When your cockamamie theory is literally collapsing around you, it's probably best to take your plight to a higher power.  But if that isn't possible, a fake jaguar goddess could work.

According to the Washington Post, "Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, invoked the ancient jaguar goddess Ixchel in her opening statement to delegates gathered in Cancun, Mexico, noting that Ixchel was... 'the goddess of reason, creativity and weaving.'"

I'll give this conglomeration of exploiting profiteers five stars when it comes to creativity.  You can't manipulate data to produce fatalistic scenes of New York City being overwhelmed by tidal waves and Yellowstone erupting into volcanic ash without having a robust imagination.  But reason?  I think that went out the window long before they started praying to a jaguar.

The disintegration of this political juggernaut known as global warming is as imminent now as it is remarkable.  The heights from which these scientists' credibility has plunged is equaled only by the speed at which it has done so.

Consider that it was only last year when the scientific and political world was held spellbound by the deliberations of the UN Climate Change summit held in Copenhagen.  Nearly 45,000 attendees anxiously anticipated a global climate agreement that could spare us all from the imminent planetary incineration that was about to befall us thanks to the unholy alliance of SUVs, deforestation, and belching cows.  American taxpayers alone shelled out nearly $400,000 for Nancy Pelosi to lead a cadre of liberal Congressmen and staffers to attend the Warmer deliberations.

Yet now, just one year later, political leaders are staying as far away from the annual climate summit (this year held in Cancun) as possible.  Even the Congressional Warmer triumvirate of Henry Waxman, Dianne Feinstein, and Barbara Boxer skipped the festivities.  Remember it was Boxer who proclaimed not so long ago that global warming was her "signature issue."  Yet when it came time for this year's convention, Boxer merely murmured, "I'm sending a statement to Cancun."

Meanwhile, across the pond, things aren't much better for the global warming hysterics in the British Meteorological Office.  As the Met geared up for Copenhagen in 2009, they were warning of the "warmest year on record."  Fast-forward to this year, and as Britain is in the grip of yet another extraordinarily frigid winter, their admonitions are much more subdued.  Even the Daily Mail noted why: "Buried amid the details of those two Met Office statements 12 months apart lies a remarkable climbdown that has huge implications - not just for the Met Office, but for debate over climate change as a whole...for the past 15 years, global warming has stopped."

This most inconvenient truth is why, despite millions of dollars of propaganda and free marketing offered by a totally duped American media, Al Gore's climate heist machinery is dismantling before our eyes.  The defeat of climate legislation in Congress has prompted Gore's Alliance for Climate Protection to whittle its resources from 25 states down to 7 states, acknowledging, "the situation in Congress has changed."

Indeed it has.  As the Democratic Party's death grip on Congress dies in January, Nancy Pelosi's House Select Committee on Global Warming will be dying with it.  Republicans have announced that they have no desire to continue wasting taxpayer dollars on a committee whose only contribution was a proposed energy tax that would have destroyed millions of jobs in an already stagnant economy.

For its swan song, the committee held a final hearing - one so boring that according to the Washington Times, the Chairman never returned from lunch break.

So how has this environmental Goliath collapsed so quickly and so painfully?  Certainly the ClimateGate scandal that revealed the epic fraud and deceit upon which the movement was built didn't help.  Al Gore admitting his willingness to fabricate dire consequences for the sake of getting people's attention didn't help.

But ultimately it comes down to this: given time, truth wins out.  Eventually rational people realize that groupthink and demonizing your opponents as "deniers" doesn't count for evidence.  They realize that a movement so freely changing names - from Global Cooling to Global Warming to Climate Change to Global Climate Disruption - might be more about a neo-Marxist pursuit of global governance than about saving polar bears.

In the end, that is what has hastened the demise of Warmerism.  This makes the climate changers' prayer to Ixchel the jaguar goddess so very appropriate...one myth perpetuated on humanity deserves another.

This column was first published at The American Thinker.

Before the 2012 presidential campaign hits full stride, let's acknowledge the obvious: presidential debates are a joke.  In fact, they have become such theatrical productions that it seems the only actual benefit coming from their quadrennial occurrence is to provide enough fodder for the comedians at Saturday Night Live to sustain their tired program.

That's why it was so refreshing to hear a prominent politician like former Speaker of the House and potential future presidential candidate Newt Gingrich propose dramatic changes to the debate format.

In a discussion with C-SPAN's Steve Scully, Gingrich reasoned, "I think that the candidates and the Party ought to organize the debates [and] not the news media."

Almost instinctively, Scully responded, "Can you do that?"  My humble answer to Mr. Scully is of course we can, and if we're serious about saving the country, we will.

The media is in a perpetual competition to put on productions that people will watch - it's how they make their money.  Long-winded, serious conversations about foreign and domestic policy may produce better presidents, but they don't produce better ratings.  And consequently, the American people are subjected to such scripted, rehearsed, stiff and unimaginative exchanges between candidates that many times it is difficult to detect any real differences in their ideas or beliefs.

That's not good for the country, and it's why I join with Gingrich (though he was focusing on primaries) in proposing a total revamp to the system.  As implausible as I will be told this is, here's my suggestion: in the three months following the conventions and leading up to the presidential election, the two nominees of their respective parties will tour the country...together.

Traveling from state to state, the candidates won't hold private political rallies where they deliver a standard stump speech to supporters, but rather will engage in open exchanges with their opponent in front of large audiences.  No moderator is necessary as they candidates will either take unscreened questions from the audience, or they will pose questions to each other.  And while there could be a time limit placed on the entire debate, the candidates will get as long as they need to expound upon and explain their positions in detail.  No more, "raise your hand if you think the earth is warming" nonsense, or as Gingrich expressed, "You now have 30 seconds to describe your policy on Pakistan."

In terms of the media, it's simple: let them decide what debates they want to cover and what ones they want to ignore...there will be plenty to choose from.  But whatever they do, the media will be observers just like everyone else.

So what would happen if we actually saw this type of dramatic change?  The truth is we already know.  The famed Lincoln/Douglas debates were modeled in this manner: 7 debates, 3 hours in length, free exchange of ideas, no moderator - just a timekeeper.  What resulted were the most meaningful debates our nation has ever seen between potential officeholders...so much so that we're still talking about them today (do you think in another 150 years anyone will be talking about the great Obama/McCain debates?).

Additionally, a change of this nature might bring a modicum of civility to our public discourse.  Locking the two candidates in a bus together would force them to get to know one another, and perhaps learn to respect their opponent enough to keep disagreements policy-based rather than personal.

Finally, think of the kind of candidates who wouldn't survive this gauntlet.  By expecting substantive discussions about issues, we would effectively eliminate from contention candidates who are far out of the American mainstream.  There is little doubt that had Americans been exposed to Barack Obama's fascination with European-style socialism during the 2008 campaign, his popularity as a candidate then would have mirrored his popularity as president now.  Instead, through carefully scripted statements on his Teleprompter that revealed nothing about what he really believed, Obama traversed the entire landscape of a presidential campaign without ever being asked to explain what he meant by "hope and change."  Republicans should be on board with this idea.

We would also eliminate candidates who are ignorant and unqualified.  While bumper sticker sloganeering, lofting rhetorical bombs, and rote recitation of a stump speech can be mastered by virtually any political dimwit, standing on a stage for three hours passionately and articulately defending your beliefs takes someone who is wise, well-reasoned and intelligent.  If Sarah Palin is truly the dunce they say she is, Democrats should be on board with this idea.

So let's call the bluff of our two political parties: if Democrats are serious about preventing "dolts" like George W. Bush from ascending to the presidency, and if Republicans are serious about preventing "socialists" like Barack Obama from accomplishing the same, they should immediately seize control of presidential debates and make them something valuable to more people than Will Ferrell and Tina Fey.

This column was first published at The American Thinker.

Had Dante penned his opus The Inferno in our time, there is little doubt in my mind that he would have replaced the punishments for Judas, Cassius and Brutus in his ninth and most dastardly level of Hell.  Rather than being devoured by one of Lucifer's three heads, they would have been strapped to wooden chairs and been subjected to an unending loop of episodes from ABC's "The View."  Even joking about such a penalty causes me to cringe at the thought.

Attempting to find a more vacuous, more irrational mixture of moral idiocy, intellectual bankruptcy, and mind-numbing contradictions is a futile task.  Consider as but one example the recent exchange between The View's queen of incoherence, Joy Behar, and mega-minister Joel Osteen.

Having previously seen Osteen's weak performance on CNN's Larry King Live when the mild-mannered host pressured him on the issue of homosexuality, I wasn't expecting a rigorous defense of moral truth when that same subject was raised by Barbara Walters.

True to form, Osteen began a very tepid response by saying, "I mean, the main thing Barbara, is we are for people.  Sometimes we get stuck on..." That's as far as he got before the Behar badgering commenced.

"You know it's not a choice, Pastor," she interrupted, "I don't think that God would look askance at homosexuality in that way."  She continued, "They're born this way...they are what they are."

Try as he might, the affable minister couldn't get a word in as Joy kept pouring it on.  "And so the Christian church should embrace that notion."  Joy Behar: philosopher, scientist, theologian.

Then came the inevitable moment that almost makes watching this show tolerable.  After throwing out enough rhetorical rope, Ms. Behar promptly hung herself.  "You wouldn't reject somebody that had a deformity," she reasoned.  Quickly realizing she had just likened the very cause she was supposedly defending to a warped abnormality (can you imagine the righteous indignation she would have expressed if Osteen had made such a comparison?), Joy tried to distract the audience and blanket her gaffe with what has become the tired accusation of left.

"When you say that the Bible is against gays, that makes people get bullied, and bad things happen to people because of what the people say about that," Behar thundered.

This is the biggest problem with The View.  It takes so much time and energy to respond to all the logical fallacies in that simple sound bite that most rational minds don't even bother.  But rather than discourage or embarrass the feeble mind that produced it, being dismissed is interpreted by the Behar crowd as validation.  It feeds the beast.

And so as someone who is quite convinced that the beast needs to be starved rather than gorged, let me address these misstatements.

First, the Bible is not "against gays."  The Bible condemns the activity of homosexuality, as well as many other sexually deviant behaviors.  In fact, the Bible doesn't even recognize the existence of a group known as "gays."  It acknowledges the existence of males and females, and the moral expectations for their sexual behavior (and yes, Joy, behavior is always a choice).

Second, the Bible never commends or advocates bullying of any kind.  Whether the Golden Rule, the fruit of the Spirit, or the parables of Christ himself, Christian principle teaches respect and dignity for all those made in the image of God.

Third, there is a profound difference between moral objection to the behavior of homosexuality and the physical intimidation or abuse of those tempted by same-sex attraction.  Warning against and opposing the societal embrace of certain sexual behaviors is not bullying. 

If it is, Ms. Behar, I look forward to your upcoming show in which you will chastise First Lady Michelle Obama for being a willing accomplice of the brutal bullying of obese children.  After all, the most bullied group of young people in our country remains the overweight children.  Mrs. Obama's warning against the societal embrace of unhealthy eating habits is only ostracizing and stigmatizing the fat kids, thus inviting more bullying.  And her opposition to overeating couldn't be born out of love and concern for those kids' well being, could it Ms. Behar?

Finally, to put the last nail in the coffin of incoherence that defines those dames of disinformation, simply stop and think what happened on The View almost exactly one month prior to the Osteen exchange.

That was the day that Joy Behar and Whoopi Goldberg stormed out of the studio, outraged that guest Bill O'Reilly had stated the seemingly obvious fact that the 9/11 hijackers were Muslims.

That's all you need to know.  On The View, Bible-inspired bullying is a given.  But Koran-inspired terror is such an unmentionable thought, the hostesses can't tolerate it.

This show should come with a mental health advisory.

This column first appeared at The American Thinker.

In an email to supporters the day after the 2010 midterm elections, Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards wrote, "There's no getting around it: the results of yesterday's election are truly alarming."  She lamented the "extremists" who had been elected, and who would "pursue a dangerous agenda."  That agenda, of course, is saving unborn children from being murdered.

Still, amidst the doom and gloom of her correspondence, she pointed to one shining success for the movement of legalized child killing: Colorado's ballot initiative 62 - an amendment that would have defined the child in the womb as a person and therefore entitled to legal protection - was defeated by voters 70% to 30%.

Ironically, though this is perceived as a victory for the abortion lobby, the debate that preceded it actually exposed the Achilles heel of the anti-life movement in America.  It is now beyond question that the entire case for legalized abortion is one that totally eschews science, medicine, logic and rational thought.  The best justification Planned Parenthood can offer for the perpetuation of this barbaric practice is a relativistic brand of emotional appeals that offend the intellect and shock the conscience.

For proof, consider what happened at Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado, just weeks before the election.  Debating the two sides of Amendment 62 were spokesmen for Personhood USA and an organization called Advocates for Choice, the college outreach group of Planned Parenthood.

After being presented with the biological evidence of the unborn child's humanity, a Planned Parenthood spokeswoman proudly proclaimed to the audience, "We are not going to try to use science or evidence, the fact of the matter is, this is, this is opinion.  We all have our own opinions as far as when human life begins."

The utter stupidity inherent in such a statement is hard to digest.  Is it seriously the position of Planned Parenthood that what constitutes human life and what does not is merely a matter of personal opinion?  A murderer is no longer a murderer if he or she simply declares that they don't believe in the humanity of their victim? 

This relativistic tripe makes a mockery of what is legitimately and scientifically known: that the terms "embryo" and "fetus" - just as other terms like "infant" or "adult" - don't refer to nonhumans.  They refer to humans at particular stages of development.  But this blatant antipathy towards science, expressed by the Advocates for Choice, was just beginning.

Later, that same Planned Parenthood spokeswoman enlightened the audience that, "What is inside a body that cannot function outside its host is not a child."  Leaving aside the galling use of the word "host" to define the relationship between a mother and her baby, this argument represents a transparent strategy of misdirection. 

Viability - that is, the ability to function independently and autonomously - is an arbitrary line that is drawn to determine what a person can do.  It does not determine what a person is.  Highlighting that significant detail literally implodes this entire line of faulty logic.

Yet seemingly undeterred by these inconvenient facts, the anti-science activists from Planned Parenthood railed on: "We're talking about science as if it is something that is absolutely concrete, like there is absolute proof that there is life and there is not life."

Knowing how to respond to that ridiculousness is difficult, because it demonstrates not only a total disregard of simple biology, but a bizarre contempt for rational thinking.  Ignorance is frustrating.  But taking pride in ignorance is scary. 

And how can we not be frightened when considering that the same Planned Parenthood activists that went on to level further jewels of idiocy like, "science cannot be applied to my body," and "the heart doesn't beat ?til 24 weeks" (medical science has established the heart begins beating at 3 weeks), are the very ones who have crafted our national policy on abortion?

Listening to their parade of buffoonery, I understand why the leadership of Planned Parenthood is concerned about the outcome of the recent elections.  To their eternal shame, the Democrat Party has sold its soul to forces perpetuating the great moral evil of our day.  In exchange for campaign donations and votes, they have been willing to facilitate the transfer of millions of taxpayer dollars to this abortion mill. 

But with heavy Democrat losses at the national and state level comes the possibility of dealing with Republican lawmakers who will not be willing to barter the lives of unborn children for Planned Parenthood's blood money.

Indeed, Indiana's staunch conservative Representative Mike Pence has already authored legislation to strip the abortion chain of their federal funding.  And with Republicans gaining almost 700 state legislature seats across the country, several have signaled their intent to do the same.

God willing, they will follow through.  For as the Advocates for Choice demonstrate, the science of this issue was settled long ago.  All that remains is for us to have the moral courage to act on it.

After his self-described shellacking at the polls last Tuesday, astute political observers began postulating and pontificating whether or not Barack Obama would seek to moderate his agenda from the far left lollapalooza he has been pursuing since inauguration day.

Without question, such a move would be a humbling experience for a man who chose to characterize his first two years in office by hubris and unparalleled condescension towards his conquered political adversaries. 

After all, how does a man who - as recently as two weeks ago - told Republicans that "they can come for the ride, but they gotta sit in back," and that they shouldn't "do a lot of talking," reach out a hand of bipartisanship when the tables turn as dramatically as they have? 

How does he expect to maintain any shred of credibility when he proclaims that a Republican victory means the people want the two parties to "work together," given that two years ago he declared that a Democrat victory gave him license to lock Republicans out of policy-making and call all the shots? 

How does he face a gavel-wielding John Boehner and expect cooperation when after winning the presidency he boasted in Boehner's face that "elections have consequences and at the end of the day, I won?" 

Attempting any of this would require eating so much crow it would frighten even Alfred Hitchcock.  Yet, that was the move many political analysts felt was incumbent upon the president.  They argued that he must emulate Bill Clinton and move to the center if he wanted to accomplish anything and salvage his presidency.

But the president gave them less than 24 hours to discuss and debate his intentions before confirming what many of us already knew...Barack Obama is no Bill Clinton.

Holding a press conference at the White House, Obama was asked whether he dismissed the notion that the election results were a rejection of his policies.  His answer: yes.

More specifically, when pressed on the fate of his signature government healthcare takeover, Obama intoned, "We'd be misreading the election if we thought the American people want to see us for the next two years re-litigate arguments we had over the last two years."

It is tough to imagine a more incoherent conclusion.  In the months preceding the midterm elections, polls consistently showed that support for the Republican Party was far from overwhelming.  The electorate had warmed very little towards the party who had so recently betrayed their trust.  So how did moderately popular Republicans deliver one of the most extraordinary Congressional takeovers in history?  Simply put: they ran a national campaign as the party that will reverse Obama's agenda, specifically repealing ObamaCare.

What is more, the number of Democrats who campaigned for re-election not just by distancing themselves from that policy, but actually running against it, was embarrassing.  And those who didn't - those who stood by their ObamaCare votes - went down in flames. 

Figuring out what the electorate was saying then is not rocket science.  In fact, it's the same message the voters in Massachusetts had sent back in January when they elected a man to the Senate, Scott Brown, who campaigned as #41 (his election represented the 41^st vote needed for Republicans to filibuster and stop ObamaCare in the first place).  And it's the same message the public was sending when the largest grassroots political movement the country has seen for generations stormed Congressional town hall meetings and marched on Washington, D.C. in an effort to prevent the healthcare takeover.

Yet then, as now, Barack Obama arrogantly ignored the electorate.

Call it stubbornness or foolishness, but this much is clear: the president is not changing course.  He is, above all else, a radical ideologue committed to pursuing his left-wing agenda.  He is convinced that if he lectures us long enough, we will begin to understand his brilliance and appreciate his greatness.

Not that any of this should surprise us.  After all, it was Obama and the Democrats' fundamental misreading of the 2008 presidential election that actually brought us to this point to begin with.  Rather than recognize his election for what it was: a vote for symbolism (youth, energy, change, charisma, biracial diversity) over substance (not even his most ardent supporters could name a single Obama legislative accomplishment), they regarded it as a mandate for an unapologetic crusade of radical liberal progressivism.

The results of that misinterpretation are self-evident: an enraged electorate, disillusioned supporters, and devastation at the polls.  Yet despite all this, Mr. Obama has signaled he has no desire to take correction from the unwashed masses he has spent two years pretending he is above. 

Unlike Bill Clinton, it appears his pride will prevent him from changing course as the people have demanded.  Which most likely means that unlike Bill Clinton, he won't need to worry about writing a second inaugural address.

NOTE: This column was first published at The American Thinker.

In a recent speech at the University of Minnesota, President Barack Obama proclaimed, "This election is a choice - between the policies that got us into this mess and the policies that are leading us out of this mess. It's a choice between the past and the future; a choice between hope and fear; a choice between falling backwards and moving forwards."

But there's a problem.  Those inspiring clichés now must contend with the realities of his policies; realties that cripple the wings of his once soaring rhetoric and expose it for what it is...mere pandering.

To be sure, the president is right on several points.  This election is about a choice.  And it is about choosing between the policies that got us into our problems and the ones that will help get us out.

But consider: during a debate with Hillary Clinton, candidate Obama made clear what it was that got us into the mess when he pontificated, "you can't take out a credit card from the Bank of China in the name of our children and our grandchildren...And you don't increase spending, unless you're eliminating some spending or you're finding some new revenue. That's how we got an additional $4 trillion worth of debt under George Bush. That is helping to undermine our economy. And it's going to change when I'm president of the United States."

Did it?  Yes.  It got worse.

With staggeringly large majorities in both houses of Congress, President Obama and the Democrats quadrupled the Bush deficits through a failed stimulus bill and proposed budgets for the coming years that (according to a studies by the Heritage Foundation and the Washington Post) would add twice as much debt as President Bush did in the same amount of time. 

Further, though President Obama loves to talk about how when Bush was in office the Republicans, "ran the car into the ditch," he conveniently forgets that during the last two years of Bush's tenure, Democrats Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid wielded the gavel.  In other words, the economic policies that Mr. Obama inherited were the product of his own party's Congressional leadership.  Mr. President, if it's bad to sign those bills (as Bush did), how much worse is it to originate and pass them in the first place (as Pelosi/Reid did)?

Moreover, analysis of the President's own Treasury Department numbers reveals that under her leadership as Speaker of the House, Pelosi has overseen a $5 trillion increase in the national debt.  Put another way, the first 57 Speakers of the House in U.S. history combined racked up less debt than Pelosi heaped upon our children and grandchildren in just four years.

Understanding that she is the woman every Democrat representative (blue dogs and lap dogs alike) across the country unanimously entrusted to set their agenda, the choice we face on Election Day becomes crystal clear.

The President is also right that this election offers the stark difference between hope and fear.

While the Republicans - to their great credit - have largely selected a nationwide slate of candidates committed to ideas like limited government, balanced budgets, constitutional fidelity, and empowering the individual to pursue his or her own definition of happiness without the burden of over-regulation and over-taxation, the Democrats have tried a different tack.

Besides their biennial strategy of scaring seniors into the voting booth with wild and baseless accusations that their Republican counterparts will gamble away Social Security or destroy Medicare, Democrats have decided to spend their campaign dollars making personal attacks.

As ABC's Jonathan Karl noted, "As you watch this year's ads - and I've been watching all too many lately - you'll notice a striking difference between Democratic and Republican attack ads: Democrats are attacking over personal issues, Republicans are attacking over policy."

Karl wasn't alone in his assessment.  After viewing 900,000 of this year's political ads, a study from the Wesleyan Media Project concluded, "Democrats are using personal attacks at much higher rates than Republicans and a much higher rate than Democrats in 2008."

Perhaps the President could enlighten us as to how all this left-wing negativity coming from his party puts "an end to the petty grievances...that for far too long have strangled our politics," as he promised to do in his inaugural address?

Alas, he's probably too busy with his car analogies.

On the campaign trail, Mr. Obama's been cracking up his sycophantic supporters with ten-year-old recycled jokes like, "You want to go forward, what do you do? You put it in 'D.' When you go backward, what do you do? You put it in 'R.'" 

But if we really are in a ditch - as Obama has already told us - does it make more sense to reverse our way out of it, or drive ourselves deeper into it?  That's the choice before us.

Evidently his pay grade has gone up.  That was the astute observation of Keith Riler when he analyzed President Barack Obama's recent remarks at MTV's hour long campaign commercial for Democrats called, "A Conversation With President Obama." 

As an aside, imagine for a second MTV hosting such a conversation with former President George W. Bush.  Perhaps they could have booked Kanye West to emcee.  After slurring together a collection of incoherent ideas in his trademark fashion, West could have worked his infamous "George Bush doesn't care about black people" accusation into the presidential introduction.  It would have been far more entertaining than the Obama love-a-thon turned out to be.

But I digress.

Taking a question on sexuality (this is MTV after all), President Obama enlightened listeners with his dazzling grasp of prenatal development.  He was asked, "Dear President Obama, do you think being gay or trans[gender] is a choice?"  The President responded, "I don't think it's a choice. I think that people are born with a certain makeup, and that we're all children of God. We don't make determinations about who we love. And that's why I think that discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is wrong."

Given that such an answer is totally vacuous, dim, and void of anything even resembling rationality, it played well on MTV.  But for the rest of us, consider the implications of this foolish answer.

Even ignoring the meaningless platitude that "we're all children of God" (do those with moral objections to homosexuality not believe this also?), the stunningly ignorant remark that we don't determine who we love (don't you bet Michelle loved hearing that?), and the impossibly relativistic condemnation of discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation (does Obama really want to defend the idea of sexual anarchy?), there is an appalling inconsistency in the President's position.

After decades of research and repeated attempts to attribute same-sex attraction to biological and genetic causes, the American Psychological Association (no bastion of right-wing conservative thought) was forced - for the sake of their credibility - to amend their literature on the issue.  Under the heading "What causes a person to have a particular sexual orientation?" the APA writes,

There is no consensus among scientists about the exact reasons that an individual develops a heterosexual, bisexual, gay, or lesbian orientation. Although much research has examined the possible genetic, hormonal, developmental, social, and cultural influences on sexual orientation, no findings have emerged that permit scientists to conclude that sexual orientation is determined by any particular factor or factors. (emphasis added)

Put another way, "despite our best efforts to help facilitate the homosexual agenda, we can't find a way to tie homosexuality to inborn, genetic characteristics...sorry."

Not that we needed the APA to tell us what is common sense.  The mere presence of thousands of ex-homosexuals disproves any notion that the behavior of homosexuality is something that cannot be changed or overcome.

But as he made clear on MTV, our President knows better than all that silly science stuff.  Or at least he does when it suits his ideological agenda.  When it doesn't, that's a different story.

Remember the Saddleback Civil Forum on the Presidency hosted by Rick Warren during the 2008 campaign?  Asked there when a baby gets human rights, Mr. Obama demurred, stating, "Well, I think that whether you're looking at it from a theological perspective or a scientific perspective, answering that question with specificity, you know, is above my pay grade."

The cowardice of such a statement is breathtaking.  Here is a man who is so opposed to human rights that he voted against a law that gave life-saving treatment to babies who were born alive after surviving an abortion.  His entire public policy career is built around the supposition that what is conceived in the womb is not human.  But because he realized what an asinine argument that would be to make on national television, he ran away, claiming it was beyond his understanding.

So, for a demonstration of the moral and intellectual bankruptcy of this man's leadership, merely juxtapose that response to the one he gave MTV.  If the irony doesn't beat you over the head, allow me to assist it: the same guy who claims he isn't enlightened enough to determine the humanity of what is conceived in the womb (something science unquestionably proves) simultaneously claims that he can determine the sexuality of what is conceived in the womb (something that science, to this point, disproves).

This begs the obvious question that Riler posed in his analysis, "Might science simply be a tool in service of the President's ideology?"

Yes it might.  In his inaugural address, President Obama proclaimed he would, "restore science to its rightful place."  It has become apparent that by "rightful place" he meant the toilet.

In light of the fact that an increasing number of Americans are questioning his faith, President Obama has apparently been told by his advisors to ratchet up the Jesus talk.  So at a staged event in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Obama complied by responding to a question about why he became a Christian.

"I came to my Christian faith later in life and it was because the precepts of Jesus Christ spoke to me in terms of the kind of life that I would want to lead," he explained, adding he was moved by the thought of, "Being my brothers' and sisters' keeper."

One has to wonder whether such an answer was really what his advisors were wanting.  After all, who would ever suggest the president use the Biblical phrase, "being my brothers' keeper," when his actual half-brother (blood related) resides in a shack in Kenya?

If I may be so bold, I think this strained proclamation of faith by the President is far more about a Machiavellian manipulation of the masses (trying to convince people he's something that he's not) than it is about a devotion to the teachings of Christ.  In other words, I call bull.

Anyone who has actually studied and taken the ?precepts of Jesus' to heart knows that Jesus taught us to be personally charitable.  This is fitting with Christ's testimony that his was not a political kingdom, but a spiritual one (John 18:36).  He came not to conquer earthly thrones, but the human heart.

Yet false teachers like Obama seek to confuse that point.  They tell us that obedience to Christ comes in the form of high taxes on the wealthy to fund social programs for the poor.  Even if these programs weren't as miserably ineffective as what they are, look at what they foster: envy, greed, bitterness and resentment.  Not exactly the motivations of love and altruism that Jesus said were to be at the heart of our goodwill.

In truth, there is not one recorded instance of Christ advocating the government confiscation and redistribution of wealth in the name of charity.

Jesus did say: "The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.' (Matthew 25:40)

Jesus did not say: "The King will reply, ?I tell you the truth, whatever you forcibly took from the masses through taxation in the name of these brothers of mine, you did for me."

Jesus did say: "If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me." (Matthew 19:21)

Jesus did not say: "If you want to be perfect, go, get elected to high office and then use the law to confiscate the property of those who have, and give to those you deem more worthy of it.  Then claim you are following me."

You get the point.  Barack Obama's social gospel of government sponsored theft is a flat contradiction to what Jesus taught. 

So keeping in mind another Biblical precept that "by their fruits you will know them" (Matthew 7:16), perhaps it's time to put Mr. Obama's fruits on trial against the actual principles of Jesus he claims are so moving.  If these words of our Savior truly spoke to Obama about the kind of life he wanted to lead, the evidence should be manifest.

But oddly, according to the New York Times, "In 2004, before Mr. Obama entered the Senate, he and his wife gave $2,500 to charity, 1.2 percent of the taxable income.?Their charitable giving only went up when it looked like he was campaigning for the presidential office,' said Paul L. Caron, a professor at the University of Cincinnati College of Law."

Moreover, cited and notated research of conservative writer Ann Coulter reveals something truly astonishing: "For purposes of comparison, in 2005, Barack Obama made $1.7 million - more than twice President Bush's 2005 income of $735,180 - but they both gave about the same amount to charity.  That same year, the heartless Halliburton employee Vice President Dick Cheney gave 77 percent of his income to charity."

In other words, while Mr. Obama is very interested in being charitable with your money, he's pretty stingy with his own.  While you may find that in the teachings of Marx, you won't find it in the precepts of Jesus.

As I watch Mr. Obama's persistently arrogant, sanctimonious sermonizing to a nation of citizens far more personally charitable than him, there's another phrase of Christ that comes to mind.  Perhaps the President would be wise to familiarize himself with it...whitewashed tomb.

According to Politico, Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown is concerned.  At a recent closed door session of Republican lawmakers, Brown worried that conservative Tea Party candidate Christine O'Donnell's upset win in the Delaware Senate primary over establishment Republican Mike Castle was sending the message that the Republican Party is pitching a small tent with no room for moderates. 

It's good to know that Mr. Brown is apparently receiving his talking points from the Democratic National Committee Chairman Tim Kaine, who recently told the Today Show the exact same thing.

In fact, this is a meme that works its way through liberal channels every time conservatism begins an ascendency.  It was used to challenge the rise of every modern conservative from Goldwater to Reagan to Gingrich.  It's the rhetorical club that scorned liberal Republicans employ to exert superiority over their conservative counterparts: "they can't win...they're too far out of the mainstream."

But if the Tea Party movement has revealed anything, it is that the conservative base is much larger than previously thought...it is the mainstream.  Thus, the temper tantrum being thrown right now by left leaning Republicans is predictable, if not expected. 

A major impetus behind the internal purge of these so-called moderates is their fascination with power, and their obsessive sense of entitlement to it.  Therefore, it is not surprising that when the real power brokers - the people - wrest it out of their clutches, they react with the maturity of two year olds.  To wit:

When "moderate" Republican Arlen Specter saw that his betrayal of conservative principles was going to cost him his grip on power, he switched parties with no hesitancy.

When "moderate" Republican Charlie Crist saw that his fair-weathered commitment to conservatism was going to obstruct his political ambition, he scrubbed his website and left the party to run as an independent without reservation.

When "moderate" Republican Dede Scozzafava saw her support drain away in favor of the more conservative Doug Hoffman, she suspended her campaign and endorsed the Democrat candidate.

When "moderate" Republican Senator Bob Bennett lost his position of authority to a more conservative Republican, he mulled a detrimental independent candidacy, rather than supporting his constituents' choice.

When "moderate" Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski lost her primary race to the more conservative Republican Joe Miller, she refused to endorse him and took the plunge Bennett wouldn't, embarking on a foolish write-in campaign.

When "moderate" Republican Representative Mike Castle lost his bid for the U.S. Senate to the more conservative Republican Christine O'Donnell, he announced he couldn't support her and is considering pulling a Murkowski himself.

And therein lies the real story.  For years, the moderate and left-leaning Republican establishment demanded that the conservative base support them.  Failure to do so was regarded not only as a contemptuous betrayal of Republican Party fidelity, but an egregious violation of conventional wisdom.

After all, they lectured, expecting ideological purity from your candidates is fantasy and ignores the hard truth that there are several areas of the country - Delaware, Maine, Vermont, New York, Massachusetts - where conservatism won't sell.

To fully grasp the nonsense inherent in such a conclusion, one needs only to look at an electoral map from 1984.  Ronald Reagan's audacious brand of in-your-face conservatism (not just economic, mind you, but social and defense conservatism as well) carried the entire Northeast.  In fact, save the socialist enclave of D.C. and Walter Mondale's home state of Minnesota, Reagan's "dangerously divisive, small tent, right-wing ideology" brought majorities of 49 states into the Republican fold.  Pray tell, when has the Republican Party tent ever been so large?

Compare Reagan's results to those of virtually every "moderate" Republican presidential candidate in recent history: Ford, Bush 41, Dole, McCain.  Each of them not only failed to energize the conservative base, they couldn't even win over the great center - the very reason they were touted as the best choice.  This comedic charade was perfectly encapsulated in the iconic image of Colin Powell - long a proponent of moving the Republican Party leftward and supporting more moderate candidates like John McCain - endorsing McCain's Democrat opponent for President.

Looking at the raw numbers, it's peculiar how narrow of an appeal the Republicans' big tent strategy has had as opposed to the broad appeal of the allegedly small tent approach.  Perhaps we have some term confusion that needs clarification.

Here's the truth: Republican support swells when the Party faithfully articulates a clear rightward conservative agenda.  Republican support contracts when it offers the electorate a milquetoast, watered down version of the Democrats.  This isn't high minded political scientist thinking here.  It's common sense.

It's time for the so-called moderates within the Republican Party to be the good little foot soldiers they've demanded conservatives be for years.  Just smile and dutifully give us your votes.  You are welcome inside the tent, but for the sake of the Party and the country, we'll decide where the stakes go.