Enjoying homeschooling

How about that

2011-05-05T17:06:00.002-04:00

Prisoners of the Light

2010-08-07T22:25:00.000-04:00

Prisoners of the Light - Promo Clip from Fotizo Films on Vimeo.

Happy Memorial Day!

2010-05-27T15:19:00.001-04:00

Somewhere in Colorado

2010-05-11T14:12:00.009-04:00

Someone else has taken the task of making billboard signs:

Children are our future?

2010-03-12T12:27:00.001-05:00

Hello,
My name is Aneea Botan-Bote. I'm a 7th grade teacher for Sylvan Union School District. I can be reached at Dan Savage Middle School at 209-552-3300.
The attached document is a 250 word letter voicing my personal opinion on the crisis in education.
Thank you
Aneea Botan

With the advent of motherhood, I started paying attention to advice I’d earlier dismissed as “not applicable”. Though no stranger to hard work, I soon realized, PARENTS DON’T GET WEEKENDS OFF! In this context, I heard the best parenting tip, bar-none. “Don’t ever leave your child where you wouldn’t leave a million dollars of cold-hard-cash.”
This mantra echoes in my mind as I stare at the avalanche of foreboding headlines spelling destruction for our public school system. “Don’t ever leave your child where you wouldn’t leave a million dollars ... ” In times of crisis, we ARE leaving our children where we wouldn’t leave our money!
To add insult to injury, politicians shake menacing fingers at educators. “Hold teachers accountable!” seems to be the catch phrase of the day. As a middle school teacher, I cringe at the probable witch-hunts that will likely follow.
I know, first hand, the hours spent trying to find a new angle on an old lesson. I can easily rattle off the names of colleagues who do the same. Are there teachers who don’t pull their weight? Name a profession that is immune from such pestilence.
Do we then opt for merit pay? It sounds like sound business advice. Successful businesses, however, reserve the right to refuse service. Will teachers be able to screen their clientele? From the proverbial “hot seat,” we ought to get one last request. If other institutions are worth bailing out, couldn’t we do the same for our kids?

Aneea Botan-Bote

How Great Art Thou

2010-01-17T22:47:00.000-05:00

Louie Giglio from Crestin Informat on Vimeo.

Schoolhouse Shariah

2009-10-01T22:34:00.002-04:00

Multiculturalism: California's educrats have put out new rules for teaching Islamic studies to seventh-graders in public schools, and they are as biased as ever. They'll also likely spread eastward.

For example, the suggested framework glorifies Shariah as a liberal reform movement that "rejected" the mistreatment of women that existed in Arabia before Muhammad and his successors conquered the region, according to Accuracy in Academia. The guidelines claim that Islamic law established for the first time that men and women were entitled to equal "respect."

Not so, says Islamic scholar and author Nonie Darwish, who grew up Muslim in Egypt.

"I am shocked that that is what they teach," she said. "Women had more rights in Arabia before Shariah."

In fact, "wife beating is allowed under Shariah" today, she added. "It allows a woman seen without a headdress to be flogged, punishes rape victims, and calls for beheading for adultery."

California's course on world religions also omits Islam's long history of jihadist violence, while portraying Christianity as an intolerant and bloodthirsty faith.

Christianity isn't given equal time, either. It's covered in just two days — as opposed to up to two weeks for Islam — and doesn't involve kids in any role-playing activities like the Islam unit. Students do get a healthy dose of skepticism about the Christian faith, including a biting history of its persecution of other people.

"California schools are pushing an unbalanced religious agenda that favors Islam and minimizes Christianity and Judaism," Accuracy in Academia warns in its latest Campus Report.

Parents of seventh-graders in the San Francisco area, who after 9/11 were taught pro-Islamic lessons as part of California's world history curriculum, sued under the First Amendment ban on religious establishment.

They argued, reasonably, that the government was promoting Islam by mandating that their kids participate in Muslim role-playing exercises such as designing prayer rugs, taking an Arabic name and essentially "becoming a Muslim" for two full weeks.

Children also were told to recite aloud Muslim prayers that begin with "In the name of Allah, most gracious, most merciful," and memorize the Muslim profession of faith: "Allah is the only true God, and Muhammad is his messenger."

You can't teach the Ten Commandments in public schools. But teaching the five pillars of Islam is A-OK.

More
here.

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Three Reasons Why Government Can't Run Health Care

2009-08-26T20:02:00.002-04:00

Facta, non verba. For those of you who have forgotten your Latin, it means "deeds, not words." There's been a lot of overheated rhetoric about health care reform, but this saying is one that all Americans should return to when considering plans for a government-dominated health system.

In other words, we should judge government, not by its words, but by its deeds.With this simple principle in mind, what follows are three examples why government can't - and shouldn't - run our health care system (at least not any health care system you or I would want to be dependent on).

Reason No. 1: Government Can't Be Trusted With a Credit Card

Every family knows about making a budget and living within its means. Government, to put it bluntly, does not.

What if your husband had come home last Friday night and announced that he had racked up almost 30 percent more debt on the family credit card - including the mortgage and car loans - than he had told you about just a month ago? Would you trust him to go out and start spending money to remodel the kitchen? And do you think he could get a loan to do it?

But that's exactly what the Obama Administration did with their weekend news dump. They announced late Friday that the amount of money they don't have but are nonetheless planning on spending over the next ten years isn't the astonishing $7 trillion they estimated in May but is instead an astounding $9 trillion.

Add this to the fact that, after the administration sold its health care reform proposal on the grounds that it will reduce costs to the Treasury, the independent Congressional Budget Office determined that the House plan will actually cost an astounding $1 trillion-$1.5 trillion in the next ten years, which will be added directly to the federal debt. The director of the CBO testified before Congress last month that "[i]n the legislation that has been reported we do not see the sort of fundamental changes that would be necessary to reduce the trajectory of federal health spending by a significant amount. And on the contrary, the legislation significantly expands the federal responsibility for health care costs."

Which do you have more faith in, the government's happy talk of "bending the cost curve" or its record of out-of-control spending?

Deeds, not words.

Reason No. 2: Government Can't Even Give Away Money Effectively

As the inimitable Andy McCarthy of National Review put it, "Compared to the infinite complexity of healthcare and health-insurance, cash-for-clunkers is kindergarten stuff. You trade in your old car for a new one that gets (slightly) better mileage and the government gives you money - between $3,500 and $4,500. How hard is that?"

Too hard for government bureaucrats, it turns out.

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has boasted that the cash-for-clunkers program provided "a lifeline to the automobile industry, jump starting a major sector of the economy and putting people back to work.''

But look at the deeds, not the words.

Last week, cash-for-clunkers ended in a bureaucratic morass of red tape, failed promises and unanticipated costs.

Air Traffic Controllers Manning the Cash-for-Clunkers Hotline

Only a government bureaucracy could mess up a program designed to give away free money. The government wizards who set up cash-for-clunkers initially budgeted to sell 250,000 cars in three months. The program sold that many in four days.

And because the central planners who think they can provide government "competition" to the private health insurance market failed to accurately estimate how many government workers it would take to administer cash-for-clunkers, they had to take employees from the FAA - air traffic controllers, no less - to help manage the demand.

And what about the car dealerships the program was supposed to help in the first place? Even though the rebates were supposed to be paid within 10 days, only 7 percent of federal promises under cash-for-clunkers have been paid so far, leaving dealers with millions of dollars in unfunded government promises.

More Than Bureaucratic Incompetence, Political Business as Usual

But there's more to the cautionary tale of cash-for-clunkers than just bureaucratic incompetence. This is a case study in what happens when politicians get involved in the marketplace.

Despite all the rhetoric of jump starting the auto industry, politicians' priorities are to give free goodies to their constituents. So as far as they're concerned, cash-for-clunkers has been a resounding success.

Forget the fact that they're spending money they don't have, or that car dealerships are left holding millions of dollars in empty government promises. They're not concerned with the long-term, just the next election.

So tell us again why should we think bureaucrats and politicians will perform any better with our health care?

Reason No. 3: Government Would Rather Pay Crooks Than Manage Efficiently

There's been a lot of worrying about the inevitability of government rationing health care under the Democratic reform bills in Congress. Economists have known about this inevitability for a long time. Well, Americans can stop worrying. Government is rationing care already - and doing it in a particularly stupid way.

Studies have shown that early use of home health care after hospitalization - allowing patients to go home and be visited by a nurse to manage their care - saves Medicare billions of dollars.

So here is a case where an innovative government program actually saves the government money. Home health care is both more compassionate and more efficient. It reduces the likelihood a patient will be readmitted to a hospital by allowing her to heal in a more familiar setting.

Home Health Care Works, So Naturally Medicare Bureaucrats Cut Its Funding

So naturally bureaucrats at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services cut $34 billion from this compassionate, efficient program last week. And if the House health care reform bill becomes law, an additional $56.8 billion will be cut from the program - an amount equal to almost the entire federal budget for home health care services in 2007.

What makes rationing care to the homebound all the more immoral is the fact that there is a much bigger pot of savings available to Washington if it only had the political will to look.

Instead of Seeking Savings from the Homebound, Why Not the Crooks?

As a new book by the Center for Health Transformation's Jim Frogue details, criminals rip off the taxpayers to the tune of $80 billion to $120 billion each year in the current Medicare and Medicaid programs. We're not talking about inadvertent bill errors but outright fraud. Government health programs are currently paying men maternity benefits, giving taxpayer dollars to pizza parlors that are supposed to be HIV transfusion centers, and even paying dead patients federal health care benefits.

If ever there was a reason not to turn our entire health care system over to government it is this: Government can't run the health care programs it already has. It would rather ration compassionate, effective programs than do the hard work of rooting out and punishing the crooks who are stealing our taxpayer dollars.

Facts are Stubborn Things

Americans have already heard a lot of rhetoric about health care reform, and we can expect to hear a lot more. But as Ronald Reagan used to say, facts are stubborn things. And the facts of government's track record in managing our money and delivering on its promises speak louder than any televised presidential speech or stage-managed town hall ever could.

So as the summer winds down and the debate rages on, let this be our mantra: Facta, non verba.Make a bumper sticker out of it. Put it on a tee-shirt and wear it to a town hall. And when someone asked you what it means, tell them that before we hand over more of our lives to government, we should consider how they've treated us so far.

Your friend,

Newt Gingrich

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Make time!

2009-08-02T15:06:00.004-04:00

The socialists knew everything on how to how to make man not have free time at all. Wasting time was an unsaid motto of those who led the country so long. And habits do not disappear so easily.

People were forced to work overtime, Sundays included. The works in the field was not allowed with agricultural machines, but with hand tools. Transportation was scarce and people spent most of their free time walking from one place to another. Obtaining a small piece of paper or apply for a card meant the loss of at least one day of your life. For 2 pig hoofs you had to wait in line for hours at the only grocery store in the city or village.

Maybe you wonder why? What can be the purpose? The answer is simple: if you have too much time on your hands, you start to think about freedom, you start reading, have initiative, understand the need for private space, need for association, for communications. Wasting time is wasting of opportunities.

If you want to be nobody, waste time! You will never have anything! And you will never be free!

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Life under communists

2009-07-28T13:53:00.006-04:00

- The lawyers remained in office only if they agreed with communist ideas.

- The law said: "courts must protect the interests of the working class, protect democracy and punish enemies".

- The enemies were the factory owners, landlords, bankers and whoever was against the construction of socialism.

- Whoever attended libraries, concerts, manifestations of imperialist propaganda (free people of the west) was liable to be arrested.

- Whoever did not comply with collectivization (stealing the wealth of people who have worked a lifetime) was sent to labor camps.

- The right to own property was violated coarsely. As well as freedom of speech, of the press, of meetings and demonstrations.

- Communist Party has violated all laws, including its own.

- "Hating elements" were deported to labor colonies. Tens of thousands of people were forced to leave their places and families to live in huts, because they did not agree with party politics.

- The president gave orders to save energy and population to be starved on purpose. After 6 pm, the power went off. In the winter, the temperature in homes was below 40°F. Romania was dominated by cold, hunger and fear.

- Nobody could publish a book if it did not say how wise and wonderful the president is.

- A government committee went in farmers' household to collect items. Were there 2 pigs? One belonged to the state. If you wanted to kill a cow to eat it, you needed gov. approval, after they took a portion of it. If the cow had a calf? That calf belonged to the government.

- Farmers could buy sugar, oil and other things they could not grow, if pay money + products they grow. For 2 lb of sugar, they had to pay money + 2 eggs. Also they had to give a portion to the government of ALL the goods they grew.

- "Scientists" have established the number of calories people needed. And food rationing appeared. All kind of food. For a family of 4:

-2 lb of sugar every other month - if available
- 1 loaf of bread per day, many times stale,
- 8 eggs per month - if available in the stores,
- 8 oz margarine - when available, butter seen twice a year,
- 8 oz salami when the stores were supplied,
- 2 pints milk every other day, sometimes magically transformed in buttermilk.

- To save gas, on one Sunday, only cars with even # plates were allowed on street, then next Sunday, cars with odd # plates. Gas was rationed.

- Every basic thing like soap, detergents and toilet paper was scarce that was needed to give bribes to get some.

- The president said that 4 lb of soap per year, per family should be enough.

- Bribing, relations, have become the only chance to live normally. You were needed to bribe to be treated decent while in a hospital, to go to a resort, to register a child to a good school, etc.

- Hospitals had products rationed: alcohol, syringes, medications and all basic resources.

- What products were scarce and you could brag if you had them?

fresh bread, sugar, oil, eggs, butter, meat, coffee, soft drinks, jeans, sneakers, whiskey, candy, chocolate, gum, oranges, bananas, cassette players, cameras, deodorants.

- People were put on a waiting list to buy refrigerators, stoves, cars. The waiting was as long as 2-3 years before you can get any of them.

This is how people in Romania lived for about 50 years as the communism grew roots into people's hearts. Even now, after 20 years of liberty, it is hard to give up that mentality.
How do you like to live in a country like that? Then wake up and do something!!

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Inside the Healthcare Bill

2009-07-22T01:19:00.003-04:00

What they won't tell you:

Pg 30 Sec 123 of HC bill - THERE WILL BE A GOVT COMMITTEE that decides what treatments/benefits you get.

PG 50 Section 152 in HC bill - HC will be provided to ALL non US citizens, illegal or otherwise

Pg 58HC Bill - Govt will have real-time access to individs finances & a National ID Healthcard will b issued!

Pg 59 HC Bill lines 21-24 Govt will have direct access to your banks accts 4 elect. funds transfer

pg 124 lines 24-25 HC No company can sue GOVT on price fixing. No "judicial review" against Govt Monopoly

Pg 170 Lines 1-3 HC Bill Any NONRESIDENT Alien is exempt from indiv. taxes. (Americans will pay)

Pg 195 HC Bill -officers & employees of HC Admin (GOVT) will have access to ALL Americans finan/pers recs

Pg 241 Line 6-8 HC Bill - Doctors, doesnt matter what specialty u have, you'll all be paid the same

Pg 317 L 13-20 OMG!! PROHIBITION on ownership/investment. Govt tells Drs. what/how much they can own.

Pg 429 Lines 13-25 - The govt will specify which Doctors can write an end of life order.

More here.

How do like the change in America? The obamanists rule. We all hope for a change.

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The Declaration of Independence - Hollywood style

2009-07-16T23:10:00.001-04:00

The Ten Commandments According to Obama

2009-07-16T14:09:00.003-04:00

I. Thou shalt have no God in America, except for me. For we are no longer a Christian nation and, after all, I am the chosen One. (And like God, I do not have a birth certificate.) .Source

II. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, unless it is my face carved on Mt. Rushmore. Source

III. Thou shalt not utter my middle name in vain. Only I can say Barack Hussein Obama. Source

IV. Remember tax day, April 15th, to keep it holy. Source

V. Honour thy father and thy mother until they are too old and sick to care for. They will cost our public-funded health-care system too much money. Source

VI. Thou shalt not kill, unless you have an unwanted, unborn baby. For it would be an abomination to punish your daughter with a baby. Source

VII. Thou shalt not commit adultery if you are a conservative or Republican. liberals and Democrats are hereby forgiven for all of their infidelity and immorality, but the careers of conservatives will be forever destroyed. Source

VIII. Thou shalt not steal, unless you've been elected to public office. Only then is it acceptable to take money from hard-working, successful citizens and give it to those who do not work, illegal immigrants, or those do not have the motivation to better their own lives. Source

IX. Thou shalt not discriminate against any group unless they are conservative, Caucasian, or Christian. Source

X. Thou shalt not covet because it is simply unnecessary. I will place such a heavy tax burden on those that have achieved the American Dream that, by the end of my term as President, nobody will have any wealth or material goods left for you to covet. Source

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Education in Obama Era

2009-07-15T11:54:00.003-04:00

Focus on Early Childhood Education

The years before a child reaches kindergarten are among the most critical in his or her life to influence learning. President Obama is committed to providing the support that our youngest children need to prepare to succeed later in school. The President supports a seamless and comprehensive set of services and support for children, from birth through age 5

If Obama thinks the early years are so important, why does he wants to take the children away from their parents, when it's proven that children do better when they are with their parents?

Because the President is committed to helping all children succeed – regardless of where they spend their day – he will urge states to impose high standards across all publicly funded early learning settings, develop new programs to improve opportunities and outcomes, engage parents in their child’s early learning and development, and improve the early education workforce.

High standards across the board? I mean, what happens if a 10 month old baby does not start walking as the standards require? Or if a baby is not potty trained by the time he reaches 1 year, what's the punishment? Oh, and for enforcing "the early education workforce" ... good lock making plans on a 3 year old's salary!

President Obama will reform America’s public schools to deliver a 21st Century education that will prepare all children for success in the new global workplace.

So, that's it, no? We all thought the mission of the school was to educate the child to achieve his potential, but the mission is now to transition the student to the workplace. Little robots that go to work to pay taxes to the government.

Teachers are the single most important resource to a child’s learning.

With this statement, Obama says that the parents are too stupid, inept, inane, feeble-minded and moronic to be able to raise their own children. The best compliment, right?

Aside for the fact that what government is doing is unconstitutional, why do we have to listen to the most incapable and incompetent president?

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Aggressive, Militant Islam On Display in Michigan

2009-07-11T23:12:00.001-04:00

What you will see on this video is a glimpse of what is in store for America from the forces of militant, radical Islam.

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Global Museum on Communism

2009-07-02T21:32:00.004-04:00

Here you can find a site that shows what communism did to the people in the world. I don't understand why people of the most civilized country in the world would want something like this.

Watch and learn and tell everybody to not let this administration to destroy this once great country.

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Obama Administration Pushes CRC Ratification

2009-06-24T10:46:00.002-04:00

Monday in a Harlem middle school, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice told a group of 120 students that administration officials are actively discussing “when and how it might be possible to join” (that is, ratify) the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). As before, she also communicated what a disgrace it is that the U.S. would stand with only Somalia against such a widely-accepted treaty.

This is the first direct public statement by the Obama administration that it will seek ratification of the UN CRC.

If things remain quiet, they will proceed with their plans to push for ratification of the CRC in the U.S. Senate.

To discourage them from doing so, we need to make sure that our voices are heard with unmistakable clarity. We must let the Obama administration know that we oppose this anti-family, anti-American treaty.

Here’s what we need you all to do:

1. Call the White House comments line at 202-456-1111. Tell them you heard the administration wants to ratify the CRC, and you strongly oppose this giving away of U.S. sovereignty to the UN. Also keep in mind that this treaty gives the government jurisdiction to override any decision made by any parent if the government thinks that a better decision can be made—even if there is no proof of any harm.

2. Call Ambassador Susan Rice’s office at the United Nations. Tell her that you want her to represent the United States to the world rather than trying to get the United States to go along with international law initiated by the UN. Her office number is 212-415-4000.

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Private System vs. Government-Run System

2009-06-19T14:26:00.003-04:00

Earlier this year, the New York Times Sunday Magazine published a lengthy interview with Obama in which the President gave the American people a small taste of what he envisions for health care reform.

Consider what Obama said:

Obama: "Part of what I think government can do effectively is to be an honest broker in assessing and evaluating treatment options."

Translation: Government bureaucrats will step in and call the shots. Both you and your doctor will be shut out from determining appropriate treatment.

If that doesn't worry you, the President elaborated further:

"The chronically ill and those toward the end of their lives are accounting for potentially 80 percent of the total health care bill..."

"There is going to have to be a conversation that is guided by doctors, scientists, ethicists. And then there is going to have to be a very difficult democratic conversation that takes place."

Just what do you think Obama's talking about here? Trust me, these are scary times if you're chronically ill or over the age of 55.

If you have diabetes or high blood pressure or multiple sclerosis - or are diagnosed with heart disease or cancer - your future doesn't look very bright based on the President's comments above.

If the feds determine you're costing more than you're worth, well, it's been nice knowing you.

Even Obama's top health advisers have emphasized that America should value the lives of young, healthy people more than those of old, sick individuals.

One such adviser is Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, brother of Obama's pit-bull chief-of-staff Rahm Emanuel.

Kevin Williamson of National Review Online describes Dr. Emanuel's views:

"He wrote in The Lancet in 2008: 'Unlike allocation by sex or race, allocation by age is not invidious discrimination.' We all were young once, the argument goes, and so denying the elderly and weak in order to care for the young and fit is just."

Does that sound "just" to you?

And, Obama claims that his health plan won't involve rationing or reduced care. But that's ridiculous, because all government-run health systems suffer from those drawbacks.

In fact, government-run health care supporters in Congress have already made a down payment on rationed care.

Specifically, 1.1 billion has already been appropriated as part of the disastrous "stimulus bill" for so-called "comparative effectiveness research."

What is "comparative effectiveness research?"

Congressman David Obey, Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, explained it in his committee's report:

"...those items, procedures, and interventions... that are found to be less effective and in some cases, more expensive, will no longer be prescribed."

What happened to America being a Republic that promises to safeguard the God-given rights of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?"

We are the first to admit that America's health care system is not perfect. Costs are out of control; access to care is a real issue for some.

Yes, some reform is needed, but "reform" modeled after state-run European and Canadian models is the wrong approach.

After all, despite its flaws, the current health care system in the United States is second-to-none in the world.

Dr. David Gratzer, a Canadian-trained physician who practices in the United States, makes that very point in his book The Cure. Here are just a few examples he cites:

U.S. breast cancer patients are four times as likely to be diagnosed before the tumor has spread... and thus much more likely to survive;
U.S. cancer patients generally have much higher survival rates than their European counterparts;
American heath care dramatically outperforms the "universal care" systems with heart disease and stroke; and,
American researchers in a private enterprise system are responsible for roughly 80% of the world's major medical advances.

Here's how Dr. Gratzer describes his own revelation about Canada's state-run system:

"On [my way to medical school class]... I cut through a hospital emergency room and came upon dozens of people on stretchers - waiting, moaning, begging for treatment. Some elderly patients had waited up to five days in corridors before being admitted to beds. They smelled of urine and sweat. As I navigated past the bodies, I began to question everything I thought I knew about health care - not only in Canada, but also in the United States. ... I had begun a journey into the heart of one of the great policy disasters of modern times."

Painful and interminable waits for care are policy disasters Obama "forgot" to mention.

The time is now to tell Congress that you don't want government bureaucrats making life-and-death decisions for you and your family. The time is now to defeat government-run health care in the United States.

here

What Obama Is Not Telling You

2009-06-19T14:19:00.002-04:00

Right now, politicians in Washington are scheming behind closed doors to impose a massive government-run health care system on the American people.

Forget, for just a moment, the 1.6 trillion cost to taxpayers for the "downpayment" on this plan. Forget, for just a moment, that the cost of Obama-Kennedy-Pelosi-Care will bankrupt the nation.

What should really concern you is not its cost... but rather its callousness.

Probably the most horrifying aspect of Obama-Kennedy-Pelosi-Care is that it will actually limit your family's health care choices, put government bureaucrats and accountants in charge of your family's medical decisions, and enable these government bureaucrats to actually play God - deciding who gets what treatment and when.

The dirty little secret is that Barack Obama's and Teddy Kennedy's and Nancy Pelosi's idea of "reforming" American health care seems to be Less Care for All, Little or No Care for Some.

Here's what political pundit Dick Morris recently wrote on the subject:

"[T]heir secret emerges: They are going to cut medical costs by cutting medical care. ... decisions will not be medical but financial. They will not be based on a doctor's opinion of what his or her patient needs, but a bureaucrat's and an accountant's opinion of what the new health care system can afford."

"And you will not be able to bypass their rulings and pay for this care yourself. The rules laid down must be followed and private payments will not be permitted to override them. What we now call a private fee for service will metastasize into a bribe.

"But this is just the very beginning... rationing is coming, and coming soon."

Rationing of services? Denial of choice? Is that the kind of "reform" you want?

If you need a CAT Scan or an MRI, forget it. If you need antibiotics, maybe - only if they're approved by the federal government. As for potentially life-saving or life-extending treatments, take a number and stand in line.

Is this why our so-called leaders in Washington want to bankrupt the nation in the name of "reform?"

We say "no."

But simply saying no is not enough. We must, right here and right now, tell our elected officials that we want them to say "no" to government-run health care as well.

This is perhaps the biggest fight for freedom in a generation. It is about the liberty to make our own health care decisions, in consultation with the doctors of our choice, rather than the federal government doing it for us!

Despite the realities of every other government-run health care system in the world, President Obama, in typical fashion, is attempting to sell his plan to the American people with empty promises - by telling you exactly what you want to hear.

"If you want to keep your doctor, you'll be able to keep your doctor," Obama says. "If you want to keep your present health plan, you'll be able to keep your present health plan," he tells us.

But if his government-run health care plan passes, Obama will never be able to keep those promises and he knows it.

Jim Lindgren, writing for the popular Internet blog Volokh Conspiracy, spelled out the reality of Obama's plan:

"[I]f the Obama plan is enacted, a substantial portion of employers will cut their health subsidies -- raising their employees' share of contributions to the company plan -- in order to drive some of the employees into the government exchange and the public option. Other employers may drop their plans altogether -- after all, workers could buy their own coverage in the government exchange -- or simply fund part of their workers' participation in the exchange. These changes, which would be the direct results of the implementation of the Obama plan, would make it virtually impossible for Obama to keep these promises..."

And, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office recently reported that the plan currently under consideration in Congress would cause about 23 million Americans to lose their private insurance.

Another thing Obama failed tell you is that even if he could keep those promises - and he can't - keeping your doctor or your present health plan won't matter when government bureaucrats start calling the shots and telling your doctor and provider exactly what they can and cannot do... when and how they are allowed to treat patients and how much they can charge for that treatment.

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True

2009-06-12T10:30:00.002-04:00

Daily Survival Kit

2009-06-09T18:18:00.013-04:00

1. Toothpick - to remind you to pick the good qualities in others.

2. Rubber band - to remind you to be flexible: things might not always work out the way you want, but it will work out.

3. Band aid - to remind you to heal hurtfeelings, yours and someone else's.

4. Pencil - to remind you to list your blessings everyday.

5. Eraser - to remind you that everyone makes mistakes, and it's ok.

6. Chewing gum - to remind you to stick with it and you can accomplish anything.

7. Mint - to remind you that you are worth a mint!

8. Candy kiss - to remind you that everyone needs a kiss or a hug every day.

9. Tea bag - to remind you to relax daily and go over your list of blessings.

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Happy Memorial Day!!! - European Arrogance

2009-05-25T11:44:00.003-04:00

1. The American Cemetery at Aisne-Marne , France . A total of 2289 of our military dead. We Apologize.

2. The American Cemetery at Ardennes , Belgium . A total of 5329 of our dead.

3. The American Cemetery at Brittany, France . A total of 4410 of our military dead. Excuse us.

4. Brookwood , England American Cemetery. A total of 468 of our dead.

5. Cambridge , England . 3812 of our military dead.

6. Epinal20, France American Cemetery. A total of 5525 of our Military dead.

7. Flanders Field , Belgium . A total of 368 of our military.

8. Florence , Italy . A total of 4402 of our military dead.

9. Henri-Chapelle , Belgium . A total of 7992 of our military dead.

10. Lorraine , France . A total of 10,489 of our military dead.

11. Luxembourg , Luxembourg . A total of 5076 of our military dead.

12. Meuse-Argonne. A total of 14246 of our military dead.

13. Netherlands , Netherlands . A total of 8301 of our military dead.

14. Normandy , France . A total of 9387 of our military dead.

15. Oise-Aisne , France . A total of 6012 of our military dead.

16. Rhone , France . A total of 861 of our military dead.

17. Sicily , Italy . A total of 7861 of our military dead.

18. Somme , France . A total of 1844 of our military dead.

19. St. Mihiel , France . A total of 4153 of our military dead.

20. Suresnes , France . A total of 1541 of our military dead.

Apologize to no one. Remind those of our sacrifice and don't confuse arrogance with leadership.

If I added correctly the count is 104,366 dead and we have to watch any American elected leader who apologizes to Europe and the Middle East that our country is "arrogant"!

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Are you in?

2009-05-24T23:29:00.002-04:00

Are You In??

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Wake up, people!

2009-05-20T15:40:00.002-04:00

swipped from
.olbroad

Livonia Youth Philharmonic - Concert

2009-05-20T13:41:00.003-04:00

Another year done. The orchestra where my daughter plays had its final concert. Here are some of the songs:

Handelian for String orchestra by Shirl Jae Atwell

Brandenburg Concerto No.2 by J.S. Bach

Star Wars by John Williams

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Parents Excluded from Multisexual Issues in Schools

2009-04-30T13:22:00.001-04:00

Parents are being purposely excluded from multisexual issues in schools, as seen in mounting evidence from California school districts, the National Educational Association, and more.

“This is an effort to force parents out of the classroom. If it’s not this way in your school, it is only a matter of time before your school is confronted with efforts to exclude parents,” said Karen England, Executive Director of Capitol Resource Institute.

Kindergartners learn the definition of “gay,” “lesbian,” and “transgender.”

Students learn about different kinds of families, including kids raised by a mom and dad, grandparents, and same-sex parents. In all age groups, the multisexual message is being woven into everyday instruction.

State law now mandates that schools accept homosexual, bisexual, and transsexual behaviors. San Francisco Unified School District explicitly interprets state law to mean that the district does not need to notify parents about many multisexual discussions in school curriculum and activities.

here

Coming to a state near you......

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The Greatest Hypocrite Ever

2009-04-17T10:30:00.006-04:00

Remember Obama's "spread the wealth around"? Well, of course it's nice to do that when it's not his money. Look at the graph below and see how much he gave to charities and how running for presidency changed that a lot. Most of his contributions were to CARE, an organization that steal people's money claiming it's for global warming, and to United Negro College Fund, $25,000 for each. How about The United White College Fund? Wait...it doesn't exist...it's tooo racist.

Obama:

Biden:

Hypocrites!

Tea Party, California - A Dear Friend

2009-04-16T01:38:00.003-04:00

This lady came from the same communist country I came 14 years ago. I love the way she is explaining to people in Modesto, California, why it's a good idea to keep our country free. I hope she encouraged many people to not give up and keep up the good fight.

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Livonia and Plymouth, Michigan Tea Party

2009-04-15T18:04:00.011-04:00

"Money Talks"

2009-04-15T17:07:00.003-04:00

Why is it that Great Britain is now faced with Islamic extremism every where they turn? They have 12 Shariah courts, publicly-funded Shariah Islamic education, welfare benefits for up to four wives for every Muslim man, honor killings, children falling off school rosters and suspected of being forced into child marriages, raging domestic violence and spousal abuse, and "no-go" zones where even British police are afraid to enter for fear of Islamist violence.

As we have noted frequently, Britain’s policy of “outreach” to the Islamic community has failed to accomplish what it hoped to accomplish. A critical aspect of this “outreach” has been Britain’s embrace of shariah finance. As Prime Minister Gordon Brown declared in 2006, London was going to be the Islamic Banking Capital of the World. Why? Money. And he got it.

At the June 13, 2006 Islamic Finance Trade Conference in London, Brown revealed,

"Today British banks are pioneering Islamic banking - London now has more banks supplying services under Islamic principles than any other Western financial centre."

Because so many top business leaders, university professors, government officials, and religious leaders in Great Britain have bought into the fiction that Shariah Banking is just a harmless religious requirement for Islamic investment, there are few there in positions of leadership left to fight against Shariah. While we noted last week a positive development, the re-thinking of some of the British policy regarding the connection between Islamist doctrine and terrorism, can such a shift actually occur with Britain so beholden to Shariah finance and its money?

Do you know that Shariah is already here in the U.S., thanks to the acceptance of Shariah finance by institutions such as Citibank, HSBC, UBS and AIG, and the lack of oversight by the SEC and U.S. Treasury Department? Is the West ready for this? Actually, the better question to ask is this:

Does the West understand that the embrace of Shariah finance is the eventual embrace of brutal and oppressive Shariah law?

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Smile...

2009-04-09T01:10:00.002-04:00

I JUST HEARD THAT PRESIDENT OBAMA IS GOING TO IMPOSE A 40% TAX ON ASPIRIN BECAUSE IT'S WHITE AND IT WORKS.

UN Attacks National Sovereignty

2009-04-05T00:01:00.005-04:00

National sovereignty - keeping the US as a free and independent nation - is vital to maintaining the culture and way of life traditionally regarded as being "American".

Since World War II, propaganda for world government under the United Nations has been added to textbook promotion of a collectivist society.This laid the foundation for the eventual destruction of the U. S. Constitution and our free market system so that America could be easily merged into a socialistic world federation under UNESCO guidelines.

UNESCO envisioned that destruction of children's love of country and patriotism was the first step towards education for world citizenship. At a Childhood International Education Seminar, C.M. Pierce, M.D., a professor of education and psychiatry at Harvard, told educators at the meeting:

Every child in America entering school at the age of 5 is mentally ill because he comes to school with certain allegiances to our founding fathers, toward his parents, toward a belief in a supernatural being, and toward the sovereignty of this nation as a separate entity. It's up to you as teachers to make all these sick children well - by creating the international child of the future.

After recommending that American students be denied full knowledge of the greatness of their nation, UNESCO admits that detailed study of foreign countries will lead the student to the conclusion that America is a better place to live.

The student who does not know or understand the accomplishments of America and the shortcomings of the rest of the world is more likely to accept a "world government." The student who knows nothing of the horrors of the communist system in Russia and the failures of socialism everywhere it has been tried, might well agree to a communist-influenced socialistic one-world government. The student who has been taught that the UN protected America from Nazism and Mussolini's Fascism, would see nothing wrong with looking to the UN to maintain world peace and freedom.

UNESCO released a three-volume report of the National History Standards Project. Nowhere in those standards will you find any mention of the fact that it was the Western tradition that first produced the idea of individual freedom. Nowhere will you find that it was in Christianity that the concept of individual freedom originated. That slavery is evil is a western ideal. Because the bias of the standards is so weighted against the USA and the West, you will find no acknowledgement of the fact that we have produced what no other country and tradition has.

If the "neutralist" Afro-Asian-Muslim block united, as usual, with Red China and the "former" communist countries and the Soviet-bloc and voted democratically that all taxes of the world should be paid by Americans, would United States resist? Would it be wrong? Perhaps. But it would be democratic. Yet, throughout the textbooks, the students are conditioned to accept world government, without discussing whether it would be good or bad.

Don't you think the UN did their job very well?

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ATHEISM

2009-04-04T00:54:00.001-04:00

The belief that there was nothing and nothing happened to nothing and then nothing magically exploded for no reason, creating everything and then a bunch of everything magically rearranged itself for no reason what so ever into self-replicating bits which then turned in dinosaurs ……..

Makes perfect sense.

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The American Form of Government

2009-03-24T00:17:00.005-04:00

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This is a Democrat Scandal

2009-03-19T18:49:00.003-04:00

President Obama joined yesterday in the clamor of outrage at AIG for paying some $165 million in contractually obligated employee bonuses. He and the rest of the political class thus neatly deflected attention from the larger outrage, which is the five-month Beltway cover-up over who benefited most from the AIG bailout.

here

The bonuses that the AIG executives were given have nothing to do with the real problem.The most important thing is to understand that THIS GOVERNMENT FAILED. Everything it touches it's brought to ruins.

Congrats to you dems! You ruined this once a great country!!

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Hitler Youth-Obama Youth??

2009-03-19T17:27:00.003-04:00

The House of Representatives passed a measure Wednesday that supporters are calling the most sweeping reform of nationally-backed volunteer programs since AmeriCorps. But some opponents are strongly criticizing the legislation, calling it expensive indoctrination and forced advocacy.

The Generations Invigorating Volunteerism and Education Act, known as the GIVE Act -- sponsored by Reps. Carolyn McCarthy, D-N.Y, and George Miller, D-Calif. -- was approved by a 321-105 vote and now goes to the Senate.

here.

What kind of volunteer work is that that will be paid for the services? And how can it be volunteer work when they force you to work?

Lee Cary puts it very well:

"Senator Obama aims to tap into the already active volunteerism of millions of Americans and recruit them to become cogs in a gigantic government machine grinding out his social re-engineering agenda," Lee Cary of the conservative American Thinker wrote at the time about Obama's remarks.

"(His words) were about turning America into one, giant, community organizer's sandbox at enormous cost to taxpayers," Cary wrote.

Does this looks familiar?

From the Lips of an Islamist

2009-03-19T14:01:00.006-04:00

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Health care like Canada?? No WAY!!!

2009-03-16T00:09:00.003-04:00

I found this great site that gives links to a lot of news that shows how "well" the nationalized health care works for our neighbors on the north, Canada:

(http://www.liberty-page.com/issues/healthcare/socialized.html#canada)

Surgery postponed indefinitely for 1,000 Kelowna patients- Cathryn Atkinson, April 8, 2008 [Globe and Mail]

Majority of Que. dentists quit health-care system- March 27, 2008 [CTV.ca]

Why Ontario keeps sending patients south- Lisa Priest, February 22, 2008 [Globe and Mail]

Will Socialized Health Care in the US Kill Canadians?- Don Surber, March 3, 2008 [Acton Institute]

Wait times for surgery, medical treatments at all-time high: report- October 15, 2007 [CBC News (Canada)]

The Ugly Truth About Canadian Health Care- David Gratzer, Summer 2007 [City Journal]

Cancer patients question why PET scan not covered- May 28, 2007 [CBC News]

BC Medical Association: Waiting Too Long for Hip and Knee Surgery Costs $10,000 Per Patient-Maximum Wait Times Should Be No Longer Than 6 Months- June 28, 2006 [CCN Matthews]

Ont. physician turns away patient for being 55+- March 17, 2006 [CTV.ca]

Canada inches toward private medicine- Rebecca Cook Dube, August 8, 2005 [CS Monitor]

Doctor defends private cancer clinic- Gillian Livingston, July 15, 2005 [Canadian Press]

Dogma trumps truth in health-care issues- D’Arcy Jenish, July 7, 2005 [Ontario Business News]
Why Canadians Purchase Private Health Insurance- Walter Williams, June 20, 2005 [Capitalism Magazine]

Doctor welcomes health ruling- June 9, 2005 [CBC Montreal]

Patients shouldn't wait more than 8 weeks for cardiac defibrillator: experts- May 24, 2005 [Canadian Press]

Grads fail to slow doctor shortage- Jennifer O'Brien, May 21, 2005 [London Free Press]

Free Canadian health care comes at cost- April 10, 2005 [Arkansas Democrat-Gazette]

Canada's drug tab reaches $22 billion, report suggests- Sheryl Ubelacker, CP, April 6, 2005 [London Free Press]

Canadian health care is free and first-class -- if you can wait- Beth Duff-Brown, March 19, 2005 [The Associated Press]

Pediatricians, parents warn of shortage of community-based care for children- Colin Perkel, March 4, 2005 [The Canadian Press]

Access to specialists difficult: study- February 16, 2005 [CBC Calgary]

Doctor shortages, frustrations vary from region to region, survey shows- February 15, 2005 [Canada.com]

Montreal leads the country in offering private health care- Aaron Derfel, February 12, 2005 [Montreal Gazette]

Canada falling short on medical imaging- February 9, 2005 [Macleans.ca]

Creative incentives required to retain older doctors- Dr. Charles Shaver, January 20, 2005 [Toronto Star]

MRI gap defies cash fix- Mark Kennedy, January 14, 2005 [National Post (Canada)]

A boy's plight, a nation's problem- Lisa Priest, January 13, 2005 [The Globe and Mail]

Where's proof private clinics cost more?- Tom Brodbeck, December 4, 2004 [The Winnipeg Sun]
Surgery backlog tops 5,500 at kids' hospitals; One-year waits common- Aaron Derfel, December 3, 2004 [The Gazette (Montreal)]

Hospital wait lists to get worse, Carriere says- Chris Traber, November 14, 2004 [Yorkregion.com]

Frustrated patients can't handle ER waits- Jennifer Stewart and Jeffrey Simpson, October 28, 2004 [The Halifax Herald Limited]

Private medical clinic opens in Montreal...it answers, "an ever-increasing demand from the public for greater accessibility and quality of health services." - October 13, 2004 [CTV.ca]

Canadians have higher death risk than Americans after heart attack: study- Sheryl Ubelacker, September 20, 2004 [Canada.com]

Canadian medical tourists in India- Jeremy Copeland, September 20, 2004 [CBC News]

Doctor shortage cripples Canada's free health care- Clifford Krauss, September 18, 2004 [Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune]

Canada's Once-Proud Public Health System in Crisis- David Ljunggren, September 14, 2004 [Reuters (Ottawa)]

Hospitals to cut, again- September 5, 2004 [Toronto Star]

Canada's Medical Nightmare- Robert J. Cihak, M.D., September 1, 2004 [Health Care News]

Canada faces shortage of doctors- August 19, 2004 [MSNBC]

Canadians losing faith in health system: poll- August 16, 2004 [CTV.ca]

Ontario hospitals a health risk- Michael Hurley, August 8, 2004 [Toronto Star]

Need surgery? Here's how long you'll wait"It's inhuman. The quality of my life is horrible and there's absolutely nothing I can do about it." - Jason Fekete, July 28, 2004 [Calgary Herald]

Docs, nurses fed upCanadian doctors and nurses are fed up with inter-governmental "bickering" that is dragging out wait times and causing more pain and suffering for patients. - July 28, 2004 [Winnipeg Sun]

Free Health Care?...in some cases, patients die on the waiting list because they become too sick to tolerate a procedure. - Walter E. Williams, July 24, 2004 [CATO]

The truth about Canada's ailing health-care systemAll the major candidates in Canada's recent national election acknowledged that the country's health-care system is failing Canadians. - Robert J. Cihak, July 13, 2004 [The Seattle Times]

Health-care crisis looms, even with new moneyCanada's health-care system is "five to 10 years" from the breaking point -- even with cash injections from government, says the new president of the B.C. Medical Association. - Doug Alexander, July 5, 2004 [Vancouver Sun]

Emergency room delays a strong campaign factor"Go into the emergency room — it is the most pitiful piece of work you ever seen in your life." - David Bruser, June 22, 2004 [Toronto Star]

Canadian Health Care in CrisisAnalyst visits NC to describe how single-payer health care really works in practice. - Donna Martinez, June 17, 2004 [Carolina Journal]

Quebec cancer patients sue over waitWomen waited months for radiation; lawsuit could cost system $50-million. - Ingrid Peritz, March 11, 2004 [The Globe and Mail]

Health care: no waiting lists'You get knee surgery within two days ... try and get that in human hospitals.' Canada's [private] pet health-insurance industry is projected to grow at roughly 50 per cent a year... - Robert Scalia, November 30, 2003 [Montreal Gazette]

For some, surgery abroad a welcome answer- Daniel Girard, November 29, 2003 [Toronto Star]
Canadian Doctors Eyeing United States- Clifford Krauss, October 17, 2003 [The New York Times]

The Top Ten Things People Believe About Canadian Health Care, But Shouldn’t- Brian Lee Crowley, October 9, 2003 [Mackinac Center for Public Policy]

Canadians' health at risk, CMA says- Valerie Lawton, September 26, 2003 [Toronto Star]

Burnout is now doctors' ailmentAlmost half of Canadian doctors say they're burned out, emotionally exhausted and blame medicine for putting a drain on their family life. - Karen Palmer, August 20, 2003 [Toronto Star]

New MRI clinic in row over poachingWhile she insists she's not making any money off the venture, she says it provides an income allowance for her and her husband, the other principal in the company. - Theresa Boyle and Robert Benzie, July 28, 2003 [Toronto Star]

Price Controls and Overall Drug SpendingThe Canadian system, however, tends to push up overall spending on prescription drugs, despite the low prices for some brand name ones. - John Melby, July 2, 2003 [Buckeye Institute]

Gore Endorses Canada's Medical System- William L. Anderson, November 29, 2002 [Mises]

How Good is Canadian Health Care?- August 2002 [Fraser Institute]

Canadian Health-Care System Is No Model for Prescription Drug Reform- May 1, 2001 [Mackinac Center for Public Policy]

The Ghost of America's Health Care Future Lives in Canada Today- James Frogue and Robert Moffit, December 25, 2000 [Capitalism Magazine]

Socialized Medicine: The Canadian ExperienceExplores several lessons that can be drawn from the Canadian experience with socialized medicine:
Socialized medicine, although of poor quality, is very expensive;
Political compromise is the result;
Socialized medicine is both a consequence and a great contributor to the idea that economic conditions should be equalized by coercion. - Pierre Lemieux [The Freeman]

Canadian Health Care...if Canadians knew as much as they think they do about the economic and moral workings of Medicare, they might not be as enthusiastic as they are about their cherished right to 'free' health care. - Andrei Kreptul, August 30, 2000 [Mises]

When Patients Become Victims - The Crime of Government-Run Health Care- Merrill Matthews Jr., Ph.D. and Kerri Houston, May 1, 2000 (PDF format)

Socialized Medicine Leaves a Bad Taste in Patients' Mouths- Lawrence W. Reed, February 23, 2000 [Mackinac Center for Public Policy]

Canadians Dissatisfied With Socialized Medicine- January 26, 2000 [NCPA]

Memo to Al Gore: Canadian Medicine Isn't Cheap or Effective- William McArthur, former chief coroner for British Columbia, January 28, 2000

Loved to Death: America's Unresolved Health-Care CrisisAs Canada's national government slashes spending on medical care in order to reduce the deficit, local provinces are reducing medical staff. In Ontario, pregnant women are being sent to Detroit because no obstetricians are available. Specialists of all kinds are in short supply. Patients have to wait eight weeks for an MRI, ten weeks for referral to a specialist, and four months for heart bypass surgery. - Michael J. Hurd, November 1997 [Liberty Haven]

Is Canadian Health care a Good Model for the U.S. to Follow?- Michael Walker, August 1994 [Liberty Haven]

Health of the State (commentary by a cancer survivor)I tell you this not to alarm you, to elicit sympathy, or to bore you. I tell you because the episode has been, for me, a salutary lesson (just in case I needed one) in why the government should not be allowed anywhere near a syringe, a dressing, a scalpel, an oxygen mask, a tissue sample — anything to do with health.

Michigan Shouldn't Copy Canada's Health System- Lawrence W. Reed, July 29, 1991 [Mackinac Center for Public Policy]

And there is more info, from England, from Europe, Cuba..... Just take note what it will happen to us if we follow!!

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NEW School prayer

2009-03-14T18:48:00.001-04:00

Now I sit me down in school
Where praying is against the rule
For this great nation under God
Finds mention of Him very odd.
If Scripture now the class recites, It violates the Bill of Rights.
And anytime my head I bow
Becomes a Federal matter now.
Our hair can be purple, orange or green,
That's no offense; it's a freedom scene.
The law is specific, the law is precise.
Prayers spoken aloud are a serious vice.
For praying in a public hall
Might offend someone with no faith at all
In silence alone we must meditate,
God's name is prohibited by the state.
We're allowed to cuss and dress like freaks,
And pierce our noses, tongues and cheeks...
They've outlawed guns, but FIRST the Bible.
To quote the Good Book makes me liable.
We can elect a pregnant Senior Queen,
And the 'unwed daddy,' our Senior King..
It's 'inappropriate' to teach right from wrong,
We're taught that such 'judgments' do not belong.
We can get our condoms and birth controls,
Study witchcraft, vampires and totem poles.
But the Ten Commandments are not allowed,
No word of God must reach this crowd.
It's scary here I must confess,
When chaos reigns the school's a mess.
So, Lord, this silent plea I make:
Should I be shot; My soul please take!
Amen

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The Medical Profession Speaks out on the Financial Bail-Out Package

2009-03-07T00:08:00.000-05:00

The Medical Profession Speaks out on the Financial Bail-Out Package:

The allergists voted to scratch it, and the dermatologists advised not to make any rash moves. The gastroenterologists had sort of a gut feeling about it, but the neurologists thought the administration had a lot of nerve, and the obstetricians felt they were all laboring under a misconception. The ophthalmologists considered the idea shortsighted; the pathologists yelled, "Over my dead body!" while the pediatricians said, 'Oh, Grow up!'

The psychiatrists thought the whole idea was madness, the radiologists could see right through it, and the surgeons decided to wash their hands of the whole thing. The internists thought it was a bitter pill to swallow, and the plastic surgeons said, "This puts a whole new face on the matter." The podiatrists thought it was a step forward, but the urologist felt the scheme wouldn't hold water. The anesthesiologists thought the whole idea was a gas; and the cardiologists didn't have the heart to say no.

In the end, the proctologists left the decision up to the asses in Washington.

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More Legislative Activity?

2009-03-06T12:01:00.003-05:00

After much heated debate on the house floor, legislation was passed today to allow a growing number of families to cook meals for their families in their homes. The children must have annual physical examinations to assure proper growth and weight gain. Attempts to require weekly meal plans and monthly kitchen inspections were voted down.

A spokesperson from the National Association of Nutritionists (NANs) condemns this decision."These children are being denied the rich socialization and diversity that is an essential part of the eating process. Without the proper nutritional background, it is impossible for the average person to feed their own children. We, as child advocates, see this as a step backwards and speak out for the sake of the children who cannot speak for themselves."

Homecooking parents say the benefits of eating at home include increased family unity and the ability to tailor a diet to a particular need. Elizabeth Crocker, a home cook, states, "We started cooking and eating at home when we realized that my son had a severe allergy to eggs. The public kitchens required him to take numerous medications that had serious side effects in order to counteract his allergy. We found that eliminating eggs was a simpler method and our son has thrived since we began doing so."

After this experience, the Crockers decided to homecook for all of their children, and converted their media room into a kitchen. Elizabeth says, "We have experienced so much closeness as we have explored recipes and spent time cooking together and eating together. We have a dining circle with other families where we sometimes share ideas and meals together."

The Crocker children have done well physically under their mother's care, weighing in at optimum weights for their ages and having health records far above average. It should be noted that Mrs. Crocker, while not a professional nutritionist, has a family history rich with nutritionists and home economists. "Surely the success of the Crocker children is due to the background of their mother,"responded the spokesman from NANs. "The results they have achieved should not be viewed as normative." Mrs. Crocker counters that her background was actually a hindrance to the nutritional principles she follows. "Our paternal great-grandmother was a home economist, but she prepared most meal from pre-made mixes. In our homecooking we try not to duplicate public-kitchen meals, but to tailor our meals to the needs and preferences of our children."

In a related issue, legislation is in committee that would provide oversight for the emerging homecooking movement. Says the Home Eating Legal Defense Association (HELDA): "We want to provide umbrella kitchens to aid parents in the complicated tasks of feeding their children. Many families lack the expertise of the Crocker family, yet desire to eat at home. As we have seen, the umbrella kitchens meet the needs of all concerned. We are happy to provide this service."

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The 7 Wonders of Communism

2009-03-06T11:55:00.002-05:00

1. Everybody had jobs.

2. Although everyone had jobs, no one was working.

3. Although no one was working, the plan exceeded 100%.

4. Although the plan exceeded 100%, you could not buy anything.

5. Although you could not buy anything, everybody had everything.

6. Although everyone had everything, all of them were stealing.

7. Although they were stealing, there never was missing anything.

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Laughs

2009-03-03T09:31:00.002-05:00

Japanese banks have been hit almost as hard as American banks:

The Origami Bank has folded, and we hear the Sumo Bank has gone belly-up too.

Bonsai Bank plans to cut some of its branches.

Karaoke Bank is for sale and is going for a song.

Meanwhile, staff at Karate Bank got the chop, and analysts report there is something fishy going on at Sushi Bank, where workers fear they may get a raw deal.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Three guys are fishing on a lake when an angel appears in the boat with them. The first guy gets over his shock and humbly says to the angel, "I've suffered from back pain for years. Is it too much to ask that you help me?" The angel touches the man's back, and he feels instant relief.

The second guy points to his Coke-bottle glasses and asks if the angel could cure his poor eyesight. The angel tosses the man's glasses into the lake. When they hit the water, the man's vision clears, and he can see everything distinctly.

The angel now turns to the third guy, who throws up his hands in fear. "Don't touch me!" he cries. "I'm on disability!"

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Lansing, Michigan Tea Party

2009-02-27T16:24:00.005-05:00

February 27, 2009

Michigan Tea Party

2009-02-25T15:04:00.001-05:00

What: Michigan Tea Party

When: Friday, February 27th, high noon

Where: Michigan State Capitol

Bring Your Tea Bags, Protest Signs and American Flags!

Questions or to confirm attendance: apackof2@gmail.com

Scott Hagerstrom

State DirectorAmericans for Prosperity

http://michiganteaparty.blogspot.com/

The Stethoscope

2009-02-21T02:30:00.001-05:00

D. Stabmenow Must Really Go!

2009-02-06T16:21:00.002-05:00

It's all over, now. The beans are out of the bag. D. Stabmenow believes that the fairness doctrine should return. Her arguments reveal a clear conflict of interest and shows her true beliefs.

What is she calling for is nothing more than an early page out of a fascist handbook. Our founding fathers were concerned about the likes of D. Stabmenow. Right in the First Amendment: D. Stabmenow, keep your fingers off the free speech. And like everything else, the left's mentality is to try to figure out a way to wiggle liberty away from the citizens; to get around the Constitution. They cannot control the content of political speech. Let's see why does it matter who is her husband:

http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080403/METRO/804030355/1409/METRO

Athans, 46, was executive vice president of Air America, which filed for
bankruptcy in 2006. In early 2006, Athans left Air America Radio, which
emerged from bankruptcy in 2007. Athans now heads TalkUSA Radio, based in
Washington,
D.C

Why is this relevant? He is the co-founder and former CEO of the liberal-progressive Democracy Radio, , the group that owned Air America. Her husband was working for conservative radio hosts' competitors. Her husband was a failure with liberal-progressive "democracy radio". They cannot compete in the free market, no matter how many millionaires subsidize them!! They're a joke! And her husband was knee-deep in all of it. She wants now to use her position as a U.S. Senator to destroy conservative talk radio, in order to help these people who failed on their own, including her husband.

How does a senator get away with that? How is this not unethical? How is this not conflict of interest? Her husband was receiving a paycheck as the VP of Air America, which failed as a commercial enterprise and now they want the government to punish these enterprises that work, including conservative talk radio. They want to use the power of government to undermine the 1st Amendment and to punish success, legitimate, law biding enterprises.

It is unbelievable that in this century they try to take control of the airways. In the name of the people, of course. They try to shut down everybody who stands up to them when it comes to these massive spending bills that is going to bankrupt this country and destroy generations to come. That's why they want to quiet the conservative radio. Not because of the Republican Party or anything else, but because conservatives stay in their way. This is about raw power, this is about a rogue regime, trying to exercises authority that the founders never conferred to any politician. The new way of Obama isn't really a new way for most who understands history. This is not socialism, this is fascism. This is totalitarianism. This is Hugo Chavez. This is Fidel Castro. This is Hamas. This is Hezbollah, getting the hold of radio stations and the TV stations, to promote their propaganda, by force, by rule of law.

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The Crisis of Higher Education

2009-02-03T16:43:00.002-05:00

Many of our politicians have it backwards these days. It's not a shame to lose an election. But it is a shame to serve a wrong idea.

Conservatives, when argue for school choice, like to say that elementary and secondary schools should be financed on the same principles as colleges, where student aid follows the student to whichever school he pleases. This is true enough, but it is not the aid alone that follows the student. Title IV of the current Higher Education Act regulates colleges that accept federal financial aid. Title IV includes now more than 300 pages of regulations, and the failure of a senior college official to comply in a material respect can lead to heavy fines and imprisonment.

Since September 11, 2001, defense spending has risen 133%. There are major increases in most higher education programs, especially those regarding need-based aid. Both the amounts available, and the upward limits of the income groups to whom they are available, have risen sharply.

A great concern animating federal education policy is the miserable failures in basic skills, especially math and science but also literacy, of America's high school and college graduates. The national Commission's Draft Report offers an impressive number of ideas for dealing with this crisis. But they are all built on the same notion: that once upon a time, in the 1950s, the Soviet Union fired a rocket into space before the U.S. did, and so the federal government began funding higher education, and because of that we had a great coordinated national effort and became the leaders in science and technology. This story is told often. It is the same story that was told back at the time of Sputnik, and it was used effectively to justify passage of the original Higher Education Act.

This story is nice, but it cannot be true. Sputnik went up in 1957, after Americans had invented the telephone, the laser, the transistor, done half the work to discover DNA, settled a continent, covered it with railways, roads, airports and communications. We managed to do all of this without the Department of Education.

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Hypocrite

2009-01-23T14:02:00.005-05:00

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090122/ap_on_go_pr_wh/obama_suspected_terrorists

Obama signs order to close Guantanamo in a year.

President Obama ran his campaign demonizing Bush for the way he handled Guantanamo, water boarding and other interrogation methods. Now he is doing the same thing:

Required all U.S. personnel to follow the U.S. Army Field Manual while
interrogating detainees. The manual explicitly prohibits threats, coercion,
physical abuse and waterboarding, a technique that creates the sensation of
drowning and has been termed a form of torture by critics. However, a Capitol
Hill aide says that the administration also is planning a study of more
aggressive interrogation methods that could be added to the Army manual — which
would create a significant loophole to Obama's action Thursday.

He is planning to study more aggressive interrogation methods. Will Obama be demonized by the media and his democrats if it will be uncovered what kind of techniques he's going to approve to get informations from the terrorists?

We'll live and see. But I think it's funny how Obama is going to do almost the same thing Bush did, but one was sent to the drains and the other is raised to a messiah level. Shame!

The Bad News

2009-01-23T13:50:00.002-05:00

I keep seeing these kinds of headlines:

Dec. job toll: 524,000
Worst year of losses since 1940s puts unemployment rate at 7.2%

That's in bold type. Then, underneath, in tiny letters:

U.S. economy loses more than a half-million jobs in December and 1.5 million in fourth quarter. Jobless rate hits highest level since 1993.

Now that's more accurate. If you were to read the first headline you would think, "Holy crap! Our unemployment is the same as the end of the Great Depression!" If you read the tiny type you get a more accurate picture: there is a recession happening much like what happened in 1993. It still may get worse but that's where we are right now.

Further, the fail to tell you other facts:
- the jobless rate is at 7.2% which is obviously more than 5% but it's been fairly consistently under 5% for a good while. 5% used (back in the 1980s) to be consider the 'realistic absolute low point' for the unemployment rate. It was thought you couldn't go under 5% realistically so if you were close to 5% you were basically at 'full employment' for the population.
- 524,000 jobs is a lot of jobs but we also have a lot more total people working than we did back during the depression or before it. There are just more people working. A population of 100,000,000 working people losing 500,000 jobs is a lot different than a working population of 10,000,000 losing 500,000 jobs (I don't know what the figures were for working people in the 1920s and 1930s but our country has grown quite a lot since then so we obviously have a lot more people working).
- The Great Depression's unemployment rate topped out at around 25%. We're a long way from that. We've just gotten to the point where we were in 1993 which was a fairly minor bump. Even so, if you think about the way they portray the Great Depression it sounded like everyone was out of work. 1 in 4 was out of work. 75% still had jobs. I'm not saying it's good or that it didn't suck but it's just the way it's all spun that gets me.
- Government spending will get us out of this - What they fail to tell you is that 8 years into FDR's presidency he was pretty annoyed that the unemployment rate was the same as what it was when he took office.

There are some things that are good about recessions:
- if the government stays out of the way (which it won't but if it did) then labor prices will eventually get to the point where business people think, "hey, labor is cheap. I'll hire on a couple of extra guys and try to expand." You really can't do this like you used to because of various regulations like minimum wage. With minimum wage in place it makes it tougher to undercut the next guy in selling your product (you).
- It does give government a huge pool of people to pull from to build government work projects (like highways, bridges, military bases) at reasonable prices (again, if they got out of the way of themselves, in that example).

I don't even watch/listen to the news any longer because it's all the same, "Great Depression," crap which, at this point, really has no basis in reality. We're not even close yet. We just got to the moderately sucky times of 1993. We haven't even hit the suck-times of the 1970s yet, and we very well may not - no way to tell, with double-digit inflation and double-digit unemployment.

The biggest thing we have working against us right now is the lack of education in our own people. The current generation has been brought up to respond to any problem with, "There ought to be a law so the government can fix it." It doesn't even occur to them, "What can I do?"

I don't know how you fix that, either.

Still, the point being: We're not in a Great Depression yet - even will all the talk of it. I think it is possible that we could talk ourselves into one, though. Basically make everyone so fearful of spending any money at all that no one can sell anything and the economy, effectively, stops.

Good news, though: People are paying down their debts and putting money into savings. That's just a healthy thing to do.

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Back to the Roots!

2009-01-16T07:58:00.004-05:00

What is most impressive in the McGuffey readers is the morality. From the First
reader through the Sixth, the morality is pervasive and insistent, there is
rarely a page but addresses itself to some moral problem, points up some moral
lesson - industry, sobriety, thrift, propriety, modesty, punctuality - these
were essential virtues and those who practiced them were sure of success...the
world of the McGuffeys was a world where no one questioned the
truths of the Bible, or their relevance to everyday conduct.

This evaluation of the McGuffey readers by Henry Steele Commanger, a Columbia University and Harvard historian, educator and scholar, confirms that America and its schools once had a Biblical foundation which shaped the nation's culture and way of life. The books and the schools promoted character, responsibility and achievement. We can agree that that it will be hard to find men with the wisdom, courage, ethics and selflessness of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin or Abraham Lincoln among the political leaders of today.

America was once a society which had its roots in the Bible. The founding fathers were the product of western civilization. That civilization developed over several centuries after Gutenberg invented the printing press and published the Bible. In a Bible-based society, America grew great on a foundation of basic concepts. They were proclaimed in the nation's churches and taught in the nation's homes and schools.

For more than half the century, textbooks and other curriculum materials produced under humanist control have attacked and undermined the foundational concepts. We want our country back!

AHA..

2009-01-09T14:05:00.001-05:00

As soon as the second person appeared on earth, the rights of the first were cut in half. Now divide your rights by the total population, and that explains everything.

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Constitution for the New Deal

2008-12-28T16:01:00.000-05:00

by H. L. Mencken

THIS SATIRICAL PIECE FIRST APPEARED IN The American Mercury,, 41 (June 1937), 129-36, and was reprinted in condensed form by The Reader's Digest, 31 (July 1937), 27-29.

In order to indicate what reached the widest audience, the condensed version appears here.
The principal cause of the uproar in Washington is a conflict between the swift- moving idealism of the New Deal and the unyielding hunkerousness of the Constitution of 1788. What is needed, obviously, is a wholly new Constitution, drawn up with enough boldness and imagination to cover the whole program of the More Abundant Life, now and hereafter.
That is what I presume to offer here. The Constitution that follows is not my invention, and in more than. one detail I have unhappy doubts of its wisdom. But I believe that it sets forth with reasonable accuracy the plan of government that the More Abundant Life wizards have sought to substitute for the plan of the Fathers. They have themselves argued at one time or another, by word or deed, for everything contained herein:

PREAMBLE

We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish social justice, draw the fangs of privilege, effect the redistribution of property, remove the burden of liberty from ourselves and our posterity, and insure the continuance of the New Deal, do ordain and establish this Constitution.

ARTICLE I

The Executive

All governmental power of whatever sort shall be vested in a President of the United States. He shall hold office during a series of terms of four years each, and shall take the following oath: "I do solemnly swear that I will (in so far as I deem it feasible and convenient) faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will (to the best of my recollection and in the light of experiment and second thought) carry out the pledges made by me during my campaign for election (or such of them as I may select)."
The President shall be commander-in-chief of the Army and Navy, and of the militia, Boy Scouts, C.I.O., People's Front, and other armed forces of the nation.
The President shall have the power: To lay and collect taxes, and to expend the income of the United States in such manner as he may deem to be to their or his advantage;
To borrow money on the credit of the United States, and to provide for its repayment on such terms as he may fix;
To regulate all commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and within them; to license all persons engaged or proposing to engage in business; to regulate their affairs; to limit their profits by proclamation from time to time; and to fix wages, prices and hours of work;
To coin money, regulate the content and value thereof, and of foreign coin, and to amend or repudiate any contract requiring the payment by the United States, or by any private person, of coin of a given weight or fineness;
To repeal or amend, in his discretion, any so-called natural law, including Gresham's law, the law of diminishing returns, and the law of gravitation.
The President shall be assisted by a Cabinet of eight or more persons, whose duties shall be to make speeches whenever so instructed and to expend the public funds in such manner as to guarantee the President's continuance in office.
The President may establish such executive agencies as he deems necessary, and clothe them with such powers as he sees fit. No person shall be a member to any such bureau who has had any practical experience of the matters he is appointed to deal with.
One of the members of the Cabinet shall be an Attorney General. It shall be his duty to provide legal opinions certifying to the constitutionality of all measures undertaken by the President, and to gather evidence of the senility of judges.

ARTICLE II

The Legislature

The legislature of the United States shall consist of a Senate and a House of Representatives. Every bill shall be prepared under the direction of the President, and transmitted to the two Houses at his order by their presiding officers. No member shall propose any amendment to a bill without permission in writing from the President or one of his authorized agents. In case any member shall doubt the wisdom of a bill he may apply to the President for light upon it, and thereafter he shall be counted as voting aye. In all cases a majority of members shall be counted as voting aye.
Both Houses may appoint special committees to investigate the business practices, political views, and private lives of any persons known to be inimical to the President; and such committees shall publish at public cost any evidence discovered that appears to be damaging to the persons investigated.
Members of both Houses shall be agents of the President in the distribution of public offices, federal appropriations, and other gratuities in their several states, and shall be rewarded in ratio to their fidelity to his ideals and commands.

ARTICLE III

The Judiciary

The judges of the Supreme Court and of all inferior courts shall be appointed by the President, and shall hold their offices until he determines by proclamation that they have become senile. The number of judges appointed to the Supreme Court shall be prescribed by the President, and may be changed at his discretion. All decisions of the Supreme Court shall be unanimous.
The jurisdiction and powers of all courts shall he determined by the President. No act that he has approved shall be declared unconstitutional by any court.

ARTICLE IV

Bill of Rights

There shall be complete freedom of speech and of the press – subject to such regulations as the President or his agents may from time to time promulgate.
The freedom of communication by radio shall not be abridged; but the President and such persons as he may designate shall have the first call on the time of all stations.
In disputes between capital and labor, all the arbitrators shall be representatives of labor.
Every person whose annual income fans below a minimum to be fixed by the President shall receive from the public funds an amount sufficient to bring it up to that minimum.
No labor union shall be incorporated and no officer or member thereof shall be accountable for loss of life or damage to person or property during a strike.
All powers not delegated herein to the President are reserved to him, to be used at his discretion.

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The grasshopper and the Ant

2008-12-27T01:14:00.002-05:00

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 STORY : Be responsible for yourself!

MODERN 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 shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others are 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.'

Jesse Jackson stages a demonstration in front of the ant's house where the news stations film the group singing, 'We shall overcome.' Jesse then has the group kneel down to pray to God for the grasshopper's sake.

Nancy Pelosi & John Kerry 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.

The story ends as we see the grasshopper finishing up the last bits of the ant's food while the government house he is in, which just happens to be the ant's old house, crumbles around him because he doesn't maintain it.

The ant has disappeared in the snow.

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 the once peaceful neighborhood.

MORAL OF THE STORY : Be careful how you vote.

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How the Welfare State Corrupted Sweden

2008-12-21T15:36:00.002-05:00

Old people in Sweden say that to be Swedish means to supply for your own, to take care of your self, and never be a burden on anyone else's shoulders. Independence and hard work was the common perception of a decent life, and the common perception of morality. That was less than one hundred years ago.

more on here: http://www.mises.org/story/2190

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Understanding Iran

2008-12-20T15:32:00.002-05:00

If you read the news carefully, you will find a notable story about Iran every morning. Nine times out of ten it is hilarious.

Not long ago, Iran released a photograph of a missile launch that initially caused great consternation in the West. It showed four missiles being launched, more or less simultaneously, with wonderful contrails behind them. Upon examination, that photograph turned out to be a double phony. First, there was only one missile, and the Iranians replicated it to make it seem as if there were four. Second, the missile was two years old and was not an intermediate range missile at all. This airplane turned out to be a plastic toy made by Mattel with Iranian markings on it.

So the first thing to understand about Iran is that it is a country where lies and deception are a way of life.

We are dealing with a regime that came to power in 1979 and Iran declared war against the United States, branding us "The great Satan". Prior to 9/11 the Iranian regime was directly or indirectly responsible for murder of more Americans than any country or organization in the world.

Khomeini installed a regime in Iran which is best described as Islamofascist. It has followed, in every major detail, the model laid down by Hitler and Mussolini. To the question "Why don't we just sit down and talk with the Iranians?" we can answer with a scene from the movie Goldfinger, when asked "What is this, Goldfinger? Do you expect me to talk?" Goldfinger replies, "No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die." That is exactly the Iranian attitude.

In fact, we have been talking to the Iranians, almost non-stop, for 30 years. There isn't an American president from Jimmy Carter to the present who has not authorized negotiations with Iran. There is a striking tendency among people in modern Western governments not to recognize the existence of evil in the world.

If you want to know how a country will behave internationally, look at the way it treats its own people. The Iranian regime treats its people with total contempt. Consider its treatment of women. Although you will never hear the American women's rights movement complain about it, women in Iran are officially worth half a man.

The bottom line is that Iran is our principal enemy in the Middle East, and perhaps in the entire world. It is also a vulnerable regime, and it knows that - which is why it makes up stories about airplanes and missiles that it doesn't have. They want us dead or dominated. You can't make deals with a regime like that.

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Jesus is Better than Santa

2008-12-11T11:21:00.002-05:00

Santa lives at the North Pole. JESUS is everywhere.
Santa rides in a sleigh, JESUS rides on the wind and walks on the water.
Santa comes but once a year, JESUS is an ever- present help.
Santa fills your stockings with goodies, JESUS supplies all your needs.
Santa comes down your chimney uninvited, JESUS stands at your door and knocks... and then enters your heart.
You have to stand in line to see Santa, JESUS is as close as the mention of His name.
Santa lets you sit on his lap, JESUS lets you rest in His arms.
Santa doesn't know your name, all he can say is "Hi little boy or girl, What's your name?" JESUS knew our name before we did. Not only does He know our name, He knows our address too . He knows our history and future and He even knows how many hairs are on our heads. JESUS has a heart full of love. JESUS offers health, help and hope.
Santa says "You better not cry", JESUS says "Cast all your cares on me for I care for you."
Santa's little helpers make toys, JESUS makes new life, mends wounded hearts, repairs broken homes and builds mansions.
Santa may make you chuckle but JESUS gives you joy that fills your soul & he is your strength.
While Santa puts gifts under your tree, JESUS became our gift and died on the tree.

It's obvious there is really no comparison. We need to remember WHO Christmas is all about. We need to put Christ back in Christmas.
Jesus is still the reason for the season.

May the Lord Bless and Watch over you and your loved ones this Christmas season 2008

And may He prosper and bless the work of your hands in the 2009 New Year.

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What's the grade?

2008-12-05T10:03:00.002-05:00

In a world of plenty, a huge number go hungry. Hunger is more than just the result of food production and meeting demands. The causes of hunger are related to the causes of poverty. One of the major causes of hunger is poverty itself. There are various issues (war, famine, land rights and ownership, inefficient agricultural practices, poor crop yield) that people are unable to afford food and hence people go hungry.

At least 80% of humanity lives on less than $10 a day. Nearly a billion people entered the 21st century unable to read a book or sign their names. For the 1.9 billion children from the developing world there are 400 million with no access to safe water (1 in 5) and 121 million children without education.

Approximately 790 million people in the developing world are still chronically undernourished, almost two-thirds of whom reside in Asia and the Pacific.

With all this, Christians give to charities more than anyone else. People of faith give more than non-religious people and on average they volunteer more than others. Gifts to religious causes totaled $93.2 billion in 2005, almost 36 percent of all contributions.

The question is: Can Christians do more to help the poor? What grade would you give Christians for the work they do to help thee poor and why??

Is it a B-always room for improvement, C, D or F - not enough??

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Truths

2008-11-30T16:23:00.002-05:00

Great truths about life that adults have learned:

- Raising teenagers is like nailing Jell-O to a tree.
- Wrinkles don't hurt.
- Families are like fudge...mostly sweet, with a few nuts.
- Today's mighty oak is just yesterday's nut that held its ground.
- Laughing is good exercise. It's like jogging on the inside.
- Middle age is when you choose your cereal for the fiber, not the toy.

Great truths about growing old:

- Growing old is mandatory; growing up is optional.
- Forget the health food. I need all the preservatives I can get.
- When you fall down, you wonder what else you can do while you're down there.
- You're getting old when you get the same sensation from a rocking chair that you once got from a roller coaster.
- It's frustrating when you know all the answers, but nobody bothers to asks you the questions.
- Time may be a great healer, but it's a lousy beautician.
- Wisdom comes with age, but sometimes age comes alone.

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Deck of Cards Bible

2008-11-30T14:02:00.003-05:00

A young soldier was in his bunkhouse all alone one Sunday morning. It was quiet that day, the guns and the mortars, and land mines for some reason hadn't made a noise.

The young soldier knew it was Sunday. As he was sitting there, he got out an old deck of cards and laid them out across his bunk.

Just then an Army Sergeant came in and asked, "Why aren't you with the rest of the platoon?"
The soldier replied, "I thought I would stay behind and spend some time with the Lord."
The sergeant said, "Looks like you're going to play cards."

The soldier said, "No sir, I've decided to talk to the Lord by studying this deck of cards.

The Ace, it reminds me that there is only one God.
The Two represents the two parts of the Bible, Old and New Testament.
The Three represents the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
The Four stands for the Four Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
The Five is for the virgins that were glorified by taking oil in their vessels with their lamps.
The Six is for the six days it took God to create the Heavens and the Earth.
The Seven is for the day God rested after working the six days.
The Eight is for the family of Noah and his wife, their three sons and their wives, in which God saved the eight people from the flood that destroyed the earth for the first time.
The Nine is for the lepers that Jesus cleansed of leprosy. He cleansed ten but nine never thanked Him.
The Ten represents the Ten Commandments that God handed down to Moses on tablets made of stone.
The Jack is a reminder of Satan. One of God's first angels, and he got kicked out of heaven for his sly and wicked ways and is now the Joker of eternal hell.
The Queen stands for the Virgin Mary.
The King stands for Jesus, for He is the King of all kings.
When I count the dots on all cards, I come up with 365 total, one for every day of the year.
There are a total of 52 cards in a deck, each is a week, 52 weeks in a year.
The four suits represents the four seasons: spring, summer, fall and winter.
So when I want to talk to God and thank Him, I just pull out this old deck of cards and they remind me of all that I have to be thankful for."

The sergeant just stood there and after a minute, with tears in his eyes, he said, "Soldier, can I borrow that deck of cards?"

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Friend or Foe

2008-11-29T00:24:00.002-05:00

Christmas is coming soon!! I will pay attention to what stores I'll go to do my shopping. The ones that recognize Christmas in their adds will get my business. Some of them are:

Amazon.com, Bass Pro Shops, Bath and Body Works, Bed, Bath, and Beyond, Best Buy, Big Lots, Home Depot, JC Penney, KB Toys, K-Mart, Kohl’s, L.L. Bean, Linens ‘N Things, Lord and Taylor, Lowe’s, M&M-Mars Candies, Macy’s, Sam’s Club, Sears, Target, T.J. Maxx, Walgreens, Wal-Mart, Williams-Sonoma.

These stores will NOT receive my business:

Banana Republic, Bloomingdale's, Circuit City, Costco, Comp USA, CVS, Dick’s Sporting Goods, Disney, Gap, Honey Baked Ham, J. Crew Outfitters, Lane Bryant, Nordstrom, Old Navy, Sprint.

For a complete list: http://www.onenewsnow.com/Culture/Default.aspx?id=323412

If they don't acknowledge Christmas, why should I acknowledge them??

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Best countries?

2008-11-26T12:05:00.002-05:00

If you could choose any country in the world in which to raise your child, which would you choose?

According to the United Nations, the best places for you to raise your children are the countries in Northern Europe: Sweden, Belgium, Denmark, or the number one on the list: the Netherlands.

In 2007, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) released a study (http://www.unicef-irc.org/publications/pdf/rc7_eng.pdf)that evaluated the quality of life of children in more than twenty developed countries and Netherlands was at the top of their list.

Everything sounds fine, right? Unless you want to know what's behind this high quality of life of children. Dutch children are certainly happy, but they are also the center of their society. ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6360517.stm) Parents go out of their way to please them, and teachers expect less of them than some of their European counterparts. Children's wishes become so strong that parents have to work very hard to give them what they want.

When it comes to making personal decisions, children in Netherlands also enjoy an extraordinary amount of freedom. The Netherlands is famous for its tolerant attitudes toward activities like drinking, smoking, drugs and sex. Sex education begins at the age of 4 and the age of consent is set at 12.

Do you think that UNICEF is happy about the study? NO! It's still not enough! As a result, the Netherlands is ceding to its government even more authority to "look out" for children.

UNICEF may consider the children in the Netherlands to be the most fortunate in the world, but their happiness comes at a great – and often hidden – cost to their families. In a culture that revolves around its children and a government that affords them incredible freedom over their personal decisions, parents in the Netherlands are relegated to a position of mere caregivers: responsible to feed, clothe, and satisfy, but not to rear, guide, teach, and train. Of course, parents want their children to be happy . . . but at what cost?

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You don't say...

2008-11-26T10:13:00.003-05:00

∙ No one is listening until you make a mistake.

∙ We have enough youth. How about a fountain of "Smart".

∙ Ninety-nine percent of lawyers give the rest a bad name.

∙ I didn't fight my way to the top of the food chain to be a vegetarian.

∙ Diplomacy is the art of letting someone else get your way.

∙ Energizer Bunny arrested; charged with battery.

∙ Evolution: True science fiction.

∙ IRS: We've got what it takes to take what you have got.

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And What Do You Do?

2008-11-18T12:22:00.003-05:00

In searching for a better job title than "housewife", I was thinking that "housewife" might satisfy the IRS, explaining in one word my negative cash flow. But it doesn't describe what I do every day, seven days a week, with no sick days no holidays, and sometimes not even bathroom breaks.

"Full-time" mom doesn't begin to cover how much time I spend at my job. Most full-time workers put in 40 to 50 hours a week. I put that many by Wednesday. In my job, I'm on call around the clock. Add family vacations, where I take my "work" with me on a very, very long car ride, and "full-time" becomes "all-the-time".

"Homemaker" is a quaint title, but it's inappropriate. I haven't made any homes. I am not making a house so much as I'm trying to keep the kids from tearing ours down.

I wish I could think of a better title for the toughest job I've ever had. But no matter what I come up with, my accountant will probably just put "housewife" on my tax return anyway. And the Social Security Administration will keep sending me reports with zeros on them. Perhaps that's just how little society values what I do.

But the next time someone asks what I do, I'll say that I do what my mother did. I'll say it's such a hard job, my husband wouldn't want to do it, and my father wouldn't know how. I'll say my kids are very proud of what I do.And they should know, because they come to work with me every day.

A Salute to Freedom

2008-11-13T11:15:00.003-05:00

Ronald Reagan revitalized the American economy and began an unprecedented period of economic growth. He rebuilt our armed forces. He restored the spirit of the American people. He rejected absolutely the idea of moral equivalence - the idea that there is no moral difference between free government and tyranny. Reagan adopted the policy of rolling back communism wherever possible.

The public unveiling of Reagan's anti-communist strategy took place when he spoke to the British Parliament at Westminster Palace. It was in that speech that he announced his battle plan for dealing with communism in the future. He spoke openly about the conflict between the principles of constitutional government and those of communism.

In March of 1983, Reagan gave a speech to the National Association of Evangelicals, in which he said that those who promote the total sovereignty over the individual are the focus of evil in the modern world.

There are several other milestones in Reagan's campaign against communism. We should learn something from one of the greatest presidents of all times.

Being democratic is not enough, for a majority cannot turn what is wrong into what is right. In order to be considered truly free, countries must also have a deep love of liberty and an abiding respect for the rule of law. Margaret Thatcher
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English can be a strange language...

2008-11-11T12:13:00.002-05:00

There is no egg in eggplant, nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple.

English muffins weren't invented in England or French fries in France. Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren't sweet, are meat.

We take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square, and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is is a pig.

And why is it that writers write fingers don't fing, grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham? If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't the plural of booth, beeth? One goose, two geese. So one moose, two meese?

Doesn't seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend? That you comb through the annals of history but not a single annal?

How can overlook and oversee be opposites, while quite a lot and quite a few are alike?

You have to marvel at our unique language in which your house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill a form by filling it out, and in which an alarm clock goes off by going on.

English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the creativity of human race (which, of course, isn't a race at all).

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True American

2008-11-07T14:00:00.002-05:00

One of the five greatest Senators in U.S. history, the State of New Hampshire placed his statue in the U.S. Capitol's Statuary Hall. His career spanned almost four decades, serving as Secretary of State for Presidents William Henry Harrison, John Tyler and Millard Fillmore.

His name was Daniel Webster, born January 18, 1782. From a New Hampshire farm, he attended Darmouth College and became the highest paid attorney of his day. He fought the slave trade, negotiated the Webster-Ashburton Treaty, setting the country's Northeast boundary, and when South Carolina threatened nullification, he stated: "Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable!"

Addressing the New York Historical Society, Daniel Webster stated:
"If we and our posterity...live always in the fear of God and shall respect His Commandments...we may have the highest hopes of the future fortunes of our country...But if we...neglect religious instruction and authority, violate the rules of eternal justice, trifle with the injunctions of morality, and recklessly destroy the Constitution which holds us together, no man can tell how sudden a catastrophe may overwhelm us and bury all our glory in profound obscurity."

Do you think we should learn something from him?

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Ronald Reagan TV Ad: “Morning in America”

2008-11-01T02:44:00.000-04:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYEp5enV-lg

What a difference!!!! This is what I call hope!!

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WHY DID THE CHICKEN CROSS THE ROAD?

2008-10-27T16:29:00.003-04:00

BARACK OBAMA: The chicken crossed the road because it was time for a CHANGE! The chicken wanted CHANGE!
JOHN McCAIN: My friends, that chicken crossed the road because he recognized the need to engage in cooperation and dialogue with all the chickens on the other side of the road.
HILLARY CLINTON: When I was First Lady, I personally helped that little chicken to cross the road. This experience makes me uniquely qualified to ensure -- right from Day One! -- that every chicken in this country gets the chance it deserves to cross the road. But then, this really isn't about me, although I clearly remember having to dodge enemy fire as Chelsea and I tried to cross the road.
DR. PHIL: The problem we have here is that this chicken won't realize that he must first deal with the problem on 'THIS' side of the road before it goes after the problem on the 'OTHER SIDE' of the road. What we need to do is help him realize how stupid he's acting by not taking on his 'CURRENT' problems before adding 'NEW' problems.
OPRAH: Well, I understand that the chicken is having problems, which is why he wants to cross this road so bad. So instead of having the chicken learn from his mistakes and take falls, which is a part of life, I'm going to give this chicken a car so that he can just drive across the road and not live his life like the rest of the chickens.
GEORGE W. BUSH: We don't really care why the chicken crossed the road. We just want to know if the chicken is on our side of the road, or not. The chicken is either against us, or for us. There is no middle ground here.
COLIN POWELL: Now to the left of the screen, you can clearly see the satellite image of the chicken crossing the road...
JOHN KERRY: Although I voted to let the chicken cross the road, I am now against it! It was the wrong road to cross, and I was misled about the chicken's intentions. I am not for it now, and will remain against it.
NANCY GRACE: That chicken crossed the road because he's GUILTY! You can see it in his eyes and the way he walks.
PAT BUCHANAN: To steal the job of a decent, hardworking American.
MARTHA STEWART: No one called me to warn me which way that chicken was going. I had a standing order at the Farmer's Market to sell my eggs when the price dropped to a certain level. No little bird gave me any insider information.
DR SEUSS: Did the chicken cross the road? Did he cross it with a toad? Yes, the chicken crossed the road, but why it crossed I've not been told.
ERNEST HEMINGWAY: To die in the rain. Alone.
RUSH LIMBAUGH: Because the chicken was gay! Can't you people see the plain truth? That's why they call it the 'other side.' Yes, my friends, that chicken is gay. And if you eat that chicken, you will become gay too. I say we boycott all chickens until we sort out this abomination that the liberal media white washes with seemingly harmless phrases like 'the other side. That chicken should not be crossing the road. It's as plain and as simple as that.
GRANDPA: In my day we didn't ask why the chicken crossed the road. Somebody told us the chicken crossed the road, and that was good enough.
BARBARA WALTERS: Isn't that intewesting? In a few moments, we will be wistening to the chicken tell, for the first time, the heart warming story of how it experienced a sewious case of molting, and went on to accompwish its wife wong dweam of cwossing the woad to engage in an illicit affair with a U.S. Senator.
ARISTOTLE: It is the nature of chickens to cross the road.
JOHN LENNON: Imagine all the chickens in the world crossing roads together, in peace.
BILL GATES: I have just released eChicken2007, which will not only cross roads, but will lay eggs, file your important documents, and balance your check book. Internet Explorer is an integral part of the Chicken. This new platform is much more stable and will never reboot.
ALBERT EINSTEIN: Did the chicken really cross the road, or did the road move beneath the chicken?
BILL CLINTON: I did not cross the road with THAT chicken. What is your definition of chicken?
AL GORE: I invented the chicken!
COLONEL SANDERS: Did I miss one?
DICK CHENEY: Where's my gun?
AL SHARPTON: Why are all the chickens white? We need some black chickens.
REVEREND JEREMIAH WRIGHT: I say, DAMN that chicken! Does that make me unpatriotic?

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Is Obama the Messiah??

2008-10-23T13:29:00.003-04:00

Well, some people think so...

Mark Mortford- in San Francisco Cronicle- June 6, 2008-Barack Obama isn’t really one of us. Not in the normal way, anyway…It is something more. Even Bill Clinton, with all his effortless, winking charm, didn’t have what Obama has, which is a sort of powerful luminosity, a unique high-vibration integrity.

Samantha Fenell, the editor of Elle Magazine-I have thrown myself into a new world—one in which fluffy chatter and frivolous praise are replaced by a get-to-the-point directness and disciple-like devotion…(Obama) grabbed my hand, and gave that brilliant smile of his. I literally said out loud to the woman next to me who witnessed my good fate, “I’ll never wash this hand again”.

The Chicago Sun Times: Also, we just like to say his name. We are considering taking it as a mantra.” [page 218]… “At one point, I thought Barack was going to rise up over the people and start saying, ‘My children, my children, I have come to free you,‘ joked his driver and bodyguard, Mike Signator. “It was just incredible.” [p. 297]

Jesse Jackson, Jr.- congressman of Illinois “What Barack Obama has accomplished is the single most extraordinary event that has occurred in the 232 years of the nation’s political history. … The event itself is so extraordinary that another chapter could be added to the Bible to chronicle its significance.”

Obama’s Nomination Victory Speech In St. Paul June 3, 2008 - I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal; this was the moment when we ended a war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last, best hope on Earth.

Halle Berry -“I’ll do whatever he says to do,” actress Halle Berry said to the Philadelphia Daily News. “I’ll collect paper cups off the ground to make his pathway clear.” http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0208/8605.html

Eve Konstantine in Huffington Post-Feb. 5, 2005-Barack Obama is our collective representation of our purest hopes, our highest visions and our deepest knowings of who we are as a people, and as a country. We’ve surfaced him out of “the field” and charged him with the task of riding this wave on our behalf. . . .
Obama has tapped into his own VQ. He’s listened to the unspoken, heard the unvoiced, and has responded to the yearning of our youth, our boomers, and the disenfranchised. He’s our product out of the all-knowing quantum field of intelligence.

Chris Matthews - CNBC - “I’ve never seen anything like this. This is bigger than Kennedy. [Obama] comes along, and he seems to have the answers. This is the New Testament. This is surprising.”

Gerald Campbell - member in Congress - . . . For his part, Obama has the capacity to summon heroic forces from the spiritual depths of ordinary citizens and to unleash therefrom a symphonic chorus of unique creative acts whose common purpose is to tame the soul and alleviate the great challenges facing mankind.

Oprah Winfrey -”We’re all here to come together – to appreciate our uniqueness and to treasure our diversity, and we’re here to evolve to a higher plane . . . When you listen to Barack Obama, when you really hear him, you witness a very rare thing. You witness a politician who has an ear for eloquence and a tongue dipped in the unvarnished truth…

Louis Farrakhan - You are the instruments that God is going to use to bring about universal change and that is why Obama has captured the youth and he has involved young people in a political process that they didn’t care anything about. That’s a sign. When the Messiah speaks, the youth will hear and the Messiah is absolutely speaking… He is the stone that the builders rejected, has become the headstone in the corner.

Is this spiritual worship or what?? These words are used when describing God.
Is anything dark about this?? Behind this??

I think so.

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Rights and Responsabilities

2008-10-20T18:46:00.003-04:00

We heard in the third debate this question: Is health care a right, or a responsibility?

B. Obama said that it should be a right. Where does that right originates from? Health care is a product. Whether be a physical product - in pharmaceuticals, or a product of labor - at the hands of a doctor. If you have a right to something, who is that to provide it? The government. Where does the government gets its resources from? The taxpayer. You and me! That means that when a person has the right, another person has the responsibility. You can't separate right to responsibilities. Rights are not a social commodity. They are not a social capital, where one person's rights can be elevated while decreasing rights of another. Rights are individual. There are no such thing as collective rights. The rights of a individual are not negotiable at the hands of another individual.

Nowhere in Constitution is mentioned that because you exist and you are processing oxygen, that you have the right to health care. We, the individual tax payer will be responsible for the behavior of every single other American.

Let's take homosexuality for an example:

You have a person A and a person B. They decided that they wanted to have unprotected gay sex. This is a behavior that we cannot regulate. If one of them transmits a life-threatening disease to another, guess who pays the bill? YOU and ME!!They have the right to behave that way and you have the responsibility to pay for it.

What Obama is unwilling to do is calling what it is: socialism. When you say one person has the right and the other person has the responsibility, you describe socialism. If you want the government to really work for us: the hell to be at work on time, the hell to working hard and do a good job, quit your job, get drunk and pee on yourself. Just lay in the street. Obama will take care of you. He'll give you a house, free food, health care.

We need food before we need doctors, right? So if people need health care and therefore is their right to have it and you have the responsibility to provide it, why not universal nutrition? Why not have the government step in and decide that cattle farmers, poultry farmers, corn farmers, own their product of their labor to hungry people? Not a free market, its entitled! They need it.

We need houses? Universal shelter, universal housing. How about clothing? Universal apparel. You think it's too far?? Under FDR, the government had no problem with the idea that the government was going to nationalize retirement, and tell every single American they had no right but to participate in social security. We are so used to it.

This is not compassion. Compassion is something we do from the goodness of our heart. When the government makes us do it, it's compulsion.

People have the right to be gay, to be fat, to be drunk, to be high, to be stupid and you have the responsibility to pay. You, go to work! You, get up in the morning! You, sacrifice time away from your family, go to work, push, pull, dig, sweat!! Spend extra time on the job! Work double shift! You owe it to them! They are hungry, they're tired, they're poor, they're needy! It's your fault! You are not working for yourself and your family, you are working for everybody else! You don't own your own labor! You don't own your productivity! You don't own your mind!

Obama does!!

He's going around to tell everybody they are entitled to their behavior, the suckers are going to pay!!

WE, the idiots!!

If you assume a right, you assume the responsibility. If you say "this is my right" then it's your responsibility to deal with the consequences. Your can't say "you don't have the responsibility to pursuit the happiness for you, you have the responsibility to pursue it for me'!!!!!!!!!!

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The "C" Word

2008-10-18T01:57:00.003-04:00

It is a truth universally acknowledged that Obama is a COMMUNIST!

The cats are out of the bag, Obama is a CoMMUNIST!!

That's it!!

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Bar Stool Economics

2008-10-17T14:15:00.004-04:00

Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:

The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
The fifth would pay $1.
The sixth would pay $3.
The seventh would pay $7.
The eighth would pay $12.
The ninth would pay $18.
The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.

So, that's what they decided to do.The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until on day, the owner threw them a curve.'Since you are all such good customers,' he said, 'I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20.' Drinks for the ten now cost just $80.The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes so the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free. But what about the other six men - the paying customers? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his 'fair share?' They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody's share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer. So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man's bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay.

And so:

The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings).
The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33%savings).
The seventh now pay $5 instead of $7 (28%savings).
The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).
The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings).
The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).

Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to drink for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings.'I only got a dollar out of the $20,' declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man, 'but he got $10!''Yeah, that's right,' exclaimed the fifth man. 'I only saved a dollar, too. It's unfair that he got ten times more than I!' 'That's true!!' shouted the seventh man. 'Why should he get $10 back when I got only two? The wealthy get all the breaks!''Wait a minute,' yelled the first four men in unison. 'We didn't get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!'

The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.The next night the tenth man didn't show up for drinks, so the nine sat down and had beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn't have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!

And that, boys and girls, journalists and college professors, is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might start drinking overseas where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.

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Ode to The Chosen One

2008-10-14T09:28:00.002-04:00

Dedicated to The Obamessiah and his Democrats

This is an ode to The Obamessiah, the Chosen One, chosen by the MSM, sprung from the seed of a corrupt ACORN and the closest thing to the anti-Christ we’ve seen to date!

Christopher Columbus, was the greatest Democrat of all. He left not knowing where he was going, did not know where he was, and returned not knowing where he had been.
And he did it all on borrowed money.
Over 3,000 years ago Moses said to the children of Israel, “Pick up your shovels, mount your asses and camels, and I will lead you to the promised land.” Nearly 3,000 years later Roosevelt said, “Lay down your shovels,sit on your asses and light up a camel - this is the promised land.”
Now, Barack HUSSEIN Obama is going to steal your shovels, kick your asses, raise the price of Camels and mortgage the promised land.
If you are one of the fortunate people who has anything left after paying taxes, we expect a very generous contribution to the worthwhile project.
P.S. It is said that Barack HUSSEIN Obama is considering changing the Democratic Party emblem from a donkey to a condom, because it stands for inflation, halts productivity, covers up a bunch of pricks, and it gives a false sense of security.

FIRST BOOK OF DEMOCRAT Psalm 2008-2012

Obama Is My Shepherd, I Shall Not Want.
He Leadeth Me Beside Still Factories,
He Restoreth My Faith In The Republican Party,
He Guideth Me In The Paths Of Unemployment.
Yea, Though I Walk Through The Valley Of The Bread Line, I Shall Not Go Hungry.
Obama Has Anointed My Income With Taxes,
My Expenses Runneth Over My Income,
Surely, Poverty And Hard Living Will Follow Me All The Days Of My Life.
The Democrats And I Will Live Forever In a Rented Room.

I Am Glad I Am an American,
I Am Glad That I Am Free.
But I Wish I Was A Little Dog
And Obama was A Tree.

.swiped from: http://texasfred.net/archives/2525

United States Map

2008-10-14T01:33:00.005-04:00

A father wanted to read a magazine but was being bothered by his little girl, Shelby.

She wanted to know what the United States looked like.

Finally, he tore a sheet out of his new magazine on which was printed the map of the country. Tearing it into small pieces,he gave it to Shelby and said, 'Go into the other room and see if you can put this together. This will show you our whole country today.'

After a few minutes, Shelby returned and handed him the map, correctly fitted and taped together. The father was surprised and asked how she had finished so quickly. 'Oh,' she said, 'on the other side of the paper is a picture of Jesus . When I got all of Jesus back where He belonged, then our country just came together.'

Don't vote marxist

2008-10-12T18:58:00.002-04:00

What happens if we elect a marxist to the presidency? The foundation will start to crack. Maybe not right away, but it will crack. Aren't we live in a soft tyranny today?? Let's see:

One third (1/3) of Americans do not pay any federal income taxes. Two thirds (2/3) are the ones that are carrying the entire burden, and of those 2/3, top 50% is paying 97% of the tax burden for everybody else.

Obama wants to redistribute wealth, but just how much more does he wants to redistribute?? He says that 95% of Americans will get a tax break. How can that possibly be when only 2/3 pay? Do you know how? It is called the massive welfare state. The saying is that Obama is going to take more money from those who pay income taxes and give it to the people who don't pay any income taxes. That's called welfare.

In the Constitution, tax bills come out of the House of representatives. The last two years' tax bills, were Nancy Pelosi's tax bills. Do you hear Obama bragging about that?

I think every citizen of this country should pay some income taxes so they a stake on what's going on. If you get to vote, then you ought to pay some taxes. This is what the libs figured it out: if they can get close to 50% of people not paying taxes, they'll own the country, because they will be able to beat out the productive sector.

Where these politicians get of and tell us that they can do these things and we have to surrender more and more what we worked for? Where is the example that they are capable of handling what they already have? Why do people who pay taxes, those 2/3, voluntarily vote to surrender their liberty to the federal government??

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Weird Flash Cards

2008-10-10T10:28:00.001-04:00

We’ve all seen flash cards used to teach math functions and simple words. But we’re sure you haven’t seen flash cards like these!

A Barnes & Noble bookstore in Minnesota has a package of flash cards apparently intended to help someone translate Arabic words and phrases into English.

Here is a sample of some of the English words and phrases translated from the Arabic in this flash card set.

“assassination attempt”
“counter strike”
“attack”
“air strike”
“enemy”
“The army seized power”
“We buried the dead man yesterday”
“to seize power”
“martyr”
“to die in a battle”

To see a PDF image of the actual flashcards, designed by Fethi Mansouri, please click http://tool.donation-net.net/Images/Email/1097/Arabic_flash_cards.pdf. You will need Adobe Reader or similar software to view the image.

I guess we’re pretty straight-laced here in America. Our flashcards designed to teach English have such controversial words and phrases such as “thank you,” “could you please help me?”, and “what time is it?” I don’t think you’ll find an English translation flashcard set with words like “assassination attempt.”

One has to wonder who would need an Arabic flash card set that translates “assassination attempt” into English. Then again, maybe we shouldn’t have to wonder at all.

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Being a Pumpkin

2008-10-05T21:56:00.001-04:00

A woman was asked by a coworker,
'What is it like to be a Christian?'
The coworker replied, 'It is like being a pumpkin.'
God picks you from the patch, brings you in,
and washes all the dirt off of you.
Then He cuts off the top and scoops out all the yucky stuff.
He removes the seeds of doubt, hate, and greed.
Then He carves you a new smiling face and
puts His light inside of you to shine for all the world to see.'

Isn't it wonderful being a pumpkin?

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Dumbing Down...tests?...kids?

2008-10-03T13:15:00.004-04:00

John Cannell is a physician that started to investigate why there is little, if any, relationships between the tests administers by the schools and those given by the outside psychologists.

One of his patients, a 15 yo pregnant girl dropped out of school after giving birth. Cannell was curious about her school records and found out that her teacher didn't say anything about the girl's low academic skills because the teacher didn't want the girl's self-esteem to be injured. She scored on a standardized test (CTBS) slightly above the national norm.

How could so many children test below average on independent testing but do well on their official school achievement test? States like W. Virginia and Kentucky announced that their test score placed their students "above the national average" on that same CTBC test. Does that means that all is well?

Looking closer, Cannell found that W. Virginia had the lowest proportion of college graduates and the third lowest ACT college entrance scores of any state in the country. It ranked near the top in illiteracy and poverty. Same questions applied to Kentucky.

Cannell then decided to present himself to a test publisher as a superintendent. Almost immediately, he was talking to a saleswoman who implied that their district's scores would be "above average" if he bought one of their tests and as long as he didn't change tests, their score would go up every year. How could she be so sure?

Not a single one of the 50 states reported that its students scored below average. More than 90% of American school districts claimed to be performing above average.Among those were St. Louis, Kansas City, New York City, all districts notorious for the break down in their schools. His findings were upheld by the U.S. Department of Education.

Cannell is going even further to believe that the current American epidemic of teenage pregnancy, depression, drug use, delinquency, and teen suicide is partially related to the low standards and the low expectations so evident in America's public schools.

Dumbing down the tests and the low standards that the schools set, cheat our children of the future they can have.

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TRUE History

2008-09-29T18:35:00.001-04:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7KmtezWVGU

swiped from http://olbroad.com/2008/09/29/true-history/

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A wise woman

2008-09-28T18:09:00.003-04:00

In this hurried life we live, we put so much emphasis on what we do.The demanding tasks and expected accomplishments become our focus. In the rush of it all we sometimes fail to notice the seeds of change within ourselves. It is wise to stop and ask, "Am I growing or eroding in who I am becoming?"

A wise woman grows in becoming trustworthy.

Being a trustworthy person is being someone worthy of confidence; someone who can be relied on. The very first indicator that this character trait is visible is in the area of our speech. Are we worthy of the confidence of others? Are we known for our encouraging words? Do we let our own burdens and concerns become an excuse to leave our tongue untamed?

A trustworthy woman pays attention to how she speaks. She chooses her words well, knowing she can speak words of life and death!

"Reckless words pierce like a sword, but the tongue of the wise brings healing." Proverbs 12:18

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VOTE NO ON EDUCATION BEGINS AT HOME ACT!

2008-09-27T22:07:00.001-04:00

Action is needed now to stop a harmful early education bill, H.R. 2343, the Education Begins at Home Act. Despite the bill’s seemingly homeschool-friendly title, the legislation is actually yet another “big government” encroachment into the sphere of education.
H.R. 2343 seeks to expand the Head Start Early Home Visitation program to supposedly “educate” parents of children from infants to 5-year-olds on parenting strategies. If passed, this bill would literally open the door for government employees to enter private homes to impose unelected officials’ educational agendas, which may prove offensive and contrary to many families’ moral and religious beliefs. Although at this point enrollment in the home visitation program is voluntary, government programs almost always grow beyond their original scope when bills are amended.
This intrusive and unnecessary legislation comes at a whopping starting cost of more than $190 million—a burden that will be incurred by already struggling American taxpayers.

Action Requested

Please call your U.S. representative today and urge him or her to oppose H.R. 2343, the Education Begins at Home Act. It is not necessary to identify yourself as a homeschooler. You can say something as simple as the following:

“I am a constituent and I strongly oppose H.R. 2343. The government should not be involved in funding questionable early education programs, especially at a time of financial uncertainty when our hard-earned tax dollars could be better spent elsewhere.”

You can reach your U.S. representative by calling the Capitol Switchboard at 202-224-3121, or by using our Legislative Toolbox.
This bill has been placed on the House calendar and could come up for a vote anytime this week, or even during the weekend as Congress rushes to finish legislative priorities before they adjourn.

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Why Obama is not a Christian

2008-09-24T19:18:00.000-04:00

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4cMB8ktCT8

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Democrat's Amnesia

2008-09-24T12:36:00.006-04:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCVZlLBchVE&feature=related

If Bush lied about the war, then the Clintons, John Kerry, Al Gore, Kennedy, all lied. But the amnesia that the democrats suffer of doesn't permit them to remember that they voted for the war before they voted against it.

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Couldn't resist, either

2008-09-20T01:47:00.001-04:00

From: http://olbroad.com/

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'Harvery Milk Day' in California Public Schools

2008-09-18T14:23:00.008-04:00

BILL NUMBER: AB 2567
INTRODUCED BILL TEXTINTRODUCED BY Assembly
Member Leno (Coauthors: Assembly Members Laird and Nunez)
(Coauthors: Senators Kehoe, Kuehl, and Migden)

FEBRUARY 22, 2008 An act to amend Section 37222 of the
Education Code, and to addSection 6721 to the Government Code, relating to
Harvey Milk Day.

LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST AB 2567, as introduced, Leno.
Harvey Milk Day: officialdesignation. Existing law requires the
Governor to proclaim certain days eachyear for specified reasons. Existing law
also designates particulardays each year as having special significance in
public schools andeducational institutions and encourages those entities to
conductsuitable commemorative exercises on those dates. This bill
would require the Governor to proclaim May 22 of eachyear as Harvey Milk Day,
and would designate that date as havingspecial significance in public schools
and educational institutionsand encourage those entities to conduct suitable
commemorativeexercises on that date

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Who is Harvey Milk?

The Legislature finds and declares the following: (a) Harvey Bernard
Milk
was born on May 22, 1930, in Woodmere, NewYork. He was the first openly gay
person to be elected to publicoffice in a major city of the United
States.
During his term on the board of supervisors, Harvey Milksponsored and
successfully passed a gay rights ordinance .

A teacher can't have his Bible on his desk or a football coach can't pray with his students before a game, but there is a day that celebrates a gay guy?

I can't wait for a Jonathan Edwards Day or a John Wesley Day!!

Yeah, right!!!

The Pillsbury Doughboy

2008-09-15T01:34:00.001-04:00

The Pillsbury Doughboy died yesterday of a yeast infection and trauma complications from repeated pokes in the belly. He was 71.

Doughboy was buried in a lightly greased coffin. Dozens of celebrities turned out to pay their respects, including Mrs. Butterworth, Hungry Jack, the California Raisins, Betty Crocker, the Hostess Twinkies, and Captain Crunch. The grave site was piled high with flours.

Aunt Jemima delivered the eulogy and lovingly described Doughboy as a man who never knew how much he was kneaded. Doughboy rose quickly in show business, but his later life was filled with turnovers. He was not considered a very smart cookie, wasting much of his dough on half-baked schemes. Despite being a little flaky at times he still was a crusty old man and was considered a positive roll model for millions.

Doughboy is survived by his wife Play Dough, two children, John Dough and Jane Dough, plus they had one in the oven. He is also survived by his elderly father, Pop Tart.

The funeral was held at 3:50 for about 20 minutes.

If this made you smile for even a brief second, please rise to the occasion and take time to pass it on and share that smile with someone else who may be having a crumby day and kneads it.

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Three Things to Ponder

2008-09-15T01:26:00.001-04:00

1. Cows
2. The Constitution
3. The Ten Commandments

COWS

Is it just me, or does anyone else find it amazing that during the mad cow epidemic our government could track a single cow, born in Canada almost three years ago, right to the stall where she slept in the state of Washington? Moreover, they tracked her calves to their stalls. However, they are unable to locate 11 million illegal aliens wandering around our country. Maybe we should give each of them a cow.

THE CONSTITUTION

They keep talking about drafting a constitution for Iraq. Why don't we just give them ours? Many smart people wrote it, it has worked for over 200 years, and we're not using it anymore.

THE 10 COMMANDMENTS

The real reason that we can't have the Ten Commandments posted in a courthouse is this: You cannot post 'Thou Shall Not Steal,' 'Thou Shall Not Commit Adultery,' and 'Thou Shall Not Lie' in a building full of lawyers, judges and politicians...It creates a hostile work environment.

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Homeschool comics

2008-09-14T18:35:00.000-04:00

The Teacher Who Couldn't Read

2008-09-07T16:31:00.002-04:00

OCEANSIDE, Calif. -- John Corcoran graduated from college and taught high school for 17 years without being able to read, write or spell. Corcoran's life of secrecy started at a young age. He said his teachers moved him up from grade to grade. Often placed in what he calls the "dumb row," the images of his tribulations in the classroom are still vividly clear.

Corcoran eventually started acting up to hide his illiteracy. From fifth through seventh grade he was expelled, suspended and spent most of his days at the principal's office. Corcoran later attended Palo Verde High School in Blythe, Calif. He cheated his way through high school, receiving his diploma in June 1956. "When I was a child I was just sort of just moved along when I got to high school I wanted to participate in athletics. At that time in high school I went underground. I decided to behave myself and do what it took. I started cheating by turning in other peoples' paper, dated the valedictorian, and ran around with college prep kids," said Corcoran. "I couldn't read words but I could read the system and I could read people," adds Corcoran. He stole tests and persuaded friends to complete his assignments. Corcoran earned an athletic scholarship to Texas Western College. He said his cheating intensified, claiming he cheated in every class. "I passed a bluebook out the window to a friend I painstakingly copied four essay questions off the board in U.S. government class that was required, and hoped my friend would get it back to me with the right answers," Corcoran said.

In 1961, Corcoran graduated with a bachelor's degree in education, while still illiterate he contends. He then went on to become a teacher during a teacher shortage. "When I graduated from the university, the school district in El Paso, where I went to school, gave almost all the college education graduates a job," said Corcoran. For 17 years Corcoran taught high school for the Oceanside School District. Relying on teacher's assistants for help and oral lesson plans, he said he did a great job at teaching his students. "What I did was I created an oral and visual environment. There wasn't the written word in there. I always had two or three teacher's assistants in each class to do board work or read the bulletin," said Corcoran. In retrospect, Corcoran said, his deceit took him a long time to accept. "As a teacher it really made me sick to think that I was a teacher who couldn't read. It is embarrassing for me, and it's embarrassing for this nation and it's embarrassing for schools that we're failing to teach our children how to read, write and spell!" It wasn't until he was 48 years old that he gave reading and writing another chance. He drove to an inconspicuous office with a sign he couldn't read. He studied and worked with a tutor at the Literacy Center of Carlsbad. Assigned to a 65-year-old volunteer tutor, Eleanor Condit, he was able to read at a sixth-grade level within a year. "I'm just an optimistic hopeful person that believes in the impossible and miracles," said Corcoran. Carlsbad City Library literacy coordinator Carrie Scott said people of all walks of life go through the reading program, including teachers.

Corcoran is now an education advocate. "I believe that illiteracy in America is a form of child neglect and child abuse and the child is blamed and they carry the shame, if we just teach our people how to read we'd give them a fair chance," Corcoran said. He has written two books, "The Teacher Who Couldn't Read" and "Bridge to Literacy." He is also the founder of the John Corcoran Foundation. The foundation is state-approved as a supplemental service provider for literacy in Colorado and California – providing tutoring programs for over 600 students in small group settings, and individually in homes through an online program.

Find out more about John Corcoran at his Web site: johncorcoranfoundation.com

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Our Suicidal Urge

2008-09-05T15:15:00.002-04:00

Our democratic governments today preside over multicultural societies that have less and less glue holding them together. They've grown comfortable with the idea of the state as the mediator between interest groups. And confronted by growing and restive Muslim populations, they're increasingly at ease with the idea of regulating freedom in the interests of social harmony.

It's a different situation in America, which has the First Amendment and a social consensus that increasingly does not exist in Europe. Europe's consensus seems to be that Danish cartoonists should be able to draw what they like, but not if it sparks Islamic violence. It is certainly odd that the requirement of self restraint should only apply to one party.

So don't worry, nothing's happening. Just a few gay Muslims frustrated at the lack of gay Muslim nightclubs. Sharia in Britain? Taxpayer-subsidized polygamy in Toronto? Yawn. Nothing to see here. True, if you'd suggested such things on September 10, 2001, most Britons and Canadians would have said you were nuts. But a few years on and it doesn't seem such a big deal, nor will the next concession, or the one after that.

Ultimately, our crisis is not about Islam. It's not about fire-breathing Imams or polygamists whooping it up on welfare. It's not about them. It's about us. And by us I mean the culture that shaped the modern world, and established the global networks, legal systems, and trading relationships on which the planet depends.

To reprise Sir Eduard Grey, the lamps are going out all over the world, and an awful lot of the map will look an awful lot darker by the time many Americans realize the scale of this struggle.

Reprinted by permission from Imprimis, a publication of Hillsdale College.

I will Survive - The Homeschool Version

2008-08-29T02:57:00.001-04:00

War on the Homefront

2008-08-27T23:24:00.003-04:00

It remains true that we are good at military campaigns, such as those in Iraq and Afghanistan. Our tanks and ships are better, and our bombs and soldiers are smarter. But these are not ultimately the most important battlefronts. We are in danger of losing this war without a shot being fired.

The British government recently announced that it would be issuing Sharia-compliant Islamic bonds, that is, bonds compliant with Islamic law and practice as prescribed in the Koran. As The Mail on Sunday put it, this innovative marks "one of the most significant economic advances of Sharia law in the non-muslim world."

At about the same time, The Times of London reported that "Knorbert the piglet has been dropped as the mascot of Fortis Bank, after it decided to stop giving piggy banks to children for fear of offending Muslims." Recently, for instance, a local government council prohibited its workers from having ornaments on their desk representing Winnie the Pooh's sidekick Piglet. As Pastor Martin Niemoller might have said, "First they came for Piglet and I did not speak out because I was not a Disney character, and if I was, I'd be more of an Eeyore. Then they came for the Three Little Pigs and Babe, and by the time I realized the Western world had turned into a 24/7 Looney Tunes, it was too late, because there was no Porky Pig to stammer, 'Th-th-th-that's all folks!', and bring the nightmare to an end."

What all these stories have in common is excessive deference to - and in fact fear of - Islam. If the story of the Three Little Pigs is forbidden when Muslims still comprise less than 10 % of Europe's population, what else will be on the black list when they comprise 20%? In small but telling ways, non-muslims communities are being persuaded that a kind of uber-Islamic law now applies to all.

And if you don't remember the Three Little Pigs, by the way, one builds a house of straw, another of sicks, and both get blown down by the Big Bad Wolf. Western Civilization is a mighty house of bricks, but you don't need a Big Bad Wolf when the pig is so eager to demolish the house himself.

As the famous saying goes, the price of liberty is eternal vigilance. What the Canadian Islamic Congress and similar groups in the West are trying to do is criminalize vigilance. They want to use the legal system to circumscribe debate on one of the great questions of the age: the relationship between Islam and the West and the increasing Islamization of much of the Western world, in what the United Nations itself calls the fastest population transformation in history.

(Reprinted by permission from Imprimis, a publication of Hillsdale College.")

"The lamps are going out all over Europe"

2008-08-27T16:59:00.002-04:00

This are the words of British Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey. Today, the lights are going out on liberty all over the Western world, but in more subtle and profound way.

Much of the West is far too comfortable with state regulation of speech and expression, which puts freedom itself at risk. The response over the the Danish cartoons that sparked Muslim violence was to propose that newspapers exercise "prudence" on certain controversial subjects involving religions beginning with the letter "I". The Italian writer O. Fallaci, after writing of the contradiction between Islam and the Western tradition of liberty, was being sued in France, Italy, Switzerland. In Canada, the Canadian Islamic Congress said: "America will be an Islamic Republic by 2040. There will be a break for Muslim prayers during the Super Bowl. There will be a religious police enforcing Islamic norms. The USS Ronald Reagan will be named after Osama bin Laden."

These are small parts of a very big picture. After the London Tube bombings and the French riots a few years back, commentators lined up behind the idea that Western Muslims are insufficiently assimilated. But in their mastery of legalisms and the language of victimology, they're superbly assimilated. Since these are the principal means of discourse in multicultural societies, they've mastered all they need to know. Every day of the week, somewhere in the West, a Muslim lobbying group is engaging in an action similar to that in Canada. Meanwhile, in London, masked men marched through the streets with signs reading "Behead the Enemies of Islam" and promising another 9/11 and another Holocaust, all while being protected by a phalanx of London policemen.

Thus we see that today's multicultural societies tolerate the explicitly intolerant and avowedly unicultural, while refusing to tolerate anyone pointing out that intolerance.

.(Reprinted by permission from Imprimis, a publication of Hillsdale College.)

Democratic Party Agenda? - Guess Again

2008-08-24T01:58:00.006-04:00

Doesn't the following look like a Democrat will say? Well, guess again:

Meet the Needs of Working, Unemployed and Farm Families
- Raise the minimum wage to $12 an hour.
-Unemployment insurance for all workers.
- Moratorium on farm foreclosures
- Labor law reform to remove barriers to workers who want to join a union.
- No privatization of Social Security. Increase benefits.
- Universal prescription drug coverage administered by Medicare. Universal health care system.
- Restore social safety net. Welfare reform that includes job training, supports and living wages.
- Full funding for equal, quality, bi-lingual public education. No vouchers.

Make Corporate Giants Pay
- Repeal tax cuts to the rich and corporations.
- Close corporate tax loopholes.
- Restitution to workers' pensions.
- Strong regulation of financial industry.
- Regulation and public ownership of utilities
- Prosecute corporate polluters. Public works program to clean our air, water and land
- Aid to cities and states. Federally funded infrastructure repair and social service programs

Foreign Policy for Peace and Justice
- No to war with Iraq
- End military interventions
- Repeal Fast Track and NAFTA, stop Free Trade Area of the Americas(FTAA). No secrecy.
- Save Salt II Agreements, reject Star Wars and Nuclear Posture Review
-Abolish nuclear weapons
- End military interventions.
- Cut military budget and fund human needs.

Defend Democracy and Civil Rights
- End racial profiling.
- Repeal the death penalty.
- Enforce civil rights laws and affirmative action.
- Repeal USA Patriot Act.
- Legalization and protection of immigrant>rights.
- Public financing of elections. Overall election law reform including Instant Runoff Voting.
- Youth and student bill of rights. Guarantee youth's right to earn,learn and live.

A lot of these are in line with the Democratic Party. But if think you they are the ones who put these together, check this: http://cpusa.org/

INTERESTING, huh??????

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The Assault Continues

2008-08-21T11:27:00.002-04:00

For decades, we have been performing an experiment with the American family. The result has been dismal failure. Yet, the pressure to continue this destructive path continues. In spite of much rhetoric, nothing has been done to alter the structure of the institutional slavery known as welfare.

Children thrive best with a stay-at-home parent, yet the prevalence of single-parent families and oppressive taxation eliminates this possibility for many families.

At a time when young people desperately need discipline, social services agencies are allowed to dictate what form that discipline may take. There is a concerted effort to make any form of corporal punishment a crime, even though no data exists which would indicate that spanking, when used with discretion, has ever caused any harm. In fact, as spanking has gone out of vogue, the incidence of violence has increased.

Parents who use other methods of discipline are also at risk for abuse charges. Children have been removed from homes because a 12 yo was not allowed to wear make-up to school, because a pregnant 14 yo was grounded from seeing her gang-member boyfriend, and because a young teen lost phone privileges after coming home late. Instead of empowering parents, government programs and policies seem bent on destroying the family completely.

On 16 February 1995, M. Albright signed the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. But this treaty does NOT protect children. Children are already protected by law from abuse. Unfortunately, abuse still occurs because laws do not change the heart. It is ridiculous to think that a United Nations treaty can guarantee anyone a happy childhood. In fact, this treaty actually destroys a fundamental right of all children: the right to be raised in a loving home, free from bureaucratic interference. (B. Scott, Children no More)

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Homeschool Stereotypes

2008-08-17T16:36:00.002-04:00

"Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good" (Romans 12:21).

As a homeschooling parent, have you ever known the frustration of being stereotyped? Unfairly, mainstream America has deemed us unfashionable, overly protective, dogmatically religious, and socially backwards. Like other stereotypes that develop from negative assumptions, homeschooling parents suffer from unjust labels with unfounded perceptions of their true character. Added to this misconception is the fact that homeschooled children are also stereotyped.

Breaking loose from these hurtful stereotypes is difficult, but as Christian homeschooling families, we can change how the world views us. Instead of becoming defensive and argumentative when homeschooling adversaries slander our name, we can show God's love through our Christ-like character and actions. Whether we're shopping at the mall, attending a community event, or eating at a restaurant, we can erase incorrect images with courtesy, respect, and genuine concern for others. In addition, godly homeschoolers can best illustrate one reason for teaching our own children by displaying a servant's heart that looks for ways to help others in need. Christ Himself said it best in the Sermon on the Mount: "Bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you" (Matthew 5:44b).

Do you struggle with vengeful thoughts when others look down on you for homeschooling? Don't let the homeschool stereotype discourage you. Prove those labels wrong, and respond to the negative remarks with the love of Christ. After all, isn't that the most important message we're trying to teach our children as we homeschool? "For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds" (Hebrews 12:3).(AOP)

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The Family under Siege

2008-08-17T12:06:00.004-04:00

Our nation's history is steeped in a rich tradition of family. It is from family that children receive a sense of roots, learn self-discipline, and acquire moral values: essential elements in developing healthy self-esteem. Strong homes build strong children and in turn, a strong community. But, in America, the family has taken a beating.

For centuries, divorce was seen in most cultures as a public statement of failure, an avenue of last resort. Marriage vows were taken seriously, and laws often required divorcing couples with children to present compelling cause for dissolving a marriage. Many struggling marriages remained intact "for the sake of the kids."

The breakdown of the nuclear family is a major cause of the increase in juvenile problems. Seventy percent of juvenile offenders come from single-parent homes. The majority of children in gangs com from abusive family situations or from homes which do not have a significant male role model.

Another change families have undergone over the past decades has been an exodus of mothers from the home. The number of working mothers tripled. "Never in the history of the world have so many children been raised by strangers." Some women wishing to pursue a career, have chosen to join the work force voluntarily.

Discussions of the benefits of stay-at-home moms invariably raise protest from feminists, who quickly point to full-time motherhood as instituted male domination. They create a perception that full-time child rearing is somehow stifling and unfulfilling, a choice no woman in her right mind would make willingly.

The younger the child is when he enters day care, the greater the potential harm. This is especially true in regular day-care centers, where children receive little physical affection. After twenty years of research in this area, educational psychologist doctor White is convinced that children should spend most of their waking hours with a full-time parent or other loving relative during their first three years of life.

For so many American families, however, this is not an option. (B. Scott, Children No More)

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Near-sighted

2008-08-11T00:17:00.002-04:00

As Christians, we have a tendency to be short-sighted when life is going well. Living in the success of "now," we think our current blessings are the result of our own hands. Like the Old Testament nation of Israel, we fail to acknowledge God's hand of divine intervention in our lives. Unfortunately, many times we must experience painful or humbling reminders in order to correct our vision to see the true picture-God is in control, not us.

If you're starting your new school year depending on your own abilities, be careful. Only the Lord can show you those things that will make your homeschooling truly successful. As you depend on the Holy Spirit, you will not only discover wisdom to teach, but you'll have your eyes opened to see all God desires for your family. "Unto thee lift I up mine eyes, O thou that dwells in the heavens. Behold, as the eyes of servants look unto the hand of their masters, and as the eyes of a maiden unto the hand of her mistress; so our eyes wait upon the LORD our God" (Psalm 123:1-2a).

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Educating the Politically Correct

2008-08-11T00:00:00.002-04:00

Not only have the public schools increasingly usurped parental roles, they have also become indoctrination centers for political correctness. Beginning in the earliest grades, children are actively recruited for various causes. Scientifically inaccurate information is fed to students regarding world population growth, global warming, and natural resources until they feel guilty for being human.

Texts are typically aimed at playing on the fears of young children. Children are encouraged to sign "save-the-earth" pledges, to support abortion as a cure to overpopulation, to chastise parents for unwise use of resources, and to become militant activists for the environmental movement. Of course, children should be taught to be thrifty and resourceful, but this kind of exploitation is despicable.Children should not be made to feel that their existence is a threat to the survival of earth. No child should be made to feel guilty for being alive.

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