Kevin VanDam and Common Fishing Mistakes

Kevin VanDam is the talk of every tournament, along with the other fishing greats. He is also envied. But he didn’t get to where he is from the luck of a strike – it took hard work and self discipline, as well as knowing everything he could learn about tackle and the prey he seeks that keeps him in the top winners of BASS tournament events. He is in a group that people recognize as pros, names like Bill Dance, Hank Parker, Martin Roland, Judy Wong, and veteran Rick Clunn among several. They not only are sponsored by the major lure, tackle and boat companies – they actually provide incentive and ideas to create new and better products. A few of these pros even teach classes about fishing and techniques that will help other anglers who use up their weekends in this enjoyable sport to get more strikes. Kevin VanDam is no exception and he is probably the most sought after speaker in the bass fishing world.

Myth Blaster - Arab States Vote Against US at United Nations

Donald Farr once again provides something in circulation via chain email …

Here is a version of what he sent:

Myth Blaster - Pledge of Allegiance by John McCain

Donald Farr, Friend of LPJ, sent a recollection about Senator John McCain, whose political association and ideology is often questionable – but one thing for certain; he is a patriot as well as sacrificed more than most veterans as a prisoner of war during the Vietnam War, which cannot be put aside lightly. So the question, since this has come over the chain email circuit in cyberspace is for a Myth Blaster investigation …

2008: 40th Anniversary of BASS Organization

February continues with cold temperatures and usual white precipitation, and while the ice fishermen are enjoying the winter fishing techniques, other fishermen hope for the melting of Lake Michigan and in the Peninsula area. My previous article concerns the new fishing techniques that may improve Smallmouth Bass catches this year – as the fish adapt, so do fishermen. Meanwhile, there are some things in the world of fishing that you may be interested in.

Israel, Palestinian and Refuges by Tom Carew

Tom Carew, Guest Writer, Dublin, Ireland writes …

I am tired of those partisan writers who, like a bad footballer who hits the man instead of the ball, deal with not even one of the many cogent and relevant points of history and law, but continually demonize Israel. Slogans or emotion are no answer to facts, reason and principles.
They distort history by omitting the key triple facts that:

[a] Israel was created after, and in accordance with, the 1945 UN Charter,  by a  33 to 11 vote of the UN itself, on Nov 29, 1947;

[b] That this same vote equally mandated a state for Arab Palestinians, but which the Arab League rejected, instead launching a war of extermination against the new UN-mandated State of Israel, and;

[c] That the UN was continuing the original international mandate for a Jewish State of its predecessor, the League of Nations  in 1924.
They also ignore the fact that a similar reality of mass displacement applied to:

[a] Over 900,000 Jews who fled the Muslim world from 1947, and;

[b] 7.5 million Muslims who fled India in 1947 as another 7.5 million Hindu, Christian and Sikh refugees fled Pakistan. But the latter 15 million were fully integrated whereas Palestinians were left in squalid camps by Arab despots, and cynically used as propaganda fodder. And most were not cross-border refugees but in fact what the UN considers “internally-displaced persons”, being re-located within the same country, in another part of the original UK-administered pre-1948 Palestine. They remain the prime victims of continuing Arab intransigence in refusing to recognize the simple right of Israel to exist - their true enemy is indeed Hamas.
Tom Carew

It is frustrating that too many folks are ignorant of the background of the situation in the Middle East, North Africa, and Asia - especially when it comes to Israel - a tiny nation trying to survive.

Dr. Know is Right Again - The "Inconvenient Truth"

Dr. Know tells us what most of us level-headed thinkers already know – Arctic Ice All Back – Antarctic Has One Third MORE – January 2008 Coldest – courtesy of Christopher Booker’s article: So it Appears that Arctic Ice Isn’t Vanishing After All [Telegraph, UK] …

There was some coverage of the chaos caused in central and southern China by their heaviest snowfalls for decades – but little attention was paid to the snow that last week carpeted Jerusalem, Damascus and Amman, none of them exactly used to Dickensian Christmas card weather. …
If the northern hemisphere’s chilliest winter in a long time was bad news for the propagandists of global warming, they also had to face serious questions about some of the most iconic images used to support the claims that the world is hotting up towards disaster. …
…the warmists are less keen on the latest satellite findings, reported by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) on the website Cryosphere Today by the University of Illinois. This body is committed to warmist orthodoxy and contributes to the work of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. …
Still more inconvenient was the truth about an image that has been relentlessly exploited to promote this panic over the “vanishing” Arctic ice. It is the photograph of two polar bears standing forlornly on the fast-melting remains of an iceberg which has been reproduced thousands of times to show that there will soon be no bears left (ignoring the evidence that their numbers have risen recently).
Now, thanks to a Canadian journalist, Carole Williams (on NewsWithViews.com), we can read the story behind this picture, which was taken in 2004 just off Alaska by a marine biologist, Amanda Byrd. As Ms. Byrd points out, the bears were in no danger so close to the coast (they can swim 100 miles). She wanted a photograph of the “wind-sculpted ice” than of the bears. The image was copied by another member of the crew and passed on to Environment Canada. Then it was eagerly adopted by the warmist propaganda machine – above all by Al Gore, who used it to powerful effect as an emotive backdrop to his highly lucrative lectures. … As the old joke has it, it seems those famous bears were not drowning after all, they were just waving. But the BBC is no more likely to tell us that than it was to lead the news with last week’s snow in Jerusalem.

It seems that the United Kingdom has its problems with mainstream media just as we do here in America.

See: Forget Global Warming - Welcome to the new Ice Age.

Obama Again - This Time a Drudge Report Allegation

Reading an article by Andrew Rumano at the Stumper blog courtesy of Newsweek brings to mind that some people are using fear to make up their minds about Obama – instead of facts. And some of the “facts” are not quite clear, and Obama has been caught in transgressions against the truth, commonly known as “lies” – in regards to his “loyalties” and his association in certain circles. The hullabaloo is over Obama dressed in Middle East clothing. And like, Andrew Rumano states:

Let’s be clear about this: there’s absolutely nothing wrong with Obama posing for such a photo. Other U.S. politicians – including secret Vietnamese double-agent George W. Bush – regularly suit up in local garb when touring far-flung corners of the world.

While Rumano is a good reporter who delves deeply, he is also, in private life, a fan/member of the Democratic Party – thus his articles do not represent objectivity in regards to political news or Op/Eds.

However, truth is usually enough to represent or present a view about someone – so an advocate’s cause is only hurt by making something out of nothing. The real problem with Obama is his mysterious background and denying things like the fact he attended an Islamic school and that, if his mother was an “atheist” – why were both of her husbands of the Islamic faith, or at least the Islamic family background?

Too many questions and not enough answers. At least with Hillary – we KNOW her background and that she continues to ignore campaign laws and other established principles just so she can fulfill her lifetime dream of being the first woman President of the United States. And, I said it before and will say it again – she is more dangerous than her husband ever was.

I can imagine what will be going on when the primary is over and we get down to choosing the final candidate for leader of our country.

From My Desk: Why Do Americans Choose Political Candidates?

The infatuation with Barack Hussein Obama (pay attention to that name) seems to be mostly based upon the fact that he is an African American – or as the “politically correct” say – “Black”.

One day we will have a person of such background or ethnic group – but not for good reason in 2008.

Light Side of Lighthouse: How Will You Spend Your "Extra" Refund Check?

Tom O’Brien who wrote the following to Donald Farr, who sent it to me – food for thought in regards to the forthcoming “extra” refund to help the economy compliments of the Bush administration and members in Congress who voted for it …

… If we spend that money at Wal-Mart, all the money will go to China, if we spend it on gasoline, it will go to the Arabs – and neither will help the American economy. The way I see it, we need to keep that money here in America, so the only way I can see to keep the money here at home is drink beer or spend it on prostitution, those are the only businesses still in the U.S.

And, as an added note, Tom adds:

I believe I’ll just drink beer as my wife would kill me if I chose both.

Amen, Brother Tom, mine too.

Thanks Don/Tom for sharing this bit of satirical humor concerning the American scene.

In the News: Global Gas Flaring

Jeremy Elton Jacquot, Los Angeles, writes an article at Treehugger blog entitled: Global Gas Flaring Satellite Survey Reveals Oil’s Hidden Costs …

The first recently unveiled global satellite survey of gas flaring – a process commonly used to dispose of natural gas freed during oil production – has shown what many have now suspected for years: it is extremely wasteful, costly problem that has helped contribute to global warming. …

Have you noticed that now, when attention needs to be drawn to a given subject or scientific “alert” – they use the two words: global warming?