Doing the right thing is expensive, guest blogger Michael Smith

My wife and I bought our perfect house in South Carolina in 2007. Acre lot, backed up to a private golf course, 4000 sq.ft., 3 car garage. In 2008 the market crashed. In 2009, we moved when I accepted a much better job.

We put the house on the market and for two years it sat empty as we tried to sell it. We finally leased it but the lease market was saturated due to so many unsold houses on the market, so the monthly lease payment we received only covered 60% of the mortgage payments. Two years ago we lost our homestead exemption and our property taxes went from $1900 a year to $9200 per year and our insurance doubled from $1400 to $2800 a year.

We kept hoping that the market would rebound but it never has - but we never missed a mortgage payment. In 7 years, we were never even late.

This Friday, I close on the house - finally it is sold. It was the second offer that we received on the house in 5 years.

It sold for $120,000 less than we paid for it, so we lost every dime of equity we had in it. The selling price was less than what was left on the mortgage, so I had to make up $35000 in deficit to pay off the mortgage and with all the fees and prorated taxes and such, to sell my house cost me right at $67,000 out of pocket this week.

And yet I personally know of people who just walked away from houses in similar situations. Of course, they took a huge hit on their credit rating but they don't really seem to care, nor has it visibly affected their lifestyles.

I guess I may just be stupid but I was taught to live up to my commitments. We made a bad decision in 2007 and that decision cost us nearly $200,000 in actual cash - but it was our decision.

We decided to take the painful loss now because I can see no signs that the economy will recover any time soon because of the structural damage that has been done in the past 6 years. It was time to move on before things get worse.

So this is my view of what the President's people call a "recovery".

There is no recovery.

I thank God that we have been blessed with the financial means to survive Obama's "stewardship" of the economy and I have a special empathy for those who are struggling with the same decisions or simply cannot free themselves due to their financial situation.

We are witnessing the worst performance of a post recession economy in our history. In spite of an energy revolution, the US economy can't seem to get up off the mat. Economic policies and regulations matter. Presidents may not control the economy but they at least have the responsibility not to screw them up.

This economy is screwed up - normal capitalistic/free market economies will naturally generate growth on their own but Obama and his merry band of progodytes have ours tied down as sure as the Lilliputians did with Gulliver

Michael Smith lives in Utah and blogs at Rio Norte Line and on Facebook, where this post resides.

The churchless Nowa Huta can be an inspiration for American Christians—The Lord’s Ark

The Communists decided to build a “workers’ paradise in Poland and it would be without a church or cathedral or cross.  The Polish people under the thumb of an oppressive government thought otherwise.

“Nowa Huta was built in the 1950s as part of a project to bring a mammoth steel mill to the outskirts of Krakow. The factory was intended in part to undercut the influence of the Catholic Church and local universities in Krakow, the longtime religious and intellectual center of Poland. In keeping with that model, Polish authorities prohibited the presence of any churches in Nowa Huta.

The rule was resisted for more than 20 years by Wojtyla and other priests from Krakow, who visited Nowa Huta regularly to celebrate Mass in muddy fields and to reach out to workers outside the gates of the steel mill. In 1957, Catholics erected a cross on the site, where they asked to build a church but were repeatedly denied permission.

Wojtyla persisted in peaceful attempts to win permits to construct a church, winning small but cumulative victories over the next two decades. In 1965, he received the go-ahead to enlarge a small makeshift chapel in Nowa Huta. Two years later, he consecrated the construction site. The church took another 10 years to build, with the Polish government putting up a long succession of bureaucratic hurdles. . .

Today [2005], Nowa Huta has deteriorated into a ghetto, with endless rows of drab five- and 10-story concrete block housing that stand as a legacy of its socialist past. Most of the people who live here are either jobless or have been left behind by Poland's capitalist revolution. One of the few centers of vibrant activity is the 28-year-old Church of Our Lady.”

The Lord’s Ark

Lessons from Nowa Huta

ISIS, Ebola, VA, IRS, NSA, ACA, ARRA, and so on

Why we don’t make a dent in the hunger problem

We never see improvement and the rolls of both poverty workers and the needy continue to grow. Hunger became "food insecurity" and poverty is an arbitrary number set by the Government that is raised every year, but “percent of poverty level” is the standard for benefits. 200% of poverty is the standard for food assistance in Ohio. To be "food insecure" means at some time during the year you changed your eating pattern to accommodate your resources.

The actual number of Americans who are “food insecure” for more than a few days is tiny, under 1% and most of those are children in unmarried households and elderly without family, but even a day counts toward the annual figure--the figure we see in the news is 14.3%.  This guarantees political fights in Congress when USDA funding comes up, government grants to academics, fodder for campaigning, and good jobs for people and agencies in the benefits distribution field. Churches, charities, non-profits and foundations also receive a portion of their annual budget from government grants. Food pantries, mostly run by churches, are involved in a complex mix of federal, state, local and non-profit resources.

62% of "food insecure" families participate in SNAP, WIC or free and reduced school meals (we used to call this school lunch, but now it is breakfast, lunch, and after school, plus summer meals).

Poverty rolls took a big jump in 2008, but haven't really come down.  A chunk of ARRA money in 2009 went to find and enroll people in the programs. It was very successful. Because of the weak economy, they remain on the rolls.

If poverty were solved tomorrow, we’d have a whole new crew of poor people—those who formerly worked in the business.

http://www.ers.usda.gov/media/1565415/err173.pdf

The Ohio Association of Foodbanks was awarded $2.18 Million Federal Navigator Grant for a 2nd year not to feed the hungry, but to enroll people in Obamacare.

The Ohio Association of Foodbanks is Ohio’s largest charitable response to hunger, representing Ohio’s 12 Feeding America foodbanks and 3,300 member charities including food pantries, soup kitchens and shelters. In SFY 2014, the association and its member foodbanks were able to acquire and distribute over 186 million pounds of food and grocery items. The association also serves as the home of The Ohio Benefit Bank and operates the state’s largest navigator program for the Affordable Care Act.

http://admin.ohiofoodbanks.org/uploads/news/Press_Statement-_Federal_Navigator_Grant_Awarded5.pdf

Free stock photos

I needed someplace to stash this amazing information.  What better place than a blog? 14 free stock websites for photos.

http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/238646?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=pulsenews

Some require attribution, others not.

The richest man in Africa will help Liberia

Before I read the article, I figured the richest man in Africa would be Nigerian. The richest African Americans are often Nigerian Americans; look at the rolls of Harvard and Yale and you'll find Nigerians. Something in their culture pushes them to excel; also Nigeria is close to 50% Christian. American and European missionaries brought Jesus and the Protestant work ethic. Aliko Dangote himself is Muslim. That said, why can't he do anything with his lavish wealth to stop Boko Haram, a Muslim terrorist group?

http://www.forbes.com/sites/mfonobongnsehe/2014/10/20/africas-richest-man-aliko-dangote-to-support-liberia-in-fight-against-ebola/

Nigerians make up less than 1 percent of the black population in the United States, yet in 2013 nearly one-quarter of the black students at Harvard Business School were of Nigerian ancestry; over a fourth of Nigerian-Americans have a graduate or professional degree, as compared with only about 11 percent of whites. (NYT, Jan. 25, 2014)

Brittany Maynard, suicide publicity hound

“Maynard is the subject of a well-planned PR campaign orchestrated by the George Soros-funded assisted-suicide advocacy group Compassion and Choices (formerly known as the Hemlock Society). C & C’s press release applauds Maynard’s “courage to tell her story as she is dying and alert all Americans to the choice of death with dignity” as “selfless and heroic.” “

http://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2014/10/of-michael-landon-and-brittany-maynard

“Suicide has made Maynard an international celebrity. Partly, that’s because she is the perfect icon: young, pretty, newly wed, tragically dying, and transgressive for wanting to kill herself rather than face the rigors of late-stage brain cancer.”

How many people will be pushed to their death through her example?

The missing Public Health Service Corps

The U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps is an elite team of more than 6,800 full-time, well-trained, highly qualified public health professionals dedicated to delivering the nation's public health promotion and disease prevention programs and advancing public health science. Instead of sending them to Africa, Obama is sending the 101st Airborne, who are not trained in anything medical. Why? The Corps is trained and equipped to respond to public health crises and national emergencies such as natural disasters, disease outbreaks, or terrorist attacks, both here and overseas. Obama is apparently having a hissy fit because the Senate (his guys, btw) won't approve his anti-gun nominee for Surgeon General, who is the head of the Corps. Of course, there is an interim Surgeon General, Rear Admiral  Boris D. Lushniak, M.D., M.P.H. , but maybe Obama is doing this deliberately--putting our troops at risk.

http://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2014/03/18/democrats-lining-up-to-oppose-obamas-antigun-nominee-for-surgeon-general-n1810745

Vivek  “Murthy, who has a history of calling guns a "healthcare issue," classifying guns as a "public health threat" and of slamming the National Rifle Association, is being opposed not by just Republicans, but numerous Democrats in an election year.”

http://www.businessinsider.com/no-surgeon-general-during-ebola-in-us-2014-10

http://www.surgeongeneral.gov/about/biographies/biosg.html

http://www.boston.com/lifestyle/health/blogs/white-coat-notes/2013/11/14/obama-nominating-vivek-murthy-harvard-and-brigham-and-women-surgeon-general/eo6mit1nNtLpUxE6VrizLJ/blog.html

How low can they go?

Wendy Davis of Texas (think pink tennis shoes and abortion) isn't the first Democrat to play dirty with people's personal lives or disabilities (uses a wheelchair in a scare ad because her opponent is disabled). In 2004 both Edwards and Kerry brought up Cheney's lesbian daughter during the debates. I doubt they cared with whom she was having sex, but they hoped to smear Cheney. Really. Democrats will stoop that low.

Jesse Jackson (and a woman whose name I missed) are declaring the death of the Liberian treated at the Dallas hospital, because when he was first seen in the ER they did not recognize his symptoms.  The two nurses he infected are also minorities, Mr. Jackson.  Was Mr. Duncan a racist or was it just the hospital staff? Democrats find racism everywhere; they have it on the brain.  People aren't individuals capable of living without government help—they are all victims, at least if they are non-white.  Trillions spent on the War on Poverty and you’d think they’d be happy.

Ebola was brought to Nigeria by a Liberian on an air flight. They then responded responsibly and banned flights from West Africa.  Now they have been declared Ebola free by WHO.  But American race baiters will still rave on.

http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2014/09/the-war-on-poverty-after-50-years

http://www.cnsnews.com/mrctv-blog/katherine-rodriguez/jesse-jackson-cries-racism-privilege-over-ebola-patients-treatment

http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-Texas/2014/10/13/Wendy-Davis-Holds-Press-Conference-With-Disabled-People-to-Defend-Ad

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A31310-2004Oct13.html

Bigotry comes in all shapes, sizes, races, genders and public offices.

Crash diets work better than slow and steady, but they all fail

“People in the fast-dieting group were more likely to achieve their target weight loss than the slow-dieting group, but both struggled to keep the weight off over time.”

I actually think this is good news.  Quicky diets are much easy; I have no will power for the long run.

Weight-loss guidelines have long counselled that kilos shed too quickly are likelier to creep back than those lost at a slower pace.

But a new Australian study, published in The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology, found that over the long term, fast-track and slow-track dieters were equally likely to regain most of the weight they lost.

Research led by Joseph Proietto of the University of Melbourne divided 204 obese men and women into two groups.

One group entered a weight-loss programme of 12 weeks, the other a more gradual 36 weeks.

The 12-week group were restricted to a diet of 450-800 calories per day, while the other group had their energy intake reduced by about 500 calories per day.

Those who lost 12.5 per cent or more of their bodyweight from both groups were then placed on a three-year maintenance diet.

By the end of the trial, individuals in both groups had regained some 71 per cent on average of the kilos they had shed.

"By contrast with the widely-held belief that weight lost rapidly is more quickly regained, our findings show that regain is similar after gradual or rapid weight loss," the team says.

http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2014/10/16/4108436.htm

There’s only one answer.  Regardless of how much you lose and how you do it, immediately go back to dieting when you’ve regained 5 lbs.  Because you definitely will gain it.

Ebola vaccine news

“The pace of human safety testing for experimental Ebola vaccines has been expedited in response to the ongoing Ebola virus outbreak in West Africa. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), more than 1,400 suspected and confirmed deaths from Ebola infection have been reported in Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria, and Sierra Leone since the outbreak was first reported in March 2014. 

“There is an urgent need for a protective Ebola vaccine, and it is important to establish that a vaccine is safe and spurs the immune system to react in a way necessary to protect against infection,” said NIAID Director Anthony S. Fauci, M.D. “The NIH is playing a key role in accelerating the development and testing of investigational Ebola vaccines.”

“Today we know the best way to prevent the spread of Ebola infection is through public health measures, including good infection control practices, isolation, contact tracing, quarantine, and provision of personal protective equipment,” added Dr. Fauci. “However, a vaccine will ultimately be an important tool in the prevention effort. The launch of Phase 1 Ebola vaccine studies is the first step in a long process.”

“Tried and true public health interventions, strong supportive medical care and the rapid testing of Ebola vaccines and antiviral treatments can help to reduce suffering now and in the future,” said CDC Director Thomas R. Frieden, M.D., M.P.H.

The investigational vaccine now entering Phase 1 trials was designed by Nancy J. Sullivan, Ph.D., chief of the Biodefense Research Section in NIAID’s Vaccine Research Center (VRC). She worked in collaboration with researchers at the VRC, the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, and Okairos, a Swiss-Italian biotechnology company acquired by GSK in 2013.”

Isolation and quarantine, but not restricting passports from West Africa?

http://www.niaid.nih.gov/news/newsreleases/2014/Pages/EbolaVaxCandidate.aspx

A number of research reports and grants go back to 2007. It’s not true that this disease (and others like it) were being ignored.

Danners in the tree

There used to be a lot discussion on the Danner genealogy forum about Blythe Danner (like whether she was one of ours), but if her daughter Gwyneth doesn't stop saying such strange things, the conversation will really cool. (I'm a descendant of Henry Danner).

An oldie but goodie

Brown struggled with Wilson over the gun—report in New York Times

The New York Times reports:

"The forensics tests showed Mr. Brown’s blood on the gun, as well as on the interior door panel and on Officer Wilson’s uniform. Officer Wilson told the authorities that Mr. Brown had punched and scratched him repeatedly, leaving swelling on his face and cuts on his neck."

Many witnesses have testified to the grand jury that Brown was attacking Wilson, although their accounts vary in details. I doubt that this will make any difference to the imported demonstrators. But I think Holder and Obama need to apologize for the problems they made for that community. Read the account carefully, the NYT reporters, who weren't there try to second guess Wilson's behavior after being attacked.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/18/us/ferguson-case-officer-is-said-to-cite-struggle.html?_r=0

Four low flow toilets

It was bound to happen with 4 low flow toilets in our house.  But I have successful “plunged” and we are free flowing again.  I had to buy a new plunger, as the old style don’t fit the angles.  It was a Waxman Heavy Duty Toilet Plunger.  It’s black plastic and has sort of accordion pleats.  There are models that have little containers, but this one is larger. I looked at the tag after I was finished, and happy to see not only was it made in the USA, but right here in Ohio.

Waxman Industries, Inc. markets specialty plumbing, and floor and surface protection products to retailers, primarily mass merchandisers, do-it-yourself warehouse home centers, and home improvement centers. It offers various products from plumbing repair to floorcare, and faucets to showers. Waxman Industries, Inc. also manufactures, packages, sources, and assembles plumbing products for industrial, OEM, and wholesale distribution customers. The company was incorporated in 1989 and is based in Bedford Heights, Ohio.

Everything is under control . . . of the president

I haven’t snoped Hillary’s past, but this sounds about right.

A letter to the Mayor of Houston

Dear Ms. Mayor of Houston,

You believe anyone with gender confusion or change should be allowed to share restrooms with whomever they identify to the point you want to destroy the first amendment over it. At what point in the conversion should the sharing begin?

On NPR I listened to a female to male transgendered man, at least that's how s/he identified herself--only hormone treatments, but no surgery yet--just the clothing, facial hair, muscle bulking, voice change, receding hairline, etc. Much to her shock, because s/he'd been raised a good feminist, s/he found out her brain had been changed. S/he had become interested in pornography, and even just a little skin showing on another female aroused her. S/he found her crude thoughts embarrassing, but unstoppable. S/he began losing her verbal acuity which had always been her long suit, and s/he had difficulty crying. S/he claimed she was reading more in the sciences which had never interested her before. Some points sound like a joke, but this interview was on NPR and I know we can trust the government in all things about sex.  The NPR guest doesn't have the right equipment for the urinal in the men's room yet, but sounds a bit dangerous for the ladies room. Maybe while in Houston, s/he could use your private restroom?

Norma

P.S. You may remember Chaz Bono's girlfriend (a lesbian) complained about her former lesbian lover's male behavior (and personal habits) and left her/him. The former Chastity Bono decided her attraction wasn’t because she was a lesbian, but because she was a man.

Exercise

What it takes to discourage Democratic voters

"Apparently all it takes is six years of economic torpor; the disastrous debut of the biggest new federal program in two generations; record levels of federal debt; revelations of scandals and malfeasance at the Veterans Administration, the IRS, the Secret Service, and the Justice Department; Russian revanchism on the march; a rampaging army of (literal) cutthroats gobbling up territory in the Middle East; and the feeble and patronizing government response to a modern plague." Mona Charen.

But all the polls show voters still think the Democrats care more about them. If this is caring, go love on someone else!

During the Great Depression when the economy would start to perk up, FDR would get some bloated socialist program passed, and the economy would sink again.  Ten years he did this, yet Democrats still think he is a saint because Grandpa was sent to the woods to built cabins or grandma got a ten cent raise.  Although I think the Ebola thing has been way over publicized, we see that it has lessened respect and faith in the president, who sits on his hands and worries about West African economies when our stock market got shaky just from the damage to airlines. Then he appoints a political hack to be the Ebola czar.   No one, except maybe Rachel Maddow has faith in him.

Hate speech and Houston

Gay marriage, confused restrooms and hate speech packaged ordinances such as Houston's will not be the end of it, folks. There is hate speech legislation that includes 30 forms of sexual behavior, many of which I didn't know existed such as klismaphilia and gerontosexuality, as well as pedophilia and incest. H.R.1913 - Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009.

• Apotemnophilia - sexual arousal associated with the stump(s) of an Amputee
• Asphyxophilia - sexual gratification derived from activities that involve oxygen deprivation through hanging, strangulation, or other means
• Autogynephilia - the sexual arousal of a man by his own perception of himself as a woman or dressed as a woman
• Bisexual - the capacity to feel erotic attraction toward, or to engage in sexual interaction with, both males and females.
• Coprophilia - sexual arousal associated with feces
• Exhibitionism - the act of exposing one’s genitals to an unwilling observer to obtain sexual gratification
• Fetishism/Sexual Fetishism - obtaining sexual excitement primarily or exclusively from an inanimate object or a particular part of the body
• Frotteurism - approaching an unknown woman from the rear and pressing or rubbing the penis against her buttocks
• Heterosexuality - the universal norm of sexuality with those of the opposite sex
• Homosexual/Gay/Lesbian - people who form sexual relationships primarily or exclusively with members of their own gender
• Gender Identity Disorder - a strong and persistent cross-gender identification, which is the desire to be, or the insistence that one is, or the other sex, "along with" persistent discomfort about one’s assigned sex or a sense of the inappropriateness in the gender role of that sex
• Gerontosexuality - distinct preference for sexual relationships primarily or exclusively with an elderly partner
• Incest - sex with a sibling or parent
• Kleptophilia - obtaining sexual excitement from stealing
• Klismaphilia - erotic pleasure derived from enemas
• Necrophilia - sexual arousal and/or activity with a corpse
• Partialism - A fetish in which a person is sexually attracted to a specific body part exclusive of the person
• Pedophilia - Sexual activity with a prepubescent child (generally age 13 years or younger). The individual with pedophilia must be age 16 years or older and at least 5 years older than the child. For individuals in late adolescence with pedophilia, no precise age difference is specified, and clinical judgment must be used; both the sexual maturity of the child and the age difference must be taken into account; the adult may be sexually attracted to opposite sex, same sex, or prefer either
• Prostitution - the act or practice of offering sexual stimulation or intercourse for money
• Sexual Masochism - obtaining sexual gratification by being subjected to pain or humiliation
• Sexual Sadism - the intentional infliction of pain or humiliation on another person in order to achieve sexual excitement
• Telephone Scatalogia - sexual arousal associated with making or receiving obscene phone calls
• Toucherism - characterized by a strong desire to touch the breast or genitals of an unknown woman without her consent; often occurs in conjunction with other paraphilia
• Transgenderism - an umbrella term referring to and/or covering transvestitism, drag queen/king, and transsexualism
• Transsexual - a person whose gender identity is different from his or her anatomical gender
• Transvestite - a person who is sexually stimulated or gratified by wearing the clothes of the other gender
• Transvestic Fetishism - intense sexually arousing fantasies, sexual urges, or behaviors involving cross-dressing
• Urophilia - sexual arousal associated with urine
• Voyeurism - obtaining sexual arousal by observing people without their consent when they are undressed or engaged in sexual activity
• Zoophilia/Bestiality - engaging in sexual activity with animals

APA's "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders," Fourth Edition, Text Revision (Washington: American Psychiatric Association, 2000), pp. 566-582 (DSM-IV)

A plan to increase welfare by raising the minimum

The Democrats are on a roll again, lying about income, wealth and the minimum wage.  The Obama economy has only done well for the wealthiest, so of course they are demanding increase in minimum wage.  Walmart union led protests this week are saying $15, some $20 an hour. Minimum wage workers account for 4.7 percent of hourly paid workers and 1.1% of all workers and there are more women, and most are part time. Most companies will have to cut employees and when it doesn’t work, the demands will only increase.  And this is sort of an evil plan, because that means fewer teens working and learning job skills, therefore, more poorly prepared adults, and larger welfare rolls to vote Democrat. See how it works? When I worked at minimum wage I was probably not even worth that, but some employers decided I had a future and could be trained. Thank you Mayor Zickuhr, Mt. Morris Public Library and Foxbilt Feeds.

http://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2013/ted_20130325.htm

http://www.bls.gov/cps/minwage2012.htm

Two-thirds of minimum-wage workers earn raises within a year—without the government’s help.

The average family income of a minimum-wage worker is $53,000 a year, less than the national average of $79,500 a year but well above the poverty level.

Sometimes it’s what you DON’T do that saves the environment

Don’t release balloons at parties and weddings and community celebrations.

Speaking of Ebola

While you've got exotic diseases on your mind, Chikungunya Virus which is spread by mosquitoes has now arrived in Florida from the Caribbean. You don't die, but it sure hurts. Also, how's this for speedy food safety investigations. Live swamp eels have been shipped to the U.S. from Asia since the 1990s for ethnic food markets, and now a study shows 27.7% of them are infected with some nasty nematodes which can transmit Gnathostomiasis. Vision loss, blindness, pain, paralysis, coma and death.  As reported in JAMA

Two female publicity hounds

There are two women whose stories are making the rounds of the internet, twitter and Facebook.  It’s hard to tell just how much they’ve generated since these stories are “shared” and passed along by multiple people, which could account for how recently I see them. But I think they are publicity hounds.

One is planning her suicide because she has a fatal illness. Famous and not so famous are pleading with her, telling her life can be good. 

The other is planning her abortion with writing a tender, loving letter to her baby who she is planning to kill because this just isn’t the right time.  I figure she’s angling for money and when the offer is high enough, she’ll take it.

I’m not giving them any publicity by providing a link, photo, or name.

Houston, we’ve got a problem

There are apparently some government officials in Houston who haven't read the Constitution and don't know the history of clerics in the Revolution, elimination of slavery, the Civil Rights movement, every war protest, and construction of every social agency from schools to hospitals. Somehow they've gotten the idea pastors can't preach morality and politics from the pulpit. That should surprise the ones preaching about climate change and income gap, which is also the topic of many (boring) sermons and church workshops.  I wish I had $5 for every sermon I heard against the Viet Nam war in the 1970s.

The mayor of Houston is a tyrant and bigot. Transgenders now think THEY are being thrown under the bus because they might not have open-to-all toilets if she backs down.

http://allenbwest.com/2014/10/christian-persecution-us-openly-gay-houston-mayor-demands-pastors-turn-sermons/

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2014/10/14/city-houston-demands-pastors-turn-over-sermons/

Hearty Breakfast Muffins (Carol Shaw Johnston)

• 2 carrots, shredded
• 1 zucchini, shredded
• 2 bananas, mashed
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
• 1/4 cup yogurt
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/2 cup rolled oats
• 1/2 cup chopped pecans
• 1/2 cup dried cranberries (I used low-sugar Craisins)
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger

. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Place paper muffin cups into a 12-muffin pan.

. Mix carrots, banana, zucchini,vegetable oil, yogurt, and eggs together until fully incorporated.

. Whisk flour and baking soda in a separate bowl. Mix brown sugar, oats, coconut, pecans, cherries, cinnamon,salt, and ginger into flour mixture until all ingredients are coated in flour.Stir wet ingredients into flour mixture until just combined. Scoop batter into the prepared muffin cups.

Bake in the preheated oven until a toothpick inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean and edges are slightly brown, 17 to 22 minutes. Cool in the pans for 10 minutes before removing to cool completely on a wire rack.

What has NIH done with funding specifically for preparedness and biosurveillance?

The NIH has already been given massive amounts of money beginning with post Katrina funding to handle the situation we have now with Ebola.  Where has the money gone?

Here’s what’s covered in the Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Reauthorization Act of 2013

• National Health Security Strategy
• Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response
• National Advisory Committee on Children and Disasters
• Modernization of the National Disaster Medical System
• Temporary reassignment of State and local personnel during a public health emergency
• Improving State and local public health security
• Hospital preparedness and medical surge capacity
• Enhancing situational awareness and biosurveillance
• Enhancing medical countermeasure review
• Accelerating medical countermeasure advanced research and development

“The 2013 law builds on work the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has undertaken to advance national health security. These include authorizing funding for public health and medical preparedness programs, such as the Hospital Preparedness Program and the Public Health Emergency Preparedness Cooperative Agreement. These programs build the capabilities of communities’ health care and public health systems to support people in need during and after disasters.

Thousands of hospitals and communities across the country participate in these programs, and because of this participation they now have stronger capabilities and better planning to respond to disasters. They regularly exercise and conduct drills. They are building partnerships across their communities so that if parts of the infrastructure are overwhelmed by disaster, the system can still provide care. Using these programs over the past seven years to strengthen health systems and build coalitions, states have been able to handle in a number of disasters on their own without federal responders.”

http://www.hhs.gov/news/press/2013pres/03/20130313a.html

https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/113/hr307/text

More lies about the Founders—left is working overtime

No, democracy wasn't invented by the Founding Fathers nor the indigenous peoples, who had many cultures and languages. They relied on many sources not only in Europe, but the Bible and all the way back to the Greeks and Romans. No one ever learned the nonsense of this straw man poster misinformation which first tells a lie, then reports to correct the lie. Also, we don't have a Democracy, we have a Republic. The Founders were brilliant men with flaws who knew they stood on the shoulder of giants. We have tiny shriveled gnomes today who don't think, plan or read history, whose ideas are rooted in Marxism and the divine right of kings.

Yes, the archives belong to the victors as we say in the library field, however, we are fortunate to have many original documents, although well hidden and disguised in government schools today. There was a real fascination with everything Indian if you check 19th sources. And if you go back to 16th and 17th c. sources, some Europeans were horrified by the behavior and culture they found--and obviously saw their own culture as superior (although not by our enlightened, humanist standards where we sacrifice the unborn for personal gain but not usually living children).

Contrary to popular belief, Obama’s speeches rate at the bottom of the presidential scale

http://www.truthrevolt.org/news/study-obamas-rhetorical-superiority-myth

I checked several sources for this story. The liberal ones claim that Bush and Obama were equally elementary in the speeches and today no one would be able to understand the complex speech and references of the pre-1920 politicians. But others say Bush's speeches were better. Actually, it's the speech writers, with the politician putting in his own touch. I find Obama's mannerisms, teleprompter dependence and stammering very distracting, as were Bush's facial quirks and folksy good ol' boy mannerisms. But Bush was an avid reader of history, biography and politics--Obama depends on hip hop music on his I-pod and it showed.

https://www.vocativ.com/interactive/usa/us-politics/presidential-readability/

I took a writing class a few years ago at Lakeside in which the instructor told us the most difficult vocabulary and complex constructions were on the sports page of the newspaper. I was once a speech writer for an Ohio female politician. It's not that hard to learn the cadence and style of a speaker by reviewing previous speeches. But you do need to consider the audience.  Speaking to a conference of state workers was different than speaking to a gathering of unemployed workers who were over 55 (the area I was working in).

Do you know what day it is?

Today, October 15, we celebrate the end of the Siege of Vienna in 1529 by the Ottoman Caliphate under The Sultan Suleiman. Buck Sexton says, "Consider it the anniversary of the West refusing to go quietly into the long cold night at the hands of the Islamic conquest almost 500 years ago...."   I'm not sure it's worth too much celebrating. The Muslims were persistent and there was another famous battle in 1683 to take the West.

http://4freedoms.com/group/austria/forum/topics/the-siege-of-vienna-in-1529

http://www.wien-vienna.com/vienna1683.php

Spin and fear equal hysteria

I hate the way Ebola is being politicized, both by the right and the left. There's a Democrat action group that's made a ridiculous ad about the GOP causing this with the budget when the CDC did zip nada zilch about a disease known since 1976 and had it's budget line increased. And on the opposing team paranoid Christian survivalists are claiming Obama is launching germ warfare because he hates us. They are making the loony left look almost normal. Millions are dying of AIDS, TB and malaria in Africa; we have hysterical people in the U.S. who are refusing vaccines for measles, mumps, polio, diphtheria, HPV and seasonal flu. Add to that the biggest killer in the U.S. is not bacteria or viruses, but lifestyle diseases--alcohol, drugs, tobacco, overeating, sexual promiscuity and couch surfing--things we actually DO control. Plus there are those among us who believe we are mini-gods and can control the climate and viruses and bacteria. Really, it's like living in the dark ages. The news media pile on like ants at a picnic spreading fear and misinformation. I’ve been awake about an hour and have heard about the 2nd hospital employee with Ebola at least 10 times.

A different viewpoint on technology

Domestic violence among gays and lesbian couples

It's not easy to find reliable statistics on domestic abuse and battering within the gay community (it's quite a bit higher than among heterosexual couples), in part because they've been afraid to report it, or societal factors are blamed, and more recently there is the not so subtle threat of homophobia if anyone researches it. But this paper has some good resources.

https://www.rit.edu/cla/criminaljustice/sites/rit.edu.cla.criminaljustice/files/docs/WorkingPapers/2009/2009-16.pdf

http://thehairpin.com/2012/08/run-anyway

HIV, Ebola, and spending

This is government speak to absolve individuals who spread this disease of all responsibility.

"Creating an AIDS-free generation will require shared responsibility, including that of partner governments, multilateral organizations, the private sector, civil society, and faith-based organizations, among others."

Yet when a nurse who gave her best to help a dying Ebola patient comes down with the disease, SHE violated protocol.

-------------------------------------------

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife announced Tuesday they are donating $25 million to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control foundation to fight the Ebola crisis. Wow. That's spitting into the wind. Why not give it to a church or charity who actually do something like building hospitals and training local medical staff, or to pharmaceutical R & D companies developing a vaccine or cure? WHO estimates that between 40% and 70% of African health facilities are the property of or managed by Catholic churches. I'm sure they could use some help now that treating Ebola is interfering with other health concerns like malaria, TB and AIDS. Or, since so many Liberian doctors and nurses have died from Ebola, perhaps he could fund their replacements. $25 million for CDC is chump change.

-----------------------------------------------

Think we spend too much on other countries' health problems? When asked, many Americans guess 28% of our budget goes to foreign aid, but it's actually less than 1%. G.W. Bush really pushed the envelop increasing U.S. global health funding from $1.7 billion to $8.2 billion; Obama? Not so much. It's at $8.7 billion. But let's say it's roughly $9 billion. Sounds like a lot on my pension, but that's out of $4 TRILLION, or less than 1%. The largest amounts go to Africa, and most is for HIV ($4.9 billion); very little for "neglected tropical diseases" like Ebola. Also, since the Democrats came into power, some foreign aid is dependent on those countries accepting our anti-family, birth control programs. So don't believe all the hate ads you're seeing from the Democrats that stingy Republicans are to blame for Ebola. The CDC share of the health budget actually went up. (Statistics from Kaiser Family Foundation, published in JAMA, April 23/30, 2014; editorial comments are my own)

http://kff.org/infographic/visualizing-health-policy-a-snapshot-of-us-global-health-funding/

http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/ebola-virus-outbreak/facebook-founder-mark-zuckerberg-kicks-25-million-ebola-n225381

http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/notes/2007/np05/en/

No reduction in emergency room visits under Obamacare

Don’t expect use of emergency departments to drop after Obamacare is fully implemented.  A recent study of the Massachusetts system show that ER visits increased after insurance reforms.

“Insured white patients younger than 65 years accounted for 62.7% of emergency visits before reforms went into effect and 64.2% afterward. In the same age group, insured black patients accounted for 12% of emergency visits before the reforms and 13.9% afterward. The largest increase was among Medicaid patients younger than 65 years, who accounted for 23.6% of emergency department patients before the reforms went into effect compared with 29.7% afterward.”

http://newsatjama.jama.com/2014/03/20/emergency-visits-up-in-massachusetts-after-reforms-enacted/

Whatever happened to Born Again Redneck?

He had a great blog—can’t find anything after 2012.  Conservative, libertarian gay man who commented on politics and home décor.  I think his real name is Patrick Joubert Conlon.

Dr. Nancy Snyderman chose not to remain quarantined

Wendy Davis knows no shame

The woman who made her pitch for fame and a place in the Democratic party on aborted babies and pink athletic shoes, is now going after her disabled candidate. James Taranto account:

The Washington Post calls it “one of the nastiest campaign ads you will ever see.” (Hope springs eternal.) It’s for Wendy Davis, the state senator who is the Democratic nominee for governor of Texas and is heavily disfavored for an office her party hasn’t won since 1990. As Politico describes the ad, it “directly references gubernatorial rival Greg Abbott’s partial paralysis—including the image of an empty wheelchair—to charge the Republican with hypocrisy”:

“A tree fell on Greg Abbott. He sued and got millions,” a narrator says over the image of a wheelchair. “Since then, he’s spent his career working against other victims.” . . .

The spot cites three cases Abbott worked on as a state Supreme Court justice or attorney general. In one case, Abbott’s office argued a woman with an amputated leg wasn’t disabled because she had a prosthetic limb. In another, he said a door-to-door sales company wasn’t responsible when one of their employees raped a woman. (The Texas Supreme Court ruled in the woman’s favor.) In the third, he helped a hospital defend themselves [sic] against a lawsuit after a doctor botched surgeries.

“Greg Abbott,” the narrator says. “He’s not for you.”

The ad’s—and Politico’s—account of the cases is tendentious. In that third case, for instance, Law360.com reported at the time (in March) that the plaintiffs were “challenging the constitutionality of a revised state law that requires claimants to prove that the defendant had a specific intent to cause injury or harm.” Abbott, as attorney general, sought to intervene to defend the state on that question of law.

At any rate, the “hypocrisy” charge is ludicrous. Is the Davis campaign’s position that if a lawyer has ever been the plaintiff in a personal-injury action, he is obliged to side with plaintiffs in every subsequent case, regardless of the facts or the law? (As a corollary, are one-time defendants obliged to side with all future defendants? Is a plaintiff who gets countersued guilty of hypocrisy either way?)

But distortion and illogic are not exactly uncommon in political ads. What makes this one unusual is the harsh way in which it seeks to exploit Abbott’s physical infirmity. The criticism has Davis on the defensive; the Daily Caller’s Alex Pappas reports that she reiterated the attack on Abbott this morning at a press conference “featuring speakers in wheelchairs.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2014/10/13/abbott-if-wendy-davis-wants-to-attack-a-guy-in-a-wheelchair-thats-her-prerogative/

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/10/14/blowback-continues-after-texas-candidate-wendy-davis-ad-uses-wheelchair-to/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/13/wendy-davis-wheelchair-ad_n_5978342.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2791760/wendy-davis-doubles-controversial-wheelchair-ad-attacks-paralyzed-foe-governor-s-race.html

Ebola vs. Malaria, which kills more?

While you're thinking about Ebola, "Over one million people die from malaria each year, mostly children under five years of age, with 90 per cent of malaria cases occurring in Sub-Saharan Africa. An estimated 300-600 million people suffer from malaria each year."

Malaria has been pretty much wiped out in North America, but each year about 2,000 come here with it--didn't take the right precautions. DDT was discovered to be effective in 1939; the U.S. virtually eliminated the disease (about 15,000 a year) by 1951.

Ask the progressives and environmentalists why DDT isn't used today in Africa. Is it any wonder they are suspicious of western values and motives?

http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/viewSubCategory.asp?id=1259

http://www.smh.com.au/world/malaria-death-rate-slashed-with-use-of-controversial-ddt-20131010-2vb7c.html

Life tips

• Life tips for my friends and readers who are 45-ish.
• Put away about 15% in your retirement account, above what your employer or government is contributing.
• Take good care of your relationships--they are like gold.
• Ignore all the food fads and scares; eat all the colors, eat less and move more. Just like mom said.
• Everything in moderation; especially alcohol and coffee and just pitch the cigarettes. They've never been found to benefit anything in your body.
• Don't be a pot head even if it is legal--you need every brain cell you have working at full capacity.
• Take care of your ears--turn down the music--and your teeth. Don't become a deaf senior citizen with ugly teeth--it's not pleasant. Take out the ear buds and see a dentist twice a year.
• Go to church. There are thousands of denominations as a result of squabbles that happened years ago. One should meet your needs. The world is actually more religious now than ever before--don't lose out on the benefits.
• Enjoy the many pleasures of owning a pet, but they are not family--don't kid yourself.
• Think about the benefits and responsibilities of being a citizen of the United States. It's not perfect, but it's the only one ever created with idea that the state/monarch/king/president doesn't own the people.

Monday Memories—my teachers in the 1940s and 1950s

They did a lot with much less.

Week-ends don’t matter much to retirees, but thought this was cute.

Church of the Brethren in Nigeria is being persecuted—for over a decade by Boko Haram

Ekklesiyar Yan'uwa a Nigeria (EYN)  is the name of the Church of the Brethren in Nigeria. Their members are being killed, kidnapped, raped, and the churches are being burned by Boko Haram, a radical Islamic terrorist group similar to ISIS, but bumped from the news lately. The original kidnapped girls were from a Brethren community.  Other Christians like Catholics, 7th Day Adventists, Mormons and also Muslims are also being slaughtered. (Nigeria is about evenly divided between Christians and Muslims.)  CoB in the U.S. is tiny--probably about 120,000 members, but the gospel was so successfully spread in Nigeria that the EYN has about a million members. I've looked through several articles from the Church of the Brethren headquarters in the U.S. and the word Muslim and Islamic doesn't appear in the disaster stories, unless it's about Muslims being killed or interfaith work with the Muslim communities. Boko Haram is referred to as "insurgents." Other Christian sources use terms like Islamic or Muslim.

“The Boko Haram insurgents came to the villages in large numbers and, using rocket-propelled launchers, explosive devices, and bombs, invaded our communities in Madagali,” he said. “They killed, maimed people and destroyed houses before hoisting  their flags in different locations in the villages.”

“Boko Haram attacks that killed at least 150 members of the Church of the Brethren in Nigeria (Ekklesiyar Yan’uwa a Nigeria, or EYN) in the past 10 months (2013) have caused 8,000 Christians to flee, EYN leaders said.”

“Militants from the Islamic extremist group destroyed 15 places of worship belonging to EYN, which is the dominant denomination in Borno, Yobe and Adamawa states in northeastern Nigeria with 180,000 members.”

“The Rev. Filibus Gwama, (EYN) Borno state chairman of the Christian Association of Nigeria, believes the adoption of sharia is a strategy to checkmate Christianity in Nigeria.” (news report from 2001 about Sharia)

 http://www.brethren.org/news/2014/aid-efforts-continue-in-nigeria-mmb-members-to-do-advocacy.html

http://www.crossmap.com/news/how-can-i-celebrate-my-birthday-with-a-homeless-scattered-family-12600

http://christiannews.net/2014/09/09/bible-college-churches-shut-down-as-boko-haram-claims-territory-in-nigeria/

http://morningstarnews.org/2013/11/boko-haram-violence-cripples-christianity-in-areas-of-nigerias-borno-state/

http://www.worthynews.com/605-persecution-forces-nigerians-christians-to-flee-to-cameroon

Drank the Kool-Aid

http://collectingmythoughts.blogspot.com/2014/09/the-presidents-speech-at-un.html

http://collectingmythoughts.blogspot.com/2014/09/what-obama-doesnt-know-didnt-know.html

http://collectingmythoughts.blogspot.com/2014/06/while-iraq-goes-up-in-flames-obama.html

http://collectingmythoughts.blogspot.com/2014/04/un-african-and-un-presidential.html

Abby Johnson

Greta Van Susteren wants to know—are the airstrikes working?

Here is what I know that has happened since we started the airstrikes:

• 1/ ISIS is taking over Kobani — a Syrian town near border of Turkey - and this is huge!
• 2/ ISIS has also taken over control of the crossing between Kobani and Turkey meaning the civilians of Kobani can not escape and no supplies can get in to help them - and this is terrible!
• 3/ Anbar, Iraq’s largest province, is, in the words of the Pentagon ‘in flux’ [which I believe to be code for falling to ISIS]
• 4/ ISIS is 8 miles outside Baghdad [two weeks ago it was about 50 miles -- so this is big ISIS progress]
• 5/ ISIS is armed with ‘shoulder to air missiles’ and knows how to use them [in the last few days have taken down two Iraqi helicopters] - that means the skies are not safe.

In short — ISIS is GAINING ground and control.

So tell me…what are the SIGNS that the AIRSTRIKES ARE WORKING?

I would love to know the good signs. I want us to kill ISIS. They are vicious.

http://gretawire.foxnewsinsider.com/2014/10/11/just-asking-and-if-you-dont-have-an-answer-we-are-in-big-trouble/

                                

Second hand Rose

I think I heard a poll that 61% of Republicans (or maybe young Republicans) accept gay marriage.  This is a sea change since 2008, in fact, right up to the 2012 election Obama claimed that a real marriage couldn't be anything other than one man and one woman. Government officials and judges have changed the law, but the people haven't voted. It really started in the 1970s with the feminist movement.  What better way to say men don't matter? Children are for aborting if it's not convenient. The terrible AIDS plague helped it along by creating a huge block of sympathy because it affected primarily gays, regardless of the misinformation we were given. But mainly, the population just stopped caring about marriage.

I remember watching Phil Donahue when he was still a local show in the early 1970s from Dayton interviewing couples who claimed marriage just wasn't important.  It's like a couple of generations handed homosexuals their tattered hand-me-downs they didn't want any more.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=miEMfRcZbwc

Where are the race baiters, Jesse and Al, when you need them?

Many more young black men will be affected by HIV than will ever face a problem with Ferguson police or Ebola. Where are Jesse and Al? "In 2010, there were an estimated 10,600 new HIV infections among African American gay and bisexual men. By comparison, in the same year, there were an estimated 11,200 new HIV infections among white gay and bisexual men and 6,700 new HIV infections among Hispanic/Latinoc gay and bisexual men. Young African American gay and bisexual men aged 13 to 24 are especially affected by HIV." CDC

Allen West on Obama’s priorities

I have a racist troll (obviously if you don’t like a black man you must be racist, right?), so here’s some more.

The Commander in Chief will "drop by" the Pentagon today on his way to a series of 6-7 fundraising events across the country for the rest of this week. I have to bring out an interesting comparison. Obama's massive air strikes have yielded five such actions in Kobani against ISIS over the last two days but Obama has done more and will do more fundraisers over this week -- where is his emphasis? His BFF Turkish leader Recip Tayyip Erdogan sits back and watches what will be a slaughter of Syrian Kurds refusing any assistance to thwart ISIS -- and BHO is at fundraisers. An Air Force family was targeted online by Islamists. Fundraisers. Is there a crisis of leadership in America? We would have to have leadership in order to have a crisis -- there is an ABSENCE of leadership.

Voter ID battles

The lies Democrats are telling about voter ID and suppression and oppression of blacks are intended for one thing--create hate, anxiety and victimhood so blacks won't leave the Democrat controlled plantation.

http://www.ijreview.com/2014/10/185049-democrats-losing-war-voter-id-placeholder-title/

Why it’s important for liberals to have a few conservative friends. . .

Thomas Sowell on Obama and Ebola

Although I haven't been as hysterical as some about Ebola, Obama's casual response has been no surprise. He doesn't see himself as the leader of the United States, but of the whole world, and therefore our needs come last. It's the same mentality that makes him reach out to the mosque in Oklahoma where Nolan worshipped, but not to Christians being slaughtered in Moslem countries in huge numbers, and to make pronouncements about immigrants that caused poor people to rush our borders and to be spread around the country.

“Whatever the reason, or combination of reasons, that led to President Obama's foreign policy disasters around the world -- with the crowning disaster of all, a nuclear Iran, looming on the horizon -- it cannot be a simple lack of knowledge or experience. Various former members of the Obama administration are telling the same story, of information and advice from knowledgeable and experienced officials being ignored by this vain and headstrong man. . .

No one knows at this point how big the Ebola danger may turn out to be. But what we do know is that official reassurances about this and other dangers have become worthless.

The erosion of Constitutional government over the years has become, under the Obama administration, a deluge of arbitrary edicts and defiant lawlessness protected by a grossly politicized Department of Justice.”  Thomas Sowell

The World without and American Leaders, pt. 2, by Roland Lane (from Facebook)

ISIS continues to hammer towns in Syria. Perhaps when the President announced that under no circumstances would we place boots on the ground he really believed that Europe and the Arabs would respond by putting their boots on the ground; another indication that the street organizer from Chicago has little grasp of the geopolitical world or its history. Perhaps Obama now is beginning to comprehend the vacuum that exists has been created by his philosophy of world leadership. Or....maybe not. Most Americans at one time believed they knew something of what was in the heart of Obama--buckets of PC thought combined with the drive of the True-Believing Crusader righting the wrongs of the United States. Okay, nothing different here. Every garden variety Leftist walks in the clouds of the Marxist Mist. This was expected but the Great Narcissist has taken too many bows for crises which have barely been addressed. For most individuals who occasionally sort through the news, the threat of a collapsing Middle East and the implications for the world in the immediate future is real and is in focus. But other than the next fundraiser, what is the focus of Obama?

Traditionally most leaders develop their approach to national leadership from a knowledge of history, precedent, national self-interest, historical models,the nature of power and at the least a reasonable guess of the potential evil in the hearts of humankind. How many of these basics did Obama learn from his Kenya heritage, his nine years of tutelage from the Chicago Marxist Frank Marshall Davis, or the ever Leftward march of Occidental College? The problem with thought process of the Left is that everything it does revolves around a one-note song. If one's world view believes that the United States IS the root of evil, what is the incentive to grasp or study the half-dozen items suggested in the first sentence of this paragraph?

What actions does Obama now consider? In the entire list of preceding U.S. Presidents; the good, and the bad, the successful and unsuccessful, there is no precedent in America history for a President who dislikes his country and its history. Obama stated that he wanted to fundamentally change America but he believes that the American footprint has been too large. Obama believes that America has interfered too often in the affairs of nations. Obama does not believe in American exceptionalism. Now the nation is facing multiple crises and Obama is imprisoned by his own philosophy.

What does Obama do when ISIS threatens Israel? What does he do when Iran gets the bomb? What does he do when, God forbid, the loosy goosey, non-Ebola policy sprouts hot spots in the U.S.military or in major cities in the U.S.? When the public finally realizes that ISIS is now targeting U.S. soldiers and their families here on U.S. soil, it is not outside the range of possibilities that the Democratic Party, to save itself from extinction, will pressure the President via one pretext or another to leave office.

(Except for the last sentence, this is a great article.  Democrats will never ask him to step down, not even to protect their own skins.)

Cat humor

Let’s blame homeschooling!

"Adam Lanza attended Sandy Hook Elementary School for a brief time Afterward, he attended St. Rose of Lima Catholic School in Newtown and then Newtown High School, where he was an honors student. He was taken out of high school at the age of sixteen, and began attending Western Connecticut State University shortly thereafter. Subsequent to his removal from high school, Lanza was home-schooled by his mother and father, and earned a GED. Lanza's aunt said his mother removed him from the Newtown public school system because she was unhappy with the school district's plans for her son. He attended Western Connecticut State University in 2008 and 2009." [Wikipedia]

So what are they trying to blame for the Sandy Hook murders?  His homeschooling! 

http://time.com/18965/a-different-ending-to-my-adam-lanza-story/

http://patch.com/connecticut/avon/avon-state-sen-witkos-bashes-sandy-hook-advisory-commission-homeschooling-inferen-0#.VDXPjmd0wmg

http://illinoisreview.typepad.com/illinoisreview/2014/09/progressive-gun-control-advocates-blame-homeschooling-for-public-school-shooting.html

Democrat billionaires seek a one party country

It worked well for Nazi Germany—the government controlled the country’s wealth.  Now Democrats want a similar arrangement, but want to control the government.

I remember watching on TV the moaning and groaning of the Democrats after they lost the 2004 election. They decided they needed to be more values oriented and touch the hearts and souls of the voter (with lies, apparently). Here's one of the outcomes of that soul searching--a powerful leftist organization of millionaires--Democracy Alliance. What better way to make more money than to take over the government?

"The political landscape in America is much different than it was ...in 2005 when the nine-year-old Democracy Alliance was founded. The secretive club for radical millionaires and billionaires who want to turn America into Greece was founded soon after John Kerry’s unexpected defeat in the 2004 presidential election. The outlook for the Left was bleak at that time but no longer. The Left has regained its footing and is on the march, determined to dismantle the First Amendment and reorder society through Obamacare, a wealth redistribution scheme disguised as health care policy. The Democracy Alliance, once determined to remain separate from the Democratic Party, is more partisan than it has ever been as its seeks to expand left-wing political infrastructure across the country."

http://capitalresearch.org/2014/10/the-vast-left-wing-conspiracy-george-soross-democracy-alliance-remains-a-potent-force-in-the-2014-elections/

“The new breed of rich and frustrated leftists” saw themselves as oppressed both by “a Republican conspiracy” and “by their own party and its insipid Washington establishment,” wrote journalist Matt Bai.

Organizing for Action (formerly known as Organizing for America), the 501(c)(4) nonprofit group into which the last Obama campaign transformed itself, is intricately enmeshed in the Democracy Alliance network. In other words, Obama and the Democracy Alliance are sharing the same blood line.

Speaking of the rich . .

"As the recession lifted, poor and middle class Americans dug deeper into their wallets to give to charity, even though they were earning less. At the same time, according to a new Chronicle analysis of tax data, wealthy Americans earned more, but the portion of the income they gave to charity declined. . .Residents of Utah remain by far the nation’s most generous... Memphis, Birmingham, Ala., Atlanta, and Nashville are the most generous cities, and . . . The 17 most generous states, as measured by share of income donated to charity, voted for Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney in the 2012 election." (Chronicle of Philanthropy)

President Obama complains about the income gap and the fat cats. Does his staff understand "optics?" (perception not physics) Last night he had a fund raiser in Connecticut, talked about wealth inequality at a lavish mansion in a gated estate, the home of Richie Richman. The economy is stagnant, the rich are getting richer, and he whines at the home of a rich man named Richman (real estate developer who's made his wealth in "affordable housing"). Federal tax credits and subsidies for “affordable housing” are very complex, but the recession of 2008-09 really had Richman’s business booming since other investors had to back off.

Halloween smiles

We’re looking at a 30 year war—Panetta

"I think we're looking at kind of a 30-year war. It's going to take a long time to be able to go after these elements. It can't be [that] we're going to go in one day and pull back the next day." That's according to Leon Panetta, former defense secretary for Barack Obama. Panetta also criticized Obama for taking off the table the option of boots on the ground. "If we don't, at least in my view -- if they establish a base of operations in that part of the world, it's only a matter of time before they will then use it as a basis on which to attack this country," Panetta added. He also argued in his new book that it was a mistake to leave Iraq in the first place. He should send the commander in chief an autographed copy of that book.

From Patriot Post Daily Digest, Oct. 7

In his book “Worthy Fights” he writes, the White House was “so eager to rid itself of Iraq that it was willing to withdraw rather than lock in arrangements that would preserve our influence and interests.” And finally, “To this day, I believe that a small U.S. troop presence in Iraq could have effectively advised the Iraqi military on how to deal with al-Qaeda’s resurgence and the sectarian violence that has engulfed the country.” His account directly contradicts Barack Obama’s latest story – that total U.S. withdrawal “wasn’t a decision made by me.” Actually, yes, it was, and it was a terrible and costly one.

Allen West sums it up:

“Yeehaw, we finally have reports that our air strikes have killed 29 ISIS fighters -- and how much does one Tomahawk cruise missile cost? ISIS closing in on another major city, Kobani -- and the Kurds admitting they have not received any arms support. We have a growing issue with Ebola in the United States and referred to as a top national security concern. We have our children afflicted with a mysterious respiratory illness and virus that is causing paralysis and just took the life of a young New Jersey pre-schooler. And let's be honest folks, there are nearly 103 million Americans out of work. But have no fear, Obama has it all under control -- I heard him say so last night at a fundraiser. And he will say so again today at several more fundraisers. What a guy!” Facebook post, Oct. 7

Democrats pathologize women and it works at the polls

Women seem to gravitate to the party that sees them as victims, needing a lot of help from the government. They don't walk the talk of, "I am woman hear me roar," and are sleeping with Uncle Sam who has promised to take care of them. "Among unmarried women, Democrats now lead Republicans by 22 points, 58-36 — up from an 11 point lead in July." Washington Post today.

Make the best use of time

It’s the ideology—that won’t change

In 2014 and 2016 many Democrats running for office claim they are not Obama. They will be running from the sluggish economy, from Obamacare increases coming in January, from the executive order that will come on immigration right after the election, from the IRS scandal, from snooping on journalists, from worsening relations with Israel, from the expanded wars in the middle east, from the rollout of Obamacare and the sign up mess, from the sloppy Secret Service mess, from the questions about Ebola. But Obama isn't a person as much as he's an ideology, one that many Democrats subscribe to. They too believe in a government too big to fail.

Our president is a hypocrite

An Obama administration official traveled to Oklahoma City Saturday to offer words of praise to congregants at the mosque attended by Alton Nolen. I wonder if he then stopped by to talk to the traumatized employees of the food processing facility, or if he made a sympathy call on the murdered woman's family, or visited the other woman stabbed multiple times. If Nolan had been a member of a Christian church, would Obama have sent someone to praise them for their good works in other areas?

Monday Memories—missionaries to Nigeria

When I was a youngster, the Church of the Brethren in Mt. Morris, IL would host our Nigerian missionaries. Later my high school principal Evan Kinsley and his wife Lucile went to Nigeria as teacher missionaries in the mid-1960s.  The Church of the Brethren was very successful in Nigeria and had begun work with women and girls establishing a school. The kidnapped girls in the news recently were from a school in Chibok in northeastern Nigeria. Boko Haram the group terrorizing that area  is an extremist Islamic sect in northern Nigeria violently seeking a “pure” Islamic state. The girls are probably great grand daughters of those early converts. Most of the affected families are part of the Church of the Brethren in Nigeria (EYN--Ekklesiyar Yan’uwa a Nigeria). EYN, the CoB mission, now has about a million members and is much larger than its shrinking grandmother in the U.S.

My mother’s cousin, Marianne Michael (on the George side), served in Nigeria. From 1948 to 1961, the Michaels carried out missionary work for the Church of the Brethren, including the organization of the Garkida Girls’ Life Brigade and the establishment of an adult literacy program for women. Michael published extensively in the Gospel Messenger about her missionary work. Her archives are at the University of Iowa Libraries. We usually correspond at Christmas, but now that she’s in a nursing home and in her late 90s, I don’t hear from her.

http://www.one.org/us/2014/10/01/brave-nigerian-schoolgirl-shares-her-escape-from-boko-haram/

http://blog.brethren.org/2014/bringbackourgirls-zooming-out-but-staying-focused/

http://www.christianpost.com/news/nigeria-4-churches-burned-down-scores-killed-in-deadly-boko-haram-attack-on-christians-122439/

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/colinfreeman/100271043/chibok-school-abductions-a-story-of-ancient-islam-and-20th-century-missionaries/