I lived overseas for a couple of years in Italy, and, in general, Italians like Americans, but there were moments where we were yelled at, told to go home, and generally harassed, and this in a country that is our ally!

I’ve finally embraced an honest and truthful outlook on our reputation as Americans and have come to some pretty solid conclusions. Let’s first take a historical perspective.

Prior to the creation of the Federal Reserve, the federal income tax and the decades long move away from a gold standard for the dollar, the government didn’t have an easy means of funding wars. Prior to those events, if the government wanted to conduct a war, it had to raise funding through suspension of the gold standard and printing more money, through war bonds (which was less effective), borrow money from foreign countries, or create new taxes. All of which were unpopular. In the vein of never letting a good crisis go to waste, the administrations in the early 1900′s used the wild market swings and the Great Depression to hustle in these new policies that eventually would let them conduct continual wars against other countries. After WWII we have Korea, Vietnam, problems with the Iran/Contra, Somalia, adventures with the U.N. on “peacekeeping” missions, Iraq I, Afghanistan, Iraq II, Libya, targeted missile strikes in Yemen, and black ops assassinations in Pakistan, among all of the other things our military is doing overseas.

For just a minute, let’s do what Jesus would and put ourselves in the shoes of these other nations. And let’s go backwards from now…

If the government of Yemen sent an unmanned drone and blew up a target, say in Montana, we the people of America would call that an act of war. We would immediately call for a retaliation against Yemen. Denigrating cartoons would be the rage and JibJab would make a new viral video depicting us blowing up Yemen. Politicians would take the stage and appeal to all of our love for country and God to go blow these people up, even if it meant we would lose American lives in the mean time. And we would do it…

Imagine if the government of Pakistan believed there was an enemy of their state inside our borders, one who had done real destruction to their country, but that they didn’t trust us to take care of for them. Instead of telling us what they were doing, in this scenario they send a squad of their military personnel in to Orange County in a helicopter, land it, kill the guy, blow up the helicopter and find another ride out. Then they come out and tell the world they got their man and how they did it. If this happened, we the people would instantly revile Pakistan and they would be our mortal enemies. How dare they take matters in to their own hands?! We wouldn’t stand for it for a minute!

Imagine with me, a militarily superior Iraq with Saddam at the head. Imagine that he starts pushing for invading America because the head of our government (let’s pretend it is Bush II) is an evil dictator who needs to be deposed to make way for peace in the world. How dare America have a nuclear arsenal?! They build more and more sophisticated weapons every year! We need to invade to make the world a safer place! Right? And then Iraq comes over and invades America, and eventually succeeds in taking the eastern sea board, getting rid of our President and government. What would we do? We would take up arms and fight the invasion! Anyone old enough to hold a gun would have one and we would FIGHT!

I could go on. Regardless if Saddam was a bad person (which he was) and should have moved on, regardless if bin Laden was in Pakistan and should have been captured or killed (which he should have been), the end does not justify the means if we do not also want to create more reputation problems in the rest of the world. Our reputation management has been to assert our dominance, to assert our exceptionalism, and increase the American empire. We have over 300 military bases in 170 countries. Tell me that isn’t an empire. Tell me that our military presence in the world isn’t meant to ONLY protect our financial interests world wide. No wonder people all over the world want to kill us. It’s easy to find other people to recruit to your cause when you have an easy target like the American empire. I’m not offering a critique of foreign policy except to say no wonder we are hated. If any other country did to us what we have done and do to them, we’d hate them too. Maybe it’s time to close those bases and bring our military back home. Maybe it’s time to return to a nation of peace where we let other countries sort out their own messes while we sort out our own. Or maybe we should take a lesson from the Brits for once and let go of American imperialism before the empire burns.

It’s been a while. If I weren’t on the train now I wouldn’t have time, even now. Rebecca and I went to the Farmer’s Market this morning in Salt Lake. Pizza for breakfast, meandering, temple square for a bit. Biking around the Gateway. I haven’t had this much leisure time in years. No kids too, they’re with Gramma. Now it’s midday and we aren’t supposed to pick up the kids yet. What are we going to do with ourselves?

I read this in the Washington Times today.

You can fool some of the people some of the time, as Abraham Lincoln observed, and you even can fool all the people some of the time. But you can’t fool all the people all the time. Al Gore and his friends got so excited about points one and especially point two that they forgot point three.

Not everybody is on to the global-warming scam, not yet, but all the people — or enough of them — are getting there. “Global warming,” or even “climate change” as Al’s marketing men now insist that it be called, is becoming the stuff of jests and jokes. Sen. James M. Inhofe of Oklahoma, a Republican, built an igloo of that hot stuff that buried Washington last week on the Capitol lawn and dubbed it “Al Gore’s new home.”

Across the Potomac, the Republicans in Virginia filmed a television commercial called “12 inches of global warming” and invited two Virginia congressmen, both Democrats who voted for the infamous cap-and-trade legislation, to help with the shovel that will become the official state tool before the streets thaw.

One day this week, there was measurable snow on the ground in 50 states. (No report yet from the other seven of the “57 states” President Obama once said he was campaigning to be the president of.) Even Hawaii reported snow on some of its mountain peaks, and several towns in northwestern Florida were lightly dusted, like the powdered sugar on a cop’s doughnut.

OTHER TWT STORIES:
• Bayh retirement plan fuels GOP hope
• Brick by brick, American business loses edge
• Sagging senators seek Obama boost on campaign trail
• Military chiefs’ views crucial in gay ban row

A few snowflakes, or even a lot of snowflakes, is hardly proof that the great global-warming scare is a fraud and a swindle, but the collapse of the “science” of global warming is transforming even the sheep into skeptics. Jeff Masters of the Weather Underground — an Internet blog and not to be confused with the violent underground Weathermen of the sordid ’60s — observes that characteristics of climate must be measured carefully over the decades and even centuries, not by occasional blizzards and storms.

But political fraud and scientific swindle can be measured by collapsing “science.” The University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit in Britain was regarded as the leader in climate research and the fount of raw data on which the science was based until leaked e-mails between researchers revealed evidence of doctoring of data and manipulation of evidence. The director of the research unit, professor Phil Jones, was regarded as an archbishop in the Church of Global Warming. He was pressured to resign in the wake of the scandal. Now he has conceded to an interviewer from the BBC that based on the evidence in his findings, the globe might have been warmer in medieval times. If so, the notion that fluctuations in earthly temperatures are man-made is rendered just that, a man-made notion.

The learned professor told his interviewer that for the past 15 years there has been no “statistically significant” warming. He conceded that he has lost track of many of the relevant papers — that his office was overwhelmed by the clutter of paper. Some of the crucial data to back up scare stories might be lying under other stuff, but he’s not sure. An environmental analyst for the BBC said the professor told him that his “strengths” include “integrity” and “doggedness” but not record-keeping and “office tidying.” He’s just not dogged about keeping things straight.

This was good enough in the early years of the scam, but not any longer. John Christy, a professor of atmospheric science at the University of Alabama at Huntsville and once a ranking member of the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, says the temperature records have been compromised and cannot be relied on. The findings of weather stations that collected temperature data were distorted by location. Several were located near air-conditioning units and on waste-treatment plants; one was next to a waste incinerator. Still another was built at Rome’s international airport and catches the hot exhaust of taxiing jetliners.

Terry Mills, a professor of applied statistics at Britain’s Loughborough University, looks at the U.N. panel’s data and applies a little skepticism. “The earth,” he told London’s Daily Mail, “has gone through warming spells like these at least twice before in the last thousand years.”

The global-warming hysteria, on which the Obama administration wants to base enormous new tax burdens, is just about as reliable as the weather hysteria presented nightly on your favorite television channel. Man is driven by his ego and finds it impossible to think even the weather is not all about him.

• Wesley Pruden is editor emeritus of The Washington Times.

And now I just can’t buy Global Warming.

I am doing another version of How To Create A Successful Mind on July 11th from 9:00 AM to 11:30 AM at the Studio in Sandy.

There is actually something new to talk about – I finally got the printed copies of my book! A year and a half later, I finally have a real book. I am a published author! It’s available on Amazon.com and directly from my website at www.WhoAreYouReally.net

Other than that, my days are full. School, design, family, etc, all take so much of my time as to significantly reduce the amount of time I have to write or blog. I have committed to finishing my second book this year, and that is going to mean some hardcore writing again. I might do it blog style this time, but I doubt it. You’ll probably have to wait for the real thing this time.

Anyway, you’ll see more of me here if you read this…at least once a week, I promise.

There are two reasons why you haven’t seen anything new from my blog in a month…

#1 – I haven’t been riding the train a lot. Or at all really. We were still a two car family. As of yesterday morning, we are officially a one car family, which means that I, out of love and courtesy for my wife, will be biking, train-ing, or scootering as much as possible to leave her free to do what she needs to do. So, I haven’t done any of that for about a month.

#2 – I’ve been on Facebook a lot more. Holy cow that’s a fun site. I mean, I have dug up old friendships from 15 years ago that I wondered if I would ever see again. It’s been really fun to catch up with people. Also, I have friends in Italy and I get to chat with them on a regular basis via Facebook.

Don’t feel bad. It wasn’t anything personal, it’s just that I have had more fun doing other things. My biking blog has taken a toll as well. I had a lot of steam behind it about a month ago, but then work really picked up and I just haven’t had time to spend on it. Oh well. On another note, I got the second edition of my audiobook Who Are You Really? which is fun. I redesigned the cover and made some changes that I am happy with. I’ve also started, albeit tentatively, on my second book, which will be called Managing Imposition which ironically enough is more about not managing than managing.

Right now, I’m waiting for Jeremy. He needs a second round of fight therapy. Hope he’s ready…

Ciao people. Loves and snuggles.

Two months later I finally have the footage of our show. See below…