Jewish blogger has her PayPal account pulled

Judith Geller who writes a blog called Atlas Shrugged which is anti-Obama, and pro-Israel, is having her PayPal account pulled.

"However, after a recent review of your account, it has been determined that you are currently in violation of PayPal's Acceptable Use Policy. Under the Acceptable Use Policy, PayPal may not be used to send or receive payments for items that promote hate, violence, racial intolerance or the financial exploitation of a crime."

I only occasionally read her site, but it's only "hate" if you are a pro-Obama, tingle up the leg supporter or racially intolerant if you think Israel has a right to exist, or believe that there are Islamic Jihadists in the U.S. and Britain.

It's getting dicey. We now live in a country where the President can demonize private foreign companies, steal our money (40% of BP investors are Americans), reinstate McCarthy era interrogation teams to brutalize CEOs, and give our tax money to unions (which is probably where the 20 billion will go), hire tax cheats like Ginthner, and Communists like Van Jones and Anita Dunn as advisers, expand his bevy of Czars, a President who thinks all white people think a certain way and have prejudice "bred" into them, and that police and governors of border states act foolishly even before he gets the facts. And remember, he didn't meet with BP officials, in fact initially he said he wouldn't because he knew what they thought, until after he went on national TV and castigated them. This is not a steel trap mind; it's a locked dungeon.

Can PayPal revoke the President's account? Like the one that takes our tax money?

I don't use PayPal ever for anything. But if I did, I'd protest by not using it. It's a private company and it can set its own rules. But you have to wonder who's behind this, since usually private companies care about making money.

Update: PayPal reverses its decision. Geller is now using a different service. PayPal is owned by E-bay.

The murdering crook strikes again

Now he's old and sick and wants the prison system to pick up the tab. Edward Edwards has confessed to . . . "In 1977 in Ohio, 18-year-old Judith Straub of Sterling and 21-year-old Bill Lavaco were shot at point-blank range and killed.

In 1980, 19-year-old high school sweethearts Kelly Drew and Tim Hack vanished after a wedding reception in Wisconsin. Weeks later, their bodies were found in the woods. According to investigators, Drew was strangled and Hack was stabbed.

In 2007, Wisconsin investigators extracted DNA taken from semen on Drew's pants to state analysts. In June 2009, the DNA results confirmed a match to Edwards. Police arrested Edwards last July for the murders of Drew and Hack. In April, Edwards confessed to the Ohio murders."

Edward Edwards Guilty of Four Murders from 70's and 80s - Crimesider - CBS News

In the early 1970s we used to visit men in the Old Ohio Penitentiary through a church program (we were incredibly naive). We met aging career criminals like the Ohio Purple Gang and Thomas Licavoli who were being paroled due to old age, and I suspect, because the Governor didn't want to continue paying their medical bills. They probably all still had their money. Edwards, on the other hand, is apparently a pauper. I think it would be appropriate to have the families of the victims in charge of his health care.

Update: June 17 Also killed his foster son, he now confesses.

"I'm responsible for it," Edwards said. "It didn't work on my conscience. I spent the money. I was having a good time. You do it, forget it was done and go about your business until next time."

24 hour food recall

I see the USDA is coming out with a "new" food pyramid. Who knew you should eat more vegetables, less meat, and cut out the salt? My grandmother Mary was a health food nut. If there was meat on the table, it was chicken, and most of their food came from the garden. But that was the 1920s, what did they know?

New food guidelines to recommend more veggies - wtop.com

Quickly, can you recall what you ate yesterday? That's how a lot of food studies are done. Here's what I had. Breakfast: Apple, large, sliced with skin on; 1/2 cup walnuts; one large carrot. And I salted it because I like salt.

Lunch was 5 chopped vegetables, grilled in olive oil: celery, mushrooms, onions, corn, and peas, sprinkled with a very tasty new product called "Perfect Pinch," Parmesan Herb. You don't need very much, and it really jazzes up the veggies. Mushrooms and celery are pretty worthless when it comes to nutritional value, so they are there basically for filler. Then I had about 1/2 cup sliced strawberries on a sugar free Klondike Bar (ice cream).

Supper was 6 little beef meatballs cooked with rice, a little gravy, mushrooms and onions (I was trying to use up the mushrooms) with a side of broccoli sprinkled with shredded cheddar. For dessert I had Graeter's Ice Cream, about 1/2 cup, Black raspberry chocolate chip. I'm not even particularly crazy about ice cream, but for some reason, if it's in the frig I'll eat it.

So that totals up to six vegetables and two fruits (although mixed I supposed that's more like three servings of vegetables), two dairy, one meat, one grain.

Then there are the extras: cup of coffee with Half n Half; 4 Ritz crackers with crunchy natural peanut butter; multi-vitamin (which the gov't says we don't need); vitamin D tablet (doctor says I need that--Ohio you know); 4 oz. Merlot.

Before you eat your vegetables, you can paint them.

If you don't know where you're going, any road will take you there

I think that's a good paraphrase of Obama's speech on the oil spill. Even the left stream media is totally confused trying to parse this mess. Has he changed speech writers? Puppet masters? String makers? Teleprompter companies?

"It’s safe to say Chris Matthews has lost that tingly feeling down his thigh. It took only seconds after President Obama concluded his Oval Office address for Matthews and co-host Keith Olbermann to rip into the President for what they perceived as a lack of leadership and direction, and, especially in Matthews’ case, and over-reliance on meritocracy."

Obama is clearly a CPA--Cloward, Priven, Alinksy.

Exercise class has ended for the summer

Maybe we can try this exercise video.

F.A. Hayek and The road to Serfdom

What a stunning book! Can hardly believe I never read it before--well, wait, yes I can. I went to school when FDR was idolized and I was a Democrat for 40 years. Figures.

It's not like you have to go deep into a bunch of anecdotes to figure it out. He gives the plot away, and I don't use the term lightly, on page 5. This book is now number one on Amazon because Glenn Beck recommended it, but it was published in 1944 in the midst of World War II.

In 1944 Hayek warned the United States and England, that although they were in the midst of fighting a war against the German Nazis, they were committing all the same mistakes that led up to the National Socialists taking over and the rise of Hitler.

It is necessary now to state the unpalatable truth that it is Germany whose fate we are in some danger of repeating. . . the trend of thought in Germany during and after the last war and the present current of ideas in the democracies. . . There is the same contempt for 19th century liberalism, the same spurious "realism" and even cynicism, the same fatalistic acceptance of "inevitable trends." And at least 9 out of every 10 of the lessons which our most vociferous reformers are so anxious we should learn from this war are precisely the lessons which the Germans did learn from the last war and which have done much to produce the Nazi system. . . it is not so many years since the socialist policy of that country was generally held up by progressives as an example to be imitated.

In short, Hayek points out that the rise of naziism and facism was NOT a reaction against the socialist trends of the preceding period but a necessary outcome of those tendencies.

READ THIS BOOK. Believe it or not (and I hardly can) there are two copies in the Upper Arlington Public Library with 10 holds. I guess because of it's 1944 publication date, it managed to slip through the banning of conservative titles. I'll return my copy at the end of the week, and it's not a long read.

Good-bye to my Mama--Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin

Last night we watched The Prairie Home Companion (2006) on the Sundance Channel about a fictionalized radio show by that name, doing its final show with peeks at back stage of the theater. There are some very touching parts, particularly this one. Streep and Tomlin play Yolanda and Rhonda Johnson, a singing group.



We don't watch many movies, especially at home, but this one is always good.

A Ph.D. is no guarantee except possibly for frustration and unemployment

Haven't we been hearing this for years? The job of a teacher with a PhD at a college is to turn out more PhDs who scramble for fewer and fewer jobs in academe? Stop the madness!

"Doctoral recipients in all disciplines are having a tough time finding teaching gigs, said William Pannapacker (writes as Thomas H. Benton), a columnist for the Chronicle of Higher Education and an associate professor of English at Hope College in Holland, Mich. For example, university job openings that required a math doctorate declined 40 percent in the 2009-10 academic year from the year before, said the American Mathematical Society.

At the same time, schools keep producing doctoral recipients. The number of doctorates awarded by U.S. colleges and universities reached an all-time high in 2008 at 48,802, nearly double the number awarded in 1970."

Ph.D. is no guarantee of a high-paying job | The Columbus Dispatch

"I can see November from my house."

After Congressman Bob Etheridge (D-NC) found out that the video of him assaulting a student on a public sidewalk who politely asked him a question had gone viral, he decided to issue an "apology" that included the words, "I regret," which never sounds like an apology to me. Then he lauded his past service, while calling the students' behavior intrusive. Nice apology. And it wasn't even a dicey question! The Democratic leadership has become so pathetic since the radicals consumed their party, belched and spit it out in little pieces. You'd almost feel badly for them, except they had months of warning with all that hopey changey blowing in the wind, and like those drowning buses in New Orleans, they just didn't get on board and get out of town while there was still time.



And WaPo is right on this--demanding to know who the students were and whether the Republicans sent them. Great investigative work by the obamedia.

UALC first vote to leave ELCA

At the special congregational meeting on Sunday, June 13, the resolution to leave the ELCA was passed with a 91.8% majority, 538 to 48.

This begins a 90 day consultation period, ending in a second vote in the fall. For more background on the ELCA decision, visit the ELCA Decision page by clicking here (numerous documents, both from UALC and ELCA).

There were many well considered and thoughtful comments during the time of public discussion of the motion. After discussion we moved to the sanctuary for prayer, singing and the vote.

Update: If you stumbled in here and are confused by the acronyms, this is a discussion about Lutherans. UALC is Upper Arlington Lutheran Church, founded in the Columbus suburb of Upper Arlington, Ohio about 55 years ago. It has 3 campuses and 9 Sunday services. Although it started in Upper Arlington, it now also has a campus in Hilliard, Ohio, and Columbus, Ohio. The church was planted, I think, by members of Holy Trinity Lutheran in Upper Arlington, and why they couldn't think of a pretty name like theirs, I don't know. ELCA is the name of the synod, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America created in 1988 by the merger of The American Lutheran Church (ALC of which UALC was a member), The Association of Evangelical Lutheran Churches, and The Lutheran Church in America (LCA). There are even more acronyms ahead, as we move toward new relationships with other Lutheran groups, like CORE and NALC.

Update: I had the history of the congregation wrong. Here's the story. "As I understand the story there was a group from St. John's [Grove City] who settled in the newly-developing area of Upper Arlington. The ALC thought it would be a good mission, (I guess Trinity was LCA) so they called a pastor, started meeting in a basement, moved to Hastings Jr. High auditorium, bought land at the corner of Lane & McCoy - I think - somewhere around there. There was a moratorium on churches in UA, but when that was lifted, a bigger plot of land became available where the pastor's house was, a farm house on Middlesex. We sold the smaller plot on the main street and bought Lytham, then in 1956 built the first building."

BP to pay for its mistakes, and also Obama's. Why?

Do you get the feeling that Obama has no desire to have this problem fixed because it works unbelieveably well in his plan?

Gloria Estefan

Another really terrific CD--this one for $2.00 from the library Friends' sale--Gloria Estefan's "Hold me, thrill me, kiss me," a collection of cover tunes, and all very nice. The title song was a 1952 big hit. If I can just find a boom box that plays cds, I'm getting a nice collection of love songs for our anniversary background music.

Gloria's family fled Fidel Castro's takeover of Cuba in 1959. Her father was imprisoned while taking part in the Bay of Pigs invasion and was not released until President John F. Kennedy arranged a prisoner exchange. She on the other hand, displeased many Cuban Americans by throwing a $30,000 a head fund raiser for President Obama in April, although she claims to be non-partisan. Well, the marxists, socialists and progressives who people his staff are not, so she has chosen a political philosophy that has torn Cuba apart for 50 years. I think many celebrities and entertainers have a huge guilt complex about their wealth, and believe if they swing left they can shake some of it.

Cheese

There are people who think American process cheese (it was actually invented in Switzerland) isn't "real" cheese, but that's what I grew up with--great grilled cheese sandwiches, great for melting over anything. A bit too soft for crackers, but. . it will work. But what is that gunk called "cheese product" or "cheese food?" Or low fat cheese product, or fat free cheese food? Why not just get a little yellow paint and spread it on the bread? If you need low fat cheese, just eat less of real cheese! Low fat (label) anything just means they added water or more whey to increase the volume.

Here's the story. Sometimes it can take a long time of standing in front of the open cooler looking for decent American process cheese:

Pasteurized process cheese - contains 100% cheese. Pasteurized process cheese food - contains at least 51% cheese. Pasteurized process cheese product – contains less than 51% cheese.

Visual Arts Ministry meets, greets and eats at the Bucket

The final meeting of the season was held at the Rusty Bucket. The hanging system has been put away for the summer (VBS starts next week) and the schedule is shaping up for Spring 2011, with the fall shows already in place. A great group of workers and friends. Wedding photos, summer plans, news about other missions, and family stories were shared making it a delightful evening.

Rescue teams reach stranded teen sailor

I've been known to over react where the health and safety of minor children are concerned, but I believe Abby Sunderland's parents/guardians are guilty of neglect and child abuse. Her father compares her adventure and desire to set a world record for "youngest" to teens driving on the interstate. So would he send her cross-country alone driving a semi-truck loaded with explosives? Not a good example, daddy. If as a nation we had the collective balls to raise the legal driving age to 18, we could save 5,000 lives a year. Hard telling how many permanent brain injuries and damaged limbs that would involve. A 16 year old doesn't have a mature brain, and a teen girl, regardless of her athletic ability and sailing experience probably doesn't have the physical strength or body mass to ward off pirates and typhoons.

Rescue teams reach stranded teen sailor - CNN.com

I'm dress shopping

On line. Suggest some brand names, please, or store. It's been awhile. Dressy. Sleeves. Not short. Not straight. Not white or black.  Size 8-10. $50 or under.

 

Thursday Thirteen--13 buttons, pushed, sewn, pressed and unused

1. Buttons on my jeans and slacks don't seem to stay where they should. The thread weakens and they fall off. Do you suppose it's the 10 lbs?

2. Other buttons don't want to meet up with the assigned button hole.

3. I just discovered that if I press the "unlock button" twice on my car key, that the lights stay on instead of just blinking to say "hello, here I am."

4. We have a new garage door and opener. It's super quiet and a perfect match for the paint, although it is metal. The opener is about the size of a fat ballpoint pen and I have difficulty finding and pressing the button.

5. After my mother died 10 years ago, I brought home her button tin. That's a carry over from 19th century and Depression day thrift. They rarely match anything, but I can identify some buttons from items of family clothing 60 years ago. Some could be from my great-grandfather's work shirts.

6. We have a lot of TV sets. Most have buttons for functions I don't understand.

7. The remotes for each TV are different--even more buttons I don't use. Like Zoom and Angle. Input and Sleep.

8. Rosie O'Donnel, that brilliant, wealthy, political strategist, has pushed my buttons with her ignorance. She is demanding that Obama seize the assets of BP and Great Britain. She says she doesn't care if it's communism. Well, no Rosie, that's called National Socialism. Remember Hitler? That was his system. The state steals private wealth. You're next in that system. It's not just for corporations.

9. AP has a story today that the BP reports read like fiction, with deceased experts and environmental plans for animals and plants that aren't in the Gulf of Mexico. Welcome to the research/report world, AP! That's another button for me. I constantly write to government agencies, non-profits, academic and media websites reporting mistakes, bad citations, bad links, non-existent experts and plans designed to only bring in more grant money, never to solve a problem. I rarely get a response. But if I do, I'm usually told it's not their responsibility or that I'm the one who is mistaken.

10. I wore a really bright printed jacket to coffee today. It must have pushed a button for another customer because she complimented me and said my husband should take me out for brunch. She wears more colorful clothes than I do--I don't much care for this garment.

11. I don't know when Mother Nature pushes the button for Mother Duck under the bush at our front door, but she must really be getting tired of sitting on those 9 eggs.

12. My new dryer, bought to replace the Maytag piece of junk that died after 4 years, doesn't have an alarm buttom to tell me "time to walk downstairs and unload."

13. We're having our furnace maintenance done today. We always use this company. There's a $25 off coupon on the web where you'd never see it which expired June 6. That's another button, constantly being pushed. Coupons. I hate them--on-line, in the newspaper, in the door-hanger bag, attached to the product, or in conjunction with another product like breakfast at Denny's combined with an oil change. Makes no difference. Coupons add costs to everyone's purchase just like all marketing and advertising, but they are grossly unfair and expensive to those of us who don't use them.

Come join other bloggers at Thursday Thirteen.

The Trailer For Glenn Beck's New Book Is Just As Nuts As You'd Expect (VIDEO)

Huffington Post writer must have had a red face after learning he/she ridiculed Rudyard Kipling and not Glenn Beck. Had to append an update. These people are so transparent. If it's Beck, it's got to be bad, right? Or have they always thought Kipling was a bad poet? Beck, Stu and Pat were chortling over some of the ignorant comments at the post--probably removed now.

The Trailer For Glenn Beck's New Book Is Just As Nuts As You'd Expect (VIDEO)

Sandals--a poem inspired by looking at feet

Summer time
Break out the sandals
The thongs and the glam.

Show bunions, corns
and calluses--
Summer’s grand slam. 

Elton John CDs

Today at the Discovery Shop (benefits Cancer research) I found two Elton John CDs. "Love Songs," (1996) and "Duets" (1993). If he can sing at Rush Limbaugh's 4th wedding, he can sing in my kitchen (that's where the cd player is).  $1.00 each.  Good buy.