I was created; and you?

What if the Declaration of Independence said "all men evolved equally" instead of "all men were created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights." Wouldn't that sound silly--some might be more evolved, some less. Some might still be slugs or worms trying to catch up after a few billion years in the slime (I don't believe in evolution--I'm just funning you). From the preamble to the final amendments, our founding documents say our rights don't come from the government, but from God. As wonderful and wise as those documents are, they don't give us anything and they are supposed to protect us from tyranny and over reaching of the government.

Senator Byrd and Paula Deen

Because I was in high school in the 1950s, we did learn about black Republicans, new civil rights laws passed after the civil war, and we knew that it was Ike that desegregated the schools, but I never at that time thought much about parties. Now when I read liberal websites I see "youngsters" under 40 seem to think Jim Crow and the KKK were Republicans, but they were laws and the terrorist arm of the Democrats. A prominent Democrat remained in the Senate for years who had a history with the KKK, having been a Kleagle, a Klan recruiter, in his 20s and 30s, and used the term "white nigger" in the 21st century, but a TV chef lost her job because she said the N-word in her past. Aren't political standards strange?

Margaret Thatcher on freedom

Doctors pressured to push Obamacare

"With open enrollment set to begin next week, enrollment groups and medical societies are hoping America's doctors can inform patients about their options for expanded coverage under the 2010 health law." Medpage.

So far, I haven't met a doctor who liked Obamacare or thought it was a good idea, so why ask them to push it? Some plan to by-pass insurance plans all together.

So I asked self, "I wonder what an 'enrollment group' is?" I looked it up, and here is one called "Enroll America."

"Enroll America is a nonpartisan 501(c)(3) organization whose mission is to maximize the number of uninsured Americans who enroll in health coverage made available by the Affordable Care Act. Enroll America is a collaborative organization, working with partners that span the gamut of health coverage stakeholders—health insurers, hospitals, doctors, pharmaceutical companies, employers, consumer groups, faith-based organizations, civic organizations, and philanthropies—to engage many different voices in support of an easy, accessible, and widely available enrollment process."

You should see the fancy website. My goodness--one of the best. Clicked all over the page, but not a peep on how it is funded (except the donate button, and I seriously doubt this staff, offices, website, training sessions, etc. are covered by donations). I bet this group didn't wait 3 years for their non-profit tax status.

If you like your health care plan, tough.

Blue Cross Blue Shield Nebraska informed Todd Blome  (and 46,000 policy holders) his health care plan will terminate at year’s end, and if he wants to move to a similar plan his new premium will go up 65 percent, costing him nearly $4,000 more per year.

He distinctly remembers President Obama looking into TV cameras and assuring Americans “If you like your health care plan, you’ll be able to keep you health care plan. Period.” Blome’s letter says otherwise.

“Stupid me, I took the president literally,” Blome said.

http://watchdog.org/107894/some-nebraskans-premiums-to-triple-under-obamacare/

And those subsidies that are buying off some states won’t be permanent.

Wired and transmitting

The heart monitor I’ve been wearing since September 16  apparently transmitted something I was ignoring, the doctor was contacted by the company, and then I was called about 7 p.m. Wednesday evening and told to go to the ER. Isn't technology amazing--all sorts of things going on behind our backs we don't know about!

I'm home now--released from the hospital late yesterday afternoon. When the cardiologist walked in with the flock of young docs in training, I'd already heard the discussion held outside my room. I don't know how often Huffington Post is listed in the record as a possible cause of heart problems, but it's in mine. Because of the medical school down the road at OSU, you see a lot of doctors coming through the ranks. They all seemed to know what Facebook and blogging are.

I met the most interesting people--asked most of the staff who had the time how long they'd been working at Riverside, career goals, etc. The woman cleaning my room turned out to be a former neighbor in the 1970s when we lived on Abington Rd. One guy had changed careers from real estate after the 2008 downturn; he began in a very low level job (which he hated) and kept applying within as jobs opened up. The echocardiogram guy had relocated from Cleveland where there were many med tech schools but no jobs, and we had a good laugh about Columbus residents and the first snow flake to fly.

One lady doctor looked to me to be 15, so I just had to ask--she was 28. One lady intern had the most fabulous bedside manner and special touch, that I hope she's around the next time I need her.  And I got to give my name and birthdate at least 30 times. 

The food was excellent—fresh and tasted “homemade”--and you could order any time.  All the staff seemed to have special training in being friendly.  When I raised the blind, I looked down on the new addition to the hospital.  It is always expanding.

“Atrial fibrillation is an irregular and often rapid heart rate that commonly causes poor blood flow to the body. During atrial fibrillation, the heart's two upper chambers (the atria) beat chaotically and irregularly — out of coordination with the two lower chambers (the ventricles) of the heart. Atrial fibrillation symptoms include heart palpitations, shortness of breath and weakness. “ http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/atrial-fibrillation/DS00291

Illinois crooks

Cook County Commissioner William Beavers was convicted on March 21, 2013 on tax-evasion charges at the federal courthouse in downtown Chicago. A jury found Beavers guilty on one count of corruptly impeding the Internal Revenue Service and three counts of filing a false federal income tax return for 2006, 2007 and 2008.

Others and there are many.

Cruzing

He did a great filibuster (it was actually a non-filibuster thanks to Harry making up more rules, but you know what I mean).

Generation X Becoming Less Christian, Less Republican

HARTFORD, CT, May 31, 2012 – Members of Generation X – the 35 million Americans born between 1965 and 1972 – have become less Christian and less Republican over the course of their adult lives, a new study [2012] by Trinity College shows.

Striking declines in the number of Catholics and Baptists combined with sharp increases in the number of non-denominational Christians and those claiming no religious affiliation (Nones) show increased religious polarization in this generation, even as its political re-orientation towards the Democratic Party has been accompanied by modest growth in the number of political independents.

Born in the wake of the Second Vatican Council in 1965, the Gen X-ers constituted the most Catholic generational cohort in American history, with fully one-third of them identifying as Catholics in 1990. But two decades later, approximately one out of five had fallen away from the faith. It was only thanks to the addition of approximately one million Latino Catholics their own age that the proportion of Gen X Catholics decreased to only 26 percent of the cohort.

In addition, shifts in religious identification since 1990 have resulted in the ranks of the Nones swelling by 67 percent (2.2 million persons) and those in the conservative, non-denominational Generic Christian tradition growing by 51 percent (1.8 million). Put another way, the percentage of self-proclaimed Nones increased from 11 percent to 16 percent of this cohort between 1990 and 2008. This increase is surprising since Americans have historically increased their religious identification between early adulthood and their mid-40s, as they marry, have children, and become settled in their communities.

Those were among the key findings of a new report by Barry Kosmin and Juhem Navarro-Rivera at Trinity College, who looked at the religious and political affiliations of Generation X, whose members reached adulthood during an era when American society was much influenced by the Christian Right. The findings are important as predictors about the future of American society, particularly the relationship between religion and politics, issues that have been front and center during this year’s presidential campaign.

The data are derived from the American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS), a large, nationally representative sample of adults in the Continental United States. The surveys were conducted in 1990 and again in 2008, highlighting trends over an 18-year period. The 1990 ARIS involved 113,723 respondents, including 16,959 adults between the ages of 18 and 25 years. The 2008 ARIS had an overall sample size of 54,461, with 6,407 respondents between the ages of 36 and 43 years.

“Generation X has shifted its allegiances to a surprising degree” said Barry Kosmin, director of the Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society and Culture (ISSSC) at Trinity. “Many in this generation of Americans have abandoned their religious roots and political affiliations in adulthood. Historically and sociologically, that’s an unexpected development.”

In terms of political affiliation, Gen X-ers leaned Republican by 5 percentage points in 1990 (34 percent to 29 percent Democratic), but in 2008 they favored the Democratic Party by 7 percentage points (33 percent to 26 percent Republican) This partisan shift away from the GOP was even more pronounced among Generation X  Nones. In 1990, Nones were evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans, but by 2008, Nones leaned Democratic by more than 2 to 1 (33 percent to 15 percent).

“The fact that identification with religion declined among Generation X as they aged suggests that the secularization of Americans is not just about young people from today’s Millennial Generation abandoning religion because it has become too politicized,” said Juhem Navarro-Rivera, a research fellow at the ISSSC. “It is also an ongoing and wider process that involves older generations in American society, as exemplified by Generation X.”

The report’s religion data are based on responses to the question: What is your religion, if any? And the political party data are based on responses to the question: Generally speaking, do you usually think of yourself as a Republican, Democrat or Independent?

For more information about the ARIS series methodology, please visit: http://commons.trincoll.edu/aris/about-aris/metholodogy.
To download a copy of - The Transformation of Generation X: Shifts in Religious and Political Self-Identification, 1990-2008 please visit:
http://commons.trincoll.edu/aris/files/2012/05/ARISGENX2012.pdf

Barry A. Kosmin and Juhem Navarro-Rivera. "The Transformation of Generation X: Shifts in Religious and Political Self-Identification, 1990-2008" Faculty Scholarship (2012).
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/jnr_prri/4

Backlash—Mike Huckabee—Today

“Over the weekend, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and her center-right party won the biggest election victory of any chancellor since East and West Germany were reunited. Ordinarily, Americans aren’t that interested in other nations’ elections. But this could be one more domino in an emerging worldwide shift from left to right. First, Australian voters threw out the progressives after six disastrous years and elected a conservative leader who vowed to undo all their job-killing policies. Something similar happened in Norway. In Colorado, two liberal state senators who forced gun control onto the public were recalled. France hasn’t had an election yet, but the voters are drowning in buyer’s remorse for electing Socialist President Francois Hollande. His approval rating is a record-low 23 percent.

And now in Germany, conservative leader Angela Merkel not only triumphed, but support for the progressive Green Party cratered after they proposed a weekly “meatless” meal day. Germans who once lived under communism said they’ve had enough of politicians trying to control every aspect of their lives, even down to what they eat for lunch.

I’ve always said that nothing makes people want to vote for conservatives like putting liberals in charge for a year or two. If this backlash against big government overreach is as widespread as it seems, then our 2014 elections might be very interesting, indeed. And if the Republicans do win big, it might be hard to say who they have to thank more: Barack Obama for trying to force Obamacare down Americans’ throats, or Michelle Obama for trying to force broccoli down our throats.”

Global alarmists have a problem . . . the climate isn’t cooperating

Planet Gore at National Review Online

“Antarctic sea ice has grown to a record large extent for a second straight year, baffling scientists seeking to understand why this ice is expanding rather than shrinking in a warming world.

On Saturday, the ice extent reached 19.51 million square kilometers, according to data posted on the National Snow and Ice Data Center Web site. That number bested record high levels set earlier this month and in 2012 (of 19.48 million square kilometers). Records date back to October 1978.

The increasing ice is especially perplexing since the water beneath the ice has warmed, not cooled.”

The IPCC has a dilemma

But there’s a problem. While the climate models confidently predicted that temperatures would maintain an inexorable rise in the 21st century, in fact, although more and more greenhouse gases have been pumped into the atmosphere, the global temperature has resolutely refused to budge.

So the IPCC’s dilemma is this. How can it expect the public to believe that recent warming is mostly manmade when the models on which it has based this claim have been shown to be fatally flawed?

But they are certain anyway . . .

One of the expected conclusions of the report to be released Friday in Stockholm from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) -- the international group that assesses the science related to climate change and its impacts -- is that there's 95% certainty that man-made global warming is real. A 2007 IPCC report put the confidence level at about 90%.

Inflammatory, violent language from Democrats

Senator Reid calls Republicans anarchists, and Rep. Pelosi calls them arsonists. That's pretty stiff language for people who thought the Occupiers were just great.  All because the U.S. should not take on more debt? She's the one who said she didn't read the bill on healthcare.  Now that we know it’s going to increase costs and still leave millions without health insurance, she's gets all bitchy?

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/22/pelosi-republicans-legislative-arsonists-government-shutdown

http://www.wnd.com/2013/09/reid-goes-ballistic-on-tea-party-anarchists/

Depopulation by choice

Many countries are being depopulated, not by war, but by birth control, abortion and natural death. Europe, Korea and Japan can't replace their own any longer, and have too few children being born to maintain the pensions and retirement costs (like medical and other social services) of their parents and grandparents.  A total fertility rate of 2.07 is required to maintain population and Japan’s is 1.39.  China, too, doesn't have enough young people, or women to continue its economic revolution.  But globalists and leftists in the United States continue the push for abortion and gender selection and households with no children.  Almost as though they had a plan to take over when certain developed countries are took weak and depopulated to fight back.

http://pop.org/content/facts-of-global-depopulation-1518

There are no “cuts”

Both liberals and conservatives have ideas about people on food stamps that need adjusting.  If you volunteer at a food pantry you'll see another side. I've worked the Lutheran food pantry in Columbus (3 days of food usually run by churches in most communities) and found people dependent on government programs are very resourceful, and if they have a special diet, they request those items. They also "budget" to a degree and manage to make their food last all but 3 days so they can come to the pantry at the end of the month. They will also turn down food if their children don't like it, or are getting breakfast, lunch and snacks at school. And like the rest of us, they pick out what they like even if they know better. Most that I observed look like they wouldn't be able to hold a job--alcoholics, pot heads, mentally ill, small children at home, elderly, handicapped, low IQ, or no transportation. With other federal and state benefits, a person on welfare in Ohio "earns" about $12.60/hour or about what an entry level teacher would get; in Hawaii they would get the equivalent of about $29/hour. That's another reason they are not working. They don't have the skills to earn that much and with TANF, Medicaid, SNAP, WIC, section 8 housing, HEAP, etc. they are better off not to work.

This is not to say there aren’t people down on their luck or in between jobs who need occasional help, but that’s rarely the regulars I see at the pantry. When a carpenter or stock broker loses his job and the mortgage is upside down or they’ve been through foreclosure, they need help too.

Pants on fire Prez

“Negotiation is how the Founders intended for things to work. They knew that people would disagree, but in negotiation and bargaining, all would come to something that was right for the country and about which everyone could at least accept, if not really agree. Mr. Obama has never really understood the office he holds, and it is always about him, not the country." Wall St. Journal 9-24-13, commenting on the lies Obama told himself and the nation about "never in the history of this country" yada, yada, when in fact 25 times since 1973 this has happened. I guess private schools (he never attended a public school) don't do any better with history than public schools. Or maybe it was that darn teleprompter again.

How the left terrorizes the poor

Republicans

Obama is confused about al-qaeda

So Obama is expressing our national grief and concern about al-qaeda Somalis killing Christians and others in a Kenyan Mall (some of them possibly Somali-Americans), while at the same time arming al-qaeda linked rebels in Syria who are killing Christians and others. Does this make any sense?

http://news.yahoo.com/somalias-shebab-claims-responsibility-nairobi-mall-attack-182747786.html

Kenyatta, who called for patience, said he had received "numerous offers of assistance from friendly countries" but that for now it remained a Kenyan operation.

However, a Kenyan security source confirmed that Israelis "are rescuing the hostages and the injured". The Israeli foreign ministry refused to confirm or deny its agents were involved.

Taking out the trash

Sharon Jaynes writes at her website:

“Once I had a door-to-door vacuum salesman come to my house. To my detriment, I let him in. Before I could convince him I did not need a new vacuum cleaner, he had his demonstration trash sprinkled all over my foyer floor. Almost two hours later, I finally got him to leave.

What was my first mistake? You know it! My first mistake was to let him cross the threshold of my doorway and enter my house. Once he was in, it was difficult to get him out. It is the same way with our thoughts. Once we entertain a thought, once we allow the “salesman” to scatter his “trash” in our minds, it is hard to dismiss it or push it back out again. The place of easiest victory is at the threshold; don’t even let the trash in the door. It has been said, “Every spiritual battle is won or lost at the threshold of the mind.” I think victory is possible once the thought has passed over the threshold, but it sure will save us a lot of heartache and pain if we begin to recognize Satan’s lies and reject them from the start.”

I came across this looking for the exact citation for, “Hold every thought captive for Christ.” (Paul)  The complete wording and citation is, For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. (2 Corinthians 10:5)

At this age, I wouldn’t make the mistake of letting in a salesman of anything unless I had invited him or called for an appointment, but my goodness, the dust and dirt still creeps in and I find ways to avoid cleaning it up (often checking FB or my blog instead). Better to have a good seal and filter so there isn’t so much to clean up later.

The national debt