Billionaire Sandlers support left wing causes

“Herb and Marion Sandler made billions of dollars in the mortgage business they sold, and many observers across the political spectrum have noted the harmful role they played in the housing meltdown. Yet their philanthropic efforts, tilted heavily to the far left, have helped them maintain respectability even among those who criticize non-leftist financiers. Mrs. Sandler died in 2012, but her husband soldiers on with their billion-dollar family foundation, supporting the kind of Saul Alinsky-type community organizers who were so helpful when the Sandlers wanted pressure put on business rivals.” Foundation Watch, Feb. 5, 2015
http://capitalresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/FW0215.pdf

Is the immigration law broken or not followed?

Instead of claiming the immigration system is broken, let's tell the truth. No one, not the federal government, not employers, not non-profit do-gooders, and not illegals follow the law. I don't know how to check this, but Michael Medved says the biggest violators are not those who come over the southern border, but those who come on student and work visas and then over-stay. "Meanwhile, some conservatives still decry a tidal wave of illegal immigration from Mexico, even though all arrivals from that country, legal and illegal, made-up just 13 percent of all immigrants between 2010 and 2013. Immigrants from Asia outnumbered Mexicans by 3-and-a-half to one, and continue to represent the bulk of new arrivals." (Michael Medved)

BTW, Michael Medved who is a conservative talk show host on politics and popular culture  from Seattle is on locally at 3 p.m. on 98.9 FM, but has had surgery for throat cancer, and right now is healing and has substitute hosts.  Praying for your recovery.

“I was diagnosed in the middle of December with stage three throat cancer. I began medical treatment immediately at one of the finest cancer centers in the country and my prognosis for full recovery is very good; in the great majority of cases, this is a highly curable form of cancer. In fact, given my fierce desire to keep doing the show I managed to broadcast every day while completing more than half of my daily radiation and weekly chemotherapy treatments. I would go to the hospital first thing in the morning then make my way down to our Seattle studios to do the live show. The doctors warned me that this would become increasingly difficult.” Link

The marriage gap is hurting children

The gap isn't gender, it isn't income, it isn't education. It's marriage, and that determines education and income. Young people from less-privileged homes are more likely to graduate from college and earn more if raised by two married parents--44% more likely to graduate from college if their parents are married. The bump in income is the greatest for children of those families that are intact, but didn't attend college. The association between intact families and income is not significant for children of college-educated parents.

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/10/marriage-makes-our-children-richer-heres-why/280930/

Ours is an indoor cat, but this is just too cute

Our kitty is indoor only. She remembers her homeless days and is happy to stay inside. Now she's too old to dig in the garbage disposal which she did for many years while learning to trust a twice a day feeding. But this is just cute.

King of Jordan has the balls, the rest of the leaders including our President have deflated

ISIS has about 40,000 blood thirsty killers in its "military," and has taken over large swaths of Iraq after we pulled out. Why is it that all the surrounding countries wishing death to Israel can't pull on their big boy pants and wipe them out? Even Kurdish women have armed themselves and are sharing guns to be snipers to kill ISIS thugs. Our president has no strategy.

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2015/02/05/jordan-hangs-2-al-qaeda-prisoners-after-isis-video-shows-jordanian-pilot-burned/

King Abdullah, who was in Washington for a diplomatic mission when the video depicting the horrific death of Lt. Muath al-Kaseasbeh hit the Internet, returned to Amman early Wednesday, after the dawn hanging of Sajida al-Rishawi, who was convicted for taking part in a 2005 triple hotel bombing that killed 60 in Amman, and Ziad al-Karbouly, an Iraqi who served as an aide to Al Qaeda in Iraq founder Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. The executions had been announced hours after the video of the death of Al-Kaseasbeh, who officiials now believe was killed as early as Jan. 3.

Do we need one more “legal” way to damage brains and collect taxes?

Pot users are absent from work (and life) more, injured more often on the job and bad decisions are more common. Regular pot use interferes with the pleasure center of the brain until nothing but pot gives pleasure. The science will be ignored by liberals and libertarian-conservatives alike. You can lose 8-9 IQ points by using it once a week over time. Trust me folks, when you're my age, you'll need all those points. It is sickening to see state legislators drooling over the prospect of taxing yet another practice that damages citizens.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/william-bennett-and-robert-white-legal-pot-is-a-public-health-menace-1407970966

The rubella epidemic of 1964-65

So you think it doesn't matter if you vaccinate your child, that it's your choice? And what about my choice, my child? In 1964 we didn't have the vaccine (available by 1969), and I was pregnant in my first trimester and exposed by a neighbor who had rubella. She didn't know I was pregnant and I didn't know she had the measles until she mentioned it. We named him Patrick Howard. Born with multiple defects incompatible with life November 17, 1964. http://www.vashonloop.com/article/rubella-epidemic-1964-65

Dr. Anna writes:  Rubella immunization has cut down the cases of congenital rubella syndrome significantly. Many people who get rubella don't know they have it, even at the height of the disease course. It can be very mild, and the rash can be very faint. I don't remember having rubella, and my mother didn't remember me having it either, but I have a positive rubella titer (immune to rubella).

ISIS is killing children, using them as sex slaves, bombs

As reported in the New York Times: “Islamic State (aka ISIL, ISIS) is a breakaway al Qaeda group that declared an Islamic caliphate across parts of Syria and Iraq last summer. It has killed thousands and forced hundreds of thousands from their homes, in what the United Nations has called a reign of terror.

On Tuesday, the group, which is also known as ISIL, released a video showing a captured Jordanian pilot being burnt alive.

The U.N. body, which reviewed Iraq's record for the first time since 1998, denounced "the systematic killing of children belonging to religious and ethnic minorities by the so-called ISIL, including several cases of mass executions of boys, as well as reports of beheadings, crucifixions of children and burying children alive".

A large number of children have been killed or badly wounded during air strikes or shelling by Iraqi security forces, while others had died of "dehydration, starvation and heat", it said.

ISIL has committed "systematic sexual violence", including "the abduction and sexual enslavement of children", it said.

"Children of minorities have been captured in many places... sold in the market place with tags, price tags on them, they have been sold as slaves," Winter said, giving no details.

The 18 independent experts who worked on the report called on Iraqi authorities to take all necessary measures to "rescue children" under the control of Islamic State and to prosecute perpetrators of crimes.”

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2015/02/04/world/middleeast/04reuters-mideast-crisis-children.html?_r=1

Support for the unborn and the new born

The generous people of Central Ohio fund free pregnancy centers to save the unborn, and help the mothers who choose life. It takes $1.5 million a year to keep our 6 centers and hotline running smoothly--and it's all free to the clients. That includes maternity clothes, baby layettes, material needs, classes in parenting, and personal counseling. Not all choose life, but they are still treated with loving concern for their well being. If you'd like to help you can give a gift on-line. Life matters. http://www.pdhc.org/

“It was such a revelation to see how the abortion rights side can’t come to grips with the fact that dismemberment abortions cause hideous pain,” he said [Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J] . “A child hurts as his or her arms and legs [are severed], and ultimately they are decapitated by the abortionist. They just paper over that. They say it’s not true, even though the evidence is overwhelming that the child feels pain at least at the 20-week point and probably even before.”
http://www.wnd.com/2015/01/congressman-obama-is-the-abortion-president/

http://superstore.wnd.com/Abortion-Free-Your-Manual-for-Building-a-Pro-Life-America-One-Community-at-a-Time-Autographed

Anti-Israel protests at UC Davis

Who says the President can't lead and isn't transparent?  Students at U. California-Davis can sure follow his lead with anti-Israel, pro-Palestine shout downs and anti-Semitic vandalism.  Remember those campus protests of the 60s?  Those students grew up to be tenured professors.

 http://www.foxnews.com/us/2015/02/03/pro-palestinian-students-heckle-cal-davis-opponents-with-cries-allahu-akbar/

Minimum wage? What about middle wage?

Don't be fooled by sob stories about minimum wage.  It's a tiny percentage of American workers—4.3% of hourly wage earners and 2.9% of all workers.  The whines and finger wagging at the teleprompter keep us distracted from the fact that Obama demonizes business, capitalism and wealth, and that means the middle class wages are flat. The economy is stagnant. It is the middle class not getting a raise. By talking about minimums he doesn't have to address your business or investments squashed by oppressive taxes and regulations. 78% of minimum wage earners are white and 63% are female.  The average family income of a minimum wage earner is $53,113 and they are more likely to have some college than the average American worker. Why?  They are not the primary earner of the family!

“Perhaps surprisingly, not very many people earn minimum wage, and they make up a smaller share of the workforce than they used to. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, last year 1.532 million hourly workers earned the federal minimum of $7.25 an hour; nearly 1.8 million more earned less than that because they fell under one of several exemptions (tipped employees, full-time students, certain disabled workers and others), for a total of 3.3 million hourly workers at or below the federal minimum.”

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/09/08/who-makes-minimum-wage/

“The primary value of minimum-wage jobs is that they are learning jobs. They teach inexperienced employees basic employment skills that make them more productive and enable them to earn raises or move to better jobs.”

“The proposed minimum wage increase of $10.10 an hour would bring the minimum cost of hiring a full-time worker—including the Obamacare penalties—to $12.71 an hour.”

 http://www.heritage.org/research/factsheets/2014/01/facts-about-the-minimum-wage

Minimum wage “often holds back many of the workers its proponents want to help. Higher minimum wages both reduce overall employment and encourage relatively affluent workers to enter the labor force. Minimum wage increases often lead to employers replacing disadvantaged adults who need a job with suburban teenagers who do not.” 

http://www.heritage.org/research/testimony/2013/06/what-is-minimum-wage-its-history-and-effects-on-the-economy

Health benefits of cinnamon

This article suggests five, and then ways to add it to your diet.

10 easy ideas:

• Sprinkle cinnamon into your coffee, or add it to your coffee grounds before brewing.
• Add a dash or two of cinnamon to hot oatmeal, overnight oats, or cold whole grain cereal.
• Fold cinnamon into yogurt, along with cooked, chilled quinoa, fresh cut fruit, and nuts or seeds.
• Freeze cinnamon in ice cubes to add zest and aroma to water or cocktails.
• Season roasted or grilled fruit with a sprinkle of cinnamon.
• Stir cinnamon into almond butter, or any nut or seed butter, and use as a dip for fresh apple or pear wedges or a filling for celery.
• Add a pinch of cinnamon to lentil or black bean soup, or vegetarian chili.
• Season roasted cauliflower, sweet potatoes, spaghetti, and butternut squash with a pinch of cinnamon.
• Sprinkle a little cinnamon onto popped popcorn.
• Stir a little cinnamon into melted dark chocolate and drizzle over whole nuts to make spicy ‘bark’ or use as a dip or coating for fresh fruit.

February 2, 2015

Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver

Our book club meets this afternoon--"Flight Behavior" by Barbara Kingsolver. I can't say it's my favorite novel (you might have guessed I prefer non-fiction). However, this writer has a way with words. What dog owner (yes, I've had a few in my younger days) wouldn't love this paragraph when Dellarobia (main character) let's her dog out into the snow:

"Snow. Roy bounded wolfishly through the white deep, nosing into drifts, leaving a tangled line of tracks as he hurried to put his small yellow tags on all of the year's most notable points. The dog version of Post-its."

Spoiler: The author was ahead with the next to last chapter of love, sacrifice and redemption of the past, then spoiled it in the final chapter with self-centered, silly "I gotta be me" decision by the main character. It's like being reminded how dumb we were in our 20s.

Fortunately, I found this for $2 at the library sale.

Today is Ground Hog Day

Sally Sims Stokes doesn’t mention Phil in her professional presentations, but I think her first library job had to do with taking care of a ground hog in Pennsylvania.

http://www.arlisna.org/images/conferences/2014/ses10_stokes.pdf

The shrinking middle class

There's something very wrong with all the articles on the shrinking middle class (faster under Obama than Bush). Can't quite put my finger on it, but this is part of it.

"“I would consider middle class to be people who can live comfortably on what they earn, can pay their bills, can set aside something to save for retirement and for kids in college and can have vacations and entertainment,” said Christine L. Owens, executive director of the National Employment Law Project, a left-leaning research and advocacy group.""  (NYT)

Forget for a moment that Owens describes only material wealth. Who is in that household? Are they a single mom with 3 children for a family of 4, or a married couple with 2 children for a family of 4? Decreasing middle class tracks with decreasing marriage rate. It's not that there aren't successes in single parent households--look at Dr. Ben Carson, or people in your own family who are doing fine. But a 2 doctor household or a middle manager and a nurse household will most likely have a better shot at "middle class life" described by Ms. Owens than a retail clerk.

25 years ago Charles Murray researched and described the British underclass, finding high crime rates, low (not un-) employment, illegitimacy, falling marriage rates, loss of social glue, etc. Of course, the British always had a more distinct class divide than the U.S. but after making headway in the 20th c. it was sliding backward. And the Brits weren't anymore thrilled with his conclusions than the Americans were in 2011 when he published "Coming Apart," describing what is happening to white Americans.  The British system of benefits, like ours, penalizes marriage. http://www.civitas.org.uk/pdf/cw33.pdf

When a left leaning source like the New York Times points out that not even its socialist savior Barack Obama can stop the gap between the top and the middle, can’t put the middle class to work, then you know something else is afoot.  Oh, of course, it must be the fault of capitalism, the very system that built the middle class.

Black History Month begins today

Sunday, February 1st. February is Black History Month, a time to honor the many contributions to our nation's history made by people of African descent. Started as a special week in 1926 by historian Carter G. Woodson, the observance is now a full month of activities across the country. African-Americans, in counting single race or in combination with others, number over 44 million in the U.S. By 2060, this figure is projected to reach nearly 77.5 million — about 18.4 percent of the country's entire population. Although New York has the largest number of blacks of any state at 3.7 million, Washington, D.C., has the highest percentage at over 52 percent. Cook County, Illinois, effectively Chicago, had the largest black population of any county in 2012, numbering 1.3 million. You can find more facts about America from the U.S. Census Bureau online at www.census.gov.

Source:
http://www.census.gov/newsroom/facts-for-features/2014/cb14-ff03.html

Ashamed

As Bergdahl’s father spoke his scripted Arabic greeting while Barack Obama nodded approvingly, I've never been more ashamed of a President's action than this arrogant, destructive exchange of another stone in our foundation of freedom – for evil men who hate our freedom. Our once solid rock upon which we were built turns to sand with astounding anti-American acts praised by Leftists. We will – we MUST – survive this President, but God help us survive the people who still support this.

- Sarah Palin

8 tips from Harvard Medical School for safe and effective strength training

Always warm up and cool down properly.

Use proper form to avoid injuries and maximize gains. You can learn good form through a class or one-on-one sessions with a certified exercise professional.

Breathe out when you are lifting or pushing; breathe in as you slowly release the load or weight. Never hold your breath while straining. This action, called the Valsalva maneuver, can temporarily raise your blood pressure considerably and can be risky for people with cardiovascular disease.

Don't lock your joints; always leave a slight bend in your knees and elbows when straightening out your legs and arms.

Don't be so eager to see results that you risk hurting yourself by exercising too long or choosing too much weight. And remember that it's important to rest muscles for at least 48 hours between strength training sessions.

If you've been sick, give yourself one or two days off after recovering. If you were ill for a while, you may need to use lighter weights or less resistance when you first resume exercising.

Strength training exercises should not cause pain while you are doing them. If an exercise or movement causes significant pain, stop doing it! When performing an exercise, stick with a range of motion that feels comfortable. Over time, try to gradually extend that range.

Listen to your body and cut back if you aren't able to finish a series of exercises or an exercise session, can't talk while exercising, feel faint after a session, feel tired during the day, or suffer joint aches and pains after a session.

Healthbeat, January 31, 2015

10 reasons she’s no longer a leftist

I was never a "leftist," but I voted Democrat for 40 years, which in 1960 or 1972 was a bit different than today, but I was also quite uninformed. War on Poverty, check; clean up the environment, check; more rights for women, check. Read the constitution. . . not checked.

Because I'd had a lot of Russian history in college and many friends whose families had escaped Communism, I knew what the left was, but never connected the dots to our system of ever expanding government control.

The author says she was "an active leftist for decades. I never witnessed significant leftist outrage over clitoredectomy, child marriage, honor killing, sharia-inspired rape laws, stoning, or acid attacks. Nothing. Zip. Crickets. I’m not saying that that outrage does not exist. I’m saying I never saw it."

And on religion—Christian or otherwise: “Read Marx and discover a mythology that is irreconcilable with any other narrative, including the Bible. Hang out in leftist internet environments, and you will discover a toxic bath of irrational hatred for the Judeo-Christian tradition. You will discover an alternate vocabulary in which Jesus is a "dead Jew on a stick" or a "zombie" and any belief is an arbitrary sham, the equivalent of a recently invented "flying spaghetti monster."

“Given that the left prides itself on being the liberator of women, homosexuals, and on being "sex positive," one of the weirder and most obvious aspects of left-wing hate is how often, and how virulently, it is expressed in terms that are misogynist, homophobic, and in the distinctive anti-sex voice of a sexually frustrated high-school misfit. Haters are aware enough of how uncool it would be to use a slur like "fag," so they sprinkle their discourse with terms indicating anal rape like "butt hurt." Leftists taunt right-wingers as "tea baggers." The implication is that the target of their slur is either a woman or a gay man being orally penetrated by a man, and is, therefore, inferior, and despicable.”

And let’s not forget being called an old hag, demented or worse at leftist sites.

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2014/07/ten_reasons_i_am_no_longer_a_leftist.html