Palin on Obama’s performance

On 9/11 yesterday radical Muslims attacked—again in Egypt and Libya. Sarah Palin responds, since the president didn’t:

It’s about time our president stood up for America and condemned these Islamic extremists. I realize there must be a lot on his mind these days – what with our economy’s abysmal jobless numbers and Moody’s new warning about yet another downgrade to our nation’s credit rating due to the current administration’s failure to come up with a credible deficit reduction plan. And, of course, he has a busy schedule – with all those rounds of golf, softball interviews with the “Pimp with the Limp,” and fundraising dinners with his corporate cronies. But our nation’s security should be of utmost importance to our Commander-in-chief. America can’t afford any more “leading from behind” in such a dangerous world. We already know that President Obama likes to “speak softly” to our enemies. If he doesn’t have a “big stick” to carry, maybe it’s time for him to grow one.

The Planned Parenthood vs. Komen story

Karen Handel, former Susan G. Komen’s For the Cure Senior Vice President of Public Policy writes about how Komen was bullied back into supporting Planned Parenthood.  It was supposed to be on book shelves today.  We’ll see if it makes it to my public library.

HIV Infections and ART

Gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men (MSM) represent approximately 2% of the US population, yet are the population most severely affected by HIV.

• In 2009, (men who have sex with men) MSM accounted for 61% of new HIV infections in the US and 79% of infections among all newly infected men. Compared with other groups, MSM accounted for the largest numbers of new HIV infections in 2009.
• Among all MSM, white MSM accounted for 11,400 (39%) new HIV infections in 2009. The largest number of new infections (3,400) occurred in those aged 40–49.
• Among all MSM, black/African American MSM accounted for 10,800 (37%) new HIV infections in 2009. Whereas new HIV infections were relatively stable among MSM overall from 2006–2009, they increased 34% among young MSM—an increase largely due to a 48% increase among young black/African American MSM aged 13–29.
• Among all MSM, Hispanic/Latino MSM accounted for 6,000 (20%) new HIV infections in 2009. The largest percentage of new infections (45%) occurred in those aged 13–29.

I’ve looked through the guidelines given to doctors to combat HIV/AIDs in gay men.  They include counseling for condoms, screening and treatment for other sexually transmitted diseases, hepatitis vaccine, and PrEP, short for Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis, the combination medication tenofovir disoproxil fumarate plus emtricitabine (TDF/FTC).   PrEP was approved in July, 2012 and treatment costs about $14,000 a year, requires constant monitoring, and absolute adherence to the drug regimen. Giving it to uninfected people who don’t have HIV might prevent those already infected from receiving it. 

In the guidelines I saw nothing about chastity or celibacy, the only two methods which are 100% effective in combating HIV and have no toxic side effects.

Obama’s love affair with Wall Street

Source of graphic: http://gerarddirect.com/2012/05/25/3090/

“Candidate Obama had been their [finance titans] guy, accepting vast amounts of Wall Street campaign money for his victories over Hillary Clinton and John McCain (Goldman Sachs executives ponied up $1 million, more than any other private source of funding in 2008). Obama far outraised his Republican rival, John McCain, on Wall Street—around $16 million to $9 million. As it turned out, Obama apparently actually meant what he said at that White House meeting—his administration effectively would stand between Big Finance and anything like a severe accounting. To the dismay of many of Obama’s supporters, nearly four years after the disaster, there has not been a single criminal charge filed by the federal government against any top executive of the elite financial institutions.”

The four takeaways from Charlotte

Four lasting impressions remain from the Democratic Convention in Charlotte:

(1) Delegates raucously booing the chairman's phony ruling accepting the amendment which put God and Jerusalem as the capital of Israel back into the official Democrat platform,

(2) an obsessive focus on "reproductive freedom" -- contraception and abortion,

(3) a disproportionate emphasis on "women's equality" in the face of a U.S. economy that is in crisis, and

(4) rhetoric permeated with desperation, distortions, and demagoguery.

Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/09/the_democratic_partys_polarizing_convention.html#ixzz265BQckM8

The Bail Out/Take Over Party

Editorial at National Review On-Line

"The Democrats have decided to run in 2012 as the bailout party. It is an odd choice — the 2008–09 bailouts were deeply unpopular among the general public, and even their backers were notably conflicted about the precedent being set and the ensuing moral hazard. But Democrats have nonetheless made one of the most abusive episodes in the entire bailout era their economic cornerstone: the government takeover of General Motors.
{...}
At their convention, Democrats swore that GM is “thriving,” but the market doesn’t think so: GM shares have lost half their value since January 2011. And while the passing of the Great Recession has meant growing sales for all automakers, GM is seriously lagging behind its competitors: Its sales are up 10 percent, a fraction of the increases at Kia, Toyota, Volkswagen, and Porsche. With its sales weak, its share price crashing, and its business model still a mess, some analysts already are predicting that GM will return to bankruptcy — but not until after the election."

Worth reading all of it: http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/316379/democrats-gm-fiction-editors

Our freedom to speak out

It was Democrat Lyndon B. Johnson in 1954 that pushed using the IRS code to silence churches.  Let’s put a stop to that.  Our current President is using the IRS to help take over the healthcare system.  Let’s put a stop to that. 

Monday Memories—Graduation May 1955

Carol and Stanley graduated from elementary and high school in 1955.  At first I was going to crop this to get a better close up, but then I realized I didn’t have many photos of the back yard of our house on Hannah Avenue where we lived from March 1951 to August 1958 when my parents moved to Lincoln Street where they lived until 1996. I was in college when they moved and felt like I didn’t have a home.

I can’t remember if the little arbor behind Carol was for roses or grapes.  I know there was a row of tall pines probably about 40 years old along the property; some had died, but you can see one on the right.  They were used for wind breaks.  You can see the back porch steps, which we didn’t use because that porch had been enclosed many years before for a half bath, and mother also had her washer and dryer there.  The concrete steps are right behind the lilac in the back left.  I visited this house, a 4-square with 4 rooms up, 4 rooms down,  about 2 years ago.  It was huge in the 1950s, but is much smaller now.

The building on the far right is a garage/barn, and it had a second floor with 2 levels, and a shop in the back.  Mother had a garden behind the barn, and our Dalmatian “Lady” is buried there.  For awhile further beyond the pine trees I used to stake my horse, and Mother briefly raised chickens.  I think the eggs were costing about $1.00 a piece, so she gave up on that.   The house was on the edge of town, so it’s possible that at one time it had been part of a farm.  Obviously, zoning was rather casual in 1955.

Let’s give it up for Ted and Bill

The cupbearer and the baker

In Sunday school this morning we were looking at the Joseph story (the church is doing "The story.") I asked if the cupbearer and baker who were in prison with Joseph were a foreshadowing of the wine and bread, but no one knew.  When I got home I Googled it, and found this.

"The story of Joseph in Genesis is filled with Eucharistic imagery. The entire deliverance segment of his life is shrouded in the typology of the sacrament. While in an Egyptian prison, Joseph was joined by Pharaoh’s baker - of bread and the cupbearer - of wine. The baker was sentenced to die but the cupbearer was to live. Because of this, we see both death and resurrection linked to the Eucharist typology. Finally, it was through Joseph’s relationship with these two that he is delivered from the dungeon. The cupbearer, who lived, pleaded Joseph’s cause to Pharaoh. As a result, Pharaoh released Joseph, giving him his life back. The typology provides bread and wine, death and resurrection, and a new life for Joseph, all elements of the Eucharist. Minus the “Eucharistic events” in this story, Joseph was destined to rot in prison."
http://www.holytrinityparish.net/Links/EucharistNscriptureI.pdf

Are we better off than four years ago?

IRS agents in your doctor’s office

The Democrats were too busy lauding free birth control and pushing God aside to examine the damage Obama has done. The media was quiet about Obama giving us the largest tax increase in history (according to the Supreme Court which says he has a right to tax us for health care) in addition to taking away religious freedom. So therefore, he needs a lot, a humongous, a gigantic increase in the enforcing agency, IRS. Feminists worry about religious nuts getting between them and their doctor? It's getting crowded in the examining room. How about the Internal (no pun) Revenue Service? "The IRS is expected to spend $881 million on the law from 2010 through 2013, hiring more than 2,700 new workers and upgrading its computer systems. But the IRS has not made public information about its spending plans in the following years, when the bulk of the health care law takes effect." And that's the low hiring figure.

 http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/07/07/ObamaCare-Irs-Agents

Do you remember Velma Hart?

I blogged about her back in September 25, 2010.  She was at a Town hall meeting with President Obama and calmly confronted him with her concerns about the economy.  She made a big media splash, and frankly, I didn’t buy it.  I thought she was a plant so he could look caring and reasonable.  But. . . I followed up on my own story, and it seems I was wrong.  She lost her job with a non-profit (I was wrong in my blog about her job—I thought she worked for the government but it was AmVets)  in November 2010, just 2 months later.  However, I kept poking around, and found that in 2011 she did indeed have another job with a different non-profit, and I thought her resume looked extremely good and the title of the position was impressive, although I don’t know if the salary matched what she had before.

Then I kept looking, wondering if she still supported Obama in 2012 and for the next four years and found out someone else wondered too.

“I still don’t feel like I have enough. I still don’t know that any of us have enough,” Hart said in an interview Monday with Gut Check. “I just wish there were some banner, some lighting rod that we could point to that has happened in the last 3½ years that showed how he changed things for the good.”

“I am just a regular person trying to make ends meet,” Hart continued. “I still very much appreciate the president but I really am worried though that I don’t see enough traction for the average person. I worry about the people. I worry about the ineffectiveness on the Democratic side and the meanness on the Republican side.”

There she does it again. Hart has a way of putting her finger on the weakness of the current political debate: connecting with the middle class, especially a middle class weathering a tough economy.

When asked how she is doing now, Velma Hart answered quickly, “Struggling to figure out what is going on. ... Everything is so uncertain.”

When asked whom she believes she speaks for, she said: “I am talking for everyone who cares like me; everyone who has kids like me; everyone who like me is thinking about retirement or wondering if we have to work until we die.”

But there is hope. Hart has no regrets about leaving the cloak of anonymous citizenry to brave the open microphone and klieg lights of the political spectrum, “I always tell my daughter if we really don’t stand for something, we’ll fall for anything.”

It’s my guess she’ll still vote for him.  Sigh. Come on, Velma.  Mitt can’t do worse and he just might do better.  What have you got to lose? Except a broken heart, failed promises, and a guy totally stuck on himself.

She’s not a slut, thank you, just a ninny and a fool

About Sandra Fluke, Peggy Noonan wrote:  “What a fabulously confident and ingenuous-seeming political narcissist Ms. Fluke is. She really does think—and her party apparently thinks—that in a spending crisis with trillions in debt and many in need, in a nation in existential doubt as to its standing and purpose, in a time when parents struggle to buy the good sneakers for the kids so they're not embarrassed at school . . . that in that nation the great issue of the day, and the appropriate focus of our concern, is making other people pay for her birth-control pills. That's not a stand, it's a non sequitur. She is not, as Rush Limbaugh oafishly, bullyingly said, a slut. She is a ninny, a narcissist and a fool.”

Wall St. Journal,  September 8, 2012, on page A15 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: The Democrats' Soft Extremism.

Bush-Obama, Hoover-FDR

President Clinton likes to bask in the glory of the brisk economy of his years (like he did in the convention), when with a Republican Congress government spending was cut more than any other president's term in modern history.  There was a slight recession at the end of his term and beginning of Bush’s but not many remember since it was 9/11 that really sent the economy spinning.  In the final 2 years of Bush's term he was weakened by a Democratic Congress and tried bailouts and redistribution to turn around the economy (it's odd that Obama bad-mouths him so since he loves that too, but FDR did the same to Hoover). Hoover didn't cause the Great Depression--the Fed did that by inflating the value of money--and it isn't even part of the government. To goose the economy in 1932 Hoover not only increased government spending, but increased taxes by raising the marginal tax rate from 24% to 63%, and then FDR took it to 79% and then 83%, extending the Great Depression by many years. Bush and Obama had plenty of history to go on for their failed policies since 2007-2009 wasn’t our first rodeo, but they blew it.

I could give you pages, if not books, of citations, but you wouldn’t read them, so here are just two cites.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303753904577450910257188398.html

http://www.mtpioneer.com/March-deal-Hoover.html

These are the liberals . . .

Sorry, I can’t even quote them . . .

http://twitchy.com/2012/09/07/liberals-cuss-out-archbishop-timothy-cardinal-dolan/

And they probably vote.

What I did on my summer vacation

at Lakeside, Ohio, 2012

Ice cream social on Hotel Lakeside lawn

Week 1: June 25-29

2012 Elections Seminars on the 2012 elections, with a focus on the nomination process, presidential election, congressional/state elections and campaign finance
War of 1812 Presentations on the causes, major campaigns and outcomes of the War and a look at the War specifically in North Central Ohio

Download Week 1 brochure.

Week 2: July 2-6 (We missed some of this week, but were back on the 4th)

All Things Americana Seminars on topics related to American history and culture

Download Week 2 brochure.

Week 3: July 9-13

The Printed Word Seminars about the future of newspapers and libraries
The Sounds of Music Music-related seminars presented by several Hoover evening performers, including traditional, jazz and big band music

Download Week 3 brochure.

Week 4: July 16-20

The Great Lakes Seminars related to all five Great Lakes
Ethics in Society Seminars on state, national, international, and business ethics

Download Week 4 brochure.

Week 5: July 23-27 (we missed this one)

The Chautauqua Movement In conjunction with the National Chautauqua Network Meeting, gain further insight into the history of the Chautauqua Movement and the new Chautauqua Trail
The Olympic Spirit Presentations about the history of the Olympics, current happenings in London, and famous Olympians
9th Annual Vearl Smith Memorial Historic Preservation Workshop Historic preservation seminars presented by experts in the field (July 27)

Download Week 5 brochure.

Week 6: July 30-August 3

The World Today Issues of national/international importance selected in the spring based on current world events
Environmental Stewardship Seminars related to environmental issues and responsible use of natural resources

Download Week 6 brochure.

Week 7: August 6-10 (I skipped these)

Seeking Peace in a Multi-Faith World Speakers from Christian, Jewish & Muslim faiths present interfaith dialogue and “Peace with Justice” themes

Download Week 7 brochure.

Week 8: August 13-17

East Asia Experts on this geographic area address current political, business and cultural topics
Trends in Medicine Presentations about current happenings in the medical field

Download Week 8 brochure.

Week 9: August 20-24

9th Annual Civil War Week Seminars on numerous topics related to the Civil War

Download Week 9 brochure.

Week 10: August 27-31

26th Annual Senior Venture Week: Ohio Museums Representatives from Ohio museums explore museum concepts within the context of their unique collections

Download Week 10 brochure.

The Boyfriend

Ladies—you deserve better!

Women exposed to partner violence

There was an interesting study done in Cook County, IL about abused women (these days it's not even called "domestic violence," it's been down/up graded to "partner violence). I think the idea was that if identified as abused through screening by their doctors (aka primary health care setting), and then given the proper tools and resources, the women would do something to stop the abuse and improve their quality of life. Didn't happen. It's the second study that shows universal screening for partner violence does not prevent abuse. Sort of made me think of all the women who voted for Obama in 2008, have all the knowledge and resources to recover their dignity and pride in 2012, but will vote for him anyway. (JAMA, Aug. 15, 2012) The the answer is, more studies, more rigorous methods. I know a sample pool of several million women . . .

Not that I care much for Newt, but truth is truth

no matter where you find it.

Two womanizers, two excellent politicians, in the worst sense of the word. And both are Christians!