Presidential Pixels

Reason has posted an article by a man who did at-home computer piece work for the Obama Campaign for under $3.00 an hour; the promised "transparency and sunshine" for legislation we were supposed to be able to see before Congress voted, has never materialized (nor does our congress read the bills); the scary fly over of Air Force One could have easily been photoshopped by any high school kid, so there are rumors that wasn't the real reason, but the official (who says it was discussed in front of Obama) has taken the fall; webpages with campaign promises are being altered to fit the crisis of the moment; the viewing of ARRA money infusing the economy isn't up yet because the economy is recovering without it. [This one is "total gross outlays = zero, but you can check others--not that they shouldn't be careful in spending, only that with or without planning it will make no difference]. In some ways, it's business as usual--good 'ol boys, back room deals, calling in your markers. In many other ways, we've never seen anything like this in the history of our country. It's always been easy to be a criminal in office; but technology has certainly given that a big boost.

The Obama Campaign was oh, so high tech--remember? Ridiculed John McCain, the old fogy who let others do his e-mail (he has crippled arms, but the Obama campaign teeny-boppers didn't notice his war time sacrifices). They hired ChaCha to do the work which was farmed it out [but to American workers we assume].

"For every query I expedite, I make three cents. If traffic is heavy, and when I'm in top form, I can average four queries per minute, or $7.20 an hour—but these high volume periods are rare. I calculate my career average to be approximately $2.85 per hour. That's less than half of the federal minimum wage. ChaCha Search Inc., in other words, is a high-tech 21st century sweatshop.

Headquartered in Carmel, Indiana, ChaCha has approximately 55,000 home-working guides and expeditors under contract. The expeditors are all paid the piece rate described above; the guides receive 10 or 20 cents per query, depending on the quality of their answers and their level of expertise. It's a young, hip company whose advertisers have included AT&T, McDonald's, and the Barack Obama presidential campaign.

The Obama campaign's use of ChaCha was simple and brilliant. Messages would go out advising customers to vote early for Obama and to text back the keyword OBAMA for more information. That would direct them to pro-Obama websites such as VoteForChange.com. If the keyword failed to trigger the automatic response, an expeditor like me would route it to a guide."

Clouds without rain, trees without fruit--twice dead

That's the message of Jude to the 2009 U.S. Congress, attempting to foist all manner of evil on the citizens of this country. He wrote a letter 2000 years ago warning the church not to be fooled by people who reject common decency and morality--the big word would be antinomians. They perverted the Gospel of Jesus Christ and filled their own minds and bodies with perversion, particularly sexual, basing their "truth" on their own personal experiences and beliefs. The real problem was the Christians were allowing these lawless folks who thought they were beyond criticism and the law to take over. Sounds like reading today's beltway news, doesn't it? Jude, very short and right to the point:

Dear friends, although I was very eager to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt I had to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints. For certain men whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among you. They are godless men, who change the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord.

Though you already know all this, I want to remind you that the Lord delivered his people out of Egypt, but later destroyed those who did not believe. And the angels who did not keep their positions of authority but abandoned their own home—these he has kept in darkness, bound with everlasting chains for judgment on the great Day. In a similar way, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns gave themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion. They serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire.

In the very same way, these dreamers pollute their own bodies, reject authority and slander celestial beings. But even the archangel Michael, when he was disputing with the devil about the body of Moses, did not dare to bring a slanderous accusation against him, but said, "The Lord rebuke you!" Yet these men speak abusively against whatever they do not understand; and what things they do understand by instinct, like unreasoning animals—these are the very things that destroy them.

Woe to them! They have taken the way of Cain; they have rushed for profit into Balaam's error; they have been destroyed in Korah's rebellion.

. . . They are clouds without rain, blown along by the wind; autumn trees, without fruit and uprooted--twice dead. They are wild waves of the sea, foaming up their shame; wandering stars, for whom blackest darkness has been reserved forever. Jude 3-12 NIV

Jude's letter uses a lot of Old Testament images--and even if you're not a church goer, you've probably seen some movies or read a novel or two with themes of rebellion, licentiousness, or greed. Cain, of course, committed the first murder; Balaam was an ancient pagan sorcerer who was greedy, and Korah led a rebellion against Moses.

Congress is again attempting to foist "hate crime" legislation under the guise of protection for special interest groups, although we are loaded with laws that prohibit murder, assault, libel, etc. The FBI statistics show that in a nation of 300 million people, there were only 242 "violent" crimes against homosexuals, bisexuals or drag queens in 2007. This is hardly an epidemic worthy of liberals' attention--but it is really a cover-up and an attempt to silence any criticism (not prevent violence) from the press, from the churches, from private discussion, from bloggers, or even playground teasing of sexual perversions. Most crimes against ethnic groups, minorities, gays, wiccans, polygamists, etc. are committed by their own kind--black on black crime, gay men against gay men, etc. Women are not protected in the bill proposed by Kennedy unless they are lesbians, yet assaults on women continue despite all manner of laws, protection orders, self-defense classes, and light the night programs. Based on percentages of assaults on a special group, maybe Ted could introduce legislation to protect women with the name of Peterson.

Wake up folks--especially liberal and moderate Roman Catholics and main line Protestants. This is not what you think it is. It is an assault on the First Amendment masquerading as something warm and fuzzy--like mold in your basement eating the foundation, causing a stench. An assault onn freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom to choose your associations, and your right to redress grievances.

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."

"A bill that would provide federal money to train law enforcement officers to identify and criminally prosecute speech and thought offensive to homosexuals has been introduced into the U.S. Senate, matching a House-approved bill that critics fear will be used to crack down on biblical teachings.

The proposal, from Democratic Sens. Edward Kennedy and Patrick Leahy, aligns with H.R. 1913, which was approved in the U.S. House yesterday.

It denies protections to classes of citizens such as pastors, Christians, missionaries, veterans and the elderly that would be granted to homosexuals and those with gender issues." Link

The Left keeps the mustard story going

Obviously, William A. Jacobson did not support the president, "Obama won the popular vote 52.9/45.6%, with the media cheering him on and refusing to ask hard questions, hundreds of millions of dollars raised through questionable credit card tactics, and the inability of anyone to question him for fear of being called a racist. I guess that makes him President-for-Life, means that Republicans are on their way to oblivion, and prohibits anyone from poking fun at him or his party. Sorry, but this isn't Venezuela... yet."

But an innocent little post about Dijon mustard has the "Obamakins" really mad.

“Like most of my posts, Dijongate could have and probably should have fallen into the black hole of internet punditry, never to be seen or heard of again. But the reaction from the nutroots was widespread and swift, and they have kept the story alive,”

but why he asks?

"The nutroots and mainstream media understand that Obama and the corresponding Democratic majorities in Congress were elected through a unique confluence of circumstances which may never be repeated. The historic election of the first black president; an unquestioning mainstream media which embarrassed itself with its biased coverage; an economic credit crunch just weeks before the election; a Bush administration which lost its will to fight for its policies soon after the 2004 election; a Republican candidate who refused to attack Obama's relationships with seedy characters even though Democrats showed no such restraint as to the Republicans; and a generalized discontent with the existing Republican power structure.

There is a lingering question, however, as to just who Barack Obama is, and whether we elected a blank slate who makes it up as he goes. This point is made not just by conservatives (who made this argument prior to the election), but also by Democrats and left-wing activists who openly wonder whether Obama's election promises on terrorist detention, gay rights, and a host of other issues were "just words." The nutroots doesn't know who Barack Obama is anymore than I do, and anything which fills in the void in a negative way [the mustard post] is viewed as a threat."

Story with more mustard updates here.

Today’s New Word, Specterenfreud

It was coined by William A Jacobson, but I like Obi’s Sister’s definition:

"That’s what happens when you stab your party in the back by switching to the other party, but the other party, which is now your new party, reneges on all their promises, stabs you in the back and boots you to one step below the guy who scrapes the gum off the bottom of the Senate hot tub.

There is justice in the galaxy, and sometimes it’s a mite painful, there, sport."

Friday Family Photo--the cost of having a baby

An article in the WSJ health section really caught my attention--Anna writing about the cost of her newborn--$36,625. I dug around in my file for the medical costs of our oldest son's birth in 1961 (see photo), but could find every tax return except 1961, which means I've looked at it before and misfiled it. So I looked at 1964, for Patrick, and found the total medical costs for all of 1964 were $459, and it looks like $315 of that was for the clinic, so the doctor's bill was probably included in that. Our hospital insurance was $114, which paid $45 of that bill. However you slice and dice it, I was able to itemize the entire event in about 7 short lines for our taxes even though there were many complications, follow up visits, and I was high risk. I recall that I paid cash at the business office of the Carle with each prenatal visit, and I think the doctor's invoice was folded into the clinic because I had no separate item for him. Anna writes:

Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles provided excellent care and thoughtful treatment during my uncomplicated traditional delivery in December. Then the invoices started coming. The hospital sent one for me, and another for my baby. The doctors billed separately. The total charge for three days: $36,625.

People lucky enough to have good health insurance, including me, don't have to come up with such sums. Insurers typically pay a lower, negotiated price for hospital care, and patients pay a portion of that amount. Even people without insurance often get sharp discounts from list prices on their hospital bills.

She then attempts to decipher that $36,625. She’s on a preferred provider plan and her employers negotiated with the insurance company.

“For hospital and surgery services from these providers, I am on the hook for 15% of Aetna's negotiated price. [She later found out, probably researching this article, that Aetna’s price was about $17,300 (much higher than average) and her percentage was based on that.] I also have a $400 annual deductible. Fortunately, there is a $2,000 cap on how much I might have to spend out of pocket each year for my in-network care. I owed a total of $2,118.90, a sum I arrived at only after adding figures from five separate documents.” [Her son had his own deductible when born.]

She decided to check the itemized invoices, 34 items for her and 14 for the baby, not including doctors' fees. “Those charges I could decipher seemed stunningly high. A "Tray, Anes Epidural" cost $530.29. (After inquiring, I learned this was the tray of sterile equipment used to give me an epidural anesthetic injection.) An "Anes-cat 1-basic Outlying Area" was billed at $2,152.55. (I was told this was the cost of the hospital's resources related to the epidural.) These items were in addition to the separate anesthesiologist's charge of $1,530 for giving the epidural. Even though the pain-killing epidural shot felt priceless during my 20 hours of labor, I was amazed that its total cost could run so high.” Then there was $2,382.92 for her recovery, when there had been no Caesarean section. It turned out the charge was for the 90 minutes in the birthing room after delivery.

In the end, patient reader, there is no way to know what the real cost of this newborn was--and she was told it was a mistake that Cedars didn't give her the estimate she had asked for before the baby was born.

There's also no way to know what 1964 dollars are worth in 2008--there are perhaps 6 different ways to figure it (on-line). But using purchasing power figures (we're buying a baby here), $315 (my costs after insurance payout) in 1964 would buy $2,186 in 2008, or higher than what Anna said were her out of pocket costs of $2,119 at Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles.

Insurance, both private and government, is what caused health care costs to sky rocket (keeping in mind she didn't pay anything near $36,625 or even the negotiated cost). Notice Anna's comment on how good her insurance is? Well, her "costs" are high because her insurance company is also paying for those people who don't have insurance--they don't put them on the street to have those babies when they show up in ER--they get the same excellent care Anna does, maybe better, because they don't have to negotiate with anyone!

In the 1960s, we purchased our own hospital insurance--our employers didn't. My own parents had no insurance at all--Dad bought "polio insurance" in 1949 because there was an epidemic (a real one, not like the Swine flu scare), but that's all. My parents paid cash for their babies, and I think Mom had a hospital stay of 10 days to 2 weeks. That had shortened to about 5 days in the early 60s, and now--do you even get to stay 48 hours?

When we have Obamacare, and it is definitely coming, it will be even more costly and more limited and more difficult to find out what it really costs. Just go back to the early 90s scare of Hillary and Magaziner and see what happened to health insurance costs when everyone feared a government take over. That nice epidural Anna was so grateful for (as was I)? I'm guessing that will have to be negotiated or rationed several months in advance, and only politicians' daughters will make the cut (no pun intended).

Bill of Rights
Amendment I

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Read that paragraph 3 or 4 times, and think about how precious it is, how few countries have this. Then think about what has happened since September 2008, and specifically in the last 100+ days. Our government has done more to encroach on this important amendment, than at any period during my life time, and that includes the McCarthy era, that little blip the Communist Party of the USA looks back on as their shining moment of martyrdom and glorious myth. But they are very clever. Now, no law has to be made. Only a regulatory commission or agency is needed to silence political speech on the radio or marriage sermons from the pulpit; only a charge of hate speech to silence a preacher or synod or priest; the press can be silenced by destroying advertising (no market, no competition, why advertise?) so what’s left is a mouthpiece of the government; only comedic goons such as Garafalo or Hilton on TV threatening with impunity those who peaceably assemble to redress grievances of taxation or voice their sincere beliefs about what is in God‘s Word.

Today's new words

You probably thought I'd forgotten my New Year's Resolution to learn new words. I haven't done too well keeping this up, so here's a whole batch, and I found them all in the same book review of What the nose knows By Avery Gilbert published in JAMA, 2009;301(16):1719-1720. It was the mention of David Sedaris by reviewer Alan R. Hirsch of the Chicago Smell & Taste Treatment & Research Foundation that sucked me in:

"Avery Gilbert is the David Sedaris of the nostril, the Mark Twain of the nasal passages. In this irreverent tome, he manages to interweave olfaction and the science of smell with virtually all aspects of human endeavor, from the scatological to the heavenly. This fun, relaxed approach can be vaticinated from the opening page, which quotes the 1967 Mad Magazine satire "Fantastench Voyage." Like the Ygdrasil, the mythical Norse ash tree that unifies heaven and earth, Gilbert seamlessly intertwines the scientific with pop culture, enlightening the reader all the while about common, oft-repeated olfactory misperceptions. For instance, how many odors can humans detect? 10,000? 30,000? 400,000? As Gilbert traces the evolution of this answer, he exposes the number as a myth perpetrated from generation to generation of smell researchers, like a perverted game of telephone. (The answer: no one knows.)"

You probably spotted some unfamiliar words--like vaticinated, which means foretold or predicted. New to me. As were decoction, phantageusia, ventoseness, noisome, hyposmia, anosmia, retronasal, orthonasal and habromania. In fact, I'd settled down to read a short book review with my lunch, and it took 30 minutes and 3 dictionaries, a Webster's New Collegiate, a Webster's 2nd International, and a Taber's. I'm not sure if these are Gilbert's words, or Hirsch's, but I think I'm caught up for awhile. Ygdrasil?

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National Day of Prayer

I've never been big on ecumenical, national observances because they usually have to be pretty watered down to please everyone. Today was a little different. I went over to the Mill Run Church at 7 a.m. (after my early coffee down the street) and joined other members and guests for breakfast and a delightful film made by our own Steve Puffenberger and his Run of the Mill Productions for the UALC 168 Project. I've seen a lot (OK, a little) of Christian films using "the folks" and most of them look pretty homemade. The viewing public, even me who may see only 3 movies a year, and embed the occasional YouTube in my blog, has become quite sophisticated on visual messages. Steve is a pro--he's the owner of Advent Media--and somehow the pastor and the prayer team working with Steve put together an outstanding product. It's not preachy, not particularly Lutheran, and could be used for any program on prayer, not just for this event. It's personal, professional, prayerful, and possibly the best production of its type I've ever seen. You can get a copy to use with your church or group by making a donation to the 168 Project Team, 2300 Lytham Rd., Columbus, OH 43220. I watched it again after I got home.

And yes, we did pray for the President and Governor.

LAT and Kerry worry about bloggers?

They should have worried about advertisers--business, commerce, capitalism, free enterprise, the markets--whatever you call that which the media have been systematically killing the last 20-30 years. Yes, we lost the local newspapers first--why did LAT, NYT and WSJ think that somewhere down the road it wouldn’t be their turn? Yes, advertisers need customers (readers, subscribers), but customers need someone besides the government (at all levels) to be in business, to be providing a service, to be competing to out do the next guy. Yes, technology and instant everything have changed the dynamics of information--but killing the golden goose of business by denigrating it sure didn‘t help. And bloggers will be next--we have nothing to say if the media collapse under the weight of their own foolishness and government regulation. Tweeting and Facebooking are much easier than blogging--and that will also contribute to "citizen journalism." However, if journalism has “values” as the author of the piece below claims, it certainly isn‘t objectivity or providing the facts (who, what, when, where, etc.). After 8 years of Bush bashing, and 3 years of Obama coddling, the media today are standing first on one foot and then the other, not knowing how to procede.

“There also is the important question of whether on-line journalism will sustain the values of professional journalism, the way the newspaper industry has. The new digital environment certainly is more open to “citizen journalism,” bloggers and the free expression of opinions.

In the last eight years, we have gone from zero bloggers to more than 70 million, and news is broken over twitter feeds and cell phones instead of on local broadcast networks. Just look at the way Janis Krums, a New York City ferry passenger, broke the news that flight 1549 out of LaGuardia had landed in the Hudson River -- he took a picture himself and tweeted the feed to an audience of thousands.” Top of the Ticket blog, LAT

Will Obama be able to match Bush's record on women?

From Elinor Burkett's So many enemies, so little time, pp. 104-105

“But everything in Afghanistan was about gender. While men were punished for what they did, for defying the authorities, the Taliban’s relentless war against Kabul’s middle-class women wasn’t a simple equation of crime and punishment. There was a desperation to the floggings and the stonings meted out to these women, a hysteria behind the ruthless and uncompromising humiliation that spoke to just how powerless the fundamentalist leadership felt in the new world that had taken root in Kabul, the world inching toward modern values like diversity, tolerance and equality. The sight of an unveiled rosy cheek or a lock of hair tousled by the wind was the most intimate, thus the most potent, symbol of a world they could no longer control, despite Allah’s command that they control it. Only by concealing that swath of flesh, by reining in those unruly tresses, could the men in power regain the sense that they were masters of their perversion of a Koranic domain.”

George W. Bush has freed those women. He has done more for women than any American president in history. He freed more people than Lincoln. Millions of women in Afghanistan can again have jobs, education and civil rights because of him. And the Left (who would all claim to be feminists) in this country and Europe won’t even mention it except to castigate him. From my blog, December 07, 2004, "The Taliban--It was about Gender"

Cash for your clunker?

Obama and his Dems can fool CNN, but not me.

"WASHINGTON (CNNMoney.com) -- The Obama administration has signaled its support for a congressional effort that aims to boost the troubled car industry by subsidizing new cars sales for consumers who scrap old ones.

Congressional Democrats, emerging from a meeting at the White House on Tuesday, said they had struck a deal on a bill to establish a one-year program to encourage the purchase of 1 million new cars and trucks that get better gas mileage."

Who's to determine what is a clunker? And when they've taken the 20 year old automobiles that burn a lot of oil, why not my 2002 Dodge van that gets 28-29 mpg on the highway, or my husband's 2000 SUV? Why not force pensioners like us and low income people into buying new cars by removing all the alternatives, or force them to use public transportation (which we don't have in Columbus, OH)? Or how about they just force them into signing up for new car loans to resuscitate the credit business which the government (Obama and the Dems) now own but don't have a clue how to manage? Or force out of business all the auto repair shops, auto repair training programs, or classic auto restoration businesses, or all the auto parts and junk lots, the scrap metal recyclers? What's another 20-30 industries destroyed when you already control the banks, the unions, the auto makers, the school loans programs, the entire education business, and can tell churches where they can display religious symbols and what they can preach from the pulpit. All in the name of "protecting" the environment and the messiah's favorite projects. Let's make the earth unsafe for people. Even the junk yard dog can be euthanized under the Obamachine plan--people shouldn't have pets anyway, right?

The face of our nation

You've probably seen photographs of the incredible face of Connie Culp who survived a shotgun blast to her face and through a "face transplant" from a cadaver, is now able to breathe, smell, blink, drink from a cup and eat solid food. Connie's original face wasn't perfect, but she was quite attractive--perhaps more so than 85% of the women you might know. Her eyes didn't have 20/20 hindsight, her complexion wasn't unblemished, and her smile was a bit crooked, and she probably didn't always make wise decisions with the brain behind that face. But after the shotgun blast, her face wasn't even human, and she could do nothing a human face usually does, like see, smell, taste, talk, breathe, etc. She was afraid to even go out--people made fun of her. I don't know why her husband Thomas shot her, but he must have hated her enough to kill her, but didn't succeed. And she must have originally loved him, or she wouldn't have chosen him--perhaps she was so in love she didn't pick up on his evil tendencies or thought she was strong enough to change him, or perhaps he developed them later. But he was in fact evil to the core.

And this is America today. We weren't perfect before--never claimed to be--we even took for granted the blessings we had and were often careless. But someone very evil has taken a shotgun and blasted away what we had. A new face will be transplanted, soon people like Ben Bernacke and Congress will pronounce it "the best we can do" and future Americans after a time of great upheaval and pain will be thrilled because they can drink and be merry and never know what their parents and grandparents had. They'll be told how imperfect and arrogant the old face was, and no one will show them a mirror.

Who in the devil wrote this poem?

G. Campbell Morgan preached a series of sermons about 100 years ago on "The world, the flesh and the devil." [The Westminster Pulpit, book 3-4, pp. 183-208] He said that this trinity of forces are distinct from each other but that any two of them are powerless without the third. Then he went on to preach three sermons, one on each. I've reread them several times, and think they could easily make a series of 6 or 9 sermons for today's shorter sermons and shorter attention spans.

Attribution was not a big thing for Morgan and he didn't provide the author of this poem, very clever and timely, considering what the polls say today:

Men don't believe in a devil now,
As their fathers used to do;
They reject one creed because it's old
For another because it's new.

There's not a print of his cloven foot,
Nor a fiery dart from his bow,
To be found in the earth or air today!
At least—they declare it is so!

But who is it mixes the fatal draught
That palsies heart and brain,
And loads the bier of each passing year
With its hundred thousand slain.

But who blights the bloom of the land today;
With the fiery breath of hell?
If it isn't the devil that does the work,
Who does? Won't somebody tell?

Who dogs the steps of the toiling saint?
Who spreads the net for his feet?
Who sows the tares in the world's broad field.
Where the Saviour sows his wheat?

If the devil is voted not to be,
Is the verdict, therefore, true?
Some one is surely doing the work
The devil was thought to do.

They may say the devil has never lived,
They may say the devil is gone;
But simple people would like to know
Who carries the business on?

So I went to Google, and found most attribution were to Alfred J. Hough, one as early as 1885 in a New Zealand newspaper. When I Google this name, I found a poet of the same name in Oddfellows of Vermont publications of the late 19th century (haven't taken the time to determine if they are one and the same).

Then there were two Catholic publications of recent years (one citing the other, I think) that listed Herbert Trench, Irish-born playwright (1865-1923) as the author, and he seems to believe the rumor, but wonders who's creating the mischief just the same. That version had some slightly different verses:

Who dogs the steps of the toiling saint
and digs the pit for his feet?
Who sows the tares in the field of time,
wherever God sows His wheat?

The devil is voted not to be,
and of course, the thing is true,
But who is doing the kind of work
the devil alone should do?

We are told he does not go
about as a roaring lion now,
But whom shall we hold responsible
for the everlasting row

To be heard in home, in church, in state,
to the earth’s remotest bound,
If the devil by a unanimous vote
is nowhere to be found?

Won’t somebody step to the front forthwith,
and make his bow and show
How the frauds and the crimes of the day spring up,
for surely we want to know.

The devil was fairly voted out,
and of course, the devil is gone.
But simple people would like to know,
who carries his business on?

Of course, it's possible that Trench was publishing as early as age 20, but given the early dates of circulation, I think I'll swing toward Hough with some borrowing, tweaking and weak copyright law by Trench.

Book Club Selections for 2009-2010

Can you believe we're writing 2010 already? Where did Y2K hysteria go? Into the current Swine/Mexican/Sebelius Influenza zone? Usually, I have the list up on my blog next day, because I take notes, but last night I was in the kitchen pouring lemonade and iced tea while the ladies lobbied their titles for next year. I remember a few--my choice of "Dewey," about the library cat of Spencer, Iowa; Three cups of tea; memoir of the lady who writes Ann Landers; The Virginian; something about Julia Child with a cooking lesson; Pilgrim's Progress; a really long title about a ladies' club on an island during WWII. I'll add the rest when I get the list.

The hostess doesn't need to supply the snacks, she has a co-hostess for that. Marcy brought dessert, so all I had to do was put out plates and serve the drinks--iced tea and lemonade and decaf. I used my good china--which I'm doing more often. What am I waiting for? No one touched the decaf and I had tea and lemonade left, so I mixed that together, but sent the yummies home with Marcy so I wouldn't be tempted. She'd made ginger snaps to go with the fresh fruit and dip, and my goodness! they were good. I think the only kind I'd ever had were factory made. Huge difference! My husband directed traffic to the neighbors' drive-ways--someone in another condo was also having a party, so parking was very tight.

Voting--finally--NO

We voted today. It wasn't easy. We've lived here since 2002, and this is our 4th polling location. No wonder some people just give up. I went to the location I thought was right and nothing was there. Came home, looked it up on the internet, and didn't even recognize the name of the building, but we eventually found it. The Catholic church where we last voted had purchased a fraternal building across the street and turned it into a parish hall, so that was the new location. However, when we got there we followed signage to nowhere, because what the arrow meant was "next door" not follow the arrow. We told the ladies at the bake sale about it, but nothing was changed when we left. I have always found polling places to be the most obscure, poorly signed buildings I've ever been to--for years we voted at St. Mark's in our old neighborhood, and they were always changing the room within the building. The voting machines are confusing for people who don't use computers--or even those of us who use them a lot. But that only matters in "ethnic" neighborhoods where Democrats might have a close vote. Anyway, just in case there were others who think our $25 million library levy is absurd and outrageous for the challenging times but couldn't figure out where to go to vote NO, I also voted against the Franklin county park issue. Normally, it would have had my vote easily. I can't take a chance on two local tax increases with Washington going crazy with economy killing measures.

Ohio will be hit very hard economically by Obamanomics, so we don't need more local taxes, although Mayor Coleman (an Obama-wannabee) is looking for "loose change." (He's as light skinned and handsome as Obama, but is a more fluent and traditional Democrat--seems to manage the English language without heavy reliance on the teleprompter. His wife's DUI problem has held him back.) Not only does Obama intend to kill our coal industry, but he has already killed the auto industry for us (yes, we are very close to Michigan in this area, not just geographically). The death of the auto industry will help in shuttering our local newspapers and local TV coverage, since they were heavy advertisers. But that's fine--all we need is the national media, right? And when they too are gone, there's always the government.

. . . the costs of accepting federal dollars from the ARRA will be a long-term drain on the private sector. The ARRA will increase the government expenditure wedge from 49.16% to 52.41% for an overall 3.25% increase. This increase will reduce the growth in real net business output by 2.5%, which translates to a reduction of 1.7 million jobs nationally - of which between 66,400 and 91,200 jobs will be lost in Ohio. Buckeye Institute

Oh NUTs
Nagging
Unfinished
TaskS
Blogging brake ahead.

Our health care system

And I use the term loosely, since it really isn't a system in any sense that we understand that word.

"In 2009 Medicare expenditures will exceed $400 billion, representing 13% of the federal budget and about one-fifth of all US expensitures on health care." JAMA, Feb. 11, 2009 citing Medicare: A Primer 2009,

and remember please, it isn't "free" for those of us who use it. Also, the early boomers hit 64 this year. Someone didn't do the math back in 1965. All the years I worked, I paid into Medicare (because I wasn't on Social Security), and now I pay quarterly to use it, plus I have to buy Supplemental to a private company if I really want any coverage that's meaningful. Of course, this can't be sustained, but we also have Medicaid and SCHIP, so don't kid yourself, Obamacare will cost even more. Also keep in mind, that the more successful our Nanny State is at getting people to stop smoking, eat more vegetables and fruits, lose weight, exercise more, and not visit bathhouses to have sex with infected men, the longer people are going to live, which is just going to add to the health costs as 90 and 100 year olds eventually wear out from all that healthy living.

Obama Bans Waterboarding Terrorists, But Pentagon Won't Say If It Still Waterboards Military Trainees

"Although President Obama has prohibited the use of waterboarding in interrogating captured al Qaeda terrorists, the Defense Department will not say whether it has stopped using waterboarding in its training of certain U.S. military personnel, as was discussed in a 2002 government memo made public last week. CNSNews.com April 22, 2009"

You might have seen a letter circulating around the Internet--it details the "torture" that our own U.S. Navy Survival Evasion and Resistance Escape (SERE) used to train pilots--this one during the Carter years. It has gone "viral" I'm sure, so if you haven't seen it yet in your e-mail, just google it. It's pretty gruesome and goes way beyond waterboarding. The DoD memo stated, "that waterboarding had a “near 100 percent” effectiveness rate in extracting information from [our Navy] trainees, while no soldiers were harmed physically or psychologically by it."

The retired pilot suggests that if there are any charges brought against the Bush administration officials, then there should be a class action suit against all those presidents in office, including Carter and Clinton, whose administrations participated in torturing our Navy pilots.

He also asks why John McCain, who is against torture, supported SERE.

Good point. HT Howard.

Counter Terrorism at the liberal Aspen Institute

On April 9, 2009, Michael Leiter, Director of the National Counterterrorism Center, a holdover from Bush in the new Obama administration, addressed members of government, industry, media, and the public policy community convened by the Aspen Institute’s Homeland Security Program at the Institute’s Washington offices. I'm sure he would have preferred being invited to Aspen in the summer, but oh well. . .

Director Leiter discussed the current state of Al Qaeda. According the the Aspen Institute website . . . "he argued that efforts to kill or capture senior leadership in the last year or so have succeeded in significantly diminishing Al Qaeda’s ability to strike the homeland. Still, the group continues to be a major security threat, and defeating it must remain a top priority for policymakers, notwithstanding the economic crisis and the many other domestic and foreign crises that now vie for our leaders’ attention."

During Q & A (very hard to hear the quetions) he sets the record straight--it's no accident that the U.S. wasn't attacked during the Bush years. But if we are attacked during the Obama years, it doesn't mean we have failed. "Intelligence is an imperfect business . . . " It's called CYA.

I sensed the host was trying to trip him up a bit, but he really is covering his bases here. This was before Napolitano's Tea Party fiasco. This is not the most scintillating talk I've ever heard, but these kinds of things are going to become less and less available, unless a non-government, non-Aspen site is archiving them (unlikely). I'm guessing that Mr. Leiter will soon be among the unemployed and that the NCTC will either disappear or quietly be folded into something else, and never be heard from again. After all, our current President believes his personal charm will protect us.

Accuracy in Media noted in 2006 that "the Aspen Institute is the number one sponsor of privately funded travel for members of Congress, having spent $3.4 million on Congress from 2000-2005. Aspen is one vehicle whereby left-wing billionaires like George Soros work to influence politicians on Capitol Hill by bringing them to luxurious places, hotels and resorts, and listening to mostly liberal and left-wing speakers."

Repeating myself on George W. Bush

I wrote this in December 2008 after looking through a Sept. 18, 1939 Life magazine about the WWII we hadn't yet entered. It's even more true now.

"The writers even called it a world war--and we weren't in it. I looked through several issues. Despite Bush's failures on the financial front in 2008, I was again so glad that he pursued the terrorists in Afghanistan and Iraq and has kept his word for all these years. He acted with virtually total support of both parties, and one by one they fell away, abandoning principals and allies.

Really folks, the USA's record for the 20th century is pretty crummy. Yes, you can talk about the "greatest generation"--they did respond after millions had already died in Europe and China. But we dawdled around in WWI, jumping in at the last moment/months of the war. We abandoned millions of our east European allies to the Soviets in 1945. We negotiated Korea and 55 years later we're still messing with north Korea. Then we ran out on the Vietnamese thanks to our home-grown spoiled boomers like Bill Ayers, Bernadine Dohrn and Jane Fonda.

God bless George W. Bush and we'll let history decide if we had any Presidents in the last 100 years who had all the body parts those guys are reputed to possess--spine, balls, and guts."