Christian Teacher Wants to Pray on High Court Steps

Let me make a wild guess. If these students had spread yoga mats, or stuck pins in black robed dolls, or danced in Native American attire, or knelt down and faced East, the police wouldn't have bothered them. But quietly standing together and praying after a lesson on civics, they were told it wasn't allowed. This isn't true, of course. I suspect now other groups will try it to see what happens.

Christian Teacher Wants to Pray on High Court Steps | Christianpost.com

Longest hop-scotch

The Lakeside association blacktopped all the streets this spring, creating a wonderful "blackboard" for the kids with boxes of fat, colored chalk. On our street I saw a hop-scotch grid that went for two blocks. I think they were so tired by the time they drew all the boxes, they didn't do the toss and jump part.

Then on Walnut (business district) there are large murals drawn by the children. With parents standing around texting and talking on cell phones. Well, at least the kids "get it" (what Lakeside is about).

I was walking the Lakefront this morning about 30 minutes before sunrise, but it was light enough to see Put-in-Bay, Kelley's Island, all the lakefront cottages, the Hotel, the Pavilion, and an ore boat docked at Marblehead. Think of the generations who lived without electricity. It was gorgeous!

PPACA aka Obamacare

or as I like to call it, Pee-pee and Ca-Ca (Spanish and French for poop). Liberals like to claim it will reduce the deficit by $143 billion the first decade, and $1.2 Trillion the second. Tell me the truth. Have you ever seen a government program, under any president or congress, actually shrink anything? Until Obama, a Democrat, the biggest spender on social programs was George W. Bush, a Republican. Obama has taken us to new heights of government control and new depths of hostility toward the market system which grew this country.

No one really believes these deficit reduction figures, not even the Democrats, Socialists and Obamacons who preach them. We know there won't be more consumer choice and that there will be millions still uninsured (the purpose of all this, we were told when Obama was in campaign mode). We know private practices will close due to increased taxes; that there will be death panels, regardless of whether you call them that. And why not, when we've elected a man who believes in late term abortion--why not early on eternal rest? The only way to cut costs is to cut services. Growing government has never saved a dime. Bailing out unions or insurance companies or automobile companies is not the government's job, and it's a given that eventually the "public option" will be the only option for Pee-Pee and Ca-Ca.

Plein air painters and wooden boat show

The lawn in front of the Hotel Lakeside was a busy place today. The wooden boat show and the Ohio Plein Air show were sharing space and viewers. Each year the show gets better and better. My husband is teaching at the Rhein Center this week, so after registration from 1-3 p.m. he changed clothes and went down to the lake to take kids out for a free sail boat ride. The water was perfect and about 100 kids participated. The temperature was in the upper 80s, but there was a cool breeze. Our friends Duke and Kinga from Indiana are here; we went to church together and had breakfast and dinner together before they returned to their camp at East Harbor State Park.

Sunrise and an unusual dog

I was standing on the dock this morning watching the sun pop over the horizon about 6:12 a.m. and then continued on to the Lakefront watching the sun reflect on the windows and fences like a raging dawn fire.  I passed a man maybe 80 walking with an unusual dog.  It had the head, ears and blue eyes of a Husky, but a Heinz 57 body with bushy gold colored hair, sort of like a Chow.  Although it didn't appear unfriendly, I know enough about dog breeds not to assume this kind of mix would welcome my advances.  I asked the man about his dog, and he said it had been thrown into a culvert as a tiny fuzzy pup and a woman found him who couldn't keep him and brought the pup to his farm. "This is the best watch dog I've ever had; it can see, smell or hear anything."  I suspect there's a bit of gratitude in this pet's loyalty, too.

Congress Overhauls Your Portfolio

I find it stunning that anyone of either party could trust a team like Barney Frank and Chris Dodd, both proven crooks and shysters, to do anything in the financial world. The small investor, the pensioner, and those wanting to build wealth for the future of their children have been scammed big time. This at a time when the boomers will begin drawing on their investments. "All the better to make you government dependent, my dearie," the witches cackled over their cauldron. The Democrats will deny any culpability, and probably blame the three Republicans who caved and voted for it.

Congress Overhauls Your Portfolio - WSJ.com

Dearborn Mayor lies about Christians arrested for proselytizing - Jihad Watch

You can get arrested in Dearborn, Michigan for praying . . . with a Muslim . . . if you are a Christian. Apparently, the first amendment doesn't apply at local Arab festivals, even though many Arabs are Christians.

Dearborn Mayor lies about Christians arrested for proselytizing - Jihad Watch

Calories do count!

This morning at Wal-Mart I stopped in the bakery section and looked at the cookies. We really don't need them, but, my goodness they looked wonderful. So I picked up oatmeal-raisin and oatmeal-raisin sugar free, which was twice as much, and compared the ingredients. Both had palm oil, which I don't think is good for us, but in small quantities, it's probably not a killer. But look at that fat and calories count! The sugar-free cookie was much higher in calories, and it would be my guess that you'd probably eat more of them too, because they don't have the same flavor and texture. The reverse is true with fat-free--usually a lot more sugar.

Americans are getting really picky about chemicals in food, sustainable and organic crops, and natural this and that. But they continue to get fatter. I think we were much better off with sugar and lard and fewer snacks and desserts than with chemically modified foods that don't satisfy, but are always at hand, so we eat more. If you really want low fat or low sugar, either add water or eat less.

Drug cartels in all states now

Senator John Cornyn of Texas says, "The time to act is now. These cartels already have a known presence in 48 states and the District of Columbia. Until Washington restores its credibility on border security more states will be forced to act much like Arizona did. Washington needs a sense of urgency, or many American families will lose their sense of security.

Border security isn’t just a border state problem, it’s a United States problem."

Today at the coffee shop I chatted with a woman from a beautiful ocean/lake/river area of Florida. She's lived there about 30 years, but originally came from this area of Ohio. In the last five years, she said, there's been a huge influx of crime from the Mexican drug cartels. She's very sympathetic with the Arizonans and believes there will be more laws like this if the federal government doesn't step up and do its job. Another customer chimed in about his area--Atlanta. It's not just Arizona's problem, folks, and we should thank Governor Brewer for bringing it to our attention.

Read more at the Washington Examiner.

No human embryo had to die for this experiment!

Remember how the left vilified Bush for not approving the expansion of the embryonic stem cell lines on the federal dollar? (It never was illegal and there was no ban--private money was OK to do so and it has never produced a single successful treatment.) Meanwhile adult stem cell research surged ahead. When Obama stepped up in 2009 he kept one of his first promises--expanding embryonic stem cell research. But it was too late even for that purely political move. It isn't needed. A hollow promise from a morally hollow man.

"Transplantation of human endometrial–derived stem cells (HEDSC) [HEDSC ARE ADULT STEM CELLS FROM THE ENDOMETRIUM] into mice with a Parkinson disease-like disorder boosted the animals’ dopamine production, according to a study funded by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. The findings provide preliminary evidence that such transplantation may have therapeutic benefits in Parkinson disease. . .

"The authors noted that HEDSC can be easily obtained through a routine office procedure, and that women with Parkinson disease might be transplanted with their own cells." JAMA June 23/30, 2010, v. 303 n.24, p. 2464

Now admit it, NOW. Isn't that better than womb farming women for embryos?

Leftist comedians attacking daughters of Republican politicians again

They are such great feminists, aren't they? Let's go after the kids--it will get a good laugh. Oh, Letterman and Griffin--you are just sooooo funny. Where is Child Protective Services and NOW when lefty funny folk go after young women?

"On her Bravo TV show Tuesday night, left-wing comedian Kathy Griffin referred to Sen. Scott Brown's two daughters as "prostitutes," and a CNN reporter apparently thought it hysterical." Dana Bush and Griffin yukked it up--Bush's husband had the decency to grimace. Sexism and child abuse are OK if done by women, right?

Read more

NAACP and the New Racism

The new racism is charging others with being "racist" because racism is the new N-word. NAACP is the latest example charging that a group which the NAACP can't buy or extort for money is anti-black/minority at its base. Tea Party is an idea, a philosophy and a political direction, not a group, and its very young and has no national leadership to speak on its behalf. NAACP, which is a membership exclusionary group, rather elderly as organizations go with lots of infighting among its leaders, smears a lot of people.

"Expel the bigots and racists in your ranks or take the responsibility for them and their actions. We will no longer allow you to hide like cowards."

Meanwhile, not a word from NAACP about a fringe of a fringe black group calling itself New Black Panthers and recommending that blacks kill white babies, and stop having relationships with white women. Not a word about expelling the socialists and communists from the rank and file of the NAACP, or even acknowledging they are there. No, everyone else has to be pure, even those groups that aren't even a membership group from which to expell anyone!

Sure sounds like race based hate to me, and a group that says it promotes the advancement of colored people, ought to be speaking up about the New Black Panthers and the philosophies of some of its own members that Tea Party people don't approve of. Wouldn't that at least be fair?

Longest "failure to report" I've seen

When people report their research in JAMA, they are required to include any compensation or financial gain they might have received that could conceivably influence the outcomes. There was an article on obesity published in February on gastric banding in adolescents vs lifestyle intervention by Dr.Paul E. O'Brien of Australia. It seems the gastric banding group won. But in the June 16 issue, there is the "correction" for the financial disclosure agreement, he having said he had no conflicts of interest. I'd say it was a big one.

1. He received compensation as the Natioal medical director of the American Institute of Gastric Banding.
2. He's written a patient information book on the topic from which he derives financial benefits.
3. In another study on obesity he had grants from an obesity research center, of which he is the director.
4. He "inaccurately reported" (i.e., lied) about compensation received as a speaker.
5. He regrets any lack of transparency that his failure may have created.

I think this guy has a future in politics. Also, it shows JAMA really doesn't check much on this stuff.

More Mel Tapes Coming

If I ever heard of a couple who seem to deserve each other, it's Oksana and Mel. She's a slutty gold digger, he's reinventing Catholicism, cheated on his wife, and beats up his bimbo babe. Yes, they seem to have found a special hell on earth to inhabit together.

More Mel Tapes Coming - Road Runner

At the Rhein Center this week

My husband has been teaching an "Architecture and small house design" at the Rhein Center this week, and says they kids (all teenagers) are a very talented group. They've learned basic design principles, built a model, visited a cottage, and are working in teams to design their own plan.

He also did a presentation on Haiti Monday night and had an excellent turn out, and won the Laura Werden prize in the Lakeside Art Show for best Lakeside scene.

I've been taking a watercolor class with John Behling. Today I used an old photo of the children from the late 1970s at Marblehead, and it's better than the others I did on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Harry says Republicans Want Economy To Tank So Democrats Will Be Battered In Midterms

Good old "we've lost the war" Harry, still tries to blame the Republicans for the Democrats' across-the-board failures, from slowly killing the Gulf clean-up to the ARRA funding doing diddly squat for the unemployed, to Obamacare fears that are causing doctors to flee, and cap and trade plans that are killing investment and recovery.

Where are Republicans in all this, Harry? They've been helpless as you've helped destroy a free market economy. You guys took over Congress in 2006 and have been blaming Republicans ever since. Well, it was FDR who extended the Great Depression over a decade; it was Democrat Wilson who instituted the Jim Crow laws and segregated the military; it was your beloved Byrd who got to Congress with the help of the KKK; it's Democrat mayors of the major U.S. cities that have been oppressing minorities for generations while taking block grants and urban renewal money from the federal government; it was your man Clinton who came up with "don't ask don't tell;" it's your guy Obama who thinks it's OK to dismember viable near-term babies that are inconvenient; it's Democrat controlled unions that are sending our businesses fleeing to other countries. Come on, Harry. Man up for once and accept your prize failures.

Harry Reid: Republicans Want Economy To Tank So Democrats Will Be Battered In Midterms

MSNBC's Dylan Ratigan froths and insults

I know they called Bush lots of names, including Hitler, Stalin, dumb, wimp, etc., but I don't recall the left wing media calling him "little boy." And that bend over stuff? Is that a reference to his sexuality?

MSNBC's Dylan Ratigan Froths: Wall Street Frightens 'Little Boy' Obama, Makes Him 'Bend Over' | NewsBusters.org

Rush Limbaugh's "cracker" remark

A black group (New Black Panthers) threatens to kill "crackers" and "cracker babies" (cracker is a term for native Floridians which came to be used as a pejorative for all whites, just as did "redneck" which originally meant southern tenant farmer with a sunburn), and the threat is ignored by the media, the Department of Justice and the NAACP. Rush uses it to draw attention to the deliberate oversight and the irony and they are all over it. The media are sooooo slow.

I link to a Floridian librarian who calls her blog Florida Cracker--these are people proud of the name. That's the problem with pejoratives, isn't it? It used to be unacceptable to use the word black when referring to Negroes, or gay or queer in referring to homosexuals. Now black is preferred over Negro, and everyone uses gay--the word when embraced by the group, becomes acceptable. Cracker is a pejorative when the NBP uses it, but not when a Floridian refers to a Floridian.

Rush Limbaugh calls Steinbrenner a "cracker" | HardballTalk

Obama, Bush and Hitler images

Do you remember all this outrage about Hitler images and the President when George W. Bush was president? I saw it on the blogs that tracked the BDS sites, but not at AP or MSM. Here's an example of one of the Hitler-Bush pro-communist links I found from 2003:

"a paranoid fanatic intoxicated by messianic passions and dimmer than a slug. A man drunk with power, as he was drunk with alcohol before—and legally condemned for it on 4 September 1976, for driving drunk at full speed. Admonished, too, by none other than the evangelist Billy Graham who told him, "Who are you, to think yourself God?". A militant for the Christian Right, the Texan, Southern Christian right that is. A racist in love with the death sentence, especially when it comes to African-Americans. All in all, the worst US president for over a century, the man who will unleash the greatest tragedies on his own people. The opposite of Homo Sapiens, the incarnation of Homo Demens."

As other Tea Party groups have noted, this is counter-productive for their movement. But since NAZI means National Socialism, whereby the government controls but does not own (as in Communism) private industry for its own purposes, you can see the connection to the Obama Administration.

And wasn't it Newsweek that proclaimed "We are all Socialists" now? Communist/socialist governments have killed far more of their own citizens than any other form of government in all of history. And who can forget that 2008 image of Obama speaking before the throngs in Germany during his U.S. campaign for the Presidency? Is there anything similar to cause such anger at Bush which was rampant, raging and irrational?

Trick Questions--we all know the answers

1. Why is Governor Blagojevich threatened with 415 years for a deal for Obama's Illinois seat when the Democratic aides in the White House who were manipulating the choices don't get a Congressional hand slap or even a dirty look from Katie Couric?

2. Why do U.S. liberals, particularly Christians, only care about Palestinian Arabs if they live in Gaza or Israel? Millions are in camps in Arab countries where they live in deplorable conditions and have zero civil rights.

3. Why do celebrities, like Rosie O'Donnell, who are examples of entrepreneurship and capitalism based on their own persona and image, recommend that the United States seize the assets of a private company, even one based in another country? Do they understand National Socialism (NAZI) concepts?

4. Why criticize BP for advertising on TV and other media, spending millions to justify its actions, what it is doing to correct its mistakes in the Gulf? Are you criticizing the President spending millions, maybe billions to advertise and justify what he's been doing through trips all over the country, ads, sending the minions out to talk to the press, websites, and arbitrarily changing laws to change what he says were Bush's mistakes and not his own?

5. Why do liberals and progressives in America flunk Econ 101--Daniel B. Klein. Do you think it might have something to do with why FDR extended the Great Depression to over a decade and Obama is extending the Recession with similar spending?

6. When everyone, including me, knows there are three reasons for obesity--nutrition, exercise and genes--why did I have 2 pieces of Key Lime Cheesecake and only one serving of fresh fruit at last night's pot luck?

7. Why do people who support "green" issues, cap and trade, and farmers' markets, insist on volcano mulching around young trees?

8. Do Happy Meals really make kids fat or do the parents who buy them deserve the blame?

9. Why are the U.S. boundaries with Mexico treated differently than the boundaries with Canada, which are much larger? (Or is the question really, why is anyone even asking such a dumb question? but I saw it in the "Fences" exhibit.)

10. Going all the way back to 13th century England liberty meant freedom from governmental oppression. Why have 21st century Americans bought into the idea that freedom means not to experience need or even choices and are willing to submit to more and more government at every level from local zoning to Homeland Security?

11. As more and more information is released about Kyron's stepmom, why was his father so stupid and ignorant about her behavior during all the time leading up to his disappearance?  Maybe those two deserved each other?  Like Mel Gibson and his slutty girlfriend?

12. Amy Bishop has finally been charged with the murder of her brother in 1986. How long before the law suits start by the survivors and families of those she murdered in 2010 against those authorities at the university and in her own family who knew she was off her rocker for years?

13. Why does Headline News (CNN) advertise on Fox--is it because Fox is fair and balanced, or because CNN knows they have more viewers?

14. Why are the people who gnash their teeth and weep over the lack of bipartisanship and talk show criticism on Obama's watch the same ones who criticized Bush so violently? No Child Left Behind, The middle East war, the Medicare drug plan, the Patriot Act, efforts to reform Social Security, and his amnesty plan all had support from Democrats, i.e. bi-partisan support, and some lost him support from Republicans. Liberals weren't happy then with bi-partisanship were they?