Hummers & Cigarettes

Vet The Candidates ... Unlike Last Campaign

2012-01-20T09:30:00.000-06:00

Flash Mob! - Carson School of Management

2011-12-11T11:28:00.001-06:00

This is AWESOME! We need more of this!

Obama: Re-Election Campaign Propped Up By Demagoguery & Misrepresentations

2011-12-11T10:34:00.000-06:00

Obama's re-election campaign is rife with demagoguery: Robin-Hood-In-Chief frequently portrays himself as a man of the people wishing to take from the rich in order to give to the poor. The other Charles Krauthammer nailed it on the head in this op-ed piece at National Review (emphasis added):

Obama’s Campaign for Class Resentment
The president has nothing to run on but crude populism.

In the first month of his presidency, Barack Obama averred that if in three years he hadn’t alleviated the nation’s economic pain, he’d be a “one-term proposition.”

When three-quarters of Americans think the country is on the “wrong track” and even Bill Clinton calls the economy “lousy,” how then to run for a second term? Traveling Tuesday to Osawatomie, Kan., site of a famous 1910 Teddy Roosevelt speech, Obama laid out the case.

It seems that he and his policies have nothing to do with the current state of things. Sure, presidents are ordinarily held accountable for economic growth, unemployment, national indebtedness (see Obama, above). But not this time. Responsibility, you see, lies with the rich.

Or, as the philosophers of Zuccotti Park call them, the 1 percent. For Obama, these rich are the ones holding back the 99 percent. The “breathtaking greed of a few” is crushing the middle class. If only the rich paid their “fair share,” the middle class would have a chance. Otherwise, government won’t have enough funds to “invest” in education and innovation, the golden path to the sunny uplands of economic growth and opportunity.

Where to begin? A country spending twice as much per capita on education as it did in 1970 with zero effect on test scores is not underinvesting in education. It’s mis-investing. As for federally directed spending on innovation — like Solyndra? Ethanol? The preposterously subsidized, flammable Chevy Volt?

Our current economic distress is attributable to myriad causes: globalization, expensive high-tech medicine, a huge debt burden, a burst housing bubble largely driven by precisely the egalitarian impulse that Obama is promoting (government aggressively pushing “affordable housing” that turned out to be disastrously unaffordable), an aging population straining the social safety net. Yes, growing inequality is a problem throughout the Western world. But Obama’s pretense that it is the root cause of this sick economy is ridiculous.

As is his solution, that old perennial: selective abolition of the Bush tax cuts. As if all that ails us, all that keeps the economy from humming and the middle class from advancing, is a 4.6-point hike in marginal tax rates for the rich.

This, in a country $15 trillion in debt with out-of-control entitlements systematically starving every other national need. This obsession with a sock-it-to-the-rich tax hike that, at most, would have reduced this year’s deficit from $1.30 trillion to $1.22 trillion is the classic reflex of reactionary liberalism — anything to avoid addressing the underlying structural problems, which would require modernizing the totemic programs of the New Deal and Great Society.

As for those structural problems, Obama has spent three years on signature policies that either ignore or aggravate them ...

Krauthammer goes on to list the massive stimulus and pay-off to Democratic interest groups to the tune of nearly $1 trillion added to the debt, sweeping federally run reorganization of health care that created more entitlements in an already stagnant economy, high-handed regulations, Obama's inaction with regard to reforming the tax code despite bipartisan efforts.

Krauthammer continues:

In Kansas, Obama lamented that millions “are now forced to take their children to food banks.” You have to admire the audacity. That’s the kind of damning observation the opposition brings up when you’ve been in office three years. Yet Obama summoned it to make the case for his reelection!

Why? Because, you see, he bears no responsibility for the current economic distress. It’s the rich. And, like Horatius at the bridge, Obama stands with the American masses against the soulless plutocrats.

This is populism so crude that it channels not Teddy Roosevelt so much as Hugo Chávez. But with high unemployment, economic stagnation, and unprecedented deficits, what else can Obama say?
He can’t run on stewardship. He can’t run on policy. His signature initiatives — the stimulus, Obamacare, and the failed cap-and-trade — will go unmentioned in his campaign ads. Indeed, they will be the stuff of Republican ads.

What’s left? Class resentment. Got a better idea?

As entitlement-pushers and entitlement-addicts jumped on Obama's "blame-the-rich" bandwagon, surprisingly the AP came out with some damning statistics that debunked the Left's claims that the rich don't pay their "fair share" (emphasis added) --

FACT CHECK: Are rich taxed less than secretaries?

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama says he wants to make sure millionaires are taxed at higher rates than their secretaries. The data say they already are.

"Warren Buffett's secretary shouldn't pay a higher tax rate than Warren Buffett. There is no justification for it," Obama said as he announced his deficit-reduction plan this week. "It is wrong that in the United States of America, a teacher or a nurse or a construction worker who earns $50,000 should pay higher tax rates than somebody pulling in $50 million."

On average, the wealthiest people in America pay a lot more taxes than the middle class or the poor, according to private and government data. They pay at a higher rate, and as a group, they contribute a much larger share of the overall taxes collected by the federal government.

The 10 percent of households with the highest incomes pay more than half of all federal taxes. They pay more than 70 percent of federal income taxes, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

In his White House address on Monday, Obama called on Congress to increase taxes by $1.5 trillion as part of a 10-year deficit reduction package totaling more than $3 trillion. He proposed that Congress overhaul the tax code and impose what he called the "Buffett rule," named for the billionaire investor.

The rule says, "People making more than $1 million a year should not pay a smaller share of their income in taxes than middle-class families pay." Buffett wrote in a recent piece for The New York Times that the tax rate he paid last year was lower than that paid by any of the other 20 people in his office.

"Middle-class families shouldn't pay higher taxes than millionaires and billionaires," Obama said. "That's pretty straightforward. It's hard to argue against that."

There may be individual millionaires who pay taxes at rates lower than middle-income workers. In 2009, 1,470 households filed tax returns with incomes above $1 million yet paid no federal income tax, according to the Internal Revenue Service. But that's less than 1 percent of the nearly 237,000 returns with incomes above $1 million.

This year, households making more than $1 million will pay an average of 29.1 percent of their income in federal taxes, including income taxes, payroll taxes and other taxes, according to the Tax Policy Center, a Washington think tank.

Households making between $50,000 and $75,000 will pay an average of 15 percent of their income in federal taxes.

Lower-income households will pay less. For example, households making between $40,000 and $50,000 will pay an average of 12.5 percent of their income in federal taxes. Households making between $20,000 and $30,000 will pay 5.7 percent.

The latest IRS figures are a few years older _ and limited to federal income taxes _ but show much the same thing. In 2009, taxpayers who made $1 million or more paid on average 24.4 percent of their income in federal income taxes, according to the IRS.

Those making $100,000 to $125,000 paid on average 9.9 percent in federal income taxes. Those making $50,000 to $60,000 paid an average of 6.3 percent.

Obama's claim hinges on the fact that, for high-income families and individuals, investment income is often taxed at a lower rate than wages. The top tax rate for dividends and capital gains is 15 percent. The top marginal tax rate for wages is 35 percent, though that is reserved for taxable income above $379,150.

With tax rates that high, why do so many people pay at lower rates? Because the tax code is riddled with more than $1 trillion in deductions, exemptions and credits, and they benefit people at every income level, according to data from the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation, Congress' official scorekeeper on revenue issues.

The Tax Policy Center estimates that 46 percent of households, mostly low- and medium-income households, will pay no federal income taxes this year. Most, however, will pay other taxes, including Social Security payroll taxes.

"People who are doing quite well and worry about low-income people not paying any taxes bemoan the fact that they get so many tax breaks that they are zeroed out," said Roberton Williams, a senior fellow at the Tax Policy Center. "People at the bottom of the distribution say, `But all of those rich guys are getting bigger tax breaks than we're getting,' which is also the case."

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner was pressed at a White House briefing on the number of millionaires who pay taxes at a lower rate than middle-income families. He demurred, saying that people who make most of their money in wages pay taxes at a higher rate, while those who get most of their income from investments pay at lower rates.

"So it really depends on what is your profession, where's the source of your income, what's the specific circumstances you face, and the averages won't really capture that," Geithner said.

[Let's not forget Geithner's tax evasion problems when we read that total dodge.]

And, here's some clips of Dear Leader on the campaign trail rollin' out the "Hate-The-Rich" rhetoric:

2001: redistributive change

Revenue debates: "additional income that I don't need"

But, to end on a brighter note ... Go, Maggie!!

Quote of the Day: Socialism

2011-12-11T09:47:00.000-06:00

I ran across this quote the other day --

“Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.”

- Winston Churchill

Sounds an awful lot like the demagoguery in which Dear Leader frequently engages ... and a lot like the lack of maturity and the disconnect from reality that plagues the far Left and its current manifestation among the OWS protesters.

Battle Saints Bracelets

2011-12-11T09:34:00.001-06:00

What a terrific story I found on KSDK's website via CNN --

Military mom designs 'Battle Saint Bracelets' for troops in harm's way

CNN - A simple bracelet is providing a source of strength and support for men and women fighting for our country.

A solemn march, a loud ovation and a last goodbye for these deploying troops; the Atlanta airport is the final stop on their way to war. That's also where you'll find military moms like Cynthia Lemay.
Lemay knows the pain of deployment all too well.

"Our son is in Afghanistan. My nephew just got back from his third tour. We have several other family members over there," she said.

While she can't be on the front lines, protecting her son, she can ask for a little help from above.

"We put together these saints bracelets. My son has been wearing it since he went over and he's been in several fire fights and attacks," Lemay said.

Lemay calls them the 'Battle Saint Bracelet.' They're made up of 12 to 16 different saints, each with a unique military connection.

"They have different saints on them, including St. Christopher to protect you when you travel, and St. Barbara to protect you if you work...that have very specific meaning to the military and offers them specific protection," she said.

Lemay started the program as a way to feel connected and show support for the troops overseas. Now, the small memento has spread to Hollywood and beyond.

You'll find them on the wrists of celebrities like Zac Brown and the cast from Band of Brothers. And now you can get them online too.

"When you have a loved one in harm's way, not a moment goes by where you don't think of them," Lemay said. "So we wear these every day and think of our loved ones and all the other service men and women who make so many sacrifices every day."

This shopping and holiday season take a moment to think about the men and women spending their holiday in harm's way. And while you're picking up that new gift for a loved one remember the troops and put the saints on their side.

Class Warfare: A Simple Explanation

2011-12-04T09:09:00.000-06:00

Here's the simplified explanation of "class warfare":

The folks who are getting the free stuff don't like the folks who are paying for the free stuff, because the folks who are paying for the free stuff can no longer afford to pay for both the free stuff and their own stuff ...
And, the folks who are paying for the free stuff want the free stuff to stop, and the the folks who are getting the free stuff want even more free stuff on top of the free stuff they are already getting!

Now ... The people who are forcing the people who pay for the free stuff have told the people who are RECEIVING the free stuff that the people who are PAYING for the free stuff are being mean, prejudiced, and racist.
So... the people who are GETTING the free stuff have been convinced they need to hate the people who are paying for the free stuff by the people who are forcing some people to pay for their free stuff and giving them the free stuff in the first place.

We have let the free stuff giving go on for so long that there are now more people getting free stuff than paying for the free stuff.

Now understand this. All great democracies have committed financial suicide somewhere between 200 and 250 years after being founded. The reason? The voters figured out they could vote themselves money from the treasury by electing people who promised to give them money from the treasury in exchange for electing them.

The United States officially became a Republic in 1776, 231 years ago. The number of people now getting free stuff outnumbers the people paying for the free stuff. We have one chance to change that in 2012.

Failure to change that spells the end of the United States as we know it.

Write Me Out of Your Will

2011-12-04T08:45:00.003-06:00

My daughter just walked into the living room and said "Dad, cancel my allowance immediately, rent my room out, throw all my clothes out of the window, take my TV, and stereo, and iPhone, and iPod, and my laptop. Please take all of my jewelry to the Salvation Army or Cash Converters. Then sell my new car, take my front door key away from me and throw me out of the house. Then disown me and never talk to me again. And don't forget to write me out of your will and leave my share to my brother."

Well, she didn't put it quite like that. She actually said ... "Dad I have decided to work for Obama's reelection campaign."

The Ant & the Grasshopper: The 2012 Version

2011-12-04T08:36:00.002-06:00

What a gem my friend R sent me! Thanks! Be sure to send this on to your fellow "ants" ... and some "grasshoppers" who naively think OWS is kewl.

The ANT AND THE GRASSHOPPER
This one is a little different ...... Two Different Versions .....
Two Different Morals

OLD VERSION:
The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.

The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed. The grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold.
MORAL OF THE OLD STORY: Be responsible for yourself!

MODERN VERSION:
The ant works hard in the withering heat and the rain all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.

The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.

Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while he is cold and starving.

CBS, NBC , PBS, CNN, and ABC show up to provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to a video of the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food.

America is stunned by the sharp contrast.
How can this be, that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so?

Kermit the Frog appears on Oprah with the grasshopper and everybody cries when they sing, 'It's Not Easy Being Green..'

ACORN stages a demonstration in front of the ant's house where the news stations film the group singing, We shall overcome.

Then Rev. Jeremiah Wright has the group kneel down to pray for the grasshopper's sake.

President Obama condemns the ant and blames President Bush, President Reagan, Christopher Columbus, and the Pope for the grasshopper's plight.

Nancy Pelosi & Harry Reid exclaim in an interview with Larry King that the ant has gotten rich off the back of the grasshopper, and both call for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his fair share.
Finally, the EEOC drafts the Economic Equity & Anti-Grasshopper Act
retroactive to the beginning of the summer.

The ant is fined for failing to hire a proportionate number of green bugs and, having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by the Government Green Czar and given to the grasshopper.

The story ends as we see the grasshopper and his free-loading friends finishing up the last bits of the ant's food while the government house he is in, which, as you recall, just happens to be the ant's old house, crumbles around them because the grasshopper doesn't maintain it.

The ant has disappeared in the snow,
never to be seen again.

The grasshopper is found dead in a drug related incident, and the house, now abandoned, is taken over by a gang of spiders who terrorize and ramshackle, the once prosperous and peaceful, neighborhood.

The entire Nation collapses bringing the rest of the free world with it.
MORAL OF THE STORY: Be careful how you vote in 2012

I've sent this to you because I believe that you are an ant!
You may wish to pass this on to other ants, but don't bother sending it on to any grasshopper's because they wouldn't understand it, anyway.

2012 Election Blues: Heartbreak, Scandal and ... CONSPIRACY?!?

2011-11-29T16:24:00.003-06:00

I've been MIA the past two months, wanting to blog, but just not up for it. The bug bit me again over the weekend, and I feel like I'm starting come out of my slump. I'm sure the blogosphere and my bazillions of adoring fans missed me!

Noooo, just being extremely sarcastic with that last comment. I mean, I've been using these past few years of blogging just as a method of venting. Spending everyday in public education for over 25 years ... well, the PC-brainwashed Liberal masses make me cah-RAY-ZAY after a while. I need this blog just to help me gather my thoughts, push me to investigate things, and express my beliefs that are otherwise unwelcome and clearly the minority voice in a sea of acamedic ignorance. Educators, for the most part, seem to only regurgitate the propaganda of Liberalism and Unions, unwitting victims of the indoctrination they received in college ... and, to some degree, perpetuating with their students. This blog pushes me to take what I hear and investigate it, or, if anything, at least hear OTHER voices about various subjects.

I've been wondering why my gradual disinterest in blogging, starting over the summer when I typicall have WAAAY more time to blog, winding up pretty much crapped out this fall. I think perhaps these blogging doldrums might be due to this ongoing, frustrating candidate approval process among the GOP candidates. Just when I think I might have made my pick of a candidate, something hits the fan, and I start searching again. Will there somebody "other than Romney", as they say, to stand a chance against Obama?

I do like Romney. Hell, now I'm starting to understand the Left's mentality during the last election with their feeling of "anybody but Bush." Well, I feel that way about Obama -- ANYbody, short of Stalin, would be better than Obama. Hell, I'd even vote for Clinton again! At least Clinton was a leader. Obama has proven himself time and again that he lacks leadership, a spine, and balls. What an utter disappointment, and, if his Liberal supporters didn't throw in the towel last summer with his slipshod mishandling of the BP oil spill, they surely must be angry at the ridiculous con game he thinks he's pulling over us -- "Oh, here, let me come up with some solutions for our budget crisis" or "Here, let me put together a Super Committee to make decisions about budget cuts."

Quite frankly, I am still in mourning that Chris Christie decided not to throw his hat in the ring. My sorrow was renewed when I read Christie's succinct analysis of Obama's recent budget debacle, describing Obama as being just a "bystander." This from Politico (emphasis added):

Gov. Chris Christie on Monday tore into President Barack Obama in the aftermath of thesupercommittee’s failure to reach an agreement on debt reduction last week, asking the president, “What the hell are we paying you for?”

Calling Obama “a bystander in the Oval Office,” the outspoken New Jersey governor said the White House spent the weekend tossing out a whole lot of “spin” about the supercommittee’s inability to come to an agreement before the Nov. 23 deadline.

“I was angry this weekend, listening to the spin coming out of the administration, about the failure of the supercommittee, and that the president knew it was doomed for failure, so he didn’t get involved. Well then what the hell are we paying you for?” Christie said during a press conference in Camden, N.J. “It’s doomed for failure so I’m not getting involved? Well, what have you been doing, exactly?”

Even though he said both parties deserve blame for talking at each other instead of talking with each other, Christie ultimately maintained that the buck stops with the nation’s highest in command and pointed to his own governance in the Garden State as a model for effective leadership.

“In New Jersey, the reason [problems got solved] is because I called people into the room and said we’re going to solve this problem and I had people of good will on the other side who said they believed it was their obligation, regardless of party, to get done things like pension and benefit reform,” the governor said, adding, “Why the president of the United States refuses to do this is astonishing to me.”

If Obama doesn’t get his act together, he may as well go back to the Senate, Christie suggested.

“If he wanted to run for Senate again and just be 1 of a 100, I’m sure he could have gotten reelected over and over again in Illinois,” he said. “He’s the one in Washington and he’s got to get something done here. And it’s not good enough just to say, ‘Well, I’ll get it done after the election.’”

Could someone please wave a magic wand and make Christie magically appear in the GOP pool? He surely would skyrocket to the top of the chart and win the nomination.

But, alas! -- 'tis but a fruitless wish! The pool as it stands, in my humble and woefully inexperienced opinion? Here you will see the source of malaise --

- Romney, yes I would vote for him, although he has been too much of a flip-flopper on too many issues; but, he could handily take on Obama and, with him being a flip-flopper, he might be seen as more of a centrist and, therefore, more likely to draw some of Obama's disgruntled supporters;

- Cain: like him, the ongoing allegations are going to torpedo his chances (I wonder who's behind those ... it seems a lot of his accusers have questionable backgrounds and track records ... the current accuser, Ginger White, being a prime example); don't really think he's presidential material ... but I would still vote for him over Obama, knowing that Cain has leadership skill (and Obama was far from presidential material);

- Gingrich: hate his marital record, he also seems to be a flip-flopper; but, MAN! the guy is brilliant; I love how he blows away the debate moderators/ass clowns; maybe he's a big enough of a shit to get the job done (I think he would definitely show far more leadership than Obama could even begin to picture);

- Santorum: good guy, intelligent, good debater, could do the job; but, the press has blocked him out (as usual, the press is want to choose our candidates for us ...)

- Bachman: press has ridiculed her from the git-go; someone used the expression the other day (sorry, I forget who) about the press pulling out the Sarah Palin playbook on Perry ... I think the MSM did the same with Bachman; she has come off too robotic for me -- sounding a bit too much like slogans she regurgitates; great background ... she'd get my vote, but the press has blacklisted her;

- Paul: BWAAH - hahahahahahhahha! He sounds like he could unexpectedly suffer a psychotic snap and push "the button"; his ideas of foreign policy are too isolationist and evince a serious lack of international awareness or concern; his lack of support for our military makes him a big, fat zero in my book;

- Perry: as mentioned earlier with Bachman, the press pulled out the Sarah Palin playbook on him and did a major hatchet job ... but, Perry also shot himself in the foot at some of the debates; I do love how his ads call Obama's policies for what they are -- socialist ... and I would still vote for him over Obama!

- Huntsman: Why do I want to take a bath after hearing this guy talk? And ever since it was announced in January that Huntsman resigned his position as ambassador to China, MSNBCs "Morning Joe" has been pumping out the PR for Huntsman like nobody's business! I clearly remember hearing one morning Mika piping up with "Love him!" in another one of her incisive analyses ... not! (Go here for my review of "Morning Joe.") Again, I would vote for him over Obama. Huntsman has way more experience and fortitude than Obama The Spineless Wonder.

Speaking of Morning Joe, this morning's show had the cast really knuckling down on getting out the word for Huntsman, pointing out that Huntsman is the true conservative. The gang was in hot counterattack mode against the recent endorsements Gingrich has received. (Here is Scarborough's op-ed piece, or "test", about the GOP candidates: "Who is the real RINO?") Scarborough does make some interesting observations about the candidate field, making the case for Huntsman being the true conservative compared to Romney and Gingrich ... some good food for thought ...

I just think it a tad odd how hard Morning Joe has been promoting Huntsman ...

OOOH! How 'bout me startin' some Huntsman conspiracy theory? Let's see if it takes hold through the Blogosphere!

Here goes ... What if MSNBC and Scarborough's minions are actually pumping in loads publicity and financial support to Huntman's campaign, having received some sort of promise in return ... let's say ... GOT IT! Huntsman gets the nomination and asks Scarborough to be his running mate!

AAAANNNDDDD!!! Meanwhile, Huntsman is actually the one behind all those women making accusations against Cain in an attempt to bump Cain out of the running. Also, Huntsman might even be funding the media leeches to dig up trash on the other candidates in order to up his chances for the nomination. Huntsman is the U.S.'s billionaire number 486, according to Forbes. He's got the bucks ...

... and I would still vote for him over Obama ... even if Joe Scarborough were his running mate!

Christmas Shopping: A New Angle for a Weak Economy

2011-11-28T09:10:00.002-06:00

This was a great idea forwarded to me by my friend M! Some great food for thought as you prepare your Christmas shopping "strategery" ...

As the holidays approach, the giant Asian factories are kicking into high
gear to provide North American with monstrous piles of cheaply produced goods -- merchandise that has been produced at the expense of Canadian/American labor.

This year will be different. This year North Americans will give the gift of genuine concern for others. There is no longer an excuse that, at gift giving time, nothing can be found that is produced by American hands.

Yes there is!

It's time to think outside the box, people. Who says a gift needs to fit in a shirt box, wrapped in Chinese produced wrapping paper?

Everyone -- yes EVERYONE gets their hair cut. How about gift certificates from your local hair salon or barber?

Gym membership? It's appropriate for all ages who are thinking about some health improvement.

Who wouldn't appreciate getting their car detailed? Small, locally owned detail shops and car washes would love to sell you a gift certificate or a book of gift certificates.

Are you one of those extravagant givers who think nothing of plonking down the $$$$ on a Chinese made flat-screen? Perhaps that grateful gift receiver would like his driveway sealed, or lawn mowed for the summer, or driveway plowed all winter, or games at the local golf course.

There are a bazillion owner-run restaurants -- all offering gift certificates. And, if your intended isn't the fancy eatery sort, what about a half dozen breakfasts at the local breakfast joint.

Remember, folks this isn't about big National chains -- this is about supporting your home town
businesses with their financial lives on the line to keep their doors open. How many people couldn't use an oil change for their car, truck or motorcycle, done at a shop run by the American working guy?

Thinking about a heartfelt gift for mom? Mom would LOVE the services of a local cleaning lady for a day.

My computer could use a tune-up, and I KNOW I can find some young guy who is struggling to get his repair business up and running.

OK, you were looking for something more personal. Local crafts people spin their own wool and knit them into scarves. They make jewelry, and pottery and beautiful wooden boxes.

Plan your holiday outings at local, owner operated restaurants and leave your server a nice tip. And, how about going out to see a play or ballet at your hometown theatre.

Musicians and Stand Up Comedians need love too, so find a venue showcasing local talent!

Honestly, people, do you REALLY need to buy another ten thousand Chinese lights for the house? When you buy a five dollar string of lights, about fifty cents stays in the community. If you have those kinds of bucks to burn, leave the mailman, trash guy or babysitter a nice BIG tip.

You see, Christmas is no longer about draining North America's pockets so that China can build another glittering city. Christmas is now about caring about us, encouraging small businesses to keep plugging away to follow their dreams. And, when we care about our neighbours, we care about our communities, and the benefits come back to us in ways we couldn't imagine. THIS is the new Christmas tradition.

Forward this to everyone on your mailing list -- post it to discussion groups -- throw up a post on Craigslist in the Rants and Raves section in your city -- send it to the editor of your local paper and radio stations, and TV news departments.

This is a revolution of caring about each other, and isn't that what Christmas is about? Live simply. Love generously. Be kind. Care deeply. Speak kindly. In God we trust.

Dog Loves "Babe"

2011-11-27T17:09:00.002-06:00

A border collie, no less!

ClimateGate 2 Scandal Continues to Heat Up: BBC in Cahoots

2011-11-27T10:48:00.001-06:00

Ah, yes. The MSM once again in bed with the Left and its dictatorial policies ... This from the UK's Daily Mail (emphasis added):

BBC sought advice from global warming scientists on economy, drama, music... and even game shows
By David Rose
Last updated at 12:29 AM on 27th November 2011

Britain’s leading green activist research centre spent £15,000 on seminars for top BBC executives in an apparent bid to block climate change sceptics from the airwaves, a vast new cache of leaked ‘Climategate’ emails has revealed.

The emails – part of a trove of more than 5,200 messages that appear to have been stolen from computers at the University of East Anglia – shed light for the first time on an incestuous web of interlocking relationships between BBC journalists and the university’s scientists, which goes back more than a decade.

They show that University staff vetted BBC scripts, used their contacts at the Corporation to stop sceptics being interviewed and were consulted about how the broadcaster should alter its programme output.

Like the first ‘Climategate’ leaks two years ago, they were placed last week on a Russian server by an anonymous source.

Again like their predecessors, they have emerged just before a United Nations climate summit, which is to start this week in Durban.

BBC insiders say the close links between the Corporation and the UEA’s two climate science departments, the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) and the Tyndall Centre for Climate Research, have had a significant impact on its coverage.

‘Following their lead has meant the whole thrust and tone of BBC reporting has been that the science is settled, and that there is no need for debate,’ one journalist said. ‘If you disagree, you’re branded a loony.’

In 2007, the BBC issued a formal editorial policy document, stating that ‘the weight of evidence no longer justifies equal space being given to the opponents of the consensus’ – the view that the world faces catastrophe because of man-made carbon dioxide emissions.

The document says the policy was decided after ‘a high-level seminar with some of the best scientific experts’ – including those from UEA.

The ‘Climategate 2’ emails disclose that in private some of those same scientists have had doubts about aspects of the global warming case.

For example, Professor Phil Jones, the head of the CRU, admitted there was no evidence that the snows of Kilimanjaro were melting because of climate change, and he and his colleagues agreed there were serious problems with the famous ‘hockey stick’ graph – the depiction of global temperatures that suggests they were broadly level for 1,000 years until they started to rise with industrialisation.

But although there is now more scientific debate than ever about influences on climate other than CO2, prompted by the fact that the world has not warmed for 15 years, a report from the BBC Trust this year compared climate change sceptics to the conspiracy theorists who blame America for 9/11, and said Britain’s main sceptic think-tank, the Global Warming Policy Foundation, should be given no air time.
...

[loads more good reading if you go to the original article!]

McCaskill Challenges Obama Admin over Sole-Source Vaccine Contract

2011-11-27T10:24:00.000-06:00

It's getting pretty bad for Prince Barack when one of his major supporters (read "Obamatron"), Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo) calls for an investigation into the administration's contract with a smallpox vaccine manufacturer ... which happened to be a big contributor to his campaign. From Will Rahn of The Daily Caller (emphasis added):

McCaskill asks for investigation into Obama administration’s sole-source vaccine contract
Sen. Claire McCaskill, a Missouri Democrat, has asked The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to review the Obama administration’s award of a $443 million sole-source contract to a company owned by a major Democratic donor.

The Los Angeles Times reported earlier this month that the Obama administration has taken unusual steps to procure an experimental smallpox vaccine from a company owned by a major Democratic donor despite concerns from some experts that such a drug was unnecessary and would not be effective.

Citing “serious questions” about the contract, the Los Angeles Times reported that McCaskill has asked the inspector general of HHS to investigate. McCaskill is the chair of the Senate Subcommittee on Contracting and Oversight.

The New York-based Siga Technologies was awarded a contract in May to deliver 1.7 million doses of an antiviral pill called ST-246. It was the only company asked to submit a proposal, and the price tag of $255 a dose is well above what government specialists said was reasonable. When a contracting specialists at HHS was resistant to pay so much, the company complained and the lead negotiator was replaced.

Ronald Perelman, a billionaire and longtime Democratic Party donor, owns Siga Technologies. After the government put a renewed emphasis on protecting the nation from chemical and biological attacks in the wake of September 11, 2001, Perelman bought a controlling stake in Siga through his holding company.

A year after Perelman’s investment, in 2004, President George W. Bush signed Project BioShield, a $5.6 billion, ten-year program to stockpile medications in the event of such an attack.

ST-246, the company’s most promising new compound, was purchased from a Pennsylvania company two months later. It then began lobbying heavily for U.S. government contracts.

Britain Prepares for Collapse of the Euro

2011-11-27T10:09:00.000-06:00

This is some very somber and sobering news from the UK's The Telegraph (via The Gateway Pundit) -- emphasis added:

Prepare for riots in euro collapse, Foreign Office warns
British embassies in the eurozone have been told to draw up plans to help British expats through the collapse of the single currency, amid new fears for Italy and Spain.

The Treasury confirmed earlier this month that contingency planning for a collapse is now under way
Photo: BLOOMBERG

By James Kirkup, Deputy Political Editor
10:00PM GMT 25 Nov 2011

As the Italian government struggled to borrow and Spain considered seeking an international bail-out, British ministers privately warned that the break-up of the euro, once almost unthinkable, is now increasingly plausible.
Diplomats are preparing to help Britons abroad through a banking collapse and even riots arising from the debt crisis.
The Treasury confirmed earlier this month that contingency planning for a collapse is now under way.
A senior minister has now revealed the extent of the Government’s concern, saying that Britain is now planning on the basis that a euro collapse is now just a matter of time.
“It’s in our interests that they keep playing for time because that gives us more time to prepare,” the minister told the Daily Telegraph.

Recent Foreign and Commonwealth Office instructions to embassies and consulates request contingency planning for extreme scenarios including rioting and social unrest.

Greece has seen several outbreaks of civil disorder as its government struggles with its huge debts. British officials think similar scenes cannot be ruled out in other nations if the euro collapses.

Diplomats have also been told to prepare to help tens of thousands of British citizens in eurozone countries with the consequences of a financial collapse that would leave them unable to access bank accounts or even withdraw cash.

Fuelling the fears of financial markets for the euro, reports in Madrid yesterday suggested that the new Popular Party government could seek a bail-out from either the European Union rescue fund or the International Monetary Fund.

There are also growing fears for Italy, whose new government was forced to pay record interest rates on new bonds issued yesterday.
...

The Italian government yesterday said that in talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Prime Minister Mario Monti had agreed that an Italian collapse “would inevitably be the end of the euro.”

The EU treaties that created the euro and set its membership rules contain no provision for members to leave, meaning any break-up would be disorderly and potentially chaotic.

If eurozone governments defaulted on their debts, the European banks that hold many of their bonds would risk collapse.

Some analysts say the shock waves of such an event would risk the collapse of the entire financial system, leaving banks unable to return money to retail depositors and destroying companies dependent on bank credit.

The Financial Services Authority this week issued a public warning to British banks to bolster their contingency plans for the break-up of the single currency.

Some economists believe that at worst, the outright collapse of the euro could reduce GDP in its member-states by up to half and trigger mass unemployment.

...

Press Goes Viral with Erroneous Story About Melting Greenland

2011-11-26T21:20:00.003-06:00

Sorry I am so slow in posting this ... it's from September. But, it's another example of how the media will go viral with an erroneous report with no retraction getting as much press as the error. Sadly, the error was caught, of course, by that evil global-warming denying bastion known as FoxNews (emphasis added):

Times Atlas Apologizes for Global-Warming Error

Climate-gate, Himalaya-gate, and now … Atlas-gate?

Publishers of the Times Comprehensive Atlas of the World scrambled Tuesday to correct a controversial statement that Greenland had lost 15 percent of its permanent ice cover over the last 12 years -- an assertion scientists labeled "incorrect and misleading."

The latest "Times Comprehensive Atlas of the World" shows Greenland with 15 percent less ice cover between 1999 (left) and 2011 (right).

The claim came in a HarperCollins press release on the publication of the 13th edition of the atlas, stating that global warming was "turning Greenland 'green.'" The gradual melting was also depicted in the atlas itself, as cartographers carved out huge chunks of ice to reflect the apparent results of a warming planet.

That was a mistake, scientists say.

Poul Christoffersen, a glaciologist at the Scott Polar Research Institute at the University of Cambridge, said the 15 percent decrease in permanent ice cited "is both incorrect and misleading." He believes the actual number is closer to 0.1 percent.

“It is regrettable that the claimed drastic reduction in the extent of ice in Greenland has created headline news around the world,” Christoffersen said. “There is to our knowledge no support for this claim in the published scientific literature.”

HarperCollins on Monday tried to justify its position. “We are the best there is. We are confident of the data we have used and of the cartography,” a company spokesman explained to the Guardian. “We use data supplied by the U.S. Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Col. They use radar techniques to measure the permanent ice. We have compared the extent of the ice surface in 1999 with that of 2011. Our data shows that it has reduced by 15 percent. That's categorical.”

But with mounting pressure from the scientific community, the publisher took an about-face one day later, retreating from earlier claims and admitting the company may have been “misleading with regard to the Greenland statistics.”

"The conclusion that was drawn from this, that 15 percent of Greenland's once permanent ice cover has melted away, was highlighted in the press release, not in the Atlas itself,” HarpersCollins said in a statement. "This was done without consulting the scientific community and was incorrect. We apologize for this and will seek the advice of scientists on any future public statements."

Maintaining the accuracy of the new maps though, may not be enough. When comparing the maps to recent satellite images Christofferson and his team found “numerous glaciers and permanent ice cover where the new Times Atlas shows ice-free conditions and the emergence of new lands.”

"In the aftermath of 'Himalayagate,' we glaciologists are hypersensitive to egregious errors in supposedly authoritative sources," Graham Cogley of Trent University in Canada told the BBC, referring to a debunked claim that the world’s glaciers were melting so fast that those in the Himalayas could vanish by 2035.

"Climate change is real, and Greenland ice cover is shrinking. But the claims here are simply not backed up by science; this pig can't fly."

HarpersCollins did not return FoxNews.com requests for comment.

Revisionist History: Wayne Perryman Sets The Record Straight

2011-11-26T21:10:00.000-06:00

I caught this great video clip over at Bob Park's site Black and Right:

MRCTVOne's caption: "Rev. Wayne Perryman spoke about the revised history in our nation, where the truth is politically incorrect and where the race card is played without shame."

Perryman has a book for sale that I think I might have to check into:

Why are most blacks in America Democrats?

You will have to answer that question yourself. After reading this book, you will understand that:

for over 150 years, blacks were victims of terrorist attacks by the Democrats and their Klan supporters, including lynching, beating, rapes and mutilations
On the issue of slavery, the Democrats literally gave their lives to expand it; the Republicans gave their lives to ban it.
Many believed the Democrats had a change of heart and fell in love with blacks. To the contrary, history reveals the democrats didn't fall in love with black folks, they fell in love with the black vote knowing this would be their ticket into the white house.

Perryman's website looks like a keeper! There are some other great videoclips to watch.

ClimateGate 2: It Hits the Fan Again

2011-11-26T20:56:00.000-06:00

Last month, it was a huge news story about a global warming skeptic announcing that he agreed that the earth was warming. Richard Muller broke with his earlier findings and issued a statement that the earth is, indeed, warming (see Huffington Post article here), but Muller's research never addressed the cause of global warming. That part of the story oddly didn't get emphasized very much.

This month; however, Scandal has once again reared its ugly head with regard to global warming. It appears that there is a "Part Deux" to ClimateGate from two year ago. First, this headline on Nov. 22nd from James Delingpole of the UK's The Telegraph (emphasis added):

Uh oh, global warming loons: here comes Climategate II!
Breaking news: two years after the Climategate, a further batch of emails has been leaked onto the internet by a person – or persons – unknown. And as before, they show the "scientists" at the heart of the Man-Made Global Warming industry in a most unflattering light. Michael Mann, Phil Jones, Ben Santer, Tom Wigley, Kevin Trenberth, Keith Briffa – all your favourite Climategate characters are here, once again caught red-handed in a series of emails exaggerating the extent of Anthropogenic Global Warming, while privately admitting to one another that the evidence is nowhere near as a strong as they'd like it to be.

In other words, what these emails confirm is that the great man-made global warming scare is not about science but about political activism. This, it seems, is what motivated the whistleblower 'FOIA 2011' (or "thief", as the usual suspects at RealClimate will no doubt prefer to tar him or her) to go public.

A few days later, the UK's The Daily Mail offered more information:

Second leak of climate emails: Political giants weigh in on bias, scientists bowing to financial pressure from sponsors

More than 5,000 documents have been leaked online purporting to be the correspondence of climate scientists at the University of East Anglia who were previously accused of ‘massaging’ evidence of man-made climate change.

Following on from the original 'climategate' emails of 2009, the new package appears to show systematic suppression of evidence, and even publication of reports that scientists knew to to be based on flawed approaches.

And not only do the emails paint a picture of scientists manipulating data, government employees at the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) are also implicated.

One message appeared to show a member of Defra staff telling colleagues working on climate science to give the government a ‘strong message’.

The emails paint a clear picture of scientists selectively using data, and colluding with politicians to misuse scientific information.

‘Humphrey’, said to work at Defra, writes: ‘I cannot overstate the HUGE amount of political interest in the project as a message that the government can give on climate change to help them tell their story. 'They want their story to be a very strong one and don’t want to be made to look foolish.’

The Daily Mail also linked to a related article about the exaggeration of doomsday predictions:

Climate change fears 'have been exaggerated' and doomsday predictions are overestimates, scientists say

Apocalyptic predictions about climate change are likely to be wrong, a study says. Dire forecasts by activists who say that carbon dioxide levels will 'double' and cause temperature rises of 10C are 'unlikely'. Instead, the maximum increase is likely to be 2.6C.

Writing in the journal Science, Andreas Schmittner of Oregon State University said he and colleagues studied how changes in carbon dioxide levels during the last ice age affected temperature. It shows that figures used routinely by pressure groups are simply wrong.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s best guess is 3c, with an upper limit of 4.5c. However, it also says that ‘values substantially higher than 4.5c cannot be excluded’.

The ice age, 21,000 years ago, provided a 'clean' comparison where human activities had no effect on atmospheric levels of CO2. The period was not as cold as previously believed.

I imagine that there are lot of scientists running scared, either of being ostracized by colleagues and academia. or afraid of the power backing this global hysteria. There is an awful lot of power and money up for grabs. And, the Obama administration keeps plowing ahead with its green agenda regardless of cost to the American taxpayer and ignorant of failed green policies in other countries, such as Spain.

Social Media Censoring Christianity?

2011-09-17T20:55:00.003-05:00

Today I found a startling article at The Christian Post -- Is it possible that Facebook, Google, and Apple are on a campaign to stamp out religious free speech? Here's the story from Stephanie Samuel (emphasis added):

Facebook, Google, Apple Censoring Religious Speech?
WASHINGTON – The National Religious Broadcasters (NRB) group sounded the alarm Thursday about new media outlets such as Facebook, Google and Apple, which they say have written policies that violate the fundamental rules of free expression, particularly concerning religious free speech.

The NRB released a report at the National Press Club Thursday analyzing the various content policies of social networking websites. What they found was disturbing: new media platforms Facebook, Apple, Comcast, AT&T and Google have adopted policies to censor lawful viewpoints expressing Christian views or controversial ideas on “hot button issues.” Some platforms, such as Apple’s iTunes App Store and Google’s search engine, have already started to use those policies to remove orthodox Christian viewpoints considered “offensive” or too controversial.

Former Federal Communications Commission Commissioner Harold Furchtgott-Roth said, “The irony is the companies listed in this report are some of the most open companies in the world.”

In a January 2010 interview with TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington, Facebook Founder Mark Zuckerberg praised social networking for opening people up to share “more information and different kinds, but more openly and with more people.”

However, Zuckerberg’s social network has removed content deemed “anti-gay,” according to the NRB report. It is unclear whether that censored material contained any religious expression. However, the NRB report warns, “The position of Facebook on the issue of homosexuality and its collaboration with gay right group the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Discrimination (GLAAD), coupled with its troublesome written policies, are all strong indicators that its social networking platform poses a high index of risk for anti-Christian discrimination.”

The Associated Press caught Comcast blocking or at least delaying peer-to-peer file sharing of the King James Bible.

Google has also committed a number of free speech violations, the NRB report alleges. The world’s most powerful search engine initially prohibited the English Christian Institute from purchasing space for an advertisement about abortion. It also allegedly blocked a Massachusetts pro-family website because of its conservative Christian content. Google also has also excluded churches and other faith groups from free or discounted use of its web tool Google for nonprofits.

Colby May, senior counsel and director for the American Center for Law and Justice, said of new media’s apparent split personality, “Something else is in play.” He and others attending a panel discussion of the report suggested that social networking platforms are under a tremendous amount of pressure from various special interest groups.

For example, Google removed pages of a Norwegian anti-Church of Scientology site after it was pressured to do so by Church of Scientology lawyers.

And when Facebook, citing its outlined responsibility policies, abruptly yanked a fairly innocuous photo of two fully clothed male actors kissing from the blog post of gay rights activist Richard Metzger, it sparked criticism in the gay community, leading Facebook to repost the photo.

Facebook issued a formal apology and reposted the picture. The report contrasts this incident with several others where Facebook “has permanently and unapologetically removed sexual content.”
The grossest act of anti-Christian censorship, according to the report, is Apple’s removal of the Exodus International and Manhattan Declaration apps.

Gay rights protesters demonized Exodus’ app as the “gay cure app,” although the app primarily advertised the date, times and locations of its upcoming events. They rallied more than 107,000 sign petitions asking Apple to remove the app from the iTunes store. Gay activists also successfully petitioned the removal of the Manhattan Declaration.

May lamented Apple’s skewed judgment, saying it rejected an app for a document that upholds the sanctity of life and marriage as “offensive,” but maintains an app for the violent videogame Grand Theft Auto.

The panelists all expressed the fear that selective censorship may silence not just Christianity, but all religions.

May stated that the religious community must demand that companies such as Google and Facebook open their media platforms to more kinds of speech. “When we say ‘open,’ we mean open ... don’t give the heckler veto,” he urged.

Roth urged the religious community to educate the public about the importance of free speech. He said those in academia – millennials such as Zuckerman and the early makers of Google who launched their companies while attending college – may not be aware of why censorship, however small, is problematic.

NRB Senior Vice President and General Counsel Craig Parshall told The Christian Post it plans to send the report to the offending companies along with an invitation for dialogue and discussion. Parshall and others on the Thursday panel made clear their preference for change through dialogue rather than resorting to legislative or regulatory means. However, if the companies do not respond, Parshall says the NRB reserves the right to begin talks with the FCC.

Wow ... and all the Apple products I've bought over the years ... I don't to, but if this Big Brother behavior continues, I may have to take my business elsewhere ... I don't wanna have to buy a PC!

UPDATE: Why The U.S. Was Downgraded

2011-09-17T18:52:00.002-05:00

[Thanks, Mom!]

U.S. Tax revenue: $2,170,000,000,000

Fed budget: $3,820,000,000,000
New debt: $1,650,000,000,000
National debt: $14,271,000,000,000
Recent budget cut: $38, 500,000,000

Let's remove 8 zeros and pretend it's a household budget:

Annual family income: $21,700
Money the family spent: $38,200
New debt on the credit card: $16,500
Outstanding balance on the credit card: $142,710
Total budget cuts: $385

Does this clarify it?

Ha! Today on FoxNews' website, that Bastion of Evil as we know, has a version of the above:

Tea Party Group Casts National Debt as a Household Budget
By Perry Chiaramonte

Published September 27, 2011 | FoxNews.com

America's ever-growing debt crisis is in the trillions -- more than $14 trillion, give or take a few billion.
That's a lot of zeros, numbers so large they're sure to make Americans numb when trying to get their arms around what it means to them.

But what would the federal debt crisis look like if you set it up as a household budget?

A heck of a lot simpler, according to new figures from one Tea Party group, which estimates the government "household" spends nearly twice as much as it takes in every year, has a credit card bill nearly seven times annual income and cuts back less than 2 percent of that spending in an effort to control the debt.

"We had discussed about how any citizen needs to understand what the proposed cuts mean," said Laurie Newsom, president of the Gainesville, Fla., Tea Party. "One of our members had figured it out and put it in terms of a household budget. If you ran a household with these numbers, you would see that it's simply not enough."

The group looked at some key figures, mainly tax revenue, the current federal budget, debt and budget cuts, and divided each figure by $100 million, in an effort to break it down into simple terms that most Americans can comprehend. The group posted its findings online and came up with a household with an average family income of $21,700. But that "family" spent nearly twice that -- $38,200 -- and has an existing credit card balance of a whopping $142,710.

"Everyone tries to keep things extremely simple for these things meant for general public consumption and of course there's a give-and-take with that," said Seth Rabinowitz, a partner with Silicon Associates, an economics-focused management consulting firm based in California. "I would make it clearer for the layman.They used the line 'Money the family spent'...but really that means, 'Money the family spent (last year and intends to spend this year again).' "

"However, when you remove those eight zeros, the $385 spending cuts obviously aren't even visible. They don't even make a dent," he said.

The bottom line, according to Newsom: "Cuts won't take care of it. You need business growth, which we wouldn't have in a regulatory environment."

Obama Administration on the Hunt for "Smear Campaigns"

2011-09-14T10:04:00.003-05:00

Jeez, can you get any more pathetically Stalin-era-esque, folks? Another witch hunt being perpetrated by Obama and his goons, embarking on a seek-and-destroy missiong to snuff out any and all dissent. I heard about this website this morning on my drive in to work, and then found the following article in FoxNews ... which I'm sure will eventually be shut down by Dear Leader's regime:

Reelection Campaign Launches Reporting Site for 'Phony Attacks' on Obama
President Obama's reelection team is looking for scouts to report would-be "smears" against the president, urging supporters to submit criticisms they read or see to a new campaign website called Attack Watch.

"Here's the deal: We all remember the birth certificate smear, the GOP's barrage of lies about the Affordable Care Act and the string of other phony attacks on President Obama that we've seen over the past few years," Obama for American Campaign Mirector Jim Messina wrote in an email released Tuesday.

"There are alot of folks on the other side who are chomping at the bit to distort the president's record. It's not a question of if the next big lie will come, just when -- and what we're prepared to do about it."

The site, a compendium of claims with rebuttals by the president's team, is a throwback to the 2008 campaign's Fight the Smears site.

AttackWatch lists a "news feed" where people can click over to find analyses from liberal groups like Media Matters and Think Progress that offer defenses of the president's position.

Among the "attack files" cited so far are those from Republican candidates Mitt Romney and Rick Perry and others, who've suggested Obama is not a strong ally to Israel. Another rebuttal is aimed at criticisms by Republican congressional leaders like Mitch McConnell and Eric Cantor, who accuse the president of creating job-killing regulations

In each instance of an "attack," the site gives news articles explaining the president's side of the story.
In the email, which also solicits donations to the president's reelection campaign, Messina writes that the site is a resource that "allows us to nip these attacks in the bud before they show up on the airwaves and in emails."

The scouts will then become the first line of defense to "spread the truth" to friends.

The new campaign site also lets people vote whether they've seen the "attack," and has a Twitter feed, @AttackWatch, for people to follow for updates.

So, I went to the website and snapped this:

Kinda freaky, ain't it?

This brings to mind back when the White House website had a spot where you could report "fishy" info, websites, e-mails, etc. Two prior incidents that I've blogged about:

1) "Fact Are Stubborn Things" on White House website:

"There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there, spanning from control of personal finances to end of life care. These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation. Since we can’t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov."

2) Obama Truth Squads

Tea Party: Rumors of Its Demise Greatly Exaggerated

2011-08-28T10:17:00.000-05:00

It's been a spring and summer full of "blame-the-tea-party" bullfeathers, with the usual false claims that the Tea Party is full of racists and right-wing extremists. My God, the Libs even tried to make the Norwegian whacko mass murderer into some kind of "rightwing extremism"and, therefore, in the Bizarr-O world emblematic of the Tea Party. (Talk about a leap in logic -- and not just across the Atlantic from one continent to another!) We Partiers became America's whipping boy for the S&P downgrade, with the Press and Dems dubbing it "Tea Party Downgrade." Now, I don't particularly care for Rand Paul (why does a Freshman politician get so much PR? ... odd), but I had to agree when he said: "Blaming the Tea Party is like blaming the fireman when he comes to put out the fire."

Today, in a feeble attempt to get caught up with the world, I read Bill Hennessy's post "Are You Ready for the Next Wave?" Hennessy is one of the leaders of The St. Louis Tea Party and is initiating a second phase -- The After Party -- and calling Partiers to not lose steam:

Are You Ready For The Next Wave?
Do you ever feel like Dan Blackford?

Dan is an original Tea Party organizer. He’s been at it since 2009. And he’s just about worn out. According to the Wall Street Journal, Blackford’s given up his position in the Houston Tea Party.
All the protests, the organization, the fundraising, the block-walking, has it done anything? Are we better off than we were two years ago? I say ‘No.’
How many other people feel the way Dan feels? Do you think the past two-and-a-half years were a waste?

You Are Not Alone
Sometimes I do. Since the end of 2009, I have been ready to throw in the towel many times. Each time, my friends bolstered me. They reminded me how far we’d come since February ‘09. The reminded me that nothing has stopped our movement, locally or nationally.

So now it’s my turn to bolster the spirits of those like Dan Blackford.

Rome Didn’t Fall in a Day
First, let’s get something straight: your expectations must match reality. The United States has been on the path to bigger government, more debt, and less liberty since the Constitutional Convention. Larry Elder points out:
Congress began ignoring its lack of authority for charity before the ink dried on the Constitution. When Congress appropriated $15,000 to assist French refugees in 1792, James Madison – a Founding Father and principal author of the Constitution – wrote, “I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution, which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents.”
Read more: Charity: Not in the Constitution
The tendency of government to grow is not new. Nor will it go away. Let’s accept what we cannot change and move on. Please don’t make the mistake of assuming we could roll back sixty years of rapid government growth with a single election.

Everybody’s Talkin’
Next, let’s look at what we have accomplished. Let’s begin with the fact that Dan Blackford gets quoted on the front page of the Wall Street Journal more than two years into the Tea Party era.

Do you know how many nascent movements and organizations are born and die in any two year period? Do you know how rare it is for a movement to survive 30 months? Do you realize much rarer it is for a movement that’s only two years old to drive 100 percent of the conversation about government?

Sure, it’s easy to say, “conversation” is all the Tea Party’s gotten for its work. That’s what Ellen Gilmore of LaGrange Tea Party told WSJ. I would tell Ellen that driving the conversation is a very big deal in a republic.

Tomorrow’s decisions—in primaries, in general elections, in school board meetings, and in Congress and the Supreme Court—evolve from to today’s conversations. In 2008, no one cared what Ellen Gilmore or Dan Blackford thought about anything. Today their thoughts are on the front page of one of the most read papers in the world.

If we give up now, Dan and Ellen will be correct: it will have been a waste of precious time, money, and energy.

But we’re not giving up. We’re not standing still. We are still advancing.

The After Party
Over next several weeks, we will roll out a plan. The plan builds upon our accomplishments and strengths. It looks reality squarely in the eye. And it begins to fill the void we feel in our movement and in ourselves.

Once we fill that void, we’ll begin moving the debate a little faster. We’re going to launch an upward spiral of effective action.

Beginning Sunday, August 7, read every episode of The After Party series on www.stlouisteaparty.com. And put a placeholder on your calendar for the 3rd Thursday of every month.

It’s time to launch the next wave. And you won’t be alone.

The St. Louis Tea Party is now announcing its first monthly meeting on Thursday, Sept. 15th:

The After Party--St. Louis Tea Party Monthly Action Meeting
When: Thurs, September 15, 7:00pm – 10:30pm
Where: Crowne Plaza Hotel 7750 Carondelet Avenue, Clayton, MO 63105 (map)
Description: See The After Party series on http://stlouisteaparty.com/category/the-after-party/
Meeting from 7:10 until 8:00. Social Hour until they kick us out :-)
RSVP: https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=200026046720114

If you live in the area, I highly encourage you to attend. Please RSVP on the Facebook site to give the group a heads-up. As of this morning, there are 60 that are "for sures."

I noticed today, too, that the St. Louis Teaparty's website now has a handy PayPal button so you can contribute monthly at rates of $2 or $10. I signed up! It's too easy and convenient not to! (Once you've clicked on the link to the St. Louis Tea Party, look at the sidebar menu to the right and you'll see the PayPal donation section.)

November 2012 is just around the corner, and it is going to be a vicious fight. The MSM have been mercilessly attacking, investigating and vetting to the umpteenth degree each and every individual in the field. (My, if only they had vetted Obama 1/10th of what they are with Bachman, Romney, and Perry!!!) The GOP, however, does at this time have the upperhand, if you believe the all the polls. Let us hope the best candidate for the nomination is chosen. In the meantime, "We The People" need to prepare, educate, plan, and use our best "strategery."

Rick Perry: Pro-Israel

2011-08-28T09:11:00.003-05:00

I am currently still undecided about which GOP candidate I would like to see get the nomination for the 2012 campaign. (I still dream of a Ryan/Christie ticket, although sadly neither will throw his hat into the ring. But, a girl can still dream, can't she?) One issue for me, though, is a candidate's position on Israel, especially in light of the shameful anti-Israel stance of this current administration.

I luckily ran across this column from good ol' William Kristol of The Weekly Standard (the update at the end is very telling of do-nothing Obama and his moronic henchmen):

Jews for Perry?
Rick Perry: Is he good for the Jews?
10:16 AM, Aug 25, 2011 • By WILLIAM KRISTOL

Andrew Ferguson inexplicably neglected, in his fascinating and entertaining piece on Rick Perry in the current issue, to raise the question that’s surely on so many readers’ minds: But is he good for the Jews?

To begin to remedy this oversight, I’d call your attention to two posts. One is by the estimable Kinky Friedman, who ran as a liberal third party candidate against Perry for the Texas governorship in 2006 (a race memorably covered for THE WEEKLY STANDARD by Matt Labash—see here). The world’s most famous Jewish cowboy (or so he says) explains why he would vote for Perry for president:

“I have been quoted as saying that when I die, I am to be cremated, and the ashes are to be thrown in Rick Perry’s hair. Yet, simply put, Rick Perry and I are incapable of resisting each other’s charm. He is not only a good sport, he is a good, kindhearted man, and he once sat in on drums with ZZ Top. A guy like that can’t be all bad. When I ran for governor of Texas as an independent in 2006, the Crips and the Bloods ganged up on me. When I lost, I drove off in a 1937 Snit, refusing to concede to Perry. Three days later Rick called to give me a gracious little pep talk, effectively talking me down from jumping off the bridge of my nose....You might call what Rick did an act of random kindness. Yet in my mind it made him more than a politician, more than a musician; it made him a mensch....

“If the issue of the day is jobs and the economy, Rick Perry is certainly the nuts-and-bolts kind of guy you want in there...

“Compared with the rest of the country, Texas is kicking major ass in terms of jobs and the economy, and Rick should get credit for that, just as Obama should get credit for saying ‘No comment’ to the young people of the Iranian revolution....

“As a Jewish cowboy (or ‘Juusshh,’ as we say in Texas), I know Rick Perry to be a true friend of Israel....

“A still, small voice within keeps telling me that Rick Perry’s best day may yet be ahead of him, and so too, hopefully, will be America’s.”

Don’t trust Kinky Friedman? (I don’t think I do either.) Then go to the website, mezuzahstore.com. There you can read about—you’ll have the opportunity to buy, for a mere $999.00—“The Rick Perry Mezuzah.” Let the folks at mezuzahstore.com explain why there is a Rick Perry mezuzah:

“Over the last few years we have been following with great interest the different stories of condominium boards making rules prohibiting Mezuzahs....

“Recently in June of this year (2011) Texas did something unique in passing a special law explicitly permitting the display of a Mezuzah up to 25 inches tall. This law overrides the authority of the Condo boards to ban Mezuzahs....

“After the bill was passed by the Texas legislature, the only question was whether Governor Rick Perry would sign it into law. When he did, we came up with the idea of commissioning a large, Texas style Mezuzah in his honor....

“In order to push the envelope a bit we told them to make it 26" tall - one inch taller than is protected by the Texas law. They loved the idea and got right to work on it. It arrived in our store in Los Angeles only a few days before Governor Perry announced his presidential campaign. What timing!”

The endorsement of Kinky Friedman! A 26” tall mezuzah! As they say—what could go wrong?

UPDATE: I appear to have left out another “Perry, Good for the Jews” item. Perry urged Attorney General Eric Holder to enforce the Neutrality Act, effectively helping to prevent the latest Gaza-bound flotilla from setting sail.

Navy SEAL Remembered by Family & Friends: Human and Canine

2011-08-27T10:05:00.001-05:00

I've been so lazy and lax in blogging, and I don't know why. There's so much crap going on in the world, that I think I need(ed) a break. Anyway, I'm sure you've already seen this story, but it's one that I just have to post. It makes my little teeny-tiny problems seem so petty and totally unimportant. Major Kleenex warning!

From the UK's Mail Online:

Loyal to the end: Heart-breaking photo shows Navy SEAL's devoted dog guarding his coffin
Petty Officer Jon Tumilson killed in Afghanistan crash

Navy SEAL was one of 38 shot down in helicopter

Labrador retriever Hawkeye was at emotional service

By Mark Duell

This heart-wrenching photo shows how a Navy SEAL’s dog refused to leave his master’s side during an emotional funeral.

Petty Officer Jon Tumilson, 35, killed in the major U.S. helicopter crash in Afghanistan this month, was remembered by around 1,500 mourners.

But it was his Labrador retriever Hawkeye that really captured the public’s emotions in the photo taken by Mr Tumilson’s cousin, Lisa Pembleton.

Mr Tumilson, of San Diego, California, was one of 38 killed on August 6 when a rocket-propelled grenade took out a U.S. Chinook helicopter.

His funeral was held on Friday in his hometown of Rockford, Iowa, at the Rudd-Rockford-Marble Rock Community School.

Ms Pembleton said: ‘I felt compelled to take one photo to share with family members that couldn't make it or couldn't see what I could from the aisle.

'To say that he was an amazing man doesn't do him justice. The loss of Jon to his family, military family and friends is immeasurable.'
WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO HAWKEYE?
Nikki Virgilio, a friend of Mr Tumilson (known as J.T.) who was at the funeral, said Hawkeye was a personal pet rather than a military dog.

'I can happily report to you that Hawkeye was willed to one of J.T.'s good friends, the same one that took care of him whenever J.T. was deployed overseas,' she wrote on Facebook.

This close friend was revealed by the Des Moines Register to be Scott Nichols.
Hawkeye's new owner was revealed by the Des Moines Register to be Mr Tumilson's close friend Scott Nichols, who said at the funeral that the fallen SEAL was more scared of his parents dying than being killed himself.

During the service, U.S. Navy Lieutenant Robert Bradshaw told Mr Tumilson's parents that they helped raise an ‘outstanding man - a hero’.

Family, friends and servicemen, along with Iowa Governor Terry Branstad and U.S. Senator Charles Grassley, packed the school's gymnasium.

Mr Tumilson, who joined the Navy in 1995, was known to friends as J.T.

‘J.T. was going to be a Navy SEAL come hell or high water,’ friend Scott Nichols said. ‘He wasn't afraid of dying.’

‘If J.T. had known he was going to be shot down when going to the aid of others, he would have went anyway,’ friend and soldier Boe Nankivel said.

Mr Tumilson's sister, Kristie Pohlman, said he always dreamed of joining the military's elite special forces unit.

‘Your dreams were big and seemed impossible to nearly everyone on the outside,’ she said. ‘I always knew you'd somehow do what you wanted.’

Family members followed Hawkeye into the service. Mr Tumilson is survived by two sisters and his parents, George and Kathleen.
A fund was set up in the SEAL's honour. Donations can be sent to 'Frogman 238 Memorial Fund' at: First Security Bank and Trust, 201 West Main Ave, Rockford, Iowa, 50468

Biden Schmoozes the NEA and Comes Away with Support for Obama and $32 M

2011-07-23T14:10:00.000-05:00

The same week (early July) Biden spoke to the AFL/CIO, saying if you vote Republican, "you're on your own, jack!", he was also schmoozing teachers at the NEA conference held in Chicago. Biden warned the teachers that the GOP doesn't believe in public education like the Dems do. Here's the story from Politico (emphasis added):

GOP maligns teachers, Biden says

CHICAGO — Vice President Joe Biden says the “new Republican Party” fundamentally doesn’t believe in public education the way Democrats do.

“There is an organized effort to place blame for budget shortfalls on educators and other public workers. It is one of the biggest scams in modern American history,” he was quoted as saying by the Chicago Tribune.

The Democrat spoke Sunday before thousands of educators at the National Education Association’s annual convention in Chicago. The association bills itself as the largest labor union nationwide.

The speech came a day before the union’s vote on whether to endorse President Barack Obama’s reelection campaign.

Biden says Republicans in states like Wisconsin and Ohio would once have negotiated better with teachers and labor unions. But he says there’s now an organized effort to place blame for budget shortfalls on their shoulders.

Biden’s speech largely praised teachers, but he drew applause when he briefly acknowledged there’s widespread unhappiness among them for the Obama administration’s education policies.

And what are those questionable education policies that are causing "widespread unhappiness" among teachers? Could one be school vouchers that Obama has supported since the days of his bid for the Presidency? (See this for the discussion back in February 2008.)

But, the NEA will continue to blind itself to that and continue to push for more money from its members to support Obana's re-election:. From Education Week:

The approval triggers the flow of NEA PAC dollars toward Obama's re-election campaign.

And that's not all: 70.1 percent of the body, or 5,258 delegates, approved the amendment to the bylaws that authorize the $10-per-member annual assessment, 60 percent of which will be used primarily to support the Ballot Initiative/Legislative Crisis fund, and the other 40 percent for national and state media efforts. These funds can't support political campaigns but can support messaging and action against things like anti-collective bargaining legislation.

You should take a moment to read some of the members' comments that follow the article. One makes a particularly valid point: Why would the NEA vote to endorse Obama before learning who the GOP candidate will be? That really does point to the Dem-DNA of the NEA.

Labor Union Report calculates the resulting funds the NEA can expect to gain from the NEA PAC money:

With more than 3.2 million members, the actual delegates voting for the dues increase represent 0.0016 of the union’s total membership. Despite this, the majority of delegates voting decided that the NEA will now amass a $32 million war chest to use in political advertising and election-related actions—mostly to benefit Democrats.

"Mostly to benefit Democrats?" -- Why what does that mean, you ask? 2006 marked the 30th anniversary of the NEA entering the playing field of politics. The result? Here's how John Berthoud summarizes it at Human Events via BNET (emphasis added):

Over these past three decades, the NEA has carpet-bombed the political landscape with money. In just the one-year period from September 2004 through August 2005, the NEA spent $25 million on political activities and lobbying, and another $65.5 million on contributions, gifts and grants.

From 1990 through 2002, the NEA was the nation's second biggest political giver. (Unions comprised six of the 10 top political contributors.)

The NEA's political support goes almost exclusively to the Democratic Party. Between 1990 and 2002, 95% of NEA candidate and party donations went to Democrats. After the 1976 Carter endorsement, they've been strong backers of every subsequent Democratic presidential nominee. As University of Virginia political scientist Larry Sabato once observed, "It's fair to say that the Democrats would be nowhere without them."

Let's not forget this lovely 2009 speech about money and power from NEA's then General Counsel Bob Chanin --

Murdoch's News Corp Empire: England's Scandal Hitting U.S. Shores

2011-07-23T12:15:00.004-05:00

I have been a fan of FoxNews for probably close to 6 years now, daily watching its different shows and reading its website. And, as many of you are (whether pro- or anti-Fox), I've been monitoring this whole scandal involving Rupert Murdoch's "News of the World" tabloid scandal in England. It is a very sordid and twisted trail reaching into many different aspects of England's business, political and police circles. I nervously wait to see what kind of impact the scandal will have on FoxNews and The Wall Street Journal here in the U.S., both entities owned by News Corp.

I will reserve final judgment for when all the facts are in. I won't go all "Casey Anthony" on this, convicting with a shadow of doubt before all the facts are in. I worry: Will I have to give Fox and WSJ the heave-ho like I did NPR in the wake of the Juan Williams fiasco? Journalism. We need true journalism .... but, the field is full of a bunch of dishonest, scandal-seeking, lasciviousness-loving hacks.

Until all accounts have been proven and recorded and all evidence is in, I will meanwhile monitor the situation, as I hope you will, too. For now, here is a small collection of news, op-eds, and varying perspectives:

• from good ol' FoxNews today (emphasis added):

U.S. Justice Department Prepares Subpoenas in News Corp Inquiry

New York – The U.S. Justice Department is preparing subpoenas as part of preliminary investigations into News Corp. relating to alleged foreign bribery and alleged hacking of voicemail of Sept. 11 victims, The Wall Street Journal reported in its Friday edition, citing a government official.

The issuance of such subpoenas, which would broadly seek relevant information from the company, requires approval by senior Justice Department leadership, which has not yet happened, the person said.

The issuance of subpoenas would represent an escalation of scrutiny on the New York-based media company. While the company has sought to isolate the legal problems in the U.K., it has been bracing for increased scrutiny from both the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), according to people familiar with the company's strategy.

The Justice Department has said it is looking into allegations that News Corp.'s now-defunct News of the World newspaper in the U.K. paid bribes to British police. It has been unclear whether the Justice Department or the SEC have begun formal probes.

The FBI separately has begun an inquiry into whether News Corp. employees tried to hack into voicemails of Sept. 11 victims, people familiar with the early-stage probe have said.

A person close to News Corp. said the preparation of subpoenas is "a fishing expedition with no evidence to support it."

Commenting on the FBI inquiry, another News Corp. spokeswoman said, "We have not seen any evidence to suggest there was any hacking of 9/11 victim's phones, nor has anybody corroborated what are clearly very serious allegations. The story arose when an unidentified person speculated to the Daily Mirror about whether it happened. That paper printed the anonymous speculation, which has since mushroomed in the broader media with no substantiation."

• and from another of News Corp's U.S. interests, The Wall Street Journal (which I also love ... alas!) offers a continuation of the above (click here).

• Many of us are familiar with Piers Morgan from his CNN show "Piers Morgan Tonight" and as one of the hosts of "America's Got Talent." Well, it turns out that before his U.S. gigs here, Morgan was the editor of two non-News Corp related papers over in England, and a former reporter claims that phone hacking widespread under Morgan's reign, as well. From the UK's Guardian (emphasis added):

Phone hacking also rife under Piers Morgan at Mirror, claims ex-reporter

Former City Slicker reporter offers evidence for public inquiry, alleging phone hacking was widespread at Mirror and People

Phone hacking was not confined to the News of the World but was widespread at other newspapers, including the Daily Mirror, a former Mirror reporter has claimed.

James Hipwell, who worked as a financial journalist under the editorship of Piers Morgan, said the practice was "seen as a bit of a wheeze" and offered to give evidence to the public inquiry into hacking ordered by David Cameron.

Hacking also took place at other titles in the newspaper group, including the People, he alleged.

"You know what people around you are doing," he told the Independent. "They would call a celebrity with one phone and when it was answered they would then hang up.

"By that stage, the other phone would be into [the celebrity's] voicemail and they would key in the code, 9999 or 0000. I saw that a lot."

He added: "It was seen as a bit of a wheeze – something that was slightly underhand but something many of them did. What a laugh.

"After they'd hacked into someone's mobile, they'd delete the message so another paper couldn't get the story. There was great hilarity about it."

Piers Morgan, a former editor of the Mirror, and the News of the World, has strenuously denied any link to the phone-hacking scandal.
...

• an interesting angle: how News Corp could impact Israel ... from The Jewish Times (emphasis added)"

Murdoch Scandal's Israel Fallout

Pro-Israel leaders in the United States, Britain and Australia are warily watching the unfolding of the phone-hacking scandal that is threatening to engulf the media empire of Rupert Murdoch, founder of News Corp.

Murdoch’s sudden massive reversal of fortune—with 10 top former staffers and executives under arrest in Britain for hacking into the phones of public figures and a murdered schoolgirl, and paying off the police and journalists—has supporters of Israel worried that a diminished Murdoch presence may mute the strongly pro-Israel voice of many of the publications he owns.

“His publications and media have proven to be fairer on the issue of Israel than the rest of the media,” said Malcolm Hoenlein, the executive vice-chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. “I hope that won’t be impacted.”
...

Jewish leaders said that Murdoch’s view of Israel’s dealings with the Palestinians and with its Arab neighbors seemed both knowledgeable and sensitive to the Jewish state’s self-perception as beleaguered and isolated.

“My own perspective is simple: We live in a world where there is an ongoing war against the Jews,” Murdoch said last October at an Anti-Defamation League dinner in his honor. “When Americans think of anti-Semitism, we tend to think of the vulgar caricatures and attacks of the first part of the 20th century. Now it seems that the most virulent strains come from the left. Often this new anti-Semitism dresses itself up as legitimate disagreement with Israel.”
...
Murdoch’s affection for Israel arose less out of his conservative sensibility than from his native Australian sympathy for the underdog fending off elites seized by conventional wisdoms, according to Isi Liebler, a longtime Australian Jewish community leader who now lives in Israel ...

• Cal Thomas points out the hypocrisy on the part of the MSM here in the U.S. (from Newsbusters.org) -- with emphasis added:

About The Glee Over Murdoch's Troubles

"Glee" is not just an American TV show, it is also the emotion many people feel and express toward the trouble Rupert Murdoch's News Corp is having, since they consider Murdoch's properties a blight on their formerly pristine media landscape.

There are two strains running through the phone-hacking scandal that monopolizes much of the media attention in the UK. One is the attitude of the mainstream media types who are frustrated by the success of Murdoch properties, most notably Fox News Channel in America (to which I contribute). They see Murdoch's troubles with the now shuttered News of the World tabloid as an opportunity to destroy the Murdoch empire, which they have been unable to do by competing with it.

The second strain is legal. After the apparent suicide of a former News of the World reporter and unprecedented resignations of high-ranking officers at Scotland Yard, whose allegedly paid connections with News of the World are at the center of parliamentary and police inquiries, Labour and Tory politicians are positioning themselves for major political advantage.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder confirmed the Justice Department is looking into allegations that employees of News International, a division of News Corp, hacked, or attempted to hack, into the phones of 9/11 victims. Several Democratic members of Congress and Rep. Peter King (R-NY) have called for such an investigation.

The response to this by the British and American mainstream media reeks of hypocrisy. Whatever one thinks of the morality of paying for news stories, the British press, under Labour and Tory governments, have been doing it for years. Fleet Street was built on cash for gossip. American media are slightly more sophisticated in pursuing "exclusive" stories.

There are other forms of "payment" U.S. media make to politicians -- mostly liberals -- with whom they agree. They repeat the talking points of Democrats or refuse to challenge statements that are factually incorrect. They frequently fawn over people they like and challenge those they don't like. Call it a political version of an "in-kind" contribution.

People who broke the law by hacking into phones should be punished, but this is more about liberal attempts to destroy Fox News, which liberals hate because it communicates ideas, issues and opinions that were mostly unavailable, or ignored, until the network launched in 1996. Fox News has not been implicated in the British phone hacking, but that won't stop its enemies from trying to make the connection. MSNBC's Martin Bashir compared Murdoch to Jack Abramoff and mobster James "Whitey" Bulger. There were similar over-the-top comments by other broadcast "journalists."

People can debate Fox's slogan "we report, you decide," but the liberal mantra might more accurately be stated, "we distort, we decide."

The faux "virgins" in big media like to portray themselves as "above" the standards and practices of media owned by Murdoch, but past behavior exposes them as two-faced. Examples: In 2003, the New York Times reported that, "Michael Jackson struck a deal with CBS to be paid in effect an additional $1 million for both an entertainment special ... and his interview on "60 Minutes" ... part of yearlong negotiations." The news magazine denied paying Jackson for the interview, but an associate of Jackson's said at the time the deal included the "60 Minutes" appearance.

According to one of Casey Anthony's attorneys, ABC News paid $200,000 for photos of her dead daughter, Caylee. CBS News got off with a mere $20,000 "licensing fee" paid to Caylee's grandparents.

When hero passenger Jasper Schuringa helped subdue the Christmas Day bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, on a flight to Detroit and later snapped cellphone photos of the suspect being escorted off the plane in wrist restraints, CNN paid Schuringa a "licensing fee" for the images. CBS and ABC reportedly bid for the photos, according to TVNewser.com, ultimately earning Schuringa $18,000.
If tabloids paid British police for information, then that would be a violation of journalistic ethics, if they still exist. American journalists had better look to their own motivations before casting stones at Rupert Murdoch.

Whatever happens in Britain, Fox News will survive and prosper. And that will be a cause for glee to those who dislike reporting that comes from a single ideological worldview.

I do think, however, that some of the cases Thomas mentions to back his "hypocrisy" accusation against the American MSM are a little week. They pale in comparison to the English press making pay-offs to police officials. But, I do agree with Thomas' charge of hypocrisy. I believe a more convincing "proof" of the media's hypocrisy could better start with reminding readers of the Wikileaks scandal -- many papers, especially The New York Times, published "leaks" that involved national security and endangered people's lives?

Michelle Malkin skewered The NY Times two summers ago for its numerous incidents of printing such sensitive material:

Will blabbermouth New York Times learn its lesson?
...
From September 11, 2001 to the present, the terror-tipping blabbermouths of the New York Times have repeatedly undermined national security by disclosing sensitive/classified information about many key counterrorism programs. The paper has gone to court to force the government to release such information. The paper has shown reckless disregard for the consequences of disclosure.
...
We already know the Times suppresses inconvenient information. Now, we know that other media outlets will suppress info on their behalf in a conspiracy of silence for national security purposes.

Just imagine if the newspapers were, say, banks cooperating in secrecy with intelligence/counterterrorism officials to help track jihadists.

Why, it would be a front-page national scandal.

It's a very intricate, twisted spider's web of intrigue. In fact, if you're feeling a bit embarrassed feeling a tad incapable of keeping up, don't. Apparently, the Brits are, too. So much so, that the BBC has posted a Q&A section on the scandal: "Q&A: News of the World phone-hacking scandal." It's pretty good!

Let's see how this all pans out ... after a humorous interpretation of the scandal from Jon Stewart:

The Daily Show
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

"Schadenfreudegasm" -- that's funny!

NPR: Juan Williams Soon Releases Scathing Book

2011-07-22T12:28:00.000-05:00

Back in October, Juan Williams was fired from NPR for making comments on FoxNews' The Factor which NPR deemed inappropriate. Next week, according to Politico, Williams will be releasing his latest book “Muzzled: The Assault on Honest Debate,” in which he harshly criticizes NPR for being elitist and claims the news organization attempted to censor him. Here are some excerpts from Keach Hagey's story at Politico (emphasis added):

Williams on NPR: Elitist and White

No single person has had a greater impact on National Public Radio in the past year than Juan Williams.

The political wildfire started by his firing ultimately took down the media organization’s CEO, top news executive and top fundraiser, and sparked multiple votes on the floor of Congress to strip the public broadcaster of federal funding.
As if this were not vindication enough, in “Muzzled: The Assault on Honest Debate,” a new book out next week, Williams details a decade of what he said was NPR’s effort to “censor, control and belittle” him because of his longstanding relationship with Fox News, and, to some degree, he said, his race.

“It is a very elitist and in this case white institution that I think is struggling with the changing demographics of American society,” he said. “And it struggles with the idea that there are capable thinkers and journalist and people who don’t fit into some box.”

He points out that, after he was fired from his NPR news analyst job for saying on “The O’Reilly Factor” that he gets nervous when he boards a plane and sees people “in Muslim garb,” there were no more black males on NPR’s airwaves. And he writes in the book that “it was clear they wanted me out the door,” an NPR news executive told him, “because I did not fit their view of how a black person thinks.”

NPR spokeswoman Anna Christopher took issue with Williams characterizations of his tenure at NPR.

“Diversity of opinions, ideas, sources, voices, and staff is very important to NPR, as evidenced by the work we do and the people who do it,” she said.
...
His last book, “Enough,” was inspired by Bill Cosby’s controversial speech accusing the black community of failing to live up to the promise of Brown vs. Board of Education. And for many years, as a contributor to both NPR and Fox News, he provided two very ideologically divergent audiences a window into the other side.
Fox News, Williams writes, was quite happy with this arrangement, but NPR was not. His relationship with Fox made NPR editors and producers questions his journalistic independence to the point, he said, that NPR would ignore tips he gave them and at one point even passed on an interview with President George W. Bush because the White House had offered it to Williams, not NPR.
“When it served their purpose,” he writes, “NPR officials were all too happy to use my connection to Fox.” Later, when Elena Kagan was nominated to the Supreme Court, Williams was suddenly much in demand as the author of a biography of Justice Thurgood Marshall, for whom Kagan had clerked. But when he pitched a piece on it to NPR, he was told there was no room for “a Juan Williams piece.”
The official behind much of this bad blood was Ellen Weiss, NPR’s senior vice president for news, who later made the call to Williams telling him that he’d been fired and whose head was the first to roll after an investigation into NPR’s handling of the firing. He claims in the book that NPR had long been just looking for an excuse to fire him because of his Fox work, and didn’t do so sooner because NPR reporter Mara Liasson also contributed to Fox.
But if things were so bad, why did he stick around?
“I guess I was an abused kid,” Williams said. “I just kept thinking they just made this mistake today, but it will get better.”
...

In the book, Williams argues that neither his firing nor his previous fights with NPR management were isolated incidents, but rather part of a wider resurgence of what he calls “political correctness” in culture today.
“You are not supposed to say certain things in political conversation and I think it is political correctness, like the walking dead, back from the grave,” he said. “Left and right it is all around us. I don’t think most people identify it as the political correctness of the 60s, but believe me, it is back with a vengeance.”
He distinguishes his version of “political correctness” from the more traditional liberal policing of language to avoid offending women, minorities and people with disabilities that is grounded in the civil rights movement and that sparked a backlash in the 1990s. For him, “political correctness” means any adherence to dogma, and refusal to enter into a kind of middle space where persuasion is possible.
True to his manifesto of straight talk, Williams also offers some unusually frank assessments of Fox News for someone employed by the channel.
“The news channel looks for the conservative slant in the stories it selects to tell,” he writes, veering rather substantially from the Fox News script that ideology on the channel is confined to primetime and opinion shows in the same way a newspaper’s opinions are confined to the editorial page.
He devotes an entire, not particularly laudatory chapter to “The Provocateurs,” in which he singles out Glenn Beck of particular criticism.
“[R]ather than spark a genuine debate, Beck seeks to ignite our ire and go on the attack,” he writes. “There is no progressive conspiracy to destroy the United States of America from within, and it is absurd to suggest there is.”
The one “provocateur” who is noticeably immune from Williams criticism is Bill O’Reilly, who he calls a “friend” and on whose show he appears routinely.
...
Williams ends the book with a final jab at NPR by calling for an end to its federal subsidy. Yet he is also critical of another public broadcasting funding source that would be likely to fill the hole if Republicans were ever successful in their attempts to strip public funding: wealthy individuals and foundations.
Although Williams had nothing to do with the fundraising sting video by James O’Keefe’s Project Veritas that took down former NPR CEO Vivian Schiller and top fundraiser Ron Schiller, his firing did create the political environment that made them targets in the first place. And the condescending comments that were caught on tape fit perfectly with his own criticism of the organization.
“NPR editors and journalists found themselves caught in a game of trying to please a leadership team who did not want to hear stories on the air about conservatives, the poor, or anyone who didn’t’ fit their profitable design of NPR as the official voice of college-educated, white, liberal-leaning, upper-income America,” he writes.
He also believes that NPR’s coverage is skewed by its major donors – the most famous of whom, George Soros’s Open Society Foundations, gave a $1.8 million donation the same week he was fired, further stoking accusations of NPR’s liberal bias.
...
In the end, Williams’s most stinging criticism of NPR is not racism or liberalism, but arrogance.
“I think the ethos was one in which we operated at a higher level, and people who don’t understand it, and don’t appreciate it, they are the ones that are not as smart, or as well-informed, or as well-educated as we are,” he said. “They felt that they were superior. Is that always liberal? It turns out that in NPR’s case, yes.”

Don't forget what happened to Mara Liasson back in December of '09, when she was pressured by NPR to reconsider her affiliation with FoxNews. Also from Politico:

Executives at National Public Radio recently asked the network’s top political correspondent, Mara Liasson, to reconsider her regular appearances on Fox News because of what they perceived as the network’s political bias, two sources familiar with the effort said.

According to a source, Liasson was summoned in early October by NPR’s executive editor for news, Dick Meyer, and the network’s supervising senior Washington editor, Ron Elving. The NPR executives said they had concerns that Fox’s programming had grown more partisan, and they asked Liasson to spend 30 days watching the network.

At a follow-up meeting last month, Liasson reported that she’d seen no significant change in Fox’s programming and planned to continue appearing on the network, the source said.

Good for you, Juan and Mara!!!

The Food Stamp President

2011-07-20T12:03:00.000-05:00

Remember back in May when Newt Gingrich stirred up a storm by calling Obama the "Food Stamp President?" I love the humorous response from The People's Cube --

The Food Stamp President

Superkommissar Maksim

7/10/2011, 1:47 pm

Every day President Obama is freeing toiling masses from the bonds of wage slavery. An ever growing number of former oil rig, construction, and retail workers, who once toiled under the yoke of capitalist oppression, have now heroically joined with liberated multitudes whose daily wants and needs are provided by the government.

In just three years Obama has emancipated 12 million former wage earners, adding them to the glorious Food Stamp program - that is a victorious 38% increase for a total of 44 million. No longer exploited for their labor, these men and women are free to live a sparse life without the stress of unnecessary choices, or the burden of supporting the decadent consumer society. Those who once were mere cogs in the monstrous capitalist planet-raping machine, now can enjoy a guilt-free life of government dependency.

As impressive as Obama's success has been, there still remain those who are bitterly clinging to self-reliance - a debilitation condition caused by false consciousness, the dark legacy of capitalist propaganda. To those still shackled to a job: do not give up hope! Our progress is unstoppable! Obama has plans for many more regulations and taxes - a tried and true way to beat back the vicious creation of jobs and prosperity in the reactionary private sector.

Soon you too will enjoy a scant existence with your very own Obamacard. Experience the glory of heroic and selfless sacrifice for the Greater Good™ as your children grow up loving the indiscriminate largess of the government's giving hand!
~

These are glorious times, comrades! The Progressive World of Next Tuesday™ is close at hand. We all must work tirelessly to ensure that Obama is not defeated by the evil Koch Brothers' Republican puppets. The future is in your hands!

Obamacard Food Stamp Electronic Wealth Transfer is preferred by 5 out of 5 government officials.

Heatwave: How Hot Is It?

2011-07-20T11:38:00.001-05:00

With the present heatwave sending 17 states to the 100-degree mark yesterday and 40 others with 90+ degrees, I wonder if where you are is hotter than where I am

.... here's my neighborhood ice cream truck!!!

Tee, hee!

Helicopter Parents: Hovering Over the Workplace

2011-07-20T11:11:00.000-05:00

In education, we teachers a few years back talked about the phenomenon of "helicopter parents." Here's how Urban Dictionary defines them:

Parents that hover over their children, hawkishly "helping" them face the college learning scenario. It is debated whether or not parents that hover are good or bad for their child's overall development.

They can also be referred to as "Hummingbird Parents."

We had heard stories of how these clingy, pushy parents would call professors to complain about their kids' grades. (Ironically, I've had some colleagues turn into helicopter parents, with one calling a college professor to find her daughter a tutor and another doing the online regisration of her son's coursework!)

Well, it seems now that after their kids have graduated, now helicopter parents are following them to the workplace. Here's a recent story on this parenting ~~horror story~~ phenomenon from Steve Giegerich at The St. Louis Post Dispatch (emphasis added):

'Helicopter parents' are descending on hiring managers

A staunch advocate has emerged to defend maligned employees or put in a good word with hiring managers.

Workplace supervisors report she can be relentless in trying to right the wrongs of impertinent bosses. And no one better extols the virtues an applicant might bring to an office or shop.

Meet mom.

In a report destined to chill the spines of executives everywhere, a global staffing firm recently disclosed that so-called helicopter parents — long the bane of teachers from kindergarten through college — are descending on the workplace, too.

The survey of its senior managers by Robert Half International suggests that most parental intervention takes place during the hiring process.

Still, the meddling sometimes continues even after a child has landed a job.

"It's a lot more prevalent than we thought," says Melinda Alison.

A regional vice president in the Robert Half International St. Louis office, Alison reports fielding more than a few résumés from email addresses assigned to the parents of applicants.

That might signal the age-old problem of parents' inability to let go. But a job market that has forced untold numbers of college graduates to move back to their childhood bedroom cannot be discounted.

Parents "have just spent all this money on school, and they want to get them out of the house," Alison said. "Their intentions are great, but it can backfire because employers want to hire people who exhibit independence, a sense of responsibility and self-motivation."

Undaunted, many parents persist. And an equal number of children permit it to happen.

The Robert Half International report, based on interviews with 1,300 supervisors, overflows with examples:
The parent who asked to participate in her child's job interview.
The manager who pressured a co-worker to give his daughter, also a company employee, special treatment when an opportunity for a promotion presented itself.
The mother who contacted a human resources department demanding to inquire why her son was deemed unqualified for a job opening.
Alison added a personal perspective to the report's findings.

Her father had a habit of leaving clipped job opportunities from the classified section of the newspaper atop her dresser after Alison moved home following college graduation. Happily, Alison says, her dad's heart-in-the-right-place efforts were limited to the occasional not-so-subtle nudge.

Other parents, unfortunately, seem incapable of exercising restraint.

Part of it could fall into the psychological categories of internalization or projection.

Because, as Alison notes, a lot of mothers and fathers lately know the pain of unemployment.

"There's a trickle effect," she said. "Parents who have lost their jobs are nervous for the future of their children. They know how difficult it is to find a job in this market, so they take matters into their own hands."

Alison has one word of advice to helicopter parents feeling the urge to contact their children's boss or would-be employer: Don't.

In an overly involved parent of an applicant, hiring managers see the potential for an overly involved parent of a future employee. And as often as not, that translates into the position going to the job seeker with, well, a stay-at-home mom.

Wow! I would be embarrassed if my parents ~~interfered with~~ intervened in my job hunting. I am so grateful that I had parents who taught me responsibility and self-reliance from an early age. They taught me to use an alarm clock when I started first grade, they never did my homework for me (helped occasionally, yes), and never called in lame excuses to the school or my teachers when I was irresponsible in getting work done. In high school, I did my own class registration (which they would check over in the evening, of course), and I did my own college application and job search. They would kick my butt at home, but I had to do the phone calling, mailing, and job hunting.

Thanks, Mom and Dad!

Cremation: Another Idea for Ashes

2011-07-20T10:47:00.000-05:00

I decided a long time ago that cremation would be my mode of "The Big Final Exit." What I want done with my ashes afterward ... well, tossing them from the top of Monarch Pass in Colorado would be nice. That's one of the visually outstanding places that sticks in my mind. Another would be from the top of the Xochicalco pyramids in Mexico. The view and buildings were breath-taking.

The other day I ran across a new idea for those of you who are scuba fans and/or are interested in helping our oceans' reefs (emphasis added) --

Sending Your Ashes Out to Sea

NBC - Sarah Spiekers stood sweating in 90-degree heat Friday, stirring a bucket of cement.

A volunteer with Eternal Reefs then slowly added the cremated remains that Spiekers brought with her, all the way from Minnesota. In all, eight family members made the trip to Sarasota to take part in this moment, at the last request of her brother, David Kemp.

"He told us over the last several years that when he died he would like to have his remains go in this direction," said Kemp's father, Jack.

Before he passed away in March after a long illness, David Kemp did a lot of research into his final resting place. Kemp loved the ocean and enjoyed snorkeling. He also was interested in reef preservation. That's why he decided to be memorialized by a Decatur, Georgia based company called Eternal Reef.

"What we do is we take people's cremated remains and integrate it with concrete," said Don Brawley, Eternal Reef founder. "We form an artificial reef habitat for fish and sea life."

Family members can decorate the concrete domes with shells and hand prints. The reef balls also have a bronze headstone plaque on the front. Each member of the Kemp family placed something special in wet concrete.

"David just loved beautiful things," his sister said. "His life is going to be preserved by providing new life, and I just think it's so much what he would have wanted."

Brawley believes the creation of the reef ball helps the family heal.

"Originally, I thought we were in the memorial reef business and very quickly I realized we're in the closure business," he said.

It's a hands-on way for family members to say goodbye. The Kemps completed their reef ball Friday morning. Jack Kemp and his wife, Sharon, held hands as they took a last look before leaving for the day.

The Kemps are treating this as a celebration of David's life, rather than mourning his death. "We scheduled a very happy week here in Bradenton Beach as a family," Jack Kemp said.

On Sunday, the Kemps accompanied the reef ball to its final resting place. It was taken 1 1/2 miles off Lido Beach and installed in an underwater memorial reef garden.

"We have more and more people coming to us every year," Brawley said. "I think part of the reason is, we're not just laying their loved ones to rest, but we're doing such environmental good."

Jack Kemp says there is some peace knowing David's memorial will provide shelter for aquatic life. "We were very pleased," he said. "Of course, we never anticipated we'd be doing it, this, so soon. He was in his 40s."

I think that's a pretty cool idea. If you have ocean / scuba friends, you should pass this info along to them.

"Digital Detox": Hotels and Spas Offer "Unplugged" Get-Aways

2011-07-20T10:35:00.000-05:00

Yet again, I must smirk and shake my head. How funny that at the start of the Tech Boom we all though that these crazy new gadgets would make our lives easier. However, not only do they allow us to work more, enabling us to bring work home and on our vacations, but they add so much stress to our lives (and probably fat to our waistlines ... see post below about stress and weight gain) that the vacation industry is now offering "unplugged" vacations to their packages.

Here's a recent story by Anne Tergesen at The Wall Street Journal (emphasis added) --

When Guests Check In, Their iPhones Check Out

When booking a weeklong yoga retreat, Amanda Levy signed up for a special package. Called "digital detox," it promised a 15% discount if Ms. Levy, a sales executive at a San Francisco social-networking company, would agree to leave her digital devices behind, or surrender them at check-in.

"I am constantly on my iPhone and checking my email," says the 29-year-old, who admits she sometimes "feels naked" without her smartphone. "But it was nice to be able to shut it off. It gave me an excuse to feel OK about not checking in."

With hotels, resorts, and travel companies scrambling to fill rooms, a small but growing number are rolling out "unplugged" and "digital detox" packages to entice people who need a push to take a break from their screens.

Marketing the deals on Twitter, Facebook, and their own websites, many hotels are offering discounts. Others are focusing on amenities designed to reduce stress, including spa treatments, kayak lessons, and guided hikes.

Starting this month, guests at the Renaissance Pittsburgh Hotel can book "Zen and the Art of Detox" on some summer weekends. The Hotel Monaco Chicago offers anyone who reserves its "tranquility suite" the option to add a "Technology Break." Others with similar packages include the Quincy in Washington, D.C., the Teton Mountain Lodge & Spa in Teton Village, Wyo., the Lake Placid Lodge in Lake Placid, N.Y., and Via Yoga, a Seattle company that specializes in luxury yoga and surfing retreats in Mexico and Costa Rica, including the one Ms. Levy took in April.

The services take similar approaches. Typically, they ask travelers to surrender their electronic devices upon check-in. In return, concierges provide them with old-fashioned diversions, from board games to literary classics. (Most, but not all, also yank TV sets and telephones from "detox" rooms.)

The programs are tied to Americans' seeming inability to detach their eyes and ears from their cellphones, e-readers, tablets and laptops—even when on vacation. According to a recent survey of more than 2,000 people by American Express, 79% of travelers expect to remain connected all or some of the time on their next vacation.

For many, the goal is to stay in touch with friends and family. Still, among those planning to check email, 68% say they will do so—daily or more frequently—for work, up from 58% in 2010.

At least some are taking extreme measures to remain connected. More than one-third of people admitted to checking email on vacation while engaged in such fast-paced activities as skiing, biking and horseback riding, according to a May 2010 survey of 241 people by Osterman Research Inc. on behalf of Austin, Texas, software company Neverfail Inc. A similar percentage report hiding from friends and family to check email. Neverfail provides technical disaster-recovery services and says it uses the survey in marketing its services.

"Technology has freed us up in many ways," says Edward Hallowell, a psychiatrist based in Sudbury, Mass., and New York City and author of "CrazyBusy: Overstretched, Overbooked, and About to Snap—Strategies for Coping in a World Gone ADD." "But there are unintended consequences." In some cases, he says, users "become addicted without knowing it. It's the new cigarette."

John T. Peters, 46, decided to go "cold turkey" during his six-day stay in May at the Cove Atlantis, a resort in the Bahamas. His inspiration: his 4-year-old daughter, who, seeing him without his iPhone, asked where it was.

"It really struck a nerve," says the Munster, Ind., resident. "I realized maybe I was too connected if a 4-year-old associates a phone with Daddy."
...

People used to constant connectivity say going cold turkey can be rough, especially the first couple of days.

After working up to four hours a day on most vacations, John S. DeLanoy, 42, a lawyer at Seattle law firm Cairncross & Hempelmann, decided to leave his iPhone at home when he and his wife, Elizabeth Chambers, 40, booked a May retreat with Via Yoga.

But at the airport, the Bainbridge Island, Wash., resident found himself eyeing his wife's iPhone. "I needed that iPhone to disappear. It was too tempting." Ms. Chambers, also a lawyer, put the phone away after sending a text message to the couple's nanny.
...

Before going off the grid, some people prepare by notifying clients and enlisting the support of colleagues. After working long hours around Christmas to close a real-estate deal, Mr. DeLanoy and two colleagues made a pact. "We agreed that during the course of this year, each of us could leave his or her iPhone behind and the other two would provide coverage."

Do people cheat?

Mr. Peters says he would "glance at my business device at night, just to see if there were any major emergencies." After hesitating, he adds: "I think there were a couple of days when I checked it in the morning, maybe once or twice. But I didn't respond."

Upon re-entry, life can quickly return to normal.

"It was sort of disappointing," says Mr. DeLanoy, who estimates he checks his email 50 to 100 times a day. "You instantly fall back into the same habits."

Mr. Peters, for his part, says he has made a few changes, including keeping his devices on charging stations while at home—rather than in his pockets.

Technology, he says, "has really enriched some of my relationships. But there are times when it can turn into a time-waster. I have worked hard to eliminate that."

Obese Children: Offspring of an Obese Nation

2011-07-20T10:12:00.000-05:00

Last week's news story fired up a debate about whether or not obese kids should be taken from their "neglectful" parents and placed in foster care. The ruckus was kicked up by an article that appeared recently in JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association) addressing the present national obesity epidemic and suggesting that, in extreme cases, obese children should temporarily be placed in foster care, believing that this would be more ethical than obesity surgery.

Here's more from KVEO, an NBC affiliate in Brownsville, TX (emphasis added) --

Dr. Donald Schwarz, Philadelphia Health Commissioner, says "we're talking about children who have not only the health issues, but who have parents whose behavior is seen as neglectful."

Dr. Donald Schwarz, a Philadelphia deputy mayor and the city's health commissioner, explains extreme cases can be defined in three ways: a child who is overly obese, has medical complications and whose parents have been deemed intentionally neglectful. He says only then the issue of foster care may be raised. He adds, in Philadelphia, the Department of Human Services, for example, would only remove a child in danger.

Dr. Schwarz says "in a case where we believe a parent is being neglectful, we would always consider whether or not that parent is an appropriate caregiver for a child "

Pediatrician Dr. Denise Baker says "I'm seeing it every day more and more however what is the real issue here. The issue is education."

Pediatricians like Dr. Denise Baker, who has been practicing for nearly 20 years, wonders if parents are truly neglecting their children or simply uneducated.

Dr. Baker says "we have to really go back to basics, eating meals at the table having healthy snacks around- go back to basics and prevention."

A few points in response to the news story:

1) Rather than take the kids from the home, the State should first send in counselors to help the family resolve the problem(s), not only providing information on diet and exercise, but including counseling to get to the root of the extreme eating. If the kid is obese, what do you want to be that the parents are, too?;

2) "Education" is not the sole missing component in the problem. Anyone who does not know the "do's & don'ts" of eating and exercise has no excuse. The information is everywhere, easily accessible, and free. It's taught in school, on TV, in magazines, available in libraries and workplaces, and is even a topic in most people's everyday conversations. As stated above, there needs to be some psychotherapy with the individuals to discover and work on the cause(s) of the lifestyle habits the individuals have created, adopted and propagate.

3) I continue to believe that obesity is our nation's allowable bias. I've heard some individuals use it to slam another person in just as ugly a fashion as using a racial epithet. So, in this case of obese children, it appears to be another permissible attack on fat folks. How many times have I wished the State would intervene on a child's behalf in cases of clear-cut abuse? The State will act far more quickly in the case of a dog than for a child. Why doesn't the State intervene in other cases of "neglect", such as cases where parents "contribute to the delinquency of a minor" by allowing their children to skip school, in giving them alcohol, or standing idly by as their kids reproduce irresponsibly? Those behaviors impact a child's life as much, if not more, than obesity. And, like an unhealthy lifestyle, those delinquency behaviors are also propagated to coming generations.

What is the impact of our unhealthy lifestyle? Here are some sobering statistics from Psychology of Medicine (emphasis added):

F as in Fat: How Obesity Threatens America's Future 2011 - Trust for America's Health
Adult obesity rates increased in 16 states in the past year and did not decline in any state, according to F as in Fat: How Obesity Threatens America's Future 2011, a report from the Trust for America's Health (TFAH) and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF). Twelve states now have obesity rates above 30 percent. Four years ago, only one state was above 30 percent.
The obesity epidemic continues to be most dramatic in the South, which includes nine of the 10 states with the highest adult obesity rates. States in the Northeast and West tend to have lower rates. Mississippi maintained the highest adult obesity rate for the seventh year in a row, and Colorado has the lowest obesity rate and is the only state with a rate under 20 percent.
This year, for the first time, the report examined how the obesity epidemic has grown over the past two decades. Twenty years ago, no state had an obesity rate above 15 percent. Today, more than two out of three states, 38 total, have obesity rates over 25 percent, and just one has a rate lower than 20 percent. Since 1995, when data was available for every state, obesity rates have doubled in seven states and increased by at least 90 percent in 10 others. Obesity rates have grown fastest in Oklahoma, Alabama, and Tennessee, and slowest in Washington, D.C., Colorado, and Connecticut.
"Today, the state with the lowest obesity rate would have had the highest rate in 1995," said Jeff Levi, Ph.D., executive director of TFAH. "There was a clear tipping point in our national weight gain over the last twenty years, and we can't afford to ignore the impact obesity has on our health and corresponding health care spending."

Our obesity has been deemed a threat to our national security. (Huh?!? Here's why: "Since 1995, the proportion of potential recruits who failed their physical exams because of weight issues has increased nearly 70 percent ..." Go here for that article.)

So, what are the causes of our nation's obesity epidemic? Sure, there's the medical explanation of what leads to gaining weight; but, I'm asking from from a psychological perspective. We very well know what causes weight gain and know what we should be doing; but, we obstinately refuse. Why are we so food obsessed, existing in a perpetual state of denial about our habits? Everyone complains about the huge portions of food offered in restaurants and the ongoing snacking we engage in. We know supersizing is bad for us, and I, too, am soooooooo guilty of ongoing grazing throughout the day.

Why do we do it?!?

I decided to do some fishing around for some possible answers ...
• Of course, there's the depression-eating link. Besides being bombarded with all kinds of food commercials and print ads, we also see quite a few ads for pharmaceuticals, including anti-depressants. (It makes you wonder if we are we depressed as a nation.) Here's an excerpt from a Psychology Today article about childhood obesity and depression:

Depression in children is often linked with obesity. But it seems to be a case of chicken and egg. The two conditions often occur together, but it is unclear exactly which is cause and which is effect.

Obesity rates are soaring. One study, published in Pediatrics, found that the longer a child is overweight, the more he or she is at risk for depression and other mental health disorders.

The study followed nearly 1,000 white children in North Carolina, ages 9 to 16, over eight years. Young boys, but not girls, proved especially prone to the dual problem of obesity with depression.

"The link could have to do with social factors or it could be neuroendocrine-related," says Sarah Mustillo, Ph.D., of Duke University Medical Center. "It could be that if you're only obese for six months, there's not as much of an effect as if you were obese for five years."

At the center of obesity-depression link is biology, notably the hormonal pathway known as the HPA axis. It is the route of communication between the hypothalamus, the peanut-sized part of the brain that governs parts of the nervous system, and the pituitary and adrenal glands, which secrete a variety of hormones.

These three points of the body work together to maintain chemical equilibrium when the body is under stress. The HPA axis is responsible for releasing cortisol, the so-called "stress hormone." It plays a critical role in energy metabolism as well as other functions. The problem is, cortisol prompts the body to deposit fat around the abdomen, a pattern that is especially hazardous to health. Chronic stress also begets depression.

"Obesity, depression and behavioral disorders have all been linked to abnormal functioning of the HPA axis," says Mustillo. While social factors such as teasing and isolation may contribute to depression in obese kids, Mustillo believes the problem is much more complex.

"It's probably a combination of social and biological factors," she says, noting, "There's an interaction between what's outside your body and what's inside." Obesity carries a large social stigma and may bring on depression if it negatively affects self-esteem, body image or social mobility. It may even disrupt the normal hormonal pathways. Then again, depression may also bring on obesity, if a child lacks the energy to exercise or is immobilized by stress.
...
The best thing parents can do is to treat obesity as a health issue, not a problem of appearance, and to accurately record their child's height and weight. He urges parents, physicians and psychologists to press insurance companies to cover behavioral therapy for obesity.

It's also important to recognize that obesity isn't necessarily caused by overeating. Says Elizabeth Goodman, M.D., of Brandeis University: "There are different types of depression and different types of obesity. It's easy to say that it's all behavioral. That makes it sound like there's a choice; I'm not sure that it is."

As with all cases of an individual being counseled, it's always a good idea for the entire family to involved. I wonder how many parents browbeat their kids about their weight. How many parents themselves have poor habits, not to mention self-esteem? I think of a friend who continually berates herself because of her weight. One evening after a huge meal at a restaurant followed by chowing down during a movie, she said to me "I just hate myself!" That was just one instance of her mentally beating herself up. How often has her teenage daughter witnessed this behavior? I imagine the daughter herself has adopted the same "ritual" of an eating binge followed by a round of mental self-flagellation.

• Personally, I think it's a bit of a retaliation against this "food police" mentality we've had for a generation or two. It started with my mother's generation -- all the women wanting to look like Audrey Hepburn. It kicked in full-bore with Twiggy in the 60's and this trend has continued ever since. Women's magazines at the grocer story check-out scream guilt-inducing headlines at me: "Lose 20 Pounds in 5 Days!" "How Celebrity-So-And-So Dropped Her Baby Weight In Time for the Oscars", "20 Foods That Make You Fat!", "20 Foods That Burn Fat!" ... and that always sickly include one headline that says something like "20 Scintillating Treats to Bake for Your Family."

• Another personal thought: marketing. There is a boatload of money to be made off of diet and fitness products. We are awash in a sea of commercials and ads for food -- fattening and diet, exercise programs and contraptions, and pharmaceuticals. According to Bloomberg Business, Americans spend $40 billion a year on weight-loss programs and products. $40 billion?!?

Are our pudgy waistlines merely a symptom of a bigger problem?

Apparently, there's a fancy-shmancy professor of political science at the University of Chicago that agrees with me! J. Eric Oliver, in his book "Fat Politics: The Real Story Behind America's Obesity Epidemic", writes about a sick culture drowning in the paradox of too much choice and the shame of too much consumption. Here's a description of his book from Amazon.com (emphasis added):

It's not obesity, but the panic over obesity, that's the real health problem, argues this scintillating contrarian study of the evergreen subject of American gluttony and sloth. Political scientist Oliver condemns what he feels is a self-interested "public health establishment"-obesity researchers seeking federal funding, pharmaceutical and weight-loss companies peddling diet drugs and regimens, bariatric surgeons and other health-care providers angling for insurance reimbursement-for spuriously characterizing fatness as a disease. He debunks the dubious science and alarmist PR that fuels their campaign, taking on arbitrary Body-Mass Index standards that slot even Michael Jordan in the overweight category, state-by-state maps of obesity rates that make fatness look like a contagion spreading over the countryside, and flimsy research studies that vastly exaggerate the danger and costs of weight gain. Oliver also examines American attitudes towards obesity, probing the abhorrence of fatness implicit in the Protestant ethic and, less plausibly, tying our contemporary feminine ideal of the emaciated supermodel to a confluence of sociobiology and the economics of the urban sexual marketplace. Arguing that fatness is perfectly compatible with fitness, he contends that scapegoating obesity drives Americans to experiment with dangerous crash diets, appetite suppressants and weight-loss surgeries, while distracting us from underlying harmful changes in the American lifestyle-mainly our incessant snacking on junk food and shunning of exercise and physical activity, of which weight gain is perhaps merely a "benign symptom." Oliver provides a lucid, engaging critique of obesity research and a shrewd analysis of the socioeconomic and cultural forces behind it. The result is a compelling challenge to the conventional wisdom about our bulging waistlines.

I've promptly downloaded a free chapter to my iPad! His theories sound exactly like what's been playing in the back of my mind as my colleagues pound the table in disgust at "fatties." (Something tells me I'll soon be buying the entire book!)

Dogs & Middle Eastern Culture: Dogs Winning Hearts ... Of Course!!

2011-07-20T07:27:00.000-05:00

I am such a dog lover, and it's been difficult for me to understand why a culture would deem dogs as "unclean." Well, I guess given some of my pup's habits, I can at times see why. But, looking into those chocolately pools of love (i.e. "eyes"), you can't help but fall in love. I was thrilled to read this the other day at The Wall Street Journal (emphasis added) --

A Craze for Pooches in Iran Dogs the Morality Police
Western TV Makes Owning Pups Fashionable, Despite Ayatollah's Fatwa
By Farnaz Fassihi

Iranians have turned to the Internet to organize antigovernment protests. Now they're flocking online to defy another Islamic Republic edict: buying and selling dogs.

Pooch lovers in Iran are clicking on popular websites like Woof Woof Iran Digital Pets and Persianpet to pick their favorite canine, study dog grooming or swap pet tales.

A trainer and puppy outside the kennel of
Woof Woof Iran in Karaj, Iran.

Buying and selling dogs is illegal in Iran, unless they are guard dogs or used by police. Dogs are considered "haram," or unclean, in Islam. Until recently, keeping dogs as pets was limited to a small circle of Westernized Iranians.

But access to satellite television—and American programs depicting families playing with pups—has turned dog ownership into a sign of social status in Iran.

"It's the latest fashion now to buy each other puppies as birthday gifts," says Amin, a 25-year-old. He had never pet a dog until traveling to a village two hours outside Tehran to obtain a German Shepherd puppy.

Authorities are striking back. Last year, Ayatollah Nasser Makarem Shirazi issued a fatwa, or religious edict, denouncing dog ownership. In April, Iran's parliament passed a bill to criminalize dog ownership, declaring the phenomenon a sign of "vulgar Western values."

This summer, so-called morality police are cruising the streets looking to enforce the anti-dog law. The punishment varies from a fine of up to $500 if the dog is seen in a public space to temporarily confiscating cars and suspending drivers' licenses if the dog isn't contained in a carrier inside the car.

To evade detection, pooch owners are resorting to middle-of-the-night walks and driving hours to the countryside just so their pets can roam. Vendors charge the equivalent of up to $10,000 for top dogs and operate so covertly that some blindfold potential buyers en route to the kennel.

"It was crazy," says Ali Shekouri, a 32-year-old businessman who pursued three dicey strategies before obtaining a local beagle. "After a while I didn't know if I was buying a dog or dealing in an international drug trade."

When Mr. Shekouri set out to buy a puppy last year, a friend first took him to a small electronics shop in downtown Tehran near the grand bazaar. In actuality, it was a front for a middle-aged man selling dogs. After enduring a one-hour intense interview to make sure he wasn't an undercover cop, Mr. Shekouri was whisked away in a car to the kennel's secret location. During the ride, he says, he was blindfolded. He didn't find a pet he liked.

A pet in Tehran

Mr. Shekouri then turned to the Internet for his puppy hunt. A quick Google search provided over a dozen domestic websites scattered across Iran from Rasht, a coastal city in the north, to the southern city of Ahwaz.

The Rashtpet website offers puppies from a database of photos. First the buyer must wire a payment—between $500 and $10,000 depending on the breed—into a bank account. Then the illicit pet is delivered within two weeks by a truck driver who hides the dog amid the cargo, according to Mr. Shekouri and the website.

The Petpars website promises a puppy equipped with a faux international passport hand-carried from Ukraine via a flight passenger. Mr. Shekouri says he was told he would receive his puppy in the arrival lounge of Tehran's international airport. Fed up with the hassle, he eventually settled for a beagle from a local breeder.

Dog-selling websites like Rashtpet and Petpars confirm they import dogs by paying traveling Iranians to act as illicit couriers and claim the puppies are their own. While importing dogs for sale is illegal, passengers are allowed to bring personal pets in on commercial flights.

The flight from Ukraine to Tehran has been nicknamed "the puppy flight" because many of its passengers, mostly university students, are carrying puppies for sale, according to several pet website owners who import from Ukraine.

When airport authorities caught on last year, they increased the tax on importing pets from $50 to $800, according to sellers. Some dog vendors diverted their operation so dogs are transported from Ukraine to Armenia and Turkey and from there smuggled in the cargo section of tour buses and trucks returning to Iran, vendors say.

"We have a large and very capable network expanding from Iran to Europe and beyond to help unite Iranians with dogs," says the 30-year-old owner of Petpars, who asked that his name not be published.
Sanaz, an art student in Tehran, bought a St. Bernard puppy from a student coming from Moscow.

Now the dog is the size of a small pony and she doesn't know what to do with it in her small apartment given the restrictions on walking dogs in public.

On the entrance to many of Tehran's parks and neighborhood gardens, a municipality sign reads: "Pets (dogs…) are absolutely prohibited from entering the park."

"I used to take him out for walks but the police have stopped me several times and threatened to confiscate him, so I just take him to the roof of our apartment building now and pray he doesn't bark," says Sanaz, who, like many owners, declined to use her surname for fear of having her pooch confiscated.

Milad, a 24-year-old owner of a white terrier, had a harrowing run-in with the morality police. He was driving home in Tehran with the dog in the front seat from a friend's house when a police car spotted him and signaled for him to pull over. He refused and, he says, the police chased him to the door of his house. He opened the car door to let the dog escape but an officer jumped out and pulled a gun on the dog, he says.

"I threw myself on my dog and said, 'You have to shoot me before you kill him,'" Milad says. A group of neighbors came out to defend him and, he says, eventually the police backed off from killing or confiscating the dog. But they suspended Milad's driver's license for six months and took his car for three months.

Ah, the dog -- another great Western value to infiltrate and destroy Iran. Love it!!!!!

President Obama's 50th Birthday: Let's Celebrate!

2011-07-01T11:26:00.000-05:00

This is sweet. The St. Louis Tea Party will be celebrating President Obama's 50th birthday on Thursday, Aug. 4th in downtown St. Louis at Kiener Plaza. He has been invited to speak. Let's see if he will make an appearance.

Here's the announcement:

ST. LOUIS TEA PARTY COALITION ANNOUNCES RALLY

ST. LOUIS TEA PARTY COALITION ANNOUNCES RALLY FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE……

In acknowledgement of the President’s landmark 50th birthday, the St Louis Tea Party Coalition has announced they will be throwing a “Tea Party for The President” Rally. The event will take place on President Obama’s actual birthday, August 4th, from 6-8 pm at Keiner Plaza in downtown St. Louis.

President Obama has been formally invited as the keynote speaker, along with a host of several celebrity speakers across the political spectrum. “The point is to unite as Americans” explained St Louis Tea Party Coalition Co-Founder Bill Hennessy. The organization will be providing birthday cake at the event, and a special musical guest will lead participants in singing “Happy Birthday” to the President.

There will be cake! YEAH!!

Mark Halperin's Comment: What We've Come to Expect from the Press

2011-07-01T08:57:00.001-05:00

Yesterday morning I was doing my usual routine: while working out on the elliptical at the Y, I was bouncing back and forth between Morning Joe and Fox & Friends in my usual game of "who's more biased?". I almost fell off watching this:

Now, everyone has their panties in a wad over Halperin's crudeness. But, if you watch the entire thing unfold you'll notice the absolute hypocrisy on the part of Morning Joe's hosts Mika and Joe: they both egged on Halperin, laughed and snickered at the comment, and then feigned disgust and shock. Turds ... As the show continued on, Halperin made several apologies, all the while having a wide-eyed, fearful look on his face. The end result: Halperin was suspended indefinitely by MSNBC.

The uproar is ridiculous. I do agree that all members of the Press should be respectful of the President and the office; however, that went by the wayside years ago. So, for the MSM to now have their panties in a wad over Halperin's comment is ludicrous and hypocritical. Let's not forget the years of nasty comments the MSM made about President Bush. Perhaps no one used a crude term like "dick" in reference to Bush; but, let's not forget the Press's onslaught of accusations of being a war criminal, having designed or allowed 9/11, being a racist a la Hurricane Katrina, describing Bush as "murderous", labeling him a "fascist."etc. Forget not the years of invective language and slander from such talking heads as Keith Olbermann, Chris Matthews, Rachel Maddow, Ed Schulz et al. (Gee, aren't those all MSNBC folks?)

Check out Geoffrey Dickens' summation over at Newsbusters.org:

Flashback: MSNBC Hosts Called Bush Fascist, Murderous and War Criminal, Never Faced Suspensions

On MSNBC you can call a sitting president a "murderous" "fascist" even muse about putting the President on trial for war crimes, so long as that president is a Republican. But if you dare call a Democratic president a "d–ck," as MSNBC analyst Mark Halperin did this morning it's grounds for indefinite suspension.

While calling any president the D-word is probably not showing the proper respect for the office, it has to be asked where does it rank compared to essentially accusing a president of mass murder and war crimes?

The following is a collection of quotes from MSNBC employees past (Keith Olbermann) and present (Chris Matthews, Ron Reagan Jr.) who had some particularly distasteful things to say about a then sitting President George W. Bush:

"Good evening. A President who lied us into a war and, in so doing, needlessly killed 3,584 of our family and friends and neighbors; a President whose administration initially tried to destroy the first man to nail that lie; a President whose henchmen then ruined the career of the intelligence asset that was his wife when intelligence assets were never more essential to the viability of the Republic; a President like that has tonight freed from the prospect of prison the only man ever to come to trial for one of the component felonies in what may be the greatest crime of this young century."

Another prime example from Dickens' report:

"As a final crash of self-indulgent nonsense, when the incontrovertible truth of your panoramic and murderous deceit has even begun to cost your political party seemingly perpetual congressional seats....When somebody asks you, sir, about the cooked books and faked threats you foisted on a sincere and frightened nation; when somebody asks you, sir, about your gallant, noble, self-abnegating sacrifice of your golf game so as to soothe the families of the war dead; this advice, Mr. Bush: Shut the hell up! Good night and good luck."

I don't know about you, but I would take the insult of "dick" a lot better than the things that were said about Bush.

Rightwingers Launch Insurgency Against Obama's 2012 Bid

2011-06-29T10:54:00.000-05:00

Have you seen these new ads lately? Here's the scoop from Beth Fouhy of the AP (via Breitbart.com):

GOP-leaning group launches ads criticizing Obama

NEW YORK (AP) - A Republican-leaning independent fundraising group announced Friday it would launch a $20 million television campaign criticizing President Barack Obama's handling of the economy.

The ads, produced and financed by Crossroads GPS, will begin running Monday in 10 states, many of which are presidential battlegrounds.

Spokesman Jonathan Collegio said the group would spend $5 million initially on cable television nationwide and on broadcast TV in Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Carolina, New Mexico, Nevada and Virginia. Crossroads will spend a total of $20 million on the campaign over two months, Collegio said.

The 30-second ad illustrates how unemployment, the national debt and gas prices have all gone up since Obama took office in January 2009. It also suggests the $850 billion federal stimulus plan failed, with Obama acknowledging there weren't as many "shovel ready" infrastructure projects to fund with stimulus dollars as the administration had originally hoped.

"It's time to take away Obama's blank check," the announcer says.

The campaign represents Crossroads' first major national effort to shape the political debate in Washington, Crossroads GPS is an affiliate of American Crossroads, a Republican-leaning group with ties to Karl Rove, President George W. Bush's former top political adviser. Together, the groups spent more than $38 million to defeat Democrats in the 2010 midterm elections ...

Here's one of the Crossroads GPS' ads:

OK, now there's the kicker: Lefties are going to be frothing at the mouth hearing that Crossroads GPS is tied to "Dr. Evil" Karl Rove. I'm laughing already!! You know the Dems officially have their panties in a wad with that little tidbit o' info!

Already, a group has formed to launch a counterstrike (here are excerpts from Tom Hamburger's report at The LA Times):

Rove-backed group belittles Democratic counterpunch

...
Wednesday morning, the Democratic-oriented group that sees itself as countering Crossroads--Priorities USA--announced their plan to buy more than $700,000 in advertising responding to the attack.

"We are Americans. We know right from wrong. And we know the ads blaming President Obama for the economy are politics at its worst," according to a script released by Priorities USA. "The Republican have opposed economic reforms at every turn. And now they have a plan that would essentially end Medicare for future retirees, slash education, while giving huge tax breaks to big oil and the wealthy. We can't rebuild America if they tear down the middle class."

Priorities USA Action is led by former Obama White House staffers Bill Burton and Sean Sweeney and they promised that more is to come.

Their latest salvo produced eye-rolling at the Crossroads headquarters.

"Not only is the buy less than 20% of the Crossroads buy, but the messaging is goofy," says Jonathan Collegio, spokesman for Crossroads.

"Crossroads hits the president over his handling of the economy, and their response is that it's dirty politics to talk about the economy," Collegio said. "In addition to the initial $5 million buy, Crossroads plans to spend $20 million this summer advertising on television and on the web.

An official from Priorities USA kicked back with this: "We never expected we would be able to match Karl Rove dollar-for-dollar but we have a smarter advertising strategy and are running more effective ads. For example, our buy is far more efficient in that we are more focused on markets that speak directly to swing voters in swing states. And, as you know, we just formed a couple months ago but will be ramping up our activity especially as we get closer to the end of this year."

Here's one of Priorities USA's ads:

Let the mudslinging begin!!!!

Pelosi: "Drain the Swamp"

2011-06-29T10:08:00.002-05:00

If you haven't checked out this site, you've got to! It's TERRIFIC!!!! --
The People's Cube

Bees Making A Comeback Thanks to Dedicated Beekeepers

2011-06-29T09:59:00.000-05:00

In May I posted a story about another possible reason for the decline in the bee population ("Cell Phones: Could They Be Causing the Death of Bees?"). This month Randal R. Rucker and Walter Thurman of The Wall Street Journal had an encouraging update on the bee population (emphasis added):

Blessed Are the Beekeepers
Despite the much-hyped 'colony collapse disorder,' there are plenty of bees and honey

The last week of June is National Pollinator Week. Birds, bats and wild insects all pollinate the flowering plants around us. The most celebrated pollinator is the honeybee—and for good reason. Close to 2.5 million hives of bees are managed by fewer than 2,000 commercial beekeepers, who take their bees on the road each year to pollinate blueberries, almonds, cranberries and a cornucopia of other fruits and vegetables. Without this cooperation of beekeeper, bee and farmer, our national diet would be less nutritious and less tasty.

As even casual observers now know, however, all is not perfect in the world of bees. Colony collapse disorder, or CCD, is their most recent scourge. Over the past four years, approximately 30% of U.S. honeybees alive in the fall failed to survive to pollinate blossoms in the spring. While widespread die-offs due to disease are as old as beekeeping, dating back to the 17th century at least, this one appears worse than most.

What is truly remarkable, then, is that the pollinating services of bees, and the fruits and vegetables of their labors, have remained steady in the face of CCD. In light of this fact, we propose a celebration—to pay homage to the resilience of honeybees and to the business acumen and perseverance of commercial beekeepers.

To help understand the implications of the latest wave of bee disease, and the contributions of the beekeepers who lie awake at night worrying about them, we offer the following observations based on our research:

First, the number of bees pollinating crops has been stable in recent years—CCD notwithstanding. Before CCD, U.S. beekeepers lost on average 15% of their colonies each winter. What we know about bee losses since then is that they increased immediately after the discovery of CCD in 2006 and have remained at about 30% for the past four years.

Yet the increase in winter losses has not translated into fewer springtime bees. Department of Agriculture data show that total bee numbers were higher in 2010 than in any year since 1999. Losses due to CCD have been more than offset by beekeepers rebuilding bee populations, primarily by splitting and requeening their colonies.

Second, honey production by U.S. bees has been fairly stable. It was approximately the same in 2010 as it was in the several years before CCD.

Finally, there is no evidence that CCD has measurably affected the pollinated food supply. If the effects of CCD were economically widespread and significant, increased costs to beekeepers would dictate that farmers would have to pay more to secure pollination services. But fees charged by beekeepers for pollinating crops have shown at most modest signs of increase since the appearance of CCD. While fees for pollinating almonds (a bellwether for the industry) have increased in the past decade, the increases largely predate CCD, and fees have not increased in the most recent years.

Commercial beekeepers routinely fight diseases and parasites that threaten their tiny livestock. They apply miticides. They monitor and manipulate their colonies' genetic stock. And they adjust to changing circumstances, such as increased winter mortality, by increasing bee populations in anticipation of winter losses. It is these efforts that explain the relative stability of the nation's bee population and its products in the face of CCD and other diseases and parasites.

Ongoing research will lead to better ways to diagnose, treat and prevent bee disease, which will be welcome to beekeepers and consumers alike. In the meantime, we can be grateful that CCD has had no measurable, let alone drastic, effects on the availability of fruits, vegetables, nuts and honey. Beekeepers have been as busy as . . . well, as their iconic insect partners to bring this about.

Mr. Rucker is a professor of agricultural economics and economics at Montana State University. Mr. Thurman is a professor of agricultural and resource economics at North Carolina State University. Both are fellows of the Property and Environment Research Center.

Education v. Indoctrination: Teachers Again Crossing the Fine Line

2011-06-29T09:42:00.000-05:00

Ah, yes. Education: a topic near and dear to my heart. But, I am sickened by teachers who indoctrinate students with leftist ideology. And, frankly, I abhor any kind of political indoctrination -- right or left! (Sadly, though, it always seems to be left-leaning political garbage.)

Recently, the California Federation of Teachers has been promoting different "labor studies" curricula for use in elementary schools. This from Kyle Olson at BigGovernment.com:

Curriculum Teaches Kindergartners to Unionize

... Like their fellow travelers in the “man-made” global warming community, the unions know they have to indoctrinate the young with their propaganda. But when you’re dealing with kindergartners, you have to insert the concept of unionizing subtly into lessons. You’ll get blank stares if you talk about the virtues of Jimmy Hoffa or the Service Employees International Union.

The California Federation of Teachers produced the perfect solution with “Trouble in the Hen House: A Puppet Show.” To spare you the unpleasantness of reading this bilge, here’s the basic plot: a bunch of hens feel “oppressed” by the farmer, so they band together and create Hens United. The angry unionized chickens are too powerful a force for the farmer to handle, so he capitulates to the hens’ demands. Here’s a key excerpt:

Henrietta (the hen): Farmer Brown, we have something to say. This is what we chickens want:
1. More and better food. No mold, no sand in our corn.
2. Freedom to walk around outside and a bigger hen house.
3. Each hen will lay an average of four eggs a week.
4. Stop punishing us. Let Hortensia come back.

Farmer: No way! Who ever heard of chickens telling the farmer what to do? Shut up and get back to the henhouse!

Chickens: No, Farmer Brown, not this time! And besides those things, you have to recognize our union, Hens United, or we’ll all stop laying eggs!

Farmer: OK, OK, if I have no eggs to sell, I’ll go bankrupt. We’d all starve, so I guess I’ll have to do what you say. Since you’re all together, what can I do?

Chickens: We won! We stuck together and we won! Si, Se puede.*

With this puppet show, educators now have a way of teaching children how to use mob tactics to get what they want from those in positions of power. This puppet show fits very nicely into a kindergartener’s school day – right after finger painting and just ahead of snack time.

Lest readers are tempted to dismiss this as some wacky lesson plan that never sees the light of day in an actual classroom, consider this story about the 2009 California Federation of Teachers convention, as reported in the May 2009 newsletter of the San Mateo Community College Federation of Teachers:
“…Bill Morgan uses a short puppet show, Trouble in the Hen House, to teach about the strength and value of organizing unions. His students act out a story about hens who organize a union to fight against unfair compensation and poor working conditions. Through this activity, the students learn about becoming activists, organizers, negotiators and problem solvers.”
Just to remind you, the “students” the newsletter is referring to are kindergartners and first graders.
With labor activists starting to propagandize students in kindergarten, they’ll already be brainwashed by the time they learn to actually think critically. Vladamir Lenin is quoted as saying, “Give me four years to teach the children and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted.”

The scary thing for America’s future is that this is happening this early in children’s lives and little if anything is being done about it.

*Note: “Si, Se puede” is Spanish for “Yes, it is possible,” but is sometimes translated as “Yes, we can.” Where have I heard that before…?

[Continue to the website Public School Spending for more. You'll find out about another lovely piece of pro-union, "kiddie-approved" curriculum called "The Yummy Pizza Company." ]

Teachers who are guilty of indoctrinating kids should be fired, their certifications revoked, and then charged with "intellectual molestation"!!!

Petroleum Reserve: A Poll Bumping Strategy?

2011-06-29T09:17:00.001-05:00

It's shocking when I look at the present prices on local gas stations. In this area I would say that prices have dropped about 50 cents per gallon in less than a month. Is this drastic of a drop in such a short period a time truly due to Obama's recent opening of the U.S.'s oil reserves? I also can't help but wonder what kind of risk that might pose to our nation, given that that reserve is there for emergencies.

Here's RedState's Steve Malley's take on the decision -- it appears that the "emergency" is to get Obama re-elected in 2012:

Why Did Obama Open the Strategic Petroleum Reserve?

On Thursday, the Department of Energy announced a release of thirty million barrels of crude oil over the next 60 days from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, the nation’s stockpile supposedly set aside for emergency supply disruptions.

Washington, DC – U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced today that the U.S. and its partners in the International Energy Agency have decided to release a total of 60 million barrels of oil onto the world market over the next 30 days to offset the disruption in the oil supply caused by unrest in the Middle East. As part of this effort, the U.S. will release 30 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR). The SPR is currently at a historically high level with 727 million barrels.

Upon hearing the news, my first question was “What’s the emergency?” Crude oil prices have been falling recently. The market abruptly fell 5%, which will affect gasoline prices in the short term, but the futures market is less convinced that the impact is permanent. (We noted last week, before the release, that the futures premium 6-12 months out was $2 to $3; now it is $4 to $5, all the better for the Koch Brothers.)

I concluded that the President’s goal is a bump in the polls, but that the effect would be short-lived. Most in the media concluded the same.

But then I reread the DOE press release: “… the U.S. and its partners in the International Energy Agency have decided … .” Ach so. Our International President strikes again. Ceding control of a uniquely American asset to an international body is troubling, but par for the course in the Obama Administration.

Then I read the press release one more time.

The Administration will continue to consult closely with other consuming and producing countries in the period ahead.

Reserves in the SPR are sufficient to allow Mr. Obama to play this game from now until the November 2012 election.

Uh-oh. Now I’m really paranoid.

In 2008 the Congressional Research Service issued a report titled “The Strategic Petroleum Reserve: History, Perspectives and Issues” (pdf link) which describes the legal requirements for a President to order a draw on the SPR. Initially created as strictly a emergency stockpile for domestic supply disruptions, in 2005 Congress loosened the drawdown criteria and explicitly contemplated IEA cooperation.

Excerpt from "The Strategic Petroleum Reserve: History, Perspectives and Issues", a report prepared by the Congressional Research Service, May 8, 2008. Highlighting added.

Read that last highlight again. A conniving president could, if I read the CRS study correctly, declare back-to-back emergencies eight times between today and the November 2012 elections. Eight times 30 million barrels is 240 million barrels. Take that away from the 727 million currently in inventory, and it leaves you with 487 million barrels, just under the statutory minimum volume of 500 million barrels.

That’s a half million barrels a day, on average, between now and the election. That’s enough oil to offset the production capability destroyed in the Gulf of Mexico by the Administration’s overreaction to the BP oil spill.

Events in Libya took 1.5 million barrels per day off the world market. The graph below shows a six-month timeline of crude oil prices, showing the effect of Libya’s turmoil on the spot prices for “West Texas Intermediate”, the dominant U.S. benchmark crude oil, and “Brent North Sea”, the European standard.

The dashed line is the price difference between the two benchmarks. Six months ago, Brent crude traded at a premium to WTI of only $1.75 per barrel. WTI prices have been soft because of a relative oversupply of oil at the Cushing, OK trading hub, thanks to recent drilling successes in North Dakota and South Texas. To the extent there is an “emergency”, it’s a lot more urgent for Europe than it is for the U.S.

Who are the IEA member countries? Basically, the European Union, plus the U.S., Canada, Australia and South Korea.

IEA’s announcement of the release makes no separate mention of the U.S., although SPR oil accounts for half the total. In the IEA account, the release was an IEA decision.

International Energy Agency (IEA) Executive Director Nobuo Tanaka announced that the 28 IEA member countries have agreed to release 60 million barrels of oil in the coming month in response to the ongoing disruption of oil supplies from Libya. This supply disruption has been underway for some time and its effect has become more pronounced as it has continued. The normal seasonal increase in refiner demand expected for this summer will exacerbate the shortfall further. Greater tightness in the oil market threatens to undermine the fragile global economic recovery.

Here are some questions that journalists should be asking Secretary Chu, Secretary Geithner and President Obama:

Who decided to make this release? Was it an IEA decision, or a cooperative one?
Who decided the timing?
What is the weighted-average inventory price of SPR oil we’ll be selling?
Under what conditions will SPR inventory be replaced, and at what price?
Under what conditions do you anticipate future releases, past the current 60-day period?
Why not restore production in the Gulf of Mexico, instead of drawing on the SPR?

I’ll eagerly await answers to these questions.

Sorry for the length, but it was too meaty to edit down.

Obama: A Spineless President Is The Terrorists' Dinnerbell

2011-06-29T08:45:00.000-05:00

Bachmann Attack: The Left Fishing for "Dirt"

2011-06-29T08:41:00.003-05:00

I truly do hope that Republican GOP candidate Michele Bachmann has a spine of titanium, because now the attack dogs of the MSM and radical left are on the hunt for "dirt" on everything Bachmann. Let's not forget how viciously Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin were savaged in the press during the 2008 election, evidence of how sexist our nation remains ... or, at least the press and the Left. ("Tolerance" my ass!)

Last night I was disgusted to read this bit of tripe on MSNBC.com (the "Lean Left" network):

Bachmann's husband got $137,000 in Medicaid funds

While Rep. Michelle Bachmann, R-Minn., has forcefully denounced the Medicaid program for swelling the "welfare rolls," the mental health clinic run by her husband has been collecting annual Medicaid payments totaling over $137,000 for the treatment of patients since 2005, according to new figures obtained by NBC News.

The previously unreported payments are on top of the $24,000 in federal and state funds that Bachmann & Associates, the clinic founded by Marcus Bachmann, a clinical therapist, received in recent years under a state grant to train its employees, state records show. The figures were provided to NBC News in response to a Freedom of Information request.

The clinic, based in Lake Elmo, Minn., describes itself on its website as offering "quality Christian counseling" for a large number of mental health problems ranging from "anger management" to addictions and eating disorders.

The $161,000 in payments from the Minnesota Department of Human Services to her husband's clinic appear to contradict some of Michelle Bachmann's public accounts this week when she was first asked about the extent to which her family has benefited from government aid. Contacted this afternoon, Alice Stewart, a spokeswoman for Bachmann, said the congresswoman was doing campaign events and was not immediately available for comment.

MSNBC's "national investigative reporter" Michael Isikoff then delves into a trail of Medicaid payments to the Bachmanns' clinic and questions whether the payments for employee training went to the clinic or to its employees. But, here are some points that pop up:

1) Never is there an accusation of wrongdoing in applying for or in the receipt of the money -- no corruption stories;

2) Do the math: the "money trail" involved $137,000 paid out over six years is less than $23,000 a year -- which seems like a pittance.

Helloooo?!? Why is this a story, folks? It's a feeble attempt to sully Bachmann's name at a time when she's barely out of the gate in her shot at the presidency. The MSM is frantically attacking every single GOP candidate with anything and everything in a fear-driven frenetic attempt to protect The Golden Child and assure The One's re-election.

Meanwhile, the media are churning out stories to make Bachmann look like "a flake" with her gaffes, completely overlooking and censuring any reports of Dear Leader's, because he must be protected at all costs. This from Jason Mattera of Human Events (emphasis added):

Michele Bachmann said Duke was born in Waterloo instead of Winterset. So what?

Barack Obama once said he would campaign in all 57 states, which, on a sliding scale of silly to serious gaffes, has to rank up there in the latter category ...

While the media are trying to paint Rep. Michele Bachmann (R.-Minn.) as a blunder-prone candidate—or “flake,” as Chris Wallace unjustifiably called her on “Fox News Sunday”—Barack Obama and many of his Democrat colleagues have played “Can You Top This?” with their own misstatements and slipups, and yet they do not receive even a scintilla of the scrutiny that Bachmann does.

Within the last three years, the media’s self-appointed smartest President in modern history has insulted the Special Olympics, mixed up the situations in Iraq and Afghanistan, falsely claimed that his American Uncle liberated Auschwitz, signed the Westminster Abbey guest book with the date 24 May 2008 when the date was really 24 May 2011, mispronounced “corpsman” when speaking at the National Prayer Breakfast, and perhaps most egregiously, God’s gift to the presidency couldn’t even distinguish between living and dead Medal of Honor recipients.

And that’s just off the top of my head.

Gaffes hit us all. But the frequency and folly of Obama’s are particularly troubling considering that he has an army of researchers, writers, handlers and teleprompters at his disposal.

That makes Obama’s gaffes a special kind of stupid.

Then there are the policy statements that are so far removed from reality.

When have you heard Michele Bachmann tout a “Recovery Summer” like Joe Biden did while the labor force shrinks and the economy limps along? Or can you recall Bachmann blaming the persistent unemployment on modern technology, including those pesky ATM fees, as our genius President did? When has Bachmann ever advocated codifying a new health-care law and then, and only then, finding out what was actually in that new health-care law, as Nancy Pelosi admitted to the press?

You haven’t.

Bachmann’s sin is that she has an “R” next to her name. ...

And here's where Mattera gets in a really good uppercut to the MSM's jaw:

Rather than promise to grill Michele Bachmann’s foster kids or highlight the number of times she used the word “Iowa” in a speech in … Iowa, journalists could turn their sharp pens and cantankerous voices to the growing number of businesses suspiciously exempted from ObamaCare, the expanding number of surveys reporting that employers are dropping coverage because of the President’s health-care law, and the Democrats’ inability to offer any proposals to reform our Medicare system.

Yesterday, Andrea Tantaros of FoxNews had some insightful comments regarding the lesson she imagines Bachmann has learned from observing Sarah Palin. Here are some of the meatier points (emphasis added):

There is a saying that a fool learns from his own mistakes, but a wise man learns from the mistakes of others. When it comes to Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann, there is no truer statement ...

Palin was the first female Republican candidate to be nominated to the GOP presidential ticket, and with that came much scrutiny ...

With Palin, the left-leaning press asked “gotcha” questions, unlikely to be asked of a man. The then-Alaska governor was asked everything from obscure foreign policy questions to simple, almost insulting ones like “what papers do you read?” And they were all crafted, by design to confuse her.

She was lambasted for her hairstyle (beehive), sexualized for her figure (when she posed for Runner’s World magazine), ridiculed for her diction and down home style (Newsweek: “She’s one of the folks – and that’s the problem”).

Her marriage was dissected with reporters asking if Todd was too involved in her career, despite other marriages in politics like the Clintons union being viewed as acceptable.
...

While Democrats could ask the media to lay off their kids, the press viciously analyzed and editorialized hers ...

Tantaros then proceeds to list Bachmann's approach thus far to the ensuing press tsunami:

Judging from Bachmann’s performance over the last few months, she had the luxury of observing from the sidelines, and learning from her errors.

Bachmann has message discipline. She’ll throw out red meat to her base but subtly and smartly so as not to be labeled a nut.

She is deeply entrenched in the issues of the day from foreign policy to the budget and boasts an impressive resume that she has no problem touting, unlike Palin, who relied on McCain advisors to assist in her branding ...

Rather than spar with those who buy ink by the barrel, a la Palin, Bachmann realizes that this can drag a candidate down and get them off track.

Instead, Bachmann blows of their nonsense and inherently biased questions with ease and coolly coasts back on message.

When "Fox News Sunday’s" Chris Wallace asked her if she was a "flake" she brushed it off and got back to highlighting her credentials. When she confused actor John Wayne with serial killer John Wayne Gasey (both from Iowa) in her official presidential announcement remarks she admitted she made a mistake and moved on rather than staying around to spar with the press.

Bachmann, it appears, acutely understands that she will be held to a different standard than the guys, just as Palin was. She demonstrated this during the first debate in New Hampshire. While the boys rolled their eyes and smirked at each other, she took shots at the president – not her GOP rivals – doing it all the while with a smile.

Lessons have been learned. She won’t give the press the fight that they want. She won’t let her gaffes (and all politicians make them) define her. And she will not resign from office to pursue her passions.

Go, Michele!! Let's hope Bachmann can continue diverting the press back on track to the real issues, rather than allowing it to pull her down in the the muck of sexism and sexualization. And, in the process, maybe she will help wake up this nation to the MSM's tawdry, manipulative and intolerant schemes.

SCOTUS Deals Gore & Global Warming Alarmists A Blow with Reality

2011-06-24T09:06:00.001-05:00

There apparently are some clear-thinking realists still alive in this country, and from our U.S. Supreme Court, no less! From Steve Milloy at The Washington Times (emphasis added):

Supremes retreat from climate panic
Ruling returns environmental rules to politicians, not courts

The Supreme Court dealt Al Gore, the Environmental Protection Agency and other believers in alarmist climate science a surprising and severe blow this week. In its June 20 decision on American Electric Power v. Connecticut et al., the court ruled that the mere existence of EPA regulatory authority over greenhouse-gas regulations pre-empted lawsuits against coal-burning utilities on the grounds that the emissions constitute a public nuisance.

That decision wasn’t all that surprising as the common law doctrine of nuisance is more typically applied to local cases of noxious odors and noise as opposed to emissions of colorless, odorless and tasteless greenhouse gasses, which are global in nature. Even alarmist science believer and GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney knows that it’s called “global warming,” not “America warming.”

The startling part of the decision, however, is that the court quietly but clearly backed away from alarmist climate “science.”

In its 2007 decision Massachusetts v. EPA that was authored by the very liberal Justice John Paul Stevens, a bare majority of the court (all the liberals plus Justice Anthony Kennedy) embraced Al Gore-type climate alarmism in ruling that the EPA could regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act.

Justice Stevens wrote: “The harms associated with climate change are serious and well recognized. The Government’s own objective independent assessment of the relevant science and a strong consensus among qualified experts indicate that global warming threatens, inter alia, a precipitate rise in sea levels … severe and irreversible changes to natural ecosystems, a significant reduction in … winter snowpack … with direct and important economic consequences, and an increase in the spread of disease and the ferocity of weather events.”

But what a difference a science scandal apparently makes. In its first climate decision following the 2009 Climategate scandal and its progeny - i.e., Glaciergate, Rainforestgate, Pachaurigate, NASAgate and other climate science-related scandals - the court retreated to neutrality on climate science.

Writing for an essentially unanimous court (Justice Sonia Sotomayor recused herself because she was part of a lower-court ruling on the case), the ultra-liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg stated, “The Court, we caution, endorses no particular view of the complicated issues related to carbon dioxide emissions and climate change.”

The court's plainly written, jaw-dropping about-face is hidden in a footnote and so hasn’t been reported in media accounts of the decision - but it is of significant consequence.

Climate alarmists can no longer claim that the Supreme Court has validated the science of climate alarmism and ordered the EPA to regulate greenhouse gases.

Other text in Justice Ginsburg's opinion clearly indicates that it is up to the EPA as to whether greenhouse gases should be regulated. The agency might decline to regulate so long as its decision is not “arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion or otherwise not in accordance with law.”

If there was any doubt before, the court has now unanimously shifted the blame for destroying the economy with carbon regulations to the Obama administration.

This decision has 2012 implications, as well.

The winner of the presidential election will be fully in charge of the EPA and the decision whether the agency regulates greenhouse gases.

If re-elected, President Obama most likely will keep the pedal to the metal in order to accelerate EPA control of America’s economy. A Republican president will have the option to roll back the EPA’s junk science-fueled regulations or to do something in between.

No Republican candidate yet has indicated what they would do about the EPA’s job- and economy-killing greenhouse-gas regulations, though Rep. Michele Bachmann and Newt Gingrich have courageously called for the abolition of the EPA.

At the very least, the EPA’s greenhouse-gas regulations should be rolled back as part of a complete rethinking of environmental protection policies and practices. In the more than 40 years since President Richard Nixon merged the various federal environmental programs into the EPA, our environment has become about as generally pristine, clean and safe as makes sense.

This is not about rolling back meaningful environmental protection so much as it is about rolling back harmful overregulation. By making us poorer, today’s overregulation eventually will hurt the environment and public health more than past emissions of anything ever did.

Now that the Supreme Court has removed its imprimatur from EPA’s attack on America, Republicans should exploit the moment to save our economy from an out-of-control agency.

Steve Milloy publishes JunkScience.com and is author of “Green Hell: How Environmentalists Plan to Control Your Life and What You Can Do to Stop Them” (Regnery, 2009).

Splinters in Her Crotch

2011-06-24T08:00:00.000-05:00

I got this e-mail quite a while ago ... hopefully it isn't something that y'all have read a million times by now ...

"Splinters in her crotch"

A woman from Los Angeles who was a tree hugger, a liberal Democrat, and an anti-hunter, purchased a piece of timberland near Colville, WA .

There was a large tree on one of the highest points in the tract. She wanted a good view of the natural splendor of her land so she started to climb the big tree. As she neared the top she encountered a spotted owl that attacked her. In her haste to escape, the woman slid down the tree to the ground and got many splinters in her crotch.

In considerable pain, she hurried to a local ER to see a doctor. She told him she was an environmentalist, a democrat, and an anti-hunter and how she came to get all the splinters. The doctor listened to her story with great patience and then told her to go wait in the examining room and he would see if he could help her.

She sat and waited three hours before the doctor reappeared. The angry woman demanded, "What took you so long?" He smiled and then told her, "Well, I had to get permits from the Environmental Protection Agency, the Forest Service, and the Bureau of Land Management before I could remove old-growth timber from a "recreational area" so close to a waste treatment facility. I'm sorry, but due to Obama Care they turned me down."

Dogs Appointed in Court Cases to Calm Witnesses

2011-06-23T11:24:00.000-05:00

Yet another reason why we all love dogs ...

From The Associated Press via nola.com (emphasis added):

Special Court Dogs Provide Calm for Traumatized Victims

POUGHKEEPSIE, N.Y. -- A 15-year-old girl had special help when she took the witness stand Monday at the trial for the man accused of sexually assaulting her for four years.

Rose, an 11-year-old golden retriever whose regular job is helping provide therapy in schools for troubled children, was there at her side, helping to calm a child who experts said is otherwise incapable of talking about her traumatic ordeal.

It's an unprecedented arrangement in New York and now gaining acceptance elsewhere. Pioneered by a Seattle prosecutor in 2003, courthouse dogs are participating in trials in at least 10 states, often over the objections of defense lawyers who worry that the dogs generate extra sympathy for victims and witnesses.

During a little more than an hour on the stand, Rose was mostly invisible Monday. When the girl was asked to point out the man who is charged with raping her for four years starting at the age of 10, the dog poked her muzzle up and the girl stroked it. When she was asked to go into graphic detail about the rapes, she looked down and patted the dog.

Dutchess County Judge Stephen Greller had rejected a defense argument that Rose's presence might prejudice the jury. Greller said he relied in part on an earlier New York case involving a "comfort item," a teddy bear held by a child witness in an early 1990s sex-crime trial.

Before the girl and jurors were brought in, a handler led Rose to the witness box, where she was placed mostly out of view under the supervision of the judge. When jurors returned, Greller introduced the witness and told the panel she was with a companion animal, but that they shouldn't draw any conclusion from that or allow sympathy to sway them.

The girl gave mostly short answers, steadily reaching down with one hand on the lead and one hand on Rose. The jury of seven women and five men gave no indication they even noticed the dog.

The girl, dressed in a dark top and pants, her dark hair in braids, pursed or bit her lips as she responded to questions, nervously draining a small white cup of water while cross-examination began. At one point, under questioning from the defense lawyer, she took a deep breath, looked down and appeared to whisper to Rose.
Ellen O'Neill-Stephens, a prosecutor in Seattle who founded the organization Courthouse Dogs, has championed dogs helping witnesses. She said they are "an incredible tool" for helping calm victims "reliving the trauma as they're describing what happened to them."

Their use gained traction after a 2004 U.S. Supreme Court ruling on a defendant's right to confront an accuser threw into doubt the legality of allowing victims to testify remotely by two-way video or other means to avoid the stressful environment of the courtroom.

"Now you had kids right up there in the face of the person who did this to them," O'Neill-Stephens said.
"We had an occasion in our courthouse where a child just froze," she said, describing a witness scared by the presence of a defendant's relatives. "All it took was playing with the dog to tell the judge he was afraid of them."

The relatives were ordered out of court.

O'Neill-Stephens lists 18 jurisdictions in Washington, Idaho, California, Texas, Missouri, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Hawaii and New Mexico with courthouse dog programs.

Rose was trained by Dale Picard, founder of Educated Canines Assisting with Disabilities. The animal works in the organization's vocational education program at six alternative schools near New York City for children with emotional, behavioral and learning problems.

The animal is trained to work with victims of post-traumatic stress disorder, traumatized and special needs children, veterans at VA hospitals and others. She has been trained to sense anxiety and to try to reduce stress by nuzzling a person or seeking to be petted.

Studies show that such interactions have a strong calming effect, including lowering blood pressure, said David Crenshaw, a clinical psychologist at the facility where the girl is living.

Before the girl took the stand, defense lawyer David Martin repeated his objections.

Martin, the public defender representing 36-year-old Victor Tohom, has objected not only to the potential that Rose would generate prejudicial empathy among jurors, but the fact there is no law in New York allowing the dog to accompany her. He said Greller's decision allowing the dog will be part of any appeal if Tohom is convicted on the charge of predatory sexual assault against a child.

Greller asked Martin to suggest special instructions he should give jurors before they deliberate, something O'Neill-Stephens said is vital to avoiding issues on appeal.

Senior Assistant District Attorney Kristine Hawlk, the prosecutor who filed the motion to allow Rosie in court, said she couldn't discuss the case.

To date, there has been no case law from an appeals court on the practice, O'Neill-Stephens said, but "some defense attorneys successfully object to the presence of the dog and the judge doesn't want to go out on a limb."

She said defense lawyers in her jurisdiction have generally stopped objecting. Some even use the dogs to advantage, petting them as they cross-examine a witness, perhaps softening jurors' views of them as interrogators.

"The dogs are for everybody in the criminal justice system," O'Neill-Stephens said.

By George M. Walsh, Associated Press

As I always say: "Tain't nuttin' like a dawg!"

Co-Ed Dorms: Higher Rates of Drinking, Hook-Ups, Depression & Lower Academic Achievement

2011-06-23T11:11:00.000-05:00

Now, at this moment, it's only one university that has decided to revert back to single-gender living arrangements for its dorms. And, yes, it is The Catholic University that has made this decision for the coming Fall, but one must seriously consider the university's reasons and stats for such a drastic change.

Here's this opinion piece from The Wall Street Journal, written by John Garvey, president of The Catholic University in Washington, D.C. (emphasis added):

Why We're Going Back to Single-Sex Dorms

Student housing has become a hotbed of reckless drinking and hooking up.

My wife and I have sent five children to college and our youngest just graduated. Like many parents, we encouraged them to study hard and spend time in a country where people don't speak English. Like all parents, we worried about the kind of people they would grow up to be.

We may have been a little unusual in thinking it was the college's responsibility to worry about that too. But I believe that intellect and virtue are connected. They influence one another. Some say the intellect is primary. If we know what is good, we will pursue it. Aristotle suggests in the "Nicomachean Ethics" that the influence runs the other way. He says that if you want to listen intelligently to lectures on ethics you "must have been brought up in good habits." The goals we set for ourselves are brought into focus by our moral vision.

"Virtue," Aristotle concludes, "makes us aim at the right mark, and practical wisdom makes us take the right means." If he is right, then colleges and universities should concern themselves with virtue as well as intellect.

I want to mention two places where schools might direct that concern, and a slightly old-fashioned remedy that will improve the practice of virtue. The two most serious ethical challenges college students face are binge drinking and the culture of hooking up.

Alcohol-related accidents are the leading cause of death for young adults aged 17-24. Students who engage in binge drinking (about two in five) are 25 times more likely to do things like miss class, fall behind in school work, engage in unplanned sexual activity, and get in trouble with the law. They also cause trouble for other students, who are subjected to physical and sexual assault, suffer property damage and interrupted sleep, and end up babysitting problem drinkers.

Hooking up is getting to be as common as drinking. Sociologist W. Bradford Wilcox, who heads the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia, says that in various studies, 40%-64% of college students report doing it.

The effects are not all fun. Rates of depression reach 20% for young women who have had two or more sexual partners in the last year, almost double the rate for women who have had none. Sexually active young men do more poorly than abstainers in their academic work. And as we have always admonished our own children, sex on these terms is destructive of love and marriage.

Here is one simple step colleges can take to reduce both binge drinking and hooking up: Go back to single-sex residences.

I know it's countercultural. More than 90% of college housing is now co-ed. But Christopher Kaczor at Loyola Marymount points to a surprising number of studies showing that students in co-ed dorms (41.5%) report weekly binge drinking more than twice as often as students in single-sex housing (17.6%). Similarly, students in co-ed housing are more likely (55.7%) than students in single-sex dorms (36.8%) to have had a sexual partner in the last year—and more than twice as likely to have had three or more.

The point about sex is no surprise. The point about drinking is. I would have thought that young women would have a civilizing influence on young men. Yet the causal arrow seems to run the other way. Young women are trying to keep up—and young men are encouraging them (maybe because it facilitates hooking up).

Next year all freshmen at The Catholic University of America will be assigned to single-sex residence halls. The year after, we will extend the change to the sophomore halls. It will take a few years to complete the transformation.

The change will probably cost more money. There are a few architectural adjustments. We won't be able to let the ratio of men and women we admit into the freshman class vary from year to year with the size and quality of the pools. But our students will be better off.

It will be interesting to see how this change develops, and if other university's will follow suit.

EcoCAR Competition: Stuck in a 32-Year Time Warp

2011-06-23T10:58:00.000-05:00

The other day I read a story in USAToday about the recent three-year competition called "EcoCAR" involving 16 North American universities. The contest, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy and General Motors, awarded first place to a team of students from Virginia Tech for its car with an mpg of 82.

Here's an excerpt from USAToday (emphasis added):

... It started with a GM-donated Saturn Vue and swapped out the engine with one from a 2009 Chevy HHR engine. It then added a battery and electric motor and made other tweaks such as eliminating engine idle.

... the car can go 50 miles on its battery and another 155 on gasoline, including a 85% ethanol blend or E85. The redesigned car boosted the fuel achieving of the stock engine by 70% ...

Impressive, indeed, but I can't help but point to the Moodymobile back in 1979. The father / son racing team responded to then Transportation Secretary Brock Adams' call for the car industry to "reinvent the car" by the year 2000, pushing for 50 miles per gallon. Ralph Moody, 60 at the time, and partner Mike Shetley solved the challenge in a week, debuting a 1979 Mercury Capri that got 84 mpg. (See the August 1979 Popular Mechanics' article "Fuel for the Future: More Miles for Your Money: An 84-mpg Turbodiesel.")

People Magazine in May of 1979 reported:

What they did was modify, inside and out, a four-cylinder Perkins diesel engine (like those used in motorboats) and drop it into a 1979 Capri body, adding a turbocharger for extra power. (The turbocharger reroutes hot exhaust gases that normally escape from the tail pipe.) The Moodymobile was soon stirring interest locally and was test-driven by Congressman Bill Chappell. He immediately wired President Carter: "I've seen it, I've driven it and it works."

A fortnight ago Moody and Shetley drove the car 850 miles to Washington, D.C. (on 11.1 gallons of fuel) and testified before the Senate Energy Committee. The car (which is noisier than a conventional one) faces a stiff battery of environmental tests before it can be marketed, but Moody is confident one of the big automakers will buy the rights to the patent. Ford, Chrysler and General Motors have all expressed interest.

Shortly after that, I remember hearing that Moody had been offered money by a car manufacturer for the car's plans. My parents promptly responded with "Well, we'll never hear about that again!" Sadly, they were right. Now, 32 years later, we read the results of a fancy-schmancy car competition ... backed by a car manufacturer.

Will the innovations be taken seriously this time, or we will remain in this car manufacturer-induced, technological vacuum?

We have the technology for fuel-efficient, gas burning engines! We've had it for over 30 years!!! We don't have to resort to hybrids which remain underwhelming and over-hyped.

ACORN Booted by SCOTUS

2011-06-23T10:19:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, The Wall Street Journal reported on the recent U.S. Supreme Court's denial of ACORN's claim that Congress had acted unconstitutionally in denying the activist organization government funding (emphasis added):

Nuts to ACORN
Cutting off funds is not a bill attainder.

The case of Acorn v. U.S. ended with a whimper this week as the U.S. Supreme Court turned aside the advocacy group's attempt to revive its lawsuit claiming that Congress had acted unconstitutionally in denying it federal funds. The Congressional action came two years ago in response to hidden-camera videos in which employees of at least five Acorn offices gave conservative activists advice on how to start a child-prostitution business.

Acorn cried that the denial of funds from Uncle Sam, which had accounted for about 10% of the group's budget, amounted to a "corporate death sentence." District Judge Nina Gershon held that the ban was an unconstitutional bill of attainder—a legislative usurpation of the judicial authority to punish wrongdoing. But last August the Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed. A three-judge panel ruled that a "smattering" of Congressional opinions to the effect that Acorn was "crooked" or "criminal" was insufficient to establish punitive intent and that "the withholding of appropriations . . . does not constitute a traditional form of punishment."

"Congress must have the authority to suspend federal funds to an organization that has admitted to significant mismanagement," Judge Roger Miner wrote for the panel. In addition to the hidden-camera scandal, Acorn had acknowledged voter-registration fraud and a cover-up of the founder's brother's embezzlement of nearly $1 million from the organization. With its legal remedies exhausted, perhaps Acorn will finally turn its attention where it should have been all along: on cleaning up its own act.

Geert Wilders Acquitted!!!

2011-06-23T10:03:00.000-05:00

My activity on this blog has been quite low this past school year, which has been a very hectic and fast-paced one. Now that I am officially on summer vacation (well, actually for a few weeks now), I have continued being remiss in my blogging "duties." I've been quite the sloth, not feeling motivated to blog, although there have been a boat load of issues buggin' the crap out of me! I guess I've been practicing avoidance -- upset about "shtuff" going on in our nation and world, and yet not wanting to vent.

My big motivator to get back to blogging was a wonderful piece of news I read today about Dutch politician Geert Wilders being acquitted of hate speech and discrimination. This is the right-wing guy, perhaps the only politician in the world, who has had the cojones to speak out against Islamofascism. The PC-Police tried to shut him up, but amazingly "justice prevailed." Here's the scoop from the AP via MSNBC (the "lean left" network ... I bet they're pissed), emphasis added:

Dutch Court Acquits Lawmaker Geert Wilders of Muslim Hate Speech Charges
Politician Claimed Islam is violent by nature, called for banning of Quran

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands — A Dutch court acquitted right-wing politician Geert Wilders of hate speech and discrimination Thursday, ruling that his anti-Islam statements — while offensive to many Muslims — fell within the bounds of legitimate political debate.

Presiding judge Marcel van Oosten said Wilders' claims that Islam is violent by nature, and his calls to halt Muslim immigration and ban the Muslim holy book, the Quran, must be seen in a wider context of debate over immigration policy.

The court said his public statement could not be directly linked to increased discrimination against Dutch Muslims.

He looked unmoved as the verdict was read, but his supporters in the public gallery hugged one another and clapped after the acquittal.

Wilders, one of the most powerful and popular politicians in the Netherlands, was accused of inciting hatred and discrimination against Muslims through numerous public statements, and with insulting them by comparing Islam with Naziism.

PhotoBlog: Dutch anti-immigration politician Geert Wilders back in court

"I'm incredibly happy with this acquittal on all counts," Wilders said outside the courtroom.

"It's not only an acquittal for me, but a victory for freedom of expression in the Netherlands. Fortunately you're allowed to discuss Islam in public debate and you're not muzzled in public debate. An enormous burden has fallen from my shoulders," he said.

The court found that Wilders' rhetoric was "on the edge of what is legally permissible" but not illegal.

Legitimate debate
The judge described statements about a "tsunami" of immigrants as "crude and denigrating," but legally legitimate given wider context and his acknowledgment that those who integrate are acceptable and do not call for violence.

In speeches, written articles and a short film that incited riots around the Muslim world, Wilder said Islam is an inherently violent religion, and he compared the Quran with "Mein Kampf," Hitler's tirade against Jews — an especially touchy image because of the large number of Dutch Jews handed over to the Nazis in World War II.

Story: 'Islam is regarded as the biggest threat to Europe for many Europeans'

Wilders argued that his statements represent the views of millions of Dutch voters, that they are protected by freedom of speech law, and that the court is biased against him, while the charges are politically motivated.
Even the prosecutors called for his acquittal, saying that his remarks may be offensive, but they are part of legitimate political debate.

Despite their reluctance, the judges ruled last year that the case should be put to a judicial test and Wilders should be prosecuted.

Gilders was the guy that caused quite a firestorm back in 2008 when he produced the movie Fitna (go here for my post on that.) You can find the movie on the Internet (YouTube), and here is a FoxNews interview with him. Atlas Shruggs (Pamela Geller) has the movie along with a timeline of events surrounding Wilders.