Monday, April 27, 2009

Power Line - Real religion

Power Line - Real religion: "Real religion"

Today comes word that Mary Ann Glendon is turning down the prestigous Laetare Medal that was to be awarded to her at Notre Dame's commencement this year. Glendon is the Learned Hand Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and former United States Ambassador to the Holy See. Explaining her decision Glendon stated:

When you informed me in December 2008 that I had been selected to receive Notre Dame's Laetare Medal, I was profoundly moved. I treasure the memory of receiving an honorary degree from Notre Dame in 1996, and I have always felt honored that the commencement speech I gave that year was included in the anthology of Notre Dame's most memorable commencement speeches. So I immediately began working on an acceptance speech that I hoped would be worthy of the occasion, of the honor of the medal, and of your students and faculty. etc

VDH's Private Papers::Crazy Times - Crazier Ones to Follow

VDH's Private Papers::Crazy Times - Crazier Ones to Follow: "Crazy Times — Crazier Ones to Follow"

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April 27, 2009
Crazy Times — Crazier Ones to Follow

Tribune Media Services

We are in a weird age.

Do the smart thing, we were told, and invest in a 401(k) retirement account. Buy into the American dream and own your own home. But lately it seems that those who put their money in low-earning passbook savings accounts or rented rather than buying may have been better off.

Indeed, almost all the old familiar benchmarks of modern American life seem to be going by the wayside.

The blue-chip corporations that were long the brand names of world manufacturing and finance — American International Group, Bank of America, Bear Stearns, Chrysler, Citigroup, General Motors and Lehman Brothers — are either gone or teetering on insolvency.

The old-guard newspaper industry is fading — the Tribune Company is in bankruptcy court, Hearst at one point threatened to shut down the San Francisco Chronicle, the Rocky Mountain News is already gone. The stock price of The New York Times is worth about the same as its Sunday paper.

Washington is more confusing. Bill Clinton balanced his last budgets but raised taxes. George Bush increased deficits but cut taxes. But now taxes, spending and deficits soar all at once. We are lectured that prior reckless federal spending and borrowing got us into this mess — but now are told that even more federal spending and borrowing will get us out of it.

We've seen housing sales slump when home prices were high but interest rates low. Or when prices were low but interest high. Or when prices and interest were alike high. But we never have seen a bad housing market in which both home prices and mortgage interest rates were low.

Nonsense is passed off as wisdom. Those who caused the financial meltdown walked away with millions in bonuses while taxpayers covered the debts they ran up. The big-spending government claims it may cut our annual $1.7 trillion deficit in half by 2012 — but only after piling up trillions more in national debt.

In our Orwellian world, borrowing to spend what we don't have has been renamed "stimulus." Those who pay no federal income taxes — almost half of Americans — can somehow be promised an income tax "cut." In the new borrowing of trillions of dollars here and trillions there, billions of dollars now sounds like pocket change.

When Americans turn to their political parties for answers, they are even more confused. Populist Democrats such as Sen. Chris Dodd and President Barack Obama took more AIG campaign cash than did pro-business Republicans.

And the list of big-tax liberals who cheated or avoided taxes they want to raise on others is astounding — Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, who oversees the Internal Revenue Service; failed Obama Cabinet nominee Tom Daschle; and Rep. Charles Rangel, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee.

Yet conservative Republicans during the Bush administration ran up the debt and increased federal spending far more than did liberals under Bill Clinton. A Republican president has not balanced a budget since Dwight Eisenhower did it over a half-century ago.

Abroad, we thought piracy ended with the age of sail — only to learn that the world's 21st century navies either will not or cannot sink a few brigands in speedboats. Meanwhile, a U.N. conference against racism showcased Iranian president — and Holocaust-denier — Mahmoud Ahmadinejad spouting anti-Semitic hatred.

The old "bad" unilateral war in Iraq is now quiet; the once "good" multilateral effort in Afghanistan is not. We are warned that we must be careful not to explicitly associate the radical Islam that fueled the Sept. 11 attacks with terrorism; yet, we are advised that we should worry about returning American veterans as potential terrorists.

When our president references the 19th and 20th centuries, he apologizes for American sins but stays silent about the United States defeating Nazis, fascists, Japanese militarists and Soviet communists. The world hears contrition about Americans dropping the bomb to end World War II but never remorse from those responsible for Darfur, Grozny or Tibet.

There have been a few crazy years like 2009 in American history — 1860, 1929, 1941 and 1968. And given what followed all of them, it might be wise to prepare for even crazier times for us ahead.

On the Patio

On the Patio:
A Toast
"'There are good ships,
and there are wood ships,
The ships that sail the sea.
But the best ships, are friendships,
And may they always be.'"

Thursday, April 23, 2009

The American Spectator : Obama's Torture Policy for the Unborn

The American Spectator : Obama's Torture Policy for the Unborn

Obama's Torture Policy for the Unborn

If achieving world peace required torturing a single baby, asks a character in Fyodor Dostoyevsky's The Brothers Karamazov, would it be worth it?

"Imagine that you are creating a fabric of human destiny with the object of making men happy in the end, giving them peace and rest at last, but that it was essential and inevitable to torture to death only one tiny creature -- that baby beating its breast with its fist, for instance -- and to found that edifice on its unavenged tears, would you consent to be the architect on those conditions? Tell me, and tell the truth."

The liberalism that Barack Obama seeks to complete answers Dostoyevsky's question with an emphatic yes. What is Obama's abortion-on-demand-forever policy but the building of a modern American way of life upon the graves of tortured babies? And not just the unavenged tears of one baby but millions of them.

This week, however, Obama did avenge the tears of terrorists. World peace, he said, isn't worth theirs. He lectured the CIA that "What makes the United States special and what makes you special is precisely the fact that we are willing to uphold our values and ideals even when it's hard."

Obama's prim pontifications about America's "values and ideals" inspired Chris Matthews and Jack Cafferty, among other deep and careful thinkers, to mull over the question: If torturing terrorists works -- as the Obama administration had to admit grudgingly this week -- is it okay? No, of course not, the chattering class proudly concluded.

One wonders why. What do they care? Having already accepted abortion and euthanasia -- which are nothing more than the expedient killing of the unborn and the elderly -- why should the expedient torture of terrorists, a lesser evil, trouble them? Oh, that's right: the terrorists are guilty and the guilty under the ministrations of modern liberalism never suffer. Pain in modern life is for the innocent.

Terrorists, we're told by pro-abortion liberals, suffer excruciating pain while the ejected unborn and euthanized elderly feel nothing. And even if the latter do suffer pain, say these liberals, that pain is worth it. After all, abortion and euthanasia sustain a pleasant and peaceful lifestyle for the strong. Let the dead bury the dead. Or, as the Supreme Court has said, imagine the disruption to America's way of life if stare decisis in the case of Roe v. Wade disappeared and women couldn't plan their careers and futures without the expectation of legal abortion for years to come.

Obama's liberalism is not an opponent of human rights abuses but an embodiment of them. The CIA restricts itself to methods far less ruthless than those permitted by the platform of the Democratic Party. When will Obama bring his own platform into line with the Geneva Accords?

It is a little late in the day for Obama to worry about America's moral reputation. Resisting evil even "when it is hard" hasn't interested liberalism for at least four decades. It rests on an ideology of expedient evil and crass utilitarianism.

With St. Paul, Western civilization, before modern liberalism ransacked it, said: "One may not do evil so that good may result from it." But then modern liberalism came along and reversed the formulation and now insists in the case of everything from therapeutic cloning to killing unborn children to dehydrating the elderly that one should do evil so that good may come from it.

Obama only now rediscovers the Christian ethic for terrorists, even as he weaves the "fabric of human destiny" with the tissue of tortured children.

Gun Control History Lesson � GOLDBLOOM’S PADDED CELL

Gun Control History Lesson � GOLDBLOOM’S PADDED CELL

In 1929, the Soviet Union established gun control. From 1929 to 1953, about 20 million dissidents, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.

In 1911, Turkey established gun control. From 1915 to 1917, 1.5 million Armenians, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.

Germany established gun control in 1938 and from 1939 to 1945, a total of 13 million Jews and others who were unable to defend themselves were rounded up and exterminated.

China established gun control in 1935. From 1948 to 1952, 20 million political dissidents, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.

Guatemala established gun control in 1964. From 1964 to 1981, 100,000 Mayan Indians, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.

Uganda established gun control in 1970. From 1971 to 1979, 300,000 Christians unable to defend themselves es, were rounded up and
exterminated.

Cambodia established gun control in 1956. From 1975 to 1977, one million ‘educated ‘ people, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.

Defenseless people rounded up and exterminated in the 20th Century
because of gun control: 56 million.

It has now been 12 months since gun owners in Australia were forced by new law to surrender 640,381 personal firearms to be destroyed by their own government, a program costing Australia taxpayers more than $500 million dollars. The first year results are now in:
Australia-wide, homicides are up 3.2 percent.
Australia-wide, assaults are up 8.6 percent.
Australia-wide, armed robberies are up 44 percent. (yes, 44 percent)
In the state of Victoria alone, homicides with firearms are now up 300 percent. Note that while the law-abiding citizens turned them in, the
criminals did not, and criminals still possess their guns. It will never happen here? I bet the Aussies said that too!
While figures over the previous 25 years showed a steady decrease in armed robbery with firearms, this has changed drastically upward in the past 12 months, since criminals now are guaranteed that their
prey is unarmed. There has also been a dramatic increase in break-
ins and assaults of the ELDERLY. Australian politicians are at a loss to explain how public safety has decreased, after such monumental effort and expense was expended in successfully ridding Australian society of guns.

The Australian experience and the other historical facts above prove it.
You won’t see this data on the US evening news, or hear politicians disseminating this information. Guns in the hands of honest citizens save lives and property and, yes, gun - control laws adversely affect
only the law-abiding citizens. Take note my fellow Americans, before it’s too late!

The next time someone talks in favor of gun control, please remind him of this history lesson.

With Guns………..We Are ‘Citizens’, without Them……..We Are
‘Subjects’.

During W.W.II the Japanese decided not to invade America because they knew most Americans were ARMED! Note: Admiral Yamamoto
who crafted the attack on Pearl Harbor had attended Harvard from
1919-1921 & was Naval Attaché to the U. S. 1925-28. Most of our Navy was destroyed at Pearl Harbor & our Army had been deprived of funding & was ill prepared to defend the country. It was reported that when asked why Japan did not follow up the Pearl Harbor attack with an invasion of the U . S. Mainland, his reply was that he had lived in the U.S. & knew that almost all households had guns.

If you value your freedom Please spread this anti-gun control message to all your friends! The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing!

Monday, April 20, 2009

Key witness in passport fraud case of Clinton, McCain, and Barack Obama fatally shot � Count Us Out

Key witness in passport fraud case of Clinton, McCain, and Barack Obama fatally shot � Count Us Out

A key witness in a federal probe into passport information stolen from the State Department was fatally shot in front of a District church, the Metropolitan Police Department said yesterday.

Lt. Quarles Harris Jr., 24, who had been cooperating with a federal investigators, was found late Thursday night slumped dead inside a car, in front of the Judah House Praise Baptist Church in Northeast, said Cmdr. Michael Anzallo, head of the department’s Criminal Investigations Division.

Cmdr. Anzallo said a police officer was patrolling the neighborhood when gunshots were heard, then Lt. Harris was found dead inside the vehicle, which investigators would describe only as a blue car.

Emergency medics pronounced him dead at the scene.

City police said they do not know whether his death was a direct result of his cooperation with federal investigators.

“We don’t have any information right now that connects his murder to that case,” Cmdr. Anzallo said.

Police say a “shot spotter” device helped an officer locate Lt. Harris.

A State Department spokeswoman yesterday declined to comment, saying the investigation into the passport fraud is ongoing.

The Washington Times reported April 5 that contractors for the State Department had improperly accessed passport information for presidential candidates Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barack Obama and John McCain, which resulted in a series of firings that reached into the agency’s top ranks.

One agency employee, who was not identified in documents filed in U.S. District Court, was implicated in a credit-card fraud scheme after Lt. Harris told federal authorities he obtained “passport information from a co-conspirator who works for the U.S. Department of State.”

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/apr/19/key-witness-in-passport-fraud-case-fatally-shot/

April 19, 2009 -

Saturday, April 18, 2009

The Obama Deception Complete Movie (2009) English - Степашка

The Obama Deception Complete Movie (2009) English - Степашка: "The Obama Deception Part 1 through 12".

!!!!!

Brutally Honest: "extremism in the defense of liberalism is no vice"

Brutally Honest: "extremism in the defense of liberalism is no vice"

"extremism in the defense of liberalism is no vice"

George Neumayr:

Modern liberals measure "progress" not by the unfolding fulfillment of the natural moral law but by its elimination. Consequently, most of what is labeled "progress" is basically just regress, a return, under a glossier guise, to the practices of antiquity and pre-Christian paganism.

Pagans stuck the inconvenient elderly on snow drifts; moderns dehydrate them to death in hospitals. Pagans left unwanted babies to die on hilltops; moderns bury them in bins behind Planned Parenthood clinics. Pagans attended orgies, moderns attend "gay weddings."

In its deepening moral squalor, in its raw defiance of reality as God made it, the Brave New World is as barbaric as the old one. That Hillary Clinton and other architects of the Brave New World are now forced to grapple clumsily with piracy is somehow fitting. Their "new world order" is intrinsically disordered, a reckless ideological experiment that explodes in recurring currents of chaos, discontent, and lawlessness. Why not piracy too?

The recent gusher of globalist babble at the G-20 summit is exposed by the rise of piracy as a total sham. And the rise of piracy is one more proof of Dambisa Moyo's thesis in Dead Aid -- that ceaseless Western government-to-government handouts to Africa, which are just a new version of white colonialism, have frozen the continent in a helpless and horrid past. After a trillion dollars over sixty years, the only vivid display of entrepreneurial activity in Africa today is…piracy.

National Review noted this week that Bono's organization, One, is organizing a campaign of attacks against Moyo's book. Perhaps Bono can add pirates to his to-do list or maybe co-host a few Park Avenue parties for them with Al Sharpton.

But having already accepted de facto piracy by African governments -- most aid, Moyo observes, evaporates in corruption -- the engineers of the new world order aren't likely to win the "war on piracy" or even fight it.

...

In the giddy days of the campaign, one cheerleading journalist for the San Francisco Chronicle, Mark Morford, speculated that Obama might be a "Lightworker" for the globe -- "that rare kind of attuned being who has the ability to lead us not merely to new foreign policies or health care plans or whatnot, but who can actually help usher in a new way of being on the planet…"

This "new way of being on the planet" looks awfully familiar, a return to history's most dismal, farcical, and evil chapters with tyranny, decadence, and false religion. This week the new way of being on the planet resembled the 18th century -- pirates abroad, tax-revolting tea parties at home, and a president, acting like a king, who collected excessive taxes and hatched extreme plans (such as forcing doctors and nurses to perform abortions against their consciences) while his aides sputtered about "extremists."

George Washington was an extremist in George III's eyes, and maybe even a disgruntled military veteran too. But under the madness of King Obama, extremism in the defense of liberalism is no vice and the citizenry's attempt to moderate it no virtue.

Neumayr's playing hammer here, nailing modern liberalism with effect. God bless him.

Do your part to counter the barbarism of today's leftist mind and pass this one on.

GraphOilogy: “We had everything but money,” A Suggested Guidebook for the “Greater Depression”

GraphOilogy: “We had everything but money,” A Suggested Guidebook for the “Greater Depression”: "“We had everything but money” is a collection of first person accounts of the Great Depression in the United States. Although, it appears to be out of print, it is widely available online. I recommend it as a very good guidebook for our present circumstances, what many are calling the “Greater Depression.”"

Figures on government spending and debt - Yahoo! Finance

Figures on government spending and debt - Yahoo! Finance

Figures on government spending and debt

  • Friday April 17, 2009, 7:45 pm EDT

WASHINGTON (AP) --

Total public debt subject to limit April 16      11,125,587
Statutory debt limit 12,104,000
Total public debt outstanding April 16 11,183,899
Operating balance April 16 257,351
Interest fiscal year 2009 thru February 148,762
Interest same period 2008 198,518
Deficit fiscal year 2009 thru February 764,525
Deficit same period 2008 264,541
Receipts fiscal year 2009 thru February 860,877
Receipts same period 2008 967,153
Outlays fiscal year 2009 thru February 1,625,402
Outlays same period 2008 1,231,694
Gold assets in March 11,041

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

The Cost of Global Warming: A Story in Pictures � The Foundry

The Cost of Global Warming: A Story in Pictures � The Foundry: "human-global-warming"

And what should be the final nail in the coffin: All this economic pain is for very little, if any, environmental gain. Analysis by the Environmental Protection Agency concludes that if the U.S. reduces CO2 emissions 60 percent by 2050, it will reduce global temperature by 0.1 to 0.2 degree Centigrade by 2095. A multi–lateral approach wouldn’t fare much better. Why? Well, there’s a lot of reasons. After all, the science behind global warming is anything but conclusive, but one reason could be how small man’s contribution to carbon dioxide emissions is.
human-global-warming

  • Author: Nick Loris
  • Interact: Sphere
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The Difference Between Winning and Success - Lunch w/ TED - the evangelical outpost

The Difference Between Winning and Success - Lunch w/ TED - the evangelical outpost

http://www.evangelicaloutpost.com/archives/2009/04/the-difference.html

Coach John Wooden

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Vinegar and Honey: Seasons Of Life

Vinegar and Honey: Seasons Of Life

Seasons Of Life



There was an Indian Chief who had four sons. He wanted his sons to learn not to judge things too quickly. So he sent them each on a quest, in turn, to go and look at a pear tree that was a great distance away.

The first son went in the winter, the second in the spring, the third in summer, and the youngest son in the fall. When they had all gone and come back, he called them together to describe what they had seen.

The first son said that the tree was ugly, bent, and twisted.The second son said no it was covered with green buds and full of promise. The third son disagreed; he said it was laden with blossoms that smelled so sweet and looked so beautiful, it was the most graceful thing he had ever seen. The last son disagreed with all of them; he said it was ripe and drooping with fruit, full of life and fulfillment.

The man then explained to his sons that each of them had reported correctly, because they had each seen but one season in the tree's life. He told them that you cannot judge a tree, or a person, by only one season,and that the essence of who they are and the pleasure, joy, and love that come from that life can only be measured at the end,when all the seasons are passed.

If you give up when it's winter, you will miss the promise of your spring, the beauty of your summer, the fulfillment of your fall.

Moral: Don't let the pain of one season destroy the joy of all the rest. Don't judge life by one difficult season. Persevere through the difficult seasons and better ones are sure to come.


"To everything there is a season,a time for every purpose under the sun."
Ecclesiastes 3:1 KJV

Curmudgeonly & Skeptical�

Curmudgeonly & Skeptical�

IRS, Fed Reserve, gold, taxes