Catty remarks

Of the top 20 wealthiest people in the federal government (Congress, Judiciary, Executive and appointments to cabinet, etc.), only 6 are Republicans. Two of the Democrats are not elected, but appointed by the President. Next time you hear the President talk about "fat cats," think of those who surround and protect him.

Open Secrets

None, however, are as rich as Julia Dreyfuss or Oprah, who both supported Obama and are worth $2.9 billion and $2.8 billion.

A Circleville, Ohio resident remembers life in Austria and Germany, before and after WWII

Perhaps you should consider the advice from someone who has lived in a country where all guns were confiscated, and the government was all powerful.

“We lived in Nazi-controlled Austria in a refugee camp in late 1944. Guns had been confiscated long ago by Adolf Hitler. In the refugee camp, my mother saved my life with an illegal gun. And in late May 1945, we were in the eastern part of Germany when there was a weeks-long total breakdown of law and order after World War II ended.

Gangs of criminals were going through the city one street at a time, raping, getting drunk and looting. My mother made elaborate plans to keep them out of our apartment and for us to hide in the basement without being seen. Fortunately she was successful in keeping the vermin out.

Most of the other women and even young girls were not so lucky. They were defenseless with no guns and all men of fighting age, 15 to 60, either prisoners of war or dead. At that time my father was a Russian POW. My mom still had the illegal semiautomatic pistol with her, just in case her plan did not work. I was a sickly child who cried a lot of the time.

One day while we were all hiding in the basement, a gang of criminals pounded on the blocked doors and blocked windows while they screamed, “Frau Schnapps.” I was totally quiet. I knew we were in mortal danger.

Unless one has experienced such events, one probably cannot imagine it can happen. Most Americans think, “It will never happen here.” Hope not. But don't count on it.

In any case, don’t ever let our government take our guns away or keep a list of all gun owners. After my father was released from Russian captivity, he lived in Romania until he fled to West Germany. The communists would knock on people’s doors at 3 a.m. and arrest them without a judge involved. Many of these people never were seen again. The authorities had guns, of course. They always do.

Based on the experiences of my youth, I do not share many people’s blind trust in governments, especially big powerful governments. My father read the Constitution before he decided to request to immigrate to the U.S. with his family. He had had his fill of communism, National Socialism (Nazism) and governments that feel the need and have the power to arbitrarily confiscate weapons.

Of course, Europeans generally accept that they can’t own guns. But their history is such that they started out as serfs and always had a lord, king or emperor. There was always a powerful leader who had control over the lives of his subjects. We Americans threw off the yoke of aristocracy and had a new birth of freedom.”

GERHARD MAROSCHER Circleville

The Recession was over in June 2009—before the stimulus kicked in—in 2013 he says recovery has begun

If Obama hadn't tried to take over 1/6 of the economy throwing all plans for development, invention and expansion into a free fall, the recession he continues to blame on Bush could have been solved quickly. (Technically, it was over in June 2009, so everything he did after that caused the economy to remain sluggish.)

Unintended consequences—population control

The “West” invented and promoted eugenics and birth control (aka reproductive health) to limit the populations of the developing countries (it still does through the U.N.), but the irony is western developed countries are now at below replacement birth rates, and don’t have enough workers to support those born after WWII.  Without immigration, much of it illegal, the United States would be at negative population growth.  But Mexico has a birth dearth we’re contributing to.

70 countries are below replacement fertility.  Now, environmentalists will say this is a good thing.  What do you say? Slavery used to be a solution for a shortage of manpower.  Would you like to go back to that?  Or maybe just a slow double decade of sluggish economy like Japan?

Look how the baby boomer demographic in the U.S. drove our economy from 1945 to 1980.  Do you really think the collapse in 2007 was just about banking and bad government policies, or can you watch that generation and see there is no one to buy the McMansions or shop at the malls?  Old people save, not spend.

There’s a reason for the term “human capital,” and our current government policy is to destroy it.  The age group that has babies is the one who create the inventions that make our life better.

The Obama economy

Where the rich get richer and the poor get more unemployment benefits.

Ballards before the move to Illinois—Friday family photo

William Ballard (Grand dad) seated in front with Leta Ballard on his lap; behind him the young boy in a suit is Arthur Ballard; behind William is his wife Leanor Williford Ballard. Standing to his left is Blanche Molly Ballard and her brother Earle Ballard.  On the far right in the white blouse and black skirt is Cora Ballard, oldest daughter of William and Leanor.  The man directly behind the baby is Frank Williford, Leanor’s brother and to his right is probably his wife Minnie Cline Williford.  Between Frank and Cora are Joe and Maude Rodeffer who in the 1930s lived in Mt. Morris, but I don’t believe are relatives. 

Leta was born in 1906 in Tennessee, and appears to be about 2 years old. If Roy and Bessie are in the photo, I can’t pick them out.

Update:  A 1917 farm directory for Ogle County that I just found today says Wm Ballard was a resident of Ogle Co. in 1905. . . maybe they returned to Tennessee for a while?

Media Landscape

Prostitution and the Super Bowl

As missionaries with Great Commission Ministries since 2000, Dan and Julie Clark have had the opportunity to serve a variety of populations including American college students at New Life/Mosiac, members of an inner-city church plant in Hampton, VA and church planters and orphaned children in Kiev, Ukraine. They were on staff with Children’s HopeChest from 2004/2005-2009 working with orphan graduates and women in crisis. They saw the need for a nonprofit with the focus of early intervention and prevention in the lives of orphaned children and vulnerable women and families, and launched doma in August 2008.

doma empowers women and embraces children at ConnectionPoints in Ethiopia, Uganda, Ukraine, and Russia. doma seeks to meet opportunities as presented by their communities and responds to each with individualized programming: a children’s center in Uganda, early intervention with baby houses in Ukraine, parenting and mentorship for vulnerable women in Russia and human trafficking survivors in the US.

http://www.domaconnection.org/learn/history-and-vision/

http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2012/12/17/john-school-lesson-prostitution-has-victims.html

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/2011-01-31-child-prostitution-super-bowl_N.htm

http://www.ennisdailynews.com/sports/59-arrests-in-super-bowl-prostitution-ring/

Violence

On Advice

From the very talented

http://blo64rt.blogspot.com/

How low can they go?

"Does the person you share a bedroom with snore?"  Isn't that about the dumbest advertisement--20 years ago it would have been "Does your husband snore?"  and maybe 10 years ago, "Does your partner snore," but now I guess it is whoever needs a bed for the night and stops by. Or it is directed to the prison population.

A new abortion clinic for Columbus area

Last week, Mervyn Samuel, a well-known Columbus abortionist, expanded his business to Pickerington, Ohio. He now has three offices in the Columbus area. Yesterday, Pregnancy Decision Health Center decided that it needs to be there to minister to the women attracted to abortion and to give the women of Pickerington a REAL choice. It will take a lot of work to get up and running. And, it will take about $250,000. So maybe you don't want to march, maybe you're just tired of the back and forth about life and choice and the value of life of the unborn. But I challenge all my central Ohio friends to donate, especially if you are a member of an adoption triad:

Pregnancy Decision Health Centers, 665 E. Dublin-Granville Rd., Suite 120, Columbus, OH 43229.

Gun control and Immigration

Do you think employment and the economy are completely off the national radar? Seems to be for Obama and his back up singers in the media. In the bad old days of GW Bush I remember even fast food restaurants were advertising $2 above minimum with benefits. Mr. President, the recession was officially over in June 2009.

Bureau of Labor Statistics for January 2013 (this is for those of you who think reporting negative news about Obama is racist and hateful)

Among the major worker groups, the unemployment rates for adult women (7.3 percent) and blacks (14.0 percent) edged up in December, while the rates for adult men (7.2 percent), teenagers (23.5 percent), whites (6.9 percent), and Hispanics (9.6 percent) showed little or no change. The jobless rate for Asians was 6.6 percent (not seasonally adjusted), little changed from a year earlier.

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm

Abby Johnson used to work for Planned Parenthood

“I remember when I worked at Planned Parenthood in 2005, we were fighting SO hard to stop the parental consent legislation. We knew it would be devastating for us. Parental notification was SO easy to get around. They could give us the number to Walmart or Target or their cousin and as long as we said we made the contact, then they could get their abortion. We knew parental consent would make our jobs much more difficult. And I remember sitting across the hall from all of the pro-life groups...the groups that we were fighting. Well, all but ONE. There was ONE group that stood alongside Planned Parenthood. There was ONE group that opposed parental consent. I remember thinking to myself THEN, "what type of 'pro-life' group would ever not want parental consent?" Well, that same group is continuing to fight against parental consent in our state. Any group that will stand alongside Planned Parenthood is certainly no pro-life group. We must divide from these groups as they are incredibly detrimental to our efforts. The group I am referring to in this case is Texas Right to Life fueled by the damaging legislation of National Right to Life.”

From her Facebook page

How long will you blame Bush

Democrats managed to blame Hoover and extend the Great Depression for 10 years.  Maybe, if Obama overrules the Constitution (again) he can get a 3rd or 4th term and keeps us down.

Many abort at 20 weeks

And Democrats advocate and applaud this cruel and inhuman act as a woman’s right.

Dilation and Extraction (D&X) (partial-birth abortion): from 20 weeks after LMP to full-term

”This procedure takes three days. During the first two days, the cervix is stretched open using thin rods made of seaweed, and medication is given for pain. On the third day, the abortion doctor uses ultrasound to locate the legs of the fetus. Grasping a leg with forceps, the doctor delivers the fetus up to the head. Next, scissors are inserted into the base of the skull to create an opening. A suction catheter is placed into the opening to remove the brain. The skull collapses and the fetus is removed.” First Choice Clinic 

http://www.babycenter.com/fetal-development-images-20-weeks

          

Lindsey at 20 weeks (today), 3rd pregnancy

I would never want to be 20 again, but

These photos do bring back some memories.  University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, on the Quad in the Fog. The first photo is the Illini Union, and lived just a few steps away in McKinley Hall (YWCA) on Wright Street.

Prager on Obama’s Inaugural Address

The Obama Inaugural Address, by Dennis Prager

“To understand leftism, the most dynamic religion of the last hundred years, you have to understand how the left thinks. The 2013 inaugural address of President Barack Obama provides one such opportunity.

"What makes us exceptional -- what makes us American -- is our allegiance to an idea articulated in a declaration made more than two centuries ago: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.'"

What American does not resonate to a president reaffirming this magnificent statement from our Declaration of Independence?

But here's the intellectual sleight of hand: "What makes us exceptional -- what makes us American" is indeed the belief that rights come from God.

But this seminal idea is not mentioned again in the entire inaugural address. This was most unfortunate. An inaugural address that would concentrate on the decreasing significance of God in American life -- one of the left's  proudest  accomplishments  -- would address what may well be the single most important development in the last half-century of American life.

Continue Reading   http://www.dennisprager.com/columns.aspx?g=a656bc34-0083-4bee-82ae-48aad1cdf80f&url=dennis-prager-n1499966

Famous quotes

Our skeet shooting president

"If he is a skeet shooter, why have we not heard of this? Why have we not seen photos? Why hasn't he referenced this at any point in time?" Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) said Monday on CNN's "Erin Burnett OutFront."

"I tell you what I do think," she later added. "I think he should invite me to Camp David, and I'll go skeet shooting with him and I bet I'll beat him."