February 09, 2010
Timothy Birdnow
The next time a liberal tells you that the Constitution is a "living, changing" document, ask them if they would want to sign a home purchase agreement where the bank can raise the APR and fees on their home mortgage AFTER the closing. If they come back with the retort that they are renters, ask if they'd want their lease's monthly rent raised because the landlord decided the lease was a "living" document. If they say they have no lease, well I personally have heard a liberal tour guide complain about two years ago that his landlord raised his non-leased apartment's rent by $100 a month and he wasn't too happy about it. But in all three instances, just tell the liberal that, "I thought you were in favor of 'living' documents." You then also can ask the liberal if they would casually accept Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac telling them that their mortgage has been canceled, the balance of monies due at the end of the month because their loan has been given to someone more deemed more disadvantaged, as part of the "living Constitution" theory they advocate.
Another variation on this reply is asking the liberal that if they are in favor of "living" documents, then they have any objections to the bank changing their fixed rate mortgage to an adjustable rate one. Actually, they've had their chance to support such a "living" document; it is called the Adjustable Rate Mortgage. ARMS generally start out at a very low "teaser" interest rate and increase substantially after the first year. During the peak of the housing boom subprime borrowers were taking out ARMS for those extremely low rate - and defaulted when the rates increased, leading to the bursting of the housing bubble. Liberals excoriated the banks for making these "living" loans. They then demanded that they turn their ARMS into "living documents" by having judges change the terms of repayment to favor the borrower - at the expense of the lender, who would then be quite shy about making loans on the margins in the future.
What about security deposits on apartments? The law in a number of states, for example, limits deposits to double the monthly rent, but perhaps that could be adjusted? Maybe the landlord could require a "refresher" deposit every couple of months? Deposits belong to the tenant, and now must be refunded provided the unit is left in the condition in which it was originally taken. There are cases of "nonrefundable deposits" which is a way of charging higher rent to someone who would be difficult to approve based on a landlord's standards (which have to be consistent by law).
Imagine if a landlord could simply convert a refundable deposit to a nonrefundable one at his whim, claiming the lease were a "living document." And you could ask any liberal in favor of "living documents" if they would have any objections to the landlord raising any parking garage fees or utility rates - or tack condo fees onto the monthly rent without prior agreement.
In fact, why limit this to housing? We can extend this to car loans. Imagine a used or new car salesman calling up a liberal at home and telling them that the Ford or Toyota Camry they just bought has a "living" document clause in its contract and they now owe an extra $40 a month on their payments.
Then they can go to the supermarket and when the bill is totaled at, say $25.50, the cashier can press a "living document for liberals" button - and they now owe the store $35.00 for the groceries.
Imagine college tuition changing mid semester, with the student being forced to come up with more money or drop out of school.
Wait a minute. The prices used to change like that in the Wiemar Republic. And so did the human rights.
What if the value of a dollar changed like that? What if a dollar would only be worth 70 cents tomorrow? Oh, wait, we've already see that. In Wiemar Germany, especially; it took a wheelbarrow of money to buy a loaf of bread, and employers had to give random "pay breaks" so their employees could rush out and purchase an item while their money was still good enough to buy it. "Living" money gave the world Adolf Hitler.
What if traffic laws were living documents? Today's speed is 55 mph, but tomorrow a traffic committee will decide on a new lower speed limit without bothering to change the sign. Tickets will, of course, be issued for every violation. What if we change the meaning of red, yellow, and green on stoplights? Change which side of the road we will drive on?
A "living" Constitution - like a "living" mortgage - can be deadly.
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Dana Mathewson
Don't go abroad and get into trouble. Our State Department won't give you any help these days, apparently.
http://www.urgentagenda.com/PERMALINKS%20V/FEBRUARY%202010/07.HAITI.HTML
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Timothy Birdnow
Brian forwards this piece from Newsmax. http://newsmax.com/InsideCover/obama-global-warming-agency/2010/02/08/id/349286
It never ceases to amaze the way liberals ignore the facts in favor of their agenda. Anthropogenic Global Warming has been seriously cast in doubt by the recent blockbuster reports of temperature manipulation and peer review censorship, yet Obama plans to move forward with the creation of a "climate change" agency. Note this is not a committee, but an agency, something that will be here in 3010 if the country is still around after this guy's presidency.
Here's a brief excerpt:
WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration on Monday proposed a new agency to study and report on the changing climate.
Also known as global warming, climate change has drawn widespread concern in recent years as temperatures around the world rise, threatening to harm crops, spread disease, increase sea levels, change storm and drought patterns and cause polar melting.
Commerce Secretary Gary Locke and Jane Lubchenco, head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, announced NOAA will set up the new Climate Service to operate in tandem with NOAA's National Weather Service and National Ocean Service.
"Whether we like it or not, climate change represents a real threat," Locke said Monday at a news conference.
Lubchenco added, "Climate change is real, it's happening now." She said climate information is vital to the wind power industry, coastal community planning, fishermen and fishery managers, farmers and public health officials.
END EXCERPT
It is interesting to note that the plan is to place all studies of climate change under one roof; this is how Phil Jones and his cronies were so easily capable of manipulating data. What is needed is a more dispersed research establishment, not more concentrated. Falsifiability and fact checking are the cornerstone of science, and an overly cosy relationship breeds deception. Jones, by virtue of controlling land based data and the codes used to calibrate and process satellite data, has been able to deceive the entire climate establishment and the public. Had NASA's Goddard Institute not been controlled by a fellow traveler he would never have gotten away with it, but Jones and Hansen appear to have been working in tandem, fudging data discreetly. Naturally, scientists used this data with good faith, and many believed that global warming was real, and the only explanation they could see for the anomalous temperature data was that it was being driven by human industrial activity. It WAS being driven by humans, but by manipulation of ones and zeros inside a sophisticated machine. We no longer know anything about the last twenty years, since we cannot tell which data is true and which manipulated.
Obama's plan is to gather all research into one easily locked room, a place where deceptions can be manufactured and "deniars" will find it difficult to disprove the lies. NOAA was involved in it's own scandal, after all. http://www.dailytech.com/New+Scandal+Erupts+over+NOAA+Climate+Data/article8347.htm
The foxes have been put in charge of the henhouses.
Such a move should hardly surprise; the great Global Warming scheme is bleeding heavily, and something must be done to stop it. There was guaranteed to be a desperate attempt to stuff the genie back into the lamp (the genie being the truth about data manipulation), to rebuild the monopoly on the discussion that the Gang Green held. Whether they can be successful is in doubt, but it is not impossible. The public is unaware of the magnitude of the scandals, and likely wouldn't bother to understand if they knew. It would not be too difficult to rebuild the control they had with a new face or two. Now, they have to find a way to get the scientists back on board.
Dana Mathewson and I were discussing what will come next if AGW peters out. I suspect the discussion will change from temperature to ocean acidification; that way they can use the narrative they have created while changing from the discredited temperature data. Of course, there is no evidence of ocean acidification, either, but that can be addressed easily enough. We'll have pictures of ugly-looking coral reefs and hysterical rants about how fish are disappearing from certain habitats, and if they drum this up enough the public will fall for it. Find a mangy polar bear, claim it was burned by acid, and you will have the tweens writing letters for the Sierra Club. It was no coincidence that Al Gore spoke of an acid sea and "Neptunes bOnes dissolve" in his ridiculous climate change poem. Gore is a politician, and understands the need to equivocate.
This whole thing is a sham.
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February 08, 2010
“If the IPCC wasn’t there, why would anyone be worried about climate change?”
Ra
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Brian forwards this:
Interesting backlash... a revival of State's Rights.
Fred Fernandez forwarded a version of this to me... Turns out that it is pretty much all true, as you can see from the "truth or fiction and "snopes" website links", or just by googling each of the referenced bills.
http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/o/oklahoma-laws.htm
http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/pending/oklahoma.asp
And just in case some idiot tries to confuse the subject; no, the reference to "save your confederate money" doesn't have anything to do with racism. It's about a revival of State's Rights, and a backlash against an out of control Federal Government.
C. R. Grizzle
An update from Oklahoma :
Oklahoma law passed, 37 to 9, had a few liberals in the mix, an amendment to place the Ten Commandments on the front entrance to the state capitol. The feds in D.C., along with the ACLU, said it would be a mistake. Hey this is a conservative state, based on Christian values...! HB 1330
Guess what.......... Oklahoma did it anyway.
Oklahoma recently passed a law in the state to incarcerate all illegal immigrants, and ship them back to where they came from unless they want to get a green card and become an American citizen. They all scattered. HB 1804. Hope we didn't send any of them to your state. This was against the advice of the Federal Government, and the ACLU, they said it would be a mistake.
Guess what.......... Oklahoma did it anyway.
Recently we passed a law to include DNA samples from any and all illegals to the Oklahoma database, for criminal investigative purposes. SB 1102
Several weeks ago, we passed a law, declaring Oklahoma as a Sovereign state, not under the Federal Government directives. Joining Texas , Montana and Utah as the only states to do so. More states are likely to follow: Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia , the Carolina's, Tennessee, Kentucky, Missouri, Arkansas, West Virginia, Mississippi, Florida. Save your confederate money, it appears the South is about to rise up once again. HJR 1003
The federal Government has made bold steps to take away our guns.. Oklahoma, a week ago, passed a law confirming people in this state have the right to bear arms and transport them in their vehicles. I'm sure that was a set back for the criminals (and Obamaites). Liberals didn't like it -- But ....
Guess what............ Oklahoma did it anyway.
Just this month, the state has voted and passed a law that ALL driver's license exams will be printed in English, and only English, and no other language. They have been called racist for doing this, but the fact is that ALL of the road signs are in English only. If you want to drive in Oklahoma , you must read and write English. Really simple. Offends a lot of politically correct people...
Guess what....who cares... Oklahoma is doing it anyway.
To Verify:
http://newsok.com/oklahoma-state-capitol-to-display-ten-commandments/article/3370730 ;
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-01-09-immigcover_N.htm
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7lb Dave sent this to me:
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who flies around on private planes so as to tell larger numbers of people how they must live their lives in order to save the planet, wrote a column last year on the lack of winter weather in Washington, D.C.http://www.robertfkennedyjr.com/articles/2008_sep_Los_angeles_times.html
"In Virginia, the weather also has changed dramatically. Recently arrived residents in the northern suburbs, accustomed to today's anemic winters, might find it astonishing to learn that there were once ski runs on Ballantrae Hill in McLean, with a rope tow and local ski club. Snow is so scarce today that most Virginia children probably don't own a sled. But neighbors came to our home at Hickory Hill nearly every winter weekend to ride saucers and Flexible Flyers.
In those days, I recall my uncle, President Kennedy, standing erect as he rode a toboggan in his top coat, never faltering until he slid into the boxwood at the bottom of the hill. Once, my father, Atty. Gen. Robert Kennedy, brought a delegation of visiting Eskimos home from the Justice Department for lunch at our house. They spent the afternoon building a great igloo in the deep snow in our backyard. My brothers and sisters played in the structure for several weeks before it began to melt. On weekend afternoons, we commonly joined hundreds of Georgetown residents for ice skating on Washington's C&O Canal, which these days rarely freezes enough to safely skate.
Meanwhile, Exxon Mobil and its carbon cronies continue to pour money into think tanks whose purpose is to deceive the American public into believing that global warming is a fantasy."
end excerpt
Having shoveled my walk five times in the midst of this past weekend's extreme cold and blizzard, I think perhaps RFK, Jr. should leave weather analysis to the meteorologists instead of trying to attribute every global phenomenon to anthropogenic climate change.
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A conservative website or movement can't just be a "Forty Plus Club" for middle aged conservatives to hang out and preach to the choir. We need, in some way, to provide a conduit to address - indirectly or directly - the younger generation and tell them the truth about American values and Constitutional rights. We need a "fulcrum to the future," otherwise high school kids will only get chances to be interns in the Obama Youth movement.
For example, an audience member in this video talks about her child having to watch CNN School News and answer a survey with such questions as, "Do you think that Americans should have the right to own property?"
I don't know what form(s) this could take, but see the video and show it to your friends who have kids in school.
http://www.pjtv.com/video/Tea_Party_Convention_2010/The_Next_Generation%3A_How_The_Tea_Parties_Can_Energize_The_Youth_Vote/3044/
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February 07, 2010
by Kyle-Anne Shiver • January 28, 2010
(This first appeared at Kyle-Anne's website http://www.kyleanneshiver.com/2010/01/28/who-likes-obamas-plan-to-bring-terrorists-to-our-backyards/)
Anyone who ran a business the way this president runs his administration would have been standing in line at a soup kitchen six months ago. Honestly, watching this president make one brazen decision after another, without so much as asking those who’ll have to do the heavy lifting whether they’re on board, before he goes on record with another speech has been just plain painful.
News came out today that the president has asked the Justice Department to find other possible venues for the 9/11 plotters’ civilian trials. New York’s mayor Bloomberg, the New York governor and just about every Democrat pol in charge up there have finally convinced these incompetent administrators that the people of NYC do not want, nor are they going to stand for the shenanigans of a terror trial blocks away from the 9/11 attacks. Both Republican and Democratic congressmen have mounted a strong effort to refuse funding - predicted to be in the tens of millions — for this foolhardy trial, too.
I’m plum sure cities from coast to coast will be lining up for the honor, aren’t you? Cities fighting 10% and rising unemployment, cities faced with melting revenues, cities already stretched to the max with this president’s foolish economic policies are just going to be jumping at the chance to spend millions they don’t have to put on civilian trials for people who don’t deserve them. Right.
What CEO makes a grandstanding decision like this one without first getting everyone involved fully on board? None.
Which is just another reason why people with postage-stamp sized resumes do not become CEOs.
Now, I wonder how long it’s going to be before the good people of Illinois stand up in open rebellion against this administration’s plan to send Gitmo terrorists to a rural Illinois prison. As much as liberals and their bands of anti-everything-Bush demonstrators have denounced Gitmo, they seem to have utterly failed to understand the realities involved. If one does not have Gitmo, safely separated from the American mainland, then those terrorists have to go somewhere.
And, just like the NYC terror trials are proving to be, closing Gitmo has posed dire problems, evidently completely unanticipated by our teleprompted movie star in the Oval Office. The only way he has been able to get any other country to take handfuls of these terrorists is to bribe them with US aid dollars.
Now, Obama plans to send a couple hundred of these terrorists to rural Illinois, but hasn’t thought through what that will mean for the citizens there. Jack Kemp has a very insightful essay on what kinds of hardships Illinois citizens will soon be facing if this foolhardy plan of the president’s goes through. Like in Israel, whose citizens face this kind of thing every day, American towns will see armed guards on their playgrounds, armed guards in their grocery stores and restaurants, and will face having their homes with round-the-clock bull’s-eyes painted on them, just waiting for the rogue jihadist who wants to shake things up in the little town hosting his imprisoned pals.
Kemp knows all about this kind of life. He spent years in Israel.
Read all about his predictions on what we can expect once Obama brings terrorists to our own backyards. It’s an eye-opening account.
http://www.projectshiningcity.org/fp106.php
Once again, nobody with a grain of common sense thought this harebrained scheme through to its logical conclusion.
Unbelievable.
A bunch of highly educated fools are running this Country. Hold onto your hats and load up on ammunition.
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Dana Mathewson
Liberals, of course, will disagree. This author maintains that Ronald Reagan was the greatest president of the 20th Century, and defends his position well.
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Dana Mathewson
This guy -- in the WaPo, no less -- dissects the way liberals think. I don't think you'll be totally surprised with the results.
--
"Don't tell other people your problems. 90% don't care and the other 10% are glad you have them." -- Bob Popyk (Note: this doesn't apply to family!)
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Dana Mathewson
Sorry, folks -- I flat-out could not resist writing that headline. But India has pulled out of the UN IPCC, the group headed by its own leading scientist Dr R.K Pachauri (who, as I'm sure you know, is resisting calls to resign). Instead, India has established its own body to monitor the effects of global warming -- if it finds them.
The cookie is crumbling. If you go to the link above, you will find links to other articles.
Eventually, it may be that the only people left believing in AGW are Al and (maybe) Tipper Gore, plus Barack, Michelle, Sasha and Malia Obama. And perhaps those other long-time experts on hot air, Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi.
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Dana Mathewson
I think this indicates we must take guns out of the hands... of police detectives. Fer sherr.
Metropolitan (Wash. D.C.) Police Detective pulls car over, gets out, waves gun, because his car is hit by...
SNOWBALLS -- during big blizzard in DC. That's right, folks. The capital city is getting hit big-time with snow, and citizens are having fun throwing snowballs at each other. (Doubtlessly because no congress-critters are available?)
Guess some of the cops can't handle the idea!
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A Turkish girl was buried alive. Why? Just because she talked to boys. Well, I guess that's one way to keep your kids under control. (Gag) http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2010/02/025540.php
Hey, Obama: These people didn't contribute to the development of this country, or the Free / Western World. Get it through that thick head of yours, and soon!
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Mike H, a friend and pretty sharp guy, dropped me this e-mail, and he makes a case that will appeal to many, although I think it is flawed when analysed more closely.Below is his argument about the national debt and my rather lengthy response:
Is it foolish to be massively in debt? Ask the wealthiest men in America..
The U.S. Congress recently decided to raise our national debt limit by around twelve percent -- borrowing almost two trillion dollars to invest in infrastructure, services, and economic development they hope will expand the flagging American economy over the next decade. Is this a good idea? Before you decide, take a look at the debt loads of a few highly profitable enterprises. All data are from Forbes.com 2009 annual reports.
Corporate Debt in Billions:
WalMart: 172 Billion
Proctor and Gamble: 135 Billion
Microsoft: 77 Billion
Apple Computer: 53 Billion
Intel: 53 Billion
Coca-Cola: 40 Billion
Pepsi: 38 Billion
McDonalds: 30 Billion
Best Buy: 15 Billion
Do these corporations have a plan to eliminate these massive debts? Absolutely not.
The bulk of corporate debt consists of money borrowed from investors by selling stock. Investors earn interest on this debt in the form of quarterly dividends. Far from planning to pay off these enormous debts, successful companies like Walmart and Coca-Cola go further into debt all the time: selling additional shares whenever they need money to build new stores, launch new soft-drinks and fast-food chains, or to finance new factories and technology. This new debt goes on the bottom of the balance sheet and companies pay dividend interest on it forever. They turn a profit on their debt by paying less in dividends than they collect from the activities they funded with the borrowed money. Not only do they not need to pay off this debt, but their creditors don't even want them to. Their shareholders are all too happy to collect tidy dividends from a successful business for all eternity.
When the government raised the debt limit they authorized the sale of additional Treasury Bills, in essence issuing new shares of stock in America.
The important question to ask now is not whether we are issuing too many shares of America, but rather what will America do with the new capital we have raised. Will we use it like a college student with a new credit card, to buy cafe mocha latte's and trips to the movies? Or will we invest it like Proctor and Gamble and Coca-Cola to realize returns many times greater than the 4% interest that we pay to our shareholders?
Hi Mike! Good to hear from you; I was just thinking of dropping you an e-mail.
This is an interesting argument,but is rather mixing apples and oranges. Joint stock companies are not governments, after all, and their issuing stocks to grow is essentially allowing outsiders to buy into the company, while government issuing bonds more closely resembles a pyramid scheme - think Bernie Madoff with a military force and Congress. Governments use the money they receive for different purposes and ends, and they do not produce any goods and few services of any value. Government is about LAW after all, and not service, and feeding government merely feeds a restraining entity in it's quest to restrain. A government produces by moving money from point a to point b, rather than actually creating. A business cannot expand without outside capital, and that capital comes from people who believe the business asking for the financing will grow and make a profit for them. "Investments" in government are done for a very different reason, namely, that governments control the rate of interest and the money supply, and so it is a safe investment in that a government will simply not default. Stock investors know they are taking a risk, but they do so because they believe in the company in question. Businesses are positive entities; they must produce something of value. Governments are largely negative entitites; they are primarily to restrain the citizenry. Oh, I will grant that there are some projects run (horrendously inefficiently) by government, such as road construction, but generally even that is contracted out to private businesses because they can do the work far more efficiently.
Also, private businesses are accountable in many ways to overseers who regularly audit their books and whatnot, and while graft and corruption exists, it is far more restrained than in government where sticky fingers cling to most of the dollars passing to any project. Money earmarked for a given function rarely makes it to that function - the classic example is the Social Security "lockbox" which is filled with money earmarked for SS but then money is removed from said box and placed into general revenue. People would go to jail for such activity, but it is business as usual for Congress. Consider, too, baseline budgeting; your department is budgeted based on what you spent last year plus adjustment for inflation. No private company could possibly operate in that fashion, yet that is how government works. Naturally, every penny is spent because it is incentivized to do so. A private business would be in receivership.
So the debt serves a different purpose in government than in business. There is no way to stop it, and eventually it will lead to a collapse of the economy. Wiemar Germany proved that point; the German government had to do something, and they ran the printing presses. It took a wheelbarrow of cash to buy a loaf of bread! The German economy completely stopped, with barter becoming the standard of trade, rather than cash. Of course, that gave Germany Hitler...
A private company cannot do that. It either sinks or swims based on it's debt to profit ratio. There are clear ceilings to corporate debt.
That is precisely why we have a "bubble" in a sector of the economy; debt to profit ratios get out of balance. The tech bubble, for instance, saw computer and internet companies growing via stock investment without actually producing anything. Eventually people realized that these were bad investments and stopped buying, and suddenly the investors were stuck with worthless stock. We can go back further, to the stock market crash of 1929 and see the same effect. It is also obvious with the real estate bubble; loans were being made on property that could not secure those loans, because the market was overvalued and to people who could not pay those loans back. This was being driven by 1.the Community Reinvestment Act and Fannie/Freddie pushing subprime loans 2. the aggressive enforcement of "redlining" laws 3.the bursting of the tech bubble leading investors into "safe" investments like mortgages and 4. the Bush Administration policies of a weak dollar and low interest rates to encourage investment. Note that all of these forces were government driven in some fashion. Even the tech bubble can be laid at the feet of government, as it was the antitrust suit against Microsoft that triggered the collapse. That is not to say greed was not a part of the problem, but with huge amounts of money involved the tendency for fingers to exude Elmers tends to become exaserbated. How much more so does that happen when the money involved is not in the millions but the trillions? Fannie and Freddie were giving gargantuan amounts of campaign cash to Congresscrooks - especially Chris Dodd (number 1 recipient) and Barack Obama (#2). John McCain's snoot was heavily in that trough, too. Fan and Fred could get away with this because they were governmental entities, and could spend years cooking their books. Congress hid this for them.There are some who think the bubble burst may have been an October Surprise, and there certainly is a case to be made; the collapse may have been eminent, but the timing of the collapse was, uh, most fortunate when one looks at the beneficiary. Certainly the Republicans had tried to push reforms for Fan and Fred the prior year and were told by Barney Frank and others that these institutions were rock solid and they were engaged in a "lynching" of Fan's chair Franklin Raines.
The rest of the mortgage industry followed Fan and Fred's example, as they follow the Fed in setting interest rates. They don't HAVE to do it, but they do if they wish to do business with the U.S. government.
The government has no such problems; they know they can make more if they run out of money.
So there really is a difference - and a huge one - between government and private business. I think this example may seem sensible, but it is ultimately mixing apples and oranges. Some government debt is acceptable but it went out of control under Bush the W. and has simply exploded into something unsustainable today. Frankly, Mike, I don't think there is any way we can dig ourselves out of this. I would suggest a solid investment - a wheelbarrow. It will come in handy down the road for making bread runs.
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February 06, 2010
Timothy Birdnow
Barack Hussein Obama (mmm, mmm, good - can't you just see the chubby Campbell's soup kids every time you watch him http://www.tvacres.com/admascots_campbells.htm) never makes a move without some ulterior purpose. Our Commander-in-Chef now has his wife, the lovely and dangerously-armed (what gives with this arm obsession in the media?) Michelle cooking up some new liberal scheme to feed his favorite food - greenbacks - to a few of his faithful friends, and he is doing it while claiming to be working for the public welfare.
According to Michelle Malkin http://www.gopusa.com/commentary/mmalkin/2010/mm_02031.shtml
"Behind every seemingly good deed in the Obama White House, there's a deep-pocketed, left-wing special interest. Take first lady Michelle Obama's crusade against childhood obesity. Who really benefits from the ostensible push for improved nutrition in the schools? Think purple -- as in the purple-shirted army of the Service Employees International Union. Big Labor bigwigs don't care about slimming your kids' waistlines. They care about beefing up their membership rolls and fattening their coffers.
Mrs. Obama earned a State of the Union address shout-out from her hubby for taking on the weighty public policy issue of students' physical fitness. The East Wing is now in full campaign mode -- leaning on the nation's mayors, traveling with the surgeon general and meeting with Congress and cabinet members to reauthorize the Lyndon Johnson-era Child Nutrition Act, which provides government-subsidized meals to more than 30 million children. It's part of the Obama administration's self-proclaimed "cradle-to-career" agenda for America's youth."
[...]
"What's in it for Big Labor? SEIU Executive Vice President Mitch Ackerman explains: "A more robust expansion of school lunch, breakfast, summer feeding, child care and WIC (the federal Women, Infants and Children nutrition program) is critical to reducing hunger, ending childhood obesity and (SET ITAL) providing fair wages and healthcare for front line food service workers (END ITAL)(emphasis added)."
There are 400,000 workers who prepare and serve lunch to American schoolchildren. SEIU represents tens of thousands of those workers and is trying to unionize many more. "More robust expansion" of the federal school-lunch law means a mandate for higher wages, increased benefits and government-guaranteed health insurance coverage (the more luxurious the better now that SEIU has negotiated its Cadillac Tax exemption from the Democrats' health care takeover bill)."
End excerpts
So, big bottoms mean big bucks for Big Labor, and America's chief cook and bottle emptier can see that his friends have plenty of greens in their diet. Our would-be Caesar has prepared a buffet greenback salad for organized labor.
This is an example of the nose of the camel entering the tent; government can demand the right to control America's diet because of government schools. Since government funds education government believes (wrongly, as the money to do this funding comes from taxpayers) that they can dictate how children should eat. Once the premise is established that government feeds our children, then the camel has moved into the tent.
I wrote a piece for American Thinker a number of years back explaining the desire by the Left to control and change the American diet. http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/01/wheres_the_beef.html
I actually did not go far enough; part of the purpose for changing the American diet was - and is - to change our culture, to create a world culture with a world cuisine. There is something in liberals that longs for amalgamation. David Horowitz made that plain in his autobiographical "Radical Son"; his parents wanted worldwide socialism because they felt alienated, and they believed they could create a world where everyone felt part of the society and culture. Of course, their efforts to bring about this uber-community meant a rejection of the society and culture that they lived in, which fostered further alienation, which made them more determined to destroy the culture which led to even more alienation...
Changing our diets has been an integral part of changing our culture; the hope is to create a cuisine that transcends boundaries and cultures, to make Americans feel not so much a part of the American cultural experience as part of a truly international order. What we eat, how we dress, how we speak, what we read and watch, those are the building blocks of who we are and how we see ourselves. If those things can be changed, if a new culture can be created, then these old "tribal" notions can be eroded. Eventually we will be citizens of the world, and then there will be peace and happiness, at least according to the left.
It's why George Soros' father was so keen on Esperanto, an artificial language; he wanted to change how we communicate, and even how we think. (Soros means "to soar" in Esperanto.) It's part of the popularity among liberals of certain fashions, such as fatigues, or Mao jackets, or Che t-shirts. It explains the campaigns against wearing fur. This is about changing our culture as much as anything.
Now, I have little doubt that Commander-in-Chief Boy-Ardee wants to do this work of remaking America, but should he not find some profit in it as well? Leftists are great at finding personal priviledge from their altruism, and so the O has found a way for his chums to profit off of changing America's diet.
If they are worried about weight, perhaps a return to Judeo-Christian values is in order? One of the Seven Deadly Sins was gluttony, after all. If this were about health, the concept of overeating would be front and center. It's not, which tells me that there is far more than meets the eye.
Welcome to the feeding trough!
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Kylie-Anne Shiver is a regular contributor to American Thinker and Pajamas Media. This painfully personal account of molestation took great courage for her to write, and deserves to be read by everyone who casually dismisses the term "tea bagger" as a harmless ribald insult.
http://www.kyleanneshiver.com/2010/01/22/are-liberals-encouraging-pedophiles-with-their-tea-bagger-epithet-you-decide/
Are Liberals Encouraging Pedophiles with their “Tea-Bagger” Epithet? You Decide.
by Kyle-Anne Shiver • January 22, 2010
Reader Beware! This article is for adults only. It’s not for the timid, squeamish or otherwise easily offended reader either. It contains explicit, graphic sexual descriptions. Any reader who objects to such subjects in the public forum should send a special note of complaint to mainstream media outlets and liberal politicians, as they are responsible for making this discussion absolutely necessary for the protection of our children.
Public commentators with huge, primetime audiences now use the phrase, “tea-bagging,” with utter impunity. Formerly respectable newspapers print columns by liberals using the phrase with perverse humor. NPR has even used donor dollars to produce a video making fun of the language of “tea bag.” The president of the United States has had the unrivaled depravity to joke about “tea-bagging” protesters. Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has called political adversaries by the epithet. Some conservatives have suggested adopting the phrase and turning it on political opponents.
I wonder whether any of these adults have considered a far uglier ramification.
Using sexual innuendo and double entendres is very tricky, quite risky business. And all grown-ups ought to know that anything sexual, which has been done between adults, has also been done to children.
Pedophilia has become nearly downright epidemic in this culture. We are living in a society saturated by unbridled sex. A new generation of pedophiles is now ginning up and getting all possible encouragement by a media and body politic drunk with power.
If so-called decent people and organizations wish to continue using the phrase, “tea-bagging,” in formerly respectable public forums, then they ought to know exactly what they are doing and how much grievous damage it is causing to those of us who have actually been “tea-bagged” by our pedophilic tormenters. And how much damage they may be doing — at this very minute — to children being “tea-bagged” by sexual predators in the present.
You see, “tea-bagging” is the pedophile’s very best friend and ally. I know this because it was used against me. I’ve studied the issue of childhood sexual abuse and know that this vile deed against children is not as uncommon as some believe. In fact, according to the most recent findings, about one in every four American women was sexually abused in some fashion as a child. About one in five American men were as well. Few of us talk about it openly; I’m sure you can understand why.
Now, let’s examine “tea-bagging,” which has become the liberal punditry’s favorite insult against conservatives. Are they, in reality, encouraging pedophiles?
For those, who still remain blissfully unaware, “tea-bagging” is the homosexual slang for a man placing his scrotum in the mouth of another man. It’s meant to demonstrate domination and has sadomasochistic overtones. Perhaps the term itself did originate among adult homosexual males, but the act is, in reality, the pedophile’s diabolical delight.
Writing as one who was, as a child, repeatedly “tea-bagged” by a bisexual pedophile, I can honestly say that every time I read or hear the expression, I still - to this very day - tremble with fear and self-loathing.
“Tea-Bagging” is scathingly brilliant in its tri-fold purpose.
First, the act defiles natural human sexuality and removes the beauty with which God imbued it.
Second, the act renders the victim immediately silent. The victim’s best defense against a sexual predator is speaking the truth to alert other adults. The simpleminded act of “tea-bagging” quite reliably squelches a child’s screaming and calls for help. The victim’s only ally is her mouth; “tea-bagging” is the pedophile’s perfect solution to this thorny problem.
Third, the act of “tea-bagging” has the rather remarkable effect of rendering the child victim immediately submissive. First, there is the physical size differential. The large, adult male scrotum in the delicate, small child’s mouth (and usually, covering the nose as well) gives the immediate impression to the child that she is being smothered. The torment and defilement of the act, perpetrated upon an innocent child, veritably ensures that the child will remain acquiescent to the predator’s future actions.
And there you have it. This is hardly the stuff of jokes.
The pedophile uses “tea-bagging” to bring another innocent to the dark side, her only defense - her voice - silenced in shame.
Shame.
It stalks its victims for their whole lives. No matter where we go or what we do or how much we accomplish, the memory of defilement by the tormentor’s “tea-bag” never leaves. These memories are recorded, along with the trauma, in the senses and remain entrenched. The shame seems nearly imbedded in the cells, as though it has become part and parcel of one’s soul, not to be completely extinguished until one’s passing from this life.
Shame on our Country for allowing this kind of perversity to enter the public forum. Shame on every enabler of this evil, whether on the public airwaves or in print media. Every decent American ought to be fiercely outraged by this blatant encouragement to pedophile perpetrators.
You see, the pedophile plays adroit mind games with his victim, always attempting to persuade him or her that these acts are not only acceptable, but fun. Victims, both former and present, are now being doubly abused by this public spectacle.
Nightmares. Flashbacks. Difficulty eating. Difficulty speaking. Self-imposed solitude, the result of our everlasting fear of people. These are just some of the milder, most personal trappings of adult life for the survivors of childhood sexual abuse.
For the little child victims, who now - at this very minute — are being subjected to the torture of “tea-bagging” by sexual predators, I can only pray and weep. And speak out on their behalf.
As so-called adults continue to joke about these children’s agonizing torment on television, these young victims are being doubly abused - now. Just imagine the anguished confusion of an eight year old victim of a sexual predator, who accesses Urban Dictionary, identifies with the secret deed, then hears commentators joking about it on TV. The child understands it is no joke, but looks to adults for clarification and understanding. When adults joke about this kind of torment, the resulting confusion in the child sows seeds for later mental breakdowns, drug abuse, life-threatening promiscuity, suicidal thinking and acts, sexual criminal activity. And on and on the list goes.
Children are being victimized every day under our very noses.
Right here. Right now. Perhaps even behind the closed doors of the lovely home next door. Pedophiles are found in every race, creed and socio-economic group. They cross all boundaries and are often those whom one would least suspect of the heinous crime. A teacher. A priest or minister. A father. A scout leader. A neighbor. An uncle. A brother. A coach. A TV personality or movie star. Pedophiles thrive in darkness and prey on the most vulnerable among us, our precious children.
Sadly, some children who are thusly defiled, grow up to identify with their abusers. Some of the very people making the most fun with this sexual slang were quite likely child victims, who now attempt to hide their shame in either joking about it or actually perpetrating the crime on a new generation. There is no way to know for sure. Only about 3% of those who commit sexual offenses are reported and eventually convicted. It is a crime that thrives in secrecy. And pedophiles always know that these odds are on their side, not their victim’s side.
At the very, very least, these liberal enablers must be apprised of the true extent of grievous injury they have brought - and continue to bring — to scores of victims through their adolescent insensitivity. And no conservative ought to even consider adopting the phrase, for in truth, its use defiles not the intended butt of the joke, but the perpetrator.
Anyone who thinks “tea-bagging” is a cute joke, needs to think twice. Anyone who thinks calling his political foes “tea-baggers” is funny, might want to reconsider.
For, in reality, pedophilia is no laughing matter.
For more information on childhood sexual abuse, here is a good website:
http://www.leadershipcouncil.org/1/res/csa_myths.html
And another: http://www.advocatesforyouth.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=410&Itemid=336
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Dana Mathewson
Hint: this is another one that doesn't support it. Perhaps I should be sending these to idiots@whitehouse.gov?
http://www.urgentagenda.com/PERMALINKS%20V/FEBRUARY%202010/05.DUTCH.HTML
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February 05, 2010
Timothy Birdnow
Well, it's finally happened; NASA has admitted that the sun is a variable star, and that changes in solar irradiance may well effect the Earth's climate.
This excerpt from NASA.gov:
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2010/05feb_sdo.htm?list1010788
For some years now, an unorthodox idea has been gaining favor among astronomers. It contradicts old teachings and unsettles thoughtful observers, especially climatologists.
"The sun," explains Lika Guhathakurta of NASA headquarters in Washington DC, "is a variable star."
But it looks so constant...
That's only a limitation of the human eye. Modern telescopes and spacecraft have penetrated the sun's blinding glare and found a maelstrom of unpredictable turmoil. Solar flares explode with the power of a billion atomic bombs. Clouds of magnetized gas (CMEs) big enough to swallow planets break away from the stellar surface. Holes in the sun's atmosphere spew million mile-per-hour gusts of solar wind.
And those are the things that can happen in just one day.
Over longer periods of decades to centuries, solar activity waxes and wanes with a complex rhythm that researchers are still sorting out. The most famous "beat" is the 11-year sunspot cycle, described in many texts as a regular, clockwork process. In fact, it seems to have a mind of its own.
"It's not even 11 years," says Guhathakurtha. "The cycle ranges in length from 9 to 12 years. Some cycles are intense, with many sunspots and solar flares; others are mild, with relatively little solar activity. In the 17th century, during a period called the 'Maunder Minimum,' the cycle appeared to stop altogether for about 70 years and no one knows why."
There is no need to go so far back in time, however, to find an example of the cycle's unpredictability. Right now the sun is climbing out of a century-class solar minimum that almost no one anticipated.
"The depth of the solar minimum in 2008-2009 really took us by surprise," says sunspot expert David Hathaway of the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. "It highlights how far we still have to go to successfully forecast solar activity."
That's a problem, because human society is increasingly vulnerable to solar flare ups. Modern people depend on a network of interconnected high-tech systems for the basics of daily life. Smart power grids, GPS navigation, air travel, financial services, emergency radio communications—they can all be knocked out by intense solar activity. According to a 2008 study by the National Academy of Sciences, a century-class solar storm could cause twenty times more economic damage than Hurricane Katrina.
Right: Areas of the USA vulnerable to power system collapse in response to an extreme geomagnetic storm. Source: National Academy of Sciences. [more]
"Understanding solar variability is crucial," says space scientist Judith Lean of the Naval Research Lab in Washington DC. "Our modern way of life depends upon it."
[...]
Astronomers were once so convinced of the sun's constancy, they called the irradiance of the sun "the solar constant," and they set out to measure it as they would any constant of Nature. By definition, the solar constant is the amount of solar energy deposited at the top of Earth's atmosphere in units of watts per meter-squared. All wavelengths of radiation are included—radio, infrared, visible light, ultraviolet, x-rays and so on. The approximate value of the solar constant is 1361 W/m2.
Clouds, atmospheric absorption and other factors complicate measurements from Earth's surface, so NASA has taken the measuring devices to space. Today, VIRGO, ACRIM and SORCE are making measurements with precisions approaching 10 parts per million per year. Future instruments scheduled for flight on NASA's Glory and NOAA's NPOESS spacecraft aim for even higher precisions.
To the amazement of many researchers, the solar constant has turned out to be not constant.
"'Solar constant' is an oxymoron," says Judith Lean of the Naval Research Lab. "Satellite data show that the sun's total irradiance rises and falls with the sunspot cycle by a significant amount."
At solar maximum, the sun is about 0.1% brighter than it is at solar minimum. That may not sound like much, but consider the following: A 0.1% change in 1361 W/m2 equals 1.4 Watts/m2. Averaging this number over the spherical Earth and correcting for Earth's reflectivity yields 0.24 Watts for every square meter of our planet.
"Add it all up and you get a lot of energy," says Lean. "How this might affect weather and climate is a matter of—at times passionate—debate."
End excerpt
The claim that this is a new idea that is just gaining ground is untrue, however; astronomers have known about this variability for decades, first being postulated in the the late 19th century and gaining major traction in the 1960's. According to an article by the AGU http://www.agu.org/history/sv/articles/ARTL.html:
"This long search reached a turning point in the 1960s, when convincing evidence of solar variability and of correlation between solar variation and climate change first became available. In 1961 Minze Stuiver found evidence of solar variability in 14C variations in the tree-ring record over the past millenium [Stuiver, 1961]: at times of greater solar activity the solar wind and its magnetic field shield the earth from 14C-generating cosmic rays, resulting in lower 14C absorption by living organisms. Later studies of the preceding 7.5 millennia revealed fluctuations in 14C concentration implying that variations in solar activity comparable to Maunder Minimum are commonplace over scales of 100 to 1000 years. Studies of 10Be have established proxy records of longer-term solar variability. [Hoyt and Schatten, 1997.]
Secondly, in the late '60s the first measurements of solar irradiation were made from above the atmosphere. These and subsequent space-based measurements, far more sensitive than had been possible from ground-based platforms and relying on the most advanced instrumentation, showed that the solar "constant" did indeed vary. However, the time scale involved was too short to support conclusions about long-term climatic change. [Hufbauer, 1991]
John Eddy tied all these threads together in a now-famous paper of 1976. Examining the historical record, he argued that the current patterns of solar regularity and reliability -- an 11-year solar cycle and a constant level of radiation -- may likely be ephemeral phenomena amid a longer-term record of solar variability. Records of 14C and of naked-eye sightings of auroras, sunspots, and the solar corona all point to earlier minimums and at least one maximum of solar activity in the past 2000 years. These maxima and minima, Eddy claimed, coincide with periods of climatic extreme -- the Little Ice Age of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and the Medieval Climatic Optimum of the eleventh through thirteenth centuries.
Eddy's claims met with considerable scepticism, but evidence for solar variability and its influence on climate has become firmer over the last two decades. While Vladimir K–ppen had attempted a determination of global temperature in the early decades of this century, the first reliable estimates appeared in the early 1960s. In the mid-1980s P.D. Jones, T.M.L. Wigley and others made available the first global syntheses of surface-temperature measurements over both land and oceans. [Jones, et al., 1986; T.M.L. Wigley, 1986] These last estimates all agreed in showing global warming from the late nineteenth century to around 1940, a cooling to the mid-1960s, and substantial warming since then.
Anxiety over the contribution of greenhouse gases to global warming had motivated these calculations of global temperature. But Eddy's line of argument suggested that part of the temperature change might result from solar variation. By the beginning of our own decade satellite measurements offered continuous, longer-term datasets than had been earlier available. The variations in solar luminosity they reported are sufficient to account for significant climate change, especially if linked to solar cycles on 100-year time scales [Reid, 1988 and 1992; Friis-Christiansen and K. Lassen, 1992; Ardanuy, 1992]. Studies of sun-like stars also point to eras of cyclic magnetic activity punctuated by periods, like our Maunder Minimum, of magnetic quiet. [Baliunas, 1992.]"
End excerpt
So now we see backtracking by the mainstream science community over the whole notion of Anthropogenic global Warming; Willie Soon was excoriated for making the claim that the sun was the dominant forcing in global warming, yet now he has been vindicated (assuming that there actually WAS any planetary warming, something in doubt given the fudging of data by CRU and GISS.)
NASA intends to study solar variability, and we should all welcome it; a large solar flare could crash the world's communication network or worse. In 1859 an enormous solar flare - called the Carrington Event - blew out telegraph lines and damaged what meager electronic devices that existed. Aurora were visible in the Caribbean! Were such a flare to occur today, it would crash our satellite system, and the resulting EMP would likely blow out all of our finer computer and other electronic devices. Given that everthing we use today has some sort of sophisticated electronic devices - microchips, microcomputers, GPS systems, etc. we would find ourselves in serious trouble. Water stations would not pump water, no vehicles would be on the roads and those that were hardened would find getting gas difficult since pumps would be out, there would be no lights, food would not get to the public. It would be as if the world were suddenly thrown back to 1859, without the old infrastructure to support the much larger population. Chaos would ensue.
We need to know if such an event is coming.
We have wasted a large amount of time with the Global Warming issue, time that could have been better used to address real dangers. How much money has been wasted on computer models of CO2 armageddon that could have been used, say, to help Haiti improve their infrastructure? AGW has been catastrophic to the poor, who have been neglected in favor of Western Guilt and fashionable doomstay scenarios.
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Jack Kemp (not the late politician)
The NY Post's Andrea Peyser informs us that:
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/where_israel_did_get_wiped_off_map_qbXJETmT4RA4NuOHuxzeBI/1
"It looks as if Iran has found allies in its quest to wipe Israel off the map -- the dopes at your friendly neighborhood Target store.
On sale exclusively at Target is this innocent-looking toy globe. Thousands of these trinkets have already moved out of malls, from Queens to Honolulu, and landed in living rooms and kids' rooms across America.
SECTION OMITTED
In the spot where Israel should be, this word is printed: "Palestine." Some of those who unwittingly purchased the Israel-free orbs feel as if they've played a role in a modern-day Final Solution.
"They're teaching kids there is no Israel, only Palestine," said Rabbi Gary Moskowitz, who bought a globe at the Queens Center Mall for his 5-year-old daughter. "This encourages terrorism. This foments hatred."
END OF QUOTE
One small technical correction. Target's Queens store is in the Queens Place Mall, site of the old circular Macy's building that looks a bit like the Roman Coliseum. It is located several blocks west of the Queens Center Mall.
This is the culture and propaganda war writ large and brought to our shores.
Ironically, the Target store on Queens Boulevard is less than two miles from the former New York City Building at the 1939 World's Fair (now the Queens Art Center) in Flushing Meadow Park. That building was a temporary home for the United Nations General Assembly in 1948 and was the location where the UN voted (UN Resolution 181) to partition the British Mandate of Palestine into a Jewish State - Israel - and an Arab state we know now as Jordan.
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Dana Mathewson
Really! http://tammybruce.com/2010/02/biggest-dick-unwanted-in-saudi-arabia.html
(I always thought those Muslim names were kind of funny anyhow...)
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