Do numbers matter?

In the 16th through the 19th centuries Arab Muslims captured and sold black Africans to European slavers who then shipped them to the “new world” for resale in the various colonies of Spain, Portugal, France and England.

"By the end of the seventeenth century, slavery and the products of slave labor comprised the single largest economic enterprise on earth. Over the course of more than two hundred years, European carriers -- British, Spanish, French, and Portuguese -- had shipped more than 2 million Africans across the Atlantic in chains. But that was just the beginning. Spurred by an explod­ing European demand for sugar, traffic in slaves surged, and in the eighteenth century alone more than 6 million Africans were taken from their homeland to plantations in Brazil, the Caribbean, and, to a much smaller extent, British North America. ... Sons of Providence by Charles Rappleye

Guttmacher Institute, the research arm of Planned Parenthood, estimates 54,559,615 abortions since Roe v. Wade in 1973, and about 40% of those are black. Life Site News

Abortion is legal and approved by the state and federal governments of the United States, and has been a plank in the Democrat party political platform for decades.  Legal abortion  has killed more blacks than four centuries of the Atlantic slave trade.

Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards, whose organization invested $15 million in the election, was overjoyed by the results of Tuesday’s election of a pro-abortion president, as was NARAL President Nancy Keenan.

The level playing field

Early in the morning (dawn usually) I'm on the road to a coffee shop within a mile or two of my home. This morning at the first stop light I was noticing all the service people out there long before me, delivering, stocking, cleaning, preparing, etc. and wondering about those households sleeping in receiving about $60,000 in government benefits who are NOT working. How many of these people taking care of our basic needs for food, goods and services will ever make $60,000, and why do Democrats say it's never enough? Tell me again, Mr. President, about that playing field you want to level.

                         

It fits, but just barely

Our son has bought a restored 1973 Oldsmobile Delta 88 convertible.  He brought it by today to show me. What a boat!  You forget what a door slam in a 40 year old car sounds like. He says he has 2” clearance in his garage to close the door. He will keep his other 2 cars; one he drives to work, and the other, a BMW, is driven only occasionally.  The new one gets 8 miles/gallon and he’s already run out of gas once because he misjudged how far he could go on $10.

How to be a guest at any blog—but especially mine. Thursday Thirteen November 8

                    

1.  Don’t attack your host. Think of your visit as standing in the hall or on the porch and you’re passing out political literature you want her to read.  Do you start out by accusing the owner of hatred and vitriol because she disagrees with you? 

2.  If you disagree with an idea or a citation, please supply the information.  I’m smart and I cite my sources of those writers who are smarter, but I’m not a mind reader about what you call “hate.’

3.  If you’ve got more than a paragraph, please start your own blog.  It’s not difficult and many sites are free. Or hit publish and make a second comment.  Looks better on my site meter.

4.  You can skip the name calling--homophobic, racist, sexist, etc.  That dog won’t hunt here.  Plus your mother taught you better.

5.  Please pay attention to quote marks and citations.  I’ve been attacked as homophobic for quoting gay bloggers and journalists! 

6.  Just because your president is black, doesn’t mean his policies are good for black people, minorities, churches, or the economy. If what he touches becomes untouchable for bloggers because of his race, how will you ever know what he’s doing?  The media won’t tell you.

7.  If you don’t like the cartoons or graphics, you should see the ones I’ve rejected as disrespectful or nasty.

8.  I’ve been blogging for nine years.  And you?

9.  I’m a one issue (pro-life) voter, writer, woman.  Start to finish, Genesis to Revelation, womb to tomb.  Yes, I think rape is awful, but it’s not worse than murdering the innocent child that results from the violent act. Incest is icky, but in my genealogy I’m my own 6th cousin, so who do you want to eliminate?

10. I’m an evangelical Christian (Lutheran) who loves many of the documents of the Reformation and the early church before it split up. I perfectly understand your main line Christian views because I was one (UCC, Church of the Brethren), and I know the cafeteria Catholic outlook well from all my Catholic friends who use contraception.  How well do you know the documents of evangelicalism?

11.  Not only do I blog, but I’m on Facebook, and several e-mail discussion groups. I’m also a published author.  And what have you researched and published?  You can cite it here and get some free publicity. I’ll not call you names.

12. How recently did you read the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence or the Northwest Ordinance? I do it about once a year, but I’m also old enough to know the Democrats invented Jim Crow and LBJ fought civil rights all the way until he figured out he could capture the loyalty of blacks for 200 years if he switched sides.

13. FDR locked up about a million Americans, German, Italian and Japanese, in 1942.  I guess he thought they were disloyal or dangerous.  And you?  Do you read much about the heroes of American history? Write a blog—I’ll come and visit and not call you names.

If you’d like to participate in Thursday Thirteen, try this site.

No Good Sam law for architects in New York

200 responses were received from architects willing to survey affected neighborhoods damaged by the super storm Sandy. “Their job would be to help the city evaluate uninhabited buildings, a kind of architectural triage: green stickers are placed on buildings that can be inhabited immediately, yellow on buildings that can be inhabited after remediation, and red on buildings that cannot be made safe.” Lance Jay Brown, a professor of architecture at the City University of New York (CUNY) refers to it as “second-responder work.”

But. . . there is no good sam law in New York for architects.

“According to Brown and others, architects are prevented from performing damage assessment—as volunteers—by the absence of a law to protect them from future liability. About half the states have “good Samaritan” laws that cover architects, allowing them to do volunteer work in emergencies without fear of lawsuits. But New York is without such protection. “Legislation exists, but it just hasn’t been passed,” says Brown, who has been involved in the fight for a “good sam” law since 2004, as has the state AIA office in Albany. “We lobby for it constantly, but lawyers lobby against it,” Azaroff explains, adding, “As a Brooklyn architect, I should be able to walk across the street and help a neighbor. This is something that would promote a better society.”

http://archrecord.construction.com/news/2012/11/121108-Architects-Respond-to-a-Call-for-Post-Sandy-Aid.asp

Start talking.

The legacy?

"Barack Obama wasted no time getting busy destroying American sovereignty after defeating Mitt Romney Tuesday night and winning a 2nd term. Mere hours after the deciding votes were cast, the administration got to work supporting the U.N. and their effort to install a global gun restriction treaty." Glenn Beck

Obama was very cagey about announcing his agenda for the next 4 years. The first move doesn't make me feel good about his intentions. Those of you hoping he'd go "moderate" in order to create a "legacy" don't seem to understand this man. He's a statist and globalist.

Should Democrats set the Republican agenda

Juan Williams (Fox News) wants Republicans to reach out to single women and blacks. With what? Democrats give them free contraception and bill boards advertising abortions. What else would appeal? They don't care much about jobs, as they demonstrated Tuesday.

People of little or no faith more likely to vote for Obama

Religious/faith people voted for Romney if they were white evangelicals, but not enough voted, period. It's one of the flaws of being a conservative. Let someone else do it. Or, God will take care of it. Black Christians overwhelmingly voted for Obama, even with all his failures and inattention to them these last 4 years.  (Unemployment in October was 14.3% for blacks.)  "Other" and "unaffiliated" voted overwhelmingly for Obama.

And now the finger waggers are saying the Republicans (remember the ones who didn't boo God?) are too religious. I'd say the weren't religious enough if they didn't vote their values. Cafeteria Catholics went for Obama.

Pew Forum on Religion

How are they getting around Obamacare?

“Americans are already finding ways around Obamacare. The M.D. VIP program offers individuals unfettered access to a network of doctors with limited numbers of patients for around $1500/year. That is certainly less than the cost of Obamacare. I believe we will see a bifurcated healthcare system that still offers choice, because the best doctors prefer to work in programs like M.D. VIP. And the states that refuse to implement the Obamacare Medicaid provisions will be where the businesses go. The intransigent states like California, Illinois, and New York will continue to bleed companies and middle-class voters, leaving only the very rich and people who are addicted to entitlements. Ultimately, the law will be chipped away or ignored because it is poorly written.”  Mark Macina

Oh, and good luck finding a doctor if you’re about to sign up for Medicare.  Doctors are choosing to retire rather than get stuck with the abominable electronic record system required especially if they have small offices. This was just a boon to IT lobbyists, since no one can even guess if it will improve care, and it certainly won’t lower costs.  Others just won’t take Medicare—payment reimbursement is too low.

Note to trolls:  please pay attention to quotation marks. That means it is someone else’s work.

Tell me again about the Nobel Peace Prize

“Obama has tripled the presence of U.S. troops in Afghanistan, escalated the nightmare of drone bombings in Pakistan, and started a war with Libya that his administration claimed even Congress had no power to stop. Despite his occasional lip service to free markets, peace, and the rule of law, Obama has pushed for the radical expansion of state power in virtually every area he could. “ Anthony Gregory

And he’s running a pipeline of weapons from Libya to Syria.  Some peace prize he is.  I wonder if they’ll ever do that again—award a prize on the basis of nothing.  Zip. Nada. Zilch.

            

Tips for Republicans from liberals

Juan Williams (Fox News) wants Republicans to reach out to single women and blacks. With what? Democrats give them free contraception and bill boards advertising abortions. What else would appeal? They don't care much about jobs, as they demonstrated Tuesday.

Is there a single give-away or law remake that Republicans could do that Obama wouldn’t up the ante the next day?

If Republicans (registered) had shown up to vote, they could have beaten Obama.  There are more people who won’t vote for a Mormon than who won’t vote for a black.  If the dead Democrats stayed home, that might have helped too. 

Obama needs more photo ops with Sandy victims—it will warm their hearts

Bipartisanship is what got us to the cliff

“With the threat of the fiscal cliff hanging over the economy and American jobs, House majority speaker Boehner calls for bipartisan agreement to tackle the impending danger.”  U.S. Chamber of Commerce

Why does Obama continue to blame Bush? Because (fill in the blank)

Ratios of deficit to GDP for the past five presidents:

Ronald Reagan
1981-88 4.2 %
1982-89 4.2
Average 4.2

George H. W. Bush
1989-92 4.0
1990-93 4.3
Average 4.2

Bill Clinton
1993-2000 0.8
1994-2001 0.1
Average 0.5

George W. Bush 

2001-08 2.0
2002-09 3.4
Average 2.7

Barack Obama
2009-12* 9.1
2010-12 8.7
Average 8.9
*fiscal 2012 ends Sept. 30, 2012, so this figure is estimated

Forbes

Hollywood Casino, Columbus, Ohio

Our new casino in Columbus opened a month ago and has sucked about $18.3 million in profits from local gamblers. Table: $28,472,059; Slot:$136,648,985. I guess voters aren't the only ones attracted to "free stuff," but it's wildly expensive to get it this way. Gamblers' Anonymous meetings must be packed.

http://casinocontrol.ohio.gov/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=ajrbvarBPiA%3d&tabid=101

Glenn Beck probably won’t expand his business

Glenn Beck probably won't be hiring, he said last night. So you hate Glenn Beck even if you've never heard him or watched his TV show or listened to his radio show or read his books or worn his clothes? But he is a small businessman--a publisher and owner of a TV production company and a clothing business, plus some other stuff. Anyway, he'd like to expand and hire more people. In the Obameconomy he can't, plus he'll probably be fined because he provides his employees better benefits than Obama thinks is right and fair (although probably not as good as federal employees get).

Even if you don't like Beck, this is the sort of shrinking economy you voted for on Tuesday, which means he'll have to transfer more of your money to support all those government programs—you know, the free stuff.

http://www.theblaze.com/tv/

Good for Chris Matthews

He manned up and admitted he was stupid and wrong on election night when he said he was glad for the storm Sandy because it helped Obama win. He'll keep his job, of course, but if Republicans apologize for being stupid, they lose their jobs. I recall years ago Rush Limbaugh made a comment about a black football player that was true, but he was removed as a Monday night football commentator. Matthews could have made his apology to his fans stronger by not explaining twice how tired he was and caught up in political numbers.

Truthfully, I don't think he said HE was stupid and wrong, but that his comment was. Did Senator Akin try that?

Advice on how to be good Republicans who can win

I've been clicking through most of the advice and do-overs about how Republicans could do it differently. Number one is become like Democrats and grow the government, and number two is become Libertarians and take a chance that everyone is virtuous. Odd isn't it. The party of Abraham Lincoln can only survive if it stands for nothing that has a moral base--it's all about economics. A Fox commentator last night said Republicans could survive if they gave up the pro-life and pro-marriage positions (he might as well have added and "Boo God.")

Obama got elected in 2008 with positive happy talk, but it sunk Romney; he was elected 4 years ago by supporting DOMA and Don't ask don't tell and snuggling with Rick Warren, but that will get a Republican labeled homophobic today; he didn't lie about abortion--openly was supportive of killing born alive aborted babies, but even hinting that a baby conceived in rape is not the enemy can sink a career. We live in strange times.

I was pro-life and pro-marriage when I first voted in 1960. So were millions of other Democrats. In those days they also believed, really believed, in protecting the weakest and least capable among us. Now it's constant yammering about free stuff and helping the middle class with more government programs. Even churches have been lulled into not preaching the gospel if they take money for social programs.  When Democrats started buying votes with the War on Poverty and playing step-daddy to single moms (which I supported) they started us on a 16 trillion dollar failure that killed marriage and responsibility driving millions of children to the poor house.

http://blog.heritage.org/2011/03/17/morning-bell-how-many-trillions-must-we-waste-on-the-war-on-poverty/

Entrenched system that hurts the poor

In Illinois you have one giant city, Chicago, Democrat controlled for years, and an expert at trapping people with patronage. We’re headed that way in Ohio, with a number of good-sized, major cities, all Democrat controlled; Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati are the biggies, then Dayton, Toledo, Akron/Canton and Youngstown. At one time these were all job producers. Now they are tax traps and sink holes for federal block grants, ringed by wealthy suburbs. I don’t know about the other cities, but in Columbus, The Ohio State University just keeps gobbling up the land and areas of deteriorating housing stock, tearing down residences, displacing the low income, and then calling it progress when the yuppies move in and the poor move out where there is no transportation for jobs. Really, liberals (there are very few academics who are not liberals)  have invented a crazy system of feeding off the less fortunate, poorly educated, mentally ill, and addicted. Many are pushed out of the neighborhoods where they have friends, family and social resources into surrounding areas, the rest just become homeless and then more grants become available to take care of them and more PhDs are written at OSU on the social problems. All the while, conservatives are blamed for a crazy system that keeps the academics, government bureaucrats and non-profits in cushy, well-paid jobs!