Include me "out," please

Dear President Obama,

Yes, "We can do better" is a good message for you, Mr. President, at Tucson last night. I've been aghast by your undignified, unpresidential, Chicago knee-capping remarks to over half the American public who don't support your programs, or who are even mildly critical. George W. Bush was vilified for everything from his speech, to his ears, to 9/11 response, to two wars, to spending too much on social programs yet somehow he managed to stay above the fray and not insult us. Your disparaging remarks abroad about the USA haven't pleased anyone but our enemies and your far left, angry supporters. You, Pelosi and Reid, yes, YOU can do better (you could even read bills before voting/signing them), especially now that the people have spoken at the polls. But please leave the rest of us out of this tragedy committed by one misguided person, voluntary, by choice, who was obsessed by Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, a man who was known to the local police as a problem, was disturbing his college classes, and grieving his bewildered parents who couldn't control him.

In 1963, I was also thrown into that plural pronoun WE when Lee Harvey Oswald shot President Kennedy. Oh, how the press and the politicians moaned and wept over what we as a nation had become--and then they toned it down when they found out he wasn't a right wing fanatic as they first said, but a confirmed Communist. I think I also got included in that WE when John Lennon was shot by a demented man obsessed with him. Every time there's violence at the end of a gun, I get thrown into the bag with all the crazies, most of whom are either demented or leftists, and I really don't appreciate it.

This was a terrible tragedy for the families involved; a terrible blow for Tucson. It is not about a national anything--not the national conscience, not our spirit, not even about being a "kinder gentler" nation, as the first President Bush liked to remind us. Political rhetoric had nothing to do with this incident, and could be addressed at another, calmer, less distorted news cycle, a media that for the most part, got everything wrong by taking their lead from Sheriff Dupnik who opined when he should have been doing an investigation into his own failures in law enforcement.

Manchester College School of Pharmacy

Congratulations to Manchester College in North Manchester, Indiana, where I attended one year, as did both my sisters, and many of my friends and relatives (Church of the Brethren affiliated)
which has received a $35 million grant from Lilly to endow a School of Pharmacy. It's the largest in the college's history.

Manchester College School of Pharmacy

PND - News - Lilly Endowment Awards $35 Million to Manchester College for School of Pharmacy

U.S. Chamber of Commerce President: Regulatory 'tsunami' threatens economy, supports Obamacare repeal | Washington Examiner

"Threaten" "explosion" etc. Tsk. Tsk. Will James Clyburn (D-SC) label this hate speech? Vitriol?

"We must rein in excessive regulations and reform the regulatory process.

At the federal level alone, regulations already fill 150,000 pages of fine-print text and cost Americans $1.7 trillion a year. Many of these rules are necessary and business strongly supports them.

Yet in recent years, we have seen an unprecedented explosion of new regulatory activity. Furthermore, the administration is likely to turn increasingly to the regulatory agencies now that getting legislation out of Congress could be more difficult.

The resulting regulatory tsunami poses, in our view, the single biggest challenge to jobs, our global competitiveness, and the future of American enterprise."

U.S. Chamber of Commerce President: Regulatory 'tsunami' threatens economy, supports Obamacare repeal | Washington Examiner

Congressman James Clyburn wants to stifle free speech

Maybe Clyburn could start his free speech clean up with Hip Hop and Rap music.

TJMS: Congressman James Clyburn Discusses AZ Shooting And The Role Of Fiery Political Rhetoric In Today's Political Climate | Roland S. Martin Blog

Margaret Whiting, Clear-Voiced Singer, Is Dead at 86 - NYTimes.com

Margaret Whiting, Clear-Voiced Singer, Is Dead at 86 - NYTimes.com

If a Democrat judge had been killed

and a Republican Congresswoman wounded, what would the focus have been by the press? Oh, Palin, Rush, and Glenn still would have been blamed for the judge's death, but the drama would have shifted away from the wounded Congresswoman. As it is, his name is hardly mentioned.

The New York Times and the President urged caution in making judgements before we had all the facts in the shooting by committed Muslim Nidal Malik Hasan 14 months ago at Ft. Hood who had many ties to Islamic radicals. But have they urged caution in blaming Sara Palin in the shooting of Rep Giffords who was shot by an erratic, unstable at any speed, trouble maker known to the police? Of course not. Now there are calls from outraged Democrats for controls on speech without a shred of evidence that politics influenced the shooter at all. Will those limits include violence on TV, in movies, and in rap music? How about late term abortion? Can we stop that violence? Will the N-word and dissing women finally be banned from hip-hop? Will Facebook take down Bill Maher's "Seeing Palin kill that moose,a creature with a far higher I Q, inspired hate for her beyond what even I thought I was capable of." Sounds pretty vitriolic to me.

And Sheriff Clarence Dupnik who was the first public figure to blame conservatives, is continuing to spout off and place the blame somewhere other than Loughner and his home county.

And for once, Jon Stewart made sense.

“I wouldn’t blame our political rhetoric [for Tucson] any more than I would blame heavy metal music for [the 1999 shootings in] Columbine,” he said. “Boy, would it be nice to draw a straight line of causation from this horror to something tangible, because then we could convince ourselves that if we just stop this, the horrors will end. But . . . you cannot outsmart crazy. Crazy always seems to find a way; it always has.”

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)