Walking and Weight Watchers eliminates 200 lbs and her diabetes

Airport employee sits for 10 years and reaches 370 lb. Starts walking the halls of the airport--loses 200 lb. and her diabetes. Plus she was an overweight child.

 http://www.kcci.com/news/she-walked-off-more-than-200-pounds-at-the-airport/29295568

God’s plan for the human race

Canadian work-place violence

To quote George W. Bush, “a thumpin’”

"Democrats this year—what a rhetorical, emotional and policy disaster. In ’08 they were on fire with hope, in ’12 they were keep the faith, stay the course. This year they are surly. They are unloving and unlovable. It’s race and gender politics, it’s wheelchairs, it’s endless defensiveness about voting for or with the president. Republicans may have failed to unite, but the Democrats divide."  Peggy Noonan http://online.wsj.com/articles/can-obama-find-thumpin-to-say-1414106272

The history of beer

I have never tasted beer. Not once. The smell puts me off. But yesterday our Conestoga (Ohio history) group attended a fascinating lecture on the history of beer in the world, in the U.S., in Ohio and Columbus, and the growth of craft beers. I learned why you should never drink beer out of a bottle and why you want to have as much foam as possible when you pour it into a glass. Our instructor at the Winking Lizard was Richard Seemueller, lifelong beer enthusiast. Retired brewer of 38 years turned beer educator, he's an excellent host, presenter and author. He is a "beer ambassador" for the Master Brewers Association of the Americas. We also learned a little about the interesting architecture of brewery sites--many in Columbus which have been converted to other uses.

Now about drinking from a glass, and how to pour it into the glass. He explained that the mouth can sense 4 tastes (sweet, sour, bitter, salty), but the nose can pick up hundreds (it actually can detect many thousands, but there aren't that many in a beer) and so you loose much of the beer experience if you don't have it in a glass. We did that experiment with gum drops and pinching our noses closed while eating them. No flavor. And the reason you want to pour it to encourage the foam is to release the gas (carbon dioxide and/or nitrogen). He poured it two different ways, then inserted a folded paper towel in each glass to simulate eating something after the beer was in the stomach. When more gas has been expelled before swallowing, there is less bloat in the stomach with food.

http://www.mbaa.com/districts/midwest/About/Pages/District-Cincinnati-Profile---Rick-Seemueller.aspx

WMD threat rewritten by MSM

“The presence of a large former Iraqi chemical weapons production plant in territory seized by the Islamic State has compounded those fears, although officials and chemical weapons experts say the 2,500 degraded rockets filled with nerve agents that remain there are unlikely to be fit for use. Weapons inspectors sealed them off with concrete in a bunker more than 20 years ago.” Washington Post, Oct. 23, 2014

Since sealing them off didn’t work, I would guess they could still be in pretty good condition.  Remember?  There weren’t any?

Cute t-shirt

Or, the double whammy.

 

Girl Scouts and Planned Parenthood

Abby Johnson writes: “I worked at Planned Parenthood for 8 years. I personally saw the connections between the Girl Scouts of America and Planned Parenthood.

You may be in a place where the troop says, "But our local troop doesn't partner with Planned Parenthood." Fantastic. But here's what you need to know. If a Girl Scout troop sells cookies (they all do), if they buy uniforms (they all do), if they buy badges (they all do), and if that local troop pays national due...s (they all do), then they are supporting Planned Parenthood.

Now, you may be in a church that says that it's fine to partner with Girl Scouts. You may be in a diocese that says it's perfectly fine (like mine). But IT IS NOT. It is never okay to cooperate with evil...especially within the confines of our CHURCHES!!

These are our kids! They are more valuable than any Girl Scout troop they could participate in! It's time to take a stand and teach our kids the value of standing for moral absolutes. And abortion is ABSOLUTELY wrong. Planned Parenthood is ABSOLUTELY wrong.

I just found out that my daughter's Catholic school is about to start a Girl Scout troop. (My daughter is in American Heritage Girls). You better believe that I'm not going to be silent about this. Take a stand against abortion. Take a stand against Girl Scouts.

For more information about these connections, please visit:
www.mygirlscoutcouncil.com
www.girlscoutswhynot.com
www.speaknowgirlscouts.com

Crescendo—a film

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CafJJNETvqM

Don’t blame the dryer

Obama and the mid-terms, by Krauthammer

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: “ Look, this is a guy who six years ago had a worship service at a Denver stadium, being cheered by people while he was behind Greek columns, a few weeks earlier, he had been the hero of 200,000 Germans in Berlin. I still don't understand what that speech was about. Here was a man -- I mean, as Rich Lowry said earlier tonight, he was a citizen of the world, the most interesting, most sought after political rock star on the planet. And now he's got to hide under his desk until November. This is a total humiliation for him and every once in a while he can't take it so it pops out. This is his way of saying, I transcend the party, I'm bigger than the party, I still am, and I'm still here. I mean he's not going to go out and campaign in these states, obviously, but this is hard for him to take so I would extend a little bit of sympathy for the man. He's under stress.”

Hide under his desk?  Hardly.  He’s been attending all kinds of fund raisers. In fact, when he called 2 off because of Ebola, that was news for days. And he’s back stabbed those running from him by claiming that although he’s not on the ballot his policies are and the incumbents voted with him 99% of the time.  That’s not stress, that’s rude.

And in a black studies program

Not just changing a grade, but the classes didn’t even exist!

“More than 3,000 students at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill received credit for fake classes over an 18-year period as part of a program that allowed many of them to remain eligible to play sports, according to a report released on Wednesday. . . Various personnel at the school were aware of red flags, yet did not ask questions, the report said. “  And in 18 years, no one ever spoke up?  The power of sports.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/sports/wp/2014/10/22/wainstein-probe-implicates-over-3000-students-in-university-of-north-carolina-academic-scandal/

It was originally reported in November 2012.  I wonder why we’re just now seeing it front page?

Need, greed and compassion

"Today, wanting someone else's money is called 'need,' wanting to keep your own money is called 'greed,' and 'compassion' is when politicians arrange the transfer." -- Joe Sobran

Doing the right thing is expensive, guest blogger Michael Smith

My wife and I bought our perfect house in South Carolina in 2007. Acre lot, backed up to a private golf course, 4000 sq.ft., 3 car garage. In 2008 the market crashed. In 2009, we moved when I accepted a much better job.

We put the house on the market and for two years it sat empty as we tried to sell it. We finally leased it but the lease market was saturated due to so many unsold houses on the market, so the monthly lease payment we received only covered 60% of the mortgage payments. Two years ago we lost our homestead exemption and our property taxes went from $1900 a year to $9200 per year and our insurance doubled from $1400 to $2800 a year.

We kept hoping that the market would rebound but it never has - but we never missed a mortgage payment. In 7 years, we were never even late.

This Friday, I close on the house - finally it is sold. It was the second offer that we received on the house in 5 years.

It sold for $120,000 less than we paid for it, so we lost every dime of equity we had in it. The selling price was less than what was left on the mortgage, so I had to make up $35000 in deficit to pay off the mortgage and with all the fees and prorated taxes and such, to sell my house cost me right at $67,000 out of pocket this week.

And yet I personally know of people who just walked away from houses in similar situations. Of course, they took a huge hit on their credit rating but they don't really seem to care, nor has it visibly affected their lifestyles.

I guess I may just be stupid but I was taught to live up to my commitments. We made a bad decision in 2007 and that decision cost us nearly $200,000 in actual cash - but it was our decision.

We decided to take the painful loss now because I can see no signs that the economy will recover any time soon because of the structural damage that has been done in the past 6 years. It was time to move on before things get worse.

So this is my view of what the President's people call a "recovery".

There is no recovery.

I thank God that we have been blessed with the financial means to survive Obama's "stewardship" of the economy and I have a special empathy for those who are struggling with the same decisions or simply cannot free themselves due to their financial situation.

We are witnessing the worst performance of a post recession economy in our history. In spite of an energy revolution, the US economy can't seem to get up off the mat. Economic policies and regulations matter. Presidents may not control the economy but they at least have the responsibility not to screw them up.

This economy is screwed up - normal capitalistic/free market economies will naturally generate growth on their own but Obama and his merry band of progodytes have ours tied down as sure as the Lilliputians did with Gulliver

Michael Smith lives in Utah and blogs at Rio Norte Line and on Facebook, where this post resides.

The churchless Nowa Huta can be an inspiration for American Christians—The Lord’s Ark

The Communists decided to build a “workers’ paradise in Poland and it would be without a church or cathedral or cross.  The Polish people under the thumb of an oppressive government thought otherwise.

“Nowa Huta was built in the 1950s as part of a project to bring a mammoth steel mill to the outskirts of Krakow. The factory was intended in part to undercut the influence of the Catholic Church and local universities in Krakow, the longtime religious and intellectual center of Poland. In keeping with that model, Polish authorities prohibited the presence of any churches in Nowa Huta.

The rule was resisted for more than 20 years by Wojtyla and other priests from Krakow, who visited Nowa Huta regularly to celebrate Mass in muddy fields and to reach out to workers outside the gates of the steel mill. In 1957, Catholics erected a cross on the site, where they asked to build a church but were repeatedly denied permission.

Wojtyla persisted in peaceful attempts to win permits to construct a church, winning small but cumulative victories over the next two decades. In 1965, he received the go-ahead to enlarge a small makeshift chapel in Nowa Huta. Two years later, he consecrated the construction site. The church took another 10 years to build, with the Polish government putting up a long succession of bureaucratic hurdles. . .

Today [2005], Nowa Huta has deteriorated into a ghetto, with endless rows of drab five- and 10-story concrete block housing that stand as a legacy of its socialist past. Most of the people who live here are either jobless or have been left behind by Poland's capitalist revolution. One of the few centers of vibrant activity is the 28-year-old Church of Our Lady.”

The Lord’s Ark

Lessons from Nowa Huta

ISIS, Ebola, VA, IRS, NSA, ACA, ARRA, and so on

Why we don’t make a dent in the hunger problem

We never see improvement and the rolls of both poverty workers and the needy continue to grow. Hunger became "food insecurity" and poverty is an arbitrary number set by the Government that is raised every year, but “percent of poverty level” is the standard for benefits. 200% of poverty is the standard for food assistance in Ohio. To be "food insecure" means at some time during the year you changed your eating pattern to accommodate your resources.

The actual number of Americans who are “food insecure” for more than a few days is tiny, under 1% and most of those are children in unmarried households and elderly without family, but even a day counts toward the annual figure--the figure we see in the news is 14.3%.  This guarantees political fights in Congress when USDA funding comes up, government grants to academics, fodder for campaigning, and good jobs for people and agencies in the benefits distribution field. Churches, charities, non-profits and foundations also receive a portion of their annual budget from government grants. Food pantries, mostly run by churches, are involved in a complex mix of federal, state, local and non-profit resources.

62% of "food insecure" families participate in SNAP, WIC or free and reduced school meals (we used to call this school lunch, but now it is breakfast, lunch, and after school, plus summer meals).

Poverty rolls took a big jump in 2008, but haven't really come down.  A chunk of ARRA money in 2009 went to find and enroll people in the programs. It was very successful. Because of the weak economy, they remain on the rolls.

If poverty were solved tomorrow, we’d have a whole new crew of poor people—those who formerly worked in the business.

http://www.ers.usda.gov/media/1565415/err173.pdf

The Ohio Association of Foodbanks was awarded $2.18 Million Federal Navigator Grant for a 2nd year not to feed the hungry, but to enroll people in Obamacare.

The Ohio Association of Foodbanks is Ohio’s largest charitable response to hunger, representing Ohio’s 12 Feeding America foodbanks and 3,300 member charities including food pantries, soup kitchens and shelters. In SFY 2014, the association and its member foodbanks were able to acquire and distribute over 186 million pounds of food and grocery items. The association also serves as the home of The Ohio Benefit Bank and operates the state’s largest navigator program for the Affordable Care Act.

http://admin.ohiofoodbanks.org/uploads/news/Press_Statement-_Federal_Navigator_Grant_Awarded5.pdf

Free stock photos

I needed someplace to stash this amazing information.  What better place than a blog? 14 free stock websites for photos.

http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/238646?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=pulsenews

Some require attribution, others not.

The richest man in Africa will help Liberia

Before I read the article, I figured the richest man in Africa would be Nigerian. The richest African Americans are often Nigerian Americans; look at the rolls of Harvard and Yale and you'll find Nigerians. Something in their culture pushes them to excel; also Nigeria is close to 50% Christian. American and European missionaries brought Jesus and the Protestant work ethic. Aliko Dangote himself is Muslim. That said, why can't he do anything with his lavish wealth to stop Boko Haram, a Muslim terrorist group?

http://www.forbes.com/sites/mfonobongnsehe/2014/10/20/africas-richest-man-aliko-dangote-to-support-liberia-in-fight-against-ebola/

Nigerians make up less than 1 percent of the black population in the United States, yet in 2013 nearly one-quarter of the black students at Harvard Business School were of Nigerian ancestry; over a fourth of Nigerian-Americans have a graduate or professional degree, as compared with only about 11 percent of whites. (NYT, Jan. 25, 2014)

Brittany Maynard, suicide publicity hound

“Maynard is the subject of a well-planned PR campaign orchestrated by the George Soros-funded assisted-suicide advocacy group Compassion and Choices (formerly known as the Hemlock Society). C & C’s press release applauds Maynard’s “courage to tell her story as she is dying and alert all Americans to the choice of death with dignity” as “selfless and heroic.” “

http://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2014/10/of-michael-landon-and-brittany-maynard

“Suicide has made Maynard an international celebrity. Partly, that’s because she is the perfect icon: young, pretty, newly wed, tragically dying, and transgressive for wanting to kill herself rather than face the rigors of late-stage brain cancer.”

How many people will be pushed to their death through her example?