In Country With Uncle Vic

Excellent Military Blog

2010-03-17T19:11:00.002-05:00

DavidBellavia.com
This is worth a look. Bookmark it.

Fall of the Republic HQ full length version

2010-03-13T22:06:00.001-05:00

THE PRAGMATIC CAPITALIST » » GURU OUTLOOK: PAOLO PELLEGRINI

2010-03-07T10:33:00.000-05:00

THE PRAGMATIC CAPITALIST » »
GURU OUTLOOK: PAOLO PELLEGRINI
a market view for 2010. Who knows?

Oops! Obama tells another nativity fib?

2010-02-19T09:47:00.000-05:00

Oops!
Obama tells another nativity fib?
As yet no release of any transcripts from Harvard or Columbia or other schools. And it is believed by some that Obama's great great great grandparents on his Kenyan side were slave traders ( a major Muslim enterprise at the time) who sold their countrymen into slavery. The official history ALWAYS refers to the American "slave holding" white ancestors of Obama but NEVER makes note of the Kenyan ancestors.

The Preposterous Stimulus Bill

2010-02-19T08:51:00.000-05:00

The American Spectator :
The Preposterous Stimulus Bill
What he said.

Dossier

2010-02-16T08:55:00.001-05:00

Oh man.

Corrupt Politicians" for 2009

2010-02-12T20:27:00.001-05:00

Judicial Watch Announces List of Washington's
"Ten Most Wanted Corrupt Politicians"
for 2009 | Judicial Watch
...
Add for Obama - Payoff to Union campaign support by "GIVING" the union leadership the ownership of Chrysler and GM in lieu of pay out from the bankrupt companies to bond holders who are retirees and other pension plans. Steering stimulus funds to states and companies that are UNION shops and only about 10 percent of the workforce while handicapping regions and workers who are not union -- or in Right to work states.

Stimulus Creating Green Jobs Overseas

2010-02-12T16:05:00.000-05:00

Newsmax - Obama's Stimulus Creating Green Jobs Overseas.

Duh? Like, we knew this. All the panels and windmill engines etc come from China or Spain and Spain subsidizes its production (notice the country is going broke faster than USA). When will the administration read some books on free market economics?

“The Day ObamaCare Died” video

2010-02-12T08:25:00.001-05:00

Common Sense 2020 » Blog Archive »
Video: “The Day ObamaCare Died”
by Barack Obama
THIS IS A FUNNY VIDEO
It was blocked from Youtube.

The Mogadishu Mile

2010-02-11T19:15:00.001-05:00

Vietnam War Resources

2010-02-11T14:36:00.000-05:00

Vietnam War Resources
Got a Vietnam question? Here is a starting point.

New World Trade Center

2010-02-10T21:40:00.000-05:00

New World Trade Center 9/11
aerial images from ABC News | Mail Online
Never Forget
There IS a WAR on Terrorism
And it continues to this day.

State of the Union:

2010-02-03T10:20:00.000-05:00

State of the Union:
Barack Obama gets an F for world leadership
– Telegraph Blogs
This about sums it up !!

TET Offensive - Anniversary

2010-02-02T23:23:00.000-05:00

Anniversary of the TET Offensive of 1968. I was in my second year of college at the time. Our college orientation professor told us to "look to your right and left - those people will not be here next year, they will be in Vietnam (meaning the draft would get us since we were going to flunk anyway). Sort of turned out that way. By '69 a lot of guys were gone from campus. This kind of footage was on the news all the time. I was working for a retired Marine who had been in Vietnam only a couple of years before. The job as a photo assistant helped me pay my way through school. Eventually I served in the Navy as an officer on a frigate - firing some of the last rounds of the last American battles in Vietnam in early 1973.

Pezutti's Hmmm... Jan 29

2010-01-29T16:50:00.000-05:00

"The principle of spending money to be paid by posterity,

under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale."

--Thomas Jefferson

"There is a simple way to get corporate money out of politics:

get the government out of our lives and economic affairs.

If government has no favors to sell, no one will spend money trying to win them."

--columnist John Stossel

"The problem is not the 'crises' Obama inherited. It's the ones he's creating.

He has lived in such a socialist policy shell all his life that he doesn't have a clue that he's on a different planet than most of us.

If he were just slightly less narcissistic, he might be able to figure this out.

But ... no matter what adjustments he promises to make following the Boston Massacre, he still intends to govern like a socialist.

He only wants to do a better job of figuring out how to do it less visibly, hoping we won't 'get it' before it's too late."

--columnist David Limbaugh

Oliver Stone: Hitler was 'enabled by Western bankers'...

"The [ US. ] Constitution is a limitation on the government, not on private individuals..

It does not prescribe the conduct of private individuals, only the conduct of the government...

It is not a charter for government power, but a charter of the citizen's protection against the government."

–Ayn Rand

The people of California have rejected same-sex marriage twice. As blogger Michelle Malkin notes,

"Prop. 8 supporters and donors have been hounded, threatened, blacklisted, beaten, and forced to resign from their jobs for exercising their political free speech."

In fighting against their own perceived discrimination, perhaps those in favor of same-sex marriage

should examine how they are trampling the rights of others.

SEC considered national-security status for AIG details
Request to keep information secret made by New York Federal Reserve
--Reuters

Libertarianism is On the Rise

Support for libertarian ideas is growing -- and growing fast -- among the American public.

So says journalist David Paul Kuhn, Chief Political Correspondent for RealClearPolitics, a popular and respected political news site with a conservative bent.

"Americans are increasingly opposed to activist government programs.

The most significant social movement of 2009, the Tea Party protests, grew out of that opposition.

Libertarian heroine Ayn Rand is as popular today as ever. Rand's brilliant and radical laissez faire novel Atlas Shrugged sold roughly 300,000 copies last year, according to BookScan, twice its sales in 2008 and roughly triple annual sales in recent decades.

"We are witnessing a conservative libertarian comeback. It's an oppositional advance, a response to all manners of active-state liberalism since the financial crisis. ...

"Half the public believes there is 'too much' government regulation of 'business and industry,' an 11-point rise in one year, according to a December CNN poll.

Nearly a third of the public, in contrast, said there was 'too little' regulation."

ON THREE SHOWS, THREE OBAMA AIDES GIVE THREE CONFLICTING ESTIMATES: HOW MANY JOBS STIMULUS HAS CREATED...

YOUR GOVERNMENT AT WORK
Next up: Obama wants your retirement money
Exclusive: Roger Hedgecock exposes scheme to nationalize private accounts
--WND

In his book, The Doctor Alone Can’t Cure You, Dr. Rolf Alexander tells that, as a young man, he began his quest to solve the riddle of why the same drug could have different effects on different patients, and why some people die of comparatively minor afflictions while others, riddled with disease, cling to life for years. He concluded that there is within every person a vital core, or soul, that is the initiator and regulator of every mental and physical process of the body. And that, with the exception of two factors, the work of the soul maintains perfect health. Those two factors are nutritional deficiencies and emotional imbalance. He says that every mental and emotional reaction, whether mild or severe, has immediate repercussions in every cell, tissue, and function of the body.
… Healing, like gravity, is no respecter of persons; it acts for all alike, and goes instantly into operation as needed. The Principle does not act because of any particular virtue within the person. A prayer for healing is not dependent on special wording or on piety or on divine coercion. In a very real sense, it is not dependent upon God, because God is Life, God is the Flow of Life that is ever present within you. Physical illness is not the result of God withholding; it is the result of our frustration of that Divine Process. So again, healing is not dependent upon God; it is dependent upon our awareness of God; it is dependent upon our releasing of that Divine Flow.
Healing, like gravity, is no respecter of persons. It acts for all alike and goes instantly into operation…always. The sun does not come from behind a cloud by some special bidding. With respect to us, it doesn’t move or change at all. It is the cloud that moves, revealing the sun as just as bright and warm as ever. So, healing is not getting God to do our bidding, and it is not trying to get the Healing Principle to change its direction. The potential of health and wholeness is within us already…and all the time! Our task is to become, to a greater degree, what we have always been: Children of God. As one doctor has put it, “Sickness is really struggling health; it is but a temporary repression of the health that is always there.”
© Eric Butterworth

"It matters not how long we live, but how."
- Barrie

VIDEO: Obama Uses Teleprompters During Speech -- To 6th Graders...

Study: Homeschoolers Dramatically Outperform Gov't-Schooled Kids

Homeschooled students are performing academically far above students incarcerated in government schools. How much better? Homeschoolers, on average, scored a startling 37 percentile points above government school students on standardized achievement tests.

That's the finding of a recent study conducted by Dr. Brian Ray of the National Home Education Research Institute.

The homeschool national average ranged from the 84th percentile for Language, Math, and Social Studies to the 89th percentile for Reading , compared to the average scores of 50 percentile points for government-schooled children.

And there's more good news for homeschoolers. Government school students are plagued by achievement gaps related to the students' gender and the education and income levels of their parents. But such achievement gaps were not found in the homeschooled students surveyed.

Consider:

* Homeschooled boys and girls scored equally well.

* The income level of parents did not appreciably affect test scores.

* While parent education level did have some small impact, even children whose parents did not have college degrees scored in the 83rd percentile, far above the average for public school students. Homeschooled children whose parents both had college degrees scored in the 90th percentile.

The difference in cost is amazing, too. Government schools spend, on average, nearly $10,000 per child per year. The average homeschool parent spends about... $500 per child per year.

There are an estimated 1.5 to 2 million homeschooled children in the U.S. today, which is about 4% of the school-aged population.

Homeschooling is growing at around 7% per year. With results like these, it's no wonder.

UN scientist admits unverified data used for politics...

Muslim exec beheads wife, makes battered-spouse defense
Attorney: 'He was the victim. She was verbally abusive. She had humiliated him'
--WIND Radio, Chicago

In the marketplace, a business rarely needs to be told that it should match pay to performance. Because if they fail to do so, their competitors will quickly hire away their best people -- and pay them according to their performance.

So why do certain people claiming to be egalitarians oppose this marketplace fairness? Why do certain Ivory Tower Academics froth and foam against UNequal pay for UNequal work?

If someone truly believes in "equal pay for equal work," shouldn't he embrace all the corollaries?

* Different pay for different work.
* Outstanding pay for outstanding work.
* Good pay for good work.
* Mediocre pay for mediocre work.
* Substandard pay for substandard work.
* NO pay for NO work.

Each of the statements above is mathematically, logically equal to: "Equal Pay for Equal Work."

Most Americans and almost all private enterprise businesses believe and practice all of them. That is why free enterprise works.

PEW: Global warming ranks dead last as concern for Americans..

Teen ticketed for texting while driving
After hitting median: 'You can lose your life, you really can'
--KDVR-TV, Denver

Libertarians turn to the free market because most government services are based on violations of the non-aggression principle.

For example, some states levy road taxes as "user fees" at the gas pump, but then siphon the money off to other programs.

People aren't paying for their use of the road, but are forced to pay for services they may not want or receive.

This is the moral argument against government provision of services.

Dr. Mary Ruwart

WorldNetDaily Exclusive
'Gay' plan for bathrooms called 'moral insanity'
'Activists demanding private mental delusions be accepted as public policy'
--WND

"Americans have been sick and tired of dishonest and destructive policies emanating from the Feds of both R and D varieties for longer than [Barack Obama's] single year of fiddling, and, in fact, longer than George W. Bush's eight years. For several decades, at least, Americans have been spitting mad about the state of their federal government. So, what is our current Politician-in-Chief going to do about it? ...

Consider the failed $787 billion stimulus spending bill. Obama acknowledges it hasn't much helped Main Street . So, in his State of the Union address this Wednesday, the president will take the bold step of calling for another 'economic recovery package,' i.e. doing the same thing again.

If borrowing hundreds of billions to spend stimulating an economy crippled by too much borrowing doesn't work, thank goodness there is always the option of borrowing hundreds of billions (if not trillions) more. Feeling better yet?"

--columnist Paul Jacob

WorldNetDaily Exclusive
Atheists attack Mother Teresa
Say she's not worthy of memorial stamp
--WND

NEWSDAY Doomsday: Only 35 Subscribers for Paid Online Content...

"A company well-named Neocutis now offers a skin cream made from human fetal tissue.

To quote the company's Web site: 'Inspired by fetal skin's unique properties, Neocutis's proprietary technology uses cultured fetal skin cells to obtain an optimal, naturally balanced mixture of skin nutrients.' This outfit, it may not surprise Gentle Reader to learn, is based in San Francisco, and says its product can 'turn back time to create flawless baby-skin again.' What good news for those suffering from dry skin -- and who doesn't this time of year?

... But there's sure to be some reactionary who objects to progress, and a niggling objection did indeed surface here and there to this latest advance in the commodification of the unborn. In its defense, Neocutis issued a statement to all concerned: 'Our view -- which is shared by most medical professionals and patients -- is that the limited, prudent and responsible use of donated fetal skin tissue can continue to ease suffering, speed healing, save lives and improve the well-being of many patients around the globe.'

And improve the company's balance sheet, too. Call it another benefit from the ever-growing abortion industry. …

Paul Greenberg

OBAMA WATCH CENTRAL
WorldNetDaily Exclusive
Voter confidence in president plunges

Only 4 in 10 now would vote to put him in Oval Office
--WND

"Democratic cocooners will tell themselves that [Martha] Coakley was a terrible candidate who even managed to diss Curt Schilling. True, Brown had Schilling. But Coakley had Obama.

When the bloody sock beats the presidential seal -- of a man who had them swooning only a year ago -- something is going on beyond personality.

That something is substance –

-- Charles Krauthammer

Capitalism's Woes Cheered at World Social Forum

Leftists are pouring into town to rail against freewheeling capitalism during the World Social Forum, gleefully cheering the humbling of bankers and business titans by the global economic meltdown.

At the opening of the five-day event, some 25,000 activists paraded exuberantly through Porto Alegre on Monday, serenaded by the pounding of drums and salsa blared from sound trucks as they waved communist flags and shouted slogans against corporate greed.

Gustavo de Biase, a 22-year-old Brazilian wearing a shirt proclaiming "Socialism is Liberty ," said the world's leftists are convinced they can get presidents from the U.S. to Brazil to embrace policies "of respect and equality aimed at lifting the poor out of misery." "We want to distribute the riches to people," he said.

Activists said this year's forum is especially important because governments from the United States to Europe are moving to take on bigger roles in managing the global economy.

COLUMN DU JOUR
Why only net taxpayers should have right to vote
Vin Suprynowicz: Allowing welfare recipients the franchise 'a blatant conflict of interest'
-- Las Vegas Review-Journal

Michelle! You already took my money
I keep seeing Michelle Obama on TV asking for $10 donations to Haiti relief. May I suggest this woman is not the best spokesperson for this cause?

Don't get me wrong. I'm doing my part for Haiti relief. It's a very worthy effort. Seldom in my lifetime have I been confronted with such a disaster. The people of Haiti need our help. In fact, they needed it before the earthquake.

But Michelle Obama? She doesn't make me want to give.

Her husband has already announced a U.S. government plan to send $1 billion to Haiti relief.

He didn't ask. He took.

I didn't get to donate it I didn't get to decide which charity got my money. I didn't get to determine how the money would best be spent. Barack Obama, in all his wisdom, gets to make all those choices for me.

He and Michelle are acting like saints for taking my money and your money and giving it away to a worthy cause. It's nice work if you can get it.

It's also fundamentally illegal and immoral.

We sometimes forget about such massive and coercive redistributions of wealth in times like this.

It's easy to understand when you see the suffering in Haiti .

But, nevertheless, if we still care at all about such little details, it's unconstitutional.

Joseph Farah

GETTING EVEN WITH DEBT COLLECTORS

One man has found a creative way to deal with debt collectors. He sues them for violating consumer rights laws.

"I already paid them off," he says. "The government took my money without asking me and gave it to the banks. And since I owe the banks money, but they already got my money from the government, I say we're even."

Gallup: Obama Most Polarizing President Ever

President Barack Obama is the most polarizing president in American history, according to a poll released by the Gallup organization Monday.

The average difference in Obama's approval ratings between Democrats and Republicans turned out to be 65 percent -- the highest first-year gap of any president so measured.

WorldNetDaily Exclusive
'Taxes are going to more than double by 2030'
Ex-GAO chief: Unchecked growth of government must end to prevent fiscal calamity
--WND

Sewing Buttons

Dr Laura,

Our family was in the bookstore last week and saw a table displayed with the hot, new trend in book retail books on how to do everything from sewing buttons to mopping floors, complete with 1950's era illustrations. My husband and I stood in horror and he asked, truly confused: what kind of person doesn't know how to sew a button? Especially a woman?

I replied: the kind that doesn't have a mother. I explained to him that moms were too busy working and grandparents have all been told their "old-fashioned and out-dated" values and ways of doing things are not NEEDED. Sixty years later you've got a whole society of ineptitude. My mother graduated high school in 1957, and taught all her kids homemaking. For my husband, what he didn't learn at home he learned in the Marine Corps.

We humbly realized that maybe we aren't doing so bad as parents if our 8yr old daughter expresses her artistic talents with her sewed creations, and is a keen shot with her child-sized .22 rifle. Our 4yr old son loves to vacuum his room so he can show off his muscles to mommy and cannot wait for his next birthday so he can get his own rifle. They both cannot wait for summer so they can help Grandpa load firewood and pick oranges again.

We gained a new perspective and see these things as not only good in philosophy, but as preserving what's good in society. Thanks for helping us change the world.

R.

WND DIVERSIONS
Heavy metal music pushed as 'religion'
Hard-rock fans asked to enter genre on latest census forms
-- London Telegraph

Big Brusher Is Watching
In Massachusetts , the Boston Globe's Web site reports, "a new law quietly went into effect Jan. 1 that may have more of a day-to-day impact on our daily lives than anything Scott Brown does:

That's right--government mandated toothbrushing. No not you, silly. The kids.

The state Department of Early Education & Care is requiring all children in day care longer than four hours and/or who eat a meal to have their teeth brushed on-site.

This columnist yields to no man in his zeal for oral hygiene. But do we really need the government forcing us to brush? What's next, a law forcing people to wear seat belts?

"To say that the United States should be answerable for twenty-five millions of dollars

without knowing whether the ways and means can be provided,

and without knowing whether those who are to succeed us will think with us on the subject,

would be rash and unjustifiable."

--James Madison

A record number of young Americans are unemployed.

Could it have anything to do with the increase in the minimum wage? Just a question.

Don't progressives like free speech?

From the commentary in the mainstream media, I thought there had been a coup d'etat in Washington .

The New York Times said what happened "strikes at the heart of democracy."
The Washington Post quoted an authority who warned it "threatens to undermine the integrity of elected institutions across the nation."
No, not the Scott Brown victory. The media were upset because the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that forbidding corporations and labor unions to spend money on political speech before elections is unconstitutional. A horrendous section of the abomination known as McCain-Feingold campaign-finance "reform" had bitten the dust. It was long overdue.
The 5-4 majority consisted of the four conservative justices and the swing justice, Anthony Kennedy, who wrote the main opinion. He couldn't have been more clear: "When Government seeks to use its full power, including the criminal law, to command where a person may get his or her information or what distrusted source he or she may not hear, it uses censorship to control thought. This is unlawful. ... The First Amendment confirms the freedom to think for ourselves."
He also said, "Because speech is an essential mechanism of democracy – it is the means to hold officials accountable to the people – political speech must prevail against laws that would suppress it."
And, "We find no basis for the proposition that, in the context of political speech, the Government may impose restrictions on certain disfavored speakers."
Of course, the "progressive media" condemned the majority for its judicial activism because the ruling overturned two precedents. I thought progressives favored judicial activism and dumping bad precedents. I also thought they favored free speech. Wrong. (To its credit, the ACLU was on Citizen United's side.)
It depends on whose ox is gored.
In condemning the decision, the offended progressives engaged in amazing mental contortions. It "was wrong because nothing in the First Amendment dictates that corporations must be treated identically to people," the Post editorialist wrote.
I guess the writer is unfamiliar with the obscure opening phrase of the First Amendment: "Congress shall make no law." And apparently the outraged progressives don't realize that corporations and unions are associations of individual who have rights. Dissenting Justice John Paul Stevens didn't get it, either.
The media outrage is almost funny. Under McCain-Feingold, media corporations were exempt from the prohibition – which suits the Washington Post and New York Times just fine. But people with common sense already knew what Justice Kennedy found it necessary to say: "This differential treatment (between media and nonmedia corporations) cannot be squared with the First Amendment."
So now we are being served dire warnings that "corporate money ... may now overwhelm both the contributions of individuals and the faith they may harbor in their democracy." (Are similarly freed wealthy labor unions potted plants?) But the same Post editorial conceded that corporate money was "never lacking in the American political process." So what's the difference?
Besides, as John Samples and Ilya Shapiro of the Cato Institute write: "Before McCain-Feingold, both (corporations and unions) could spend freely on advertising about candidates for federal office. Such spending made up a relatively small part of election-related speech, and no one group dominated ... the political arena."
One need not be a fan of big corporations – which in today's interventionist economy benefit from many government privileges – to see that restrictions on anyone's speech are dangerous. A government lawyer last year said that even corporate-funded books favoring or opposing candidates could be prohibited under McCain-Feingold. That should scare progressives – especially since the Federal Election Commission once had an anti-Bush book written by George Soros under scrutiny.
It is shameful that progressives are willing to throw free speech under the bus in their devotion to big government.
There is a simple way to get corporate money out of politics: Get the government out of our lives and economic affairs. If government has no favors to sell, no one will spend money trying to win them.
John Stossel

Obama 'not liberal' has O'Reilly gasping
Fox News anchor stunned when talking head makes surprising claim
--YouTube/Fox News

"[Barack] Obama's touted spending freeze for some domestic agencies is the politics of gesture.

It would apply to only 17% of the budget, and these programs have already had a 22% increase in their annual appropriations in the past two years,

and another 25% increase including stimulus.

As for the deficit, CBO shows that over the first three years of the Obama Presidency, 2009-2011, the federal government will borrow an estimated $3.7 trillion

What A Difference Stopping Has Made

Wow Dr. Laura I am reading your book "Stop Whining, Start Living" I must say it's changed my attitude and behavior :) which is a great thing. I don't whine a lot but I will sometimes, and the one part that REALLY stuck out to me was you said "Whining drags you down, simple as that. Whiners while they get might their way or win some point, are still never truly happy. Why not? Because you've got to look for the next thing to be miserable about" That is a very true statement.

I went down to talk to my husband about that and I apologized for all the whining and DO YOU KNOW what he said? He said "it's ok I just stop listening" WOW what a rude awakening, I didn't realize I whined that much but I've truly changed and REALLY tried to stop whining and start living, and I feel great I've really tried to work on it the past 2 weeks and I've got to say what a difference it's made in my life already :)

Thanks again your a genius!!

your fan, K.

Poll: Americans Trust Fox News Above Other Networks

"The President could wait months before deciding to give a general the troops he asked for to fight the war in Afghanistan but there was never to be enough time for the health care bill to be exposed in the light of day to the usual Congressional hearings and debate.

Moreover, despite all the haste, the health care program would not actually go into effect until after the 2012 presidential election.

In other words, the public was not supposed to find out whether the government's takeover of medical care actually made things better or worse until after it was too late."

--economist Thomas Sowell

PETA wants robot version of Punxsutawney Phil
Groups says unethical to keep Pennsylvania groundhog in captivity
--Associated Press

"Your imagination is your preview of life's coming attractions."
- Albert Einstein

.. The word “worry” is derived from the Anglo-Saxon word “wyrgan,” meaning to strangle. It is an extremely efficient way to cut yourself off from the Creative Flow of God. Plato once said, “Nothing in the affairs of man is worthy of great anxiety.” Yet, honestly, how often do you go “mountain climbing over molehills”? Trying to understand life or specific problems through a blue haze of worry is like trying to drive in the fog—you can just barely see the ground in front of you, but you can’t relate where you are to where you are going or where you have been.
Now, you may say: “But with my situation, I just can’t help worrying. In fact, you might even worry too, if your were in my shoes.” And I might very well do that. But if I did become involved in worry, I would want someone to challenge me to stop worrying and start living…as I want to do to you. Worry is not a natural reflex action to problems. Trouble does not cause worry. You worry because that is the way you have chosen to deal with the situation…and you can always choose not to worry.
… You see, worry and apprehension about things indicates a lack of perspective. It means that you are concentrating on what you have not instead of what you have. You are thinking of your weaknesses instead of your strengths. You may be emphasizing the problem instead of your power to cope.
… In a very real sense, worry is closely related to prayer. All the same ingredients are present. Emerson says prayer is “the contemplation of the facts of life from the highest point of view.” In the one sense we are dealing with the problem with the lights turned off. In the other, the lights are on and we see clearly. Reverse the process, and the compulsive worrier can become a highly successful practitioner of scientific prayer…“practicing the Presence of God” with the same zeal as the worrier practices the absence of God.
© Eric Butterworth

Girl forced to get swine-flu shot despite objections
Irate dad: 'My daughter said no and they didn't bother to contact me or my wife'
-- San Diego Union -Tribune

Elitism:

"Absolutely amazing poll results from CNN today about the $787 stimulus package:

nearly three out of four Americans think the money has been wasted.

On second thought, they may be right: it's been wasted on them.

... This is yet further evidence that Americans are flagrantly ill-informed ... and, for those watching Fox News, misinformed."

--Time mag's Joe Klein

"At best, the administration's spending-freeze proposal

is akin to going on a month long binge in Vegas

and then sleeping off the hangover."

--Cato Institute senior fellow Dan Mitchell

"ABC News found that Trijicon, which makes rifle scopes for the military, stamps references to Bible verses on its equipment.

The defense contractor subsequently announced that it will voluntarily stop stamping these references on combat rifle sights. These sights are used in Iraq and Afghanistan -- sometimes to train Muslims, sometimes to shoot them. According to ABC News, this is very important.

If a Muslim were to see this code on the side of a rifle and then look up the verse in one of the many Bibles you can easily find in Muslim countries, then that Muslim might become indoctrinated with Christianity and then ... chaos or something.

Or maybe we just worry that the mere knowledge of a reference to the Bible in those countries will cause all Muslims in the Middle East to panic and randomly shoot each other in the faces...."

--columnist Frank J. Fleming

"Dems Freak Out Over CBO Report, Blame Bush for Next Year's Deficit"

--headline, Washington Examiner, Jan. 26

This Week's 'Alpha Jackass' Award

"We also had some good news for the first time in approximately two years.
The projection of revenues has stabilized, not decreased.
That is a very good sign because it is a sign that people are in fact making money and will be in a position,

because they're making money, to pay a portion of that in revenues to the federal government."

--House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD)

Obama's philosophy is not one of systemic tax relief,

which views wealth as created by the people and belonging to the people,

but of wealth redistribution selects "worthy" recipients of taxpayer dollars and reallocates those dollars accordingly.

Love Tunes From A Tone Deaf Mom

Dear Dr. Laura,

As a stay at home mom of three teenagers, I have relied on your advice for many years. Most recently, my 13 year old daughter got a "dose of Dr. Laura" as we call it in our home.

Many years ago you gave advice to a mom about her child talking back and acting up in public places. The advice you gave her was to sing out loud wherever they were. I thought to myself...yeah right, that will be the day when I embarrass myself like that!

Well....Once again Dr. Laura, your advice has proven to be amazing. Last Saturday afternoon, my daughter and I went to the local mall for a few items. After purchasing a few items for my daughter, I needed to pop into a store for myself. After about ten minutes my daughter decided it was to boring to shop for anyone except herself... I thought about leaving the store and taking her home but decided to use your advice. Two VERY LOUD rounds of "You are my Sunshine" later (and yes Dr. Laura I really am tone deaf) I had a teenager that was sweet, loving and so very positive about being patient!

Thank you Dr Laura!! I just might never have to go into a mall with a teenager again!

Musically Yours,

My three teenagers mom, K.

President Obama just completed the UNHOLY and ANTI-AMERICAN TRIFECTA:

1st president in 110 years to miss the annual Army-Navy Football Game.

1st president to not attend any Christmas religious observance.

1st president to stay on vacation after a terrorist attack.

Has Obama become bored with being president?

This is about the time Barack Obama becomes bored with his job.

He's in his second year as president, and he's discovered that even with all the powers of office, he can't do everything he wants to do, like remake America . Doing stuff is hard. In the past, prosaic work has held little appeal for Obama, and it's prompted him to think about moving on.

Begin with his first serious job, as a community organizer in Chicago . Obama got a little done, but quickly became frustrated with small achievements. "He didn't see organizing making any significant changes in things," Jerry Kellman, the organizer who hired him, told me in 2008.

What Obama wanted was political power, and that is what sent him to Harvard Law School . "He was constantly thinking about his path to significance and power," another organizer, Mike Kruglik, told me. "He said, 'I need to go there [Harvard] to find out more about power. How do powerful people think? What kind of networks do they have? How do they connect to each other?'"

Out of law school, Obama did some civil rights work in Chicago before running successfully for the Illinois Senate in 1996. Almost immediately, Obama began "chafing ... at the limitations of legislating in Springfield ," in the words of a Washington Post profile. Easily bored, and with a growing sense of dissatisfaction, he set his eyes on the House of Representatives, unsuccessfully challenging Rep. Bobby Rush in 2000. In 2002 he began his campaign for the U.S. Senate.

He won in 2004, but the Senate proved unsatisfying, too. By mid-2006, Majority Leader Harry Reid "sensed his frustration and impatience, had heard rumblings that Obama was already angling to head back home and take a shot at the Illinois governorship," write Mark Halperin and John Heilemann in the new book Game Change. Reid knew "Obama simply wasn't cut out to be a Senate lifer."

According to the book, the majority leader invited Obama to his office for a talk. "You're not going to go anyplace here," Reid told Obama. "I know that you don't like it, doing what you're doing." Reid suggested Obama run for president. Obama had been a senator for all of 18 months at the time. Soon after, he was off and running.

What drove Obama was not just ambition, although he is certainly ambitious. As he became frustrated in each job, Obama concluded that the problem was not having the power to do the things he wanted to do. So he sought a more powerful position.

Today he is in the most powerful position in the world. Yet he has spent a year struggling, and failing, to enact far-reaching makeovers of the American economy. So now, even in the Oval Office, there are signs that the old dissatisfaction is creeping back in.

At a Jan. 17 Martin Luther King Day event at Washington 's Vermont Avenue Baptist Church , Obama brought up the fact that many people see him as almost preternaturally calm. "I have a confession to make," Obama said. "There are times I'm not so calm ... when progress seems too slow ... when it feels like all these efforts are for naught, and change is so painfully slow in coming, and I have to confront my own doubts."

Obama said it to be inspirational, but the fact is, in the past, that's when he looked for a new job.

A few days later, ABC's Diane Sawyer asked whether Obama would sometimes "sit and confront your own doubts."

"Yes," the president said.

"Ever in the middle of all that's coming did you think maybe one term is enough?" Sawyer asked.

Obama answered haltingly. "You know, I -- I would say that when I -- the one thing I'm clear about is that I'd rather be a really good one-term president than a mediocre two-term president."

Many observers have remarked that, even when dealing with the most momentous issues facing the country, Obama has seemed oddly removed from the hands-on work of making policy. Maybe they're noticing the same thing Harry Reid did. The president's dissatisfaction is shining through; perhaps he's not really cut out for -- or up to -- the job.

In the State of the Union address, Obama declared, "I don't quit." And of course, there's no danger he would just up and quit the presidency.

But throughout his life, his reaction to frustration has been to look for a bigger job. What does he do now?

Byron York, The Examiner's chief political correspondent,

Namely 100%
"Overweight Elderly Have Similar Mortality to Normal-Weigh Elderly"--headline, MedScape.com, Jan. 28

News of the Tautological
"Call for Breast Milk Donations in Haiti Goes Bust"--headline, MSNBC.com, Jan. 29

Actually, It Sounds Like a Good Start
President Obama spoke in Baltimore at a House Republican retreat. Yes, you read that right. The Dallas Morning News reports on his comments:

"I don't believe that the American people want us to focus on our job security; they want us to focus on their job security. (Applause.) I don't think they want more gridlock. I don't think they want more partisanship. I don't think they want more obstruction.

"They didn't send us to Washington to fight each other in some sort of political steel-cage match to see who comes out alive . . ."

Color us skeptical. In particular, we'd like to see some polling data to back up that last assertion.

HMAS PERTH memorial regatta

2010-01-26T20:58:00.001-05:00

They are looking for Houston Survivors.

clipped from shaunakinney.wordpress.com

Pezutti's Hmmm...

2010-01-22T18:08:00.000-05:00

"Increasing numbers of Americans are saying that they are having trouble recognizing the country in which they were born and grew up.

(click 'read more' )

They will have even more trouble recognizing America if the Washington juggernaut does not lose a substantial part of its power in this year's elections."

--economist Thomas Sowell

Narcissist in Chief Obama asked Americans to donate

for Haitian relief through the White House Web site, not directly to Red Cross.

How this is beneficial, we don't know, but maybe he wants to give a cut to Acorn???

Historian Shelby Steele observed, "There is an awful lot of conservative sentiment in black America , but at the moment, the party line is ruthlessly enforced." Indeed, some of King's chief lieutenants, like Jesse Jackson, tolerate no dissension from their liberal ranks now. They have abandoned King's dream, and aligned themselves with political and social agendas obsessed with color at the expense of character.
Black conservatives of national stature, such as Clarence Thomas, Ward Connerly, Michael Steele, Jesse Lee Peterson, Alan Keyes, Don Scoggins, Alvin Williams, Ken Blackwell, Thomas Sowell, Star Parker and Walter Williams are routinely castigated by the Black Supremacists, as "Uncle Toms" and "puppets." Yet these are the men and women who really understand King's central message about character.
Today, Barack Obama will be waxing eloquently about King's legacy. But it is worth noting that prior to his murder in 1968, Martin King went to Obama's hometown of Chicago to meet with Mayor Richard Daley, father of the current Windy City Don. Chicago was a hotbed of racial hatred under Daley, and not much has changed.
King observed of that enmity, "This is the most tragic picture of man's inhumanity to man. I've been to Mississippi and Alabama and I can tell you that the hatred and hostility in Chicago are really deeper than in Alabama and Mississippi ."
Chicago was not only a denizen of racial hatred but the violent black supremacist movement was born there. King said, "Those who are associated with 'Black Power' and black supremacy are wrong."
It is that very racial hatred and hostility in which Obama has been steeped, particularly by mentors such as Jeremiah Wright.

"Nothing is more essential to the establishment of manners in a State

than that all persons employed in places of power and trust

must be men of unexceptionable characters."

--Samuel Adams

WASHINGTON POST Ignores Own Poll Findings: 58% Want Smaller Gov't, Fewer Services...

ELECTION 2010
WorldNetDaily
MSNBC talk host: 'Cheat to keep these bastards out'
On race for Senate between Brown, Coakley: 'If I lived in Massachusetts, I'd vote 10 times'
--WND

Radio Equalizer's Brian Maloney captured MSNBC's Ed Schultz making a startling remark on his radio show yesterday about supporting voter fraud in Massachusetts , so Scott Brown would lose. The audio is below along with the transcript.

SCHULTZ (23:02): I tell you what, if I lived in Massachusetts I'd try to vote 10 times

I don't know if they'd let me or not, but I'd try to.

Yeah, that's right. I'd cheat to keep these bastards out.

I would. 'Cause that's exactly what they are.

" The truth is that we don't have a free market

-- government regulation and management are pervasive

-- so it's misleading to say that 'capitalism' caused today's problems.

The free market is innocent. But it's fair to say that crony capitalism created the economic mess.

... Under crony capitalism, government bestows a variety of privileges that are simply unattainable in the free market, including import restrictions, bailouts, subsidies and loan guarantees. ... Crony capitalism, better know as government bailouts, saved General Motors and Chrysler from extinction, with Barack Obama cronies the United Auto Workers getting preferential treatment over other creditors and generous stock holdings (especially outrageous considering that the union helped bankrupt the companies in the first place with fat pensions and wasteful work rules). Banks and insurance companies (like AIG) are bailed out because they are deemed too big to fail. Favored farmers get crop subsidies.

If free-market capitalism is a private profit-and-loss system, crony capitalism is a private-profit and public-loss system. Companies keep their profits when they succeed but use government to stick the taxpayer with the losses when they fail. Nice work if you can get it.

... It's time we acknowledged the difference between the free market, which is based on freedom and competition, and crony capitalism, which is based on privilege."

--columnist John Stossel

WE THE PEOPLE
Let's make a deal – with other people's money
Exclusive: Herman Cain flays Obama, Reid, Pelosi for buying votes
--WND

Democrats just love to invoke Hitler and Nazis when they're talking about Republicans .

.. they love it because they know that most of their myrmidon followers don't know history well enough

to understand that Hitler's economic plans were much more akin

to those of Barack Obama than they are to those of pretty much any Republican.

… But never think of yourself as a slave to circumstances. Don’t let yourself believe that you are poor, inadequate, weak, or unloved. Don’t give power to old habits of thought by dwelling on them or acting as if they were true. If you feel yourself being swept up by self-pity, self-condemnation, then change your mind. Set your mind to valuing, appreciating, and loving yourself instead. When old habits of thought try to reassert themselves, face them squarely and think them through. Question them, challenge them, begin asserting the reasons why they are not true and start finding reasons for your potential mastery. Practice the consciousness of prayer and meditation. Pray not only at regular intervals, but whenever any kind of fear or challenge arises. Take time immediately to turn within, to “be still,” to experience Oneness with your true God Self. Turn your mind and energy to constructive tasks. For instance, you may want to get away from the problem to work on a hobby, or fix up the garden, clean the house, go out and take a walk, help somebody in a time of need. Keep building new reactions by building new things. There are a thousand things to be done; find the things that you want to do.
The old habits may rise up again and again and again. If they do, then you must face them and face them again and again and again. Not only do you want to achieve mastery over whatever problem you have, if you do, then you must determine that you can achieve it, believe that you can. Don’t doubt, say to yourself, “I know that I can do this thing.” Even if you can’t believe it, assert that you believe it and keep on asserting it. This is the key to asserting: Keep on, and keep on keeping-on…and keep on keeping-on, keeping-on. Find reasons for wanting and having to keep on.
… In whatever situation you may find yourself, the important thing is the attitude you take toward it. If you want victory, you must prepare for victory. Victories are not won by planning for defeat. We can accept failure and find all sorts of excuses for it, or, come what may, we can push on and push on and keep on pushing on. We can rise up no matter how many times we fall down. We can turn failure into success. Whatever reasons we may find for doubting our ultimate success, we must push forward, because only if we push forward can we hope to reach our goals. No one who has ever set out to better himself or his life has not heard the voice of despair—at some time—from within him saying, “Turn back! Turn back!” But, like Columbus , he must say “Press on! Press on!” When things are the hardest, this is when we must try the hardest. If we suffer a setback, this is the time to press on, and to keep on pressing-on.
… Sooner or later, we come to a place where we must take a stand. If we decide that we are going to rise superior to circumstances, if we take command of ourselves and seize the reins of our lives, from that moment on we live on a new level. Of course, we may have to struggle to maintain our command. The old laws of thought, the old habits and reactions may seek to reassert themselves, but we shall find that our whole attitude toward life has changed. We shall have new powers, new energy, new understanding, new love. We shall have a sense of purpose in life, and our life will broaden and deepen. Our whole personality will expand. But, as hard as we may have to struggle against the old ways of thought, we shall have a peace of mind and a joy of living beyond anything that we have ever known.
… Remember, whatever situation in which you find yourself, the important thing is your attitude toward it. You can accept failure and find all sorts of excuses for it, or you can push on and rise above the failure and the problems that confront you. You can turn failure into success. When things appear hardest, that is the time you must try the hardest. Just remember: You can give up, or get up!...
© Eric Butterworth

"Do your work with your whole heart and you will succeed - there's so little competition."
- Elbert Hubbart

Martha Coakley got A+ from ACORN
Democrat awarded for 'responding to the foreclosure crisis'
--National Legal and Policy Center

Once Americans think they're getting "free" medical care from their government

the Democrats will pull the same stunt with healthcare they've been pulling with Social Security.

Since 1952 in every single presidential and midterm election Democrats have told voters that they vote for Republicans the Republicans will take away their Social Security. Not just now and then, but every single year. Once ObamaCare is passed it will become a part of every single presidential and mid-term election. Voters will be told that if you vote for Republicans they will take your health care away .. and if you vote for Democrats they will give you even more free health care. Democrats know that if you control someone's health care, you control them. Yank on their health care leash and the people will follow you anywhere ... even into socialist tyranny.

Get with it folks. This is about CONTROL. Nothing else.

THE FAIREST OF THEM ALL
Study: Blondes have more 'fire'
More aggressive, determined to get own way than brunettes, redheads
-- London Telegraph

“If we take people as they are, we make them worse.

If we treat them as if they were what they should be, we make them what they can be.”

Wolfgang von Goethe

And all of these on top of these ideas proposed or publicly floated by President Obama and his aides and allies:

Raise the top income tax rates from their current 33 percent and 35 percent rates to 36 percent and 39.6 percent in 2011
Limit itemized deductions for people paying high rates
Increase capital gains and dividend taxes by 33 percent for people paying high income tax rates
Impose a value-added tax (VAT) on all goods and services
Raise the Social Security tax by lifting the cap
Raise a variety of business taxes by $353 billion over 10 years, including repeal of LIFO rules, restoring Superfund taxes, seven tax increases on energy companies, and more
Tax employer-provided health benefits
Implement a cap-and-trade system for emissions permits, the functional equivalent of a massive new tax
Tax drivers on their mileage
Change rules to raise gift taxes
Restore the estate tax at 45 percent
Raise cigarette tax by 62 cents a pack
Raise taxes on beer, wine, liquor, and soda
Eliminate health savings accounts and flexible savings accounts
Tax employer-provided cellphones
Tax AIG employee bonuses
Raise taxes on overseas corporate earnings

Back in July the Wall Street Journal reported:

President Barack Obama’s health-care plan is in jeopardy because of serious concerns that costs will spin out of control. As much as anyone, it’s White House budget director Peter Orszag’s job to save it…

After his TV appearances, he went straight to the Senate Finance Committee, where he spent three hours with committee aides brainstorming about how to pay for the trillion-dollar legislation. At one point, they flipped through the tax code, looking for ideas.

Flipping through the tax code, looking for ideas on how to relieve us of more of our money.
That’s a great visual of Obama’s Washington .
President Obama and his allies look at the vast abundance in America , and all they see is wealth that they don’t yet control. It annoys them. T
hey could do so much good with that money.
How dare bankers and businesses, farmers and entrepreneurs, widows and foundations hold tight to their wealth, when government has so many plans to fund?
“Let’s go and get it from those who’ve got it,” they cry, in the immortal words of Sen. Barbara Mikulski.

Son of Climategate! Scientist says feds manipulated data
Reporting points in coldest regions simply eliminated by US. agencies
--WND

The Heritage Foundation tackles the question:

If Congress can order you to buy insurance, why stop there?

Have you ever wondered what the difference between Grandmothers and Grandfathers is? Well here it is:

A friend, who worked away from home all week, always made a special effort with his family on the weekends.? Every Sunday morning he would take his 7-year old granddaughter out for a drive in the car for some bonding time -- just him and his granddaughter. One particular Sunday however, he had a bad cold and really didn't feel like being up at all. Luckily, his wife came to the rescue and said that she would take their granddaughter out.

When they returned, the little girl anxiously ran upstairs to see her Grandfather.

'Well, did you enjoy your ride with grandma?'

'Oh yes, Papa' the girl replied, 'and do you know what? We didn't see a single ass hole, dumb bastard, dip shit or horse's ass anywhere we went today!'

INTERNET NEWS
Ugly details of Facebook's inner workings
Everything you do is permanently stored, completely available to staff
--Switched

More and more Americans are growing fond of smaller government with fewer services.

Haiti's avoidable death toll.

As tragic as the Haitian calamity is, it is merely symptomatic of a far deeper tragedy that's completely ignored, namely self-inflicted poverty. The reason why natural disasters take fewer lives in our country is because we have greater wealth. It's our wealth that permits us to build stronger homes and office buildings. When a natural disaster hits us, our wealth provides the emergency personnel, heavy machinery and medical services to reduce the death toll and suffering. Haitians cannot afford the life-saving tools that we Americans take for granted. President Barack Obama called the quake "especially cruel and incomprehensible." He would be closer to the truth if he had said that the Haitian political and economic climate that make Haitians helpless in the face of natural disasters are "especially cruel and incomprehensible."
The biggest reason for Haiti being one of the world's poorest countries is its restrictions on economic liberty. Let's look at some of it. According to the 2009 Index of Economic Freedom, authorization is required for some foreign investments, such as in electricity, water, public health and telecommunications. Authorization requires bribing public officials and, as a result, Haiti 's monopolistic telephone services can at best be labeled primitive. That might explain the difficulty Haitian-Americans have in finding out about their loved ones.
Corruption is rampant. Haiti ranks 177th out of 179 countries in the 2007 Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index. Its reputation as one of the world's most corrupt countries is a major impediment to doing business. Customs officers often demand bribes to clear shipments. The Heritage Foundation's Index of Economic Freedom says that because of burdensome regulations and bribery, starting a business in Haiti takes an average of 195 days, compared with the world average of 38 days. Getting a business license takes about five times longer than the world average of 234 days – that's over three years.
Crime and lawlessness are rampant in Haiti . The U.S. Department of State website, long before the earthquake, warned, "There are no 'safe' areas in Haiti . .. Kidnapping, death threats, murders, drug-related shootouts, armed robberies, home break-ins and car-jacking are common in Haiti ." The Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade warns its citizens that, "The level of crime in Haiti is very high, and the police have little ability to enforce laws. Local authorities often have limited or no capacity to provide assistance, even if you are a victim of a serious crime." Crime anywhere is a prohibitive tax on economic development, and the poorest people are its primary victims.
Private-property rights are vital to economic growth. The Index of Economic Freedom reports that "Haitian protection of investors and property is severely compromised by weak enforcement, a paucity of updated laws to handle modern commercial practices, and a dysfunctional and resource-poor legal system." That means commercial disputes are settled out of court often through the bribery of public officials; settlements are purchased.
The way out of Haiti 's grinding poverty is not rocket science. Ranking countries according to: 1) whether they are more or less free-market, 2) per capita income, and 3) ranking in International Amnesty's human-rights protection index, we would find that those nations with a larger free-market sector tend also to be those with the higher income and greater human-rights protections. Haitian President Rene Preval is not enthusiastic about free markets; his heroes are none other than the hemisphere's two brutal communist tyrants: Venezuela 's Hugo Chavez and Cuba 's Fidel Castro.
Haiti's disaster demands immediate Western assistance, but it's only the Haitian people who can relieve themselves of the deeper tragedy of self-inflicted poverty.
Walter E. Williams, Ph.D

Homeschooled athletes seek access to school teams
'We are taxpayers, so why can't our kids play?'
--Sports Illustrated

"As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain;

as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.
- Albert Einstein

You have a Rendezvous With Life! This means that you are made for growth. No matter where you are or what you are, there is more for you, there is more in you! The purpose of your life is to expand and unfold and express your innate potential—and you must express it, perhaps not today or tomorrow, but you can’t evade it, for it is your ultimate destiny. Now, I don’t mean there is a pre-determined way that it shall come about, or a time or place…but it must come. The “within” must become the “without,” and there is a ceaseless urge to “open out a way whence the Imprisoned Splendor may escape.” [Robert Browning]
… We need to get the idea that there is a “deeper than deep” within every person…within you. There is always more within us. We must learn the new language of limitlessness. Words like “impossible” and “I can’t” and “no hope” and “too old” must be eliminated from our vocabulary and our consciousness. We must realize that there is a Creative Mind at the root of all things, and that something of the Creativity of the Infinite is endowed in the mind of the finite. The finite always has a rendezvous with the Infinite, and the partial expression has a ceaseless urge to find itself in Wholeness. Napoleon Hill once said, “When the ties that bind the human mind are broken, when a man is introduced to himself, the Real Self that has no limitations, I fancy the gates of hell shake with fear and the bells of Heaven ring with joy!”
… Each of us has “A Rendezvous With Life”! Each of us has a first-hand and immediate experience of God that awaits us. This is our goal, our quest, our destiny…and our hearts “will ever be restless ‘til we find repose in God.”
… Yes, you have “A Rendezvous With Life,” and with all the fullness of what Life can be: abiding health, satisfying love, a sufficiency of all that is needed to make your experience prosperous in a “peace that passeth all understanding.” [Philippians 4:7] You have “A Rendezvous With Life”!
© Eric Butterworth

"Dare to dream. Create and live the life you love; in balance, on purpose, with soul. You Can Do It!"
- Georgia Mazzolla

WorldNetDaily Exclusive
No mention of 'radical Islam' in Fort Hood report
Congressman: 'I don't want to see political correctness get any more soldiers killed'
--WND

Congressional Democrats received $68 million from unions in 2008, and $21 million more so far this year.

That seems to be paying off for them.

We got the government spending our tax dollars on programs like this:
- $462,000 to purchase 22 concrete toilets for use in the Mark Twain National Forest in Missouri
- $1 million for Portland , Ore. , to replace 100 aging bike lockers and build a garage that would house 250 bicycles.
- $1.3 million on government arts jobs in Maine , including $30,000 for basket makers, $20,000 for storytelling and $12,500 for a music festival.
- $6 million for a snow-making facility in Duluth , Minn.
- $173,834 to weatherize eight pickup trucks in Madison County, Ill.
- $20,000 for a fish sperm freezer at the Gavins Point National Fish Hatchery in South Dakota .
- $300,000 for a GPS-equipped helicopter to hunt for radioactive rabbit droppings at the Hanford nuclear reservation in Washington state.
If the producers of this country -- the small business owners, the job creators - had had a choice on how to spend $787 billion, do you think they would have spent it on radioactive rabbit crap?

"[T]the American people are losing confidence in Team Obama

because quite simply they are tiring of being lied to,

and treated like children in need of Ivy-League Platonic guardians."

--columnist Victor Davis Hanson

Obama's First Year: By The Numbers: INTERVIEWS: 158 SPEECHES, COMMENTS & REMARKS: 411 FLIGHTS ON AIR FORCE ONE: 160

Sometimes Hollywood gets it right:

"This isn't the Democratic party of our fathers and grandfathers.

This is the party of Woodstock hippies. I was at Woodstock -- I built the stage.

And when everything fell apart, and people were fighting for peanut-butter sandwiches, it was the National Guard who came in and saved the same people who were protesting them.

So when Hillary Clinton a few years ago wanted to build a Woodstock memorial, I said it should be a statue of a National Guardsman feeding a crying hippie."

--actor John Ratzenberger

WAL-MART
1. Americans spend $36,000,000 at Wal-Mart every hour of every day.
2. This works out to $20,928 profit every minute!
3. Wal-Mart will sell more from January 1 to St. Patrick's Day (March 17th) than Target sells all year.
4. Wal-Mart is bigger than Home Depot + Kroger + Target + Sears + Costco + K-Mart combined.
5. Wal-Mart employs 1.6 million people and is the largest private Employer, and most speak English.
6. Wal-Mart is the largest company in the history of the world.
7. Wal-Mart now sells more food than Kroger & Safeway combined, and keep in mind they did this in only 15 years.
8. During this same period, 31 Supermarket Chains sought bankruptcy.
9. Wal-Mart now sells more food than any other store in the world.
10. Wal-Mart has approx 3,900 stores in the USA of which 1,906 are Super Centers; this is 1,000 more than it had 5 Years ago.
11. This year 7.2 billion different purchasing experiences will occur at a Wal-Mart store. (Earth's population is approximately 6.5 Billion.)
12. 90% of all Americans live within 15 miles of a Wal-Mart.

You may think that I am complaining, but I am really laying the ground work for suggesting that MAYBE we should hire the guys who run Wal-Mart to fix the economy because the idiots in Washington sure can't do it!

"I wanted to apologize for calling Senator-elect Scott Brown an 'irresponsible, homophobic, racist, reactionary, ex-nude model, tea bagging, supporter of violence against women and against politicians with whom he disagrees.'

I'm sorry, I left out the word 'sexist.'"

--MSNBC's Keith Olbermann

"When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living together in society,

they create for themselves in the course of time a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that justifies it."

Frederic Bastiat

Mr. Populist

"Sen. Barack Obama reversed his pledge to seek public financing in the general election yesterday, a move that drew criticism from adversaries and allies alike but could provide him with a significant spending advantage over Republican rival John McCain. Obama will become the first major-party presidential nominee to reject the public funds."--Washington Post, June 20, 2008

"President Barack Obama is condemning a decision by the Supreme Court to roll back restrictions on campaign donations by corporations and unions. In a written statement, Obama says the campaign finance ruling will lead to a 'stampede of special interest money in our politics.' Obama declared that his administration will work with Democratic and Republican leaders in Congress to come up with a 'forceful response' to the high court's action. . . . Obama called it a big victory for big oil, Wall Street banks, health insurance companies and other powerful interests."--Associated Press, Jan. 21, 2010

The Louisiana state legislature is floating a bill that would make Obamacare illegal in the state if it passes.

UDDERLY RIDICULOUS
WorldNetDaily
Farmer cleared of 'raw milk' charges
Court gives consumers access to unpasteurized products
--WND

… Experiences do not cause thoughts. An incident has happened. There is no use denying it, because now it is history. But, as far as your experience is concerned, the incident is completely external to you. It may have happened around you or even have very much happened to you, but of itself it does not happen in you. Your thoughts about the incident, positive or negative as they may be, are your reaction to it. But the incident did not make the thought. No matter what happens in your world—the things people do or do not do, the tensions the news suggests—you do not have to worry or be fearful or angry or upset about them. You can choose to think creatively about all the things that happen around you or to you. You can, potentially, become the master of circumstances, instead of their slave.
… Most of us are primarily reflex thinkers. In other words, things happen and we respond in thought. It would appear to be self-evident that our upsets, our fears, our worries, our angers, etc., are caused by the conditions and persons that we are upset and fearful and worried and angry about. It may be a matter of regret that we have been awake all night worrying about a problem. But we tell about it as if it were something over which we have no control. We have yet to discover that we have the power to determine whether or not we are going to be kept awake, whether or not we are going to worry, and whether or not we are going to be angry or fearful or upset.
© Eric Butterworth

"Older Brains Make Good Use of 'Useless' Information"--headline, Baycrest Center for Geriatric Care press release, Jan. 20

Did you know that Obama's deficit reduction panel is

prohibited from recommending cuts in any discretionary spending?

OBAMA, WALL STREET AND THE STOCK MARKET By Neal Boortz

@ January 22, 2010 8:46 AM Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

It's no coincidence that Barack Obama made a blistering speech yesterday painting our financial institutions as the source of all that is evil in the United States. Obama lost healthcare. His signature issues is toast. He needs something else .. and he needs it quick. This is all about getting the people back on his side. Most Americans aren't particularly fond of their banks or credit card companies. They don't like the bank fees when they bounce a check, and they don't like the penalties when they fail to pay their bloated credit card bills when they're due. Banks send you letters with tiny print saying things you can't understand. Banks are an easy target for a demagogue.
Obama is now proposing the most sweeping and onerous new regulations on banks and financial institutions since the 1930's What happens as Obama is delivering his "Banks are evil, we are good" speech? The stock market drops to its lowest level in months. Oh ... but I'm sure one thing had nothing to do with the other.
Obama's populist assault on the world of high finance, coupled with China 's tightened lending, has left Wall Street in a state of uncertainty.
Is this the way to grow jobs? Think about this. All the new regulations PrezBO proposed yesterday ... tell me how they're going to grow our economy and create jobs?
The only jobs created by Obama's new regulations are government jobs --- government regulatory jobs.

"It is to me a new and consolatory proof that wherever the people are well-informed they can be trusted with their own government; that whenever things get so far wrong as to attract their notice, they may be relied on to set them to rights."

--Thomas Jefferson

"There are two lasting bequests we can give our children:

One is roots.

The other is wings."

- Hodding Carter

FISHING TRIP WITH JACK DANIELS ...........

I finally got around to going fishing this morning but after a while I ran out of worms.

Then I saw a cottonmouth snake with a frog in his mouth, and frogs are good bass bait.....

Knowing the snake couldn't bite me with the frog in his mouth, I grabbed him right behind the head, took the frog and put it in my bait bucket.

Now the dilemma was how to release the snake without getting bitten.

I grabbed my bottle of Jack Daniels and poured a little whiskey in its mouth..

His eyes rolled back, he went limp, I released him into the lake without incident, and carried on my fishing with the frog.........

A little later I felt a nudge on my foot.

There was that same snake with two frogs in his mouth..............!

The BIG Joke

"When you think about the First Amendment ...

… you think it's highly overrated."

--White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel at the May 9, 2009, White House Correspondents Association Dinner

This Week's 'Alpha Jackass' Award

"That I do think is a mistake of mine –
I think the assumption was if I just focus on policy,
if I just focus on this provision or that law
or if we're making a good rational decision here,
then people will get it."
--Barack Obama on his proposed health care takeover

Got that, folks?

Even when he's admitting a "mistake of mine," he's throwing the blame onto others.

His failures are your fault because you just don't get it.

That's called pathological narcissism.

The Wall Street Journal reports:

"[T]he White House wants to tax more capital away from profit-making banks to offset the intentional losses that the politicians have ordered up at Fan and Fred.

The bank tax revenue will flow directly into the Treasury to be spent on whatever immediate cause Congress favors.

Come the next 'systemic risk' bailout, taxpayers will still be on the hook."

The Journal so aptly explains, "Welcome to one more installment in Washington 's year-long crusade to revive private business by assailing and soaking it."

Obama Blasts Court Over Campaign Financing

After steadily bashing greedy Wall Street firms, evil insurance companies, polluting energy firms, and profligate auto executives, President Obama on Thursday blasted a Supreme Court ruling that empowers those same companies to fight back against his big-government agenda.

Obama said a Supreme Court ruling that McCain-Feingold campaign-finance restrictions are unconstitutional will lead to a "stampede of special interest money in our politics."

The president added: "It is a major victory for big oil, Wall Street banks, health insurance companies, and the other powerful interests that marshal their power every day in Washington to drown out the voices of everyday Americans."

Ironically, all three industries he mentioned – oil, banks, insurance companies – are among those that he has routinely castigated for their refusal to kowtow to his "hope and change" agenda.

"I think this is ideological for the president," Brian Darling, director of Senate relations at the Heritage Foundation, tells Newsmax. "I think he and the left are intent on taking away the voice of corporate America .

"They feel like if they can take away the voice of corporate America , it's much more easy to regulate, and to tax them out of existence. They don't like allowing a corporate voice during these elections. Left-leaning politicians are naturally are more hostile to business interests," Darling adds. "And they're fearful these business interests will take it out on them when they're deciding to run ads."

On Cross-Examination

"I don't see any reason why [banks] should be paying a special tax. ... I don't see the rationale for it.

... Look at the damage Fannie and Freddie caused, and they were run by the Congress.

Should they have a special tax on congressmen because they let this thing happen to Freddie and Fannie? I don't think so."

--billionaire investor and philanthropist Warren Buffet

… Speaking broadly:

In the 2006 and 2008 elections, and at some point during the past decade, the ancestral war between Democrats and the Republicans began to take on a new look.

If you were a normal human sitting at home having a beer and watching national politics peripherally, as normal people do until they focus on an election, chances are pretty good you came to see the two major parties not as the Dems versus the Reps, or the blue versus the bed, but as the Nuts versus the Creeps.

The Nuts were for high spending and taxing and the expansion of government no matter what.

The Creeps were hypocrites who talked one thing and did another, who went along on the spending spree while lecturing on fiscal solvency.

In 2008, the voters went for Mr. Obama thinking he was not a Nut but a cool and sober moderate of the center-left sort.

In 2009 and 2010, they looked at his general governing attitudes as reflected in his preoccupations—health care, cap and trade—and their hidden, potential and obvious costs, and thought, "Uh-oh, he's a Nut!"

Which meant they were left with the Creeps.

Peggy Noonan

Supreme Court Strikes a Blow for Free Speech

The Supreme Court decided on a major free speech case Thursday, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which struck down laws that restrict organizations from spending money to influence political campaigns. Cato scholar Ilya Shapiro comments,

"Today the Supreme Court struck a major blow for free speech by correctly holding that government cannot try to 'level the political playing field' by banning corporations from making independent campaign expenditures on films, books, or even campaign signs.

...In short, the Citizens United decision has strengthened both the First Amendment and American democracy."

If BUSH had Done THIS

2010-01-22T09:22:00.001-05:00

If George W. Bush had been the first President to need a teleprompter installed to be able to get through a press conference, would you have laughed and said this is more proof of how he inept he is on his own and is really controlled by smarter men behind the scenes?

If George W. Bush had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to take Laura Bush to a play in NYC, would you have approved?

If George W. Bush had reduced your retirement plan's holdings of GM stock by 90% and given the unions a majority stake in GM, would you have approved?

If George W. Bush had made a joke at the expense of the Special Olympics, would you have approved?

If George W. Bush had given Gordon Brown a set of inexpensive and incorrectly formatted DVDs, when Gordon Brown had given him a thoughtful and historically significant gift, would you have approved?

If George W. Bush had given the Queen of England an iPod containing videos of his speeches, would you have thought this embarrassingly narcissistic and tacky?

If George W. Bush had bowed to the King of Saudi Arabia , would you have approved?

If George W. Bush had visited Austria and made reference to the non-existent "Austrian language," would you have brushed it off as a minor slip?

If George W. Bush had filled his cabinet and circle of advisers with people who cannot seem to keep current in their income taxes, would you have approved?

If George W. Bush had been so Spanish illiterate as to refer to "Cinco de Cuatro" in front of the Mexican ambassador when it was the 5th of May (Cinco de Mayo), and continued to flub it when he tried again, would you have winced in embarrassment?

If George W. Bush had mis-spelled the word "advice" would you have hammered him for it for years like Dan Quayle and potatoe as proof of what a dunce he is?

If George W. Bush had burned 9,000 gallons of jet fuel to go plant a single tree on Earth Day, would you have concluded he's a hypocrite?

If George W. Bush's administration had okayed Air Force One flying low over millions of people followed by a jet fighter in downtown Manhattan causing widespread panic, would you have wondered whether they actually get what happened on 9-11?

If George W. Bush had failed to send relief aid to flood victims throughout the Midwest with more people killed or made homeless than in New Orleans , would you want it made into a major ongoing political issue with claims of racism and incompetence?

If George W. Bush had created the position 32 or more Czars who report directly to him, bypassing the House and Senate on much of what is happening in America , would you have approved.

If George W. Bush had ordered the firing of the CEO of a major corporation, even though he had no constitutional authority to do so, would you have approved?

If George W Bush had proposed to double the national debt, which had taken more than two centuries to accumulate, in one year, would you have approved?

If George W. Bush had then proposed to double the debt again within 10 years, would you have approved?

If George W. Bush had spent more than all the Presidents combined since George Washington, would you have approved?

So, tell me again, what is it about Obama that makes him so brilliant and impressive? Can't think of anything? Don't worry. He's done all this in 10 months -- so you'll have 3 years and 2 months to come up with an answer.

Bush's BIG ERRORS? - Inarticulate defense of capitalism and his own foreign policy. Too long a delay in making decisions to change some cabinet members. Lost focus of domestic issues and allowed the congressional finance leadership under Democrats to continue hiding problems with Fannie and Freddie. (Those are the very leaders who are now in charge of the entire country- and Bush took the fall because -- well -- he WAS president!).

Hitler Finds Out Scott Brown Won Massachusetts Senate Seat

2010-01-20T11:45:00.001-05:00

Government Health Care Points

2010-01-19T09:19:00.001-05:00

American Military Killing Hatians

2010-01-18T14:34:00.000-05:00

Utopian Leftists: American Military
Killing Haitians Through Jingoistic “Priorities” | David Bellavia

You really have to appreciate the "Utopian Left".
Too many trans- fats in the meals provided to Haitians.
No proper regulations in place on MRE content the military is handing out.

The Real Navy

2010-01-16T22:14:00.000-05:00

About Us
An interesting blog from a career navy man.
Like you, I was constantly told during my Navy career to "wait until you get to the real Navy - the Fleet." I spent 30 years in the real Navy. It was the real thing from the first day of recruit training until retirement some 30 years later. It was filled with real Sailors, Chiefs and officers dedicated to fulfilling the Navy's only true mission -

"CONDUCTING SUSTAINED COMBAT OPERATIONS AT SEA."

Prison for Soldier - Terrorist gets Medical Care

2010-01-16T21:30:00.000-05:00

New Page 1
There is something seriously wrong with the execution of this nation's code of military justice - it is being used against the very people it is meant to protect.

I Like The Cut Of His Jib !

2010-01-16T21:20:00.000-05:00

I Like The Cut Of His Jib !!:
Number two in our countdown is Captain Holly A. Graf
- for cruelty and mistreatment
Well, the Navy has some leaders with issues.
Here is a lesson in leadership.
Capt. Bligh might have approved of this officer.
But - She flunked the basics - got the boot.

Christian identity terrorist groups

2010-01-16T21:17:00.000-05:00

Erroll Southers ranting about
Christian identity terrorist groups - Video - YouTube
Obama can really pick 'em.