Civilian deaths in Iraq rising—highest since 2008

More than 1,000 Iraqis were killed in July by al-qaeda type groups--Muslims killing Muslims. Car bombs ripped through markets, shopping streets and parks late on Saturday as Iraqis were out celebrating Eid, the end of the Muslim fasting month, killing 57 and wounding more than 150.  Attacks in Baghdad on Tuesday killed 50. The State Department boldly called these killers terrorists. Meanwhile, the Ft. Hood terrorist attack on our military is still called "workplace" violence.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/11/us-iraq-violence-idUSBRE97A05H20130811

Meanwhile,  Obama continues to arm the Syrian rebels—we’ve learned nothing since arming al-qaeda and bin Laden back in the 1980s.

http://www.brookings.edu/research/opinions/2013/06/15-arming-syrian-rebels-us-afghanistan-1980s-riedel

5th Dimension wows the Lakeside audience

We enjoyed a fabulous performance at Lakeside’s Hoover Auditorium last night by the 5th Dimension featuring Florence LaRue. They did many of the songs made famous by the group in their early years in the 60s and 70s, but also others well known to the baby boomer generation, and it's a great family show with a lot of audience participation. Ms. LaRue is a strong Christian, has a B.A. in Education and has been an active member of The Church On The Way in Van Nuys, CA, where she sings in the choir, serves with the homeless ministry and missionary work. She also has a solo act. The other female singer in the group, Patrice Morris, is also a pastor and has sung with many gospel groups and is a featured speaker at many events, especially focusing on marriage. She is an active member of the praise team and ministerial staff of Cathedral of Praise International Ministries, Rialto, CA. Her voice is so powerful that must be some fabulous singing in her church! I’m going to look for her CDs.

They surprised the audience, and their band, by asking us to sing along with them—God Bless America. I thought perhaps that was the final number, but it continued.  Each member of the group had a chance to perform solo, and the richness and power of their voices were incredible.

 

Update: Both Florence and Patrice were at the 8:30 worship on the lakefront, and were introduced by Pastor Jennings. We also stopped and talked to them at breakfast at the Patio Restaurant. It was a real thrill.

Cheesy Bread Sticks

1 (10 ounce) can Pillsbury pizza crust dough
1 tablespoon butter, melted
1/2 cup provolone cheese, shredded
1 tablespoon parmesan cheese
1 tablespoon dried basil
1/4 teaspoon garlic salt
Preheat oven to 425. Unroll pizza dough onto a greased cookie sheet and brush with butter. Sprinkle cheeses and spices evenly over the dough.
With a pizza cutter, cut dough lengthwise into 12 long strips. Then cut those in half to make 24 strips. Do not seperate strips. Bake for 10-12 minutes or until light golden brown. Recut along each strip and remove from cooking sheet. Serve sticks warm with marinara sauce.
http://www.food.com/recipe/easy-cheesy-breadsticks-149066

I’ve never heard of Hugh Schwyzer who taught women’s studies at Pasadena City College

but I’ve certainly thought this about women’s studies in general and the men who advocate for them in particular.  I knew male students who thought these classes might be a good way to meet chicks.   It’s not a good career track.  Notes from the professor’s Twitter account in which he fesses up to the scam he’s pulled off for years .

“So the real story you all missed is that I talked my way into teaching women's studies on the basis of 2 undergrad courses only . . . The college knew that at the time, and since I had a history degree and wanted to teach it, they let me. . I then built a career as a well-known online male feminist on fraudulent pretenses. My mania let me talk a good game. . . But there was no there there. . . So with the clarity that comes from a shitload of anti-psychotics, I'm sorry I've been such a breathtakingly cocky fraud.”

He has also  used racism in white-dominated feminist spaces to shut down and silence black women.

http://twitchy.com/2013/08/10/bad-boy-male-feminist-melts-down-i-used-sex-and-charm-and-whiteness-to-scam-you-all/

Hypocrites about education—for me not thee

Rich Democrats want everyone else's kids to go to pubic school, but they send theirs to private schools. And vote against charters and scholarships for poor children when they have the opportunity. Obama never attended a U.S. public school, sends his daughters to private school, and doesn't support charters for poor kids because he's beholden to the teachers' unions.

“When the avowedly liberal actor Matt Damon revealed in an interview last week that he was sending his children to private schools - despite his vocal criticism of education reform efforts and statements about his staunch public school support – it was catnip for conservatives. Damon’s choice also raised the question of whether it is hypocritical for education reform opponents to make choices they would deny to others through public policy.” http://www.hollywoodrepublican.net/2013/08/matt-damon-school-choice/

Hollywood liberals also think it is OK to take guns away from the general public, but to protect their own families and staff with security guards armed to the teeth.

Another day, another scandal?

Ho-Hum. Another scandal, or just the usual misuse of power we've come to ignore? "While the president of the United States can declassify top secret intelligence information on his own say-so, disclosing secret grand jury material is a different matter. Rule 6(e) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure clearly states: “… no person may disclose the indictment’s existence except as necessary to issue or execute a warrant or summons.’’ Of course, he's not just a "no person," he sees himself above all laws. A bad case of Caesarism. Don't look for his buddies at the DoJ to look into this. http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2013/08/09/in-misstep-obama-discusses-sealed-indictment-on-benghazi/

Noun 1. Caesarism - a form of government in which the ruler is an absolute dictator (not restricted by a constitution or laws or opposition etc.)

dictatorship, monocracy, one-man rule, shogunate, Stalinism, totalitarianism, tyranny, authoritarianism, despotism, absolutism autocracy, autarchy - a political system governed by a single individual

The next time I’m in Europe

and am treated rudely by a retail clerk, I hope I can get on national TV and get my face out there to flog my latest movie like Oprah.  The billionaire has probably gotten someone fired. That’s what fat cats do.  I don’t know what she was wearing on the shopping trip, but the paparazzi have caught her in sweat pants and no make up and published the photos, so possibly she didn’t look the part of  “famous diva?”  I’ve heard the purse was $38,000.  It’s her money, she can spend two years of college tuition for a worthy poor student on a purse if she pleases.

http://www.examiner.com/article/oprah-winfrey-receives-apology-from-swiss-tourism-office-after-racial-incident

The exemptions

Remember—it’s only legal because the Supreme Court said it was a tax. 

The death of pretty

"Young women today do not seem to aspire to pretty, they prefer to be regarded as hot. Hotness is something altogether different. When women want to be hot instead of pretty, they must view themselves in a certain way and consequently men view them differently as well." Men will cherish pretty; they regard hot as a commodity to be used. "The death of pretty" http://www.ncregister.com/blog/pat-archbold/the-death-of-pretty

Helpful hints—just try a few

1. Take your bananas apart when you get home from the store. If you leave them connected at the stem, they ripen faster!
2. Store your opened chunks of cheese in aluminum foil. It will stay fresh much longer and not mold!
3. Peppers with 3 bumps on the bottom are sweeter and better for eating. Peppers with 4 bumps on the bottom are firmer and better for cooking.
4. Add a teaspoon of water when frying ground beef. It will help pull the grease away from the meat while cooking.
5. To make scrambled eggs or omelets rich add a couple of spoonsful of sour cream, cream cheese, or heavy cream in and then beat them up.
6. Add garlic immediately to a recipe if you want a light taste of garlic, and at the end of the recipe if you want a stronger taste of garlic.
7. Reheat Pizza Heat up leftover pizza in a nonstick skillet on top of the stove, set heat to med-low and heat till warm. This keeps the crust crispy. No soggy micro pizza. I saw this on the cooking channel and it really works.
8. Easy Deviled Eggs: Put cooked egg yolks in a zip lock bag. Seal, mash till they are all broken up. Add remainder of ingredients, reseal, keep mashing it up mixing thoroughly, cut the tip of the baggy, squeeze mixture into egg. Just throw bag away when done easy clean up.
9. Expanding Frosting: When you buy a container of cake frosting from the store, whip it with your mixer for a few minutes. You can double it in size. You get to frost more cake/cupcakes with the same amount. You also eat less sugar and calories per serving.
10. Reheating refrigerated bread: To warm biscuits, pancakes, or muffins that were refrigerated, place them in a microwave with a cup of water. The increased moisture will keep the food moist and help it reheat faster.
11. Newspaper weeds away: Plant your plants in the ground, work the nutrients in your soil. Then wet newspapers, put layers around the plants overlapping as you go, cover with mulch, and forget about weeds. Weeds will get through some gardening plastic they will not get through wet newspapers.
12. To keep squirrels from eating your plants, sprinkle your plants with cayenne pepper. The cayenne pepper doesn't hurt the plant and the squirrels won't come near it.
13. Flexible vacuum: To get something out of a heat register or under the fridge add an empty paper towel roll or empty gift wrap roll to your vacuum. It can be bent or flattened to get in narrow openings.
14. Pin a small safety pin to the seam of your slip to eliminate static cling. It works; you will not have a clingy skirt or dress. Same thing works with slacks that cling when wearing panty hose. Place pin in seam of slacks and ... Ta DA! ... Static is gone.
15. Before you pour sticky substances into a measuring cup, fill with hot water. Dump out the hot water, but don't dry cup. Next, add your ingredient, such as peanut butter, and watch how easily it comes right out.
16. De-fog your windshield: Buy a chalkboard eraser and keep it in the glove box of your car When the windows fog, rub with the eraser! Works better than a cloth!
17. Re-opening envelopes: If you seal an envelope and then realize you forgot to include something inside, just place your sealed envelope in the freezer for an hour or two. Voila! It unseals easily.
18. Use your hair conditioner to shave your legs. It's cheaper than shaving cream and leaves your legs really smooth. It's also a great way to use up the conditioner you bought but didn't like when you tried it in your hair.
19. Goodbye Fruit Flies: To get rid of pesky fruit flies, take a small glass, fill it 1/2' with Apple Cider Vinegar and 2 drops of dish washing liquid; mix well. You will find those flies drawn to the cup an d gone forever!
20. Get Rid of Ants: Put small piles of cornmeal where you see ants. They eat it, take it 'home,' can't digest it so it kills them. It may take a week or so, especially if it rains, but it works and you don't have the worry about pets or small children being harmed!
21. Wash your dryer filter: Did you know that cleaning your lint trap with a dryer sheet can ruin it? Dryer sheets cause a film over that mesh that's what burns out the heating unit. You can't SEE the film, but it's there. It's what is in the dryer sheets to make your clothes soft and static free, and smell good. You know how they can feel waxy when you take them out of the box? Apparently that stuff builds up on your clothes and on your lint screen. This is what causes dryer units to potentially burn your house down with it! You can test it by running the lint trap under water. If the water goes through you are good. If not then you need to clean it. The best way to keep your dryer working for a long time (and to keep your electric bill lower) is to take that filter out and wash it with hot soapy water and an old toothbrush (or other brush) at least every six months.
22. Drop a small object on the carpet and can't find it. Place panty hose over the end of the vacuum hose and start vacuuming. The panty hose will trap anything too large to fit through the tiny hose and keep it from getting sucked into the vacuum.
23. Wearing a skirt or dress on a windy day. Cut open a few sections on the bottom seam. slip in some heavy washers or flat weights (anything small heavy and flat will work) then sew the seam back up.
24. Need to cut some corn off the cob. Use your bundt pan. Place the ear on the opening in the center of the pan, and as you slide the knife down the ear, all the kernels will collect in the main part of the pan..

Just one baby not aborted . . .

How many more have been killed who may have done great things?

Still, he was not too virtuous when he fathered an out of wedlock child himself and denied paternity claiming he was sterile. Jobs did not initiate a relationship with his daughter Lisa until she was 7.  When she was a teenager, she came to live with her father. I think I recall reading that she and her mother were on welfare for awhile.

ObamaCare bailout for Members of Congress and their staffs

How does even the most devoted Democrat justify this?

“Thanks to an amendment from Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley that Democrats enacted in 2010, the Affordable Care Act says that "the only health plans that the Federal Government may make available" to Congress are the ones offered on the ObamaCare insurance exchanges. But Members and many aides have been flipping out because they won't qualify for ObamaCare subsidies and they'll lose employer contributions they now receive under the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program, or FEHBP, which picks up about three-quarters of the average premium.

At President Obama's personal request, the Office of Personnel Management decreed that the Members don't have to get off the gravy train after all. The eat-your-own-cooking provision begins with the phrase "Notwithstanding any other provision of law." The feds now interpret that clause as a loophole to mean that the Affordable Care Act did not change the 1959 law that created the FEHBP.

Since Members and staff still technically meet the definition of federal employees qualified for the FEHBP, the Administration says they're still entitled to enroll in the FEHBP concurrently with the exchanges. The feds then "clarify"—their euphemism—that the regulatory meaning of health benefits in the FEHBP can be ObamaCare plans. Voila, taxpayers will continue to chip in $4,900 for individual and $10,000 for family coverage.”

Wall St. Journal, Review and Outlook, August 7, 2013

Screwed again by the very guys that assured us they also would be covered by Obamacare, so how bad could it be.  As it has turned out, worse than anyone expected.

RFS needs to be repealed

Repeal the Renewable Fuel Standard. It's bad for the environment and even worse morally, when many in developing countries are hungry. Ethanol made from corn is taking agricultural land and using it for fuel. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has approved, without adequate testing, E15 — a blend of up to 15% ethanol in gasoline — for sale to consumers. This decision wasn't based on consumer demand, but simply to meet arbitrary ethanol mandates in the flawed Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS). E15 fuel can cause serious damage and potentially ruin many types of engines, even ones approved by the EPA to use the fuel.

This cannot be blamed on Obama--although he hasn't stopped it. "April 10, 2007--In step with the Bush Administration’s call to increase the supply of alternative and renewable fuels nationwide, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency today established the nation’s first comprehensive Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) program. . . “The Renewable Fuel Standard offers the American people a hat trick – it protects the environment, strengthens our energy security, and supports America’s farmers,” said EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson. “Today, we’re taking an important first step toward meeting President Bush’s “20 in 10” goal of jumping off the treadmill of foreign oil dependency.”

That was hogwash in 2007 and is even worse now. The ethanol push is welfare for farmers--it actually harms the environment and causes hunger, not security. If one administration makes a mistake, the next one can correct it.

Tina Fey and Jay Leno

Comedians--should they be influencing the news? Obama made a number of gaffes on Leno the other night, but the MSM covered for him. And they seemed impressed that instead of addressing the nation about the seriousness of the embassy closings, he went on TV with a comedian.   When Tina Fey, impersonating Sarah Palin, said she could see Russia from her house during the 2008 campaign, the MSM played it as Palin's gaffe. You really can see some Russian islands from Alaska, however, as Palin actually said. "They're our next-door neighbors, and you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska, from an island in Alaska." But in order to make her look like a doofus, they would quote Fey. It's not hard to catch Obama in terrible mistakes on geography, titles, pronunciation or founding documents, but the press don't report it.

TV series about teens have certainly changed

Here on Lake Erie we get Canadian TV and I see shows I’ve never seen—although they may be available, but I don’t watch much TV in Columbus. Really makes me miss the Cosby show of the 1980s and Ozzie and Harriet of the 1950s. Tonight I was watching Degrassi, a Canadian series on CTV about teens who face various challenges, such as poor self-image, peer pressure, child abuse, sexual identity, gang violence, self-injury, teenage pregnancy, drug abuse, death, and a number of other issues.

Frozen track and swimming pools

When Leno asked if such laws [about homosexuality] would impact the upcoming Winter Olympics, Obama said he felt Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russia "have a big stake in making sure the Olympics work, and I think they understand that for most of the countries that participate in the Olympics, we won't tolerate gays and lesbians being treated differently."

"They’re athletes, they’re there to compete," Obama said. "And if Russia wants to uphold the Olympic spirit, then every judgment should be made on the track, or in the swimming pool, or on the balance beam, and people’s sexual orientation shouldn’t have anything to do with it."

The Winter Olympics, it goes without saying, will not have events on the track, in the swimming pool, or on the balance beam.

 http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-Sports/2013/08/06/Obama-Confuses-Sochi-Olympics-for-Summer-Olympics

Obama’s “legitimate rape” phrase—James Taranto

"The odds of people dying in a terrorist attack obviously are still a lot lower than in a car accident, unfortunately," President Obama told NBC's Jay Leno last night.

Wait, "unfortunately"? Does the president really wish more Americans were killed in terrorist attacks? Indeed, orders of magnitude more, since nationwide traffic fatalities typically run between 30,000 and 50,000 a year?

Of course not. Obviously when he deployed that adverb he was thinking of the unfortunate souls killed in car accidents, not the victims of terrorism. He simply misspoke--just as Todd Akin did last year when he used the unfortunate phrase "legitimate rape." But for some reason, the World's Greatest Orator and the most powerful man in the world is held to lower standards of verbal exactitude than a lowly congressman from Missouri.

James Taranto, Wall St. Journal, August 7

Yes, and Ohio and all the Appalachian states agree

Oprah and Till

It’s very unfortunate that Oprah Winfrey, the richest and most successful woman in the United States, has passed along the misinformation that the Emmett Till case of 60 years ago is like the Trayvon Martin case.  Essentially, she’s said the last 50 years of the civil rights movement, her rise to prominence, the election of thousands of black officials to city and state and federal governments, the election of a black president, a growing middle class and rich CEOs like her have been for nothing.  Both the Defense and the Prosecution said the Martin/Zimmerman case was not about race. Martin attacked Zimmerman, and was bigger than Zimmerman.  His friend Rachel said on the Piers Morgan show that Zimmerman didn’t understand “whoop ass” and that he was a creepy ass cracker maybe a gay man intent on raping Martin. Emmett Till was 14, was from Chicago visiting in Mississippi, and flirted with the wife of a convenience store owner.  Does that sound like the Trayvon Martin case? Till was kidnapped, tortured and murdered and dumped in a river.  Zimmerman called the police and clearly thought he was in danger of his life when attacked.  Maybe it’s true what Obama says about rich fat cats—they lose their perspective. Oprah certainly did.  If she said this to get publicity for her new movie, her respect meter really sinks.

Afghanistan U.S. military deaths under Obama and Bush

This was dated February 2013, so Obama’s would now be higher.

http://icasualties.org/oef/

This is for all my Democrat friends and relatives, and those Republicans who gave up on Bush and decided to vote for “hope and change.” Remember, Bush had the Congress behind him to go to war.  Obama has just done what he pleased, and not what he promised.