Jared Loughner is a product of Sheriff Dupnik’s office

Why Dupnik was so eager to deflect attention away from Pima county.

"This was not an act of politics. This was an act of a mentally disturbed young man hell bent on getting his 15 minutes of infamy. The Pima County Sheriff’s Department was aware of his violent nature and they failed to act appropriately. This tragedy leads right back to Sherriff Dupnik and all the spin in the world is not going to change that fact."

Jared Loughner is a product of Sheriff Dupnik’s office « The Cholla Jumps

Edward Bernays and Wallpaper

Glenn Beck did a program tonight on the original spin doctor, Edward Bernays, a double nephew of Sigmund Freud. He's the guy who decided the word propaganda needed to be changed to "public relations." He's the guy who invented a healthy breakfast for a company that wanted to sell more bacon and got us eating bacon for breakfast (which is odd since he was a Jew). He helped President Woodrow Wilson gin up the public sentiment for WWI (after being against war in his campaign).

So I think his followers must be working for HGTV, one of my favorite cable channels. Virtually every home buyer or apartment hunter on their "reality" shows 1) hates wall paper, 2) hates formica counter tops, 3) hates wall to wall carpeting, and 4) wants to have hard wood floors and granite counters. And the comments are suspiciously consistent in every show. If there are nice hard wood floors they rave; if there is carpet, they talk about the cost of replacement with wood. If there is wallpaper in the kitchen or bath, it's "Oh yuk, this is so dated."

Today I stopped at Lowes which used to have a fabulous wall paper department with a huge selection of books, and at least some in stock, particularly borders. No longer. The section is now tiny--I had to ask how to find it--maybe 20 books. I happen to like wallpaper, and carpeting. I think tile and hardwood floors are cold and difficult to keep clean with a pet (carpets get dirty too, but you just don't see the dust bunnies).

Think of all the self-employed guys who used to lay carpet or clean carpets or hang wallpaper, now out of business.

The American public didn't decide on their own that they preferred wood floors to carpeting--it came about through decorating and women's magazines, and TV shows like we see on HGTV. Someone has already picked out the popular colors for 2015--we just don't know it yet. Dark woods are coming back for kitchen cabinets after about 20 years of popularity of white and blonde. Afterall, how else would they convince people to remodel and replace perfectly good cabinetry?

I Set My Friends on Fire and Other Bands

James Clyburn, D-SC, wants to limit speech, words, and hurtful things that might cause confusion to a young man, but only if it's legally protected political speech. Interestingly enough, just two years ago, a blogger wrote about bands with violent names who were coming to Arizona on tour. Do you suppose Loughner, who used to play in a band, might have been influenced by "I set my friends on Fire," or "Fucked up" with a 300 lb. frontman, "Circle of Dead Children," "And You will know us by the trail of the dead," and "The Killers." Now that was just January 2009--and they sound like groups that would only appeal to a disturbed 20 year old. And what about Guns and Roses, will Clyburn ban them, or just Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck. I don't know if they've played Tucson, but there's "Death Cab for Cutie," "Murder by death," "Cannibal corpses," "Bomb for Birthday," "Daggerhart," "The dash," [tombstone] "Dead 'til Friday," "Dead on arrival," "Naked toast and the butter knives," and "Bullet for my valentine." I think you get the idea, but Clyburn won't--he's too busy sharpening a dull knife.

I Set My Friends on Fire and Other Bands You Don’t Want to Hang Out With - Page 1 - Music - Phoenix - Phoenix New Times

Rapper 50 Cent has had his video for the song "I Still Kill" banned from both MTV and BET, but I'm guessing you can still download it; gansta rap has slightly fallen out of favor after feminists and black women protested, however, it's still being downloaded from the internet. Wasn't there one that shows a naked black woman's severed head? A study of lyrics content published in 2001 shows that 22 percent (N = 107) of the 490 gangsta rap music songs had violent and misogynist lyrics. Assault was the most frequently occurring criminal offense, portrayed in 50 percent of the violent and misogynist songs. Other rankings: rape only = 11 percent; murder only = 31 percent; rape and murder = 7 percent.

Gangsta Misogyny by Edward G. Armstrong - JCJPC, Volume 8, Issue 2

To my dear friend and Christian brother

Dear friend of many years,

I'm going to have to take a Christian brother to task here [e-mail about shifting blame to the wrong people for the Tucson murders]. All politicians are vilified. No more so now than during John Adams' day or Andrew Jackson's. That's not the point. Obama snarled back and made unpatriotic remarks about his country and the people he has sworn to protect and lead. That's where the gag order should have begun--with his mouth and angry words. He should have been above that. So his being such a hypocrite about "we" is not at all calming the waters now.

The left has been attacking Sarah Palin since they found out she allowed her Down Syndrome baby to live. I'd only seen one or two news items about her before she became McCain's running mate, and that's the first really ugly thing I saw posted on leftist blogs and Democrat web sites. "What was she thinking? Doesn't she know what a burden this child will be to society? She's so irresponsible." About 90% of women screened and told the baby has Down's choose to abort. Are "we", a so-called Christian nation, supposed to be proud of that? Are Democrats--who claim to want only the best for the weakest in society? And hatred for her has only grown--a Christian who didn't kill her child! Then they started in on how dumb and inexperienced she was--governor of our largest state compared to a one term Senator who voted present a lot. Much of that is just plain misogyny (hatred of women).

Friend, our president believes in, and he was the only member of Congress to support, late term abortion. This means, in case you're not up on how this is done, the child is turned so the head comes out last, and as she exits the birth canal, or the abdomen if a Cesarean, she's stabbed in the head and the brain destroyed while the head is still in the so-called "mother" so it can be called an abortion and not infanticide. Are you proud of this president and his party for believing this should be legal? And even though embryonic stem cell experimentation was made completely unnecessary by new developments during the Bush years, he still released new money (our tax money) so researchers could use more embryos for research (it was never illegal--just received limited government funding). Not a single medical advancement has ever been found through this ghoulish procedure, but it was the very first thing he did in January 2009.

The rumor about the $250 million for the India trip was from a source in India and was first printed in their newspapers, not ours, from one of their government sources. Then it was picked up here, and never denied by any WH source--it was only ridiculed. Maybe it was only $20 million. It doesn't really matter, a President needs to be safe, but what does matter is that during a time of extreme economic hardship for the average American, he has spent more on leisure, vacations, state dinners, etc. than any WH in recent history. He behaves like a medieval potentate.

Is there propaganda and misinformation on all sides--yes, especially the part about where he was born, which is just silly because if an American woman has a baby in Asia, or Africa, or the middle of the ocean, the baby is still an American citizen. But the birthers are no more silly than the truthers--the guys who claim Bush planned 9/11, and some of those were part of Obama's staff.

No one made money on TARP (2008 under Bush), and no one knows to this day why Paulson (Bush's Treasurer) thought everything was going to collapse. And ARRA? It hasn't even all been spent and was frittered away on various projects, like sidewalks on my street and road repairs in my suburb, that went primarily to unions who supported Obama. So of course, we're always going to be told it was successful, just like the lies we were told about Roosevelt and the Great Depression. He kept it going for a decade with his crazy economic schemes, yet somehow we were taught in school that he was some sort of savior because he put men to work building parks like the White Pines (which had been used as a park by the locals for years) or painting murals in the Post Office in Mt. Morris. Without TARP, and without ARRA, we probably could have recovered 6 months ago from this current recession, brought on by the government messing with banking and the housing market.

As an observant Christian, you well know that we Americans have become consumers and extremely materialistic. We love our entertainment--movies, football, golf--we love to redecorate our houses, buy new cars, and take trips. A 10% unemployment rate is a big wake up call--it's even scared some of the gen-x folks. Even as the stock market recovers it will be awhile before people trust enough to invest in small business or hire new workers. Our public service retirement funds (and that would be me) and social security (my husband) are way over extended and unsustainable, because no one thought ahead to how this would be paid for. No one said stop. Government health care was crammed down our throats before Congress read the bill and before Medicare and Medicaid were cleaned up.

And now? A Congresswoman is shot by a crazy man who thought 6 was 18 and had caused problems in his community for years--and no one stopped him. The Democrats in government and media are saying some how conservatives should stop talking about making cut backs, repealing Obamacare, being more responsible, and running the country with a smaller government. How they got to that conclusion from a bloody super market parking lot in Tucson, only a Democrat could tell you.

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.