How Well Do You Know Illinois?

Recently, a high school friend sent me quiz, "How Well Do You Know Illinois?" I got most of them right, although I didn't know the original name of the Chicago Bears, and guessed at the state flower. So I wouldn't win a million. Also, if Peoria is the oldest town, there are four or five others ready to call her a liar, although it may be the oldest of the four listed. However, I also knew Ronald Reagan wasn't born in Dixon, Illinois, which means at least one answer was wrong--so maybe there were others--like the oldest town.

Could you go through these questions, not miss any and win a million dollars, if the opportunity arose.

1. $100 What is the Capital of Illinois?
a. Chicago
b. Champaign
c. Springfield
d. East St.. Louis
***********************************************************
2. $200 The State Motto is . . ..
a. Home of Ronald Reagan
b. Prairie State
c. Land of 100 Lakes
d. Land of Lincoln
***********************************************************
3. $400 - State that DOES NOT border IL?
a. Iowa
b. Missouri
c. Texas
d. Indiana
***********************************************************
4. $1000. Which is furthest down south?
a. Chicago
b. Decatur
c. Carbondale
d. Bloomington
***********************************************************
5. $2000 What is the State bird?
a. Chicken
b. Cardinal
c. Pheasant
d. Eagle
***********************************************************
6. $4,000 - Which community is oldest in Illinois?
A. Chicago
b. Peoria
c. Effingham
d. East St. Louis
***********************************************************
7. $8,000 - The Chicago Bears were known as...?
a. Always has been known as Chicago Bears
b. Decatur Bears
c. Sucky Bears
d. Decatur Staleys
***********************************************************
8. $16,000 - What town is home to Superman?
a. Harristown
b. Pana
c. Metropolis
d. Peru
***********************************************************
9. $32,000 - City that has never been the capital of IL?
a. Springfield
b. Peoria
c. Kaskaskia
d. Vandalia
***********************************************************
10. $64,000 - State Flower?
a. Corn Stalks
b. Yellow Dandelions
c. White Daisies
d. Purple Violets
***********************************************************
11. $125,000 - how do you pronounce "Moweaqua"?
a. Mo-we-qua
b. Mow-wee-aqua
c. Mowey-qua
d. Mow-aqua
***********************************************************
12. $250,000 - Jesse Jackson stuck his nose into the business of what town concerning the 6 criminal kids?
a. Springfield
b. Decatur
c. Peoria
d. Chicago
***********************************************************
13. $500,000- Going to the boat means?
a. Cruising Lake Decatur
b. Going to your mother-in-laws house
c. Riverside Gambling
d. Going to jail
***********************************************************
14. $1,000,000 - Which President was born in Dixon, IL?
a. Reagan
b. Clinton
c. Jefferson
d. Nixon
*******************************************
ANSWERS ARE BELOW.....................
1. 100 C - Springfield
2. 200 D - Land of Lincoln
3. 400 C - Texas
4. 1000 C - Carbondale
5. 2000 B - Cardinal (even though hunters like to claim it as the pheasant)
6. 4000 B - Peoria -- Even though East St Louis looks as if it should be the oldest [others also claim to be the oldest, Cahokia, Palestine, Shawneetown]
7. 8000 D - Decatur Staleys --- Even though C (sucky bears) would work too:)
8. 16000 C - Metropolis (yep its a real city in southern IL)
9. 32,000 B - Peoria
10. 64,000 D - Purple Violets -- Even though (a) Corn Stalks should be.
11. 125,000 A - Mo-we-qua
12. 250,000 B - Decatur
13. 500,000 C. Riverside Gambling --- Better not mean (b) going to your mom in laws
14. 1,000,000 A - Reagan [wrong!]

A story of love and determination

My friend Helen sent this story e-mail. It's going around. So I checked it as I usually do, and Snopes says it is true, and it appears on a number of blogs. Here's a longer version without photos.

"While it is tragic that someone should die, especially so young, it's difficult to see the story of Katie Kirkpatrick Godwin as a sad one.

She did not allow illness to make her weak, she did not allow it to change her relationship with her God or her family or her husband. She did not let sickness stop her from living, take away the hope or faith that made her believe she had a future. She had a lovely wedding and she had love and she gave love and love doesn't die.

And that is how Katie beat cancer."

Why doesn't Obama trust black voters?

Al Gore was the same way in the 2000 election in Florida. Remember the hanging chads? That happened because a black district hadn't voted the straight Democrat ticket and Gore's people wanted a recount by eyeballing little bits of dangling paper to determine intent. Now Eric Holder, Obama's Attorney General, has decided black voters in Kinston NC couldn't possibly vote if the "Democrat" designation wasn't beside the name of the candidate. The story is at the Washington Times, but never you mind, I'm guessing Obama's White House doesn't approve of this one as real news either.

The Justice Department's ruling, which affects races for City Council and mayor, went so far as to say partisan elections are needed so that black voters can elect their "candidates of choice" - identified by the department as those who are Democrats and almost exclusively black.

The department ruled that white voters in Kinston will vote for blacks only if they are Democrats and that therefore the city cannot get rid of party affiliations for local elections because that would violate black voters' right to elect the candidates they want.

Now which is more serious--made up lies about Rush Limbaugh being racist, or the highest offices in the land saying blacks can't vote without the Democrats telling them how?

The appeal of celebrity

Because of reality shows on TV, the ordinary people with little talent can now be a star--if they are fat, have a beat up truck, a house falling down, have multiple births, are little people, are former cheerleaders, want to swap wives, or have a terrible wardrobe.

The balloon fiasco is just the latest example of what can go wrong. Millions of people watched and prayed and soon became very dissolutioned when first they thought the 6 year old had died, then he was hiding, then the family had pulled a hoax.

"A celebrity is a person who is know for his well-knowness." (Daniel Boorstin) It isn't even about money anymore. It's a craving for the public's attention.

Here's People Magazine's rules for a successful cover.

Young is better than old.
Pretty is better than ugly.
Rich is better than poor.
TV is better than music.
Music is better than movies.
Movies are better than sports.
Anything is better than politics.
And nothing is better than a celebrity who just died. (Richard Stolley, quoted in Neal Gabler, Life; The Movie, 2000. See also The Magazinist

Obama's Human Rights record

Not so great. Much worse than Bush's--actually, not even close. He at least freed all those second class citizens, aka women.

Bret Stephens examines Obama's Human Rights record.

China: no pressing whatsoever on human rights
Sudan: "incentives and disincentives" for the genocidal Sudanese government of Omar Bashir
Iran: denied funding for a human-rights group working the Iran beat to appease Tehran
Burma: where 150,000 died of starvation in plain view being denied humanitarian aid, Obama is going to change to constructive engagement
Tibet: ignore the Dalai Lama and concede to China with constructive engagement (see Burma)

International Day of Climate Action

World wide stupidity and insanity. It always amazes me that people who sincerely believe God couldn't speak the creation into existence in 6 days, just as sincerely believe they can organize themselves into committees, focus groups, clubs and dictatorships to change the climate.

Plan to restrict free speech

A proposal sponsored by the Obama administration at the United Nations that purports to seek protection for "freedom of opinion and expression" actually is a call for a worldwide crackdown on freedom of speech and a mandate for nations to ensure "that relevant national legislation complies with … international human rights obligations" – a clear threat to the First Amendment, according to critics.

The resolution was submitted recently by the United States and Egypt. It was approved by the U.N. Human Rights Council as a first step in its process through the international organization.

It demands that all nations condemn and criminalize "any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence." Steven Groves of the Heritage Foundation told WND the issue is not about free speech at all but about installing international precedents to stifle any criticism of Islam.

Full story at World Net Daily.

The United Nations has become a totally worthless organization, filled with petty tyrants and dictators who won't obey our laws when their here strutting their lies, and don't allow any freedoms in their own countries, from which people flee to come here to find what they don't have at home. Now Obama wants us to become just another third world, banana republic where everyone can be equally poor to fit his narcissistic personality. Unfortunately, he's succeeding.

Changing sheets listening to Fox

Fox News was on in the background while I was changing sheets today. Sounded like news to me. Can't imagine what the WH is so in a snit about. The stories I heard were H1N1 vaccine--reasons to get it, who, where, etc. That was an interview with a doctor. Story about Christopher Dodd wanting more rules for banks. Straight line reporting, quoting him--didn't even point out his ethical failings and his sweetheart deals. Then there was a science feature about a blob robot, again an interview with an expert. It appears the White House can't tell the difference between opinion and news. Probably watching too much ABC, NBC, NBC and CNN--because on those channels, you really can't tell. Today the Fox Business Channel starts for us on our cable service--we enjoy Neil Cavuto on regular Fox and look forward to seeing him and a few others on the Business Channel, like Dave Ramsey, Elizabeth McDonald and John Stossell.

People who demean Fox News don't recognize unfiltered, non-Katified news, and don't notice that the panels have more than one viewpoint--sometimes 3 or 4! Oh, the horror of it. It's not Obama 24/7!

Socialism sells. . . then kills

Joe Wilson and his opponent have now both raised $2 million for their campaigns. His "You Lie" statement of truth energized both campaigns. The Democrats are now the party of the fat cats, rich energy moguls going green, foreign born lobbyists and smelly Euro-socialists, in addition to their usual supporters, Hollywood celebrities and the public librarians. So they have a lot more money than we do.

So time to chip in, Conservatives. Yes, both parties are full of pork-fed liars, but for now, getting Congress out of the clutches of the White House Statists is important. These are very deep pockets among the Obama crowd. I used to think it wasn't ethical to get involved in other states' elections. But that was before we knew the extent of Soros, ACORN and the Chicago machine.

Joe Wilson for Congress blog.

Photo from Stop blaming capitalism for socialism's failures at But now you know.

Captured CO2

Last week there was a dust storm over Australia that dumped tons of red dust in the ocean. The dust contained nutrients which fed huge blooms of phytoplankton. Those tiny plants provide food for larger ocean creatures. The plankton has captured about 8 million tons of CO2. This will be deposited on the ocean floor. That's one month of emissions from a dirty coal-fired plant in China making energy conserving light bulbs for Americans so they can sit in dim rooms feeling good about themselves for not using American clean coal mined here in Ohio and other Appalachian states providing good jobs. The DC and California greenies don't like the ocean doing the natural CO2 capture and storage primarily because they can't make any money that way or tax it.

Ohio State sets new enrollment records

According to OSUToday: "Ohio State has set new records this fall – in the size, quality and diversity of its student body. There are new records in the number of students attending the Columbus campus and several regional campuses. New autumn quarter enrollment figures show a 2.7 percent increase in Ohio State enrollment, with a record 63,217 students on all campuses and a record 55,014 on the Columbus campus – a 2.4 percent increase. Across all campuses, there are a record 49,915 undergraduates including 9,510 new first-year students — providing more students than ever access to higher education." Read more: the full report (51 pages) or the press release http://osu.edu/news/newsitem2575

The library has now moved back to the main campus, so in order to go there, I'll have to compete for parking again. I loved having it on Ackerman Rd. The ACK STAX. I think I used the library more those 3 years than all the other years in my retirement (9).

Cash for Oldsters

"No one ever went broke underestimating political cynicism, but these days even we can't keep up: On Wednesday [Oct. 14], President Obama announced that he wants to send every American senior a $250 check.

"Even as we seek to bring about recovery, we must act on behalf of those hardest hit by this recession," Mr. Obama said. Of course it's a mere coincidence that these checks are being proposed, and probably passed, just as Congress is about to vote on health care."

So says Review and Outlook at Friday's WSJ. Keep in mind, only the opinion page in the Wall Street Journal is conservative--the news section follows like a puppy at Obama's heels. (Nice doggie, good doggie, here's a bone, now don't bite or I'll bury you with the other chickens in the Fox Den.)

A group of us seniors was talking Sunday evening in our home. Actually, we aren't the "hardest hit" at all; one observed that we have all lived at a much reduced, simpler lifestyle when we were younger--it is no sacrifice or terror for us to reenter that territory like it might be for children and grandchildren who have enjoyed all the perks and materialism that a booming free market economy offers, and much of it sterile and unspiritual to boot! Also I know couples my age and older with 5 and 6 pension streams, their two or three homes and cars are paid for, and their "gotta have it" odometer is no longer functioning. A few born in the 20s and 30s remember the Great Depression, but most remember their parents' stories and advice. We are the fortunate generation, not the hardest hit.

In a recent e-mail, the ever vigilant Murray observed:

Now remember, the reason to rush the [stimulus] Bill through without reading it was to avoid a another crisis to go along with the housing bubble burst that was ALL Bush's fault. So why has only about 15% of the $787 billion stimulus been released? Gee, I thought rushing this money into the economy was the key point. But wait, take another look at Emaneul's statement again [never waste a good crisis]. They don't want to waste a crisis so therefore what's the best strategic plan for the Obama team? (not for you & I silly) It seems to play out like this. They are trickling the money into the economy and plan to dump 2/3 of it in just before the next election. So let's see, 1/3 over the first two years and then wham, 2/3 just before the next election. Hmmmmm! Who does that help?

In the meantime, in order to keep the peasants at bay, they will extend unemployment benefits. Thus they will be using your tax dollars to enable them to delay the so called stimulus money until THEY can best take advantage of it while the masses are beating the bushes looking for jobs. I guess the rush wasn't so important after all !!

This is the kind of deception and lying that we've become used to but shouldn't be comfortable with. It's like the other day when things weren't going well for Obama so he says he wants to give S.S. recipients $250 checks to offset no COLA for 2010. (your congressman gave himself a $4,700 raise on his 174,000 dollar salary) Obama throws out crumbs with your tax dollars so he can milk it for all it's worth. In this case he's hoping to get the seniors off his back by waiting to cut the checks until right before the midterm elections. Hmmmm! This must part of the transparency he promised.

It's just like his ObamaCare. If it passes Heh,Heh,Heh.... benefits won't start for the uninsured until 2013 after the elections. Why? Because that's when we find out just how bad this plan is and how much it's really going to cost after it's too late. Why do I say it's bad? Well, if they won't bother to read it, won't post it on the Internet and use trickery to calculate the cost, what other conclusion can you come to? Besides, the 4 things that need to be in any healthcare plan that would lower the healthcare costs aren't in it. In fact, the largest cost to the healthcare industry (free healthcare for illegals) is being totally ignored as are the illegals themselves. That in itself tells you this package stinks. Today I find out that one of the ways the Democrats used to help lower the overall cost of the healthcare bill was to take some of the expensive provisions out of the Bill and put them in a separate bill to pass. Ahhh, isn't transparency wonderful? Isn't this the kind of information that should be exposed on the 6 o'clock news or make the headlines?

The latest polls show that 54% oppose and 35% are for the healthcare plan. But that doesn't matter. We're dealing with what Obama wants. The Obama team has ignored us at the town hall meetings, tea parties, our e-mails and the March on Washington. Obama stages his own town hall meetings and runs them like he's campaigning. Welcome to ObamaWorld!

New editor in blogger

For several days I tried "new editor" in the basic posting template at blogger. Didn't like it. When I copied and pasted text from another source, I couldn't control the paragraphs; I couldn't see what I was editing; there was no spell check, had to use IE's; sometimes in the window things ran off the margin. Really, I could see no advantage. Still haven't seen a correction to the label problem (2000 limit) and I've read through the discussions at the blogger.com forums. Some people seem to be in worse shape than I. So I continue to use the labels I have and hope someone fixes this problem. If you don't have an "Anita Dunn" label there's really no work-around.

Monday Memories--giving Caleb the boot

Last week I posted a photo of me hold newborn baby Caleb. Here he is now at the party for him before he leaves for Army Reserves Boot Camp. His mom is a fabulous hostess, and it was great to see all the friends and relatives and catch up on what everyone is doing.

We will all go together when we go

It's about the bomb, but listen and think about freedom of speech and press. If the President can attack and take out one, he can take them all.



And we will all go together when we go.
What a comforting fact that is to know.
Universal bereavement,
An inspiring achievement,
Yes, we all will go together when we go.


And then think about the President cozying up with our enemies--leaving us defenseless. Yes, this 1959 song is sounding quite appropriate.

HT Tsedek Tsedek

Dunn explains how it's done

How to keep the press in your pocket and suppress all other views.



She says: "Obama's presidential campaign focused on "making" the news media cover certain issues while rarely communicating anything to the press unless it was "controlled," White House Communications Director Anita Dunn disclosed to the Dominican government at a videotaped conference.


"Very rarely did we communicate through the press anything that we didn't absolutely control," said Dunn.


"One of the reasons we did so many of the David Plouffe videos was not just for our supporters, but also because it was a way for us to get our message out without having to actually talk to reporters," said Dunn, referring to Plouffe, who was Obama'schief campaign manager.


"We just put that out there and made them write what Plouffe had said as opposed to Plouffe doing an interview with a reporter. So it was very much we controlled it as opposed to the press controlled it," Dunn said.

HT Chicago Ray


Here's Plouffe (Obama's Campaign Manager) keeping the press out of the National Press Club

Reading Mao isn't the same as admiring Mao

"Taking its cue from the White House, CNN, the 4th most popular cable news network and fact-checker of Saturday Night Live skits skewering the president (even Jon Stewart snorted at that one), picks up the canard and runs with it.

But it's not just Dunn, a Democrat, who has used Mao as someone she reads.
Media Matters for America, a liberal media watchdog group, points out that former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, also a Fox News contributor, quoted Mao in a 1995 Roll Call profile.

"War is politics with blood; politics is war without blood," Gingrich said, citing Mao.

Karl Rove, another Fox News contributor, wrote in a December 2008 Wall Street Journal op-ed that President Bush "encouraged me to read a Mao biography."

Sometimes people read books to understand the depravity of their opponents and those who would destroy them. After all, lots of Republicans like Rove and Gingrich have read Mao, right along with Rules for Radicals and Dreams from my Father."

CNN's lame excuse

Emboldened White House

Those of you who think the White House is just acting a bit like a snotty, rebellious child caught with his hand in the cookie jar, ought to wake up and see the seriousness of Obama's henchmen attacks on a news agency

The White House stopped providing guests to "Fox News Sunday" after host Chris Wallace fact-checked controversial assertions made by Tammy Duckworth, assistant secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs, in August. Dunn said fact-checking an administration official was "something I've never seen a Sunday show do." "She criticized 'Fox News Sunday' last week for fact-checking -- fact-checking -- an administration official," Wallace said Sunday. "They didn't say that our fact-checking was wrong. They just said that we had dared to fact-check."

Each day I am getting more and more chilled and concerned by this mess you guys elected for us. It doesn't even sound like my country any more.

Story

A grieving father blogs. . .

Robert J. Avrech is an Emmy Award winning screenwriter, an observant Jew, a religious Zionist, a conservative Republican, and a member of the NRA. He writes the blog, Seraphic Secret. His son died of cancer at age 22 in 2003. He writes that time has not healed.

It's not health care reform

This op-ed piece in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette finds the real problem, and it's not insurance:

Health care costs too much in our country because we deliver too much health care. We deliver too much because we demand too much. And we demand it for all the wrong reasons. We're turning into a nation of anxious wimps. I still love my job; very few things are as emotionally rewarding as relieving true pain and suffering, sharing compassionate care and actually saving lives. Illness and injury will always require the best efforts our medical system can provide. But emergency departments nationwide are being overwhelmed by the non-emergent, and doctors in general are asked to treat what doesn't need treatment. In a single night I had patients come in to our emergency department, most brought by ambulance, for the following complaints: I smoked marijuana and got dizzy; I got stung by a bee and it hurts; I got drunk and have a hangover; I sat out in the sun and got sunburn; I ate Mexican food and threw up; I picked my nose and it bled, but now it stopped; I just had sex and want to know if I'm pregnant. . . . Our society has warped our perception of true risk. We are taught to fear vaccinations, mold, shark attacks, airplanes and breast implants when we really should worry about smoking, drug abuse, obesity, cars and basic hygiene. If you go by pharmaceutical advertisement budgets, our most critical health needs are to have sex and fall asleep."

HT Kat

Medical marijuana

I'm sure most conservative commentators and bloggers will jump all over Obama for this one--the new federal guidelines. Not me. Maybe there is no benefit, maybe medical marijuana is just another placebo, but we'll never know until there are large clinical studies, and there won't be any if we make criminals out of the doctors and patients who are trying to ease chronic, debilitating pain. It certainly can't be worse or more addictive than some of the prescription medications like Oxycontin. Is this another follow the money fight? Now let's see if the state and federal regulations can control this as a medical treatment. Probably not.

Need a fact checker

Our church went to plastic communion cups years ago, not for sanitation but because there weren't enough ladies left in the altar guild to wash them when the congregation grew. Some congregations/denominations are doing away with the common cup due to fear of disease transmission. Somewhere years ago when I first started serving communion (and we do occasionally have common cup in small services), I heard that someone had tested a common cup against the individual glass cup, and found more germs on the glass due to inadequate washing and storing. Anyone know more about this? I would think the alcohol will kill some germs, although not handling the bread so much would make sense.

Obama's military expenditure projection

"To carry out the Obama administration's defense plans, the Pentagon will need its non-war-related spending over the next 18 years to average 6 percent more than the amount sought in its fiscal 2010 budget request, according to CBO testimony Wednesday before the House Budget Committee.

Despite efforts to cut unnecessary programs and otherwise rein in defense budgets that have spiked since 2001, the Pentagon still will need roughly $567 billion annually, in constant 2010 dollars, for its base budgets between fiscal 2011 and fiscal 2028, Matthew Goldberg, CBO acting assistant director, told the panel. That figure, which does not include war costs, marks a $33 billion increase over the fiscal 2010 base defense budget request. . .

Meanwhile, spending on operations in Iraq and Afghanistan still makes up about 35 percent, or $154 billion, of the total defense budget request for fiscal 2010. Long-term estimates on war spending hinge largely on whether and how many additional troops President Obama decides to send to Afghanistan.

Daggett also noted that each U.S. soldier deployed to Afghanistan for one year costs about $1 million. By comparison, one Afghan soldier costs $12,000 annually.

Meanwhile, the current monthly "burn rate" in Afghanistan is $3.6 billion. But that would grow to about $7.2 billion -- or the same rate that the United States is spending monthly in Iraq -- if Obama decides to send in 50,000 additional troops, he said." Link

White House goes Palin with Sotomayor

"Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor says her nomination process was so tightly scripted that even her clothes were chosen for her.

Sotomayor made the comments when she appeared at her 30th Yale Law School reunion on Saturday. . . Sotomayor talked about shopping for clothes to wear to her acceptance ceremony. Government officials, however, told her to bring five suits and they recommended which one she should wear."

Source: Newsmax

Maybe the parties do this with male candidates too, and they just don't make the news because people don't care? Pin stripe or plain; yellow tie or blue stripe; tiny flag pin. What do you think, Mr. WH Clothing Czar?

800 U.S. war dead in Afghanistan

Since October 1, 2001. Think about that. That's less than the murder rate in most major American cities (see Forbes, "America's most murderous cities"). It's far below the death rate for teen drivers and passengers (16-20), which is something like 5,000 a year (NHTSA)! If the soldier is your son or daughter, father, husband, brother, then the totals don't matter. But I think war protesters ought to think about totals. The Iraq War protesters extended the war, just like they did during the Vietnam era. It gives courage and resolve to the enemy and makes little difference to the people in government. The Iraq War had the backing of many Democrats in Congress, until they decided there was political capital in changing their minds and blaming Bush saying they were misled. That's an ugly thing to do. Either they are liars or easily intimidated wimps. Maybe both. And now we have a President who doesn't believe in victory, waffles on Afghanistan and has changed his mind on Sudan, endangering every military family and America's security in general. And Democrats are still divided, still trying to blame Bush.

But back to the numbers. Did you know the recession has saved lives? Yes, less driving, fewer deaths. Fewer in 2008 than 2007--down 9.7%--and 2009 will probably drop even more. And motorcycle deaths are increasing--probably some folks trying to save gasoline! And did you know that the decade following 1995 when the speed limits went back up (had been 55 mph), studies show an additional 12,500 people died and about 36,500 injured through 2006, even though overall deaths are going down due to safer cars, more seat belt use, and alcohol crack downs.

So why does the media and special interest groups try to get political mileage out of 800 deaths in 9 years, and pretty much ignore 12,500 deaths in 10 years which resulted from societal pressure and special interests? Are those families grieving less because the white cross is along interstate 70 or Rt. 64 and not in a military cemetery? Also, a new study shows that texting increased the danger of driving by 23.2 times--taking your eyes off the road is a lot more dangerous than talking on a cell phone. So what's up? Why is one story so much more compelling, more political, and yet the carnage is so much worse on the highways? [from "Studies probe US traffic injuries, deaths" by Mike Mitka, JAMA, Sept. 16, 2009, p. 1159-1160 using figures from NHTSA]

Kiss and Tell Books

If I'd never known about Bwabwra Walters affairs, or that McKenzie had sex with her father, I would not be impoverished. I wish these attention seekers would just stay in the closet of family secrets. So too with the people who guard the Presidents. I think its a bit creepy. They aren't too kind to Jimmy Carter, but at least the revelations sound like what we all guessed in Ronald Kessler’s book In the President’s Secret Service: Behind the Scenes with Agents in the Line of Fire and the Presidents they Protect. My other two examples, not.

Carter is portrayed as a phony according to the agents interviewed by Kessler. Carter would put on a show for the public to convey himself as a common man, but it was never anymore than an act. For instance, we are told that when Carter would make a point of carrying his own luggage in front of the press, he was really carrying empty bags. He expected others to carry his real luggage. Unfriendly, Carter “didn’t want the police officers and agents looking at him or speaking to him when he went to the [Oval] office,” explained an assistant White House usher. “The only time I saw a smile on Carter’s face was when the cameras were going,” one former agent told Kessler. After his presidency, Kessler reports that when Carter would stay at a townhouse maintained for former presidents in D.C., he would take down pictures of other presidents and put up more pictures of himself! “The Carters were the biggest liars in the world,” one agent told Kessler of the Carter era. Carter, not surprisingly, denied to Kessler through a lawyer many of the allegations in the book. from Hot Air

Sigh. If he'd just kept building houses instead of trying to have a 2nd and 3rd term while others were in office, he probably could have recovered from his record and been a well-loved ex.

HT Sister Toljah

Calling Dr. Glenn

I noticed this comment at Dr. Sanity's blog--she's out ill.

For the past five years, researchers in a modest office overlooking the New Haven green have carefully documented cases of assassination and torture of democracy activists in Iran. With more than $3 million in grants from the US State Department, they have pored over thousands of documents and Persian-language press reports and interviewed scores of witnesses and survivors to build dossiers on those they say are Iran’s most infamous human-rights abusers. But just as the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center was ramping up to investigate abuses of protesters after this summer’s disputed presidential election, the group received word that - for the first time since it was formed -- its federal funding request has been denied.

You just never know the accuracy of these comments--God knows I get some weird people here! So I checked for the original news story and found it at the Boston Globe by Farah Stockman.

Many see the sudden, unexplained cutoff of funding as a shift by the Obama administration away from high-profile democracy promotion in Iran, which had become a signature issue for President Bush. But the timing has alarmed some on Capitol Hill. “The Iran Human Rights Documentation Center is at the forefront of pioneering and vitally important work,’’ said Senator Joe Lieberman, a Connecticut independent, in a statement yesterday. “It is disturbing that the State Department would cut off funding at precisely the moment when these brave investigations are needed most.’’ Michael Rubin, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative Washington-based think tank, said, “It is a shock that they did not get funding.’’ A reason, he asserted, may be that “the Obama administration is so focused on engaging Iran that they don’t want this information to get in the way.’’

When Joe Lieberman left the Democratic Party it not only lost its soul, but its conscience.

Who is Andrew Breitbart, MSM slayer and acorn crusher?

James Taranto looks at the man who scooped all the media with an ACORN story so outrageous, they finally had to take a look at its corruption, scamming of the poor, and links back to Obama.

Mr. Breitbart, 40, grew up in Hollywood, though his parents weren't in show business. (His father was a restaurateur, his mother a banker.) After graduating from Tulane University, he returned to Southern California, where he dabbled in film production and music journalism before finding his calling online in the mid-1990s. "I just like the Internet," he says. "I feel more natural in this environment, where I am part of the media and not a passive receptacle of the media." He worked for a time on the Drudge Report, and Matt Drudge introduced him to Arianna Huffington, now the doyenne of liberal bloggers. Mr. Breitbart designed a Web site for her back when she was still a Republican.  He held inchoate liberal views until 1991, when the Clarence Thomas hearings occasioned a conservative awakening. He came to loathe the left-wing show-biz culture, the subject of his 2004 book, "Hollywood, Interrupted," and of his group blog Big Hollywood, launched early this year. "These people believe that Christians and conservatives and Republicans and libertarians are all variations on the Nazi theme."

Read the whole story--there’s more to come.

I remember listening to the Thomas hearings on my lunch hour in the car. That's when I really started to catch on about the party of my choice. It took another 9 years, of gag reflexes, ignoring the problem, and then soul searching, but I finally fled. But it began with Alanon.

Dunn doesn't mind a double dip salary

For someone who finds Chairman Mao a man to be admired for his methods, results and goals, Anita Dunn doesn't mind burning the salary candle at both ends--from the White House as interim communications chief and at her own firm, Squier Knapp Dunn.

“From Anita Dunn—referred to in Time magazine as Obama's "mega-advisor" to Bill Knapp, one of the nation's savviest campaign strategists – we have helped countless Democratic candidates and campaigns navigate tough races and win.” No other firm had as far-reaching a role in President Obama's election than Squier Knapp Dunn, with Anita Dunn serving as one of the top officials of the campaign and the firm producing both television advertising and direct mail for the campaign.

From her position at the White House, Ms. Dunn attacked the right of dissent and free speech of every American with her attacks on Fox News, claiming it was an arm of the Republican party (as if the rest of the media hadn't helped elect Obama), then down played the video of her speech through the leftist Media Matters. She attacked the messenger for her own words which millions saw and understood, spoken at a high school graduation. SKD also helped elect Ohio's own Senator Sherrod Brown.

Label: Anita Dunn

Teaching queerly--Kevin Jennings, the bullying czar

I've been out of school a few years, and my youngest graduated from highschool 22 years ago. I didn't know there was such a thing as "teaching queerly." Calling someone a "queer" used to be an insult, but that went out in the 70s--I knew that because I was a librarian. Not that librarians are queer, mind you, but I used to get all kinds of publications coming across my desk and kitchen table, including a newsletter from the Bay Area radical librarians for anarchy in the stacks (or something like that). Their newsletter was lavendar, I kid you not.

Fox News has been roundly criticized for even reporting this story, and of course, the opinion shows on Fox are running with it--you'd never see CNN or MSNBC even touch it. Jennings apparently wrote the introduction for this book, now 11 years old. So you would think someone would have figured out in the vetting (who? what? when?) process that this just might come up.

"Those who teach queerly refuse to participate in the great sexual sorting machine called schooling where diminutive GI Joes and Barbies become star quarterbacks and prom queens, while the Linuses and Tinky Winkies become wallflowers or human doormats. Queeering education means bracketing our simplest classroom activities in which we routinely equate sexual identities with sexual acts, privilege the heterosexual condition, and presume sexual destinies. Queer teachers are those who develop curriculum and pedagogy that afford every child dignity rooted in self-worth and esteem for others. In short, queering education happens when we look at schooling upside down and view childhood from the inside out. This groundbreaking volume demands we explore taken-for-granted assumptions about diversity, identities, childhood, and prejudice." From the Product information on the book at Amazon.

A review of the book in Washington Times: “Advocating the indoctrination of kindergarten children based on anecdotal evidence or flawed science isn't Mr. Jennings' worst offense. But it's certainly not what Americans expect from a White House "safe schools czar" who is responsible for making policy decisions that impact children's safety.”

But here's the incident that got Jennings in trouble with conservative law makers, and which the MSM is defending.

Jennings, the founder of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, has described in writings and speeches how a high-school student confided to him in 1988 that he was having a relationship with an older man.

The student has since spoken out in defense of Jennings, claiming he was 16 at the time, which was the legal age in Massachusetts, and that he was not sexually active.

But Jennings has described the relationship as sexual, and in 2000 he said the boy was 15 years old.

A Columbus principal was fired, her assistants put on leave, and she lost her license when she called the father first instead of the police when a mentally challenged girl was sexually assaulted in her school. (Dispatch story) So whether the liberal news agencies believe Jennings did the right thing to protect the boy, there are procedures and rules for these things.

Huffpo slinking away from the Limbaugh quotes

From NewsBusters.

"Earlier today, the Weekly Standard’s John McCormack reported that the Huffington Post had asked author Jack Huberman to document quotes allegedly from Rush Limbaugh declaring that slavery “had its merits” and that the assassin of Martin Luther King, Jr. deserved the Medal of Honor.

The quotes were widely cited as real by several sports writers and on CNN and MSNBC in the past week as proof that Limbaugh was a racist who did not deserve to own part of the St. Louis Rams football team. But the Huffington Post has now removed them, saying the author has not been able to substantiate them."

Oh, I so hope Rush sues! It's going to track back to Obama--you wait and see.

It has now been discovered by tracking IP addresses where the false quotes in Wikipedia (source of all the lies that no one checked) came from, and also that there are ties back to Attorney General Holder in the Obama Administration. NFL Players Association Executive Director DeMaurice Smith served as counsel to Attorney General Eric Holder and was a member of Barack Obama’s transition team.

Another Marxist in the White House

No wonder Anita Dunn won't call Glenn Beck to correct his errors.



She was already on schedule to leave--she's "interim."

Obama says he's not tired--critical of the "socialist mop" group.

Mr. President, I'm tired of this nonsense. Is there no one close to you who is not a radical, a socialist, a Marxist, a Communist, a tax cheat, a crook, or a National Socialist? Have you gone so far 'round the bend that no one can bring you back?

Label: Anita Dunn

Obama's not tired, he says, just getting started

Glenn Beck says he’s tired of socialism and the corruption in Washington; Obama says he’s not. Tired, that is. Someone at the White House is listening to Beck and mimicking him.

“When I’m busy, and Nancy’s busy, with a mop cleaning up somebody else’s mess, we don’t want somebody sitting back saying, ‘you’re not holding the mop the right way’ … ‘you’re not mopping fast enough’ … ‘that’s a socialist mop.’”

“Grab a mop. We need help.”

Obama, at the Westin St. Francis Hotel here after visiting New Orleans earlier in the day, addressed a small group of donors at an intimate dinner for 160, and then moved several floors downstairs to a larger ballroom, where he addressed a sold-out crowd of about 900 attendees. The singer Tracy Chapman warmed up the ballroom crowd with her 1988 hit, “Talkin’ ‘Bout a Revolution.”

Guests at the dinner contributed $34,000 per couple, and tickets for the main event ranged between $500 and $1,000. The DNC expects to have raised about $3 million in total.

. . . “I hope that all of you guys understand that we’re just getting started.”

“Some of our opponents think that they can wear us down,” he said. “I’m not tired. I’m refreshed. We are not going to stop.” Politico

The WSJ Washington Wire didn’t mention the “socialist mop” statement, maybe because they know that’s the only one he’s got?

Remember, folks, he said he intended to fundamentally change the United States of America. He said he was going to redistribute wealth. He was going to raise energy costs with cap and trade. He was going to take over the health care system. He told us. Think back a year ago, two years ago. Was your life so awful before he began the run for the White House? Are you better off now with all this "change?"

Rotten sausage is being made in Congress

This is a really excellent summary of the mess in Congress prepared by the Arkansas Republican Assembly (ARRA). Includes

2010 Energy and Water appropriations bill, H.R. 3183

2010 Commerce-Justice-Science appropriations bill, H.R. 2847

McConnell and Boehner joint press conference on the biggest tax increase ever (health care)

Henry Reid's closed door meetings

Republicans prepare for floor debate

"Making a new law that takes away individual freedom, choice and even property through mandatory taxes is anathema. The intended final sausage - the health care bill - is already rotting. It stinks not only in the halls of Congress and Washington, D.C., but the stench has reached the heartland of America."

Snooping on Joe the Plumber

And still insulting Sarah Palin. My goodness. Don't these guys ever give up?

"A former contractor for the Ohio Association of Chiefs of Police has been charged with rummaging through state computers to retrieve confidential information about "Joe the Plumber."

Brett A. Gerke, 52, of 2329 Woodcreek Place on the Far North Side, is charged with attempted unauthorized use of property.

Gerke entered a diversion program on Oct. 2, which typically results in the dismissal of a criminal charge. He has not entered a plea. The charge is a first-degree misdemeanor punishable by up to six months in jail.

The State Highway Patrol says that Gerke used a law-enforcement computer network on Oct. 16, 2008 to access personal information about Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher."

Columbus Dispatch

No word yet if Gerke is a Democrat operative. Or whether Dave Letterman is a jerke.

Obama's war against Fox

"This weekend, after White House communications director Anita Dunn forthrightly declared war on Fox News, some people thought she might have gone a little too far in explaining a tacit understanding in the Obama administration that they didn't deal directly with the right-leaning network. One almost expected to see a clarification of the remarks afterward, as Fox anchors like Bill O'Reilly and Glenn Beck gleefully ran with the story. But of course, Dunn's statements had been carefully scripted by the Obama team — as is pretty much everything you hear from them, except things that are supposed to be off the record. And what's more, Dunn herself was selected to fire off the opening salvo for a specific reason: On a strategy team largely dominated by men, she's acknowledged to be the toughest member."

The rest of the story at New York Magazine.

Hint: She's expendable, she's female, she's interim.

Update: Anita Dunn is also an ardent admirer of Chairman Mao. Glenn Beck showed a very long clip of a speech she gave, apparently to a graduating class in June, about how much she admired Chairman Mao, a man who killed 70,000,000 of his own subjects/citizens. And folks, these were not easy deaths. My college roommate's family fled China for their lives to Brazil. Heads chopped off. Brains blown out. Starvation. Worked to death in labor camps. Go to your library and get out an old Look or Life Magazine. These are the people our President surrounds himself with now, and with whom he grew up and went to college, and schmoozed with in Chicago's fancy Hyde Park. The people who saw real possibilities in his acceptable appearance and speeches, and tapped him on the shoulder to be their front man.

The formerly Main Stream Media, now increasingly the Irrelevant by-stander media, can't find John Kerry's military records; can't find John Edward's mistress' baby; can't find Van Jones' prison record; can't read Ezekiel Emanual's article about rationing health care for the elderly; can't figure out polar bears aren't dying; can't find Valerie Jarrett's Communist background; and certainly couldn't find out Anita Dunn's admiration and love for Mao Tse Tung.

Safe Schools Czar Kevin Jennings

"Fifty-three House Republicans have written President Barack Obama asking him to remove "safe schools czar" Kevin Jennings from that position.

The lawmakers accused Jennings of "pushing a pro-homosexual agenda" and said that Jennings's past writings exhibit a record that makes him unfit for the position.

"We respectfully request that you remove Kevin Jennings, the Assistant Deputy Secretary for the Office of Safe and Drug Free Schools, from your Administration," the Republicans wrote. "It is clear that Mr. Jennings lacks the appropriate qualifications and ethical standards to serve in this capacity." " The Hill

I hope that the people who signed this have actually read the publication in question instead of relying on gossip they way the media did with Rush Limbaugh. Just because liberals depend on smears, doesn't mean conservatives need to.

Let's have that conversation about racism

Today I've been browsing some left of left blogs--they are very angry at Obama. Are people calling them racists or realists? You know the answer. Progressives and Socialists never call themselves racists. (But conservatives do.)

So here's a piece from City Journal by Harry Stein about the Boys who cry racism.

"That conversation is long overdue, so let’s have at it. Let’s talk, for starters, about the shocking double standard in the way liberals and conservatives are allowed to deal with race and racism. Why is it okay for liberals to belittle Clarence Thomas endlessly as an Uncle Tom? And how does liberal cartoonist Ted Rall get away with calling Condoleezza Rice a “house nigga,” and his colleague Jeff Danziger with drawing her as a mammy in a caricature as cruelly demeaning as anything in Julius Streicher’s Der Stürmer?

Let’s talk, too, about racial profiling—and start paying appropriate attention to the statistical evidence cited by Heather Mac Donald establishing that the disproportionate arrest and incarceration rates of minorities are explained not by racism but by disproportionate rates of criminality. Let’s talk about how American business has long been subject to blackmail by Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton in the name of social justice, and about the many other ways in which the regime of racial preferences has sowed division and corruption in this country. Let’s talk about how even after the Duke rape fiasco, the media continue to give credence to every racism charge; indeed, how just this week, vicious (and transparently phony) statements about race attributed to Rush Limbaugh uncritically disseminated by mainstream outlets helped sink Limbaugh’s bid for NFL ownership. And yes, let’s talk about white liberal bigotry, the bigotry of low expectations, and how it cripples and demeans those it supposedly aims to help. Exhibit A might be the recent call by the Tucson Unified School District to revamp its disciplinary system to cut down on the suspensions and expulsions of minority students (but not white ones) so that the numbers reveal “no ethnic/racial disparities.”

Are such conversations possible in contemporary America? With the liberals’ racism charge losing its power to intimidate and silence, there is at least some hope. Because finally, more and more of us are getting the message that it’s the fear of having these conversations that is truly racist."

I've also been listening to Robert Reich's speech at Berkeley Sept. 26, 2007 explaining what presidential candidates won't tell you. It's very enlightening, and I'm surprised how much he sounds like Glenn Beck, about corruption in government, in corporations, and in politicians, crazy foreign policy, why cap and trade will cost a lot of money, etc.--the villains just change. He also reminds listeners that Ben Bernanke has more power over the economy than Obama--I think Glenn has said that too. He urges the listeners to overcome cynicism and organize--the same plea that Beck leads with. But I don't think the Bush White House ever went on TV and condemned him.

What an honest President would say

This clip baffles me. Here is a Democrat actually describing Obamacare (before the fact, 2007, but after Hillarycare, 1993)--what someone would say if he were honest and honored the citizens. He seems to be joking as though it could never happen, and the audience is clapping--particularly when he said old people would need to die without treatment. What is going on here?



HT Roger's Rules

Reich is speaking at a Colloquium on Political Science at UC Berkeley on Sept. 26, 2007. You can listen to the entire speech at http://webcast.berkeley.edu/course_details.php?seriesid=1906978463. "What are the candidates not going to tell you" was the assigned topic.

Noonan used to think he talked so purty

I never could understand why Peggy Noonan ignored his words and was enamored by his style instead. She was a speech writer--words were her trade--although one with hurt feelings. But she's apparently catching on. She never looked into the Marxist beliefs that gave birth to his fuzzy words. And now that she can't understand any of it, it's like a light bulb has gone off on.

"Every big idea that works is marked by simplicity, by clarity. You can understand it when you hear it, and you can explain it to people. Social Security: Retired workers receive a public pension to help them through old age. Medicare: People over 65 can receive taxpayer-funded health care. Welfare: If you have no money and cannot support yourself, we will help as you get back on your feet.

These things are clear. I understand them. You understand them. The president's health-care plan is not clear, and I mean that not only in the sense of "he hasn't told us his plan." I mean it in terms of the voodoo phrases, this gobbledygook, this secret language of government that no one understands—"single payer," "public option," "insurance marketplace exchange." No one understands what this stuff means, nobody normal.

And when normal people don't know what the words mean, they don't say to themselves, "I may not understand, but my trusty government surely does, and will treat me and mine with respect." They think, "I can't get what these people are talking about. They must be trying to get one past me. So I'll vote no." " Pull the plug on Obamacare

You know Peggy, you can be called a racist if you disagree with his plans, policies and politics. But words are your business, and you know that isn't the definition.

Worst recession since. . . Carter

But they don't say it that way, do they? Sometimes you hear, twenty-six years, or even "the 1930s." FDR is never blamed for the Great Depression even though it dragged out another 10 years after he took office. Presidents Obama and Reagan both inherited a recession. Reagan's was much worse because he also got inflation in the deal.

"At the end of World War II, from 1945 to 1946, there was a very sharp drop in U.S. output (12.1 percent) as the war economy began its transition to a civilian economy. The deepest and longest-lasting recession the United States has experienced since then began in 1980, when Jimmy Carter was president (the gross domestic product dropped 9.6 percent in the second quarter of that year) and did not end until fourth-quarter 1982, almost two years into the Reagan presidency. There were positive quarters during this almost three-year period, resulting in what is known as a double-dip recession, but GDP did not return to the 1979 level until well into 2003. Unemployment peaked at 10.6 percent in the fall of 1982.

As can be seen in the accompanying chart, both President Reagan and President Obama inherited an economy suffering from a year of no growth, along with rising unemployment. (The numbers are almost identical.) But Mr. Reagan faced a far direr situation in that inflation was in the double digits and the prime interest rate was at 20 percent. In contrast, Mr. Obama inherited an economy in which inflation was falling (in fact, inflation has been close to zero for this year) and interest rates were very low.

A situation in which the number of jobs available is falling is bad enough, but if inflation is also destroying purchasing power, the misery is compounded. In the 1960s, economist Arthur M. Okun created the Misery Index by adding the unemployment rate to the inflation rate. In the 1976 presidential race, Jimmy Carter frequently attacked President Ford for allowing the Misery Index to reach 13.57, even though it was lower when Mr. Ford left office than what he had inherited from the Nixon years. Ironically, four years later, when President Carter was running against Ronald Reagan, the Misery Index reached a record high of 21.98. Mr. Carter had no defense and lost the election. The Misery Index dropped by more than 10 points during the Reagan presidency, the single largest improvement during any president's tenure in the last half-century." Richard W. Rahn, Cato Institute

However, if you are the one unemployed, it's 100% not 10%, and if your retirement funds have been decimated, a 10,000 Dow will take a lot of years to make up what you've lost. And whether or not you voted for the current president, in your heart you know that raising taxes is not the way to grow the economy because it's never worked before. And if you know that, and still support him, then you really don't care that people are suffering.

Hate crimes legislation added to military appropriations bill

Devious. If it's held up, then the Dems can say the opposition was against adequate defense, or against gays. If it's worthy of consideration, why sneak it into an unrelated bill? Why does the politically correct definition of "hate" only cover certain groups? I think we know. Politics and power. Did it look like love when the Chicago teen was beaten to death with a railroad tie? Most blacks are killed and assaulted by blacks; most Mexicans by Mexicans; most Chinese by Chinese; most gays by gays; and most women--by men. Assault and murder are always crimes of the mind.

There is no excuse for violence. It is intolerable in all its forms and for all its reasons. Hate and bigotry are personal perceptions that are bred by ignorance and intolerance but they are not combated by somehow claiming that the murder of one person because you hate their religion, orientation, gender, color, accent or maybe even their politics, is any less heinous than the murder of another person for any other reason. Why should someone who kills a homosexual because of their orientation be punished with any less severity than someone who kills a homosexual for their money? Why should the killer of a married mother of two receive a softer sentence because someone killed her for her car, than someone who killed her because she was a lesbian?

Square pegs into round holes

What's more hateful than killing a born-alive child intended for the abortion slop bucket? But our own President who has promised to sign off on this hate legislation, believes that sort of hate is justified.

Obama labor appointee needs a hearing

Time to e-mail your senator. Here’s an appointment that needs some old fashioned, Obama-promised transparency. Craig Becker, Associate General Counsel to both the Service Employees International Union, the joined at the hip ACORN twin, and the American Federation of Labor & Congress of Industrial Organizations. Obama has appointed him to the 5 member National Labor Relations Board. According to an op ed in today’s WSJ, in a 1993 Minnesota Law Review article, written when he was a UCLA professor, Mr. Becker argued for rewriting current union-election rules in favor of labor. And he suggested the NLRB could do this by regulatory fiat, without a vote of Congress. So it’s clear what he plans to do, and why Obama wants him on that board. More power for the executive branch, less for our elected Congress.

Acorn's Ally at the NLRB; Obama appoints an SEIU man with ties to Blago.

Mr. Labor Lobby Becker is very evasive about his role on Obama’s transition team and just which parts of executive orders he researched and authored while still in the employ of SEIU. He also has ties to Blagojevich. His open mindedness on labor issues will be about as wide and deep as Obama’s transparency--zilch, nada, zip.

We, Those People, Need to be Informed

Heritage Foundation assessment of HR 3200

Liberty Counsel assessment of HR 3200

Family Research Council Fellow Ken Blackwell Commentary

Cato Institute Analysis of Massachusetts’ Universal Health Care

God > life > choice > sex

As John C. Rankin explains "Genesis and the Declaration of Independence." If new ideas or challenging concepts fail to take root when the seeds are dropped among the weeds, don't bother to go there. He says Thomas Jefferson was a rationalist, a biblically literate man, and surrounded by biblically literate and orthodox Protestant Christians, who followed exactly the order of Genesis in writing the Declaration of Independence.

God = "Creator;"
life = "Life;"
choice = "Liberty;" and
sex = "the pursuit of happiness."

The Declaration begins with God as our Creator who endows us with unalienable rights. The first right is that of life, followed by liberty, which equals the language of choice or freedom. Then the language of the pursuit of happiness, along with that of "property" as set forth in the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, equals the domain of sex.

Human sexuality in the order of creation is based on the joining of man and woman in marriage, whereupon they establish a new household. The Greek word for "household" is oikonomos, our root for the English word "economics" (same concept as the Hebrew word bayith). The household is the basis for property rights and economic productivity, which in total yields society’s power for the pursuit of happiness.

Rankin at his website, The Theological Education Institute (TEI) promotes his "vision for "first the Gospel, then politics..." and a passion for "the love of hard questions" is always in place; where "the biblical nature of a level playing field" for all debated issues to be equally heard is in place, confident that the truth will rise to the top."

In today's charged political climate, he is indeed refreshing.

Bullying, smearing and lying work

ESPN:

"Rush Limbaugh is expected to be dropped from a group bidding to buy the St. Louis Rams, according to three NFL sources.

Dave Checketts, chairman of the NHL's St. Louis Blues and the point man in the Limbaugh group attempting to buy the Rams, realizes he must remove the controversial conservative radio host from his potential role as a minority member in the group in order to get approval from other NFL owners, the sources said.

Three-quarters of the league's 32 owners would have to approve any sale to Limbaugh and his group. Earlier this week, Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay predicted that Limbaugh's potential bid would be met by significant opposition. Several players have also voiced their displeasure with Limbaugh's potential ownership position, and NFL Players Association head DeMaurice Smith, who is black, urged players to speak out against Limbaugh's bid.

Ultimately, the sources said, Checketts must reconfigure his group and find another investor to make his bid more viable."

I wonder what the political slant is of the other owners.

Failure all around, but great words

Health care. The Obama fiasco. Why, to fix what's wrong, did he want to take over what was working?

"The whole Obama era to date has been wasted in a historic, amateurish botch of the health-care issue. This began as a crusade for social justice — to cover the uninsured, whose numbers were suitably exaggerated, as most of them are people changing jobs from one health-insuring employer to another, or foreigners resident in this country, legally or otherwise, or the indigent, who are eligible for Medicaid." Conrad Black, a fan of FDR which I am not, continues here.

This writer uses magnificent phrases and words that I can't resist parsing:

• the president moved crisply
  
• hackneyed bunk
  
• political capital is evaporating
  
• create an appetite
  
• festooned every bill with pendulous payoffs [my favorite]
  
• a monstrosity of patronage and logrolling
  
• 2/3 of the stimulus is for dispersal closer to elections
  
• unemployment is knocking at the door of 10 percent
  
• [cap and trade] was based on the unproved Al Gore science-fiction vision of the environment
  
• politically hazardous reconciliation process
  
• [proposed tax increases] subject of an indecent amount of dissembling
  
• end America’s long reign as the world’s wealthiest per capita large country
  
• locked arms to over-empower the failed regulators
  
• sat mute as suet puddings [my second favorite]
  
• criminalization of policy differences
  
• neutered by the trial lawyers
  
• suborned by the dead hand of organized labor
  
• legislators are bound hand and foot to different special interests
  
• fable about huge numbers of people building windmills
  
• the world’s love for weak or at least misguidedly diffident American leaders
  
• the world’s most odious and hostile regimes, including those of Putin, Ahmadinejad, Chávez, and the Myanmar colonels
  
• Afghanistan has become a waffle
  
• [Biden] wants to fight the cave-dwelling terrorists of Waziristan from off-shore
  
• the political scientists of Hollywood
  
• [Peggy Noonan] briefly pixilated by Obamamania
  
• more of the same, only worse

"This president has achieved less in his first nine months than any incoming president since Warren Harding. It is not too late, but it looks now like the people will vote again for change, with increasing desperation, next year and in 2012. If the country does not get leadership equal to the scale of its problems, as it did in 1860 and 1932, the decline of America will move from a slope to a fall. This emperor still has no clothes, and it is not racism to notice it."

Did you know 4.0

But turn off the music--it will drive you crazy and you don't need it.

HT Rob Darrow

Obama gets this one next

What do you mean he's not a museum or a library? Does that matter in awards?

Has Anita called yet?

We used to have real enemies like the Soviet Union and al-Qaeda, now it's Fox News. The White House has declared war on opinions and views other than their own. Gibbsy says he's watched many stories on Fox he found "not to be true." I e-mailed him and asked him to be specific, but it bounced. It's transparently clear the WH doesn't wants questions.



There are several parts--you can find them.

Cadillac insurance? Do you have it?

I used to. I worked for Ohio State University, and you just couldn't beat the benefits (salary wasn't great, though). Some I never was able to use (although they were added into my salary deductions). My husband used to say that the reason he went into business for himself was "the wife got tenure, the children left home and the cat died." My job with health benefits saved us a bundle--not on health care, but on insurance. As a partner in his former firm Feinknopf Macioce and Schappa, he was not eligible for the group plan, so his insurance was bought with before-tax dollars before I got on board at OSU--about $6,000 a year 20 years ago.

President Obama promised in September on numerous talk shows and venues that if you loved your health insurance plan nothing would change. Of course, HE LIED, as he has lied about a lot of things (Obama lied; insurance died). The so called "cadillac" option will penalize people who have them, private or job related, by taxing them out of existence. Here are two examples. First the rich guy who is paying $20,000 a year for his insurance out of his own pocket.

"Mitch Stabbe has one of these plans. He's a lawyer in Washington, D.C. Through his firm, he gets a plan that has an annual premium of more than $20,000, which he pays for himself. Stabbe is a partner, and is considered self-employed, so the firm doesn't contribute to his health coverage.

Stabbe says that when he factors in deductibles and co-payments, the family ends up spending close to $30,000 a year on health care. "That's a nice chunk of change," he says. He believes it's worth it, because otherwise the family would have huge medical costs.

Stabbe's 18-year-old son Bryan has Crohn's disease, a chronic illness that attacks the digestive system. Bryan takes a weekly oral medication, and every five to six weeks, gets an infusion of a drug called Remicade. Without insurance, the infusions alone would cost around $40,000 a year."

So maybe he's rich enough to afford the huge tax increase he'll have to pay, but last year, there were a lot of people who thought they were rich. Then the sub-prime melt down; then Bernie Maddof, etc.

Now here's the not so rich family--a secretary and her disabled husband who doesn't work. They have what I used to have--health care through a college.

"Rusty and Deb Lovell live in Concord, N.H. Rusty had to stop working about a year ago and gets Social Security disability payments. Deb earns a little over $30,000 a year as a secretary at a community college.

But her job also comes with something almost as valuable as her salary — employee health coverage from the state of New Hampshire. Deb's share of the premium cost is $60 a month. Yet when combined with what the state contributes, the total premium for her family coverage ranks in the top 4 percent of premiums in the country.

The plan is negotiated by the state employees union, and Deb says the coverage is "so important to us that we have often negotiated for keeping our insurance and foregone raises year after year."

For the Lovells, the benefit has been priceless. Eight years ago, Rusty was diagnosed with chronic myelogenous leukemia. . . Last year alone, Rusty's care cost more than $1 million. Because of their generous health insurance plan, the total cost for the Lovells came to $500 in co-payments. " Kaiser Health News

Remember, the basis for Obamacare is communal sharing, rationing of services and treatments, weighting care toward the younger members of the community instead of the elderly, with everybody being equal, and only using proven efficacious treatments. Obviously, it wouldn't be equal if the rich guy got to buy more than the state afforded a secretary, and they obviously aren't going to be able to offer Deb's insurance (top 4%) to everyone, so she'll have to be a good sport and not waste so much of health-care resources. The CBO says the government will be collecting $10 billion in "cadillac" revenue in just one year--that's why he can say it won't add to the deficit (HE LIES!). Remember, the taxes start a number of years before the changes take place, too.

I think there's a lot of college and university employees who are going to be surprised to be hit that that great leveling tax surcharge on their health insurance. A little pocket change left over is all they can hope for.

Blogger product endorsement

Alert the FTC--I'm about to do it again. Yesterday I bought an 8 oz. carton of Philadelphia spinach and artichoke cream cheese spread. Oh. My. Goodness. That's yummy. All gone.

New disclosure form

Medical journals are phasing in a standardized, more detailed disclosure form for their authors and researchers according to David Armstrong in the WSJ. And not just money, but possible personal biases--like religious and political affiliations.

"Editors of some of the world's top medical journals will soon begin to demand more stringent, uniform reporting of conflicts of interest by researchers.

The requirements will go beyond existing disclosure rules at many medical journals to include items such as financial relationships involving spouses, partners or minor children. Also required will be disclosure of nonfinancial conflicts, such as religious and political affiliations. Such disclosures are used in medical journals to alert readers to potential biases in research.

At least a dozen publications have agreed to use a new, standardized disclosure form, which will be phased in over the next several months."

I wonder how that will work? Comparing just the beliefs on abortion or euthanasia among Lutherans, Roman Catholics or Methodists, you’d see no hint that members of these groups agree on even some basics like when life begins or when it ends! Or if life even has value and worth after a certain age or disability, (see the President’s own health care czar, Ezekiel Emanuel). And politics? Is there really much difference between a Graham/Snowe and Reid/Pelosi?

Should an adopted child know the identity of his or her birth mother?

That was the title of a "forum" in the March 13, 1979 Family Circle magazine. Not much controversy about that today--the so-called "open adoption" trend has settled that for many people. Single mothers either abort or keep, depending on personal choice. So what were the points made in the bad old days of the so-called "closed" adoptions (and that's relatively new since many of these laws were put in place in the 1960s, replacing less formal agreements).

Ralph Maxfield, adult adoptee and adoptive parent: "I say absolutely not. Not all reunions follow the scripts for audience-pleasing TV specials. Many end in real-life pain and agony, as I well know. (Favored a medical and genetic information data bank to assist adoptees).

Betty Jean Lifton, journalist, authored "Twice Born; memoirs of an adopted daughter.": "We have the right to know who our birth parents are. To know your origins is a basic human need. Those who belittle this need usually know who their mothers and fathers are. They lack the empathy to understand what it's like to grow up surrounded by secrets, in ignorance of the genetic and social forces that brought you into existence."

Richard Zelinger, Children's Bureau of New Orleans: "An adoptee shouldn't know the identity of the birth parents unless there's a compelling necessity such as a serious medical problem. . . . it could destroy the adoption system. Adoptive parents would become mere custodians or at best foster parents."

Dr. Thomas Harris, author "I'm OK, you're OK.": I lean towards not telling adoptees. . . the seeking discourages them from dealing with their real problems. Many adoptees feel that knowing . . . will solve problems of personal identity and self-esteem."

Dr. William F. Reynolds, professor of psychology, author "The American Father.": "Adopted children have as much interest in their roots as other children. The inability to get accurate answers about his or her origins adds to a dangerous and unhealthy mystery that increases the child's rage and anxiety about having been given up in the first place. It's easier and healthier to deal with the truth than with phantoms. He's not seeking another mother, but his own identify."

My own view is closest to Dr. Reynolds. Except, why call people over 18 "children?" These are adults! Who cares what the reason is--medical or curiosity or genealogical hobby? No one asks me when I write for my birth certificate. Why is there one tiny subset of Americans who are denied the right to have their real birth certificate? Why should the state legislators and social workers of the early 60s still be allowed to control the lives of people 35-50 years old based on whatever pressure groups or academic theories were popular then? I think the Ohio law was passed in 1963 or 1964.

ELCA sexuality report on page 1 of New York Times

Tamar Lewin wrote the article, "Lutherans to decide whether to sanction homosexual unions" which appeared on page A1 and and A13 of the New York Times, a newspaper not known for its religious articles. Of course, that was October 1993; Ms. Lewin reported that the group had been studying the problem for four years, which would take it back to, let's see, 20 years ago, 1989. If you've been following the painful story, where the majority of the members of ELCA was nibbled and sniggled to death by a tiny minority who volunteer for these long battles, you know that the final decision was made this past August.

She also said "The draft statement does not specifically recommend that the church allow homosexual marriage. Instead, it asks the 5.6 million Lutherans, who will be deciding the church's position over the next two years, to consider whether the church should recommend lifelong abstinence for homosexuals, tolerate homosexuality or affirmatively bless unions between people of the same sex . . ." but that it didn't recommend the first choice because that might harm gay and lesbian people and their families. She also said the draft affirmed traditional marriage, which I don't think the later drafts did--not sure they even mentioned male and female, husband and wife.

Lutheran congregations are pulling out and reforming in a variety of organizations--
Word Alone, Lutheran Core and Lutheran Churches in Mission for Christ. Some Lutheran pastors and laypeople caught on very early creating these groups back in the early 90s. Some ALC congregations never joined ELCA back in 1988 merger with LCA and formed a small nationwide synod, and their numbers continue to grow and grow.

So if your church/denomination is going down this road, just get out now. Twenty years of talking, negotiating, compromising, and scripture twisting will get you where ELCA is now, divided and divorcing. The leadership of UALC (Upper Arlington Lutheran Church) has promised we will be leaving ELCA--but, as you can see, these things do take time.

Link to digitized article.

Maybe it's a little guilt about the Sami within their country

Facing mounting criticism for their noble choice: "Committee chairman Thorbjoern Jagland singled out Obama's efforts to heal the divide between the West and the Muslim world and scale down a Bush-era proposal for an anti-missile shield in Europe.

"All these things have contributed to – I wouldn't say a safer world – but a world with less tension," Jagland said Tuesday."

Norway is a tiny country. It rates very high on all the social-cultural perks--usually at the top which liberals attribute to their confiscatory taxes and socialist government and not their shared gene pool. (I'm guessing if you examined Norwegian-Americans you'd get a similar result without socialsim.) I think they've even taken in a few dispossessed non-blonde, darker skinned people over the last 30 years, like Somalis and Vietnamese. Some have even decided to become members of the family (citizens)--but they were chosen for adoption. Illegal immigration and racial dust-ups aren't much of a problem there--so they can be smug when chosing peace prize winners who speak but don't do, because that's their way too. Unless of course, you look waaaay up north at the Sami culture within Norway's borders, a very ancient, indigenous, nomadic people who were living there centuries before the "Norwegians" and who prefer to ignore man made boundaries and move their herds across Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia. No, to those people (who have many dialects) they aren't so welcoming. Whether with good intentions or bad, as a result of all the efforts of the four countries in which they live, the Sami culture will soon be reduced to some pretty costumes in cultural museums and special representation in the various parliaments.

Wade Rathke

Not good for America; not good for the world.

"Wade Rathke said on the Fox show that when funding ran out for welfare rights [the way he made his living in the 1970s] he moved to Little Rock to start his own community organizing effort, based on that same sense of endless grievance. ACORN became skilled at moral gangsterism, shaking down governments and corporations for larger and larger amounts, making ever more ridiculous demands. (A former worker said on the show she became disillusioned when she realized ACORN was asking Sherwin-Williams for $1 billion as reparations for having manufactured lead-based paint. The money, of course, would go into ACORN's coffers.)

And that's where ACORN did itself in. It wasn't just an accident that the women in ACORN offices were willing to hand out advice on how to set up a brothel and dodge income taxes by claiming underage Central American prostitutes as dependents. ACORN simply doesn't produced good citizens. The organization is saturated with the sense that the world is one big shakedown and that anything you do to increase your share is justified."

Read the whole piece by a former welfare worker of the same era, William Tucker, The Real Problem with Acorn.

The Big Black Lie

"If you were told that you were about to meet a Conservative Firebrand… one who has been seen as a speaker and as a Master of Ceremonies at Tea Parties, who has appeared on the Hannity and Glen Beck shows on FOX, is a leader in the Tea Party Coalition, and has written a book critical of the Liberal Democrats; you would probably be a bit surprised when you were introduced to Kevin Jackson. You see, Kevin Jackson is a young and athletic, affable black man with an infectious smile and charming wit.

Notice that I didn’t say African-American. Jackson says he’s an AMERICAN. Not an “African-American”. At the 9-12 rally in Quincy , IL he stated that, while Africa is a beautiful place, with some of the most beautiful flora and fauna on the planet… he wouldn’t trade one acre of a free USA for all that is Africa !

Jackson’s new book, “The BIG Black Lie – How I Learned The Truth About The Democrat Party”, challenges the political stereotypes of race, and strongly makes the case that those why cry “Racism!” the most – the liberal left and the Democrat Party – are in fact the true home of racism in America today!" Doug Edelman

Kevin's blog The Black Sphere

Do not underestimate the power of the culture of death

"We’ve learned that what was unimaginable one day can become reality the next. Today, pressures for euthanasia are building; developments in biomedicine are occurring with such speed that they have outpaced reflection on their moral implications; experiments on human embryos are fostering a mentality that treats the lives of the weak as means to the ends of the strong; and the freedoms of religion and conscience are coming under increasing threat.

Thirty years ago, who could have imagined such a thing as partial-birth abortion! When I ask myself why so many people have been slow to realize how easily today’s atrocity can become tomorrow’s routine, one answer I come up with is that it was due in part to a failure to realize something very important about choice, namely that choices last.

Each time we make policy on abortion, euthanasia, or embryonic experimentation, we are changing the moral ecology of our country. We are either helping to build the culture of life or cooperating with the culture of death. It hasn’t helped that the elite media, the powerful foundations, the sex industry, and the vast profit-making abortion industry have done their best to disguise the truth of what was happening."
Mary Ann Glendon

Rush Limbaugh should sue

"MSNBC featured the "quote" earlier in the day on Morning Meeting. It can be traced to liberal author Jack Huberman, who featured the remark in his 2006 book 101 People Who are Really Screwing Up America. The tome is available on Google Books and the statement appears on page 232 with no air date mentioned. It’s also next to a "quote" in which the author asserts Limbaugh called for the Medal of Honor to be given to the assassin of Martin Luther King. Does anyone really believe that remark was ever uttered by Limbaugh?

Instead of asking for proof, co-host Tamron Hall repeated the line to columnist Stephen A. Smith: "Should a person who says there are merits with slavery be able to have this privilege of owning a team?"" NewsBusters

This slanderous remark has no source. It gets repeated over and over--if you google it you can find thousands. You don't think the Clintons would have found this back in the 90s to stop his attacks on them? The "real" media, the journalism degree people, keep repeating it and not checking. How does that make them any better than bloggers, or Glenn Beck who seem to be cleaning their clocks on real investigative journalism? Rush is an entertainer who wants to make an investment in a football team. Entertainers go after libelous slurs all the time. Go for it, Rush.

And btw, not that this has anything to do with NFL, but it is entertainment--is there anything Rush Limbaugh has said that can top the racist, misogynist, woman hating lyrics in hip-hop music? The singers may be black, but the investors, owners and buyers are mostly white.