The Prophet is a Fool, the Spiritual Man is Insane - Hosea 9:7

Why don't men give their hearts to God? Why don't men reckon with God? Why do they hate God? Because they do not know Him. Misapprehension of God is at the root of all hostility to God in the human soul. If I could reveal Him to you, there is neither man nor woman, youth nor maiden, listening to me, who would not be drawn to Him, not one. But the God of our own imagination or interpretation, distant, cruel, vindictive, oftentimes men hate. But that is not God; that is man's vain imagining concerning Him. This mistaken idea comes of sin, and blindness that has resulted from sin. "Your iniquities have separated between you and your God."

God disobeyed always becomes God distanced from consciousness; and even when men hold on to some belief in His existence, they are still in revolt, because their conception of Him is false. That is why they call the prophet silly, and the man of the spirit mad.

Let us turn for illustration to a story found in the first Book of the Kings, chapter twenty-two. Ahab was King of Israel, the northern kingdom, and Jehoshaphat King of Judah, the southern kingdom. Ahab an incarnation of wickedness. Jehoshaphat a well-meaning man without any backbone. These two men were forming an alliance to make themselves safe against the common enemy; and Jehoshaphat went up and had a meeting with Ahab. The religious undercurrent in Jehoshaphat, and perhaps in Ahab too, made them feel it was necessary to get some kind of religious sanction; and Ahab had arranged a wonderful gathering. He got prophets of his own together, and one of them, Zedekiah, the son of Chenaanah, arranged a very remarkable display. He put on horns of iron to show how victorious they were going to be. Jehoshaphat, however, was not satisfied; and he said: "Is there not here a prophet of Jehovah besides? There was one named Micaiah. Now hear what Ahab said concerning him: "The King of Israel said unto Jehoshaphat, there is yet one man by whom we may inquire of Jehovah, Micaiah, the son of Imlah; but I hate him." Carefully observe that, "I hate him." Why? "For he doth not prophesy good concerning me, but evil." There was the trouble. The prophet of the Lord will make no terms with sin. This Ahab knew, and so he hated him.

So it ever is. The reason for the false conception is found in the moral turpitude of those who hold the view. The false conception, so begotten, leads to hatred. Your iniquity is great, and your enmity is great.

--G. Campbell Morgan, Hosea: The Heart and Holiness of God

The Heart of the Matter

Sparrows Fall from Heaven

When the storms of the world strike our brothers, do we curse God? Do we languish in the misery of others? Or do we rush to their aid and help carry them? Paul calls us ambassadors for Christ (II Corinthians 5:20 ), and as such we need to be in the business of reconciliation. The "what" is to be a tool in God's hands, to offer the comfort, the support, the cold cup of water, the shelter over one's head, or a hot meal to the fallen.

What a wonderful world it would be if we all did that.

I Hate Government Schools

I can't even stand going into one. I pay a lot of money so I don't have to deal with the... Don't even get me started.

Anyway, here's another case of child abuse from a government school.

School goes ballistic when boy eats pizza into gun

At an elementary school in Smyrna, Tenn., student Nicholas Taylor, 10, has been ordered to spend lunches for the rest of the semester at the lunchroom's "silent table" because he allegedly picked up a piece of pizza and waved it around like a gun.

Yes, it's child abuse.

Chris Christie Doing What Needs Doing

Chris Christie Hammers Sick Leave Payouts For N.J. Public Sector

Chris Christie has become the quintessential anti-B.S. politician, and in a recent press conference over public employee benefits, the New Jersey governor showcased his principles and rhetorical skills. And it was all over public workers getting payouts for unused sick days.

I used to work for the state of New Jersey and I know the culture of corruption that exists there. Seems like he is stopping sick leave payouts, which is a big deal to some people who would save up their sick days but it doesn't seem like he will address sick leave policy. I worked at the Marlboro Psychiatric Hospital - now closed - and sick days were regularly used as personal days. You didn't have to be sick, no questions were ever asked and a lot of overtime was paid to cover those who called out. Nice job if you can get it, but it really is screwing over the taxpayers.

And what's up with that guy behind Christie, he has such an intense look on his face. Maybe he's one of those people who like to save up their sick days for the payout.

Public Service Announcement

This must be where they got the idea for 'Fast and Furious' - allow illegal gun sales to Mexico, lobby for gun laws in the U.S.A because guns are going to Mexico illegally.

The Power of Stupid

Ohio man cleaning gun killed Amish girl

First rule of gun cleaning: Remove the magazine and visually and physically inspect the chamber to be sure the gun is clear (not loaded).

At no time during gun cleaning do you fire the gun. He may have intended to clean the gun after shooting it, but he was not cleaning the gun when he shot it. He also broke the 4th rule of gun safety.

1. All guns are always loaded.
2. Never let the muzzle cover anything you are not willing to destroy.
3. Keep your finger off the trigger until your sights are on the target.
4. Be sure of your target and what is beyond it.

Because of the sorry state of what passes for journalism these days it is very difficult to know what really happened here. It's hard to accept that innocent people sometimes die because someone else wasn't thinking and did something stupid but it happens everyday be it cars, boats, motorcycles, tools or whatever - never underestimate the power of stupid.

Give Him the Hook

I don't know how a person can stand up in front of congress and say something so blatantly stupid as Harry Reid did in this example - but members of congress do it all the time. It's like it's their job to see who can say the most outrageously unbelievable thing with a straight face and have no one call them on it.

We need to bring back the hook they used to use in vaudeville to get bad acts off the stage. Will the "distinguished gentleman" from Nevada exit stage left. Now.

And what's with the distinguished gentleman? If you have to call somebody distinguished gentleman you know it isn't true. There are as many distinguished gentlemen in congress as there are free people in The Democratic People's Republic of Korea. Our government has become a dark farce.

What Next for North Korea?

Now that Kim Jong Il is dead.

He appointed his son, Kim Jong Un, to be his successor. Hopefully, the people around him just say enough is enough but who knows? 'Watch and see' - that seems to be the course the free world is taking with world affairs lately. The anti-freedom forces are taking the 'make it happen' approach, though.

2012 Voters Guide

Machine

The Non-American President

Land of the Envious and Home of the Victim

We are a land, as our president explains it, where the success of one American comes at the expense of another. Where the poor are poor because the rich are rich. And where the role of government is not to ensure "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" but to tax away wealth from those it deems to have too much and determine how to invest our nation's resources.

I don't whether or not Obama was born in Hawaii, it doesn't matter. Truly this is a man who's heart is foreign to the American way of life. He doesn't understand it, he doesn't appreciate it, and he doesn't like it.

The Single Best Thing You Can Do for Your Health

Tyranny and Beyond

He is speaking about the European Union but he might as well be speaking about America as the Obama administration is taking the country down the same road.

Barack the Marxist II

"He is lying to you."

Some People Can Sleep Through Anything

Drunk sleeps on as train passes over him

Police woke the man, who they said was very drunk, and found his only injuries were some minor cuts to his forehead. He had been lying on his back between the tracks as the southbound freight train passed over him.

"He was very lucky to have only a few minor cuts on him. It's amazing really,"

Barack the Marxist

Look, let me just give you a sample summary of Obama's speech yesterday. The president of the United States, not Fidel Castro, not Kim Jong-il, not Mao Tse-tung, not Lenin, not Stalin, not Gorbachev, not Saddam Hussein, not Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, not Hugo Chavez, but the president of the United States said that while a limited government that preserves free markets speaks to our rugged individualism as Americans, such a system doesn't work and has never worked. The president of the United States said that the United States of America, as founded, "has never worked." Stop and think of that. Ponder that for a moment. The president. Not the head of the SEIU. Not the chairman of some congressional committee. Not a Democrat presidential hopeful. The elected president of the United States said in Osawatomie, Kansas, trying to be Teddy Roosevelt, that the United States of America has never worked. That is a quote, "has never worked."

Everything Barack Obama said he was for yesterday has been tried throughout history over and over again, the same Marxism has been tried, and it's failed everywhere. It's led to nothing but untold millions of dead people and incalculable misery and suffering.

--Rush Limbaugh

One more quote from the transcript:

Barack Obama yesterday said that the free market is "a license to steal." A license to steal! A license to steal. This from the guy who has stolen as much wealth from the private sector as he can under the guise of "stimulus spending." No, not personally. I don't mean he's enriched himself. I mean he's enriched his ideology, the Democrat Party. He has grown government. He is stealing from you and from me each and every day. Being president is what's a license to steal. Being a committee chairman is what's a license to steal. You really want to start comparing corruption at the highest levels of government to the private sector? Have the people of this country decided that they all of a sudden now want to give up on their dreams of wealth and prosperity for themselves and their kids?

Is that gone?

Shockingly Unshocking

Recent Charges of Sexual Abuse of Children in Hollywood Just Tip of Iceberg, Experts Say

If a spate of recent allegations proves true, Hollywood may have a hideous epidemic on its hands. The past two weeks have brought three separate reports of alleged child sexual abuse in the entertainment industry.

Experts say? There are experts on Hollywood pedophilia? Why have they been quiet until now?

I never thought to myself, "Hey, I bet there's pedophilia going on in Hollywood," but seeing this article elicits absolutely zero shock response. That surprises me, something as horrible as this may be going on and it's not even a speed bump in my mind. It's like hearing there is corruption in our government and whatever little bit you hear about is just the tip of the iceberg. Actually, there is quite a bit more than a little bit we are hearing about lately and that doesn't surprise me either. We used to be better than this, now we're Mexico north - not to pick on Mexico, it's just an example of government corruption that used to be confined to Third World governments. Used to be.

Isle of Man Motorcycle Road Race

Incredible footage, this race could not happen in America - too many lawyers.

Humans in Ovens to Provide Electricity? Really?

Burning deceased humans will produce electricity

A crematorium is installing turbines in its burners that will convert waste heat from the combustion of each corpse into as much as 150 kilowatt-hours of juice — enough to power 1,500 televisions for an hour. The facility plans to sell the electricity to local power companies.

Given humanity's propensity for evil, I'm not so sure this is a good idea.

Cain Out

The Lessons of Cain

The second lesson makes a general rule: when you see smoke published about a Democrat, there is probably a roaring, multi-alarm fire. In fact, the town has probably already burned down. When you see smoke about a Republican, it is probably smoke, and there may or may not be a fire. When you see fire about a Republican, it is probably a show, so dig deep, find the unedited video or original quote, and think for yourself.

You Will Be Assimilated

Dreams From My President

Trying to be self-supporting, helping your kids grow up healthy and be ready for the world, and pursuing "dreams" like learning about the world and loving the people you know -- these are not enough. You're not part of his collective. You're not transforming the world in the exact way Obama thinks it should be transformed.

And that's why it is a big problem. We cannot just live happily in two camps: we pursuing our dreams and he pursuing his. Because his dream must involve us. To the collectivist, you can't even have your own little country of individual dream-pursuers. He wants to transform the world.

To add insult to injury, collectivists really think they are on the side of the angels when making those demands. And to add further insult, they have the audacity to think they can read our minds. Obama attributes my behavior, values, and worldview to "cynicism." It's not cynicism; it's called healthy behavior. It's doing your own thing, in the real world, with people you actually know -- not some abstract, global collective, doing whatever the heck "transforming" is.

If I had to guess, I would say 30% of the population is, at core, collectivist. That is the real attractiveness of socialism, communism, Jacobinism, and other isms. A lot of people actually do want it. They yearn for it. They think it is in a higher plane of consciousness. To them, I am a cancer on the body of humanity -- a cell that won't join the body, the higher level. My dreams are not worthy. Their dreams are next to godliness.

Malignant Science

As with any tool, the science is only as good as the person using it.

Scientists Behaving Badly

Global-warming skeptics spend much of their time knocking down the fatuous warmist claim that the science is settled. According to the warmists, this singular piece of settled science is attested to by hundreds or thousands of highly credentialed scientists. In truth, virtually the entire warmist edifice is built around a small, tightly knit coterie of persons (one hesitates to refer to folks with so little respect for the scientific method as scientists) willing to falsify data and manipulate findings; or, to put it bluntly, to lie in order to push a political agenda not supported by empirical evidence. This is what made the original release of the Climategate e-mails from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia so valuable. They clearly identified the politicized core of climate watchers who were driving the entire warmist agenda. Following in their footsteps are all the other scientists who built their own research on top of the fraudulent data produced by the warmist core.

Last week over 5,000 new e-mails, already dubbed Climategate 2, were released. Anyone still desiring to contest the assertion that only a few persons controlled the entire warmist agenda will be brought up short by this note from one warmist protesting that his opinions were not getting the hearing they deserved: "It seems that a few people have a very strong say, and no matter how much talking goes on beforehand, the big decisions are made at the eleventh hour by a select core group." Over the years this core group, led by Phil Jones at East Anglia and Michael Mann at Penn State, became so close that even those inclined toward more honest appraisals of the state of climate science were hesitant to rock the boat. As one warm-monger states: "I am not convinced that the 'truth' is always worth reaching if it is at the cost of damaged personal relationships." Silly me, how many years have I wasted believing that the very point of science was to pursue the truth in the face of all obstacles. On the basis of this evidence the scientific method must be rewritten so as to state: "Science must be as objective as possible, unless it offends your friends."

The biggest problem we face is the corruption of our society. You can't have a stable society if you can't trust anyone else to live by the rules, but corruption of the soul is the one problem man can never solve by himself, God only can heal that. May God help us.

Troubling Times Ahead

The great truth that we thus must face is that of God’s severity with sin. Troubling as the result of sin is inevitable. It is inevitable by the law of God. This whole universe is constituted so. Stanley Jones in his great book, The Christ of Every Road, says: "We do not break the laws of the universe, we break ourselves upon them." Stanley Jones is right. We never break the laws of the universe. We break ourselves on them, and that is troubling. The whole universe is built so that no man can escape from that sequence. Put your hand in the fire, and the pain is the troubling, and you cannot escape from it. You have not broken the law; but you have broken your hand. Law conditions heaven. Violated law creates hell. Troubling is the inherent necessity of sin. The way is hedged and hindered, the false lovers are lost, and there is nothing ultimately but desolation. Remember those words of our Lord, "Wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction." The root sense of the word "destruction" is narrowness. "Strait is the gate and narrow is the way that leadeth to life," and life is breadth. The way of sin is easy, the gate is wide open, the highway is broad. Yes, but watch it, watch it; it is narrowing, until life becomes crushed and cursed. That is always the way of sin. The whole universe is built on that pattern. The way of life is narrow; yes, strait is the gate. Stripping is needed to enter upon the way of life. Narrow the way in the beginning, but mark it, it broadens out into the spaciousness of life.

--G. Campbell Morgan, Hosea: The Heart and Holiness of God

Fighting Back

Mother defending home shot, killed intruder

A woman shot and killed a home invader after he opened fire and shot her in the arm, according the Orange County Sheriff's Office.

Quote of the Day

Republicans don't hate government, but they're alive to what human beings are tempted and even inclined to do with governmental power, which is abuse it. And so they want that power limited. It's not really that complicated.

--Peggy Noonan

The Right of the People to Be Fooled Shall Not Be Infringed

New E-Mails Rock The Global Warming Debate

Three themes are emerging from the newly released emails: (1) prominent scientists central to the global warming debate are taking measures to conceal rather than disseminate underlying data and discussions; (2) these scientists view global warming as a political "cause" rather than a balanced scientific inquiry and (3) many of these scientists frankly admit to each other that much of the science is weak and dependent on deliberate manipulation of facts and data.

The general idea is to keep things as confusing and complicated as possible so that people just don't want to think about it. Just keep looking into that giant screen of entertainment and let the "experts" take care of everything for you. Trust them, it's all good. ;)

Why Bottled Water Doesn't Hydrate

Three years of study with 21 academics (meaning 21 professors at universities) and the conclusion is that water does not solve dehydration. Now, I was asked if they specified what does ease dehydration. No. But see, this isn't the point. This is an attack on an industry. It's an attack on the bottled water industry. It's the only way that these leftists can get at them is to prevent them from advertising. What they're accused of doing is violating advertising law by making false claims. So what happened is the leftists in the European Union who don't like capitalism and who do not want private sources of water available, looking to put these people out of business, deny them the opportunity to advertise. It's not that they think water doesn't solve dehydration. It's that they're trying to put a private sector entity out of business.

So they concoct a bunch of lies and phony advertising rules, and they get some academics to go along with it. Now, folks, this is who liberals are. These are the same people -- and this is the same technique -- that is used to promote manmade global warming. Same people, same thing.

--Rush Limbaugh

I'm From the Government, Trust Me

At least 70 dogs have been sickened so far this year after reportedly eating chicken jerky products imported from China, FDA officials said.

FDA to the rescue

FDA officials say they have not been able to find a cause for the illnesses. Extensive chemical and microbiological testing has failed to turn up a specific contaminant and officials did not identify a specific brand of treats. They note that the reports of illness have not conclusively been tied to chicken jerky products, also sold as chicken tenders, chicken strips or chicken treats.

When I first saw this I was worried because my dog loves these things and they are practically the only snack I can give her that doesn't make her itch like mad, but the more I think about what this article says - which is basically nothing - the more inclined I am to think this is designed to scare people away form these treats back to Milkbones or something. You know how our government works now, give enough campaign contributions or grease the right palms and the government will cripple your competition for you. 70 dogs got sick out of how many? Have you ever read reviews of dog food? You'd think they were legally canning poison. I call BS on this one - even if they are from China. I don't trust the FDA, I don't trust the government.

SEIU Cares for the Children

Obama's favorite union strikes again. The collective must get its cut.

SEIU Collects Union Dues From Disabled Kids’ Medicaid Checks

Robert and Patricia Haynes take care of their two children, who at the ages of 30 and 34 are more like children in adult bodies. That's because they both have cerebral palsy, and rely on their parents to feed and change them — and likely will for the rest of their lives.

The Haynes family receives monthly checks from the state of Michigan through Medicaid, allowing the parents to care for their son and daughter themselves instead of institutionalizing them. But because a Michigan law classifies Robert and Patricia as "home health care workers," they are considered public workers and therefore automatic union members — meaning the SEIU gets a $30 cut of the familys Medicaid subsidy as union dues.

"We're not home health care providers — we’re parents taking care of our children,"

What Would We Do Without Experts?

EU says water is not healthy

In a scarcely believable ­ruling, a panel of experts threw out a claim that regular water consumption is the best way to rehydrate the body.

Proclaiming the Name of God

Segregation & Class Warfare in the Occupy Movement

This is so funny, but also pathetically sad.

"So let me get this straight," Bee says to one of the protesters. "You've been here eight weeks and you already have a ghetto?"

Oh, and Van Jones says:

"You're going to see an evolution now as you go from protests, keep the protests, but now expand into politics," Jones said. "And if you thought there was an earthquake in 2010 when the Tea Party moved into politics, wait until this 99 percent movement moves over into politics. You haven't seen anything yet."

Look out people, professional astro-turfers at work here.

Political Immunity?

Obama's Half-Billion-Dollar Crony Drug Deal

What do you get when you mix Democratic fat-cat donations, Big Labor favors, pharmaceutical lobbying and Beltway business as usual? Answer: another toxic half-billion-dollar Barack Obama-approved crony deal. Move over, Solyndra. Here comes Siga-Gate.

This latest Chicago-style payoff on your dime involves a dubious smallpox drug backed by a liberal billionaire investor, along with a former union boss who was one of the White House's most frequent visitors. They're the "1 percent" with 100 percent immunity from the selectively outraged Occupier mobs that purport to oppose partisan government bailouts and handouts to privileged corporations.

The biggest problem we have is corruption in government. There is a remedy for illegal actions in the private sector but government crooks make themselves immune from the laws the private sector must live by.

Quote of the Day

"Our culture is at a place now where we can't properly identify what everybody sees and knows is a problem because it's either gonna show our insensitivity or it's gonna offend somebody."

--Rush Limbaugh

Laying It On the Line

He writes comic books (that's probably a gross understatement) and I've never heard of him before today but Frank Miller has set off a firestorm with this blog post: Anarchy

Everybody’s been too damn polite about this nonsense:

The "Occupy" movement, whether displaying itself on Wall Street or in the streets of Oakland (which has, with unspeakable cowardice, embraced it) is anything but an exercise of our blessed First Amendment. "Occupy" is nothing but a pack of louts, thieves, and rapists, an unruly mob, fed by Woodstock-era nostalgia and putrid false righteousness. These clowns can do nothing but harm America.

He won't change anyone's mind saying it this way, especially with so many making excuses for them, but I haven't seen anything to dispute what he said. "Occupy" is everything the leftist media claim the Tea Party is. It's like Tea Party opposite day.

This is no popular uprising. This is garbage. And goodness knows they're spewing their garbage – both politically and physically – every which way they can find.

Quote of the Day

"Freedom and discipline are indeed handmaidens; without the discipline of genuine love, freedom is invariably nonloving and destructive."

--M. Scott Peck

It's All Adding Up

Investigator: Herman Cain innocent of sexual advances

If he is hiding something this thing would have spiked way down here," said Ward. "He is being truthful, totally truthful. He is a man with integrity and he talked directly about not knowing any incident he is accused of."

He needs to use that on the president and congress.

I Like Herman Cain

I liked Herman Cain before the allegations and I still like him. In fact I like him more because I see that his political opponents really hate him. I don't believe the allegations for a second, they are directly out of the playbook of the left. They want him out and I'm not falling for it.

Media use Klan tactic on Cain

...the vigor and eagerness with which the press dived into this fray and the relish they are having in their attempts to dismantle Cain have no precedent.

The real scandal

The real scandal in the accusations against Herman Cain is the corruption of the law, the media and politics.

David Axelrod's Pattern of Sexual Misbehavior

Herman Cain has spent his life living and working all over the country -- Indiana, Georgia, Minnesota, Nebraska, Kansas, Washington, D.C. -- but never in Chicago.

So it's curious that all the sexual harassment allegations against Cain emanate from Chicago: home of the Daley machine and Obama consigliere David Axelrod.

What are the odds?

There are 50 states in this country. What are the odds that the first woman to come forward with tawdry details of a distasteful encounter with presidential candidate Herman Cain lives in the state that elevated Barack Obama to the U.S. Senate? I'm just asking.

There are some 1,300 municipalities in the state of Illinois, so what are the odds that Sharon Bialek lived in the same one as David Axelrod, the mastermind behind Obama's rise to power. I'm just asking.

There are 131,704,730 housing units in the United States, so what are the odds that Bialek lived in the same apartment building as Axelrod? I'm just asking.

Occupy Reality

Some belated parental advice to protesters

Call it an occupational hazard, but I can't look at the Occupy Wall Street protesters without thinking, "Who parented these people?"

As a culture columnist, I've commented on the social and political ramifications of the "movement" - now known as "OWS" - whose fairyland agenda can be summarized by one of their placards: "Everything for everybody."

Thanks to their pipe-dream platform, it's clear there are people with serious designs on "transformational" change in America who are using the protesters like bedsprings in a brothel.

Yet it's not my role as a commentator that prompts my parenting question, but rather the fact that I'm the mother of four teens and young adults. There are some crucial life lessons that the protesters' moms clearly have not passed along.

Here, then, are five things the OWS protesters' mothers should have taught their children but obviously didn't, so I will:

Marybeth Hicks website

Government Expanding into the Christmas Tree Business

Obama Couldn't Wait: His New Christmas Tree Tax

In the Federal Register of November 8, 2011, Acting Administrator of Agricultural Marketing David R. Shipman announced that the Secretary of Agriculture will appoint a Christmas Tree Promotion Board. The purpose of the Board is to run a "program of promotion, research, evaluation, and information designed to strengthen the Christmas tree industry's position in the marketplace; maintain and expend existing markets for Christmas trees; and to carry out programs, plans, and projects designed to provide maximum benefits to the Christmas tree industry" (7 CFR 1214.46(n)). And the program of "information" is to include efforts to "enhance the image of Christmas trees and the Christmas tree industry in the United States" (7 CFR 1214.10).

What? The government is now promoting Christmas trees and trying to strengthen the Christmas tree industry's position in the marketplace through a new tax on Christmas trees? Why? Shouldn't the Christmas tree industry do that for themselves? And so what if no one buys Christmas trees anymore? Why is the government concerned with that? Did they find out that Christmas trees are of pagan origin and they want their tree back? Perhaps they are doing it just because they can. Anything to grow government.

Dissipated and Taken Away by the Political Process

Doesn't anyone ever notice that the wealth confiscated by government never actually makes it to the poor who have been promised it? For all of Obama's talk of wealth redistribution, precious little has been done to help anyone except big unions and big Obama contributors. Meanwhile the poor get poorer as the country gets poorer.

Watch Does U.S. Economic Inequality Have a Good Side? on PBS. See more from PBS NewsHour.

You can tell the difference between a liberal and conservative by the following test: A liberal believes that changes in taxes have very little effect on production, but huge effects favorable on distribution. Folks like myself believe it's exactly the opposite. Very high tax rates or even small changes in taxes have very adverse effects on production, and they do very little to produce redistribution because the money gets dissipated and taken away through the political process in ways that the most ardent supporters of redistribution will not like.

Hat tip: The Smallest Minority

Glenn Beck Interviews Chuck Woolery

Chuck talks a bout being a conservative in Hollywood. Good interview.

Learning to Love

"He had to learn that not giving at the right time was more compassionate than giving at the wrong time, and that fostering independence was more loving than taking care of people who could otherwise take care of themselves."

--M. Scott Peck, M.D., The Road Less Traveled

New American Mascot

Diaper change we can believe in

An able-bodied man paid by the government of the United States to lie in a giant crib, wetting his diaper week in week out, is almost too poignant an emblem of the republic at twilight.

Move over Bald Eagle!

They Are the 53%

Occupy Wall St. Kitchen Reportedly Set to Cut Back Meals Because of Freeloaders

"We need to limit the amount of food we're putting out to curb the influx of derelicts," a kitchen volunteer told the New York Post. Another volunteer said the cooks felt "overworked and under-appreciated" and worked 16-hour days.

Welcome to the 53%.

Their Hatred is Their Identity

It's Already Been Settled

Is the US Declaration of Independence illegal?

In Philadelphia, American and British lawyers have debated the legality of America's founding documents.

What's to debate? There was a fundamental disagreement, the war settled it. The U.K. has no further say in the matter. They bring up the Civil War in the article. Same thing, the war settled it, even if it had gone the other way.

It is important to settle differences peacefully and within the law - 100% of the time would be ideal, but there are times when it is just not possible. It might be argued that the people of North Korea are obeying the law of their land but wouldn't it be far better for them if they fought a revolution against 'Dear Leader' and freed themselves from his tyranny? It wouldn't exactly be legal by North Korean standards would it, but who cares?

Connect the Dots

Muammar, Dead at Last

As I watched President Obama take a victory lap when he announced Gaddafi's death, my thoughts turned to what Ted Belman, a widely-read blogger called the Israpundit, had to say. "Gaddafi wasn't any worse than the barbarians that killed him and will replace him. There are no freedom-loving democrats in the entire Muslim world which consists of seventh century-minded brutes."

Why does it seem as though Obama is involved in toppling governments, either through war or fomenting rebellion, that are of little threat to us and opening the floodgates for radical, anti-Western Islamic law to fill the void? Egypt, Tunisia, Syria, Libya - this is not a complete list, it's hard to get information on these things from the mainstream media. Yes, right or wrong, we toppled Iraq and Afghanistan, but at least we tried to help the people form a fair, open, democratic government. Now, Obama seems very happy to help the rebels achieve the goal of Sharia law and radical Islamic rule.

I see a pattern developing.

How Not to Be a Victim

66-Year-Old Woman Shoots and Kills Home Intruder

Hopper says she was terrified when she heard the intruder at her her door, firing two warning shots through her window to scare the man away. When 37-year-old Jesse Edward Theis persisted, attempting to come back in, Hopper fired a fatal shot in his abdomen, killing Theis on the scene.

It happened in California, I'm glad to see she was not charged you never know with California.

World War II On American Soil

I bookmarked this a while back, thought it was interesting. I had never seen these pictures before, didn't know much about WWII in the Aleutian Islands (still don't). Since watching Deadliest Catch the name of the town Dutch Harbor grabs my attention.

World War II: Battle of Midway and the Aleutian Campaign

Evil vs. Goodness

Evil is in opposition to life. It is that which opposes the life force. It has, in short, to do with killing. Specifically, it has to do with murder - namely, unnecessary killing, killing that is not required for biological survival.

When I say that evil has to do with killing, I do not mean to restrict myself to corporeal murder. Evil is also that which kills spirit. There are various essential attributes of life - particularly human life - such as sentience, mobility, awareness, growth, autonomy, will. It is possible to kill or attempt to kill one of these attributes without actually destroying the body. Thus we may "break" a horse or even a child without harming a hair on its head. Erich Fromm was acutely sensitive to this fact when he broadened the definition of necrophilia to include the desire of certain people to control others - to make them controllable, to foster their dependency, to discourage their capacity to think for themselves, to diminish their unpredictability and originality, to keep them in line. Distinguishing it from a "biophilic" person, one who appreciates and fosters the variety of life forms and the uniqueness of the individual, he demonstrated a "necrophilic character type," whose aim it is to avoid the inconvenience of life by transforming others into obedient automatons, robbing them of their humanity.

Evil, then, for the moment, is that force, residing either inside or outside of human beings, that seeks to kill life or liveliness. And goodness is its opposite. Goodness is that which promotes life and liveliness.

Speaking of his relationship to us human beings, Jesus said, "I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly." Abundantly. What a wonderful word! This strange man, who obviously relished weddings and wine, fine oils and good companionship, and yet allowed himself to be killed, was not so concerned with the length of life as with its vitality. He was not interested in human puppets, of whom he once said, "Let the dead bury their dead." Rather, he was interested in the spirit of life, in liveliness. And of Satan, the very spirit of evil, Jesus said, "He was a murderer from the beginning." Evil has nothing to do with natural death; it is concerned only with unnatural death, with murder of the body or the spirit.

--M. Scott Peck, M.D., People of the Lie

Quote of the Day

Like so many people, in so many countries, who started out to "spread the wealth," Barack Obama has ended up spreading poverty.

--Thomas Sowell

Oil for Solar

A dirty road to ecotopia

If we want to stop polluting our planet, we need energy that comes from clean, inexhaustible resources. For instance, the sun just constantly, all day long, emits tons of heat and energy to no real purpose -- it's extremely wasteful, almost as bad as an incandescent light bulb. Solar technology will capture some of the cavalier sun's energy and produce electricity. This genius idea revolutionized cheap calculators, and one day some company -- obviously not Solyndra -- is going to get that electricity to power other things as well.

And then there is wind. With giant wind turbines we can finally turn it into electricity and make it work for us -- if there’s a hurricane, you can turn on all the lights and leave the refrigerator door open, because we’ll have more electricity than we can handle.

So there are lots of great green ideas worth investing in, but as a country we're kinda strapped for cash right now. Luckily, there is a valuable substance within American territory that could help us pay for all this. It's called "oil."

Barry Soetoro Supports This

There are 2 videos at this link. The first is from Howard Stern and his crew interviewing the 'Occupy' protestors and all the obligatory content warnings apply. If you don't want to hear the language, don't watch it. But it is funny.

The 2nd video is protestors doing their best to regurgitate the brainwash communist propaganda they learn in what passes for school these days, juxtaposed with quotes from communist 'revolutionaries.'

Operation: FAIL

Well, No Wonder

Driver Flipped License Plate to Save Toll

A Virginia truck driver used a device that could have come from a James Bond movie to try to get out of paying the $65 toll to cross the George Washington Bridge into New York City, police say.

Truck drivers have complained about steep toll increases that the Port Authority says it needs to finish building the new World Trade Center. By 2016, a five-axle truck will have to pay $105 to cross the bridge.

$65 to cross a bridge? Are they insane? And it's not enough, they're going to increase it to $105. You do know who is really paying for that, right. The consumer. Whoever is buying the product being delivered. All costs of doing business are passed on to the consumer.

Suddenly We're Concerned About a Nuclear Iran?

To Isolate Iran, U.S. Presses Inspectors on Nuclear Data

President Obama is pressing United Nations nuclear inspectors to release classified intelligence information showing that Iran is designing and experimenting with nuclear weapons technology. The president's push is part of a larger American effort to further isolate and increase pressure on Iran after accusing it of a plot to assassinate Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the United States.

It wasn't so long ago that those of us who were against letting Iran get nuclear weapons were labeled paranoid and extreme. They said we have no right to limit Iran from getting nuclear capability and after all, they were just trying to "go green."

I think Barry Soetoro is feeling the pressure of his mask melting away and the people starting to see who he really is and what his administration has been doing in the dark. This could be a very dangerous time.

Thank God for the NRA

No one else is putting the pressure on the fast and furious scandal like the NRA.



Join the NRA.

The Great Disaster

This is a Crime?

Driver with snakes arrested on I-75

"Mr. Mesa had 10 snakes and three different lizard species in the vehicle,"

"The snakes were non-venomous," Cummings said. "Species included corn, coachwhip, pine, king and Southern hognose snakes – all native to Georgia – plus a rosy boa, a non-native snake. Mr. Mesa said he caught the snakes in Florida and was taking them to Indiana."

Authorities charged Mesa with one count of illegal possession of non-game wildlife without a permit, a misdemeanor. Mesa was booked into Cherokee County Jail and released Wednesday on a $5,000 bond.

All of those species, except the coachwhip, are very common in the pet trade and readily available at pet shops and especially the various reptile shows that go on across the nation. I've had 3 of those species myself. He had to go to jail because he had a snake? Was he charged with breaking a state law, or a federal law? It's only 1 count, so I assume only one snake was the problem? Which one?

There are so many laws in this country any one of us could go to jail for something we didn't even know was a crime. It seems like everything we use to do for fun as a child is now a illegal.

HoodWinked

Well said.

Pawns

Occupy Wall Street: Communism's Clueless Foot Soldiers

The Occupy Wall Street youngsters are the latest foot soldiers of Communism, though it is likely most are too ignorant to realize it. They have been so thoroughly indoctrinated in government schools and by Hollywood and the media that they have no idea how they are being used by labor unions and other leftist organizations.

The protesters are likely unaware of the misery and murders Marx's Communism imposed on Russia courtesy of Lenin, Stalin, and those who followed in their footsteps. Mao's Red China murdered thousands as well in the pursuit of the "equality" that is the alleged goal of Communism and liberalism.

My son makes lists of things he wants, too. If he wants them badly enough he will work for them. If he expects the world to hand him everything he wants on a silver platter he's going to live one miserable life. Many apparently do.

This one is interesting:


I think he gets the joke of it.

You say you want a revolution? Well, you know...

Be very careful what you wish for. The anti-military crowd wants a revolution. I really believe they have no idea what it is they are asking for. No sane person wants a revolution, certainly not a citizen of the United States. You don't revolutionize yourself from a free society to a freer society. No, no, no. The revolution they are calling for will make all of their problems worse. The redistributed funds they all want so bad never quite seem to make it into the pockets of the little guy who thought that was what he was fighting for.

I recommend this book: Waiting for Snow in Havana: Confessions of a Cuban Boy. It is not about the Cuban revolution, but it is an autobiographical look at one child's life at the time of the revolution, and the glimpses it gives into what happened are eye opening.

Yes, Yes, Yes, Part 2

Lenny Cacchio writes: Do You Want the Ball?

Wanting the ball seems to be the mark of excellence that separates the best from the rest.

The ones that don't want the ball are the ones out there making excuses for themselves. We all do it sometimes but like everything else, when it begins to control and take over your life it's not normal. We've become a nation of excuse makers instead of go-getters.

Yes, Yes, Yes

Cornel West on CNN: Herman Cain Needs To ‘Get Off The Symbolic Crack Pipe’

"I don't believe racism in this country today holds anybody back in a big way. Is there some – are there some elements of racism? Yes. It gets back to, if we don't grow this economy, that is a ripple effect for every economic level. And because blacks are more disproportionately unemployed, they get hit the worst when economic policies don't work. That's where it starts."

"I have seen blacks in middle management move up to top management in some of the biggest corporations in America. They weren't held back because of racism. No. People sometimes hold themselves back because they want to use racism as an excuse for them not being able to achieve what they want to achieve."

--Herman Cain

There are a myriad of excuses people use excuse for them not being able to achieve, racism is only one that some people use. It's something no one wants to admit to themselves that they do but we all do it to one extent or another and you have to come to understand and overcome that part of yourself. The guy who doesn't know it can't be done is the guy who makes it happen. It's not easy to stop making excuses for yourself but nothing worthwhile is easy. Life is not supposed to be easy, if you don't have any challenges how are you going to grow? Just like you don't get stronger if you don't exercise your muscles - in fact, if you don't exercise you will get weaker. Same with your brain.

Cornel West can do what ever he wants to himself but he's out there teaching people to blame others for their own poor choices - in a sense, keeping them on the plantation. Yes he is.

I Can't Take It

Are these adults? Is this kindergarten? It doesn't matter what the video is about, you will not, if you are of normal or above intelligence, be able to get through this entire thing.



I'm sorry. There is something seriously wrong here. The human race is devolving, these people never matured past the age of five. I deal with the public at work and sometimes I think it is me - more and more I am running into people who do not know how to communicate, how to be civil, how to ask a question, how to get down the road 5 miles without someone holding their hand. It's not me, I know. There is something seriously wrong with an increasing number of people. Anyone who has dealt with the public for a number of years could tell you that.

If you are curious, Neal Boortz explains what the video is about here.

When Progress is not Progress

When this country was still a colony of England, The New England Primer was the principle textbook by which children learned to read. It begins with the Lord's Prayer, "Our Father, which art in Heaven..." and continues with a study of the alphabet. Children learned to read from the King James Version of the Holy Bible.

Here's a sample of sentences used to teach the alphabet. They are written in rhymes to assist memorization.
A: In Adam's fall we sinned all.
B: Thy life to mend this Book attend.
F: An idle Fool is whipped at school.
J: Sweet Jesus he died on a tree.
P: Peter denies his Lord and cries.
Q: Queen Esther in royal state to save the Jews from dismal fate.
R: Rachel doth mourn her first-born.
S: Samuel anoints whom God appoints.
U: Uriah's beauteous wife made David seek his life.

You recognize immediately the flavor of the book. Textbooks were not plentiful. They were printed in England and shipped here. So imagine a country in which the principle text book for teaching children is solidly based in the Bible liberally illustrated with Christian morals. This is the book used to teach children in Early America.

America's educational system, legal system and system of government were all founded in the God of the Bible.

Our generation thinks of itself as highly educated. By comparison we think citizens of 17th and 18th Century America were rural, less educated, and crude. But the New England Primer was written for 1st graders. And today’s American must struggle with King James English, Shakespearean poetry and the complexity of speech used by the average American who lived 300 years ago.

For example, today's typical legal student cannot reason through the Federalist Papers without a modern translation that simplifies the language. Yet the average farmer could comprehend it in the early 1800's.

Abraham Lincoln is considered by English scholars as one of the greatest men of letters ever to use the language. Yet he was self-educated in rural Kentucky. How do his letters compare with the average student of today's public schools?

The literacy rate among American children during early America was said to be 97 percent. I don't know how such statistics were acquired but I suspect they were more accurate than those we see today.

What happened?

In his book "Whatever Happened to Sin" Karl Menninger describes one overt change in Western Culture. President Eisenhower was the last president to use the word "sin" in a speech. We’ve moved on.

America is now described as "Post-Christian". The man who occupies the White House says we're not a Christian nation. For those of us who attended public schools where we began the day with prayer, read from the Bible and sang religious songs, that’s a monumental change. Morals changed. Darwin convinced the academicians that life came about accidentally. He postulated the Chaos Theory that the world began in chaos and evolved up. Now his disciples propose to return the world to chaos so they can rebuild something better.

This week America is observing 10 years since we were attacked by Muslims bent on destroying our country. People who know history see a strong religious connection to this attack. Such people do not refer to Islam as a “peaceful religion.” They also recognize that Muslims are more zealous than Christians.

America has abandoned the Protector God. So 10 years after the attack on the center of American commerce, there remains a hole in the ground where the World Trade Center once proudly stood.

As the country gathers to mourn this attack on our freedom, something will be strangely absent. No Christian minister will be allowed to participate in the ceremonies. Maybe it is appropriate that these dignitaries will gather around a hole in the ground that 10 years after the attack America seems unable to fill.

It is strangely symbolic of a hole in the heart of our people. And we seem determined to lock outside the only key that will fit.

Jim O'Brien, Sep. 9, 2011

Fighting the Right Battle

Herman Cain is all about fiscal sanity. Herman Cain is about capitalism. Barack Obama is a Marxist.

--Alan Caruba

Occupy Wall Street

Excellent commentary on the protesters.

Liberty or Captivity

Ripping off the Gipper

You know liberals are desperate when they start quoting Ronald Reagan. As Reagan told the gathered students 26 years ago, his guiding philosophy was "freedom, freedom and more freedom." That's not the principle behind anything Barack Obama is doing.

Hank Williams Jr

He made a terrible mistake using Hitler in his analogy about Obama playing golf with Boehner. He should have used Mao.

We're All Racists Now

One of the most widespread problems in America (worldwide) is Psychological projection.

An example of this behavior might be blaming another for self failure. The mind may avoid the discomfort of consciously admitting personal faults by keeping those feelings unconscious, and by redirecting libidinal satisfaction by attaching, or "projecting," those same faults onto another person or object.

For many, racism is the 'go-to' excuse for their own poor choices, personal weaknesses and shortcomings. It's not the only excuse, but it is a most pervasive one.

I know a guy, a self-professed New Yorican, born in Puerto Rico but grew up on the lower East side of Manhattan. Most racist person I have ever known so well, a nice guy but sees everything through the prism of racism. Anything that happens is in one way or another because of race. Things that have nothing whatsoever to do with race he still describes as racist. If a Puerto Rican server forgot to give him ketchup, it was racist. Calling him out on it does no good at all. "You're both Puerto Rican, how can that be racist?" "I'm New Yorican!" I forget what he called them, country hicks or something. "Even if they hate you and do it on purpose, it's still not racism." "They're racist #%@^*&!" "Whatever, dude."

And he is Democrat all the way, hates the racist Republicans. But if you talk to him it becomes obvious that he is actually more conservative in his views. There is also no way to make him come to terms with this. I would describe it as brainwashing. I have to agree with Herman Cain on this. He has been brainwashed since youth to like Democrats and hate racist Republicans, to look at everything through that racist prism. Perhaps brainwashed isn't precisely the correct word but the effect is the same. Cultural brainwashing? He has been imprinted since a child to think this way and he can't (won't?) escape it.

He complains a lot that people don't like him and, of course, attributes that to racism, but doesn't see that he is the one pushing people away. If you are always accusing people of racism people are not going to want to be around you. It's a self-perpetuating cycle from which it is very difficult to escape.

Edit: How sad that after I wrote this I come across this: Samuel L. Jackson echoes Morgan Freeman, says Tea Party racism is obvious

No matter how poorly the economy performs, no matter how many scandals surround the administration, no matter how weakly the president’s jobs plan is received by legislators and the public, Samuel L. Jackson can see no reason why the Tea Party might oppose Barack Obama’s reelection other than race.

There's that bad programming rearing it's ugly head again.

Decepticons

Stop Whining?

How many people in the media have pointed out that the black-white income gap narrowed during the Reagan administration, just as it has widened during the Obama administration? For that matter, how many Republicans have pointed it out?

The Reagan administration did not have any special program to narrow the racial gap in incomes. The point is that the kinds of policies followed in the 1980s had that effect, just as the kinds of policies followed by the Obama administration had opposite effects. But just listening to rhetoric won't tell you that.

Over the years, some of the most devastating policies, in terms of their actual effects on black people, have come from liberal Democrats, from the local to the national level.

Most everything the Obama administration does has the opposite effect of what they claim they are trying to do. They say they want to bring people together, yet they are dividing us in every way possible. They say they want to spread the wealth, yet the gap between the rich and poor is getting larger - and what's left of the middle class is getting the shaft. Even their 'green' programs are anything but 'green.' It's all a lie. They are the Decepticons. They are enriching and empowering themselves and their friends at the expense of the American people. At YOUR expense.

California Carry

Do not try this in New Jersey, it is illegal.

Gomenasai ごめんなさい

Japanese plane flips over during flight

The aircraft bound for Tokyo flipped almost 140 degrees to the left after the co-pilot confused command switches while trying to unlock the cockpit cabin door for the captain who was returning from the lavatory.

Sorry. Sorry everyone.

There's a video of the flight path at the link. Looks like an 'E' ticket ride!

Quote of the Day

The latest Gallup poll says that six in ten Americans don't expect the economy to improve. The other four all have government jobs.

--Rush Limbaugh

The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things

Why young Americans can't think morally

With the death of Judeo-Christian-God-based standards, people have simply substituted feelings for those standards. Millions of American young people have been raised by parents and schools with "How do you feel about it?" as the only guide to what they ought to do. The heart has replaced God and the Bible as a moral guide.

The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? Jeremiah 17:9

Disgusting

U.S. Government Used Taxpayer Funds to Buy, Sell Weapons During 'Fast and Furious,' Documents Show.

Not only did U.S. officials approve, allow and assist in the sale of more than 2,000 guns to the Sinaloa cartel -- the federal government used taxpayer money to buy semi-automatic weapons, sold them to criminals and then watched as the guns disappeared.

Why aren't the American people up in arms about this? (No pun intended.) Why isn't this all over the news? Why is the media giving this administration a pass on this?

Just Another "Enlightened" Actor

Herman Cain Takes On Morgan Freeman For Calling Tea Party Racist

Oscar-winning actor Morgan Freeman during an interview on CNN said members of the Tea Party are racists willing to do whatever they can to "get this black man" out of the White House.

That's very disappointing. I really though Morgan Freeman was smarter than that. Guess not.

As Cain observed, Freeman is likely one of the millions of liberals that hate the Tea Party but have never once been to an event sponsored by the organization they so passionately despise.

How ironic that these are the same people who claim to be on the more enlightened, open-minded side of the political aisle.

People of the lie.

" Carrying a weapon. It's not about dying. It's about living."

Brigid shares her thoughts: Carrying a Firearm- What It's Really About.

You look, and you steady yourself, prepared, yet not, anticipating the recoil of something you've never felt in your life; wanting it, expecting it, yet still sort of afraid of it. With the intake of breath and the gentle movement of your muscles finite contraction, the trigger draws towards you.

I Still Like Him Best, So Far

Herman Cain wins GOP Florida straw poll

Former Godfather Pizza CEO Herman Cain won the Presidency 5 straw poll here Saturday, delivering a blow to Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s frontrunner status and a victory for a candidate who has struggled to transform his grassroots popularity into strong showings in national polls.

The Mystery of Goodness

It is a strange thing. Dozens of times I have been asked by patients or acquaintances: "Dr. Peck, why is there evil in the world?" Yet no one has ever asked me in all these years: "Why is there good in the world?" It is as if we automatically assume this is a naturally good world that has somehow been contaminated by evil. In terms of what we know of science, however, it is actually easier to explain evil. That things decay is quite explainable in accord with the natural law of physics. That life should evolve into more and more complex forms is not so easily understandable. That children generally lie and steal and cheat is routinely observable. The fact that sometimes they grow up to become truly honest adults is what seems the more remarkable. Laziness is more the rule than diligence. If we seriously think about it, it probably makes more sense to assume this is a naturally evil world that has somehow been mysteriously "contaminated" by goodness, rather than the other way around. The mystery of goodness is even greater than the mystery of evil.

--Dr. M. Scott Peck, People of the Lie: The Hope for Healing Human Evil

Creating Destruction

From your friendly neighborhood SEIU union:

"This is about building and creating power."

There are no winners in this game. Certainly not the poor or middle class. They want to use you to advance their agenda. You are the pawn and you are expendable. They don't care one wit about you. This is about them, the elites.

This is about how we are heroic. How we operate out of the highest moral place and do things we were never able to do before."

This is how evil works.

Illustrating Absurdity...

He's right, abortion is horrific. Any sane person would find doing that to another person repugnant. And to a child? Unthinkable.

But He That Keepeth the Law, Happy is He

The age of lawlessness

There is little question we are living in a time when there is more contempt for the law than ever before – be it God's statutes or America's creed.

While we despise and discount the most basic and fundamental commandments of God and the foundational law of America, we embrace thousands of manmade regulations and codes that do violence to both – as well as doing violence to our individual liberties.

That's true lawlessness.

Spreading Misunderstanding Instead of Enlightenment

Thomas Sowell: Unsound Bites

After all the media hype over Governor Rick Perry's having called Social Security "a Ponzi scheme," viewers are no more informed than before as to what specifically is a Ponzi scheme, what are the objections to such schemes, and whether those same objections apply to Social Security.

Even if such questions were answered, we would still not have weighed the alternatives to Social Security. Serious issues like that cannot be covered in sound bites or with "gotcha" questions from the media.

The above was a follow up to a previous column: The 'Ponzi' sound bite

Many in the media and in politics have gone ballistic over the fact that Texas Gov. Rick Perry called Social Security "a Ponzi scheme."

Although many act shocked, shocked, as if Rick Perry had said something unthinkable, Gov. Perry is not even among the first thousand people to call Social Security a Ponzi scheme. Not only conservatives, but even some liberals, have been calling Social Security a Ponzi scheme for decades.

Moreover, neither the media nor the politicians who are carrying on over the use of the words "Ponzi scheme" show the slightest interest in any hard facts that would tell us whether Social Security is or is not a Ponzi scheme. It is a "gotcha" moment, and that is apparently what some people live for.

What makes this nonsense become fraud is the insinuation that calling Social Security a Ponzi scheme means advocating that people who are depending on Social Security be abandoned and left with nothing to live on in their retirement years. That is the big scare – and the big lie.

People getting Social Security checks are going to keep on getting those checks. Nobody has advocated anything else, or would dare to cut off a financial lifeline for millions of people.

The Living Cartoon

Ex-Afghanistan president Burhanuddin Rabbani killed by 'turban bomb'

Cartoon: Death threats promises, protests, denunciations, etc.

Real life: Crickets.

Quote of the Day

Whenever we seek to avoid the responsibility for our own behavior, we do so by attempting to give that responsibility to some other individual or organization or entity. But this means we then give away our power to that entity.
--M. Scott Peck

Fundamentally Wrong

I couldn't live in a place where if someone breaks into my own home I can take no action to protect my family and myself. How can anyone think that is right? Why don't they just ban locks and make it legal for anyone to take anything they want?

Father arrested for murder over knifing burglar

The householder was home alone when the two men broke in, according to Greater Manchester Police.

His wife and 12-year-old son returned home during the incident, said Chief Superintendent Tim Forber, but they were able to escape unharmed.

England: Making it safer for a criminal to be a criminal.

How do your do, sir? Don't mind me, I'm just here to pick up a few things. I'll be wanting your TV, is that show almost over?

Don't worry, nothing good on anyway. I put fresh batteries in the remote. Here you are.

You're daughter is quite the looker, think I'll have a go.

Tokyo Slo-Mo

Get Your Filthy Hands Off the Economy

Back to the Future: Part II

Almost nobody seems to be hoping that the government will leave the economy alone to recover on its own. Indeed, almost nobody seems at all interested in looking at the hard facts about what happens when the government leaves the economy alone, compared to what happens when politicians intervene.

The grand myth that has been taught to whole generations is that the government is "forced" to intervene in the economy when there is a downturn that leaves millions of people suffering. The classic example is the Great Depression of the 1930s.

What most people are unaware of is that there was no Great Depression until AFTER politicians started intervening in the economy.

When people play God, catastrophe results, things get effected that you never thought of and can't control. Our present "leaders" seem to like things going badly as it plays into their plans for more government control over your life.

Part I is here.

Progressives are at War with Mass Prosperity

Number 5 of the Top 10 Best Quotes from After America: Get Ready for Armageddon according to John Hawkins.

But the bigger government gets, the less it actually does. You think a guy like Obama is going to put up a new Hoover Dam (built during the Depression and opened two years ahead of schedule)? No chance. Today’s big government crowd is more likely to put up a new regulatory agency to tell the Hoover Dam it's non-wheelchair accessible and has to close.

...So called "progressives" actively wage war on progress. They're opposed to dams, which spurred the growth of California. They're opposed to air conditioning, which led to the development of the Southwest. They're opposed to light bulbs, which expanded man's day, and they’re opposed to automobiles, which expanded man’s reach. They're still nominally in favor of mass transit, so maybe we can go back to wood-fired steam trains? No, sorry, no can do. The progressives are opposed to logging; they want a ban on foresty work in environmentally sensitive areas such as forests. Ultimately, progressives are at war with mass prosperity. — P.34

9/11 Revolver

Saw this just now, something I hadn't seen before. There is a short video to watch, very moving.

9/11 Revolver: Recovered from the World Trade Center

High quality photos and closeups at the NRA Museum

Thugs of America Unite

Just can't work up any sympathy for the Pacific Northwest longshoreman's union. In fact, I can't figure how none of them are in jail.

You're Doing It Wrong

I Have My Doubts

An Economics Lesson Even a Liberal Can Grasp

The more President Obama calls for a second stimulus spending spree to create those jobs the first spending spree failed to create, the more he sounds like the grocer in that old joke about the lady who wants her money back because the dietetic ice cream the grocer talked her into buying hasn't helped her lose weight. The grocer thinks for a moment and says, "Eat more of it."

Since the president and his advisers haven't got a clue about how our economy works -- which isn't surprising, since these people have less practical business experience than any kid with a lemonade stand -- here's an economics lesson so short and simple even a liberal can grasp it:

It's not that they are incapable of understanding, it's that they won't. For all their talk of having an open mind, liberals are some of the most close-minded people I've ever met. You can't learn if you already know everything.

You Have No Right

Union Violence

Six guards were held hostage for a couple of hours after 500 or more Longshoremen broke down gates about 4:30 a.m. and smashed windows in the guard shack, he said.

No one was hurt, and nobody has been arrested. Most of the protesters returned to their union hall after cutting brake lines and spilling grain from car at the EGT terminal, Duscha said.

The International Longshore and Warehouse Union believes it has the right to work at the facility, but the company has hired a contractor that's staffing a workforce of other union laborers.

Lesson for America

We used to know this.

If God has given you prosperity, no one has a right to make you feel guilty about it. At the same time prosperity does demand some obligations.

Going After Gibson

This video explains why the government is going after Gibson guitars, but why not other guitar manufacturers?

Creating Wealth vs. Redistributing Wealth

The perils of philanthropy

Wealth is ultimately the only thing that can reduce poverty. The most dramatic reductions in poverty, in countries around the world, have come from increasing the amount of wealth, rather than from a redistribution of existing wealth.

What kind of world do we want – one in which everyone works to increase wealth to whatever extent they can, or a world in which everyone will be supported by either government handouts or private philanthropy, whether they work or don't work?

It is not an abstract question. We can already see the consequences on both sides of the Atlantic. Those who have grown used to having others provide their food, shelter and other basics as "rights" are by no means grateful.

On the contrary, they are more angry, lawless and violent than in years past, whether they are lower-class whites rioting in Britain or black "flash mobs" in America. Their histories are very different, but what they have in common is being supplied with a steady drumbeat of resentments against those who are better off.

Politicians, intellectuals and whole armies of caretaker bureaucrats are among those who benefit, in one way or another, from picturing parasites as victims and their lagging behind the rest of society as reasons for anger rather than achievement.

Leading people into the blind alley of dependency and grievances may be counterproductive for them, but it can produce votes, money, power, fame and a sense of exaltation to others who portray themselves as friends of the downtrodden.

For all their so-called genius, liberals just don't understand the creation of wealth. They don't understand the spiritual aspect of money.

"Relationships build money, money doesn't build relationships."

--Rabbi Daniel Lapin

Redistributing the wealth will NEVER solve the problems they intend to solve, it will only make things worse.

The Problem is the Man

46 people shot in New York City this weekend and who does the mayor blame?

"There are just too many guns on the streets and we have to do something about it," he said, and urged for more federal control and stricter gun control laws across the country.

But it's already illegal to carry guns in New York City, the only people carrying guns in New York City are police and criminals. Perhaps they should try getting the criminals off the streets? It's not the guns. If guns didn't exist the problem would be swords or knives or clubs. Getting rid of guns does not solve your criminal problem, it actually makes it worse. Ask England about that. But Mayor Bloomberg has to blame the guns because to do otherwise would admit the failure of the nanny state - if not for those pesky guns life would be perfect.

Guns are good in the hands of a good man and evil in the hands of an evil man. The problem is the man.


From The Blaze

New York already has among the strictest gun control laws in the country. Currently, possession of an unlicensed handgun requires mandatory jail time (even for an NFL celebrity like Plaxico Burress).

As it is, law-abiding citizens have a near-impossble time acquiring a handgun permit in the city that never sleeps. Technically a "may issue" state for firearms, some legal analysts believe New York is really more of a “no issue” state- unless you have connections.

This end-run around the 2nd Amendment in New York City began over a century ago as a result of corrupt, liberal politicians pandering to anti-immigrant sentiment.

The hundred-year-old Sullivan Law (also called the Sullivan Act) was initially a Tammany Hall patronage measure that allowed favored constituents of corrupt politicians to carry concealed handguns. Under the Sullivan Law, the police- not the Constitution- would determine who could and could not concealed carry a firearm in New York. Simple possession of more common weapons- razors, brass knuckles, or dagger, for example- was a felony, whereas possession of a firearm without license was a misdemeanor.

A series of similar gun legislation followed suit in urban areas across the country.

Fast forward a century: the current state of New York City’s handgun laws are so Byzantine, it appears almost impossible for law-abiding gun owners to comply with, or even understand them.

Perhaps that's the point.

The corrupt political elites want the advantage over the peons so they can do with them what they will.

The Root of Liberty

The Christian nation

There is no room for honest debate on the subject. The United States of America is a Christian nation with a secular government. From its inception, it has been a Christian nation with a secular government. And, as de Tocqueville correctly noted, its liberty is directly linked to its Christianity. The main reason American liberties have been systematically reduced since 1851 is because the influence of Christianity throughout the nation has declined. How can freedom possibly be said to come from the U.S. secular government when most of the constitutional protections devised by the Founding Fathers were erected to guard against that very government?

The truth of the Bible has also been eroded out of Christianity as it has from the nation - "having a form of godliness, but denying the power of it;"

Sad, but True

From Victor Davis Hanson in Zero Jobs 101

We are almost an entire generation of parasites that cannot create anything new and so feed on the capital and labor of the past.

The irony is we believe we are better and smarter.

A Lot of This Going Around Lately

Especially on the left.

Well, sometimes a man can hate too much, Chester. It can twist him till he doesn't know the truth anymore.

--Marshall Dillon, Gunsmoke, season 4, episode 127

Stealing Credibility

Bill Whittle has his truth. Pacifica Radio's Amy Goodman has her truth. Everyone has their own truth. This is the mantra of the left today, and if you think about it, it has to be the mantra of the left. Find out why.

Shedding still more light on the insanity of "enlightened" thinking.

This Explains a Lot

Sources of Madness—The Insane Thinkers of the Modern Age

What is more characteristic of our modern day than crazy and wholly indefensible “policies”? It seems one of the undeniable characteristics of our times that many of the West’s most common practices and theories appear the result of insane conclusions. Perhaps this did not occur by accident. Instead, many of the founders of this modern age were troubled individuals who struggled with profound emotional and mental issues.

While one might assume that such an unstable background would preclude a person from being chosen as a leader, nothing could be further from the truth. Yet, there may be an explanation as to why such crippled minds were chosen as role models to the modern era.

One of the most obvious aspects of a crazy idea is that it is transparently unacceptable to the average person. And yet, if one wants to set about radically changing society they must have a model or philosophy to draw from. It would therefore help to find a mentally unwell person as a source for morally or intellectually unacceptable theories. Because these types of people would be most likely to suggest theories that were quite different and undermine traditional society. Correct? The topic of this essay is the clearly insane bent of much of our modern thinking, resultant from mentally infirm intellectuals like Nietzsche and Comte, and how this creates madness in our everyday lives.

Read through this article, which really isn't very long, and reflect on how many times you've said to yourself, "This is crazy," when hearing about this or that policy, idea, or incident, especially of late. Listen to Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid or any number of elected officials speak, especially leftists. Sometimes it seems like you're on another planet - bizarro Earth. The inmates are running the asylum. The ideas sound crazy because they are.

The notion of removing God and liberty so that man may be free is more properly found in Lucifer's playbook than the Founders.

And so a little more light is shed on the problem.

Hat Tip: Isn't It Rich

That's About Right

Solyndra to Declare Bankruptcy

Solyndra was touted by the Obama administration as a prime example of how green technology could deliver jobs.

That is about how green technology is delivering jobs, so I'd say he was right about this being a prime example.

The American People Should Be Furious

Screw Up, Move Up, Cover Up: The Fast and Furious Edition

There are now enough Operation Fast and Furious officials playing hide-and-seek in the Obama administration to fill a "rubber room."

That's the nickname for taxpayer-subsidized holding pens, such as the ones in the New York City public schools, where crooked employees are separated from the system and paid to do nothing. Perhaps the White House can stimulate a few construction jobs by adding an entire rubber room annex for "reassigned" scandal bureaucrats at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. It's getting mighty crowded.

Good News

But not good enough news.

Melson being bounced out of ATF

Kenneth E. Melson, under fire in connection with the controversial Fast and Furious gun-trafficking investigation, will announce today that he is stepping down as acting director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Waiting for better news. Reporting has been absolutely dismal on the Fast and Furious scandal.

The ATF isn’t the only agency to bear some responsibility for the botched operation that sent guns to Mexico. The Federal Bureau of Investigations and the Drug Enforcement Agency seem to have possessed information that could have had a material impact on Fast and Furious (i.e. info that could have eliminated or reduced the ostensible ‘need’ for the operation in the first place). Or, as the letter puts it, “We have very real indications from several sources that some of the gun trafficking ‘higher-ups’ that the ATF sought to identify were already known to other agencies and may even have been paid as informants.”

Taxpayer money was likely used to finance the gunrunning. “The evidence we have gathered raises the disturbing possibility that the Justice Department not only allowed criminals to smuggle weapons but that taxpayer dollars from other agencies may have financed those engaging in such activities.”

Senior ATF officials would have preferred to cooperate with Congressional inquiries — but “Department of Justice officials directed them not to respond and took full control of replying to briefing and document requests from Congress.”

Melson was at no point asked to resign.

The very best coverage of Fast and Furious has been from the NRA.



This entire administration needs to be removed form office. Everyone.