In our nation's capital, abortion can be performed right up to the final day of gestation, and for any reason. Is it any wonder our country has sunk so low?
"The toughest part of a D&E abortion is extracting the baby’s head. The head of a baby that age is about the size of a large plum and is now free floating inside the uterine cavity. You can be pretty sure you have hold of it if the Sopher clamp is spread about as far as your fingers will allow. You know you have it right when you crush down on the clamp and see white gelatinous material coming through the cervix. That was the baby’s brains. You can then extract the skull pieces. Many times a little face may come out and stare back at you. Congratulations! You have just successfully performed a second-trimester Suction D&E abortion.”http://www.lifenews.com/2012/05/28/doctor-who-once-did-late-abortions-now-says-ban-them/
Monday, May 28, 2012
Abortion laws in DC need to be changed
Did Romney and Bain Capital create jobs?
Many, many thousands at Staples, Sports Authority, Gartner Group, Steel Dynamics, and save others by creating turn arounds. Now let’s compare those tens of thousands of jobs created with how many Barack Obama’s administration has created by frivolously throwing tax dollars at campaign contributors and union buddies.
“There are two ways to look at job creation. The first is to look at jobs created and lost in Bain Capital’s companies at the time Romney left Bain Capital at the beginning of 1999. The second is to look at jobs created and lost in those same companies today. This gives Romney and Bain Capital credit for having invested in those companies when they were young. It is inappropriate to include companies that Bain Capital invested in after Romney left because he did not have any impact on those investments.” . . .
“Among Bain Capital’s investments under Romney, the large job creators are clearly Staples and Sports Authority. Both of these were small, young companies when Bain Capital invested in them. Bain invested in Staples when it had only one store, so there were likely fewer than 200 employees at the time. Bain appears to have invested in the Sports Authority when it had fewer than ten stores. Unfortunately, there are no public data to say how many people were employed at that time. At the end of 1998, Staples had more than 42,000 employees, Sports Authority had almost 14,000, Gartner Group had almost 3,000, and Steel Dynamics had over 500. So at the beginning of 1999, when Romney left Bain Capital, these four companies alone employed almost 60,000 total employees. While some of the job growth at Sports Authority came from acquisitions, there is no doubt that these four companies created tens of thousands of jobs over the period.
Fast forward to today. By the end of 2011, Staples had about 89,000 employees. Sports Authority is now a private company. The last time it reported employee numbers, in 2006, it had 14,300 employees. In addition, Gartner Group had over 4,400 and Steel Dynamics had over 6,000 employees. Using the most recently available data, these four companies alone employed almost 125,000 total employees.
Bain Capital also successfully turned around several existing businesses during Romney’s tenure. For example, Bain Capital bought Wesley Jessen Vision Care for $6 million in 1994. It had been a division of Schering Plough and was not profitable. Bain Capital and a new CEO turned it around and sold it to Ciba Geigy for over $300 million in 2001. When it was sold, it appears to have had 2,600 employees. Today, the company is part of Ciba Vision.
Overall, then, the companies Bain Capital funded under Romney have created tens of thousands of jobs using any measure.”
http://www.american.com/archive/2012/january/how-many-jobs-did-romney-create-at-bain
Sunday, May 27, 2012
It's about relgious freedom--The First Amendment!
You'll hear the current administration refer to "freedom of worship" rather than "freedom of religion." They are not the same--even the constitution of the USSR guaranteed "feedom of worship." Our Constitution guarantees us that the government will not interfer with religion--that is the "separation" we are to have, not the other way around. Our founders came from Europe where the King was often also the head of the church. It looks like that is happening again, with the President deciding what is worship and what is religion.
Saturday, May 26, 2012
How was your Winter?
I’ve had 2 wonderful morning walks along the Lakefront enjoying the iris, roses, poppies and the annuals that many people have already planted. I bought 2 flats of impatiens on Thursday which my husband planted yesterday. We are hoping we can keep them alive on a limited watering schedule until we’re able to be here on a daily basis at the end of June.
The Heritage Society is having its sale at South Auditorium, and many cottage owners have set up tables in front of their homes, too. One I stopped at this morning seemed to have all manner of furniture of various eras and designed painted in the same 4 colors--white, soft green, light yellow and cream, plus many attractive home décor items. Sort of “shabby chic” but not quite. So I asked the owner, who was putting them out. He said every thing had come from the dump or dumpster or put out for pick up. He repairs them, paints them and then has a sale. Not sure if the sale is for one of the local organizations, or his own purse. There was a lovely wicker 2 seater, with a slightly damage leg--better condition than ours--for $19, but I passed on that. The next one, if I replace this, will have to be sturdier. So often they come in sets, and we have 2 good chairs.
The deck has been scrubbed down, the porch roof swept, the grass mowed, the flowers planted, the weeds pulled, and the bushes were trimmed a week ago. Last October we planned to replace the toilet with a taller (old folks) more efficient model, but when it came up, a leak was found which damaged the floor, so that all had to be replaced, and then we decided to also raise the sink 3 inches to a more comfortable height, so the plumbing had to be extended. We also had the basement cleaned out and painted white. It looks very nice, but all this is to say that a cottage isn’t a boat with a hole in it where you throw money, but it sure is close!
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
Getting to know you, getting to know all about you . . .
“According to hagiography, Barack Obama was born to a hippy girl from an insignificant family and raised in poor circumstances, out of which he rose through brilliance. Yet his haughty demeanor, his stilted language when off the teleprompter, his cultural likes and dislikes, bespeak an upbringing in an environment at once so upscale and so leftist that it makes him almost a foreigner to ordinary Americans. No one raised in ordinary American circumstances, much less straitened ones, would cite with a straight face, as Obama did, the price of arugula at Whole Foods, the yuppie boutique, as an example of the cost of living. No one at home in American culture could refer to a U.S. Marine medical corpsman as a "corpse-man." Nor do ordinary folk talk about (or even understand) the need to "change the rules of power" in America. "Rules of power" belongs to the argot of doctrinaire nouveau socialists. How many American college kids would describe, as did Obama, his studying with Marxist professors as an attempt not to look like a "sell out"? No. Obama's official story is counterintuitive.
Consistent with the Barack Obama we know, however, are his real family, his real upbringing, and his real choices of profession and associates. His mother's parents, who raised him, seem to have been cogs in the U.S. government's well-heeled, well-connected machine for influencing the world, whether openly ("gray influence") or covertly ("black operations"). His mother spent her life and marriages, and birthed her children, working in that machine. For paradigms of young Barack's demeanor, proclivities, opinions, language, and attitudes one need look no further than the persons who ran the institutions that his mother and grandparents served—e.g., the Ford Foundation, the United States Information Agency, and the Central Intelligence Agency—as well as his chosen mentors and colleagues. It is here, with these people and institutions, that one should begin to unravel the unknowns surrounding him.”
“. . . In sum, though the only evidence available is circumstantial, Barack Obama, Jr.'s mother, father, stepfather, grandmother, and grandfather seem to have been well connected, body and soul, with the U.S. government's then extensive and well-financed trans-public-private influence operations.”
http://www.claremont.org/publications/crb/id.1852/article_detail.asp
Pow Wow Chow
“Elizabeth Warren was touting her claim of Cherokee heritage as early as 1984, according to a cookbook titled “Pow Wow Chow” edited by her cousin that includes Warren’s recipes for a savory crab omelet and spicy barbecued beans.
The cookbook, edited by Warren’s cousin Candy Rowsey, is a compilation of “special recipes passed down through the Five Tribes families,” according to the introduction in a copy obtained by the Herald.
Warren, who has been under fire for claiming Indian lineage despite a lack of documentation, is identified as “Elizabeth Warren, Cherokee” under each of five recipes she contributes in the cookbook, published in 1984 by the Five Civilized Tribes Museum located in Muskogee. Warren is not listed as an official member of the Cherokee tribe and she has been unable thus far to document her claim of any Native American heritage.”
Grandpa, tell me ‘bout the good old days
Grandpa, everything is changing fast
We call it progress
But I just don't know
And Grandpa, let's wander back into the past
And paint me the picture
Of long ago
The New Left of the 60s and 70s is the parent and grandparent of today's Occupiers making a mess in Chicago, Boston and New York. Instead of Vietnam, they are protesting NATO, or anything else that isn’t nailed down. What they have in common is the belief that evil is outside man, somewhere out there in society, and if they scream and yell and march enough, they might be able to come up with a plan. It seemed to work for Bill Ayers, who bombed some buildings in his youth as a member of the Weather Underground, and then after obtaining a cushy tenured position at the U. of Ill. helped groom a president.
Jay Carney has developed the Obama stutter
“Wendell Goler: The President has voiced support for the Occupy folks in the past, or at least their goals, did their actions in Chicago sour his support?
Jay Carney: Well I think you’re making broad comparisons between . . . uh . . . uh . . . different groups, what the President has said in the past is . . . uh . . . he has understood . . . uh . . . the frustrations Americans have about (pause) the (pause) failure in particular of Wall Street in some cases to . . . uh . . . uh, (pause) well obviously Wall Street’s role in the financial crisis that precipitated the worst recession since the Great Depression.”
Disco—it’s not just about Donna Summer
Wonder why race relations don't improve? While browsing a news story about Ohio State I found a piece of it: Faculty of Color Caucus of the Department of History; the Race, Ethnicity, and Nation Constellation of the Department of History; and DISCO, Diversity and Identity Studies Collective at OSU. Great for expanding opportunities for bureaucracies and listings on resumes, but do they benefit students or just expand grievances and victimhood? What can you do with a degree in victimology? Become a community organizer?
When job opportunities expand, neighborhoods are integrated, black and white children play together, the need for "leadership" drops as people do what comes naturally--friendships, collegiality, neighborliness--the definition needs to be expanded to keep the race baiters employed and receiving their block grants and research money.
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
If both sides are reasonable. . .
The left and right can discuss political issues--when it's Glenn Beck and his guest Canadian Muslim Marxist Tarek Fatah ("The Jew is not my enemy" is the title of his latest book) tonight on GBTV. So why not friends, neighbors, fellow church members and families? I personally believe it’s because “liberals aren’t.” Views different than their own are threatening because they are rarely outside their bubble protected by the media. Beck, however, wants his listeners to hear more than one viewpoint even when he disagrees with it.
Tarek Fatah actually has respect for the rights and traditions of Western civilization. Born in Pakistan and a Canadian citizen, Fatah was very candid about the hatred many Muslims, including his own relatives, have for blacks and how they sat out the civil rights movement. He considers the Muslim Brotherhood fascists, racists, homophobes and haters of women. He also believes the Saudis are funding programs in many American liberal universities. He said Arabic for "my slave" is the same word for "black man." I know of no country that has espoused Marxism that has been tolerant of blacks, so I’m still puzzled that he claims Marxism as his political choice.
Arab Spring brings in Sharia Law
What a shocker. The Right was right again! The Arab Spring so touted by liberals, including the President and Pelosi, a year ago is turning out exactly the way the crazy conspiracy talkers said--imposition of Sharia Law. Liberals just don't learn.
" . .women’s rights activists are particularly worried that the well-organized Muslim Brotherhood will use its religious and charitable groups to encourage uneducated and poor women to vote for its candidate, Mohammed Morsi. Morsi opposes women being allowed to serve in the presidency. He has called for the implementation of Islamic law and, at campaign rallies, referred to Islam’s holy book, the Koran, as the constitution."
Snorkeling, surfing and Zumba?
Yes, that’s on the Judges’ agenda at the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals judicial conference on the beautiful island of Maui, HI (tax payer funded). They have the tastes of the 1%. And probably the income. Schedule from The Kitchen Cabinet, a political site.
Saturday, August 11
1...2:00 p.m. – Conference Registration desk opens
Sunday, August 12
5:30 a.m. – 11:30 a.m. – Sport Fishing
12:00 p.m. – Golf Tournament
Monday, August 13
9:00 a.m. – Yoga
9:00 a.m. – Surfing Lessons
9:00 a.m. – Stand-up Paddle Board Lessons
12:00 p.m. – Welcome Luncheon & Book Review for Spouses & Guests
2:00 p.m. – Zumba
4:30 p.m. – Opening Program
6:00 p.m. – No-host Cocktail Reception
7:00 p.m. – Maui Dine Around
Tuesday, August 14
9:00 a.m. – Yoga
9:00 a.m. – Surfing Lessons
9:00 a.m. – Stand-up Paddle Board Lessons
1:00 p.m. – Tennis Tournament
2:00 p.m. – Floral Design Workshop (includes flowers & supplies)
7:00 p.m. – District Dinners
Wednesday, August 15
9:00 a.m. – Yoga
9:00 a.m. – Surfing Lessons
9:00 a.m. – Stand-up Paddle Board Lessons
9:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m. – Day Trip and Tour of Upcountry Maui
11:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m. – Gemini Catamaran Snorkel Trip (includes gear & lunch)
2:45 p.m. – A special treat! Ice Cream Social
6:00 p.m. – The Aloha Experience
Thursday, August 16
9:00 a.m. – Yoga
9:00 a.m. – Stand-up Paddle Board Lessons
A few book suggestions for your conservative dad for Father’s Day
** means I checked it in the UAPL library and it has been ordered or purchased. In the past (aka Bush years) there was a very poor selection of conservative titles. This has changed.
On President Obama
The Amateur: Barack Obama in the White House by Edward Klein, Regnery Publishing, 2012. **
Blacklash: How Obama and the Left Are Driving Americans to the Government Plantation by Daneen Borelli, Threshold editions, 2012. **
Fast and Furious: Barack Obama's Bloodiest Scandal and the Shameless Cover-Up by Katie Pavlich, Regnery Publishing, 2012 **
Masters of Audacity and Deceit, by William E. Been, Tate Publishing, 2011.
Democracy Denied: How Obama is Ignoring You and Bypassing Congress to Radically Transform America - and How to Stop Him, by Phil Kerpen, BenBella Books, 2011.
We've Been Had: How Obama and the Radicals Conned Middle Class America, by James R. Keena, Twin Creek Books, 2010.
Breaking the System: The Obama Team’s Strategy for Changing America, by David Horowitz and Liz Blaine, David Horowitz Freedom Center, 2010.
The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration's War on America, by Pamela Geller with Robert Spencer, Threshold Editions, 2010. **
To Save America: Stopping Obama’s Secular-Socialist Machine, by Newt Gingrich and Joe DeSantis, Regnery Press, 2010, 2011 **
The Manchurian President: Barack Obama’s Ties to Communists, Socialists and Other Anti-American Extremists, by Aaron Klein with Brenda J. Elliott, WND Books, 2010. Rev. updated ed. pb **
Culture of Corruption: Obama and His Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks, and Cronies, by Michelle Malkin, Regnery Press, first edition, 2009, 2010 reprint edition in paperback. **
The Audacity of Deceit: Barack Obama's War on American Values, by Brad O'Leary, WND Books, 2008.
The Case Against Barack Obama: The Unlikely Rise and Unexamined Agenda of the Media's Favorite Candidate, by David Freddoso, Regnery Publishing, 2008. **
On other issues
The Voting Wars: From Florida 2000 to the Next Election Meltdown, by Richard L. Hasen, Yale University Press, forthcoming: expected publication summer 2012 **
The New Leviathan: How the Left-Wing Money-Machine Shapes American Politics and Threatens America's Future, by David Horowitz and Jacob Laksin, Crown Forum, 2012. **
The Compromising of America: An American Tragedy, by Richard McKenzie Neal, AuthorHouse, 2011.
Resurgent: How Constitutional Conservatism Can Save America, by Ken Blackwell and Ken Klukowski, Threshold Editions, 2011.
The New Reagan Revolution: How Ronald Reagan's Principles Can Restore America's Greatness Today, by Michael Reagan with Jim Denney, Thomas Dunne Books, 2011. **
Death by Liberalism: The Fatal Outcome of Well-Meaning Liberal Policies, by J.R. Dunn, Harper, 2011.
Global Governance, Poverty and Inequality, by Rorden Wilkinson and Jennifer Clapp (editors), Routledge, 2010.
Dissed Trust: America's Crisis of Truth, Faith, and Freedom, by William DeMersseman, WestBow Press, 2010.
Wake Up, America! We're Headed in the Wrong Direction, by Suzanne Vergotte, iUniverse.com, 2010.
Power Grab: How Obama’s Green Policies Will Steal Your Freedom and Bankrupt America, by Christopher C. Horner, Regnery Press, 2010.
The Blueprint: How the Democrats Won Colorado (and Why Republicans Everywhere Should Care), by Rob Witwer and Adam Schrager, Speaker's Corner, 2010.
Courting Disaster: How the CIA Kept America Safe and How Barack Obama is Inviting the Next Attack, by Marc Thiessen, Regnery Press, 2010. **
Candidate Obama vs. Author Obama
In 2008, Candidate Barack Obama said some very different things than the autobiographical Barack Obama (listed as Kenyan born by his agent for 20 years) wrote in 1995, Dreams from my father. Some people caught on, like Michael Gledhill of NRO—but most people ignored the warnings. As we’ve discovered in these past 3+ years, he doesn’t tell the truth, lives in a fantasy world, and is a huge narcissist, even to the extent of inserting his name and alleged accomplishments into all the biographies of the presidents since Coolidge except Gerald Ford at the White House web site. Was he telling us his true feelings in his book, or on the campaign trail, or in the self-absorbed behavior of his presidency? I think the book was closer to his real feelings—he disliked the United States then, and hates us now.
Candidate Obama claims that “throughout my life, I have always taken my deep and abiding love for this country as a given.” He tells us his “heart swells with pride at the sight of our flag.”
In Dreams, his heart swells at many things but the sight of the flag certainly isn’t one of them. There he presents a warts-only history of the U.S., a story of evil and suffering. U.S. society is a “racial caste system” where “color and money” determine where you end up in life. He tells us of white children’s stoning black children, Jim Crow, and heatless Harlem housing projects. He describes “Japanese families interned behind barbed wire; young Russian Jews cutting patterns in Lower East Side sweatshops; dust-bowl farmers loading up their trucks with the remains of shattered lives.”
Obama says the Hawaiian islands, where he grew up, are beautiful, but quickly reminds us that behind the beauty lurks the “ugly conquest of the native Hawaiians . . . crippling disease brought by missionaries . . . the indenturing system that kept Japanese, Chinese, and Filipino immigrants stooped sunup to sunset in [the fields].”
Candidate Obama proudly tells audiences that his white grandparents were raised in the American heartland. But in Dreams he describes this heartland as the “landlocked center of the country, a place where decency and endurance and the pioneer spirit were joined at the hip with conformity and suspicion and the potential for unblinking cruelty.”
Candidate Obama fondly tells audiences that one of his earliest memories is of sitting on his grandfather’s shoulders proudly watching the Apollo astronauts return to Hawaii after their splashdown in the Pacific. But in Dreams, even this event is an occasion for outrage, as Obama asks: “How could America send men into space and still keep its black citizens in bondage?”
American affluence offends Obama. The vast upper-middle class lives in a land of isolation and sterility. As a teenager, he envies the white homes in the suburbs but senses that the big pretty houses contain “quiet depression” and “loneliness,” represented by “a mother sneaking a tumbler of gin in the afternoon.” American consumer culture is comforting but mentally and spiritually numbing, yielding a “long hibernation.”
Studying U.S. law at Harvard, Obama concludes it is mainly about “expediency or greed.” Working in a large modern corporation, he sees himself as a “spy behind enemy lines.” Even science and technology draw his disdain as he warns of “technology that spits out goods from its robot mouth.”
Finishing Dreams, I could not recall a single positive sentence about the United States or European society.
Monday, May 21, 2012
Why 43 Catholic institutions are suing the government
“Effectively, the mandate prohibits us from asking what we’ve asked for more than 200 years, “Are you hungry?” Now we also have to ask, “Are you Catholic?” To qualify for the exemption, and so to be permitted to follow their beliefs, Catholic institutions may have to stop providing educational opportunities to as many non-Catholics as they currently educate, stop serving as many non-Catholics in need as they currently serve, and stop employing some of the non-Catholic employees they currently employ. But this kind of withdrawal from the world violates our religious commitment to serve all in need without regard to religion.
The exemption also involves an invasive federal government inquiry into an organization’s religious beliefs and practices, conferring powers on government forbidden by the Constitution. Specifically, for an institution to know whether it meets the government’s definition, it must submit to a governmental investigation whereby federal employees determine the religion of those employed and served by the entity, whether their beliefs are the same as the institution, and whether the institution hires and serves “primarily” those of in agreement.”
Christians on the left
The Religious Left consists of three groups – the evangelical Left, the mainline Protestant Left, and the Roman Catholic Left. The Religious Left parallels the Political Left. Through their own organizations (all tax exempt) they advocate for “distributive justice,” not God’s justice. They receive money from the government and from their own denominations and members to achieve their goals—feeding the poor, training the unemployed, rehabbing houses, and offering a variety of shelters for the illegal, the battered woman—everyone but the unborn. The Good News of Jesus written in the Gospels and in the Epistles is a reflection of the values and ethics of the Old Testament, but leftist Christians have distorted the Biblical view of justice with the idea that government needs to redistribute goods and services through taxation to achieve justice. This can only be done through coercion and force, but for Christians it should be through charity and tithe. These Christians fail to see that they are enslaving people to the state, both the “donors” and the beneficiaries and muzzling their own pastors in the pulpit with “tax breaks.”
Sunday, May 20, 2012
Obama pandering to women
So college grads don’t have their dream job and are mooching off or having bills for tech toys and vacations paid for by mom and dad? Bigger government can give you "unemployment benefits," but not necessarily "employment benefits." They need to re-read the history of the Great Depression—how FDR extended it for a decade while convincing the voters more government was the answer.
Look, Obama chose this route when he went after healthcare in 2009, further shaking up the economy and pressing it down. If you're unemployed, or your kids are, think about who you're voting for in November.
This writer gets it right, but still is an Obama supporter. I don’t get it!
The women I know who are struggling in this economy couldn’t be further from the fictional character of Julia, presented in Mr. Obama’s Web ad, “The Life of Julia,” a silly and embarrassing caricature based on the assumption that women look to government at every meaningful phase of their lives for help.
My cousin in Louisiana started a small company with a little savings, renovating houses. A single mom, she saved enough to buy a home and provide child care for her son. When the economy went belly up, so did her company. She was forced to sell her home and move in with her parents. She has found another job, but doesn’t make enough to move out. Family, not government, has been everything to her at this time of crisis. She, and they, wouldn’t have it any other way.
Saturday, May 19, 2012
The Democrat who launched the War on Poverty
Atlantic, "The unfinished war," January 1989
The life of Julia
I haven’t seen the campaign cartoon by the Obama camp called “The Life of Julia,” only reviews and parodies. Is it appearing on YouTube? I think it would be too long for TV attention. It’s about Obama sucking up to the women’s vote, although why women want to be portrayed as such helpless, hopeless victims in constant need of a man like Uncle Sam, I have no idea.
Breaking the spiral of silence
Does my butt make these jeans look tight?
At Panera’s this morning there was a woman and a teen-age athlete (knew this from the school name and sport on his jacket) waiting for their take-out orders. An attractive blonde came in whose jeans were so tight, they could have been painted on her skin. How she got in and out of the car without bursting a seam, I don’t know. How she breathed. . . you get the idea. The waiting woman took a long, hard look at her back side, then looked away. The teen was trying to look any where butt there; I think he’d just signed a chastity pledge.
Friday, May 18, 2012
Who’s fault is it?
[snark] I know who ordered that pizza, who bought that bag of chips and forced open my mouth. Yes, someone in the 1% who needs to be taxed more so I'll eat more fruits and vegetables which I grew in my backyard.
Have you ever looked at photographs of the over 50 crowd in 1910 or 1950—before the days of fast food restaurants, or 32 oz. bottles of coke? Yup. They are fat. What’s different today is how heavy the young people are. For that I think we can give thanks to the women’s movement of the 1970s, and less time playing outdoors. Women in the 1970s didn’t really calculate how much of their income was being taxed at a confiscatory rate [tacked onto their husband’s rate], and they were tired after working and driving, so they began taking the kids out to eat. The restaurant industry and the processed food industry responded to the market, and so the next generation barely knew how to make a white sauce or hard cook an egg. That gave rise to cooking shows and gourmet clubs and more food advertising, which lent itself to more and more government regulation.
See how neatly this all fits together? Instead of blaming an industry or an agency, just eat less and move more.
Thursday, May 17, 2012
From the fabulous fifties
One of the most popular TV shows in the 1950s was Bishop Fulton J. Sheen, a handsome Catholic priest. I'm not sure how I knew about him because my parents didn't have a TV, but I knew. Everyone knew who he was. He was drawing 30,000,000 viewers a week when our population was only about 172 million and 42 million households had a TV.
The other day I heard a story about him. A man sat down next to him on a plane, and noticing his collar, began to unload on him all his gripes about the church. Just a bunch of hypocrites, liars, losers, pettiness, etc. So Bishop Sheen looked at him and said, "How much did you steal?" Turns out he was an usher at his church and had been dipping into the collection plate (which he confessed to Sheen probably in shock). By then I was in the garage and turned off the radio, but it was probably the end of the story. Might be why he was so popular--he really knew people.
John Willson on Education
Testing for PC Truth
Elizabeth Warren should be laughed out of the race—the political race, not the Cherokee race
I heard on the radio today that slightly over 50% of babies born in the U.S. today are minority/ethnic. I'm not surprised. All it takes to be a native American these days is high cheekbones and a story your grandmother told. Blond and blue eyed Elizabeth Warren was named Harvard's first woman faculty of color.
http://bostonherald.com/news/opinion/editorials/view/20220517harvards_woman_of_color
“. . . Politico.com reported a 1997 Fordham Law Review piece described the blue-eyed, blond-haired Warren as Harvard Law School’s “first woman of color.”
A footnote attributed the information to a telephone interview with then Harvard Law news director Michael Chmura, who was also apparently the source for a 1996 Harvard Crimson piece describing Warren as Native American.
In the Fordham piece on the subject of affirmative action its author Laura Padilla wrote, “In my three years at Stanford Law School, there were no professors who were women of color. Harvard Law School hired its first woman of color, Elizabeth Warren, in 1995.” “
Co-opting the churches
Before the Nazis of 1930s Germany began killing homosexuals, gypsies, the disabled and Jews, they infiltrated the Christian churches, both Catholic and Protestant. Christians became divided into 3 groups, the "brown shirt" Christians who owed their allegiance to Hitler not Christ and were allowed freedom of assembly, the nominal Christians whose lives went on as usual with time out for baptisms, confirmations and weddings as though nothing evil was going on, and the "confessing Christians" who attempted to keep in place the teachings of Christ and met and prayed in secret.
It wasn't difficult to divide them--they were already weak. The 19th century German theologians had pretty much decided that the Bible was a collection of fables, tales, and pieces of edited material from other ancient cultures. The Nazis then stepped in and declared the Old Testament was Jewish, and therefore, condemned it. Sort of declared it "hate speech" as it were. Wasn't to be read, taught or followed.
How far distant are we in 2012? How many pastors and priests in the pulpit today learned at the dead clay feet of 19th century German scholars at seminaries; how many Christians today think God's justice, peace, and blessings must come at the command and hand of the state through taxation, regulation and 501 C 3 non-profits which muzzle the church’s prophetic message?
From reading Bonhoeffer by Eric Metaxas.
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
Booker T. Washington meets Occupy Wall Street
“In meeting crowds of people at public gatherings, there is one type of individual that I dread. I mean the crank. I have become so accustomed to these people now that I can pick them out at a distance when I see them elbowing their way up to me. The average crank has a long beard, poorly cared for, a lean, narrow face and wears a black coat. The front of his vest and coat are slick with grease, and his trousers bag at the knees.
In Chicago, after I had spoken at a meeting, I met one of these fellows. They usually have some process for curing all of the ills of the world at once. This Chicago specimen had a patent process by which he said Indian corn could be kept through a period of three or four years, and he felt sure that if the Negro race in the South would, as a whole, adopt his process, it would settle the whole race question. It mattered nothing that I tried to convince him that our present problem was to teach the Negroes how to produce enough corn to last them through one year. Another Chicago crank had a scheme by which he wanted me to join him in an effort to close up all the National banks in the country. If that was done, he felt sure it would put the Negro on his feet.”
From Up From Slavery, an autobiography http://xroads.virginia.edu/~hyper/washington/ch15.html
HIV and HBV
Worldwide, hepatitis B virus (HBV) is the leading cause of chronic liver disease and death, accounting for up to half of all cases of cirrhosis and liver cancer. Four hundred million people are infected with HBV in Asia and Africa with the infection occurring through perinatal transmission (before and after birth). In more developed countries HBV is most often acquired during adolescence or adulthood through sex and drugs. Statistics from NEJM May 10, 1012.
Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infects about 33 million people worldwide, the majority in Asia and Africa. According to the CDC, gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men (MSM)1 represent approximately 2% of the US population, yet are the population most severely affected by HIV and are the only risk group in which new HIV infections have been increasing steadily since the early 1990s. Since the beginning of the US epidemic, MSM have consistently represented the largest percentage of persons diagnosed with AIDS and persons with an AIDS diagnosis who have died.
“HBV is 100 times easier to transmit sexually than HIV ( the virus that causes AIDS). HBV has been found in vaginal secretions, saliva, and semen. Therefore, it doesn’t matter if a person’s sexual partner is of the same or the opposite gender. If one partner has hepatitis B, the other one can get it. Oral sex and especially anal sex regardless (whether it occurs in a heterosexual or homosexual context), are possible ways of transmitting the virus.” http://www.liverdisease.com/hbvtransmission.html
Medical advancements can help, but humans obeying God’s laws of chastity and marriage will do miracles for global health.
NOISE, newly revised book on media culture
“NOISE, by Teresa Tomeo, a veteran broadcast journalist in both the Catholic and secular markets, makes a compelling and irrefutable case about the dangers of our dominant media culture—and the liberalism and immorality that comes with it.
Tomeo gives a sobering analysis of each of the nine dominant forms of media, revealing how they are rapidly dismantling families and destroying lives, and what we can do about it.”
Are you sick of “The View”
It’s not a TV program I watch, but occasionally I do catch a reference to it, or see it when flipping/clicking channels in the summer when we don’t have cable. Now there is “The Catholic View for Women.” WHOA! You’re not Catholic? Your beliefs and ethics probably don’t reflect what you see on The View, or Oprah, of Ellen either, but they are tolerated. I heard about this show because I occasionally listen to Teresa Tomeo on the radio when I’m in the car. She’s good. These women sort of have the classic “coming home” Catholic stories—swept up into the women’s movement, cafeteria Catholic, no training in their faith, and attended church at Christmas and Easter—just like a lot of Protestant women. Although I’m a Lutheran, the women on Catholic View for Women are much closer to God than the women on secular, sexy, sexist television.
You have a lot more in common with these women than you do Oprah or Ellen or, God forbid, Joy Behar.
http://www.thecatholicviewforwomen.com/episodes/episode-1.aspx
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
How does a Tea (taxed enough already) Party Congressman vote?
Repeal ObamaCare YES
Strike pork funding for drug intelligence center YES
Eliminate Legal Services Corporation YES
Cut energy subsidies YES
Strike funding for NLRB NO [Yes]
Cut Amtrak grants YES
Cut most continuing appropriations spending 5.5% YES
Stop many new leases for oil and gas drilling NO
Roll back most spending in the bill to 2006 levels YES
Limit Davis Bacon YES
Passage of continuing appropriations billNO
DC school vouchers YES
Bar EPA from passing greenhouse gas regulations YES
Disapprove Internet regulations YES
Republican Study Cmte. Budget YES
Bar funding for speech regulations YES
Cut agriculture dept. spending bill by 5% YES
Cut ethanol subsidy YES
Strike new flood insurance programs YES
Eliminate federally subsidized flood insurance program YES
Cut Energy - Water appropriations bill spending by 5% YES
Pass Cut, Cap and Balance YES
Cut Botanic Garden funding by $3 million YES
Cut Interior-Environment appropriations by $3 billion YES
Increase debt limit NO
Limit NLRB's powers YES
Pass Colombia trade agreement YES
Pass Panama trade agreement YES
Pass South Korea trade agreement YES
Revive expanded trade adjustment assistance NO
Pass bloated spending bill for five departments NO
Require congressional approval of major regulations YES
Impose 3.6% income tax surtax NO
Pass bloated omnibus appropriations bill NO
*Didn't sign discharge petition on anti-trade bill YES
*Sign Cut, Cap and Balance Pledge Letter YES
*Sign Letter in opposition to debt ceiling increase "compromise"
YES
Get over yourself isn’t good advice for Obama
"Obama should get beyond his own narcissism and realize that, win or lose in November, he's just a temporary part of something that's bigger than himself."
This is dumb advice. A narcissist doesn't believe he is bragging, haughty or shameless, and he believes the most important event in the history of the world is his own existence. So he can't very well move beyond what he doesn't know is there.
Browsing through “For the Good of Illinois”
This website for corruption and fraud in Illinois works similar to one we have in Ohio. “We educate, engage and empower citizens to demand a transparent, accountable and limited government.”
“United Neighborhood Organization is getting $98 Million. Sounds like a nice organization. I decided to google them. Their home page is http://www.uno-online.org/. It states that it is “Modeled after the Saul Alinsky style of community organizing.” If you don’t know who Saul Alinsky is, google “Saul Alinsky Marxist”. The CEO of UNO is a gentleman by the name of Juan Rangel. He also happens to be one of Rahm Emanuel’s campaign co-chairman. “
http://forthegoodofillinois.org/blog/2011/01/springfields-dirty-little-secret/
Roger Eddy [Hutsonville superintendent] is a poster boy example of Illinois public greed. We are confident that Roger Eddy’s total compensation will exceed $300,000 per year- when our Freedom of Information Act Request regarding Roger Eddy’s taxpayer funded health insurance as a state rep is fullfilled. We’ve called on Eddy to release the number, he refuses to do so. UPDATE: State of Illinois rejects request saying that the citizens DON’T have a right to know what the state is paying for the Eddy family health coverage, click here to read.
With two base salaries equaling $181,969; Roger Eddy outearns every governor of the 50 states. Source: The Book of States 2010.
http://forthegoodofillinois.org/blog/2012/02/roger-eddy-makes-289078-per-year-at-taxpayer-expense/
In late 2010, the Bellville News Democrat “reported that nearly 389 Menard employees received $10 million from taxpayers for workers’ compensation injuries. More than 230 claims were filed by guards for repetitive trauma damage to their wrists and elbows that were caused by locking and unlock cell doors.” This must be due to the extra hard springs and mechanics inside Illinois prison doors. Regardless, the story triggered a Federal investigation, which seems to be on-going.
It also triggered HR 131, which can be read here.
http://forthegoodofillinois.org/blog/2012/05/auditors-report-proves-the-need-for-forensic-audits/
Only in America, a viral e-mail worth posting
ONLY IN AMERICA ...
Only in America could politicians talk about the greed of the rich at a $35,000 a plate campaign fund raising event.
Only in America could people claim that the government still discriminates against black Americans when we have a black President, a black Attorney General, and roughly 18% of the federal workforce is black.
Only in America could we have had the two people most responsible for our tax code, Timothy Geithner, the head of the Treasury Department and Charles Rangel who once ran the Ways and Means Committee, BOTH turn out to be tax cheats who are in favor of higher taxes.
Only in America can we have terrorists kill people in the name of Allah and have the media primarily react by fretting that Muslims might be harmed by the backlash.
Only in America would we make people who want to legally become American citizens wait for years in their home countries and pay tens of thousands of dollars for the privilege while we discuss letting anyone who sneaks into the country illegally just become American citizens.
Only in America could the people who believe in balancing the budget and sticking by the country's Constitution be thought of as "extremists."
Only in America could you need to present a driver's license to cash a check or buy alcohol, but not to vote.
Only in America could people demand the government investigate whether oil companies are gouging the public because the price of gas went up when the return on equity invested in a major U S oil company (Marathon Oil) is less than half of a company making tennis shoes (Nike).
Only in America could the government collect more tax dollars from the people than any nation in recorded history, still spend a trillion dollars more than it has per year for total spending of $7 million PER MINUTE, and complain that it doesn't have nearly enough money.
Only in America could the rich people who pay 86% of all income taxes be accused of not paying their "fair share" by people who don't pay any income taxes at all.
Newsweek’s gay president cover
An awful lot of people don’t read, they glance. Many don’t read well, they skim. They do know, however, what the words “gay president” under the photo of Barack Obama means even if after 12 years of public school they can’t pass a 4th grade reading test in Cleveland or Detroit. What were they thinking? Especially with that YouTube video that’s been going around for several years.
Rev. Wright, Dr. Whitaker and Obama’s wide stance
I’ve been reading about the bribe to keep Rev. Jeremiah Wright quiet during the 2008 campaign (although I personally think he enhanced Obama’s resume for many radicals) and now the contract for about $6 million that the Chicago medical center v.p. who offered the bribe got from the administration (Dr. Eric Whitaker) the same medical center that appointed Michelle to its board with a fat salary after Obama became senator, and I’m wondering how this is so different than the John Edwards scandal, taking money for his mistress that was intended for the campaign and lying that the baby was produced by a campaign staffer. A bribe is a bribe is a bribe.
Also, now that Newsweek has announced that we have a gay president and we know that some of the gay PACs were pressuring him to flip flop yet again (first he was for it when running for Senate, then against it when running for President, now he’s for it) and we know Axelrod was orchestrating first the “leaks” about his girlfriends before the gay support, then put Biden out there to test the waters of the west coast, then the eastern establishment, so Obama could do his graceful flip into that messy sludge, why is a “wide stance” in a men’s restroom rumor enough to get a Republican run out of office, when openly soliciting money from the gay demographic is supposed to be a strong reason to reelect the president for evolving to a position we all knew he held?
I know we’re supposed to believe campaigns today are just as down and dirty as the 18th century when sexuality rumors were standard fare, but I do think the Obama campaign has scraped the bottom of the smelly, rotting offal barrel. And all this to distract from an expanding war, weakened borders, and a flagging economy?
Monday, May 14, 2012
Is it legal to buy votes?
"Health-insurance companies must tell customers who get a premium rebate this summer that the check is the result of the Obama administration's health-care law, according to federal guidelines released Friday," The Wall Street Journal reports.
Keeping up with sex acronyms
Having been a librarian, I developed a real fondness for acronyms of all kinds. I came across an unfamiliar one today, because, well, it’s not one I would need often, and even in the medical literature I can’t recall seeing it before: AFAI—age at first anal intercourse—and no surprise here, “There appears to be a strong link between AFAI and infection with HIV/STIs, as well as tendencies to engage in higher risk sexual behaviour.” Although for older baby boomers that age was 35, for Gen-Y it is 18. I would attribute that to the increasing acceptance, and even encouragement of gay sex, since this study was exclusively about gay men. And, my, how flippant the writers are about this, calling it a “sexual debut.”
http://sti.bmj.com/content/88/4/252.full
“Further education around safer sex practices that specifically targets gay-identified youth may also be required to ensure their sexual debut does not lead to poorer sexual health outcomes. “ As we’ve learned from the “safe sex” message given to school children, it actually encourages all sex, and is now increasingly called “safer sex” because there is no such thing as “safe sex.” There are always consequences, whether psychological, sociological, spiritual or biological.
Sunday, May 13, 2012
The perversion and redirection of charity
"The Kresge Foundation, established with a $1.6 million endowment from K-Mart founder Sebastian Spering Kresge in 1924, has morphed into a $3 billion behemoth. Ideological giving has grown along with the foundation’s fortunes under the stewardship of former Minneapolis mayoral candidate Rip Rapson.Read the whole story.
The group gave approximately $9 million to Washington, D.C., organizations between 2003 and 2006 with nearly half that money going to the American Red Cross. Rapson took over in July 2006; between 2007 and 2011 Kresge gave $52 million to 68 organizations based in Washington, D.C. Nearly all of that money has gone to liberal groups, including lavish grants to the Center for American Progress, Tides Foundation, Sierra Club, and Progressive America Fund.
None of these political groups received funding from Kresge prior to 2007."
Saturday, May 12, 2012
Together again--after 27 years
Friday, May 11, 2012
The State’s interest in marriage—procreation
Marriage is and always has been heavily regulated by the state or even its precursor—the tribe. Why? Despite the fact that some couples are infertile, or never intend to have a family, or are too old to have children, the reason is the very existence of the state—stable families are beneficial to the state. For thousands of years marriage had very little to do with love or sex, and everything to do with stabilizing society. “The secular case against gay marriage,“ The Tech, Vol. 124, issue 5, Feb. 17, 2004, p. 5
“Some argue that the link between marriage and procreation is not as strong as it once was, and they are correct. Until recently, the primary purpose of marriage, in every society around the world, has been procreation. In the 20th century, Western societies have downplayed the procreative aspect of marriage, much to our detriment. As a result, the happiness of the parties to the marriage, rather than the good of the children or the social order, has become its primary end, with disastrous consequences. When married persons care more about themselves than their responsibilities to their children and society, they become more willing to abandon these responsibilities, leading to broken homes, a plummeting birthrate, and countless other social pathologies that have become rampant over the last 40 years. Homosexual marriage is not the cause for any of these pathologies, but it will exacerbate them, as the granting of marital benefits to a category of sexual relationships that are necessarily sterile can only widen the separation between marriage and procreation.
The biggest danger homosexual civil marriage presents is the enshrining into law the notion that sexual love, regardless of its fecundity, is the sole criterion for marriage. If the state must recognize a marriage of two men simply because they love one another, upon what basis can it deny marital recognition to a group of two men and three women, for example, or a sterile brother and sister who claim to love each other? Homosexual activists protest that they only want all couples treated equally. But why is sexual love between two people more worthy of state sanction than love between three, or five? When the purpose of marriage is procreation, the answer is obvious. If sexual love becomes the primary purpose, the restriction of marriage to couples loses its logical basis, leading to marital chaos. [There is an article about Johnny who loves his lunch...it's point is much in line with this paragraph. Where do you draw the line? ...] “
What I’ve always been
I’ve always been a CREATIONIST and I’ve always been PRO-LIFE. There were many years I didn’t know the HOW, but I’ve always understood the WHAT and WHO even as a very young child observing life around me (probably 3-4 years old). There were 25 years between my baptism in 1950 and my recommitment/confirmation when I let go of God’s hand, but I never let go of those two beliefs.
I’ve always known CREATION has a purpose and LIFE has meaning, even when I was taught otherwise in school or church. Whether Creation took 6 days or 6 billion trillion years, makes no difference in my belief; both are equally marvelous. Whether she is a is a zygote making a journey down a fallopian tube or a frail woman 105 years old in the nursing home bed who hasn’t spoken since she was 87 making a journey home to Jesus, I’ve always believed she is God’s creation and loved by God.
I’ve always known there was a rich and glorious life beyond what I could see, experience or understand, no matter if it was the vastness I saw in the night sky, or the pictures in the family encyclopedia with transparent drawings showing a baby’s development month by month in the womb. I’ve always been a wise old woman, even when I was a child.
I’ve always cared about and loved God’s physical world--and wondered about the events and choices that moved lives and nations. As a 5 year old I wondered why my grandmother was blind and my uncle was killed in the war. And I still don’t know, but I know God does. And until the past two decades or so, I thought caring was enough, because caring made me a “good” person. Caring made me better than people who didn’t care as much as I do. Caring elevated me above the hoi polloi, the commoners, the great unwashed who didn‘t believe as I do.
In brief moments of extreme self-love, I even imagined I was more merciful and caring than God because I knew better how life should be ordered and what made sense and what didn’t! At this age I know caring does nothing, so I will speak out when I am able to promote God‘s Creation and Life. You can argue about candidates or fossil fuel with me, both were put here by God, but you won’t budge me on Creation and Life.
Consequently, I won’t change what I believe about Man and Woman who were made in God’s image. Perhaps you are enamored by a current social or political movement and you care deeply and sincerely about this blip in time, but I care about history and the future. Next year, next decade, maybe you’ll move on to yet another political cause-- legalizing polygamy or incest perhaps renamed to remove the stigma--but I’ll still be where I started, loving and respecting God’s Creation and Life.
I believe God enjoys and delights in the sanctity of a life He created yesterday or 100 years ago. What I believe is not just who I am, but it is rooted outside myself in who God has revealed himself to be in his created Word spoken in the beginning, his written Word, in his Word Jesus Christ who came to us through the womb of a woman, in his Church on earth, and in all other forms of religions which don’t yet have his full revelation, but do grasp that Creation and Life are precious and holy.
Thursday, May 10, 2012
Don’t blame the Media for this
Some Conservatives claim Obama was never vetted--like the lies he told about his father's Kennedy connection [Kennedys had nothing to do with his father coming to U.S. as a student] and the Selma speech on the campaign trail. His claim to be coming back to Selma is a bit odd since he was born 4 years before the Selma event. But it was all out there even in 2008--it is part of the fiction and mythology America elected. But no one cared--they voted for him anyway--lying wasn't a big whoop then or now. He also lied to his leftist supporters, and when gay donors began pressuring him, he got a new Christian revelation that he should support same sex marriage. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/29/AR2008032902031.html
“What happened in Selma, Alabama and Birmingham also stirred the conscience of the nation. It worried folks in the White House who said, “You know, we're battling Communism. How are we going to win hearts and minds all across the world? If right here in our own country, John, we're not observing the ideals set fort in our Constitution, we might be accused of being hypocrites.” So the Kennedy’s decided we're going to do an air lift. We're going to go to Africa and start bringing young Africans over to this country and give them scholarships to study so they can learn what a wonderful country America is.
This young man named Barack Obama got one of those tickets and came over to this country. He met this woman whose great great-great-great-grandfather had owned slaves; but she had a good idea there was some craziness going on because they looked at each other and they decided that we know that the world as it has been it might not be possible for us to get together and have a child. There was something stirring across the country because of what happened in Selma, Alabama [4 years after he was born], because some folks are willing to march across a bridge. So they got together and Barack Obama Jr. was born. So don't tell me I don't have a claim on Selma, Alabama. Don't tell me I’m not coming home to Selma, Alabama.”
In the Land of the Blue Burqas
“Kate McCord is not her real name. To protect herself and the men and women she talked with, all of the names in this book have been changed. Though in the midst of a high-powered career, Kate left it all, sold everything, and went to Afghanistan to start a non-governmental organization with the goal of helping Afghan women. She taught herself the local language and served there for more than five years. Now she wants to you to know the Afghan men and women she has come to love.
Riveting and fast paced, In the Land of Blue Burqas depicts sharing the love and truth of Christ with women living in Afghanistan, which has been called "the world's most dangerous county in which to be born a women." These stories are honest and true and the harsh reality of their lives is not sugar-coated. These stories provide insight into how a Jesus-follower brought Jesus' teachings of the Kingdom of God to Afghanistan.”
From promotional material by Moody Publishing at Books and Culture.
I know people who were missionaries in Muslim countries, and they don’t hide their identities. I wonder what is so different about our “ally” that we’ve spent billions and blood on for the last 10 years?
Some call it evolution, I call it politics
"President Obama this hour signed legislation that repeals the "don't ask, don't tell" law that bars openly gay men and women from serving in the U.S. military." Dec. 2010. [Needed to placate the leftists who don't like the military no matter what, wanted to weaken morale and thumb his nose at the conservatives.]
"The President of the United States has made the determination that Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (“DOMA”), 1 U.S.C. § 7, as applied to same-sex couples who are legally married under state law, violates the equal protection component of the Fifth Amendment." Eric Holder, Feb. 2011. [Needed to rally support of his left wing base.]
"At a certain point, I've just concluded, that for me, personally, it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same-sex couples should be able to get married," May 2012 [Money immediately pours in from wealthy gays and celebs as his campaign coffers are nearing empty.]
True the Vote—you can help
Last night I attended a True the Vote webinar. Very exciting, challenging, but also depressing to see so much fraud and dishonesty taking place, stealing one of our most basic rights--the right to vote. The good news is that 80% of the polling places are fine. The bad news is the other 20% can steal your election and put the wrong people in the state houses, Congress or White House. There will be another training webinar on May 23; go to the website and register. If you are an honest, patriotic Democrat, consider this volunteer opportunity to help your country. This is bipartisan and national, but it has to be by state because that's how we vote. http://truethevote.org/about/
One of the best ways to create voter distrust, anger, confusion and fraud is to bring in outside organizations to register thousands and turn the registrations in the last week or day (in Ohio that will be the end of September) and overwhelm the county offices. This is a common tactic. Another is to have minimal penalties. We saw both methods here in Ohio in 2008—and about 6 months after the election a few “students” who had moved here from the N.E. and Europe to register voters received a hand slap and fine. By then they had left the state, so I don’t know if they ever paid the “penalty.” It only takes 50 votes per polling place to create a national “mandate” of 10 million votes.
Voter fraud in Ohio is just like voter fraud in your state—although it’s probably on a much bigger scale in Illinois because of Chicago. Our "two" reported cases this year (in the Columbus Dispatch) involved counties where there are thousands more registered voters than there are people of voting age. Liberals are fighting the clean up and saying it can be resolved locally. Our last Sec. of State, Brunner (D), did virtually nothing about the voter fraud in 2008, and our current guy, Husted (R) is being overly cautious turning it over to Eric Holder who will do nothing when it’s reported to him (every state is required by national law to have clean records) if the voters aren’t minorities (these are basically white counties).
The best way to clean up registration honest mistakes, careless errors and actual fraud is to make sure the county officials know that citizens are watching them, either as poll workers, poll watchers, or registration researchers. In Texas, when it became known that registrations were being checked for phony addresses and out of district voters by volunteers, they dropped from 1,000 a day to 50 during a campaign by an outside group brought in to register new voters. In Wisconsin’s “Verify the Recall” thousands of false signatures were discovered, but there were still enough to get the recall on the ballot. However, it sent a message to the unions that their days of intimidation were over.
Volunteers cannot remove any potential registration or voter -- that's the county officials' job. They can only report that there are 200 people living in empty lots, or 150 at the golf course, or 52 outside the district, things like that. It's up to the county to see to it that they legally do reside on a golf course, or an empty lot. At least 46 states are investigating voter fraud, but the departments are small, resources limited, and fines minimal. "If the elections are not truly fair. . . we are not truly free."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMBnTwQvjtc&feature=player_embedded#!
Wednesday, May 09, 2012
Do you remember the first thing your mom taught you how to cook?
That was a question that Giant Eagle posted on Facebook today.
Interesting to think about because I get to remember what a wonderful cook my mom was. I'm not sure, but I’m guessing it was either beanie weenies (sliced hot dogs, a little butter, covered with canned baked beans, or a white sauce. I watched how she made pies, although I don’t think I made many while I was still at home. She was the best at pies, so there really was no point. Mom always overcooked the beef roast, however. Vegetables when we were growing up was from home canning. My dad was a bit fussy—he really didn’t want anyone’s cooking but hers.
Liberals have created "volatile, divisive issues"
Twenty years ago was owning a gun a volatile issue? Was marriage between a man and woman divisive and homophobic if preached from the pulpit or voted for at the polls? Was God being turned out of the public square, the school and the White House?
No, no, and no. It is the Democrats, Progressives, liberals and radical left who have made everything in our common heritage, volatile and divisive. They are tearing us apart, creating war not just on women but on the very fabric of our society and common Judeo-Christian heritage.
Start saving now, college grads
When I graduated from college I was 21 and 5 months pregnant. I had other things on my mind than saving for retirement. . . like rent, food, graduate school, paying off the hospital and doctor bills (it was a pay as you go baby). I put it off until I was about 48 and the children were launched. Then I opened a tax deferred account through TIAA-CREF and started setting aside the maximum allowed. Since I didn’t go back to work full time until about that same time, I was really behind. If you’re starting out, don’t do what I did.
Here's how interest compounds over time: If you save $10 a day at age 25, you'll have more than $1 million by age 65, assuming an 8% annual rate of return. If you start at age 35, you'll have $445,000. At age 45, you'll only have $180,000.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304432704577348052844503384.html
Sherrod Brown’s bill to limit loan interest increases
According to the New York Times, it’s the fault of the Republicans that Brown’s bill didn’t pass. Oh really? Well, read a bit further down in the article. “American students took out twice the value of student loans in 2011, about $112 billion, as they did a decade before, after adjusting for inflation. Over all, Americans now owe about $1 trillion in student loans. In 2010, such debt surpassed credit card debt for the first time.” The Republicans are trying to keep the economy afloat by not raising taxes on the people who create jobs.
Thirty seven million people currently have outstanding student loan debt. How did I get through college without loans? I worked during my high school years and had saved enough for my freshman year; my parents paid for years 2 and 3; my husband and I paid for my senior year. College costs are going up much faster than inflation primarily because the government floats so many loans.
“Republicans say they want to extend Democratic legislation passed in 2007 that temporarily reduced interest rates for low- and middle-income undergraduates who receive subsidized Stafford loans to 3.4 percent from 6.8 percent. But the Republicans would not accept the Senate Democrats’ proposal to pay for a one-year extension by changing a law that allows some wealthy taxpayers to avoid paying Social Security and Medicare taxes by classifying their pay as dividends, not cash income.
“They want to raise taxes on people who are creating jobs when we are still recovering from the greatest recession since the Great Depression,” said Senator Lamar Alexander, Republican of Tennessee, who instead wanted to pay for the rate decrease by eliminating a fund for preventive health care in Mr. Obama’s health care law. “
Know your ABCS
◦Appropriate Aspirin Therapy
◦Blood Pressure Control
◦Cholesterol Management
◦Smoking Cessation
Nice idea, but there's no way to determine the success or failure of the program. I take a low dose aspirin every day, my blood pressure is already lower than normal, my cholesterol could be better but it's not bad enough for a statin, and I've never smoked. Will I count if I'm still alive in 2016? I wonder how much money is going into this program? Also, what are doctors for if the mega-gov-dept CDC is telling you what to do?
We’re a special tribe, but we can be conned by liberals, says anthropologist Tanya Luhrmann
Evangelical Christian tribes people. Did you know you're being studied by an anthropologist? Yes, we are reachable by Democrats if they just learn our strange language and ways. http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/06/do-as-i-do-not-as-i-say/
How condescending is this? "But the good news for secular liberals is that evangelicals are smarter and more varied than many liberals realize. I met doctors, scientists and professors at the churches where I studied. They cared about social justice. They cared about the poor." So says Tanya M. Luhrmann, a professor of anthropology at Stanford
Imagine that! We're educated. We're professionals. And we actually care for the poor and weak instead of asking the government to do it!! And if secular liberals just say the right words evangelicals will fall for their line and stop obeying Jesus and fall in line with Rome.
She did her anthropological study of Christians at Vineyard churches, so possibly those Christians need to be on the watch for wolves dressed as sheep. “Their members tend to be white and middle class, although not exclusively. Their congregations are more likely to meet in gyms, not in actual church buildings, and like their surroundings they are informal. They are more likely to have a rock band than a choir, and they use contemporary Christian music rather than traditional hymns (although they may incorporate a hymn into the service). They call themselves “Bible based,” by which they mean that the Bible is taken to be literally or near literally true, and they embrace an experiential spirituality.” http://www.stanford.edu/dept/anthropology/cgi-bin/web/?q=system/files/absorption.pdf
Tuesday, May 08, 2012
How’s your black history?
After they took control of the Presidency (Grover Cleveland) and Congress in 1892, Democrats had complete control of the government for the first time since the Civil War. They passed the Repeal Act of 1894 that overturned civil rights legislation passed by the Republicans during the previous 25 years, including the Civil Rights Acts of 1866 and 1875. But even before the Civil War in the 1830s John Quincy Adams (member of several different parties which morphed into Republican) was a strong abolitionist, and he was consistently opposed by Democrats.
Jim Crow and the KKK were created by the Democrat Party, both north and south. It took Republicans nearly six decades to finally achieve passage of civil rights legislation in the 1950’s and 1960’s. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and voting rights act of 1965 were Republican sponsored bills and only got passed with the help of Republicans because so many Democrats voted against them. Democrats also opposed the 1972 Equal Opportunity Act. These were necessary to enforce the amendments passed by Republicans after the Civil War. And it was President Nixon who pushed for affirmative action laws and time table.
You didn't get the truth in your American history classes about black history. Now Democrats are using entitlements, scare tactics and empty slogans to keep blacks in their places.
http://www.suwanneegop.com/NBRA%20Civil%20Rights%20Newsletter-2.pdf
http://dare2sayit.com/racist_history_of_the_democratic.htm
http://www.policyalmanac.org/culture/archive/affirmative_action_history.shtml
http://blackhistory.com/content/60916/13th-14th-and-15th-amendments
Monday, May 07, 2012
Book club selections 2012-2013
I think this group has been together for 34 years—I joined in the fall of 2000 when I retired. I read more on this year’s list than probably any other year. Didn’t care much for today’s selection, “Hold Up the Sky” by Patricia Sprinkle, but don’t let that stop you, most of the rest of the group loved it. For next year (begins in September just like school) at 1:30 p.m., except Panera meetings are at 2 p.m., our choices are:
1. September 10—No ordinary time by Goodwin, led by Patty, at Norma’s
2. October 1—How the Scots invented the modern world by Herman, led by Mary, at Mary Lou’s.
3. November 5—Hotel on the corner of Bitter and Sweet by Ford, led by Peggy N. at Marcy’s.
4. December 3—Death comes to Pemberley by James, led by and hosted by Carolyn A.
5. January 7—Kim by Kipling, led by Jean at Panera’s
6. February 4--Sweetness at the bottom of the pie by Bradley, led by Justine at Panera’s
7. March 4—A secret gift by Gup, led by (not sure) at Panera’s
8. April --Girls from Ames by Zaslow, led by Adrienne, at Panera’s
9. May 6—Still Alice by Genova, led by Norma at Carolyn C.
Books that were recommended, but which did not make the cut were Bonhoeffer by Metaxas, There is no alternative by Berlinsky, Pigs have wings by Woodhouse, and God Vincent and the Poet.
The cost of childcare
In the 1960s, childcare was about 2% of the family budget. (Not ours--we had one income.) Today it is 17%, 2nd only the mortgage or rent. (USDA statistics reported in Parent Link, Group Publishing). 2 things come to mind. First, many well-educated, married mothers are employed, so a big chunk of their income goes to pay someone less qualified than themselves to raise their children and model values. Second, single moms are paying an even bigger percentage in childcare and have no choice.
5,000 empty seats greet the President
I was on campus last week for a meeting, and as I was walking along the Oval, I saw a student with a clipboard. She was asking people a question, each person said "No" and kept walking. When she came to me, she said, "Do you want to see the president when he comes to OSU?" I said "No, thank you," and kept walking-- just like all the others!
Sunday, May 06, 2012
George Will on his son Jon
An excellent article with photos for Jon’s 40th birthday, a life enhanced by modern medicine, a society diminished by moral shrinkage.
The full garish flowering of the baby boomers' vast sense of entitlement encompasses an entitlement to exemption from nature's mishaps, and to a perfect baby. So today science enables what the ethos ratifies, the choice of killing children with Down syndrome before birth. This is what happens to 90 percent of those whose parents have prenatal testing.
Which is unfortunate, and not just for them. Judging by Jon, the world would be improved by more people with Down syndrome, who are quite nice, as far as humans go.
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