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Too Late For Terri, However

      Recent research has discovered that people who are presumed to be in a "vegetative state," usually as the result of some head trauma--but also simply from oxygen deprivation--have thoughts and detectable brain activity.  The research comes too late for poor Terri Schiavo, however, since the court declared her to be "brain dead" and ordered her execution so her "husband" wouldn't be further burdened by a wife who was sick.  Just HOW Ms Schiavo got into her condition is still "undetermined" officially.  There are those who think she may have been harmed in some fashion by the same "husband" who campaigned so successfully to have her put to death, but that's not material to this discussion.
 
      The illogic of the court's decision is startling.  Terri was condemned to death by the court which found, based on something she MAY have said at one time in casual conversation, that she did not want to be kept alive "artificially."  Whether she actually said any such thing, no one knows.  The only people who claimed it were her "husband" and one or two of HIS friends and he had a few ulterior reasons for wanting her to go ahead and die.  He'd sued the hospital where she was taken after she "collapsed" and been awarded over $700K--supposedly to pay for her long-term care.  He'd moved in with another woman and even fathered a child by her, but couldn't marry her while Terri was alive without divorcing her--which would have caused him to lose control of what was left of that monetary award...not inconsiderable motives to see Terri dead.
 
      The court's decision not to transfer guardianship to the parents lacks even the basic elements of a logical, just determination.  IF Terri was REALLY brain-dead, she would not be aware of her life and couldn't have felt discomfort or pain so no harm would come to her.  The parents even had agreed to allow her husband to keep what remained of her settlement and assume the costs of her care themselves.  However, if the court was concerned that she COULD feel pain and discomfort and would be aware of her surroundings, then she would NOT have really been "brain-dead" she wouldn't have been a candidate for euthanasia in the first place!   No, the Terri Schiavo case is a perfect example of how the courts can go horribly wrong and be complicit in the murder of an innocent human being.
 
      This new information gives credence to the idea that medical science simply isn't advanced enough to make a determination about someone's "quality of life," and is a stark argument against the whole idea of "compassionate euthanasia."  If we are going to err in such decisions, the error should ALWAYS be on the side of life itself, unless there is absolute, incontrovertable evidence of the certain wishes of the injured or ill person.
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Ivory-Tower Morons Are In Charge

         The American Thinker published an article today by John Kelly, entitled "Ivy League Critical Mass."  In that article, he posted a chart which is startling in its starkness.  The chart lists the percentage of staffers and cabinet members of the various Presidents, going all the way back to Teddy Roosevelt, who had actual, non-governmental, real-world, work experience.  In the last 50 years, the ONLY Presidents who had more than 50% of their staffers and cabinet members who fit that category were Eisenhower, Nixon, Reagan, GHW Bush and GW Bush.  Even so, Obama's staff and cabinet are made up of LESS THAN 10% with actual, non-governmental, real-world, work experience and MOST of them, with a few exceptions, came straight out of the Ivy League...not so coincidentally, the ONLY occupant of the White House in the last century with less than 30% of such folks on his staff.
 
      What does this all mean to you and me?  The answer is pretty simple.  It means that VERY few of the advisors to Obama have even passing familiarity with what it means to go to work every day, work for a wage or salary or to meet a payroll week after week.  They've mostly spent their time in academia or in government work where such things are done for them or are on "autopilot" insofar as they are concerned.    But what does that mean to YOU?  It simply means that they are prone to try to enact policies and regulations that will materially affect your life without any concept of how their policies and regulations will affect the everyday lives of those of us who DO live in the real world.   Not only do they not understand the rest of us, they don't particularly CARE about the rest of us--except as a source of labor and tax money to enable them to do what their ivory-tower mentors have taught them is "good."  They do these things because they think of themselves as better educated, more erudite, more sophisticated than the "proles."  If we object to what they do, to them it's because we just "don't understand" how much better off we'll be under their "guidance."
 
      In most other societies, those exhibiting such hubris would be laughed out of existence, but in OUR society, these "progressives" have systematically seized control of the information systems--education, entertainment and even what passes for "journalism" these days.  For decades, we were at the mercy of public schools, manned by teachers "educated" in university "schools of education" which taught how to disseminate propaganda...not impart knowledge or how to teach students to think logically and for themselves.  The entertainment industry has been largely taken over by the same sort of people--those who live their entire lives in "fact-free zones," as described by Dr. Thomas Sowell, and therefore constitutionally unable to discern truth from fiction.  These "entertainers" rely on their emotions to do what they do--as taught by Stanislausky, for example.  They therefore come to rely on their emotions instead of their intellects.  "If it FEELS like a good idea, it probably is and I should support it."  
 
      We began to see the degredation of our universities speed up when the so-called "flower children" began to migrate into them as teachers.  These are the kids who assiduously read Alinsky and carried copies of Mao's "Little Red Book" around in their shirt pockets, while smoking pot, dropping acid and generally acting like everyone else owed them a living.  They discovered pretty quickly that there was one way to earn a decent living and influence others in their warped concept of "social justice" by staying in school and achieving advanced degreesl--usually on their parents' nickel, or on the government dole.  Little real labor is required, pay is well above average and, once tenure is achieved, one can teach just about anything one wants without fear of any official sanctions.  As a consequence, as these people achieved seniority, we began to see the appearance of "Black Studies," "Women's Studies" and other, equally-foolish courses of "study" appear in university curricula.  One black "professor" in New York was found to be teaching that the Egyptian pharoahs were, in fact, really black (they were originally Greek, by the way) and that Napoleon shot the nose off of the Sphinx because its facial features "were negroid."  He was also teaching that "great civilizations" once existed in sub-Saharan Africa and that fact had been suppressed by "white Europeans."  Not a single such "civilization" left even the least archaeological evidence, of course, but that was "explained" away by this guy as a "conspiracy" on the part of these same "white Europeans."  At the University of Michigan, one "feminist" professor was found to be teaching her students that ALL heterosex was the equivalent of rape!   As far as I know, that black professor is STILL teaching his nonsense and the feminist retired with honors and is listed in their catalogue as "Professor Emeritus."
 
      Schools of Journalism are no longer teaching their students that a journalist's job is to discover and report the truth.  Instead, they are taught that their jobs are to advance an agenda with which they agree--the truth be damned, as long as they can "make a difference."   This has been taught for some time now, apparently, given what Walter Cronkite did to sabotage the Vietnam War--particularly after the 1968 Tet Offensive.  It has been going on for decades, in reality.  Edward Murrow's attacks on Senator McCarthy are examples of it.  Sen. McCarthy was, in fact, right to point out that communists had infiltrated both the Departments of Defense and State and no one that he accused was ever found to be something other than what he'd claimed.  However, the news media hounded him out of the Senate and into alcoholism and ultimate obscurity. 
 
      Fortunately, there are a few honest reporters left and we now have the internet, talk radio and Fox News to counter the disinformation we've been fed for the last several decades, so hopefully, these morons in charge now will NOT be able to scam enough of us into believing their nonsense. 
      
 
 
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Real Science Marches On!

      Researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine have discovered, in a nutshell, a way to "encourage" one sort of cell to "transmute" into another by the application of additional genes and without the use of stem cells of any sort--embryonic OR adult.  So far, the process has worked with mouse cells.  If this works in humans, the process has just rendered all stem cell research obsolete!  No more need to kill human embryos (otherwise sometimes known as babies.)  The technique is called, "direct reprogramming," and does NOT need an intermediary form of cell such as pluripotent, flexible cell types like embryonic stem cells.  "We actively and directly induced one cell type to become a completely different cell type," said Marius Wernig, MD, assistant professor of pathology and a member of Stanford's Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine.
 
      Compare this startling news to the recent revelations that a large percentage of anthropogenic global warming researchers have been caught fudging and even destroying incriminating data for a couple of decades in order to "achieve" the results they want.  So far, IPCC "scientists" have been caught with their fingers in the proverbial cookie jar, as have those at the British school that's been at the epicenter of AGW "research" as have even NASA "scientists."  The AGW "issue" has always been mostly greed-driven...NOT driven by true, skeptical science, but also by simple idiology.  In large measure, such "science" is done by "scientists" too lazy or incompetent to present their research to an entity who'll fund further research outside of government.  Knowing that "crises" are more likely to receive government research money than ordinary, potentially-beneficial research, some chose to manufacture various crises in an effort to extract more and more money out of the taxpayers.  The "hole in the ozone layer" is certainly one such--though the impetus for THAT claim was even baser--DuPont's pending expiration of their patent on Freon(c) and the inevitable loss of millions in revenue as generic forms were cheaply made.  Their solution" was to have Freon(c) banned by various governments as being a "danger to the ozone layer," which it never really was.  Not so coincidentally, DuPont held a fresh patent on the only viable substitute for Freon(c).  It should be noted that as of this writing, no "scientist" has been able to induce a CFC molecule of any kind to destroy an ozone molecule under laboratory conditions.  Still, Freon(c) and similar CFCs have been banned making DuPont's new patent nearly priceless.
 
      There have, of course, been other such scams--with varying degrees of success.  Cyclamates, once used as artificial sweeteners, were banned after two Canadian "researchers" claimed that their ingestion "caused bladder cancer" in research mice.  Only after the ban occurred did they reveal that their test subjects had been fed MASSIVE amounts of the stuff--much more than any human proportionally would consume in a lifetime--too late for the manufacturers of cyclamates, however.  No one really knows the impetus for doing this, other than as some sort of "test" to see if they could succeed in destroying a company.
 
      Ever wonder why these "mistakes" in the AGW meme always seem to occur predicting WORSE conditions, HOTTER temperatures, MORE bad weather "attributable to human carbon excretion?"   Wouldn't one think that in the law of averages at least ONE "mistake" would be an error on the side of better conditions, cooler temperatures or less bad weather?   Every time you point out to one of these folks that their data are flawed--and prove it to them--their immediate response was that it was a "mistake."  Seems like lots and lots of "mistakes" have been made in the realm of AGW.  That indicates to me, at least, that either their "peer review" process is badly flawed OR the "peer-reviewers" are just as careless (or crooked) as those who published the data to begin with. Thank God we have some honest scientists left.
 
            
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"Get That Wool Out of My Eyes!"

      Obama gave what amounts to his first SOTU speech last night.  It was notable as much for what he didn't say as it was for what he said.  He made no noticeable, beyond passing, mention of Gitmo, Islamic terrorists, Iraq, Afghanistan or much of anything having to do with the two wars in which we're currently engaged.  Neither did he indicate in any way that he'd gotten the message voters in Virginia, New Jersey and Massachusetts have clearly sent him about his agenda.  Instead, he insisted that anger at the lack of bipartisanship was what was providing the impetus for people rejecting his agenda--as they obviously did by electing two Republican governors in VA and NJ and replacing the late Ted Kennedy with yet another Republican.
 
      I recently saw an editorial cartoon in which Obama's opening remarks at the SOTU speech were:  "Would the owner of the pickup with Massachusetts plates please move it.  It's blocking my health care bill."  In reality, it was NOT the election of Senator Brown that stopped the health care debacle.  It was the uncertainty among DEMOCRAT legislators...mostly about how passage of that monstrosity would affect their chances at re-election.  So it appears that SOMEONE in the Democrat Party has been paying attention, even if the man occupying the White House has not.  For almost a full year Democrats have enjoyed a filibuster and veto-proof majority in both Houses of Congress.  They SHOULD have been able to pass anything they wanted and the GOP couldn't have prevented any of it.
 
      Someone among Obama's advisors gave him a very bad piece of advice.  That is, to attack the U.S. Supreme Court for its recent decision essentially negating the ubiquitous "McCain/Feingold" bill.  During the speech, he railed against the decision and claimed that it opened the doors for "foreign corporations" to dictate who gets elected.  Justice Alito, sitting right in front of Obama, can be seen mouthing, "Not true!"  Why he felt it wise to use the SOTU to attack the Supreme Court is beyond understanding.  Apparently, like they feel about the rest of the Constitution, Democrats disagree with the separation of powers it contains and believe that THEY know better than the Founding Fathers.
 
      If this last year has taught us anything, it should have taught us that the Presidency cannot be used to train Presidents.  Never again can we afford to elect someone without a scintillum of executive experience...or, for that matter, someone who has no real world experience in business; someone who has never once had to meet a payroll or make decisions directly affecting thousands or millions of people and how they live their lives.  We should also avoid electing anyone who's circle of friends and acquaintances are exclusively the most radical, anti-American, communist-sympathizing people in the country.  If we do, certainly we shouldn't be surprised when he or she tries to govern as a radical, anti-American, communist sympathizer and surround himself with like-minded "advisors."
 
      If American history has shown us anything beyond the shadow of a doubt, it's that PRIVATE entities are the vehicles by which good jobs and a good economy are created...NOT government.  As we saw, the WPA and CCC and similar, depression-era "jobs" programs were largely ineffective.  Yes, some dams and bridges were built by the WPA and trees were planted by the CCC, but, at best, the government "created" a couple of hundred thousand jobs with those programs over 8 years at comparatively enormous cost to taxpayers.  What got us OUT of the Great Depression was WW II...NOT the NRA so touted by Democrats.
 
      Once again, Obama is trying to "pull the wool over our eyes," by insisting that a "jobs package," designed by the leftists in Congress, will "save" us from the 17% unemployment we're currently experiencing.  Tax cuts for people and businesses are a MUCH more rational approach, but will undoubtedly be given short shrift by the radical socialists who make up much of the Democrat Party these days.  The SOTU was just another instance of that scam in operation.  That's why it's gotten pretty poor reviews this morning; that and the fact that Obama simply CANNOT restrain himself from blaming President Bush for our current plight, which he did a dozen times last night.  Truman said, "The buck stops here."  Obama keeps saying that the buck stops with President Bush.
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"Arrogant" Is Too Mild a Term For What These People Are.

      Marion Berry, Democrat Congressman from Arkansas, recently announced that he would NOT be running for reelection this year.  In making his announcement, he told how he was faced by Obama and that he told Obama why he intended to resign, fearing a repeat of the 1994 Republican takeover after over 40 years of Democrat "rule."  Berry said that Obama told him that the difference between 1994 and 2010 was, "you've got ME."  One is hard-pressed to decide whether to cry or laugh at such arrogance.  Frankly, "arrogant" is orders of magnitude below what these people occupying the halls of the Executive are.
 
      Someone has published photographs of Obama and company throwing a football around INSIDE the Oval Office and showing Obama leaning back, appearing to "hold court" with his feet up on the top of the historic desk of the President.  This in a room that previous occupants...notably President Reagan...refused to even enter (or permit anyone else to enter) without a coat and tie because he held the room in such high regard for its historicity--Presidents from James Monroe to Andrew Jackson to Abraham Lincoln having occupied it honorably and a room in which kings, ambassadors and captains of industry have discussed the most important issues in human history with Presidents and their cabinets.  Perhaps only the members of the Clinton administration...and Clinton himself, of course...have treated the Oval Office--and the entire White House, for that matter--with equal disrespect.  Remember the stories from former Secret Service members about Clinton staffers wearing tie-dyed T-shirts, cut-off jeans and Ho Chi Minh sandals to work at the White House and even engaging in homosex on White House office furniture?  This bunch seem to at least dress appropriately--even if it's only when there are cameras around...which there always seem to be for some reason. 
 
      It's beginning to dawn on me (and maybe some of the former Obamaniacs) that this man we've installed in the White House, without really knowing much about, is probably the most narcissistic, self-involved, self-aggrandizing individual EVER to even get within shouting distance of the Presidency.  He's starting to see the handwriting on the wall--to mix metaphors--and is already starting to say that he may choose "not to run for re-election" in 2012, realizing, one supposes, that the inevitable defeat would just be too humiliating for his obviously fragile ego to withstand.  
 
      Even after staking his political capital on three, separate elections in New Jersey, Virginia and lately in Massachusetts and then losing two governorships and Teddy Kennedy's old seat to Republicans, Obama STILL  seems to be in deep denial about what that all means and has stated that he basically intends to keep doing what he's been doing for a bit over a year now, forcing a radical left agenda on the people of the United States.  This, despite the clear evidence of the center-right orientation of the country.  That attitude requires an extraordinary degree of chutzpa.  Fortunately, Obama and Company seem to have an overabundance of that.
 
         
   
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The Supreme Court (Finally) Gets the 1st Amendment Right!

   The 1st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution reads:  "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people to peaceably assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."  I can't imagine a statement that's clearer, but the U.S. Supreme court, over recent decades, has made some inane rulings with respect to the 1st, classifying flag burning as "speech," and upholding the McCain/Feingold "Campaign Finance Reform" law as being constitutional, to name just two.  This past week, they finally got one right, ruling that entities such as corporations or unions may enter political campaigns "legally" with advocacy ads at any time during a political campaign; something which had been prohibited by that ubiquitous McCain/Feingold law. 
 
   As originally passed, McCain/Feingold kept corporations or unions from making expenditures in political campaigns--especially within specified periods prior to actual voting.  This had the effect of putting almost all of the power to influence the information flow prior to elections in the hands of the so-called "mainstream media," (the MSM hereafter.)  We saw how adept the DNC was at exploiting this restriction during the last Presidential election, resulting in the seating of perhaps THE most devisive, partisan, not to mention corrupt and secretive, administration in our history.  The MSM did this by refusing to properly "vet" the Democrat's slate and ignoring their responsibility to properly inform the electorate.  Since corporations couldn't pump money into the system, our choices of information were severely limited.  That's all over now and, predictably, the DNC is howling like banshees about it.  Ignoring the existing law, Goldman-Sachs employees pumped over $995,000 into Obama's coffers alone, so the law was ineffective anyway...not so coincidentally, in favor of Democrats who don't seem to feel they should be in any way constrained in their efforts to gain and keep political power and influence.
 
   Corporations and unions ARE "citizens" after all.  They are taxed and regulated just like you or I are...with the exception that they are entitled to pass along their tax bills to their customers so don't really pay income taxes like you or I.  Still, they provide essential "services" to the nation--not to mention employment for millions of us--and should be entitled to comment on candidates or issues that have a direct bearing on their ability to do business in this country.  That's, in large measure, part of the reason it SEEMS that so many corporate entities are moving off-shore.  They aren't doing so voluntarily, mind you.  They're being RUN out by an out-of-control government which appears to be trying to tax and regulate them out of existence.  The oddity is, that the corporate entities that are the primary targets of Democrats, and the left in general--so-called "big oil," "big pharmacy," "big energy" and "big health-care" are the entities that are the most highly regulated in the country.  If the MSM were as highly restricted and regulated, the howls of indignation and calls for "reform" would be deafening.  Yet, no one complains publicly about the regulatory and tax burdens of these industries, and, until this ruling, the corporations couldn't legally defend themselves publicly either.
 
   His support for this abomination was part of the reason I had so much difficulty voting FOR McCain in 2008.  If he was willing to restrict the 1st Amendment in this manner, who's to say that he wouldn't be perfectly content in ignoring any of the rest of the Bill of Rights?  If not for his choice of Sarah Palin as his running mate, I may very well have sat out the last election.
 
   This is a good move on the part of the Supreme Court and they should be applauded for it.  For once, they got it exactly right.
 
   
 
   
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Choice: Government Bureaucrat or HMO Bureaucrat

   A recent letter to the editor of the local newspaper expressed the writer's preference for dealing with a government bureaucrat over one from an HMO or other, private insurance provider, claiming that at least it will be "cheaper."  Broken down, his theory was that it should be cheaper because the government isn't dependent upon "profit" to stay in business and therefore will "probably" charge lower premiums.  Honestly, I understand that attitude, but the writer simply failed to think the situation through to its logical conclusion.
 
   Obamacare needed that "public option" in order for their plan to work as they wanted it to.  Initially, costs might very well BE slightly lower than private insurance since the government has no need for a profit motive in order to stay in business--and that's the whole point.  Unable to compete with a "company" that doesn't need to show a profit, private insurers will simply disappear, throwing more and more of their former clients into the "public option" system until, eventually, the "public option" will be the ONLY option for anyone wanting health insurance, at which point the ultimately desired (by the Democrats) single-payer, government-run system would come into being by default, at which point "the government" will be able to charge whatever it wants for its "insurance," and costs to health-care consumers WILL go up.
 
   The writer seemed to think that he'd prefer dealing with a government bureaucrat instead of one working for an HMO or other private insurer.  Why, one can only speculate.  A bureaucrat whose job depends upon the company he represents making a profit is obviously going to be "easier" to deal with than a government bureaucrat whose job depends ONLY on tax money continuing to roll in...and tax money will ALWAYS "continue to roll in" until taxpayers have had enough and rebel--which they inevitably will.  Private companies must show a profit in order to survive.  At least part of how they show a profit is by providing efficient service to their respective clientelle.  Fail to provide that service efficiently and cost-effectively and they'll simply go out of business...unless, of course, they have enough political clout to keep other health-care providers from offering competitive services, which IS the case in far too many States.  If their employees are rude and uncooperative, they'll drive away customers and the company will eventually go under.
 
   Government-provided health insurance has no such constraints.  Not having any real competitors, their employees can be just as rude and uncooperative as they want because "good will" doesn't come into play and their jobs certainly don't rely on their "company" staying in business.  Ever heard of a government agency "going out of business?"
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What's "Truth?"

   Those on the left will try to tell you that truth is "relative," and depends upon one's point of view.  That's false and based on the old fable about the 4 blind men and the elephant.  Asked to describe an elephant, the first blind man felt a leg and said, "An elephant is like a tree trunk."  The second man felt the tail and said, "An elephant is like a rope."  The third felt the elephant's side and said, "An elephant is like a wall," and the last felt an ear and said, "An elephant is like a blanket."  Therefore, the left insists, "truth" is dependent upon one's perspective and that's true...if one is otherwise blind.  Someone SEEING an elephant will describe it as being...well...like an elephant, a very large mammal with four legs, a tail, trunk and big ears.  Truth is FACT. 
   When an event occurs, it only occurs one way...the factual way.  WHY it occured may be subject to one's perspective and opinion, but HOW it occured is not.  Truth is therefore also REALITY.  The fact is, Massachusetts voters elected, for the first time in decades, a Republican to fill the seat vacated by the death of Democrat Teddy Kennedy.  WHY that happened is being spun a dozen different ways--some by the GOP and some by Democrats.  The blame game among Democrats has become outright bizarre with the White House claiming...with a perfectly straight face, by the way...that, paraphrased, "anger and frustration with the Bush Administration caused voters to fill the seat with a Republican!"  How's that again?  Anger and frustration with a Republican caused voters to elect another Republican???  That, of course, is NOT the truth, but it takes all kinds of disconnect...not to mention cognitive dissonance...to make such a bizarre claim and Democrats have certainly got a lock on both recently. 
 
   Joseph Goebbels, Hitler's Minister of Propaganda, once said, "Tell the big lie often enough and loud enough and pretty soon it becomes 'truth'."  That, of course, in itself is a "big lie."  Truth is truth...period.  What he meant, of course, was that the big lie can become PERCEIVED as "truth," which is not the same thing at all.  Politicians are, very often, masters at telling the "big lie," usually as a means of perpetuating themselves in their positions of power and influence.  Some are better at it than others.  Obama, for example, convinced the majority of American voters in 2008 that he represented "change" and "hope."  It turns out that the "change and hope" he was talking about apparently was the total dismantling of our historically successful economic system, which is NOT how he presented it during the campaign.  So, what he was successful in practicing was the "big lie"...except it was a lie by omission in that he didn't really tell us HOW he wanted to effect "change" or what he really meant by "change."
 
   The left...the so-called "progressives," if you will...have been salivating at the idea of turning the United States into a centrally-controlled society in the same fashion as was tried in the Soviet Union in the last century--with the "progressive" leadership in control, of course.  Many of them have always believed that the USSR would have succeeded if only THEY had been running things.  The evidence that it couldn't is legion, but that makes no difference to their perception of what's true.  It's called "denial."  The truth is that central control of any society is simply stultifying and will never succeed in the long run because it destroys ambition, individuality, people's self-respect and innovation...the things that made the American system so much more successful than the USSR's.  Obama is an ideologue, and seems constitutionally incapable of realizing what the truth really is.  That truth being that Americans are too independent and individualistic to sit still and stand by while someone destroys the most exceptional and successful society in the history of mankind.  We just won't. 
 
   There was a time when the broadcast media and the print media were most concerned with the truth...above all else.  That's no long the case, apparently.  The media "news" departments have been stuffed with ideologues--mostly of the leftist variety--who see their jobs as not purveyors of truth, but of purveyors of their personal, ideological perspectives.   When 80% of journalism grads, when queried, see their journalistic ambitions as, "making a difference in society," you can be certain that we're in deep trouble.  There are still a few outlets concerned with the truth--mostly on the internet or on cable news shows--but one has to search for them.  The USSR's state-owned "news" outlet was called "Pravda" which, in Russian, means "Truth."  Calling it truth doesn't make it so.
 
 
 
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Obama STILL Doesn't Get It, Even After Massachusetts

   For a variety of reasons I've always believed that liberals are the most irrational, illogical people in the country.  Obama's "analysis" today (1/20/10) of Republican Scott Brown's win in Massachusetts may set a new low standard for tone-deafness on the part of a politician.  He said, paraphrased, that the results in Massachusetts' special election on Tuesday in which Republican Brown overwhelmed Democrat Coakley by a bit more than 5 percentage points was an indication of how angry voters still are at the Bush administration!  Excuse me?  If I'm hearing him correctly, Obama is saying that the reason Republican Brown beat Democrat Coakley for Teddy Kennedy's old Senate seat in Massachusetts is because voters were so disgusted with the former, Republican President's policies that they decided to elect...a Republican?  If Obama REALLY believes that, it's proof positive that, not only is he irredeemably tone-deaf, he's downright delusional! 
 
   Scott Brown made no bones about why he was running or what he'd do if elected.  It was a refreshingly candid campaign in an era when particularly northeast Republicans are more prone to equivocate and try to be the proverbial "all things to all people" so as not to "offend" any potential voters.  One of his principle promises was to "be the 41st vote to stop Obamacare."  His message was clear and unwavering and repeated over and over all over the State of Massachusetts and usually reliably liberal Bay Staters elected him anyway.  To any rational person, the implications are very clear.  "Stop what you're doing!  Back off and abandon your plans to socialize health care and the rest of the country!"
 
   Apparently that message has fallen on some deaf ears in Washington D.C.  Obama himself obviously is misreading the implications of Tuesday's vote (and those in New Jersey and Virginia last November.)  Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are both either ignorant of the implications or choose to ignore them as they vow to charge ahead with their far-left agenda.
 
   As stunning as the Brown victory was, it does not mean that our fight to save our country from the socialists is over.  These morons are unrelenting in their determination to turn the U.S. into just another 3rd-world cesspool...run by THEM, of course.  Oh, none of 'em will admit what they want to do to us.  If Democrats actually told the truth about where they want to take us, they'd never win a single election...even among the uneducated...because where they want us to go is the LAST place any rational person wants to be--unless, of course, one is sitting at the top of the heap, where the liberal leadership believes it will be.  You see, they actually believe, deep in their hearts, that they are intellectually superior to everyone else and predestined to rule over the "unwashed masses" who they'll proceed to "inform" how to live their lives, what to eat, what to drive and even how much they can earn.
 
   Liberals are in complete denial about the implications--particularly Obama.  He actually said, in essence, that he'd "failed to speak to the American people" during this past year.  He said this, despite making over 900 speeches in a year (that's almost 3 EVERY DAY) and holding over 170 "news conferences."  The problem is, the people HAVE heard him and, as Massachusetts proves, they don't like what they're hearing!  Frankly, I don't know when he could possibly have had time to do anything else BUT "speak to the people."
 
   
 
 
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First Shots of the New Revolution--Concord & Lexington All Over Again

   Hooray for the Bay Staters!  We're proud of you!  As you all know by now, State Senator Scott Brown has upset Democrat Attorney General Marsha Coakley (Or is it Martha?  I can't be certain after that Kennedy gaffe.) to fill the seat once occupied by Ted Kennedy for 50-odd years before his death last year.  This may be the most stunning upset in my lifetime--certainly in the last 50 years.  Massachusetts is the bluest of blue states, giving Obama a 26% majority in the 2008 presidential election, yet Brown won 52% to Coakley's 47%.  The Obama administration are laying the blame for this defeat at the feet of Ms Coakley.  What they SHOULD be doing is re-thinking their own agenda because the voters in Massachusetts agreed that Democrat efforts to restructure our economy using a socialist blueprint is precisely the WRONG direction we should be moving.  
 
   This administration is about as tone-deaf as any I've ever witnessed, however, and I don't hold out much hope that even this earthquake of a wake-up will affect their plans to socialize America.  The "leadership" of the Democrats are about as vicious a bunch of ideologues as I've yet witnessed; quite literally shutting the GOP completely out of any "negotiations" on ANY bill--let alone Obamacare.  I can't see them changing tactics now--even in the face of what happened in Massachusetts.  I suppose I could be wrong about that and the 535 members of Congress...who are MOST interested in keeping their jobs above all else...MIGHT hear the shot across their respective bows from the Bay Staters, but only time will tell.
 
   Governor Rendell of Pennsylvania wants to "call the Republicans' 'bluff'" and require them to actually filibuster in the Senate--a process that they are NEVER required to do themselves.  If the Democrats listen and pull this (or any other shenanigan) the consequences for them in November will be dire indeed.  Maybe more dire than they can ever imagine.
 
   I hope that the GOP will hear that shot as well and do whatever they have to do to convince voters that they regret trying to govern as "Democrat-lite" in the early part of this century, are sorry for spending on pork and vow never to do that again as long as the people of the United States honor them with their votes.
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The Great Massachusetts Earthquake

   On January 19th, 2010, Massachusetts voters will go to the polls to elect a Senator to replace the late Edward (Teddy) Kennedy--he of Chapaquiddic fame, known best for being a boozing, womanizing profligate, but praised by fellow Democrats as the "Lion of the Senate," primarly because of his 47 years in a seat first gained on the coattails of his late brother, John F. Kennedy.  Massachusetts has been known for some years now as the "bluest of blue" states, reliably voting for Democrat candidates in almost every case, an exception being their support of President Reagan in 1984.  It's also a state in which registered Democrats outnumber registered Republicans by 3 to 1, but overlooked in that statistic is that so-called "Independents" outnumber registrations of BOTH Democrats and Republicans. 
 
   Remember, however, that Republican Mitt Romney was elected Governor of Massachusetts twice and nearly unseated Senator Kennedy in 1994--until, that is, his "advisors" recommended that he get all wishy-washy on the subject of abortion-on-demand, after which he lost by 3 percentage points to the ubiquitous Kennedy.  Kennedy wasn't much of a Senator in the overall scheme of things, but the affection citizens of Massachusetts felt for the clan--headed for decades by a man who made his fortune by bootlegging during Prohibition--translated time and again into votes to keep him in office.  Like most liberals, Kennedy was the epitome of hypocrisy, pontificating on how "evil" "Big Oil" was and encouraging (at least in the Senate) the development of alternate energy but opposing vigorously a wind farm off of Cape Cod that might have "spoiled the view" for those living on Martha's Vinyard.
 
   At this junction, it appears that Massachusetts voters MAY be awakening to the utter evil that is leftist politics--a fitting awakening for a State that was the site of the first shots fired in the Revolution at Concord and Lexington.  We can be certain that the Democrats' machine will be in full-bore "rescue" mode.  Already, ACORN, Media Matters and other Soros-financed groups, including the Service Employees unions are flooding into Massachusetts.  Look for massive voter fraud in the Democrats' efforts to steal the election in the same manner by which they stole the Senate seat in Minnesota last year on behalf of SNL "comedian" Al Franken.  Here's hoping that Massachusetts Republicans (and Independents) keep a VERY close eye on the polls tomorrow.  This election is ripe for fraud and deceit and Democrats are NOT opposed to applying both when they think they're in danger of losing a critical seat.  Let's not forget that John F. Kennedy himself was elected ONLY because the Daley machine in Chicago voted most of their cemeteries in order to give him a large majority in Illinois in 1960.
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Liberals Must Think Minorities and Women are Dumb as Rocks!

   How else do you account for the fact that Obama's Department of Justice, Civil Rights division is suing the State of New Jersey for using civil service examinations to promote to sergeant and above in their law enforcement community?  The stated "reason" for doing so is that "such tests mean that there is always a 'disparate effect' that tends to exclude blacks and other minorities."  Go back and read that again.  What our own DOJ is saying here is that "blacks and other minorities" are inherently inferior to whites and Asians when it comes to taking these tests.  I'm neither, but if I were one of these minorities or a woman, I'd be mad as hell about such patronizing, insulting attitudes.
 
   But then, it's what we've come to expect from the Left...lip service to "helping," but treating women and minorities as if they were picking cotton on some liberal's plantation and not full citizens in their own rights and fully capable of succeeding in this society without the phony "leg-up" liberals think they must have to be successful. 
 
   There are two things (and two things ONLY) that we can do to "solve" the problem of minorities not testing well on standardized tests used to measure competencies for admission to schools, application for jobs and promotions once on the job.  The first is that black families MUST instill in their children at an early age the desire to learn and be successful students.  The only thing that prevents this from happening naturally is the VERY strange attitude on the part of black youths that studying hard, learning the language, history and values of their country is somehow "acting white" and somehow shameful.  There is, quite literally, NO REASON why black children cannot be the equal of children of ANY race in intellect, except this stupid, stupid attitude.  The second thing that must be done is to change the way we operate public schools--particularly those schools in the inner cities which tend to be majority minority.  First of all, these schools' scholastic standings began to drop like a stone when we developed the incomprehensible attitude that only black teachers can relate to--and therefore teach--black students.  That's got to stop and stop immediately.   Then these schools must seek out and recruit the very best teachers--regardless of race or ethnicity.  Teachers that can interest and inspire their students to strive for excellence while maintaining classroom discipline.  Then, school administrators must be willing to back up teachers in disciplinary matters and parents must do precisely the same...yes, up to and including corporal punishment if, in the teacher's and administrator's best judgement, such punishment is warranted.  A spanking never hurt anyone permanently.  In fact, a recent study shows that adults who were spanked as children tend to be more successful, confident and secure than those raised under the regime of "time-out" as the severest form of punishment for bad behavior.
 
Save our schools from the leftie, "feel-good," morons and return them to actually TEACHING facts in science class, proper English pronounciation, spelling, writing, comprehension and syntax, TRUE U.S. and world history, geography, foreign languages, physical education including kinesthetics, health and first aid and our kids will flourish...regardless of age or sex.  We've GOT to stop teaching the idiocy of revisionist history wherein Malcolm X is regarded as more important to the nation's progress than was Abe Lincoln, Thomas Edison or even George Washington Carver, or "ebonics" as a subset of standard English, or "Susie Has Two Mommies."  Which do YOU think is more important for developing a strong, well-educated, successful adult?  Teaching him or her to think, write, read, comprehend and add, subtract, multiply and divide, or teaching him or her how to put a condom on a banana or trying to instill in him or her the concept that being gay is somehow "normal," nevermind 5000 years of human history.    We've simply GOT to stop the stupidity of social promotions so as to enhance Johnny's little self-image and ego.  We've been trying that stuff for 40 or more years now and all we've done is graduate a bunch of kids who have a high opinion of themselves, but who cannot read their own diplomas or do enough basic math to ensure their employer isn't cheating them.
 
The issue with women is somewhat different.  In that case "gender norming" has nothing to do with mental abilities, but physical stamina and strength.  Let's face it.  Women are naturally weaker than men physically, if one is willing to overlook a few trained women atheletes, but even then, men equally well-trained can almost always outdo women.  Women, encouraged by the so-called "feminist movement" decided that they wanted to be cops or firemen, but only rarely could successfully complete the physical requirements.  The left's "solution" was to make women's requirements less rigorous so they COULD qualify.  Of course, in emergency situations, they often couldn't perform their jobs as well as men and that endangered the very public they were supposed to be serving...not to mention their fellow firemen and cops.  The physical requirements must be rigorous and THE SAME FOR EVERY APPLICANT...period.  Don't measure up and you don't get the job.
 
   
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They Aren't Called "Bills" For Nothing

Ever notice that pieces of legislation are called "Bills?"  Ever wonder why?  If you had doubts before, this past year should have cleared it up for you...in spades!  As bad as Republican Congresses were between 2001 and 2006 (when the Democrats regained control), they were NOTHING compared to what the Democrats are currently doing to us and the world's economy and ESPECIALLY to our own future economies.  Having effectively created a situation in which the U.S. dollar is worth about 12 cents--and falling--the Democrats in charge in D.C. are rapidly impoverishing our kids and grandkids before they've earned a single dollar themselves and there doesn't seem to be a single thing we can do about it...at least until November 2010, and maybe not even then.
 
We have FAR too many people in this country who (1) vote for whomever they "like" because of how well they photograph, (2) vote for whomever they see as likely to "give" them stuff they see as "free," (3) vote for whomever their local media outlets SAY are "responsible," "honest," or "good" for their respective community, (4) vote for whichever candidate has a "D" behind their names because "everybody knows" that "D's" are "'for' the little guys like me," or (5) vote AGAINST someone their local media or entertainment outlet makes fun of.  None of these reasons are intelligent, seriously considered reasons someone deserves your vote--which MAY be the most valuable asset you own (and which may not be yours for very long if the so-called "progressives" get their ultimate wishes.)
 
Liberals are all about "control."  They TELL you that they are not--that they are "for" freedom--but their history belies that claim.  Virtually every piece of legislation that comes out of a liberal-dominated legislature does one of two things.  Either it costs you your hard-earned money, or it takes away some aspect of your personal freedom and responsibility, or both.  Nothing illustrates this better than the Obamacare bills currently under consideration, both of which do both. 
 
First of all, don't EVER forget one simple fact.  The government CANNOT "give" you anything that it hasn't already taken away from someone else to whom it rightfully belongs.  Secondly, there's not a politician alive today that doesn't consider, first and foremost, how a pending piece of legislation will affect their chances of keeping their position of power and prestige.   Thirdly, NEVER forget that liberal politicians MUST lie about their motives and intentions in order to keep the votes rolling in.  If they tell you the truth about what they want to do to the country, they couldn't get themselves elected dogcatcher.  Liberals want (and work dilligently towards) removing from you, your power of decision-making and ceding it to the central government and its bureaucracies.  When called on it, liberals will tell you that they are "protecting" you from the bureaucracies inherent in corporations or some other entity they are currently using as a bugaboo, as if some clerk in the bowels of the EPA is somehow more "caring" than one in a corporation, the existence of which depends solely on the good offices of its clientelle.  No government bureaucrat's job depends on how well he/she does it.  Civil service "rules" make it nearly impossible to fire an incompetent employee of the government.
 
Never forget, too, that the government produces NOTHING of intrinsic value.  It may pay someone else to produce useful products, such as Teflon or miniaturized computers and their components, both of which are products of NASA's space effort, but it's private parties or contractors who actually produce what the government thinks it needs.  The government MUST pay for such things out of tax revenues, too.  In other words, the money YOU are forced to pay to the government, apparently just for the privilege of living in America.  Taxes are merely legalized theft.  Most States define "theft" as, "The taking, by force or threat of force, property of another and converting it to one's own use--or to the use of another, not the owner."  A clearer definition of government taxes would be hard to design.
 
The founders understood that any government needs revenues in order to perform its necessary functions.  They designed the Constitution, in part, as a means of providing for the collection of such revenues.  Over the years (particularly the last 80 or so) the government has assumed for itself more and more "duties" that the founders never intended for it--largely under the aegis of that part of the Constitution which reads, "...promote the general welfare..." or the Constitution's commerce clause which empowers Congress to "regulate" interstate commerce."  "Regulate" had a far different meaning in the late 18th Century than it does now.  Then, it meant, "...to make regular (or even)."  To the left, it means to "control."  Recent Supreme Courts have chosen to follow the left's definition instead of the founders' original intent.  Instead of insuring that no State could impose confiscatory taxes on a neighboring State's competing industry when shipped across State lines, Congress, and the Supreme Court, have taken the extraordinary position that, in one infamous case, a farmer in Kansas, growing wheat, could NOT grow it, because he intended to harvest it and convert it to feed his own cattle, even though both the wheat field AND the cattle were his and were entirely inside the State of Kansas, because wheat is a commodity traded in "interstate commerce" and his doing what he intended "might negatively impact the overall price of wheat that IS intended to be traded across State lines!"  Congress had ceded its "power to regulate interstate commerce," in this case, to the Department of Agriculture and some petty bureaucrat it the DoA's bowels thought that allowing an individual to exercise such freedom might "harm" other farmers' incomes in other States!
 
The same sort of "regulation" has been applied to peanuts, for example.  A farmer, wishing to grow peanuts, must first get "permission" from the Department of Agriculture in the form of an "allocation," which specifies how many acres of peanuts he may produce.  If he exceeds the acreage allowed by that allocation, he can be forced to plow the excess acreage under, and, if he has no "allocation" at all, he can be forced to destroy his entire crop.   I know personally of a man who planted an acre of peanuts to attract deer for hunting season.  An Agriculture "inspector," flying over the guy's land saw them and filed an injunction, forcing him to destroy the crop, even though it was never his intention to put the peanuts into "interstate commerce."
 
If Obamacare becomes the law of the land, it's a dead-bang certainty that the following things WILL occur.  (1)  Your taxes are going to go up.  Obamacare CANNOT exist at current levels of taxation.  Still, its fans are claiming that we're all going to "get more and better health-care under government "guidance" at lower costs," a practical impossibility.  It may be a bit lower for a few--those that pay almost nothing now may get it "free," but SOMEBODY'S got to pay for it.  Guess who.  (2)  The availability and quality of your health care will be ADVERSELY affected.  Right now we have "x" doctors to treat "y" patients who have health care insurance.  If you increase the ratio to "x" doctors to treat "y" PLUS 47,000,000 "new" patients, it only stands to reason that doctors will be forced to give less attention to each patient or patients will be forced into long waiting-lines.  Less attention per patient means lower quality of treatment per patient as doctors are forced to speed through their days in order to meet the demand for their attention.  Less attention means more mistakes and more mistakes mean more and more lawsuits, which will enrich the trial lawyers, but almost no one else except politicians.  (3)  Private insurance will go the way of the dodo.  With the government "competing" with private insurers and not having to show a profit, businesses will inevitably dump employees into the "public option" (Which WILL be in the final version of the bill.  You can count on it.) and private insurers will simply have to fold up for lack of clients. (4)  Finally, your health care will inevitably be rationed.  The same number of doctors with 47 million more patients means that some care you were able to receive will simply no longer be available and some government bureaucratic "board" or "panel" will decide who "deserves" what treatments--and how much such treatments will "cost."  In each and every socialized medicine system on the planet, that's been the inevitable result--and a large reason why so many Canadians, not to mention Canadian doctors, now cross over to the U.S. for medical treatment and why well-to-do Europeans are doing the same thing.
 
Do what you have to, but make certain that you do EVERYTHING you can to stop Obamacare.  It's a disaster in the making and once enacted, may be impossible to undo.
 
 
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UNhealth(y) Care

On 12/16/2009, on National Review online, Mark Styen described the Obamacare bill as a, "..."monstrous mountain of toxic pustules sprouting from greasy boils metastasizing from malign carbuncles"...  Some might consider that to be a bit over the top, as they say.  The fact is, it's pretty much dead-on...unfortunately for all of us who must live (or die) with it and foot the bills for this monstrosity.  Congress, in its infinite arrogance--not to mention hubris--has chosen to ignore the clear message of the American people.  "Reform if you must, but trash the current bills and start over!"  Both versions of Democrat "health care reform" are abominations, designed, not to improve America's health care system but to destroy it, and replace it with a government-run, single-payer system that puts us all in the tender mercies of government bureaucracies.  Remember that candidate Obama said that a single-payer, government-run health care system is what he wants, even though he recognizes that, "It might take 10 or 15 years to reach that goal."
 
THESE bills are only the first step to that ultimate state of affairs.  We are told by the Democrats that either of these bills will insure the uninsured...neither does.  We are told by the Democrats that we're going to get "more health care for less money," which is pure, unadulterated baloney...more promises of something for nothing which keep the uninformed on the Democrats' plantation, toiling away, hoping that NEXT year, things'll be better.  We are told that there will be NO "death panels," while both set up politically-appointed "boards" to make decisions about who will get what treatements at what cost.  In other words, who "deserves" what treatments and how much the new, "public option insurance" will pay for those treatments.  You can bet your bottom dollar that the politically powerful will "deserve" better care at higher costs than the typical local bag lady will.  In short, the much-denied "death panels."  We are told that there will be no federal tax dollars used to pay for abortions--both provide for abortion on demand up to and including the instant of birth, paid for by your tax money. 
 
If this is such a good idea, why has Congress exempted itself and other federal employees from the provisions of these bills?  The fact is, Congress really believes that what's good enough for you is NOT good enough for them and they'll maintain their gold-plated health care system regardless of what they design for us.
 
It's still not too late.  This abomination can still be stopped.  Give your Congress critters an earful while they're home for the holidays.  Write to them, call them, text them, e-mail them...whatever you have to do to get their undivided attention and make them understand that neither of the pending bills about to go to "reconciliation" are acceptable to the American people and voting FOR them will cost them their jobs.  Convincing them of that MAY be the only thing that saves us.  After all, nothing is more important to these people than maintaining their power and prestige...NOTHING.
 
 
 
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Merry Christmas

It's become "fashionable" in the United States to do away with the phrase "Merry Christmas."  One can only speculate why.  Still in all, it's a tragic commentary on the state of the nation that so many people are enthralled with the idea of political correctness to the point that this important part of our heritage is given such short shrift. 
 
This is a particularly poignant time of year for us.  Our daughter is struggling to find employment commensurate with her education (she has two degrees--one in Public Relations and one in Sociology--from Oklahoma University), our son and his family live in Allen, Texas, some 250 miles away, our foster grandson-in-law left this morning for a 6-month tour of duty with the USAF in Kuwait leaving his wife and son behind, and I've been on half-pay for over 4 months, having blown out a knee plus subsequent surgery.  I've been back at work now for about a week, but money will be tight and we won't be able to do for our kids like we usually have.  My parents are both gone now and my siblings live 750 miles away and aren't able to travel.  My wife's mother is in a nursing home and her father passed some years back.  Our best friends have sold their home locally and are planning on spending the holidays with their own children in Houston, Texas.  Still, all in all, we are uncommonly blessed.  I'm still able to work and earn a living, even though nearly 3 years past "usual" retirement age.  Our foster kids live nearby and will be having Christmas dinner with us, bringing their two girls and their grandson with them and we'll have my mother-in-law with us for the day, too, and our son and his family will be driving up from Allen late Christmas afternoon, so all in all we're looking forward to a nice Christmas with family and friends.  To me, that's one of the more important aspects of the holiday--next only to the REASON for it in the first place...the celebration of the birth of Christ 2010 years ago!
 
The gift-giving aspects of the holiday are mostly secondary.  Over the years, I've noticed that our kids (myself included) looked forward more towards what they RECEIVED than what they gave, and that's too bad.  I've learned that I receive MUCH more joy in seeing the reactions of those to whom I gave gifts than I EVER got from getting them.  Even so, that's not altogether satisfactorily in the true spirit of giving.  About 20 years ago, I started a little practice that you, the reader, might try.  Every Christmas, I buy a nice bicycle and donate it (along with the receipt in case something's wrong and it needs to be returned) to Toys For Tots, or some other collector for underprivileged kids.  I don't identify myself and I don't "write it off" on my income tax.  I've never seen a kid actually GET one of these bikes, so I don't even get to see their reaction, but somehow, I get more pleasure out of that simple act than just about anything else I do during the Christmas season.  I highly recommend it.  It'll make your Christmas MUCH more meaningful in the same spirit of the original St. Nicholas who found a poor family and dropped a bag of gold through an open window anonymously.  By the way, the first time he did it, the bag dropped into a stocking lying on the floor under the window---hence the tradition of hanging up stockings for Santa Claus to fill. 
 
Anyway, to anyone who reads this, may you enjoy a wonderful, family-filled Christmas, keeping in mind that the primary purpose of the holiday is to remember the birth of that miracle child those millinea ago who changed the world for the better for all of us.
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