many of them will be born here – the descendants of a new empire of men and women dedicated to the freedoms of our culture and the stewardship of this brave, new world of which we have only made a casual acquaintance.

This describes the voyages and the enterprise of the Atlantica Expeditions. You can read about it in detail in the book, Undersea Colonies. If you are reading these words, please consider joining us!

Dennis Chamberland
Atlantica Expeditions Leader
Written in the New Worlds Explorer Habitat
February 2009

Hitler is looking for a parking space

Polygamy is good for the enviroment

Thats the logical conclusion from Senator Steve Fielding environmental objections to divorce:

DIVORCE adds to the impact of global warming as couples switch to wasteful single lifestyles, Family First senator Steve Fielding says.

He told a Senate hearing on today that divorce led to a “resource-inefficient lifestyle” and it would be better for the planet if couples stayed married.

When couples separate, they need more rooms, more electricity and more water, which increases their carbon footprint.

Remember this clown is only there because of Labor preferences.

A politician who believes

Being sent to the back bench hasn’t stopped Cory Bernardi from blogging. Here’s an extract from his latest post:

Personally I was never one to be won over. I always had a belief in free markets, smaller government, personal responsibility and what many refer to as ‘traditional values’. This was unfashionable as a uni student but eventually these principles prevailed and provided Australia with unprecedented prosperity.

Yet in 2009 the political climate has changed and I suspect that us small government free marketeers will be unfashionable again for a few years yet.

Does that mean we should stop advocating for what we believe is right for families, for communities and for our nation?

I say no. If you believe in what you are doing. If you have the courage of your convictions then you can withstand almost any storm.

I think I will be linking to him more often.

The big tent

I have returned from holidays to find Mr Turnbull has had a few staff problems to attend too. Now Mr Pyne and I might disagree on a several issues. I expect Mr Pyne to be on a different point of the political spectrum then me. However I’m glad he is in the Liberal Party. Chris Pyne has come up with some original and radical proposals to modernise the party such as having the party members elect the Parliamentary Leader. Similar to what the British Conservative Party does.

A father at 13

The story is from the UK but how was it allowed to happen?

Baby-faced boy Alfie Patten is father at 13

By LUCY HAGAN

Published: 13 Feb 2009

BOY dad Alfie Patten yesterday admitted he does not know how much nappies cost — but said: “I think it’s a lot.”

Baby-faced Alfie, who is 13 but looks more like eight, became a father four days ago when his girlfriend Chantelle Steadman gave birth to 7lb 3oz Maisie Roxanne.

He told how he and Chantelle, 15, decided against an abortion after discovering she was pregnant.

The shy lad, whose voice has not yet broken, said: “I thought it would be good to have a baby.

“I didn’t think about how we would afford it. I don’t really get pocket money. My dad sometimes gives me £10.”………

UPDATE: The story gets worse:

And amazingly the News Of The World has uncovered claims that Chantelle was sleeping with as many as EIGHT teenage boys around the time the baby was conceived on the Old Town estate in Eastbourne, Sussex….