NY Cops Arrest Male Model in Castration Killing of Portuguese Journalist

Do you suppose this qualifies as a hate crime against a homosexual? A gay model castrates and bludgeons his older male lover. Or does being gay disqualify him for hate crimes?

Update: NY Cops Arrest Male Model in Castration Killing of Portuguese Journalist | The Blaze

Bumper stickers work

Coming back from the coffee shop I was behind an older van with a 1580 Catholic Radio bumper sticker, so I changed channels. The signal is better in my car than in the house. Most of the programming is pretty good--I click off when someone starts talking about the importance of praying to Mary or the saints. But in many areas, most Christians have more in the common than they are willing to admit. For the last two years, with a stronger signal, it reaches about 1.75 million listeners (assuming they turn it on, of course.).

Access Board to Set Standards for Medical Equipment under the Health Care Reform Act

All my husband's announcements for continuing education come to my e-mail, and increasingly most are actually offered on-line. The ways manufacturers find to be either "green" or "sustainable" are just amazing. As are the health and safety reguations. In looking through them I noticed one for ADA compliant workshops for a product to assist the blind (little raised bumps on walkways). As I was browsing through the product literature I came across the "Access Board" website for the federal government. The Obamacare (PPACA) is almost full employment for industries that supply anything medical, from workshops to lighting to equipment to computer records, and they will successfully put the small medical offices out of business and force patients into group practices and then push them to government health care when those also get regulated out of business. Imagine the cost for a one or two doctor clinic for just this one requirement while they are still paying off their college loans and the mortgages on the equipment purchased last year:

"The "Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act" authorizes the Access Board to develop new access standards for medical diagnostic equipment including examination tables and chairs, weight scales, x-ray machines and other radiological equipment, and mammography equipment. Access to such equipment has been problematic under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)."

Access Board to Set Standards for Medical Equipment under the Health Care Reform Act

The charlatans' response to Tucson tragedy - OrlandoSentinel.com

George Will can usually nail it:

"Last year, New York Times columnist Charles Blow explained that "the optics must be irritating" to conservatives: Barack Obama is black, Nancy Pelosi is female, Rep. Barney Frank is gay, Rep. Anthony Weiner (an unimportant Democrat, listed to serve Blow's purposes) is Jewish. "It's enough," Blow said, "to make a good old boy go crazy." The Times, which after the Tucson shooting said "many on the right" are guilty of "demonizing" people and of exploiting "arguments of division," apparently was comfortable with Blow's insinuation that conservatives are misogynistic, homophobic, racist anti-Semites.

The charlatans' response to Tucson tragedy - OrlandoSentinel.com

Food pyramid: USDA sued by doctors' group that wants vegetarian alternative

God forbid the "group" do some research and fund raising, and publish and distribute their own pyramid!

"The lawsuit charges that the federal government should address the worsening epidemics of obesity and diet-related diseases by withdrawing the MyPyramid diagram and adopt the Power Plate food diagram and dietary guidelines."

I'm shocked, just shocked, that this well educated group has never seen a fat vegetarian. I have.

Food pyramid: USDA sued by doctors' group that wants vegetarian alternative - OrlandoSentinel.com

It's like opposing teams seeing the same call differently

Keep it up!! Negative all the way around. This whole blog site is devoted to negative. That really solves our problems doesn't it? Gun sites.targetd reps,24/7 over and over lists of things wrong with Obama and his programs. What do you folks expect. All talking heads need to tone it down and negative blogs need to exam their posts as well. But I must say in defense of MSNBC I have actually heard Keith O. say" I apologize for----" Never gonna heard that Rush, Glen or Sean. it was my worst fear that it would come to this-but not surprized.Just very sad for us all.What ever happened to our mental health programs,have we cut that funding so badly we can helth the sick ones before they buy into all this hate,doesn't anyone read the signs anymore or do we just plain not care about people anymore.

The most negative, anti-American President in my lifetime lives and speaks from the White House, the above writer voted for him, fell for that hope and change, and supports his deficit spending, and yet she calls my blog negative? That's pathetic, and that's watching the game thinking only the other team is doing wrong things.

But let's see if I can come up with something positive. I thought the November elections were very positive--I rejoiced that the conservatives finally got some stiffening in their spines instead of spaghetti. I'm antipating the rescinding of Obamacare. I'm looking forward to seeing if Kasich can do a better job than Strickland, although it's going to be tough since so many powers have been taken away from the state by the federal government. Our church is out of debt and going to finally get serious about the Great Commission. I got some new books for Christmas that I love. I saw two "help wanted" signs last week--one was Wendy's and one was Panera's, but that means more people are going out for lunch and supper, which is a good sign there are people bold enough to ignore the President and dig in and start something. We got together with friends Friday night and Sunday--all nice, conservative, non-violent tea party types, although no one is a member that I know of.

There, is that positive enough for you, dearie?

A brief word for the sheriff of Pima County

"Free speech doesn't turn people crazy. Debate doesn't turn people crazy. Stop making excuses for these criminals as to why they did what they did. Why not instead of crying about "vitriol" you go find the accomplice to this murder?" John Galt for President

Bye-Bye PCs and Laptops

Not for me, unless they stop making them. I hate those itsy bitsy keyboards and bumping into people who are reading the news and social networking as they walk.

"While personal computers are not going to disappear altogether, the trend lines are clear. Gartner, the market research company, predicts that by 2013 the number of smart phones will surpass PCs, 1.82 billion to 1.78 billion. And that's not counting the tablets. Gene Munster, an analyst with the global investment bank Piper Jaffray, estimates that Apple iPad sales were 14.5 million for 2010, with another million tablets sold by competitors. Sarah Rotman Epps at Forrester Research predicts that 82 million Americans will be using tablets by 2015.

Access to the Internet—a key indicator of consumer behavior—by mobile devices also is on a strong uptick. According to a report by the Pew Research Center's Internet and American Life Project, 59% of Americans accessed the Internet on their phones last year, up from 25% the previous year. The Chinese government recently reported that nearly 300 million Chinese residents now access the Internet via mobile phones. Comcast announced on Wednesday that it would deliver cable television to the iPad and similar Android tablets later this year."

Malone and Hayes: Bye-Bye PCs and Laptops - WSJ.com

The Progressive “climate of hate:” An illustrated primer, 2000-2010

Michelle Malkin has a great walk down memory lane with the progressive web art work and text, like aiming a rifle at Sarah Palin's daughter, a chimp defecating on McCain's head, kill Bush t-shirts. What? No memories of the President going after conservatives? Ridiculing Special Olympics? Throwing his grandmother under the bus? Advocating for partial birth abortion? I'd say those are hateful too. I'd say the iconic Mao t-shirts being sold on the internet liberal sites doesn't show much respect for the millions of Chinese he murdered, would you?

Michelle Malkin » The progressive “climate of hate:” An illustrated primer, 2000-2010

Vitriol and hate speech in Tuscon

Sheriff Dupnik continues to make himself out to be a fool and a political patsy, if he wasn't one to start with. He owes over half the country an apology. And he owes the families of the victims an apology for politicizing their tragedy. He owes the entire country his resignation. As a Democrat (and I assume an elected sheriff) he continues to blame, well, the dark side of politics--talk radio (code for Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh and Fox--but not Huffington Post, Moveon.org, Daily Kos, Media Matters, etc.). You can be sure he isn't talking about his own party, or those to the left of it.

Today Glenn Beck played recordings of the "hate speech" from the left. Was it hate speech to play it? It's very, very specific. It's about rising up, creating a revolution, about piting poor against rich, and we all know the names and faces--Rev. Wright (Obama's racist former pastor), Frances Fox Piven (Communist, racist, sexist, university professor), Van Jones the WH green jobs czar (who has moved over to a cozy, protected think tank). Did Dupnik, or any mainstream media reporter or website ever suggest that they were causing problems? What about Cornell West (has called Obama a racist)? Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (has called the Boston police department racist but kept his TV show on NPR)? Jesse Jackson (during campaign 2008 said he'd like to castrate Obama--could just be jealousy)? Father Phleger (hysterical religious bigot from Chicago)? Do the anti-Israel people ever take responsibility for the death of Jews or Palestinians? Don't think so. No. It's only the other side.

Review & Outlook: Murder in Tuscon - WSJ.com

Arizona sheriff slams media ‘vitriol’ - On Media - POLITICO.com

But the media has a long list of miscalls and speculation on this terrorism stuff. Recent violent shooters the press got wrong from the get-go:

Amy Bishop (unhappy about tenure decision). James Lee (Discovery Channel shooter, Al Gore fan). Seung-Hui Cho (the Va Tech shooter). Steven Kazmierczak (grad student in social work from NIU). Joseph Stack (software engineer mad at the IRS who played in a band). Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold (Columbine murderers of school children). Major Nidal Malik Hasan (Army psychiatrist who shot 30 at Ft. Hood)

We all know this is a political campaign for "net neutrality," and the Democrats never waste a crisis to move their agenda forward.

Private school diversity

Today I was browsing the web page of a private elementary/high school that costs about $30,000 a year and features the diversity of its students in its promotional material and websites as a selling point. It reports that it does not discriminate on the basis of race, gender, national or ethnic origin, disability, or sexual orientation, and that 41% of its school population are "people of color." That's odd, the latest census reports that about 75% of the U.S. population is white, so how could this school not be selecting students on the basis of race? I'm not sure that the Columbus City Schools have that high a percentage of "diversity." There are lots of ways to recruit students, maybe they should be sending more mailings to white parents? Also, I wonder how many learning disabled children attend this school, or do they limit disabilities to those who can keep a very high grade point? Do they accept children who will not go on to college, but who will earn good livings servicing the automobiles of their graduates, or saving them when their home catches fire, or defend them at our borders? Just wondering about that word "diversity."

People have limited memories, or they mislearned history

I actually subscribe to a terrorist watch website called START. Do you know when the most terrorism threats were and from whom? 1970. Not Muslims.  Not Tea Party. But radical leftists protesting the Vietnam War. The chart is just dramatic. Those people who were doing the threatening, burning buildings, marching, posturing and even killing (while lengthening the war giving aid to the enemy), then went on to become college professors and government advisers or politicians, and one, Bill Ayers, became a professor of education at the University of Illinois, Chicago.  He and his wife, also a domestic terrorist, lived in Obama's neighborhood, and supported his candidacy.

Yet what is the drivel I'm hearing on TV about the Arizona shooting which had zip to do with politics and everything to do with a crazy, deranged young man?  "We need to tone down the rhetoric."  Yes, Ms. Giffords had been receiving threats--many from the far left who believed she wasn't a very good Pelosi/Obama follower.  I'm appalled at the misinformed media attacks on Palin and the Tea Party.  Never in the history of this country has there been a quieter more peaceful grass roots movement than the Tea Party.  What has infuriated the left is that this sort of peaceful, legal ballot box revolution was successful.  Ms. Palin is fiesty and outspoken, and she's nobody's patsy.  But to blame her, even indirectly, for the actions of one deranged person, is absurd.

It's time for the main stream media to tone down its speculations, innuendo, and hyperventilating, and go to the START webpage and take a look at the terrorism chart.

The media hasn't learned from Lee Harvey Oswald the killer of President Kennedy, Seung-Hui Cho, the Va Tech shooter, Amy Bishop, the angry professor and Steven Kazmierczak, the grad student. None of these people were right wing nut cakes, but at least three were deeply mentally disturbed, and one was a Communist.

Arizona sheriff opines

I'm watching the interview with Clarence Dupnik, Pima County, Arizona sheriff and I am shocked that although he claims to know nothing about the deranged shooter of a Congresswoman and a judge and 18 others, he seems to believe the cause is vitriol, prejudice and bigotry on radio and TV. Hmmm. Since people never see themselves in those accusations, I guess that's code for Rush and Glenn, but not for all the TV shows and movies that depict politicians and police and military as criminals at best, or the personification of evil at worst. Apparently, his calling the Arizona immigration law racist isn't considered vitriol. Think of all the Law and Order type shows where the theme is a corrupt judge or politician, or a religious person, or a respected member of the professional community. Are we to think that this genre that brings in millions of dollars has no effect on unstable people? The sheriff would seem to be in favor of limiting free speech because some unstable person might hear. This sheriff keeps saying in response to questions, "I'm not at liberty to talk about it," and if so, I wish he'd keep his hyper-opinions about "vitriol" to himself until he has some evidence. It could be this shooter-idiot is a fan of Katie Couric and Jon Stewart and hates Sarah Palin! He was rejected for military service--maybe the sheriff should look into that as his reason for hate.

House Republicans Push Bill to Shut Down White House 'Czars'

The word Caesar means dictator or autocrat. In German it is Kaiser; in Russian it is Czar. In plain Amercan English it means we're losing our representative form of government to appointees.

How many appointed czars are there in the Obama Administration, a trickle that started with Nixon and is now a raging river? These czars are appointees who set regulations that affect everything we do from energy to food to communication, yet never have to be vetted by Congress and can't be recalled by the people through the ballot box.

"Steve Scalise's [R-AL] office estimates that 39 officials in the Obama administration fall under this description. The bill would order Congress to cut off all funding for them and the offices they control. Presumably, the president could afterward try to reinstate them by seeking Senate confirmation."

House Republicans Push Bill to Shut Down White House 'Czars' - FoxNews.com

I'm guessing many wouldn't make it past Senate confirmation, particularly Holdren, Sunstein, Lloyd and Jennings. Here's a recent list published by Fox News.

AIDS Czar: Jeffrey Crowley

Auto Recovery Czar: Ed Montgomery

Border Czar: Alan Bersin

California Water Czar: David J. Hayes

Central Region Czar: Dennis Ross

Climate Czar: Todd Stern

Domestic Violence Czar: Lynn Rosenthal

Drug Czar: Gil Kerlikowske

Energy and Environment Czar: Carol Browner

Faith-Based Czar: Joshua DuBois

Federal Communications Commission's Diversity Czar: Mark Lloyd

Government Performance Czar: Jeffrey Zients

Great Lakes Czar: Cameron Davis

Guantanamo Closure Czar: Daniel Fried

Health Czar: Nancy-Ann DeParle

Information Czar: Vivek Kundra

Intellectual Property Czar: Victoria Espinel

Intelligence Czar: James Clapper

Manufacturing Czar/Car Czar: Ron Bloom

Mideast Peace Czar: George Mitchell

Oil Spill Escrow Fund Czar: Kenneth Feinberg

Regulatory Czar: Cass Sunstein

Safe Schools Czar: Kevin Jennings

Science Czar: John Holdren

Stimulus Accountability Czar: Earl Devaney

Sudan Czar: J. Scott Gration

TARP Czar: Herb Allison

Technology Czar: Aneesh Chopra

Terrorism Czar: John Brennan

Urban Affairs Czar: Adolfo Carrion Jr.

War Czar: Douglas Lute

Weapons Czar: Ashton Carter

WMD Policy Czar: Gary Samore

9/11 Health Czar: John Howard

Cyber Czar: Howard Schmidt

Oil Spill Czar: Ray Mabus

Economic Czar: Paul Volcker (Volcker is expected to leave the Economic Recovery Advisory Board)

Ethics Czar: Norm Eisen (Eisen was appointed last year to be U.S. ambassador to the Czech Republic)

Afghanistan Czar: Richard Holbrooke (Holbrooke, who served as Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, died Dec. 13)

Ex-Huffpo CEO Betsy Morgan on What Drew Her to Glenn Beck - Jeff Bercovici - Mixed Media - Forbes

Maybe in some jobs you can just jump over your values and beliefs, switch from Arianna Huffington to Glenn Beck, because you see the growth potential and the challenge, but I couldn't. Even back when I was a Democrat I remember I wouldn't apply for the Women's Studies position because I didn't want to buy pro-abortion materials for the library. That's second hand evil, but Ms. Morgan apparently sees no conflict between liberal and libertarian.

"I think what’s really interesting to me about this audience and this brand, and it’s very different, obviously, than the one Arianna and I built, but it’s a very substantial community, and it’s a community that interacts with each other and is social. And that community exists because of Glenn and what he’s on on radio, on TV, in print. He’s built an amazing multimedia empire in a short amount of time. What’s intriguing to me from a business perspective is bringing that community together online" says Morgan in the Forbes interview.

Nope, wouldn't work for me. Huff and Puff has done a lot of harm, and she was a big part of that. Maybe a heart/mind transplant?

Ex-Huffpo CEO Betsy Morgan on What Drew Her to Glenn Beck - Jeff Bercovici - Mixed Media - Forbes

Why it's called Climate Change

The alarmists changed from "global warming" to "climate change" because the climate has always been changing and therefore, everything is due to climate change, right? This year the hurricanes and cyclones didn't cooperate, but it's probably due to climate change.

"2010 is in the books: Global Tropical Cyclone Accumulated Cyclone Energy [ACE] remains lowest in at least three decades, and expected to decrease even further… For the calendar year 2010, a total of 46 tropical cyclones of tropical storm force developed in the Northern Hemisphere, the fewest since 1977. Of those 46, 26 attained hurricane strength (> 64 knots) and 13 became major hurricanes (> 96 knots).

Even with the expected active 2010 North Atlantic hurricane season, which accounts on average for about 1/5 of global annual hurricane output, the rest of the global tropics has been historically quiet. For the calendar-year 2010, there were 66-tropical cyclones globally, the fewest in the reliable record (since at least 1970) The Western North Pacific in 2010 had 8-Typhoons, the fewest in at least 65-years of records. Closer to the US mainland, the Eastern North Pacific off the coast of Mexico out to Hawaii uncorked a grand total of 8 tropical storms of which 3 became hurricanes, the fewest number of hurricanes since at least 1970.

Global, Northern Hemisphere, and Southern Hemisphere Tropical Cyclone Accumulated Energy (ACE) remain at decades-low levels." Link.

A simple plan with great benefits

A Columbus school teacher told me that his school has gone to separate lunch hours for boys and girls. "Wow," I said, "What's next? Uniforms?" "I wish," he said.

He says the discipline problems and fights have gone way down. I'm not surprised, but I don't blame the guys, I blame the girls (I be one, you know).

My epiphany was a little late in coming. About 10 years ago we were waiting for our food at the Old Bag of Nails a pub in Tremont Center, our Friday night date spot before we shifted to the Rusty Bucket in the Lane Avenue Center. There was a non-stop noisy table next to us. Much screeching, whooping and screaming--about 6-8 30-something adult women, and two guys younger. It was probably an after work get-together to celebrate something. The 2 guys left for a few moments, either to smoke or to get away from the incessant chattering magpies. The minute they were out of earshot the women settled down. They began quietly discussing things important to them--children, husbands, boyfriends, hopes, dreams--whatever, it was all in hushed tones. Girl talk, not performing for the guys.

I'm all in favor of genderizing the lunch hours in high schools. With separate classes for boys and girls, the girls would do much better, and finally, some of the boys would begin to shine.

Retracted autism study an 'elaborate fraud,' BMJ

The man who brought back measles.

Retracted autism study an 'elaborate fraud,' British journal finds - CNN.com

"An investigation published by the British medical journal BMJ concludes the study's author, Dr. Andrew Wakefield, misrepresented or altered the medical histories of all 12 of the patients whose cases formed the basis of the 1998 study -- and that there was "no doubt" Wakefield was responsible."

And like the global warming hoax folks who were found out earlier in the year, he's whining that he's been misrepresented in the press. Restarting measles is pretty serious too, as well as panicking millions of families.

But only 12 patients? That's an awfully small study.

Deacquisitioning

Librarians who buy materials for libraries are doing the task called "acquisition." When they decide to get rid of that which they previously bought, stored and used, it's called "deacquisition," (aka deselection or weeding). There are guidelines, and the suggestion is to begin with 200-300 items.

So that's what we're doing to get ready for the new storage in the garage. I told my husband this was backward--and I've weeded many a collection. First you weed, then you decide how much shelving you need. If you move it, it will stay.

I've found a number of usable but useless things--like dirty canvas book bags. Absolutely nothing wrong with them but they can't be cleaned. A under the bed storage box (cardboard) still in the wrapper--possibly 20 years old--most people use plastic now. A piece of carpet in case something awful ever happened to the bedroom and we needed just that size.

Tinicum unsurprised by airport decision but still may fight it

Our tax dollars have been going to improve the homes in Tinicum to make them more sound proof with new windows, doors, AC, and electric upgrades, and now that same government wants to buy 72 of them and knock them down to make room for airport expansion to the tune of $5.2 billion. I think eminent domain laws have completely gotten out of control. The law suit by the city of Tinicum is also paid for with tax dollars, maybe not mine, but it's wasteful considering it's unnecessary.

Tinicum unsurprised by airport decision but still may fight it | Philadelphia Inquirer | 01/05/2011