tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13401394901992743312024-03-13T11:22:45.501-07:00Good Neighbor BlogUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger168125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1340139490199274331.post-31587714387523323282010-09-12T09:37:00.000-07:002010-09-12T09:37:25.610-07:00THE CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS<i>"Green" vs. "Red, White & Blue"</i><br />
<b>By Marita Noon</b><br />
"Our civilization is not indestructible: it needs to be actively defended"--so said a recent Wall Street Journal article highlighting the "Huntingtonian model" as laid out in the classic work of late Harvard political scientist Samuel Huntington: Clash of Civilizations. In short, the idea is that "a civilization-based world order is emerging in which states that share cultural affinities will cooperate with each other and group themselves around the leading states of their civilization." The three main civilizations are Western, Muslim, and the Confucian-with the West declining in power.<br />
The West includes America.<br />
The article's author proposes a political incorrect idea: survival depends on groups with a shared civilization uniting to defend it against challenges.<br />
Looking at the three-civilization model, The West is declining because we've become dependent on the other two. The Middle-eastern countries-Muslim civilization-for our oil. Asian countries-Confucian civilizations-for most everything else. We, in the Western civilization, manufacture very little. Our computers and cell phones, our furniture and clothes, our dog food and medicines are mostly manufactured in China. It is hard to find consumables without the "Made in China" label.<br />
The Muslim or Confucian civilizations have not become super-powers. They cannot boast about housing any of the world's great institutions of learning. The major inventions do not come from these civilizations. No. Instead, much of the West's demise can be traced back to the emergence of a fourth civilization-a post- Huntingtonian civilization.<br />
"Green."<br />
Though thought to be the salvation of America-and, in fact, the world, the Green movement has morphed into a civilization clashing with the Western world.<br />
The environmental movement had not yet fully geared up at the time of the release of The Clash of Civilizations. They were viewed as a radical fringe in their beginning back in the sixties and moved into a worthwhile cause in the polluted seventies. However, as Patrick Moore, co-founder of GreenPeace (one of the first environmental groups) explained "the 80's ushered in the age of environmental extremism." The basic issues for which he and Greenpeace fought had largely been accomplished and the general public was in agreement with the primary message. In order for the environmentalists to stay counter-culture, they had to adopt ever more extreme positions. "What happened is environmental extremism. They've abandoned science and logic altogether."<br />
Now, the Green civilization is largely responsible for America's dependence on foreign oil-which has become a security issue as well as an energy problem. We have vast supplies of oil and gas right here in America, but we are not allowed to access it. New legislation and regulation is constantly introduced, on both state and national levels, that either shuts off access to energy supplies or makes them more expensive or difficult to extract-making us ever more dependent of unfriendly governments for our energy resources. As a result, we send billions to Muslim civilizations and they are "exploding."<br />
Likewise, the economic assent of the Confucian civilization can be traced, at least in part, to the Green civilization. The "extremism" with which they have pursued their agenda has moved beyond the pollutants of the seventies to the modern-day attempt to eliminate all carbon emissions. They've pushed policy that has determined that the CO2 that humans breathe out and that plants breathe in-a part of the natural cycle of life-is a "pollutant" that must be vanquished. As a part of this effort, energy has become more expensive and industry is viewed as "dirty." Therefore, manufacturing has moved to off-shore locations-specifically China. Then we import it-and think we are "clean." All this has done is shift the C02 emissions to China where they do not have the pollution controls that we have in America. Instead of America producing CO2 emissions, China is spewing so-called greenhouse gases and true pollutants into the air with such rapidity that the cloud of pollution can be seen creeping to America's shores via satellite photo.<br />
If typical, the response to this "opinion piece" will spotlight the clash of civilizations. The "Green" will attack me with vigor. The "Red, White & Blue" will cheer. As an e-mail I received following a recent radio interview said, "Finally someone speaking out against the WACOS!!"<br />
Huntington was right. There is a clash of civilizations. The question is, will we allow the destruction of the "Red, White & Blue" or will we actively defend it?Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1340139490199274331.post-24443683610636179082010-08-09T07:52:00.000-07:002010-08-09T07:52:39.325-07:0050 SIGNS YOU ARE A BAD NEIGHBORWe would love to share with you an article that we just posted on our own blog! “50 Signs You are a Bad Neighbor” would be an interesting story for your readers to check out and discuss on your blog, so we hope you will consider sharing it!<br />
Thanks so much for your time, and have a wonderful day!<br />
Sheryl Owen<br />
_____________________________________________<br />
<br />
<b>50 Signs You are a Bad Neighbor </b><br />
We all have neighbors that we could really do without, right? You know the people that I am talking about… It might however surprise you that to someone else YOU are one of those people that they just can’t stand to have as a neighbor. So, you might be wondering how you know if you are one such person. Funny you should ask as I find myself in the same predicament. So, after a bit of soul searching and digging in my memory I came up with the following 50 signs that you are a bad neighbor:<br />
<b>Pets –</b> Nobody has an issue with you having a cat or dog, usually if something comes up it is more how you are taking care of the pet or not that becomes an issue like:<br />
You let your dog out of the house late at night or early in the morning and they bark a lot (and loudly). <br />
You let your dog out and don’t quickly let them back in so they scratch and scratch at your door (while barking loudly). <br />
You let your dog go to the bathroom in your yard and don’t clean up (so your yard is a mine field). <br />
You walk your pet but don’t keep them on a leash. <br />
You let your dog or cat roam the neighborhood (because “everyone loves them”). <br />
Your dog has a problem with biting yet you tie them up outside your home for extended time periods. <br />
You let your dog dig holes in your yard making it less than attractive which reflects on the neighborhood. <br />
Your dog is outside so much the grass is worn down from their chain dragging back and forth as they run and bark at people passing by. <br />
You don’t clean up after your dog when they go to the bathroom in your neighbor’s yard. <br />
You let your cat or dog fight with other pets in the neighborhood. <br />
<b>Kids</b> – Who doesn’t love the sound of kids playing and having a good time in the neighborhood? Well you might be surprised… In general it’s not a problem but watch out if you allow one of the following:<br />
You let your kids TP or “egg” other houses in the neighborhood (yes, even if it is one of their “friends”). <br />
You let your kids run wild outside with no apparent adult supervision. <br />
You buy your kids three wheelers, go carts, mini bikes, and other loud and annoying toys and then let them go wherever they please as long as they stay close to home. <br />
You let your kids buy fireworks and allow every Saturday night to be the 4th of July. <br />
You let your kids have lots of parties (even if it’s not on a school night). <br />
If you buy your child all the best toys and then they run around the neighborhood bragging to other kids (usually resulting in those kids pestering their parents for the same type of gifts). <br />
If you are constantly going to the neighbors asking them to support one of your child’s causes (brownies, cub scouts, school, band, sports teams, etc.). Your neighbors don’t need so many magazines and candybars, give them a break! <br />
If your yard is the neighborhood football or baseball field… <br />
If you let your kids play basketball in the driveway late at night or early in the morning (especially on the weekends). <br />
If your kids leave toys in the neighbors yard all the time… eventually it gets old. <br />
<b>Yard –</b> Everyone understands that working in the yard is not a lot of fun, but it is important to the overall look of the neighborhood. You could find yourself in trouble with the neighbors if you do one of the following: <br />
You are always late mowing your yard so the grass is always long and always results in you needing to rake. <br />
You always mow your lawn late at night or early in the morning (in case you don’t get it… that also goes for trimming). <br />
In the Fall if you never rake your leaves because they will naturally decompose. <br />
If you don’t take care of dead grass or yellowing grass in your yard. <br />
If you let your bushes and trees die and never remove or replace them. <br />
If you park 10 cars in your backyard and run a private car dealership or junkyard (whichever you prefer to call it). <br />
If you let your yard get over-run by weeds (yes dandelions included they aren’t pretty yellow flowers). <br />
If you always water your yard (even after weeks of rain). <br />
If you feel that every inch of your yard must contain a pink flamingo or other “lawn ornament.” <br />
If you build the largest monstrosity of a swingset/clubhouse in your yard. <br />
<b>House </b>– Just like with your yard there are basic expectations that need to be met with your home as well to keep you in good standing with the neighbors. You could have issues if you…<br />
NEVER, ever wash your windows and it’s clear that they are covered in dirt and other grime. <br />
If you don’t keep your house paint looking decent (if it is chipping, repaint). <br />
If you paint your house the brightest of colors to be “different” you probably will be… forever “different.” <br />
If you never wash your house or if you don’t know what power washing your house is… you might have a problem. <br />
If you leave your Christmas lights on your house all year long, people will NOT admire your holiday spirit. <br />
If you in general always decorate for every single holiday and go “all out.” <br />
If you start a lot of home improvement projects, but never finish them. <br />
If you like to talk to neighbors about how much bigger/better your house is than their house (give us a break, we know you are awesome). <br />
If you always have a sign in your yard from a contractor working in your home (okay maybe it’s their trucks and the workers always being around). <br />
If your home alarm system goes off ALL THE TIME, you will eventually annoy your neighbors and they won’t come check on you. <br />
<b>Random </b>– There are some other things that can make you a less-than-desirable neighbor that you may or may not appreciate knowing like:<br />
If you park an RV, boat, and five cars in a driveway that is meant for a max of 3 cars. <br />
If you ALWAYS park in the street right behind your neighbor’s driveway. <br />
If you have tons of parties at your house and all your friends park in the street blocking the neighborhood. <br />
If you have LOUD, I mean LOUD parties (even if they are rare). <br />
If you argue a lot with your spouse or yell at your children a lot it tends to make you less popular with the neighbors. <br />
If you like to pull pranks or practical jokes a lot on neighbors it could get old (flaming dog poo, etc.). <br />
If you feel the need to have campaign posters/yard signs up all year long, you will probably get negative feedback. <br />
If you burn leaves and or other things in your yard (who does that still, seriously…) <br />
If you have a yard sale or garage sale every week (that’s considered a retail shop at that point) <br />
If you sit outside and talk to EVERYONE that passes by, people may not find you as charming as you think they do. <br />
HONORABLE MENTION – PEEPING IN NEIGHBOR’S WINDOWS IS NOT A PART OF YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD WATCH DUTIES!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1340139490199274331.post-13040478600892726532010-08-07T13:22:00.001-07:002010-08-07T13:22:51.502-07:00THE WOLVES ARE AT THE DOOR!<b>By Henry Lamb </b> <br />
America is not a democracy. It was never intended to be a democracy. The founders worked hard to see that the new government they created was not a democracy, but a growing segment of the population seems hell-bent on transforming this great nation into a democracy in which the rights of the minority are systematically ignored.<br />
The United States of America was quite deliberately designed to be a federal republic. The founders recognized the highest governing authority on earth to be the individual. They realized that they, as individuals, had the authority and the intelligence to create a new system of government, empowered by the consent of the governed to do only those specific chores that the people stipulated in a written Constitution. <br />
They recognized that in such a government, there would need to be direct accountability to the electorate for every official empowered to make laws that restricted the freedom of individuals. This new federal republic had to recognize and honor the state governments that were already constructed, and the local governments within these states, if the new federal republic were to have any chance of succeeding.<br />
The Constitution these men formulated contained two provisions to ensure that the new government would forever remain a federal republic: a Senate chosen by state governments; and a President chosen indirectly by what came to be known as the Electoral College. The 17th Amendment destroyed a major safeguard of the federal republic by allowing Senators to be chosen by the public, rather than by the states.<br />
The 17th Amendment was a significant part of the wave of progressivism ushered in by the Wilson administration in 1913. Imposition of the income tax, the Federal Reserve, the Interstate Commerce Commission and the Federal Trade Commission, began the attack by progressives on the federal republic the founders had so carefully constructed. <br />
The Electoral College is the last and only element of the Constitution that keeps the United States of America from being formally transformed into a direct democracy. Now, the progressives have taken aim, and are attacking this last bastion of the federal republic.<br />
Direct election of Senators came as the result of a Constitutional Amendment, which can be reversed as was the prohibition amendment - another progressive-era mistake. The war on the Electoral College is taking a different path: states are enacting legislation that authorizes all the state’s electors to be awarded to the national winner of the popular vote, regardless of the how the people voted in the state.<br />
Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey, Maryland, and now Massachusetts have all enacted legislation that pledges to assign their state’s electors to the winner of the national popular vote in the presidential election, regardless of how the voters in the state voted.<br />
Prior to this new war on the Electoral College, in all states except Nebraska and Maine, all the state’s electors were assigned to the candidate who received the most votes in the state. This is the winner-take-all system. This system assures that small states have a say in the selection of the President.<br />
Progressives argue that the winner-take-all system is not democratic. So be it. It was not designed to be democratic; it was designed to help balance the power between and among the states and the various branches of government. It was designed to make government function as a federal republic rather than a democracy.<br />
Few people understand the importance of the Electoral College because schools have all but erased the subject from the curriculum. The Electoral College is cumbersome, it is confusing, it is frustrating for the supporters of Al Gore who saw the Electoral College bestow the presidency on George W. Bush who received fewer popular votes than did Al Gore.<br />
Consider the effect of eliminating the Electoral College: direct democracy.<br />
The president would be chosen by urban population centers. There would be no need to campaign in rural states. There would be no need to be concerned about the needs and cares of rural people. There would be no interest in the minority. <br />
The genius of the American system of governance is the carefully developed balance of power between the states and the federal government, the various branches of government, and between conflicting philosophies of governance. When the minority is driven from the debate, or ignored, tyranny reins. <br />
The first 18 months of the Democratic regime in Washington has demonstrated how the majority can ignore the minority and the Constitution. In the cycle of governance, democracy is the last phase before anarchy. The founders wanted no part of a democracy; they created a federal republic.<br />
A democracy is often described as two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner. The wolves are at the door of our federal republic.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1340139490199274331.post-43550435568345570392010-08-05T21:17:00.000-07:002010-08-05T21:17:05.063-07:00OBAMA COMPLIES WITH AGENDA 21...Obama complies with Agenda 21 and expands federal power<br />
<b>By Henry Lamb </b> <br />
President Obama’s Executive Order 13547 issued July 19, further extends federal power, embraces global governance, diminishes the rights and privileges of individuals, and brings the United States into compliance with <a href=http://www.un.org/esa/dsd/agenda21/res_agenda21_17.shtml> Agenda 21, Chapter 17.6</a>, which says: <br />
“Each coastal State should consider establishing, or where necessary strengthening, appropriate coordinating mechanisms (such as a high-level policy planning body) for integrated management and sustainable development of coastal and marine areas….”<br />
The National Ocean Council created by the Executive Order creates this mechanism - and much more.<br />
The genius of the American system of governance created by the U.S. Constitution is the delicate balance of power between the federal government, state and local governments, and the people. The founders recognized the people as the source of power; the people came first. It was the people who organized states. The states created a federal government and through the Constitution, limited the power of the new government to those specific powers set forth in Article 1, Section 8. All unspecified powers were explicitly retained by the states or the people. <br />
In the first 200 years, the United States of America produced greater wealth and prosperity than the rest of the world had produced in 2000 years. Why? Because individuals were free to pursue their own individual happiness.<br />
Throughout its entire history, however, there have been those who believe that government is, or should be, the source of power; that the people are, or should be, subjects of the state. Since the 1970s, these people have used “environmental protection” as an excuse to expand the power of government. They argued that free people, in their pursuit of personal happiness, were polluting the environment. Therefore, government had to restrain free people in order to save the earth.<br />
Their arguments prevailed in Congress, in the schools, and throughout society. The result has been ever- expanding government power that continually diminishes individual freedom, which results in less investment in the pursuit of individual happiness and a gradual slowdown in the growth of prosperity for everyone. <br />
Once, Americans could do whatever they could conceive, restrained only by the possible consequences of infringing their neighbors’ right to do the same. Now, Americans must get permission from multiple layers of government to do anything that produces income, pay multiple taxes on whatever income is generated, and comply with expensive regulations that govern every activity that might be pursued. Consequently, the individual entrepreneurial spirit is steadily being replaced by the ever-expanding reach of government’s ambition to manage society.<br />
President Obama’s most recent Executive Order is another example of government’s ever-expanding reach. First, Obama created an Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force in June of 2009. This group worked a year to produce a <a href=http://www.whitehouse.gov/files/documents/OPTF_FinalRecs.pdf>report</a> that recommends how government can better protect the environment relating to the oceans and the Great Lakes. The Executive Order essentially adopts the recommendations in the report as national policy, and creates a new bureaucracy called the National Ocean Council to implement all the recommendations in the report.<br />
The two most egregious recommendations are: controlling activities on land that affects the ocean, and ratification of the Convention on the Law of the Sea.<br />
Before America became a nanny- state subject to the tyrannical decrees of the federal government, people were subject to laws that forced polluters to make whole anyone who was harmed. People who used their own property in the pursuit of their own individual happiness who inadvertently, through negligence, or deliberately polluted water that harmed a neighbor could be brought to court and forced to pay damages.<br />
Now, the federal government ignores private property rights by requiring government approval of any proposed use of private property, payment of fees for the privilege, and payment of penalties for any infraction of a myriad of rules that govern the activities that government may allow.<br />
The trampling of private property rights is not as bad, however, as the subjugation that would result from the ratification of the <a href=http://www.sovereignty.net/Library/LOST-web.htm>Convention on the Law of the Sea</a>. This treaty was rejected by Ronald Reagan in 1982. Despite the so-called improvements to the treaty boasted by the Clinton administration, the U.S. Senate rejected it in 2000. President Bush tried to have it ratified, but the Senate rejected it again in 2004. Now Obama is trying again to force this horrible treaty down America’s throat.<br />
This treaty would give the U.N. power to regulate activity within our territorial seas (Article 2, (3)); it would give the U.N. the power to levy taxes in the form of application fees ($250,000) and royalties; it provides no benefits that the United States does not already enjoy. Yet, the Obama administration has set up this new National Ocean Council to convince the Senate to ratify the treaty. <br />
This treaty is another expansion of global governance, which is defined by the U.N. to be that “framework of rules, institutions, and practices that limits the behavior of individuals, organizations, and companies” (U.N. Development Report, 1999, p. 34).<br />
Obama’s expansion of government is taking the nation in the wrong direction. The federal government should be reduced in size, scope, and function. The federal government should be pushed back inside the bottle of those limited powers defined in Article 1 Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution. States and individuals should reclaim the power given to them by the Constitution and guaranteed by the 10th Amendment. No elected official – including President Obama – is immune to the power of the ballot box. Those in power who support Obama’s brand of foolishness should be forced to find a new career path next November.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1340139490199274331.post-19399498584124139802010-08-05T21:06:00.000-07:002010-08-05T21:06:26.756-07:00REFLECTIONS ON THE HEALTH CARE DEBATE<b>By Michael Connelly</b><br />
<br />
Almost one year ago I started by blog on Constitutional law by posting an article I had written on HR 3200 that was the original version of the health care bill pending in Congress. I pointed out that the bill was unconstitutional on its face because it involved the granting of powers to the Executive branch of government that Congress didn’t have to begin with. Specifically, Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution does not give Congress the right to regulate health care and certainly does not give it the power to allow the President of the United States to regulate health care. I also pointed out that since the states have always regulated health care on their own; such action by Congress violated the Tenth Amendment of the Constitution. <br />
Along with other opponents of the legislation I pointed out that the pending legislation would force the rationing of health care, particularly for senior citizens, would provide for taxpayer funding of abortions, provide health care to illegal immigrants, and would allow Federal bureaucrats to chose the doctors who would treat American citizens and determine what type of care people could receive. <br />
I came under immediate attack by those on the left, including such groups as Media Matters; a George Soros funded group, as well as liberal newspapers for being a liar and a fear monger. They said that none of this would happen under the legislation. I continued to read and monitor the new versions of the bill that were proposed in the House and Senate including the one that was finally adopted. I talked in my blog about the massive tax increases that would take place under the legislation and how people could be subject to finds for refusing to buy federally mandated health care insurance.<br />
In the meantime, the President of the United States and the leaders of Congress continued to repeatedly assure the citizens of the United States that there would be not health care rationing, no taxpayer funded abortions, and they could certainly keep being treated by the doctors of their choice. <br />
Now it is time for a reality check. As the health care bill is being implemented the states of Pennsylvania and Maryland have been provided with assurances of Federal funds, i.e. taxpayer dollars for the funding of abortions. Insurance companies acting under government mandates are offering plans that allow the government to decide who will be treated by particular doctors. In other words, Americans will not be allowed to choose their own physicians. There is also nothing in the legislation that provides for documentation of who participates in the mandated health insurance programs. Therefore, it is wide open for illegal aliens to get Federally subsidized coverage.<br />
As for the tax increases, they are numerous in the health care bill including provisions that allow the IRS to track and impose taxes on Americans who buy gold to protect themselves against an economic collapse. However, the most onerous tax is that on the use of artificial limbs that will directly impact the thousands of American military personnel who have lost arms or legs in combat while defending our freedom. They will now be forced to pay a tax in order to use the artificial limbs that should be provided to them by a grateful America.<br />
And finally, we have the recess appointment by Obama of Dr. Donald Berwick to oversee the Medicare and Medicaid systems in the country. He is an admirer of the failing British system of universal health care and has stated that rationing of health care in the United States will occur. He and his group of Federal bureaucrats will decide who will get care and what kind of care. They will be making the life or death decisions for millions of American citizens. Death panels will be real.<br />
The bottom line is that the American people were lied to by the President and the leaders of Congress. We are being stripped of our Constitutional rights by the Obama administration and this is just the beginning. Other legislation pending in Congress goes even further in attempts to abolish the Constitution. Americans need to wake up now and fight back or our Republic will soon be just a memory.<br />
Michael Connelly<br />
http://michaelconnelly.viviti.com/<br />
mrobertc@hotmail.comUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1340139490199274331.post-57083870497634061342010-08-05T20:02:00.000-07:002010-08-05T20:02:02.000-07:00ATTACKING OUR RIGHT TO VOTEBy Michael Connelly<br />
<br />
The right to vote is perhaps the most cherished and important of the rights guaranteed to Americans by the Constitution. Without the right to vote we literally have no way to control the Federal government and keep it from taking away our other rights. Yet, it is precisely because of that fact that the so-called progressives in this country are now trying to severely limit the right to vote, and unfortunately the efforts are coming at us from all three branches of government. We can also expect them to intensify as the November elections grow closer.<br />
First, we have the attack by the Congress on the 1st Amendment right of all businesses and groups to participate in the election process. This came in the form of the Disclose Act, which thanks to the efforts of my you and many other Americans has at least temporarily stalled in the Senate after passing the House of Representatives. <br />
Then, we have the blatant actions of Attorney General Eric Holder and the Department of Justice (DOJ) in making a decision to drop the civil suits against members of the Black Panther Party who were videoed during the 2008 election intimidating white voters in Philadelphia. According to J. Christian Adams, a former DOJ attorney, he and his colleagues were informed that the office would not prosecute any minorities for voter intimidation, but would only prosecute whites who intimidated minority voters. <br />
Apparently, that was only the beginning. Historically, members of the military and their families have voted overwhelmingly for conservative political candidates who support the values that the troops are fighting for. This has always been an irritant to the left so there have been increasing efforts by the progressives in some states to derive ways to keep absentee votes from the military from being counted. These tactics have primarily involved waiting so late to send out the ballots to the troops that it would be virtually impossible for them to return them by the election deadline. <br />
In October of 2009 President Obama signed into law a bill introduced by Senator John Cornyn (R. TX) that required the Secretaries of State in each state to mail out absentee ballots to military personnel no later than 45 days prior to the election. This could only be avoided by the Secretary of State getting a waiver because of something unforeseen happening that would prevent the ballots from going out on time. <br />
It sounds great doesn’t it? A left wing controlled Congress passing such legislation and Obama actually signing it. Yet, now it has been learned by the few members of the media who will report on this that at a recent meeting between DOJ officials and the Secretaries of State of various state governments, the DOJ told them not to worry about getting waivers or complying with the law. They were told that the Department of Justice had no intention of enforcing it. In other words, the whole thing was a ruse. The Executive Branch of government has no interest in protecting the right to vote of the men and women fighting for and dying for us overseas. <br />
So, as you can see there is two pronged attack on the right to vote coming from Congress and the White House. First, Congress will do everything it can to limit the free speech efforts by people who disagree with this administration from influencing the election. Secondly, the DOJ has virtually declared an open season during the 2010 election for groups supporting the left to do what is necessary to intimidate voters who might oppose the progressive agenda. At the same time, the DOJ will do its part to help eliminate from consideration votes coming from our heroes overseas in the war.<br />
As unbelievable as all of this is, it gets worse when you look at what has being done by the third branch of government, the Judicial Branch. Certain far left Federal Judges who have their own political agendas have decided to adopt the approach that if you don’t vote for the things I support, you vote won’t count. This has clearly been the case in the recent rulings on the Arizona Immigration Law and the California Marriage Law. <br />
In both of these cases we have the voters of a sovereign state passing legislation that applies only to their states. Yet, because the progressives don’t like these laws they are essentially telling the citizens of these states that you no longer have the right to vote. Do not let yourself be fooled by the decisions that these two pieces of legislation were unconstitutional. Nothing in the Constitution of the United States prohibits the State of Arizona from passing a law allowing its police officers to enforce an already existing Federal law. <br />
In addition, there is nothing at all in the Constitution dealing with marriage whether heterosexual or otherwise. Therefore the states have this power under the specific provisions of the Tenth Amendment that says:<br />
“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” <br />
That is very clear. Whether you agree or disagree with the prohibition of gay marriage by the people of the State of California the fact is that the decision is up to them and when a Federal judge takes that power away from the people, they are being denied their right to vote. That, by the way, is a right clearly granted to the people by the Constitution and can’t be legally taken away by any branch of the Federal Government. <br />
Michael Connelly<br />
http://michaelconnelly.viviti.com/<br />
mrobertc@hotmail.comUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1340139490199274331.post-28135255809365527332010-07-19T09:21:00.001-07:002010-07-19T09:21:49.631-07:00$8 GAS - If You Can Find It<b>By Henry Lamb </b> <br />
Following Rahm Emanuel’s advice, the Obama administration is certainly not letting the Gulf oil crisis go to waste. The BP catastrophe is just what Obama needed to justify pushing his irresponsible energy policy on a weary nation. Obama wants to stop using fossil fuel in favor of more exotic alternative energy sources. He doesn’t seem to know, or care, that there is no alternative energy technology that can meet the current energy demand.His actions suggest that if enough tax-generated government subsidies are applied, the technology will emerge. <br />
His recent visit to <a href=http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-valley/technology/107709-obama-to-tour-electric-truck-factory-in-kansas-city>Smith Electric Vehicles</a> in Kansas City proved to be a dog and pony show to try to convince the nation that his $32 million grant to the firm to produce 500 trucks was well spent. This is a direct subsidy from taxpayers of $64,000 per truck, which, when offered in the marketplace will still cost twice as much as a comparable non-electric vehicle. This comes on the heels of a $2 billion grant to subsidize <a href=http://content.usatoday.com/communities/greenhouse/post/2010/07/obama-announces-nearly-2-billion-in-solar-energy-grants/1>two solar plants</>.<br />
So strong is his desire to wean Americans off fossil fuel that he immediately issued a six-month moratorium on drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. The order was issued as a safety precaution even though the 50,000 well holes drilled in the Gulf since 1947 have <a href=http://liveshots.blogs.foxnews.com/2010/07/09/gulf-wells-risk-vs-reward/>leaked far less oil</a> than has been released through natural seepage. As tragic and expensive as the BP spill may be, its impact on the economy can’t be compared to the loss of oil production from the Gulf. <br />
Obama was only 12 when OPEC decided to turn off the oil faucet to the United States in 1973. At the time, OPEC supplied only about seven percent of our oil. Nevertheless, gasoline prices more than doubled, and supplies were sporadic, at best. Long lines formed at every gas station; cars with license plates that ended with odd numbers were allowed to purchase gas on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Cars with plates ending in even numbers could buy only on the other days of the week.<br />
Oil from the Gulf supplies nearly ten percent of our petroleum requirement. By turning off this faucet, the price of gasoline will skyrocket, perhaps doubling, as it did in the 1970s.<br />
Despite two court rulings against Obama’s moratorium, he continues to insist that no drilling will be allowed. By <a href=http://money.cnn.com/2010/06/25/news/economy/shallow_drilling_ban/index.htm>refusing to issue permits</a>, the Obama administration has effectively stopped Gulf oil production regardless of the courts’ rejection of his moratoria.<br />
The first wave of economic impact is already spreading across the 35,000 families that are directly employed by the Gulf oil industry. Each oil rig worker provides employment for three additional people who work in supporting industries. These jobs, too, are evaporating. The deepwater rigs cannot simply sit and wait in hopes that Obama might change his mind. The daily cost for a rig to sit and wait is about $600,000. Diamond Offshore has already announced that its Endeavor rig is moving to Egyptian waters. More will surely follow. Once these rigs are out of the Gulf, they will not soon return.<br />
The second wave of economic impact will begin when prices at the pump begin to rise. Remember the spike in gas prices when hurricane Katrina shut down a few rigs for a few weeks. Now, imagine what the effect will be when there are no rigs in the Gulf, for the foreseeable future.<br />
Currently, more than 60 percent of our oil is imported. With no oil from the Gulf, nearly 75 percent of our oil will have to come from abroad. Canada and Mexico now supply only about 15 percent of our oil. This means that most of our oil will have to come from countries that really want to do us harm. It makes no sense at all to deliberately become dependent upon our enemies for our energy needs.<br />
A responsible administration and Congressional leadership would do whatever is required to fix the BP problem in the Gulf without shutting down domestic oil supplies. Next, they would open domestic reserves, on land and in the oceans, to environmentally safe development. A president who is more interested in his citizens’ well being than in advancing his own agenda, would not try to force his citizens to use exotic alternative energy that costs much more than petroleum. It is apparent, of course, that Obama’s first concern is his own agenda, regardless of what the people or the courts may say.<br />
If America is to survive as the land of the free, it is imperative that the current leadership in Washington be removed and replaced with people who believe in the principles of limited government, free markets, private property, and individual freedom. Two years of leadership by the Obama-Reid-Pelosi trinity demonstrates contempt for these principles. The only reward worthy of their service is early and absolute retirement.<br />
____<br />
<a href=mailto:henry@freedom.org >Henry Lamb</a> is the author of “<a href=http://sovereignty.net/store/gg-promo.html>The Rise of Global Governance</a>,” Chairman of <a href=http://www.sovereignty.net> Sovereignty International </a>, and founder of the <a href =http://www.freedom.org> Environmental Conservation Organization</a> (ECO) and <a href=http://freedom21.org>Freedom21, Inc.</a>. Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1340139490199274331.post-88293324999437389302010-05-31T20:12:00.000-07:002010-05-31T20:12:32.886-07:00NEA'S FOCUS ON POLITICAL - NOT ACADEMIC CONCERNS<b>by Beverly K. Eakman </b> <br />
Wednesday, 26 May 2010 07:12 <br />
<br />
Several states have begun exercising their prerogatives lately in a decision to face up, finally, to K-12 education failures. For example, according to a report by Deborah Simmons in the May 24th issue of the Washington Times, DC school Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee is working to do away with seniority-based lay-off methods and has begun tying both teacher retention and tenure to pupil performance. So are a number of other states — among them, New York, Colorado, Connecticut and Arizona.<br />
“Part of the impetus for this change,” writes Simmons, “is the Obama administration’s Race to the Top program, which promises billions in federal funds to school systems that institute a wide range of reforms, including improved classroom instruction and tougher teacher evaluations.” In some cases, schools are making use of “longitudinal studies,” in which teachers’ names can be linked to pupils over the entire course of a student’s K-12 class records.<br />
Longitudinal measures of that sort come with a significant downside — tidbits of psychological information divulged by clueless children, who are subsequently incorporated into standardized “tests” and surveys. These morsels range from the seemingly benign to the blatantly political, including personal family data — all of which becomes the domain of behavioral analysts (individuals with dual advanced degrees in behavioral science and statistics). These “experts” come to conclusions about the pupil, some of which are way off base, yet never completely disappear from the computer system. <br />
On the plus side, the various attempts to link teachers to student performance (dare we call it “merit”?), and to base teacher tenure and layoff policies on something besides being their students’ best buddies represent a welcome rejection of policies all-but-codified by the two teacher unions, the National Education Association (NEA) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT). Their seniority-based rationale, originally, was that it was wrong to throw out experienced educators with advanced degrees for cheaper new, college grads — a justifiable position. <br />
The problem is, merely linking meritorious teaching to student knowledge levels doesn’t mean improved standards overall, especially given the number of decades student knowledge has been allowed to fall.<br />
There are only nine reasons why a child doesn’t learn: visual and auditory memory, visual identification, spatial and abstract reasoning, mental stamina (i.e., concentration), perceptual speed, hand-eye coordination, and thought-expression synchronization. But how many education majors specialize in any of these?<br />
None — except for graduate-level educators, who are siphoned off for high-priced learning centers and elite private schools, which gratefully make use of legitimate scientific research, recognizing that before their staffs can remediate anything, they have to diagnose the child’s real weaknesses — not just buy into a bunch of psychobabble. That’s how these centers and schools stay in business.<br />
What is interesting is that nearly all of us are weak in at least one of the nine areas listed above. Yet, all nine are correctible — without drugs. The earlier, the better, of course.<br />
For example: If a child thinks ¼ is bigger than ½ based on the logic that 4 is bigger than 2, then he probably has an abstract reasoning and/or a spatial reasoning weakness. The pupil will try to memorize his or her way through math. By fifth grade, the student will crash. As an adult, the same graduate will struggle with tax and budget issues and never even look into the complexities of global warming theory. This is because memory, no matter how spectacular, can take a person only so far.<br />
Another example combines reading and spelling. Suppose a child has a significant deficiency in auditory memory? The pupils can’t seem to recall sound combinations and transfer these to unfamiliar words. Systematic, intensive phonics is the correct remedy for such a child, as only 15 percent of English words are truly non-phonetic.<br />
So what is the average public (and even most private) school’s response? First, they are busy trying to diagnose non-germane, psychological phenomena instead of any of the above; secondly they are applying an eclectic mix of phonics and “whole language” (a.k.a. “look-say”) to the task of reading, technically called “psycholinguistics,” which only the brightest children can surmount. The idea behind psycholinguistics is that context clues are the keys to a full-functioning reading capability, but that is not true for young children who don’t yet comprehend many double meanings — for example, the difference between “deer,” the animal and “dear,” the fond greeting. <br />
So, the young pupil guesses at words — and is encouraged by teachers to do so. Here’s what comes of such foolishness:<br />
Instead of (taken from an actual textbook):<br />
As the Spirit of St. Louis touched down on the turf, the crowds surged toward it. <br />
The student will read the sentence like this:<br />
As the Sprite of St. Louis turned down the surf, the cowards splurged toward it. <br />
Couple this to the fact that youngsters are no longer taught proper enunciation, out of some misguided notion that doing so somehow demeans certain cultural populations —such as southerners (i.e., the Texas “drawl”); blacks (“ebonics” or “black English”); or northeastern accents (the famous Brooklyn, Jewish and Yankee cadences). All of this is nonsense, as proved by the New York Conservatory for the Dramatic Arts, whose students and graduates are prominently shown in televised performances ranging from the Macy Thanksgiving Day Parade to Broadway. None of the kids, black, white or polka-dot has accents unless they are supposed to in a particular role.<br />
Maybe a student’s problem is that eye movements are slow, left-to-right, thereby impairing the visual speed needed to read easily and fluently. Some students may even skip to another line right in the middle of a sentence, through no fault their own, owing to what is called a “lazy-eye syndrome,” which is easily corrected either using prisms in a set of eyeglasses and/or a thin colored plastic sheaf over the page that causes the background color to appear in something other than the usual black-on-white. A machine then can literally train the eye to move increasingly faster in small increments so that the student eventually performs the task smoothly.<br />
Another possibility, currently being researched, involves the early overuse of computerized lessons. Colette Silvestri, a former early-childhood computer enthusiast, earned great respect for her groundbreaking efforts with gifted children via her self-styled WIREWorks program in Enola and Hershey, Pennsylvania. In an interview she indicated that such immersion into the automated, programmed world may be “closing a window” on brain functions that cannot be recaptured after the primary-school years. This affects things like creativity and the kind of meticulous, hand-eye coordination necessary for penmanship and playing exacting musical instruments, such as a violin. Some of her European counterparts seem to have come to a similar conclusion — that an elementary-school brain on computer-generated overdrive, is actually developing differently than it would have otherwise, and not all for the better.<br />
Whatever the final assessment of the computer’s usefulness in elementary education, the key to educational success remains to locate every first-grader’s “weakest link.” By the end of the second week of the first year, every child should be matched with a teacher (maybe two) whose methodology incorporates one of the nine elements on the list of possible weaknesses. Between mere months and two years, a child matched in this calculated setting will rarely demonstrate the weakness(es) in question. As a bonus, neither the student nor his classmates will know why Johnny or Susie spent a year with a particular instructor, unless some idiot counselor tells him. Thus, no stigma.<br />
Moreover, the way to reform education and improve standards lies in large part with the colleges and universities that train prospective educators. As it is, most university-level education courses revolve around psychology: “child psychology,” “educational psychology,” “adolescent psychology,” etc. No wonder, then, that “history” has been replaced with “social studies,” spelling with “psycholinguistics,” and “health” with sex education. These, and other, courses are fueled by psychology, not scholarship or academics, much less excellence. In fact, “excellence” as an educational ideal was traded for “functional literacy” in a 1981 paper published by the National Institute of Education (then an agency of the U.S. Dept. of Education).<br />
This move proved highly “dysfunctional” as a federal education policy. But it satisfied the teachers unions, especially the NEA, whose annual Legislative Agenda over the past 20 years has focused mainly on political, not academic, concerns.<br />
“Competition” (except in sports) was deemed damaging to a student’s self-esteem, as was any sort of criticism. Yet, “gotcha” offenses, like “sexual harassment” for a 6-year-old caught pecking a little girl on the cheek, or “terrorist” levied at a little boy aiming a half-eaten chicken wing at a classmate in jest across a cafeteria table, sent mixed messages that were very damaging to self-esteem. The ridiculous fabrications became replacements for what today’s grandparent generation remembers as discipline, such as dress codes and polite language. Misbehavior now is confined to the fickle dictates of political correctness — which, again, are rooted in psychology: “psychopolitics,” in this instance — turning the schools into the epitomes of a “hostile environment.”<br />
That many school systems, and even state policies, are at long last rebuffing both the teachers unions and federal carrots for ill-conceived education policies is a positive sign, if late in the game. But it is clear that even earnest reformers have no handle on how to strengthen their schools or improve performance. They should ask: Performance at what, exactly? Then they would be on the right track.<br />
<i>Beverly K. Eakman is a former educator and retired federal employee who served as speechwriter for the heads of three government agencies as well as editor-in-chief of <i>NASA’s </i>newspaper (Johnson Space Center). Today, she is a Washington, DC-based freelance writer and columnist, the author of five books, and a frequent keynote speaker on the lecture circuit. Her most recent book is Walking Targets: How Our Psychologized Classrooms Are Producing a Nation of Sitting Ducks (Midnight Whistler Publishers).</i>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1340139490199274331.post-57205141529242486282010-04-13T01:17:00.001-07:002010-04-13T01:17:16.343-07:00MICHAEL CONNELLY books!Michael Connelly<br />
Personal website and Blog http://michaelconnelly.viviti.com/<br />
Author of "The Mortarmen" a book about my father's unit in WWII; "Riders in the Sky: The Ghosts and Legends of Philmont Scout Ranch" ; and my just released novel "Amayehli: A Story of America".<br />
I also teach law courses via the Internet through colleges and universities worldwide. To find a college or university near you, go to Education To Go's website at www.ed2go.com.<br />
New: Check out my radio talk show every week called "Our Constitution" at this link: http://www.radiosandysprings.com/showpages/OurConstitution.phpUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1340139490199274331.post-15176475726023126942010-02-24T20:05:00.000-08:002010-02-24T20:05:57.765-08:00INTERSECTION OF HEALTHCARE AND CAP AND TRADEFollowing is the newest opinion editorial from Citizens' Alliance for Responsible Energy.<br />
On February 16 of this year, three corporate giants suddenly pulled out of a leading alliance of businesses and environmental groups known as the U.S. Climate Action Partnership. Their participation was heralded by some as proof of their belief in manmade global warming-when it could have merely been acquiescence to the inevitable and a chance to participate in the potential profits. This past Tuesday's announcement by ConocoPhillips, BP America and Caterpillar that that the bills now in Congress are unfair to American industry shows that the motive was more profit than protection. They knew all along that cap and trade was a scheme not a solution, but the way the rules are set, they'd come out ahead by playing along. <br />
Using an existing government program--Medicaid--as a parallel, Marita's newest opinion editorial shows how given the direction government was heading, cap and trade was their better option. We can hope, now, that other companies will follow suit by speaking up regarding the damage these polices will do to the American economy.<br />
We hope you distribute/publish this material as soon as possible!<br />
<i>Eric McInteer -Research Fellow, CARE (Citizens' Alliance for Responsible Energy)</i><br />
-------------------------------------------------------<br />
February 24, 2010<br />
<b>The Intersection of Healthcare and Cap and Trade</b><br />
<i>By Marita Noon</i><br />
<br />
"I can't wait until we get government healthcare. I hate working with these insurance companies," said a healthcare worker tasked with getting his hospital reimbursed for the services they provide to Medicaid patients.<br />
What he didn't realize is that the United Behavioral Health subsidiary with whom he is dealing is "government healthcare." <br />
Privatizing the delivery of services to Medicaid recipients has been a trend long before healthcare "overhaul" became a priority. Companies such as United Behavioral Health-the specific company being vilified in the aforementioned conversation-simply respond when the government puts out a Request for Proposal (RFP). Basically the lowest bidder gets the contract. The ability to offer such services for the price quoted is not taken into consideration, just how cheaply can the obligations be met. The contractor does what the government outlines for them. And, ideally, they make money from the services they provide-allowing them to stay in business and offer job security. <br />
Those responsible for getting the hospitals paid for the services acknowledge that getting money from the private insurance companies is much easier than from the companies getting funded through government.<br />
How does this connect to cap and trade?<br />
First, understand that cap and trade is a government plan to deal with so-called man-made global warming. While the entire climate change issue is challenged due to the acknowledged data forgeries, and plummeting public concern over climate, governments are still moving forward with cap and trade plans. President Obama's appointee as Administrator of EPA, Lisa Jackson, is ready to regulate CO2 as a pollutant in case Congress does the right thing and doesn't pass cap and trade legislation. Here, in New Mexico, Governor Richardson is pushing for a statewide cap and trade program using an Environmental Improvement Board stacked with conflicts of interest. <br />
Cap and trade supporters have touted the fact that many energy companies signed on to a cap and trade plan as proof that climate change is a real issue. Here is where healthcare and cap and trade intersect.<br />
I am in the camp that believes that climate change is not a crisis, and if it is, there is nothing humans can do to change what has been going on for millions of years-long before human emissions were an issue. From this mindset, I have been speaking out against cap and trade. However, if we are going to have some type of climate change legislation, a carbon tax is a much more honest approach. <br />
Like the privatization of Medicaid services, the unwary consumer will not realize that the energy price increases are as a result of a government program. Like an insurance company being blamed for the difficulty, the energy company will bear the brunt of the consumers' wrath. Like an insurance company's bid to get the government contract hoping to make a profit, the energy companies have signed on to what they (prior to climategate and the collapse of the theory) once viewed as inevitable. They expected to profit from cap and trade, while, the citizens are burdened with the higher energy costs.<br />
Instead of cap and trade, a climate tax is more transparent. Citizens know that a "tax" is a government action. We know that the government collects the tax. It, too, will up our energy costs, but like the taxes on our phone bills, it will have a line on the bill stating exactly how many dollars of the bill are due to the carbon tax. Instead of being mad at the energy provider, the anger gets directed toward the government-and the energy companies have no chance to profit from the action. <br />
When you hear conversations about cap and trade-especially those who support it as a way to stop so-called manmade global warming, suggest transparency; support the idea of a carbon tax. It is more honest. And, no one wants more taxes.<br />
Better yet, now that the forged data has been exposed and more revelations are taking place on an almost daily basis, encourage your elected officials to block any climate change legislation. Support companies like ConocoPhillips, BP American and Caterpillar who have jumped ship before it sinks America. With public outcry, maybe more companies will see the light and pull out of the U.S. Climate Action Partnership. <br />
<i>CARE (Citizens' Alliance for Responsible Energy) is the nonprofit, member-based organization advocating for citizens' right to energy that is affordable, abundant and available. Based in Albuquerque, CARE addresses energy issues statewide, region-wide and nationwide. For more information visit www.responsiblenergy.org.<br />
</i>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1340139490199274331.post-86043300187915837462010-02-21T13:07:00.000-08:002010-02-21T13:07:43.949-08:00PERSONAL ESSAY<b>by Korry D. Lewis</b><br />
<br />
Abraham Lincoln once said, “I do the very best I know how – the very best I can; and I mean to keep on doing so until the end.” That is a quote I live by. My mom always told me that in everything I do, to give it all I have and to not hold back. That way, if it is a success I can be honestly proud of my accomplishment, but if it fails I will still walk away knowing I gave it my best effort. Performing at the best of my abilities has helped me achieve high honors and accomplishments in academics and athletics throughout high school and college. It has also helped me to be a leader in numerous organizations and within my community. Most importantly, it gives me the confidence to move forward in my life and career, and continually pushes me to be a better person. Hence, I am pursuing a legal education to fulfill my ambitions of being an agricultural law and water rights attorney. I am confident that I will achieve this aspiration and will perform well in law school because I am extremely dedicated, self-motivated, and I have strong work ethic and leadership skills. <br />
Growing up on my family’s working cattle ranch in southeastern Colorado, I learned the value and meaning of hard work at a young age. The life lessons I have learned and the wisdom I have gained from my rural background has instilled in me the cowgirl virtues of independence, endurance and grit. My work ethic combined with these virtues has been the cornerstone of my success personally, athletically, and academically in my collegiate career and will continue to benefit me in law school and throughout life. Nine years ago my dad passed away from leukemia and left a huge void in our family. My mom continued to get up every day and work hard in order to make debt payments so that she would not lose the ranch, and I admire her for that. Being that I am the youngest of six children and knowing that mom would not be able to help me pay for college, I stayed very dedicated to my education, sports, and community service so that I could receive scholarships. In order to cover the rest of my college expenses, I have kept many jobs; all the while actively volunteering in numerous organizations. I have gained many leadership skills from being the captain of my volleyball and basketball teams and running meetings, to representing my college at the state capitol. Amidst my busy schedule, I was determined to maintain a 4.0 GPA while in college and have achieved that thus far. <br />
My work ethic, dedication, and leadership skills will prove to be valuable in the future, and I look forward to law school as an opportunity to develop and maintain these characteristics among many others. In my legal career, I wish to represent and defend the rights and interests of the American rural landowner and private property rights organizations. Increasingly, water rights and private property rights are becoming more important and sacred. I want to help the American rancher and farmer in their fight to keep land that has been in their families for many generations, as well as the grazing and water rights to these properties. They are the true stewards of the land, and their success is due to their proven ability to care for and sustain the land they live off of. Rural America is where my heart is and I have a true passion for the land. I feel it is my duty to give back to my community and fellow rural Americans as they have given so much to me. I hope to be able to use my legal education to help ranchers and farmers keep such a blessed way of life. <br />
I wish to acquire my legal education at the U________of ______ because of your natural resource law curriculum and since I recognize the value of small classes. At______ I will feel at home and what better place to champion the rights of agriculturists than with a degree from a rural university. I am ready to take on the challenges that I will face during law school, and I am confident in the qualities that I bring to the table. Notably, I will bring my drive, my passion for agriculture, and my determination to be the best I can be. <br />
<b>Editors note: </b><i>GNL shares Korry's personal essay so you, the reader, can see what a Good Neighbor looks like. </i>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1340139490199274331.post-79300471020908004232009-12-01T18:56:00.000-08:002009-12-01T19:11:53.195-08:00PITTY THE FOOLS WHO BELIEVE IN MAN-CAUSED GLOBAL WARMING!<strong>By Ron Ewart</strong><br />President - National Association of Rural Landowners<br />© Copyright November 24, 2009 - All Rights Reserved<br /> <br />What a snow job some corrupt scientists, the arrogant elite, radical environmentalists, the United Nations and their co-conspirators in the United States, have perpetrated on the people of this planet in order to convince a gullible public into believing in the Alice-in-Wonderland fairy tale of man-caused global warming! In the process they have sullied true science and corrupted the scientific method, maybe beyond repair. Their specious arguments stretch credulity and are what we call MAI science, or Made-As-Instructed. In other words, you manipulate the data to arrive at the desired outcome. What has transpired in this debate is nothing less than the trashing of all of the science greats since Copernicus, Galileo and Newton. <br />But to see anything clearly, you must have a sufficiently broad perspective, accompanied by hard data, repeatable long-term observations and verifiable facts. If you are standing and looking at the ground, your perspective and your field of view are quite limited. If however, you are standing on the top of a mountain, your perspective broadens exponentially. And thus it is with the subject of global warming. Without a broader view, it is almost impossible to know whom or what to believe. So, a short history of the Earth is in order. The history we present here is reasonably accurate, based on the collected scientific data over the last 500 years, with not much argument within the honorable scientific community.<br />Human civilization is but a bare 5,000 years old. If you took the entire life of Planet Earth, some 4.5 billion years and divided that life span into a 24-hour clock, our puny 5,000 years represents the last tenth of a second, of the last second of the 86,400 seconds that occur in one 24-hour period. If you took the age of enlightenment, commonly known as the Renaissance (14th to the 17th Centuries) when true science was born, it represents less than the last 100th of a second of the last second in our 24-hour clock. During the last 5,000 years the Earth has been relatively quiet, with a few burps in climate variables, but it hasn't always been that way.<br />The Earth has endured the effect of massive sunspots, reversing poles, shifting magnetic fields, drifting continents, asteroid and comet collisions and ice ages, in its 4.5 billion-year history. It has experienced the wondrous 165 million-year dinosaur experiment. Approximately six hundred million years ago, the "Cambrian explosion" occurred, when life almost magically erupted, emerged and evolved at a pace never before seen. Some scientists have contributed this explosion of life to a sudden increase in atmospheric oxygen.<br />Over its lifetime the Earth spun, tilted, heaved, shifted its orbit, drastically changed, expelled poison gases, ash and molten lava, grew hot and then cold. Continents, floating on an underground sea of molten magma, drifted first toward each other (Pangea) and then away. Polar ice caps and glaciers melted and sea levels rose and then lowered. New evidence has come to light that the entire Earth was one big ball of ice at one time in its long and violent history.<br />A little more recently, about 12,000 years ago, one-third of the Earth's surface was covered in a layer of ice more than one mile thick. During that ice age, which lasted longer than civilized man has lived on Earth, there were no animals, plants or insects that could survive in this harsh, frozen environment. But life on Earth still survived in other places less-hostile. The ultimate thaw and the rushing torrent carved deep gouges and massive channels in the Earth's surface. It created riverbeds and dry falls and lakes and inland seas and other features in the Earth's crust, not there before. Now that was global warming on a grand scale and humans hadn't even come out of their caves yet. <br />Whole forests grew and then died out. Mountains rose out of the bowels of the Earth, pushed up by continents in collision and then flattened back into the crust. Rivers changed direction. Monster lakes were formed. Giant meteors struck the Earth at galactic speeds, carving massive holes in the crust and sending continent-size clouds of sunlight-dimming dust into the atmosphere. The atmosphere became opaque and cut off the life-giving sunlight, rendering lifeless enormous parts of the planet. Millions of species of plants and animals evolved, survived, reproduced and then died out, to be replaced by entirely different species of plants and animals. Had the dinosaurs not gone extinct, it has been posited that mammals would have never evolved in their current form, including humans.<br />However, major changes seldom occurred in cataclysmic events. They almost always took place agonizingly slowly, over eons of time, through the tedious, grinding, random, chaotic, disorganized process of natural evolution and natural selection. The variables were almost infinite and still are. <br />And today, those same agonizingly slow processes are at work. We (humans) are an integral part of those processes but we will have little or no effect on any final outcome. Those who tell you so are lying. We will but only tickle the grander elements such as the sun, the moon and the Earth itself, none of which is predictable, much less measurable to the degree necessary for accurate predictions over long periods of time. Our only avenue for survival is to get out of the way, if we can. The whole idea that man-generated CO2 is causing run-away global warming, when atomospheric CO2 represents a small fraction of so-called greenhouse gases and man's contribution to atmospheric CO2 is a miniscule fraction of naturally occuring CO2, would be laughable, if it wasn't that evil men were exploiting it for evil purposes.<br />A few spewing volcanoes or an episode of sunspots can totally invalidate any computer models. Just look at weather predictions. Any prediction is good for about two hours and that is why the environmentalists' models were predicting an ice age 20 years ago and now they are predicting global warming. Any credible scientist will tell you that the greater the number of variables in a non-linear dynamic system (such as the weather) render long-range predictions virtually meaningless the moment they are spit out of the computer. What has been done in the name of man-caused global warming, is an insult to true science. It is fueled by dirty, agenda-driven money, a corrupt ideology and the lust for global power.<br />The universe, our solar system and even our Earth are violent, dangerous places to humans and other life forms and always have been. Just ask the dinosaurs. So far, we have just been lucky. A close-by (in galactic terms) supernova in the spiral arm of the Milky Way, in which our solar system resides, could flood the sun and planets with massive amounts of deadly radiation and render Earth lifeless and barren in a virtual geologic instant. If the sun changed its energy output by a significant fraction, all life on Earth as we know it, could cease. An errant asteroid or comet could cross the Earth's orbit and the resulting collision could dramatically change the pattern of life, or terminate it altogether. <br />Environmentalists cry "wolf" on very little data and way-too-short time periods to come up with so-called accurate predictions, as they have with man-caused global warming. Unfortunately, environmentalism has become a cult of mindless followers with a distorted vision of how humans and the Earth should relate to each other. Earth gets the highest priorities — over people — in spite of true science. In reality, humans are but a part of the evolutionary and natural processes of Earth and those processes, not environmentalists or governments, will determine whether we, as an intelligent species, will survive or die out. This is why their man-caused, global-warming theory is an unmitigated farce and this is why that any very expensive attempts to control man-generated CO2is an unprecedented fraud, with dire consequences for the global economy.<br />We must always be vigilant against the never-ending threat of governments and special-interest groups peddling crises with propaganda, hype, distortions and lies, because behind each crisis is a hidden agenda and in the end their hidden agenda has more to do with control of the masses and the transfer of wealth. They only use pseudo science as a means to an evil end. Shall it ever be thus.<br />Who next will set out to conquer the world? Who will follow in the footsteps of the great conquerors of all time? How long will it take to herd the entire human race into the corral of world-wide enslavement? What name will we call this new-world country created thereby? What weapons will this new conqueror use to subjugate and unify by force or other means, the peoples of the world under the brutal hand of an all-powerful, dominant King ..... or is it a bunch of bankers? What!!!!!!!!? Not man-caused global warming! It couldn't be. The people of the world aren't that dumb ..... or are they? Who was it that said: "If you tell a lie often enough, it becomes the perception of truth in the general population".<br />Now with the heavy hand of Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) hanging over a potential conqueror's head, military might, in and of itself, cannot conquer the peoples of the world, so the weapons of mass destruction can be ruled out of the equation, unless purposely executed by terrorists to start a world war.<br />Perhaps there is a weapon that has nothing to do with military might or weapons of mass destruction. Way back in the middle 18 hundreds, one of the early Rothschild's (a banker)said this: "Let me issue and control a nation's money and I care not who writes the laws." The Rothschild's, Rockefeller's, the Morgan's and other money elites and power brokers, led us into the U. S. Federal Reserve that isn't Federal and isn't a reserve and established the IRS with the ratification of the 16th Amendment in 1913. They already control our Nation's money supply and the taxes to "feed" it. Could our laws be meaningless as an early Rothschild quipped? <br />But if money was the weapon to conquer the world, the people would be suspicious, as they are today and that is why over 300 U. S. Congressmen and women have called for an audit of the Federal Reserve. So money by itself can't be the weapon to conquer the world, unless it was combined with something else ..... something intangible, something ethereal, something that would "touch" the emotional hearts and minds of an ignorant populace, or "trigger" their collective guilty conscience. It would have to be something that "tugs" at the very core of irrational compassion, like saving the planet, or maybe even protecting the cute little polar bears ..... those white, furry creatures that would rip your heart out with one paw and eat it in front of you, that just happened to be the largest land carnivore on Planet Earth. One might ask, why do they need saving in the first place?<br />Still, why would polar bears need protecting? Aren't we told that their total population is increasing? (That doesn't matter to the lead spokesman for global warming, Al Gore.) But let's say we could gin up a crisis, you know, like man-caused global warming that is melting the ice upon which the cute little polar bear requires to survive. And let's just say we could alter the data to make it appear that CO2 (a so-called greenhouse gas, but a compound upon which all life on Earth depends) is growing rapidly in the atmosphere and man is the direct cause of the increase and the increase is causing the unprecedented crisis of global warming. Oh my God, we're doomed if we don't act now!<br />Now, let's add to the mix a way to save the planet (and the polar bear) from the scourge of man-generated CO2, by limiting the amount of CO2 the human population can emit by a complex scheme of caps and trades and the government gets to set the emission standards for all of the emitters ..... cows and horses excluded of course. The government also gets to be the broker for caps and trades. Just think of the money that government will rake in under Cap and Trade (or is it "cap and tax"?).<br />The plan almost worked, didn't it? Those all-wise scientific and political folks in the UN (IPCC) and Europe almost had us convinced they were right and the debate was over. To take the heat off, they even changed the name from global warming to climate change. Countries of the world were (and probably still are) headed for a world treaty on CO2 emission limits in Copenhagen, Denmark this December. <br />Even with all the hype, many skeptics tried to open the debate but it was quickly shut by the corrupt perpetrators who had an elaborate plan to conquer the world using the heart-wrenching theme of "saving the planet from man" and a diabolical scheme to transfer the wealth (money) from the wealthy nations of the world and re-distribute it to the poorer nations .... or is it into the bank accounts of the money changers and the power brokers who had set out to conquer the peoples of the Earth using money and man-caused global warming as their weapons of choice, making high-paid pawns of scientists who were willing to exchange their honor and integrity for a few pieces of silver?<br />All was going well until the proverbial cat was let out of the bag by the clandestine release of a whole bunch of documents and e-mails from one of the "academic leaders" in so-called scientifically-proved, man-caused global warming, that finally exposed the scheme for what it was. Now the whole world knows that the science was totally contrived, bogus and "cooked" for a fair-the-well.<br />The "enlightened one", the Obama, the great orator, is planning to attend Copenhagen in spite of the overwhelming scientific evidence refuting man-caused global warming and in spite of the new evidence that was just released, exposing the perpetrators of a massive global conspiracy.<br />But in the end, only one country stands in the way of world domination by the money changers and the power brokers who are using "money" and "man-caused global warming" to subjugate the entire human species and transfer the West's wealth in and to a one-world government. It is the free peoples in a free and sovereign America who will trample the "money" and "global warming" weapons of a shadowy elite, out to conquer the world ..... without a shot being fired. It is wise Americans who have seen through the global warming smoke screen of propaganda, hype, distortions and lies, emitted by a corrupt government and an even more corrupt fourth estate. It is the people of America, once again, that will lead the world towards freedom, instead of the bottomless pit of abject socialism and the mind-numbing slavery that socialism brings, under a looming one world government.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1340139490199274331.post-41765597272546593322009-11-26T10:00:00.000-08:002009-11-26T10:02:21.460-08:00BLINDSIDED<strong>By Michael R. Shannon </strong><br /><br />Last week marked the debut of two movies featuring overweight black teenagers as the central character. Movie reviewers (a chronic incubator of "progressive" thinking) found one movie "important," "inspiring," "compelling," "transformative" and "a triumph." It won the Grand Jury & Audience awards at the Sundance Film Festival and received a 15-minute standing ovation at the Cannes Film Festival. <br />The other movie was described as "unremarkable," "undemanding," "superficial," "obvious" and "unsatisfying" with an overall failing grade of 57 percent at the Rotten Tomatoes web site.<br />From the following descriptions, can you guess which movie was the darling of the intellectual set and which movie resonates with Wal-Mart shoppers? (Warning mild to detailed plot spoilers to come.)<br />In Precious, a functionally illiterate, morbidly obese, black teenage girl is raped repeatedly by her father. One incestuous coupling produces an infant with Down syndrome. Precious lives at home with a cruel and physically abusive mother in a ghetto neighborhood. She is withdrawn, hates her appearance, uses fantasy as a coping mechanism and has no social skills. <br />A second pregnancy results in her being sent to an alternative school where a lesbian teacher and social worker combine to try and reach the girl hidden inside her shell. The movie ends with Precious, who is still the size of the Hindenburg, landing in a new government program and being informed that during one of his rapes her "father" has infected her with AIDS. <br />In 1987, the time period of the movie, this is a death sentence. <br />The Blind Side starts with Michael Oher functionally illiterate, living on the streets in a ghetto neighborhood, with a crack 'ho for a mother, eating discarded concession stand food, possessing only a single change of clothes, hidden in a shell, with no social skills.<br />So far what's not to like about The Blind Side? Sounds like the movie is well on the way to wild applause on the film festival circuit.<br />But then differences rear their ugly heads. <br />In The Blind Side an evangelical Christian white woman takes Michael into her home and into her family. He is given a scholarship to a prestigious Christian school and a private tutor - hired by his new family - brings his grades up. Michael starts to play football and earns a scholarship to a major university. He grows to love his adopted family and becomes a new person. <br />At the university, Michael achieves All-American football status, his grades put him on the Dean's List, he is drafted in the NFL's first round by the Baltimore Ravens and, judging from the pictures over the credits, he has slimmed down without resorting to fad diets.<br />In "elite opinion" circles a black person is allowed to indulge in many varieties of degraded behavior and exhibit any number of dangerous pathologies without causing so much as a raised eyebrow, but nothing keeps elite festival-attendee behinds in the seats like the hero relying on white people, the private sector or a Christian to change his life.<br />As the reviewer for the Village Voice hissed, "the (Blind Side) peddles the most insidious kind of racism, one in which whiteys are virtuous saviors, coming to the rescue of African-Americans who become superfluous in narratives that are supposed to be about them."<br />"Progressives" are much more comfortable with white people dragging black teenagers behind pickup trucks. It confuses them when Christians act like Christians.<br />Precious a feel-good movie for liberals because what miniscule progress the girl makes is facilitated by a lesbian teacher, a social worker and a halfway house. It's a trifecta for modern "progressives!" <br />"Progressives" watch Precious and pretend to empathize while still feeling superior. Because Precious does not ask the uncomfortable question of why aren't YOU doing more to help, because, as the New York Times says, "An unstated but self-evident moral of Precious, . is that government can provide not only a safety net, but also, in small and consequential ways, a lifeline."<br />So the viewer is personally off the hook, just keep voting for Gerry Connolly and stand by for Nirvana.<br />Christians see The Blind Side and feel inadequate because the movie asks Christians in the audience are you doing enough? And the answer is no, we are not doing enough. We need to do more. We need to do it now.<br />Christians and conservatives (not always one and the same) complain that Hollywood doesn't make good movies. But if Christians want Hollywood to make good movies, then Christians have to buy tickets to see the good movie Hollywood makes.<br />The Blind Side is that good movie. Unless you are a "progressive intellectual" you will enjoy it, but you will also wonder what can you do to make a difference? <br />You don't have to start a foundation, pass legislation or ride your unicycle across America to raise money. Just take the advice of Thomas a Kempis: "Do the duty nearest you."<br /><em>Michael R. Shannon is a public relations and advertising consultant with corporate, government and political experience around the globe. He is a dynamic and entertaining keynote speaker. He can be reached at michael-shannon@comcast.net.</em>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1340139490199274331.post-77268459310923708122009-11-22T08:05:00.000-08:002009-11-25T16:09:27.038-08:00WHO WANTS A JOB?<strong>By James Nathan Post</strong><br /><br />Like to play around with numbers? Let's say you are single, and have no dependents. You get a minimum wage job. If the MW is about $6 (to keep the arithmetic easy), and you work 40 hours, your gross earnings are $240. Your SS and IRS deductions will each be about $10. If you drive about 25 miles going to work and back, you'll spend about $20 a week on gasoline. Liability (only) on a cheap old car will run you about $80 a month, or $20 of that weekly check. Lunch is probably a burger combo on the run, at $5 a day, or $25 the week. After those deductions and daily expenses, your weekly take-home is about $150.<br /><br />Not included in those figures is a payment on the car you need to have the job ($120/month?), uniforms or other special clothes, using a coin-op laundry for cleaning ($10/week?), makeup and grooming ($5?), and parking costs ($5?). If these are included, your net discretionary income is $100 a week.<br /><br />That is to say, you must spend 60% of a minimum wage income for taxes, transportation, and lunch just to service the job. Counting the two hours you must commit to rise, dress, and drive, the lunch hour you aren't paid for, and eight hours of sacktime, you have five hours a day left in which to live the life you are working for, and $20 each working day to spend. If you are very careful, and save $5 of that each day, you will be able to buy a pizza and a 12-pack of beer for the weekend. <br /><br />Not included in these figures are your rent, utilities, other food, and whatever you do besides eat, sleep, and work…. and oh, yes, your health care. <br /><br />Get a better job, you say? How about a good job, breaking that $10 per hour barrier? OK, start with $400 a week gross, and deduct IRS and SS at about $30. You'll be able to afford a newer car, raising your payment to $50 a week, and adding comprehensive ups your insurance to $40. You'll be able to eat at a restaurant for lunch at $10. You will likely need to improve your wardrobe, and add dry cleaning costs, as well as professional grooming. Even only doubling those from the very frugal costs above, that will consume $40. This goes way up if you are a woman. You drive to work in a nicer car, wear a nicer outfit, and you get to sit down to eat. Now you are left with $190 you can call your own (before your rent and living costs... and your health care), which is $38 per working day. If you are very careful, and save that extra $8, you will be able to take your sweetie to a movie on Saturday, and buy a bag of popcorn to go with that pizza and the 12-pack. <br /><br />It surprises me to hear people whine they just don't understand why our youth, when told they need education to get a job, decide they don't want one, and drop out of school to hang out with their friends selling weed to the working man to buy the beer. <br /><em>James Nathan Post Albuquerque NM </em><strong>www.postpubco.com/anticyclops.htm VYDYOFYL James Nathan Post</strong><br />Have friends who would appreciate reading something warm-hearted and fun for the Holidays? The three stories in this trilogy of novelettes capture the character of old 1850's New Mexico, and also the mystery and enchantment of today. From the drunken chile farmer Cabrito who wins The Devil's Own Horse, and declares God has made him the town of Lastima's new priest, to little Chulita who prays for a miracle for the town's celebration of La Posada, to Buck Tyler, the archaeology prof who gets trapped in an ancient ceremonial cave, with a psychic Indian girl and the spirit of the old Medicine Chief "El Cacique"... <br /> <br />THREE TALES IN LASTIMA <br /> <br />bon appetit, and best wishes, <br /> JamesUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1340139490199274331.post-8198877681701512282009-11-21T18:21:00.000-08:002009-11-21T18:23:05.455-08:00DOGS ARE JUST LIKE PEOPLE<strong>By Jim Beers</strong><br /> <br />Fifteen years ago I was washing my golden retriever (Bud, short for Budweiser King of Beers) with soap and water and rinsing him with tomato juice in my Virginia yard. My lawyer neighbor saw the dog all wet and looking truly "sheepish" and wanted to know what I was doing. I told him the dog had just bungled into his first skunk and that despite my commands (at this point I nudged the dog with my elbow), mister he-knows-best walked right into a full spray from a pretty large skunk. When my lawyer neighbor then said that it probably taught the dog a lesson (he was neither woodsy nor a dog guy), I told him it only taught the dog one of two things based on my experience. Either he will kill every skunk he sees from now on or he will avoid every skunk he blunders into from now on. The truth of this was never born out because Bud (to the best of my knowledge) never met up with another skunk.<br />This truth was taught me at an early age. We raised Dobermans when I was young and once they were let out of their pens to run in the yard and one of the male "dobes" got sprayed by a skunk, evidently before the skunk snuck back out under a low spot in the fence. About two weeks later that male Doberman (Red) came back to the house smelling of skunk. I went out to see where the skunk had gotten in the yard and what I found was shredded skunk in several locations. To my knowledge no skunks ever came back in our yard.<br />A few years later I was quail hunting in Arkansas with some relatives of some brothers I hunted ducks with back in Illinois. The bird dog was an Irish Setter. As she wandered into the edge of some woods bordering a field we were working she suddenly came running back out toward her owner. When I looked into where she had came from (hogs were a common problem) I yelled out that there was a skunk in there where the dog had just run from. His owner just looked disgusted and said she had been sprayed by a skunk a couple of years earlier and ever since she ran from them like a little kid running from a bully.<br />I thought about old Bud and Red the other day as President Obama cautioned us all to not rush to judgment about the Army "Major" that killed and wounded all those innocent military personnel at Fort Hood. As he prattled on about law enforcement requirements and trials and how the poor "Major" just snapped I was outraged. My thoughts went back to President Bush telling us all right after 9/11 that those that perpetrated this would pay for it. President Bush kept us attack-free for 7 ½ years and now we see both incidents and increasing terror incidents since the new President took office.<br />President Bush reminds me of my Doberman Red. When Red killed that skunk and left a lot of carnage, the skunks stayed away from our yard for years and years. <br />President Obama reminds me of that Irish Setter in Arkansas (whose name I don't even remember) that ran from every skunk it encountered for the rest of its life. Skunks never paid her any attention and probably not only nested under her porch but likely ate from her food dish at night.<br />If you want to keep the skunks away, get a Doberman: if you want skunks under the porch, get an Irish Setter. If you want a safe and free America, elect a conservative. If you want a smelly home that isn't fit to live in, elect liberal radicals that will infest the Congress and the White House with poisonous fumes that will soon cause you to have to abandon your own home.<br />See, dogs are just like people.<br /><em>Jim Beers Veterans Day, 11 November 2009</em>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1340139490199274331.post-80828714323758101512009-11-21T18:05:00.000-08:002009-11-21T18:07:13.244-08:00TRAGEDY AT FT HOOD<strong>By Lieutenant Colonel Allen B West (US Army, Ret)</strong><br /> <br />This past Thursday 13 American Soldiers were killed and another 30 wounded at a horrific mass shooting at US Army installation, Ft Hood Texas . As I watched in horror and then anger I recalled my two years of final service in the Army as a Battalion Commander at Ft Hood, 2002-2004.<br />My wife and two daughters were stunned at the incident having lived on the post in family housing.<br />A military installation, whether it is Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine, or Coast Guard, is supposed to be a safe sanctuary for our Warriors and their families. It is intended to provide a home whereby our “Band of Brothers and Sisters” can find solace and bond beyond just the foxhole but as family units.<br />A military installation is supposed to be a place where our Warriors train for war, to serve and protect our Nation.<br />On Thursday, 5 November 2009 Ft Hood became a part of the battlefield in the war against Islamic totalitarianism and state sponsored terrorism.<br />There may be those who feel threatened by my words and would even recommend they not be uttered. To those individuals I say step aside because now is not the time for cowardice. Our Country has become so paralyzed by political correctness that we have allowed a vile and determined enemy to breach what should be the safest place in America , an Army post.<br />We have become so politically correct that our media is more concerned about the stress of the shooter, Major Nidal Malik Hasan. The misplaced benevolence intending to portray him as a victim is despicable. The fact that there are some who have now created an entire new classification called; “pre-virtual vicarious Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)” is unconscionable.<br />This is not a “man caused disaster”. It is what it is, an Islamic jihadist attack.<br />We have seen this before in 2003 when a SGT Hasan of the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) threw hand grenades and opened fire into his Commanding Officer’s tent in Kuwait . We have seen the foiled attempt of Albanian Muslims who sought to attack Ft Dix, NJ. Recently we saw a young convert to Islam named Carlos Bledsoe travel to Yemen, receive terrorist training, and return to gun down two US Soldiers at a Little Rock, Arkansas Army recruiting station. We thwarted another Islamic terrorist plot in North Carolina which had US Marine Corps Base, Quantico as a target.<br />What have we done with all these prevalent trends? Nothing.<br />What we see are recalcitrant leaders who are refusing to confront the issue, Islamic terrorist infiltration into America , and possibly further into our Armed Services. Instead we have a multiculturalism and diversity syndrome on steroids.<br />Major Hasan should have never been transferred to Ft Hood, matter of fact he should have been Chaptered from the Army. His previous statements, poor evaluation reports, and the fact that the FBI had him under investigation for jihadist website posting should have been proof positive.<br />However, what we have is a typical liberal approach to find a victim, not the 13 and 30 Soldiers and Civilian, but rather the poor shooter. A shooter who we are told was a great American, who loved the Army and serving his Nation and the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) stating that his actions had nothing to do with religious belief.<br />We know that Major Hasan deliberately planned this episode; he did give away his possessions. He stood atop a table in the confined space of the Soldier Readiness Center shouting “Allahu Akhbar”, same chant as the 9-11 terrorists and those we fight against overseas in the Iraq and Afghanistan theaters of operation.<br />No one in leadership seems willing to sound the alarm for the American people; they are therefore complicit in any future attacks. Our Congress should suspend the insidious action to vote on a preposterous and unconstitutional healthcare bill and resolve the issue of “protecting the American people”.<br />The recent incidents in Dearborn Michigan , Boston Massachusetts , Dallas Texas , and Chicago Illinois should bear witness to the fact that we have an Islamic terrorism issue in America . And don’t have CAIR call me and try to issue a vanilla press statement; they are an illegitimate terrorist associated organization which should be disbanded.<br />We have Saudi Arabia funding close to 80% of the mosques in the United States , one right here in South Florida, Pompano Beach . Are we building churches and synagogues in Saudi Arabia ? Are “Kaffirs” and “Infidels” allowed travel to Mecca ?<br />So much for peaceful coexistence.<br />Saudi Arabia is sponsoring radical Imams who enter into our prisons and convert young men into a virulent Wahabbist ideology….one resulting in four individuals wanting to destroy synagogues in New York with plastic explosives. Thank God the explosives were dummy. They are sponsoring textbooks which present Islamic centric revisionist history in our schools.<br />We must recognize that there is an urgent need to separate the theo-political radical Islamic ideology out of our American society. We must begin to demand surveillance of suspected Imams and mosques that are spreading hate and preaching the overthrow of our Constitutional Republic……that speech is not protected under First Amendment, it is sedition and if done by an American treason.<br />There should not be some 30 Islamic terrorist training camps in America that has nothing to do with First Amendment, Freedom of Religion. The Saudis are not our friends and any American political figure who believes such is delusional.<br />When tolerance becomes a one way street it certainly leads to cultural suicide. We are on that street. Liberals cannot be trusted to defend our Republic, because their sympathies obviously lie with their perceived victim, Major Nidal Malik Hasan.<br />I make no apologies for these words, and anyone angered by them, please, go to Ft Hood and look into the eyes of the real victims. The tragedy at Ft Hood Texas did not have to happen. Consider now the feelings of those there and on every military installation in the world. Consider the feelings of the Warriors deployed into combat zones who now are concerned that their loved ones at home are in a combat zone.<br />Ft Hood suffered an Islamic jihadist attack, stop the denial, and realize a simple point.<br />The reality of your enemy must become your own.<br /><em>Steadfast and Loyal,<br />Lieutenant Colonel Allen B West (US Army, Ret)</em>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1340139490199274331.post-87784580339411974262009-11-21T18:00:00.000-08:002009-11-21T18:02:37.457-08:00A LESSON IN THE CARNAGE<strong>By Jim Beers</strong><br /> <br />This is being written the morning after the shooting rampage by a Moslem US Army Major at Fort Hood Texas. Watching the continual news coverage and the questions asked and statements given by both the media and the US Army, there appears to be an aspect of this that is both misunderstood and that we should all consider.<br />As a former Naval Officer that lived on a ship and on a Naval Base as well as someone that has been on numerous Navy and Army bases over a long government career as both a law enforcement officer and biologist, I am surprised by the naiveté of reporters and the general public regarding the presence of guns on military bases. The diminishing number of citizens that have "served" in the military probably has lots to do with this ignorance. This common misperception reinforces such dangerous fantasies as gun control, gun-free zones, and the elimination of the Constitutional "right" in the 2nd Amendment "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."<br />While modern day citizens often think this "right" only applies to hunting or target practice, modern dictatorships like Russia and its former satellites also allow "favored" citizens to hunt and target practice but their guns are held by the police or Army and only checked out when government grants such specific use to "cooperative subjects" for a specific time period. Please watch the news for the current gun violence and unsolved political assassinations that go on every day in "gun-free" Russia. "Gun-free" nations and nations without a 2nd Amendment "Right" not subject to the power of governments to deny are not safer, nor are they places to be emulated by freedom-loving Americans concerned about themselves, their families, and their neighbors.<br />American Military Bases in the United States are "gun-free" zones. None, to my knowledge recognize the concealed carry rights of licensed gun owners in the state in which the base is located, that means no civilian or military personnel can possess or carry any handgun anywhere on the base. Searching automobiles and trucks going onto the base is a totally impossible task. Those that live on the base must "register" all the guns they own, the guns must be kept unloaded, cased, and in the home. Transport and use of any rifle or shotgun (special hunts on the base or target practice) is only by permit from the Provost (Military Police or Shore Patrol). [Special Note: One "politically ambitious" Base Commander hoping to attract the attention of the newly elected anti-gun politicians in Washington even tried recently to make military personnel living OFF- Base report all guns they owned OFF-Base. "YOO HOO, over here Attorney General Holder, look at me: wouldn't I make a great 2, 3, or 4 Star General?]<br />The Bottom line is that all military arms and ammunition on the base are carefully kept locked up in the arsenal and only issued for shooting practice or for law enforcement. Only MP's or SP's carry weapons on duty and evidently even a dwindling number of them are armed on duty as law enforcement officers. Enforcement, like everything else, is being "contracted out" to "female-owned" companies or "minority-owned" enterprises or in this case the "Local Police". So you see, the Base is a "gun-free zone" just like:<br />- Columbine High School shot up by disgruntled students.<br />- The New York Government office shot up by a disgruntled immigrant welfare recipient.<br />- Chicago and Washington DC streets shot up by gangs, drug dealers, and robbers.<br />- Virginia Tech where a loner killed fellow students at will.<br />- National Parks, Government Buildings, Post Offices, and growing numbers of National Wildlife Refuges where crime rates grow both in reality and in the lurid justifications of bureaucrats seeking more money, more employees, and more supreme authoritarian authority for a social environment they create for themselves.<br />There are many other such examples but my time and your patience are limited.<br />In the twisted mind of some anti-infidel Moslem; in the fantasies of some children soaked in fantasy worlds; in the minds of fatherless, violent, school dropout, gang members; in the mind of some displaced person depressed about the loss of his culture and uncaring neighbors; as well as in the mind of robbers, rapists, and just plain vicious persons - one thing is sure. When they plan to "get even" or "show them" or " get some loot" or "rape and kill" or "make a statement" they gravitate to places where they are reasonably sure that they can maximize or just achieve their evil intent. The more sure they are sure of a "gun-free zone" (be it an apartment in New York City, or a "gun-free" mall parking lot at night, or a school, or a church, or a Boston alley, or even a US Military Base but not near the arsenal or the shooting range evidently), the more likely they are to perpetrate their atrocities. One need look no further than the comment yesterday by a relative of the Moslem US Major about how he "hated" going to the shooting range. Why do you suppose he chose to shoot up the helpless and unarmed occupants of the Administrative Area instead of the "hated" shooting range and its ARMED occupants? Duh.<br />All of this is conjecture and reflects our deeply held beliefs. The anti-gun person says, "this would never happen if there were no guns". The pro-gun person says, "this would never get started, or if it did it would be quickly stopped, if more citizens were armed in all such places". Proving either of these is just like "proving" if "the Stimulus worked" or if Socialism "worked". One side says it only failed because "we didn't do enough": while the other says it failed because "we did it". Suffice it to say that if I or you were in Columbine or that NY Government office or at Virginia Tech or on a dark Chicago street or at Fort Hood yesterday you would quickly realize that only if you were armed was there any chance to save our own life and/or the lives of those around us. When I was a law enforcement officer and bar room discussions got around to what caliber or model of gun was best (another never-ending discussion) I would always say the if, God forbid, I ever HAD to use my gun I would hope I had a bazooka (I am old, today I would hope for a Metalstorm, electronic ignition, multiple barrel, 9mm, automatic firing 16K rounds/second).<br />There are reasons of military discipline and décor (you can't have soldiers, sailors, etc. going around with "one-sided tummy rolls" in uniform. There are often military behavior problems on and near bases but anyone that is a danger carrying a gun doesn't belong in the military (see yesterday's "Major"). Be that as it may, each reader should consider the exceedingly high rate of incidents and violence where guns are prohibited but most importantly think about how a gun in your possession or in the possession of a neighbor or coworker may be the ONLY thing between you and your maker. <br />Permitted concealed-carry gun owners assume great responsibility and liability when they go armed. They not only deter crime and criminals in the act of attempting violence, they create an atmosphere of uncertainty in the minds of violence-prone individuals that, like so many other things is immeasurable but real. Public perception of areas where guns are forbidden attract and encourage the worst among us to take advantage of others for nefarious purposes.<br />May God take those that died yesterday to His bosom and may those hurt yesterday be healed both in body and in spirit. Amen.<br /><em>Jim Beers 6 November 2009</em>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1340139490199274331.post-44434887712623571132009-11-21T17:53:00.000-08:002009-11-21T17:55:46.753-08:00SHAME, SHAME!The following is a Letter to the Editor of my St. Paul Pioneer Press concerning an article published as a feature Op-ed on the 4 November, 8B editorial page. It was titled "Wind power has threats of its own" by Michael Fry, and was written for the Los Angeles Times. JB<br /><strong>By Jim Beers</strong><br />Shame on Michael Fry (director of conservation advocacy for the American Bird Conservancy) and the US Fish and Wildlife Service and all their duplicitous cohorts for the hidden agenda sold so smoothly in the recent Op-ed piece, "Wind power has threats of its own". The crocodile tears they shed for "sage grouse" and "prairie chickens" unable "to engage in cacophonous courtship" "each spring" due to wind turbines are disgusting.<br />So, "bird collisions (with swirling turbine blades) are mounting" while "Environmentalists and the wind industry have been discussing for several years how to protect birds" (like "Eagles, hawks, and falcons")? So "pressure from conservation groups" and the US Fish and Wildlife Service "Wind Advisory Committee" have agreed to "early consultations" with wind developers? So all these worthies hope to develop "recommendations" "to be released next year" and that may be "voluntary"? <br />The dirty little secret here is that ever since modern wind turbines began cropping up all over (Russia in 1931; UK in 1954; and the American Wind Energy Association in Washington, DC in 1974) they have killed billions of birds. They are "scientifically and exactly" located where wind (and coincidentally bird movement and migration routes) is most prevalent. Local predators and scavengers soon learn to clean up the evidence during the periodic abundance of dead birds apparently "falling from the sky".<br />Dismissing the assertion that such devices can ever replace oil, coal, gas, and nuclear power - where was the US Fish and Wildlife Service and all these "concerned environmentalists" and their lobby groups for the past four decades? If those "turbines" were oil pumps or derricks or radio towers killing birds, they would have been quickly forbidden in a flurry of righteous indignation and donations by incensed activists to their lobbyists complete with "payments" by the "bird-killing" oil folks or others to beg public forgiveness. The same goes for similar myriad federal private property "takings" without compensation under auspices such as the Endangered Species based on similarly specious claims of harm to birds as near Austin, Texas and elsewhere. If these groups were truly "concerned" they would develop management practices to keep bird abundance as we advance American society, instead they use these inevitable clashes of man and an ever-adapting environment as excuses to dismantle American society.<br />What this 11th hour conversion by federal bureaucrats and their environmental partners-in-crime is all about is a thinly veiled but audacious attempt to get what they have been trying to otherwise get for decades with unproven "science" and bureaucratic maneuverings on federal lands. That is, stealing State jurisdiction over sage grouse and prairie chickens. State bureaucrats are AWOL here because they have come to rely on federal grants like drug users on their pusher. These radical federal bureaucrats and lobby groups intend to manipulate such federal authority (ostensibly cloaked as "saving" these widely occurring birds) to depress and eliminate rural community improvements, grazing, energy development, hunting, road building, ranch operations, animal control, rural land values, etc. all over the Upper Plains and Northern Rocky Mountain states.<br />Shame, shame on them; and shame on you for publishing this two-faced propaganda. Why shame on you Pioneer Press? Shame on you for publishing this energy development and energy production killing tripe right after your front page trumpets how the "cap-and-trade" political chicanery by these same perpetrators and their political enablers was responsible for the recent death of the Big Stone II, a large energy production facility vital to future Minnesota and Upper Midwest power needs. <br />We used to pray to be saved from communism or the Russians or the Chinese: today we should pray to be saved from ourselves.<br /><em>Jim Beers 4 November 2009</em>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1340139490199274331.post-50025388990269728212009-11-21T17:48:00.000-08:002009-11-21T17:52:07.446-08:00WHO YA' GONNA CALL?<strong>By Jim Beers</strong><br /><br />A retired Minnesota law enforcement officer just "lost his face and ear" to a bulldog. The latest report is that he is slipping in and out of a coma. His girlfriend reported that the attack came quietly and without warning as she was upstairs. The dog was purchased from a "rescue" source in Houston, Texas and according to reports the rescue outfit actually traveled to Minnesota to inspect the retired officer and his living arrangements before permitting him to adopt the dog.<br />In Nova Scotia, Canada a 19-year-old girl hiking in the Cape Breton Highlands National Park (located on a large island compromising the NE one-fourth of the Province of Nova Scotia) was recently killed by a "pair of coyotes". While Provincial and animal rights "biologists" warble about how "rare" such incidents are, and about how the coyotes probably came "across the (several decades-old) causeway connecting the island to the mainland" another explanation is emerging. Several lifelong Nova Scotia residents report how the Provincial Wildlife Authorities "introduced" the coyotes in the 1980's "to control rabbits that were destroying large tree plantations and plantings." One resident that has lived for decades near one such tree farm reports how the coyote population exploded upon introduction in the 1980's and how "packs of coyotes" up to as many as seven were common and increasingly aggressive, dangerous and hostile to humans in the areas. He was "not surprised" by the fatal attack. As with the historic (from colonial times) coyotes in the Eastern US and the recently returning (since the 1970's) coyotes in the NE US, these coyotes are reportedly very large as well as aggressive (like one on cape Cod that tried to kill and drag a toddler out of his backyard in broad daylight.)<br />Minnesota urbanites are all atwitter as I write this about recent reports of "a" (or several?) mountain lion in the river bottoms that skirt the southern Twin Cities area. The State DNR is pretty sure (as opposed their decades of denials about numerous reports from N Minnesota) that there is a cougar in the bottoms. Their advice is to keep your pets on a leash and to "remember" that cougars are protected in Minnesota and may not be harassed or harmed. Gun carrying of concealed weapons, open holstered guns, or gun bans in parks and certain urban areas have not been modified as party-goers speculate about how exciting it would be to glimpse a cougar. <br />Minnesota has many wolves. A recent multi-page article in the Minnesota paper about the steady decrease in moose numbers cited "experts" prattling on endlessly about how "global warming" is the culprit. Curiously, there was no mention of wolf predation as the decrease in moose numbers follows the increase in wolf numbers and distribution in Minnesota since their protection by federal authorities. Like the expanding cougar population in California following their protection by an animal rights ballot initiative, Minnesota wolves kill adult male moose in the winter but a steady wolf harvest of cows and calves (just like the California cougars learned how to do with California Rocky Mountain Bighorn Sheep or Nevada coyotes learned how to do with Pronghorn Antelope) will steadily decrease the prey numbers while eventually making them "Endangered" and even "extinct in ." unless the predators are regularly killed and their numbers and distribution are kept lower.<br />Iowa has had several mountain lions reported in recent years. Iowa state biologists likewise deny their presence while warning everyone that they are protected and a "valuable" part of "the ecosystem". When South Dakota state biologists parroted that animal rights/environmental line several years ago while increasing mountain lion populations were killing South Dakota livestock and pets and threatening people, it took a massive effort by ranchers and rural residents to have the legislature finally force the state "nature worshippers" to allow for a healthy harvest of cougars every year to keep their numbers and effects tolerable.<br />When wolves killed a young man hiking in Saskatchewan, the Provincial Wildlife Authorities at first denied it was wolves and then fought any stories about the danger of living near wolves or about the difficulty of being able to defend yourself against wolves (or coyotes, or mountain lions, or grizzly bears, or black bears, or wild dogs). No Provincial or National Wildlife Authorities, just as in the USA State or Federal Wildlife Authorities, took any responsibility for failing to protect citizens, commerce, and human activities from numerous, protected and uncontrolled predators. Handguns in Canada are still prohibited from Cape Breton National Park to Saskatchewan and British Columbia. The point being that while Canadians, just like Americans are free to run their nation as they will, the young lady in the Park or the young man in Saskatchewan would have had at least a chance to live if they could have and did avail themselves of carrying a pistol as they hiked in a Park or in winter brushlands near a mining town where deadly abound - of this there can be no doubt.<br />Deaths and attacks by grizzly bears on humans in British Columbia, Canada are reported similarly to deadly and damaging attacks by California and Colorado cougars are reported as "unusual" and "rare" and often "the fault of the (hiker, biker, camper, hunter, etc.)" that "failed to 'puff up'" or that "ran instead of (what??)". The numbers and distributions of wolves, coyotes, bears, cougars, and wild dogs are invariably and almost always under-reported by government authorities concerned about being tagged as "inefficient" or as "uncaring". When such incidents or complaints occur they are never reported with any accuracy just as when wild claims are more and more cooperatively confirmed by "experts" when made by animal rights/environmental groups as they are either on a rampage or threatening to sue.<br />The situation is disgraceful. Rescue organizations and state wildlife authorities have evolved from admirable enterprises into threats to society, American freedoms, human lives and families. <br />Persons concerned about mistreated animals are to be admired for their concern. That they take in animals that others abandon or willingly surrender is a credit to their activity. It does not give them any traction in our free Republic to use their concerns as a reason to pass laws, seize private property, gain law enforcement authority and discourage animal breeding, animal use, and animal control by private owners and government. Not only have many "rescue" outfits done all these things, they have discouraged people from buying puppies from reputable breeders by untrue myths about mistreated adult dogs like the above bulldog being suitable for families and even a retired law enforcement officer. IF you want to "adopt" such a dog, good for you but to tell families that such dogs (as opposed a pup from a reputable dealer that is taken into a family at a young age to become accustomed to the family) are suitable is akin to selling pythons to said families. Dog Breeders are disappearing as new laws, draconian law enforcement, propaganda in the media and schools, and myths about "adopting" are spread by animal rights and rescue advocates.<br />Counterparts to these "rescue" extremists (not all rescuers are extremists) are more and more majorities in state and federal Wildlife Agencies and Universities. - Spreading and protecting deadly predators that we are told to "live with".<br />- Spreading myths about how to avoid attacks and denying attacks whenever possible.<br />- Dismissing the economic and human behavior losses caused by redators.<br />- Denying disease dangers and game animal losses to predators.<br />- Covering up necessary animal control by the all-but unknown APHIS in USDA.<br />- Manufacturing population data on a dime as over-abundant predators are denied and "disappearing" predators are claimed as environmental/animal rights lobbyist desire.<br />- Calling predator losses things like dog attacks or global warming as environmental/animal rights groups want and government growth advocates encourage.<br />- Working actively to undermine the 2nd Amendment of the Constitution they used to be sworn to uphold.<br />- Holding up an evil and imaginary goal (Native Ecosystems) to divert public attention from their legitimate primary purpose for existing. - Protecting the lives, livelihoods, families, and welfare of the CITIZENS THAT EMPLOY THEM.<br />Here is all you need to know about "rescue":<br />- Puppies are always your best bet for a family pet or a dog to be trained to perform some function.<br />- Adopting is admirable but must be carefully considered.<br />- Rescue groups can require all they want but you can refuse to encourage neutering or not having more than one dog, etc. by refusing to adopt.<br />- Accept that some unwanted or abused animals must be euthanized and disregard all the hoopla about "so many" animals in various shelters or rescue homes. Once people understand that unwanted animals are euthanized, fewer will be purchased frivolously.<br />- Fight attempts to expand "animal warden" or "animal welfare" "officers". Seizing private property or searching without warrants is wrong for merely suspected citizens and is grotesque for thin horses or breeding dogs that are privately owned. As respect for the rights of animal owners are eroded on the whims of others, so too can and will all rights be eroded and eventually disappear. <br />- Except for health or noise nuisances or where elderly persons become overrun with animals, animal owners and animal users should be respected as any other citizen. Such nuisances "need" "special officers" about as much as littering needs specialists to detect and deter littering. <br />Predator numbers and distribution are LOCAL, NOT FEDERAL, matters. Since Constitutional powers "not delegated to the United States" "are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people" per the 10th Amendment, State government and (here's a novel assertion) their employees are responsible to LOCAL communities where "the people" live. State government employees that disregard "the people" are targets for "the people" of that state to expand, contract, and set goals for them to accomplish. Uncooperative politicians should be ripe targets for replacement. So here is what you need to know about Predators:<br />- Predators are not necessary for anything. Doubt that? Travel to New Zealand where contented people, healthy economic ventures, and animal diversity including (Gasp!) introduced Non-Native plants and animals thrive together in an "ecosystem" LACKING ANY large predators.<br />- Any group or government employee that is responsible for protecting or introducing a deadly predator that kills or maims a citizen should be held as responsible as the owner of a dog that gets loose and kills someone in the neighborhood.<br />- Local rural communities should be supreme within a state concerning whether they will be expected to tolerate any or some or no predators IN THEIR COMMUNITY. Far off urban areas in the state, no more than far off cities and government offices IN OTHER STATES should have little or no role in saddling rural communities with unwanted predators.<br />- Only Federal land under EXCLUSIVE JURISDICTION (land NEVER placed under State authority - the District of Columbia and Yellowstone are about the only examples) should be subject to federal overriding of state predator determinations.<br />- Gun rights, especially handgun availability and carry rights, ought to be particularly easy where large predators exist or are to be tolerated.<br />- Citizen rights to protect life and property ought to be no less concerning an encounter with a deadly predator than when encountering a dangerous and threatening human assailant.<br />- Deadly predators no more "belong" on Cape Cod or in Iowa than they belong in Central Park or San Francisco's Chinatown.<br />- Killing predators should primarily be the responsibility of landowners and hunters licensed under agreed-to state management plans for maintaining, increasing, or eliminating predator numbers and distributions. Government control should only be an expensive last resort for all but federal properties or in cases like geese or other federal Treaty-protected birds around airports or in populated areas where Local governments cannot do it for various reasons.<br />- States like Florida, New Jersey, and Louisiana should reduce their black bear populations and distributions not only because of the cost and damage being caused by excessive bear numbers but because ---<br />As bears and cougars and coyotes and wolves search for food, learn to kill other animals for fun (like cats with birds or mice whenever available) and as they live near people without any fear (from shooting, trapping, poisoning, harassment, etc.) they get more familiar with people and therefore more dangerous. Kids, old people, and hikers, and anyone else become merely something to eat or "bluff" or simply attack JUST LIKE THAT "RESCUED" BULLDOG. <br />Whether it is an "isolated" incident or whether or not you are the one being "damaged" by livestock or pet attacks or your kid is threatened at bus stops; whether it is one death a year or whether you never hope to hunt for moose in Minnesota: you can no more rely on government "biologists" than that retired officer could rely on those "concerned" (primarily with him evidently) rescuers.<br />Watching this bizarre drama for years and listening to all the propaganda reminds me of a silly movie based on a fantasy theme. Remember that tune? "Who Ya Gonna Call? Ghostbusters". We have been playing bit parts in these animal rights/government comedies for long enough. Getting rescue and wildlife management back under American Constitutional control needs to start with repositioning the animal rescue efforts and the wildlife management and control "professionals" that have strayed far from public purposes to harmful agendas that I leave to you to judge as to whether they spring from ignorance, self-interest, or evil intent. <br /><em>Jim Beers 2 November 2009</em>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1340139490199274331.post-69070068899559446922009-11-21T17:46:00.000-08:002009-11-21T17:48:01.509-08:00THE TWO "F" WORDS<strong>By Jim Beers</strong><br /><br />A recent lecture on the relation between the prolific writings of GK Chesterton (in the late 19th and early 20th century England) and modern environmentalism was well worth the evening commute and time I spent at a nearby University. The speaker, Mr. Ahlquist the President of the American Chesterton Society, made many thought-provoking observations from Chesterton but one in particular was, to me, very relevant to the US in the past 40 years and especially to all of us today.<br />In early 20th century England, just like in the USA today, there was a political "Right" and a political "Left". Their characteristics have been practically identical over the past century.<br />The "Right" is synonymous with Republican, "Conservative", business, "the rich", and "tradition" (this latter being synonymous in popular mythology with the "rich keeping their riches"). The "Right" is the champion of "Individual Rights" as mentioned in the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, and as treated in the strict interpretation of the Constitution. In short, the "Right" sees the RIGHTS of an INDIVIDUAL as "Unalienable" and the root for everything else from private property rights to gun rights.<br />The "Left" is similarly synonymous with Democrat, "Liberal", workers, "the non-rich", and "change" (this latter being synonymous in popular mythology with "everyone eventually being as rich as 'the rich'"). The "Left" is the champion of "Community" broadly defined (as opposed the "individual"). Their model is a changeable government system subject to the values they attribute to being for the good of the community based on what they say it to be. In practice, that means the desires of those that elect the leaders, no matter the words of the Constitution or any previous "precedents". In essence, the "Left" sees the WILL of the COMMUNITY as being superior to Individual Rights and either the Constitution or the ideals stated in The Declaration of Independence. <br />As nations like England, Canada, and the United States swing back and forth over time between these two "sides" certain things become evident. I believe it is proper to generalize about the periods of "Left" and "Right" governments in these countries over the past century.<br />When "Left" governments rule they tend to disregard and even replace local governments (State, County, City, etc.) that are not of their own party and/or not cooperative. They tend to create more powerful and more all-inclusive (of human rights and activities) authorities in the name of "controlling business" and "redistributing wealth" (from the "rich", naturally). They tend to disregard tradition and precedent as they struggle to form a new model that will create a "Brave New World" as described in Aldous Huxley's depressing 1931 book (written during a World Depression when Liberals were taking control for a decade simultaneous with German and Japanese world-war planning.) Symptoms such as Consider the periods of 1914-1918 under Wilson, the 1930's under FDR, the late 1960's under Johnson, the late 1970's under Carter, and the current debacle under Obama as examples of Liberal rule. Actually, the periods of Clinton, both Bushes, Teddy Roosevelt and Nixon were Liberal or "Left"-"Lite", truth be known. Look at spending, government growth (in size and jurisdiction), the unchecked meddling in the affairs of all, the diminishment of state and local authorities, and the embrace of world government from the League of Nations to the present UN. <br />When "Right" governments rule they tend to resist "change" even the "change" wrought by a previous "Left" Administration. They are not openly usurping state and local governments except when financial supporters lobby for it. They embrace the status quo while giving lip service to the wording of the Constitution. They tend to be supportive of deterring crime through punishment and they are more assertive and unforgiving to international threats and terrorism. They are more aligned with traditional and cultural defenders although their more affluent supporters often resist being identified with or supportive of the cultural, sex, marriage, or Life issues. Although they run on "cutting" government and spending, they have evolved to being a party that only represents a slower slide into a massive central government that controls everyone and everything. Relations with the One-world government types tends to be one of resisting things like Kyoto and Climate Change Treaties while signing on to Endangered Species, UN Natural Area designations, and Whaling Agreements that are all not only counter-productive but more importantly grow domestic federal government authority over all manner of associated things in massive spurts that ultimately destroy state and local Constitutional authority. The periods of Harding, Coolidge, Eisenhower, and Reagan would be typical "Right" periods, while the period of JFK and Harry Truman might be definable as "Right"-"Lite". <br />To sum it up, the "Right" touts Individual Rights while the "Left" touts Community Rights. Neither really protects state and local government (who, other than "local" government guarantees "local community" rights?). There is not the slightest doubt, and I will argue anyone on this point, that the current lock on power by the Left (White House and massive majorities in the US House and Senate) is characterized by a true "Blitzkrieg" by the federal government on business, private property, INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS, and COMMUNITY GOVERNMENT. The combination of political majorities, extremely radical appointees, an unfamiliarity with the truth, unparalleled massive spending, and a ruthless disregard for precedent and tradition that has accounted for a 9-month swing to the Left unmatched in American history.<br />The Founding Fathers drew up and signed a Constitution that essentially did three things.<br />- First, it clearly stated an explicit list of INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS guaranteed to all citizens.<br />- Second, it clearly limited the necessary (but yet to be always feared) central government to specific and limited responsibilities and powers, mainly national defense and interstate commerce "regulation" meaning preserving fairness and trade between states not the massive and all-encompassing power claimed over the past century.<br />- Third, all other powers and responsibilities were left with the "States respectively, or to the people" per the 10th Amendment. That means the "people" can control their State (and not vice versa) and thereby have "control" of THEIR OWN COMMUNITIES.<br />While each of these three purposes has been stood on its head over the past century, can anyone disagree that they are being spun like a baton in a parade by the current "Left" government?<br />So what did Chesterton have to say about his back in the beginning of the 20th century? He said that neither Individual Rights nor Community Controls are an answer unto themselves. He postulates that the environment created by explicit INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS and COMMUNITY CONTROLS that are truly controlled by the local community EACH creates a balanced environment where Liberty thrives; and where Liberty thrives FREEDOM nurtures the true cornerstone and foundation of all human societies, THE FAMILY.<br />As this is written the family is under attack by every imaginable force. Children, parents, religious values, and religious institutions are all being attacked by political (mainly Left) actions encouraging same-sex sex, abortion, euthanasia, fatherless children, population control, birth control, divorce, and cohabitation, while discouraging marriage and timeless moral values by the shameless use of propaganda by teachers on the public payroll. This attack has paralleled both in speed and intensity the loss of INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS and COMMUNITY CONTROLS in western nations over the past century. As we have watched and fought about our individual loss of Individual Rights and Community Controls, the environment that supports Freedom and the Family has deteriorated proportionately.<br />In the US this argument between Left and Right has become an "either/or" confrontation with no answer. Like the, "you're either for or against Wilderness" or hunting or animal ownership or animal use or "clean" air/water/environment, or "science", etc., etc. argument, there is no answer. Only when we recognize Individual Rights as applying to each of us regardless of how someone else "feels" must be respected by all will we break the power politicians hold and expand when they promise to take away the rights of others for their own personal gain. Only when we realize that we must accept LOCAL COMMUNITY CONTROLS and not clamor to use federal powers or the political power of large cities that "control" state governments on rural residents or dog owners or parents, etc., etc., that we disagree with will we restore the environment necessary for Liberty and Freedom to fluorish.<br />THE FAMILY is the cornerstone of any society and it needs FREEDOM to flourish. As we wonder about how to preserve Liberty for our descendants, perhaps we should first and foremost consider the Family and Freedom. As those two "F" words go, so go we all.<br /><em>Jim Beers 31 October 2009</em>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1340139490199274331.post-27786174937997319882009-11-11T09:17:00.001-08:002009-11-11T09:19:27.452-08:00DESPERATE CLIMATE-TORS!<strong>By Paul Driessen</strong><br /> <br />You can hear, feel and almost taste the desperation within the dyed-in-the-wool climate alarmist camp. <br />The planet is no longer cooperating with their cataclysmic warnings. It is in fact not warming “furiously” and “dangerously” – not any longer, or ever in recent millennia. Their favorite whipping boys – carbon dioxide, fossil fuels, Western living standards and civilization – may not be guilty of planetary murder, after all. <br />So now, to protect and advance their Copenhagen agenda, it is critical that they rewrite history, delete the inconvenient episodes, pooh-pooh ignorant geologists who bring up Earth’s history of never-ending climate change, and create some idyllic past when Planet Earth was forever bathed in constant temperatures, summer lingered ‘til September, winter exited March the second on the dot, and by order of the Crown the climate was perfect all year. Thus we hear from Reinhold Leinfelder and Tagesspiegel in the November 10 CCNet that: <br />“… the CO2 emitted by us is now gathering in the atmosphere, unlike other greenhouse gases over thousands of years, where it now exceeds all historical values for at least a million years. Therefore, the CO2 increase is the main driver of the processes warming. <br />“<em>Our civilization, based on agriculture </em>… relies on a stable climate. So far, we have been lucky: In the last 5000 years, the climate at a global (not regional) level has only varied by a few tenths of a degree per 100 years. Only the 20th Century, with its warming of 0.8 degrees, is an exception. <br />“Planet Earth did not care three million years ago that the climate was about three degrees warmer and sea level was 25 to 35 feet higher. For our civilization today, a rise by just one meter would have negative consequences.” Et cetera. <br />So the proof is in, Leibfelder claims. CO2 levels are rising, due mainly to human activities. QED. This is, ipso facto, proof that carbon dioxide is “the main driver” in global warming. The natural forces have simply ceased to exist, one must assume, or at least no longer play a noticeable role in climate change. <br />But now that planetary temperatures have stabilized and even dropped a bit, is CO2 also the main driver in global cooling? That would be rather complicated, and inconvenient. As would these other inconvenient truths: <br />Sea levels have risen 400 feet since the last Ice Age ended, and all those mile-thick glaciers melted. Granted, 11,000 years ago is a bit more than 5,000 years. But it is quite a bit less than the “three million” years ago that those troublesome geologists were talking about in Berlin – before they discussed the Pleistocene and even more recent Earth history. Did mammoth flatulence and cave man fires perhaps cause those repeated glacial and interglacial epochs? <br />In northern Africa, green river valleys used to be home to contented hippopotami and happy human villagers. Then, rather suddenly, 4,000 years ago, the region somehow metamorphosed into the Sahara Desert. That’s certainly within Leinfelder’s highly selective time frame. Do you suppose Egyptian slaves did it, cooking over their open fires, while also breathing very heavily as they built pyramids for pharaohs? <br />What about the Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age? Fires from sacked cities, perhaps? Admittedly, the Northern Hemisphere isn’t exactly planetary. But it’s a lot of territory. (And maybe the Southern Hemisphere doesn’t count now, since this much more watery expanse doesn’t behave quite the same way as its Northern cousin.) But in any event, how did our ancestors, even more dependent on agriculture than we are – and even less technologically advanced – manage to cope? Historians tell us they ADAPTED! One would suppose we could adapt, as well, since thinking humans don’t usually just sit there and get pummeled by callous natural forces, and we have learned a lot over the past centuries. <br />What about the Dust Bowl? It blew away soil, destroyed agriculture and displaced thousands of American families. It was a climate disaster, by any definition. It was the same kind of regional disaster that Climate Armageddonites routinely seize on to “prove” global warming. Did the Model T, Wright Brothers or World War I cause that extended drought? Did the Dust Bowl destroy the planet? What made it go away? More carbon dioxide, which presumably cooled the planet until 1975, when we had the global cooling scare? And is CO2 now causing planetary temperatures to stabilize and even cool off again, after a 20-year interlude of warming? <br />All this alarmist caterwauling and revisionist history really is getting a bit tedious, though it is also very amusing – and great fodder for cartoonists. <br />Does Herr Leinfelder really think the 1975-1998 temperature was ideal? Or perhaps the much cooler average global temperature between 1940 and 1975 were more ideal? Or during the twenties and thirties? Or maybe during the Roman or Medieval times, or Greenland’s during the Viking Colonization period? Or maybe it was the Little Ice Age global average, of just a few centuries ago? (Or maybe, as Michael Mann suggests, the LIA never happened.) <br />Does Leinfelder really think we humans can set the Earth’s thermostat? And who exactly does he suppose should have the power to decide what is the “ideal” temperature, humidity, rainfall and storm setting for Planet Earth and all its various regions? <br />One more inconvenient question. How exactly does he know global climate varied by only “a few tenths of a degree per 100 years” during the last 5000 years. That’s quite a precise estimate. Did he perhaps find a stash of Celtic, Inca, Mesopotamian, ancient Chinese and late Neolithic thermometer data that had been overlooked by historians? Perhaps it was filed among the “missing” CRU data? Or with Dr. James Hansen’s airport, blacktop and air conditioning-modified ground temperature measurements? <br />As I said, you can almost taste the desperation. Bring on Copenhagen. It will be a very entertaining circus. <br /><em>Paul Driessen </em><br />Senior policy advisor <br />Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow and Congress of Racial EqualityUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1340139490199274331.post-60472371569166871462009-11-03T09:07:00.000-08:002009-11-11T09:22:17.056-08:00WE'RE ALL IN CHINA NOW<em>New Initiative Launches Police State Under Guise of Mental Health</em><br /><strong>© 2009 Beverly Eakman </strong><br /><br />It's zero hour in America. Do you know where your country went?<br />Now that America's education system and parenting "experts" have brainwashed a generation of now-grown schoolchildren-cum-parents into believing that what we once called personality quirks, character flaws and moral issues are, in essence, mental disorders, politicians have taken the ball and run with it. Law enforcement agencies and the judicial system are in the process of adopting Stalinist and Mao-inspired methods of controlling dissidents at home.<br />Only a few, short years ago, what was held up as independent thinking, speaking one's mind, and robust dialogue is now decried as a prelude to terrorism. Our nation's leaders are pulling off communist-style thought-control by implying that any words uttered in print or out loud that run contrary to "accepted wisdom" (and that can change in a "New York Minute") is the result of mental illness.<br />Don't believe it? Well, "google" this:<br />A recent report out of Missouri labeled "not-for-public-distribution" (circulated anonymously by a shocked and patriotic police officer) specifically describes supporters of the three presidential candidates as potential "militia"-influenced terrorists and instructs police to be on the lookout for bumper stickers and other paraphernalia associated with, of all things, the Constitution-such as "Campaign for Liberty." Even a few Members of Congress were implied to be security risks themselves (potential domestic terrorists). The document, entitled "The Modern Militia Movement" (February 20, 2009), emanated from the Missouri Information Analysis Center (MIAC), one of several so-called "Fusion Centers" established by the federal government around the country.<br />Most people are probably not familiar with the term "Fusion Center." These were originally intended to allow local and state law-enforcement agents to work alongside federal officers after 9/11so that terrorist-related activities could be identified, then pounced upon by all three entities at once. "Fusion Center" offices, therefore, incorporate local, state and federal law-enforcement personnel, a strategy which, prior to the launching of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), was deliberately avoided to maintain independence and preserve impartiality. Predictably, these Centers got out of hand and fell into what is referred to as "mission creep."<br /><br /> Mission creep is defined by Wikipedia as:<br /><br /> "the expansion of a project or mission beyond its original goals, often after initial successes.. [I]t is usually considered undesirable due to the dangerous path of each success breeding more ambitious attempts, only stopping when a final, often catastrophic, failure occurs. The term was originally applied exclusively to military operations, but has recently been applied to [other] fields, mainly the growth of bureaucracies."<br />Ongoing improvements in tracking and monitoring of opinions via magazine subscriptions, charitable gifts, school and household surveys, and other computerized data collection has made political prediction on hot-button topics that much easier to secure. "Predictive computer technology" (already a staple of school assessment testing) entails analysis by behavioral psychiatrists with concurrent degrees in statistics. This same capability has greatly accelerated mission creep among the nation's Fusion Centers.<br />The PBS News Hour (not known for its conservatism or, for that matter, for being "alarmist") recently reported on how political dissidents in China are forced into to psychiatric hospitals Video: Chinese Dissidents Committed to Mental Hospitals. In the segment, aired September 13, 2009, the manner in which complainants (called petitioners), whistleblowers and outright protesters are "managed" bears an eerie resemblance to a policy shift right here in America. States' rights (or the 10th Amendment) are among the first casualties of a top-down, federal effort to minimize, and eventually suppress, dissent.<br />Take, for example, an individual or group complaining about government "land seizures" without proper compensation-a property-rights issue that is becoming very familiar to people in the Southwest and Northwest, such as Oregon, Arizona. Ron Ewart, president of National Association of Rural Landowners and nationally recognized author on freedom and property rights issues can document dozens of cases where farms, livestock and people have had water and other infrastructure cut off, forcing them from their homes and their properties to depreciate on spurious environmental grounds. But such "land grabs" are moving even into liberal-left states like Connecticut, and for no other reason than "the common good." The Kelo v. New London decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in June 2005 essentially allows the State to condemn or take over private residences and small businesses that happen to be in the way of "better" taxation prospects. <br />Tom DeWeese, president of the American Policy Center in the Washington, DC Metro area explains it this way:<br />"Say a councilman and a developer decide they could make money using 'eminent domain' to take an entire neighborhood of small-tract houses - tearing them down to build a hi-rise condo. That new building would fit the Kelo decision's definition of 'common good' because it would create new and higher taxes than the existing small-tract houses. Building the condo would mean creating jobs; it would help realtors and furniture stores, and so on, by giving them new products to sell. The only losers would be the old property owners who lose their homes - oh, well.." <br />Regardless of the strength of a plaintiff's grievance, it typically costs more to fight than it does to just pack one's bags.<br />The point? That people are suddenly afraid to balk at government overreach, especially if such overreach is tinged with politically correct dogma, as in the case of the "common good."<br />And why is that? <strong>Psychopolitics.</strong><br />Psychopolitics is as the art and science of asserting and maintaining dominion over the thoughts and loyalties of individuals, officers, bureaus, and "the masses," via various techniques ranging from "group dynamics," "cognitive dissonance," "de-sensitization," "super-imposing alternate value structures," "artificial disruption of thought," the Delphi Method, the Tavistock Technique, to negative or positive "reinforcement." If you don't recognize any of these, don't feel too badly, because they are not part of any school curriculum. The people who created them are, for the most part, unknown in our own country, except among those groomed by extremist political organizations to become "change agents," professional agitators or "provocateurs." The pioneers of psychopolitics, including attitude prediction, include individuals such as Wilhelm Reich, Kurt Lewin, Theodor Adorno and Erich Fromm (Germany); A. S. Neill, A. J. Oraje and John Rawlings Rees (Great Britain); Antonio Gramsci (Italy); Anatoly Lunacharsky and Georg Lukacs (Russia); G. Brock Chishom and Ewen Cameron (Canada); and the U.S.'s own Ralph Tyler and Ronald Havelock.<br />Although psychopolitics originated under Vladimir Lenin as "political literacy" and "polytechnical education" in the old Soviet Union, and was carried to the free world via Peter Sedgwick (1934-1983) a translator for Victor Serge, author of PsychoPolitics and a revolutionary socialist activist as well as a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain, the term psychopolitics found its way into the American lexicon via Isaac Asimov, a master of the sci-fi genre. But psychopolitics is no science fiction adventure, and never was. <br />By the 1970s, a slew of enablers were establishing a system of numerical codes for so-called mental disorders that would accommodate computerization. This lent legitimacy to what would otherwise have been considered "questionable illnesses." The goal was to ensure that medical professionals, the media and government accepted these terms as they might "diabetes," thereby ensuring that the mental illnesses so codified would remain indelible, beginning with the youngest and most vulnerable.<br />The long-term game plan of psychopolitics is the conquest, usually by proxy, of enemy nations through "mental healing," better known as "re-education." This entails what we know as "encounter groups," extensive self-disclosure surveys and peer pressure to conform. If all that doesn't work, if certain individuals are still not amenable, then the first step is marginalization as "mentally unbalanced." <br />Example: A study by the National Institute of Mental Health and the National Science Foundation, funded by U.S. taxpayers to the tune of $1.2 million, announced on 1 August, 2003, that adherents to conventional moral principles and limited government are mentally disturbed. NIMH-NSF scholars from the Universities of Maryland, California at Berkeley, and Stanford attribute notions about morality and individualism to "dogmatism" and "uncertainty avoidance." Social conservatives, in particular, were said to suffer from "mental rigidity," a condition which, researchers assert, is probably hard-wired, condemning traditionalists to a lifelong, cognitive hell, with all the associated indicators for mental illness: "decreased cognitive function, lowered self-esteem, fear, anger, pessimism, disgust, and contempt" (Jost, J. T., J. Glaser, et al. (2003). "Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition." Psychological Bulletin 129(3): 339-375 online at http://www.apa.org/journals/bul/503ab.html). [Note: this study has been moved to Apa.org]<br />This is the sort of ultimately unprovable, but nevertheless libelous, condescension that is heaped upon anyone from talk show hosts, to authors to patriots who dare to contradict "common wisdom" (a.k.a. "political correctness"). If that doesn't work, contempt may be followed up with "mandatory [psychiatric] counseling" (already a feature of the American judicial system), or even forcible psychiatric drugging (well on its way to legitimacy in this nation's schools). Finally there is incarceration in a psychiatric hospital, which gratefully is not yet a fixture in American democracy for potential dissenters, but the handwriting is on the wall, as the expression goes.<br />Totalitarian states like Communist China and Russia may be more blatant in their affronts to human rights and personal property - inasmuch as they don't need a "reason" - but the differences are narrowing precipitously.<br />As emphasized during interviews on the PBS segment, the Chinese system is set up in such a way as to pre-empt complaints. The Chinese government doesn't wait around for somebody to sound off; it pre-emptively seeks out individuals likely to become troublesome, by assigning a mental-health diagnosis to anyone at the first sign of a provocative or inflammatory remark.<br />This lies at the heart of what is going on here in America, and we absolutely must put a stop to it, if it isn't already too late. Data-mining (which actually pre-dates 9/11), along with longitudinal tracking (that's tracking over long time periods) and, therefore, ongoing monitoring of individual perceptions, worldviews and beliefs is gaining momentum with every moment that computer technology evolves - which means constantly. Combine this with the practice of assigning mental-illness labels to private opinions, based on snippets of various information - with anything that might be favorable to the individual conveniently left out!<br />This "diagnosis," like the American school child's, follows the person for life, often compromising his or her college and career prospects. An why not, after all? Computerization makes it impossible for anyone to prove that an erroneous or falsified accusation has been purged from the system with no backup copy.<br />Today's Chinese authorities, like Josef Stalin, Adolf Hitler, and Mao Zedong (Tse-tung) before them, in order to avoid drawing attention to policies that may be morally or ethically distasteful abroad (e.g., the one-child policy and forced abortion) or invite protests that coincide with an event at which international media attention is expected (such as the Olympics), they employ spies, block careers and intimidate family members.<br />It may be shocking to hear from your college-age children that we going down the same road. Several universities, like the University of Delaware, in which a lawsuit was filed, have planted paid opinion-monitors in university dormitories (called "resident assistants," or RAs).<br />Adam Kissel, Director of the Individual Rights Defense Program, Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, provides this shocking, real-life example in a January 2008 speech at the Constitutional Coalition (St. Louis, Missouri), which resulted in a lawsuit:<br />The freshman arrived for her mandatory one-on-one session in her dormitory at 8 pm. Classes had been in session for about a week. Her resident assistant handed her a questionnaire. He told her it was "a little questionnaire to help [you] and all the other residents relate to the curriculum." She "looked a little uncomfortable."<br />"When did you discover your sexual identity?" the questionnaire asked. <br />She wrote in response: "That is none of your damn business."<br />Another question: "When was a time you felt oppressed?"<br />Her response: "I am oppressed every day [because of my] feelings for the opera. Regularly [people].jeer me with cruel names.. But I will overcome! Hear me, you rock-loving majority?"<br />The resident assistant felt appalled.. He wrote up an incident report and reported her to his superiors.<br />This one-on-one session was not a punishment.for a recalcitrant student who had committed an infraction. It was mandatory sensitivity training, indeed, but it was part of a program that was mandatory for all 7,000 students in the University of Delaware dorms. It was a thorough thought-reform curriculum that was designed by the school's Residence Life staff in order to treat and correct the allegedly incorrect thoughts, attitudes, values, and beliefs of the students..<br />Many other features - the mandatory one-on-one and group sessions throughout the year; the "confrontation" training to help RAs challenge students who were not complying [with political correctness]; the posters with [politicized] messages spread throughout the dorms; the zero-tolerance policy against anything deemed "oppressive"; the individual files on students and their beliefs, in some cases called "portfolios," which were to be archived after graduation; the RA reports on their "best" and "worst" one-on-one sessions; the scientific analysis of the questionnaires in order to measure improvement toward the "educational objective"; the "strong male RAs" who were hired to break the "resistance to educational efforts" among [especially] the young male students - all of this, according to the university's own materials, was part of a cutting-edge educational model that had won awards from a professional association for university administrators, the American College Personnel Association.<br />As if this weren't enough to prove that psychopolitics is alive and well in America, with the pervasive undercurrent of "mental illness" as justification, schools below the college level have thoroughly succeeded in exchanging academic testing for mental-health "assessment"; left out, rewritten, and altered history texts until virtually nothing is left of the Framers ideals of a constitutional republic; redefined and watered down morality into something called "situation ethics"; removed the physiology from health classes and replaced it with graphic sex education, beginning in kindergarten.<br />Already, we see the results:<br />Do you vocally promote the right to self-defense? Do you voice support for the intact family; national sovereignty and strict interpretation of the U.S. Constitution? Do you criticize easy immigration (i.e., without an citizen-sponsor); unrestricted free trade; free condoms hanging on some college freshmen's dormitory doors; formalization of same-sex unions; abortion on-demand; mandatory mental-health screening of all pregnant women and schoolchildren? Do you have a problem with the policies of the Federal Reserve; with "traffic" cameras and other surreptitious surveillance devices; industry-wide bailouts; no-fault divorce and illegitimacy? Then, my friend, you are not merely holding to a "divergent viewpoint," to use the 1950s term; you are mentally ill and a potential terrorist. You are a person who is ripe for radicalization and therefore suspect. Did you volunteer for certain political candidates in the 2008 election? Do you, by your choices of magazine literature and religious preference, show that you have "bought in to" theological tenets such as the Creation? <br />If any of these apply to you, good luck in ever securing a government grant or contract, or getting your child into a top university, when there are others who carry none of this psychological "baggage."<br />Americans are supposed to view any opposition to all this as "paranoia." Of course, the term paranoia carries a chilling effect, because it screams "mentally unbalanced" to the world.<br />Once it becomes possible, via technology, to track and legislate private opinions - and even to classify those that don't conform as "mentally ill" - then we have left the realm of politics and moved into coercion. We have facilitated the stigmatization of political dissent and vocal objection using labels like "acute stress disorder" or "paranoid schizophrenia," just as they do a right now, today, in China, according the aforementioned PBS segment.<br />As a former employee of the U.S. Justice Department, I personally saw several precursors to the MIAC document - "watch-out" reports (for lack of a better term), on a smaller scale, under Janet Reno's tenure there. These were distributed to employees following the first anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing. Obviously, such alerts have been greatly expanded, what with the network of government "Fusion Centers" in state after state.<br />With pharmaceutical company moguls and politicians sitting on each other's boards (E. I. Lilly's chief executive officer, Sidney Taurel, sat on the Homeland Security Council under George W. Bush's administration); with nationwide mental health assessments like the New Freedom Initiative (funded by the House in 2002) sizing up the political "health" of schoolchildren (and curriculum being altered accordingly); and with "behavioral detection officers" ("BDOs") looking for any signs of irritation among model citizens in airport security lines, while U.S. borders are left open for drug-runners, who then get to sue Border Patrol agents for shooting at them-all this points to an America in big trouble. <br />"Political dissent" is now in the eye of the bureaucratic beholder - or the surveillance camera, erected under the guise of traffic safety to pursue revenue and to intimidate through meaningless "gotchas."<br /><strong>We're all in China now.</strong><br /><br /><em><strong>About Beverly Eakman:</strong></em><br /><em>Beverly K. Eakman is a former educator and retired federal employee who served as speechwriter for the heads of three government agencies and as editor-in-chief of NASA's newspaper at the Johnson Space Center. Today, she is a Washington, DC-based freelance writer, the author of five books, and a frequent keynote speaker on the lecture circuit. Her most recent work is Walking Targets: How Our Psychologized Classrooms Are Producing a Nation of Sitting Ducks (Midnight Whistler Publishers).</em>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1340139490199274331.post-31632179594848026992009-10-22T15:22:00.000-07:002009-10-22T15:24:09.091-07:00HAZY IMAGES NO MORE<strong>By Jim Beers</strong><br /> <br />The US Attorney General has just announced that Federal laws regarding marijuana will no longer be enforced where States allow marijuana use. Like the administrative decisions by other Presidential appointees to not enforce Federal Immigration laws or even to not enforce The Federal Right and Constitutional wording regarding "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed" in cities like Washington, DC or New York City or Chicago or states like Illinois, Wisconsin, New Jersey and Massachusetts: one can only be dumbfounded by the impunity and callous disregard for Constitutional jurisprudence exhibited by "elected officials" and their minions. All of this makes a shambles of Article IV, Section 2 of the Constitution that states, "The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States."<br />Yet, when it comes to signing a UN Gun Treaty or a "Climate Change" Treaty, or when it comes to enforcing a prohibition against ANY abortion restrictions (parental notification, permission, school encouragement, etc.): these same "elected politicians" and their minions suddenly become Constitutional "extremists". In the case of Gun Rights and in the case of all the "Climate Change" implications in the proposed Treaties we will all be reminded about how a Treaty "shall become the Supreme Law of the Land" per Article VI of the Constitution as they develop a book of regulations that remake the USA into a copy of 1935 Germany or present day Venezuela. In the case of unlimited abortion, mere words constructed out of thin air (a "right to privacy") when uttered by a Supreme Court Justice are treated as etchings on stone tablets being carried about by Moses.<br />So what is going on? If a law is unenforceable or if a President and his minions choose not to enforce it (on what legal basis?) it should be repealed. As the current Administration decrees what laws will not be enforced it simultaneously is colluding with the Congress to politicize and control American society in ways that are Constitutionally illegal. For instance:<br />· Controlling the bonuses and pay levels of selected and growing segments of the economy.<br />· Threatening banks through government regulatory agencies like the FDIC to provide loans to unqualified minority applicants or to contribute significant amounts to minority organizations that helped elect the President in spite of collecting government funds that specifically prohibited any partisan political activity by such groups.<br />· Awarding Billions of dollars to select banks, investment firms and insurance conglomerates based on secret (political?) criteria with no public accounting on the disposition, use, and results of such public monies.<br />· Establishing precedents that destroy the Constitutional mandate of Article I, Section 9 that "No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury but in Consequence of Appropriations made by law; and a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money shall be published from time to time" by additionally proposing to make said favored firms pay back certain funds and then for the Administration to merely reuse such funds ad infinitum.<br />· Buying auto companies and then operating them in partnership with workers' organizations.<br />· Eliminating certain businesses like car dealerships that either supported opposition candidates for office or did not contribute to the recently elected politicians.<br />· Proposing to take control of all health care, doctors, health workers, and hospitals to not only extend its unconstitutional extension of power over the economy and people but to reinforce its anti-life and anti-religious programs of abortion, family numbers control, withholding of care to the elderly and disabled as well as more Draconian policies such as have been in evidence in recent dictatorships and more Socialist western nations regarding euthanasia for the elderly, the sick, and the disabled.<br />· Proposing a "Cap & Trade" Treaty that will give the central government unprecedented control over every sector of the economy, all human activities, and unlimited taxing power to both collect massive revenues and favor political supporters like same-sex couples and childless couples that leave lower "carbon footprints".<br />· Targeting private citizens, media outlets, business entities, and academics for marginalizing and destruction because they oppose Administration policies. For instance, re-instituting the "Fairness Doctrine" to destroy Talk Radio and White House encouragement for supportive media to ignore media reports from opponents considered unfavorable to the Administration. <br />All of these unconstitutional expansions of Federal powers are identical to the actions taken by Communist dictatorships, Nazi tyrants, and current dictatorships like Chavez in Venezuela, Castro in Cuba, and Morales in Bolivia as they assumed all powers over everyone and everything and simultaneously assured their own unopposed lifetime position as ruler.<br />Politicians and supporters favored by the ruler will be quietly relieved of the burdens placed on the ruled. For instance:<br />· Does anyone think that rich regime supporters like Ted Kennedy would have been placed on a six-month "waiting list" or have been told he was too old or too sick to receive end-of-life medical care under the proposed Government Health Care takeover?<br />· Does anyone believe that powerful politicians would have to give up their New York City Gun Permits while they work to disarm the rest of us like Senator Schumer?<br />· Would any common man; be he middle class, white, or property owner; be un-prosecuted for carrying a loaded gun in no-gun cities like Washington, Chicago, and Boston like many minorities are or as US Senator Webb was when he carried a loaded gun across Washington, DC and into US Senate offices?<br />· Consider the "poor" Chancellor at the University of Illinois that recently "Resigned Under Pressure" for favoring "politically-connected" applicants over better qualified common-folk applicants. Why aren't he and other such "perps" prosecuted? Aren't the "politically-connected" in Illinois and Chicago the fruit of this system that the President and all his old chums from Ayres and Wright to Daley and Blagoyevich inherited and milked and are now introducing into national politics? Like Claude Rains in the 1942 movie Casablanca being "Shocked" by the gambling at "Ricks", we can all assume that these Illinois politicians are similarly taken aback by such nefarious activities at The State University.<br />Last night Lannie Davis, a mouthpiece for the Administration, was arguing for the worthiness of many of the travesties mentioned above. As others dismantled his arguments he was forced into a corner wherein he said "well elections have consequences". The clear implication was that an elected President can do whatever he wants, however he wants to do it. That is exactly what Communist dictators, Nazi Tyrants, and despots like Chavez and Mugabe maintain.<br />Communist dictators like Lenin, Mao, Pol Pot, and Ho Chi Min obtained their "positions" at the point of a gun. Hitler, Mugabe, and Chavez obtained their "positions" in elections during times of economic crisis with the "assistance" of thugs and intimidation.<br />The current Administration was similarly elected in a time of "crises" as the President's Chief of Staff noted as "opportunities too valuable to waste". The Administration employed thugs and crooks ("ACORN" and associated "community organizers") that were specifically forbidden from such activity by virtue of the public funding paying for their activities yet were never prosecuted.<br />What is going on is very dangerous. Based strictly on historic and recent precedents, we are clearly heading into dictatorship and single party rulers not only like 1930's Germany and present-day Venezuela but also like Boston, New Jersey, Chicago, Milwaukee, and Detroit. All the foregoing are hard examples of where this Administration and Congress intend to take us.<br />The ONLY purpose of government is to protect society. Individuals and families can best control government when it is kept at the lowest possible level (a principle called Subsidiarity). Federal responsibilities ought to be limited to national defense and interstate commerce, while State governments and particularly local governments should be concerned with day-to-day things necessary to the common and local good. <br />Government will inevitably control individuals and families when power is allowed to migrate to the highest possible level. Power concentration will always attract amoral individuals that will scheme and connive to possess that power in perpetuity for their own benefit. Government growth and the concentration of power at the highest level must always be resisted and avoided for the result is always tyranny and dictatorship because by definition there are then no longer any enforceable limits on government.<br /><em>Jim Beers 21 October 2009</em>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1340139490199274331.post-87296843988182283732009-10-21T16:12:00.000-07:002009-10-21T16:22:54.372-07:00KUDOS & BRICKBATS<em>Editor's note: Kudos & Brickbats was written in response to Jim Beers following column "Reflections of a Nazi Tyranny".</em><br /><br /><strong>By Jim Beers</strong><br /><br />My recent piece (Reflections of a Nazi Tyranny) has generated both kudos and some serious brickbats. As I answered one of the kudos and pondered what I might say to those that are so disturbed by what I wrote, the following combined response has come to mind.<br />To those that enjoyed the article, a reader on the West Coast asked, "I would appreciate any help or insight you may offer towards productive action we might pursue." Here was my response:<br />1. Form alliances to protect your rights and freedoms. Look to everyone from trappers, gun owners, and pet owners to ranchers being harmed by wolves and irrigators. Always remember that you are protecting the rights of you and your neighbors (in the national sense) and not making ideological judgments about whether or not people outside your community should be able to do this or that based on your personal preferences. As their rights go, so go yours.<br />2. Speak up in the family, at work, in professional groups and social settings about your concerns in ways that don't antagonize but explain your legitimate concerns in ways that all will consider.<br />3. Target those responsible for harming you (both declared enemies and those that Lenin referred to as "useful idiots") in ways intended to make them reconsider their actions. These arguments should be made public as much as possible to make as many folks as possible understand your issues and what needs to be done.<br />4. Regain control of faculties and curriculums in public schools and in State Universities.<br />5. Strongly, openly, and forthrightly oppose politicians that harm you. Make your reasons simple, public, and understandable.<br />6. Clean-up corrupt voting processes and corrupt voting administrators at all levels.<br />7. Explain rural living and private property issues and concerns at every opportunity and in every available media.<br />8. Treat State and Federal bureaucrats as self-serving individuals concerned with their own (NOT YOUR)) interests. Minimizing their numbers and power, like making politicians and judges always respect the Constitution, should be a never-ending task for each of us.<br />9. Always support and consider subsidiarity. <br />Subsidiarity holds that nothing should be done by a larger and more complex organization that can be done as well by a smaller and simpler organization. In other words, any activity that can be performed by a more decentralized entity should be. This principle is a bulwark of limited government and personal freedom. <br />Subsidiarity conflicts with the passion for centralization and bureaucracy characteristic of the Welfare State. A community of a higher order should not interfere in the internal life of a community of a lower order, depriving the latter of its functions, but rather should support it in case of need and help to coordinate it with the rest of society, always with a view to the common good. The principle of subsidiarity is opposed to all forms of collectivism.<br />When the principle of subsidiarity is ignored, governments often overstep their bounds in managing matters best handled on a more local or individual level. Typically this decreases economy, efficiency, liberty and the personal character of the social order.<br />I hope this helps. It would be good to sit and talk about this somewhere and sometime but for now, this would seem to be all I can jot down.<br /><em>Good Luck, Jim Beers</em><br /><strong>Now to you reluctant readers that condemn what I wrote,</strong> particularly my references to the US government exhibiting traits in common with dictators like Stalin and Hitler, the following quotes by two of the better-known tyrannical killers of the last century are offered in response. I submit that these quotes are as relevant to US policies and leaders today as they were to the dictatorships, executions, gulags and shared misery that these two bums were imposing on Mother Russia in their day.<br /><strong>From Joseph Stalin:</strong><br />"It is enough that the people know there was an election. The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything."<br />"If the opposition disarms, well and good. If it refuses to disarm, we shall disarm it ourselves."<br />"Education is a weapon whose effects depend on who holds it in his hands and at whom it is aimed."<br />"Ideas are more powerful than guns. We would not let our enemy have guns, why should we let them have ideas?"<br />"Everyone imposes his own system as far as his army* can reach."<br />(*Note: Think domestically and substitute Geithner's IRS and Napolitano's Homeland Security and the President's promised Domestic Army made up of "organizers" like ACORN and their ilk for Stalin's "army".)<br /><strong>From Vladimir Lenin:</strong><br />"The way to crush the bourgeoisie is to grind them between the millstones of taxation and inflation."<br />[bour-geois (boor zhwä) Fr. n.1. a member of the middle class. 2. any person owning property.]<br />Lenin described those Western reporters and travelers who would endorse the Soviet Union and its policies in the West as "useful idiots of the West". In the United States today, the term is used to imply an ignorant person that is easily swayed (made 'useful') toward causes that are against their own interest, or what they would consider to be the greater good, were they better-educated.<br />And some people think those guys never had anything worthwhile to say! Some people grab their role models where they find them, just as I use relevant examples of disproved and deadly philosophies wherever I find them.<br /><em>Jim</em>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1340139490199274331.post-5229872817834690312009-10-21T16:07:00.000-07:002009-10-21T16:11:16.250-07:00REFLECTIONS OF A NAZI TYRANNY<strong>By Jim Beers</strong><br /> <br />"Daddy, what did you do in the war?" - A common question in fortunate WWII postwar families like mine.<br />In the turbulence and bitterness of America in 2009 "political correctness", character assassination, and intimidation make dialogue and inquiry all but impossible. Environmentalism, animal rights, socialism, racial divides, and an increasingly powerful and authoritarian central government all seem interwoven with and driven by a deteriorating economy that descends from one "crisis" to another. Desperate people look to a more powerful government as the only salvation and that government is all too willing to take over everyone and everything in a grip it intends never to relax. Government spending has skyrocketed and private enterprises of all kinds are increasingly under government direction. Government opponents in the media are identified and targeted as enemies. Church leaders and institutions are intimidated and told to cooperate or face elimination. A steady drumbeat of "new" laws, many unread by legislators and lied about to an ignorant public, are passed that dramatically change the society. Meetings to organize protests are broken up by "community organizers" that have been told by the President that they will be enlisted in a new domestic police that he plans to establish. This state of affairs could just as easily be used to describe Germany in the 1930's.<br />Of course there are many exceptions to any comparison of Germany circa the 1930's and the USA today. Today we show no tendency toward foreign conquest, indeed we are pursuing mere conversation for every foreign threat from nuclear weapon proliferation to Moslem Jihadism and Russian power expansionism. Simultaneously, we are embracing communist ideologues (Honduras, Venezuela, Cuba) that 1930's Germans hated and feared would conquer them eventually. In spite of being immersed in a never-ending apology for the worldwide and centuries-old practice of slavery and the conquest of European culture over the primitive culture existing in America circa 1492, we have no national delusion about "restoring" a racial culture of supermen that are superior to all other cultures. While government increasingly divides Americans with racial classifications and programs, no concentration camps or "final solution" are in evidence. <br />What we do share with Germany circa the 1930's is a radical government agenda and a powerful central government completely controlled by a single party committed to implementing that radical agenda during a time of one economic crisis after another. A thumbnail summary of the domestic (within the country) portion of that agenda might include:<br />Central Government control of business, banks, health care, insurance and as much else of the economy as possible.<br />Central Government authority over all lower governments (State, County, City, Local) and any decisions they might make.<br />Central Government hegemony as a result of a revamped Constitution and the work of radical judges and courts (see the movie Judgment at Nuremberg).<br />Central government control of religious institutions and religious activities.<br />Central Government control to be maintained by the party in power.<br />Central Government power to control any opposition.<br />Central Government authority over all citizen activity from when they might assemble, what media will be allowed, what speech will be allowed, and who might be allowed a gun to what children would be taught, when persons will be arrested or detained or searched, what property rights will be controlled by government, and who is to be allowed to be better off than others.<br />I first saw glimmerings of 1930's Germany when the President-to-be remarked about not wanting his daughters to "be punished with a baby". Here was a national leader openly referring to unborn children as deserving of no protection and equivalent to 1930's Jewish, Gypsy, and Disabled Germans that for no other reason than their existence could and should be killed.<br />Since that time the "new government" has authorized the use of public tax funds for abortions; threatened to eliminate the legal protection of doctors, nurses, and hospitals that will not provide abortions due to moral objections; continuously lied about the eligibility of public funding for abortions in their health care overhaul; proposed panels to make decisions about what care will be allowed the elderly or disabled; and clearly set the table for legalizing and encouraging euthanasia by what new laws they propose and who they have appointed as White House advisors.<br />Watching the "new government" appoint a gaggle of environmental radicals brought to mind the environmental extremism and nature worship of 1930's Germany. As the new appointees brought a track record of absolute priority for "Native Species" and "Native Ecosystems" to their jobs, one was reminded of 1930's Germany documents and programs aimed at "restoring Pre-Roman plants and animals" to the German Fatherland under the Third Reich. The American obsession with a mythical purity in a pre-Christopher Columbus America is identical to 1930's Germans yearning for a primitive culture that was similarly "spoiled" by a more advanced civilization hundreds of year before. The denigration of "Columbus Day" and the continuing international apologies for what America has wrought throughout the world have only intensifies my impression of this propaganda myth enabling an emerging dictatorship.<br />The abundance of "new government" animal rights radicals has been yet another reflection of 1930's Germany thinking. As we hear and see White House appointees declare how animals should have "rights" and we see their long histories of radical activism on behalf of animals at the expense of human traditions, uses and legal rights such as ownership one is reminded of a similar belief system on the part of the Leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party. In March of 1938 Germany simply absorbed Austria and Hitler made a triumphant entry and tour of several places where he spent his wasted and aimless youth. At his riotous visit to Vienna he first objected to staying at the best hotel because of all the stuffed animals in the lobby only to wind up at the proprietors' suite at the second best hotel where a polar bear rug graced the floor. The Fuehrer "hated hunting" and stayed up most of the night talking with his new puppet Chancellor of Austria. In this regard he would have had much in common with many of the advisors in our "new government".<br />Then there is all the government hoopla about making us all healthy. The proposed taxes on sodas and fast food and the plans for more exercise for all Americans as in the similar propaganda films of 1930's German civilians exercising happily in large military-like formations is matched with an antithetical government drift to unlimited abortion, withholding of health care to the elderly and disabled, and the foundation for future euthanasia programs.<br />The constant media exposure of the "new government" leader, the propaganda poster art, the children singing the songs praising the leader and all he does, and the widespread messages to children about how parents are not your role models but rather The State under the Leader are each eerily reminiscent of 1930's Germany. <br />Some observations and quotes from that period of history shed further light on similarities with today<br />On Fomenting Racial Division to Have Someone to Blame:<br />According to Nazi propaganda, the Jews thrived on fomenting division amongst Germans and amongst states. Nazi anti-semitism was racial: "The Jew is the enemy and destroyer of the purity of blood, the conscious destroyer of our race;" however, the Jews were also described as plutocrats exploiting the worker: "As socialists we are opponents of the Jews because we see in the Hebrews the incarnation of capitalism, of the misuse of the nation's goods." In addition, the Nazis articulated opposition to finance capitalism with an emphasis on anti-Semitic claims that this was manipulated by a conspiracy of Jewish bankers. (Consider "white people" remarks by the President and his pastor. Consider Israel. Consider Insurance Executives and Bankers getting bonuses and Oil Company Executives, etc.)<br /><strong>On the complete lack of any ethic of life or any government role in protecting human life:</strong><br />Hitler considered Sparta to be the first "Völkisch State", and praised its early eugenics treatment of deformed children.<br />"The earth continues to go round, whether it's the man who kills the tiger or the tiger who eats the man. The stronger asserts his will, it's the law of nature. The world doesn't change; its laws are eternal." (Consider the animal rights and environmental extremists in the White House and what they would teach your children about humanity, morality, and nature.)<br /><strong>On Lying:</strong><br />"The victor will never be asked if he told the truth." <br />"Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it." Adolph Hitler<br /><strong>On Education and The Family:</strong><br />When an opponent declares, "I will not come over to your side," I calmly say, "Your child belongs to us already... What are you? You will pass on. Your descendants, however, now stand in the new camp. In a short time they will know nothing else but this new community." Adolph Hitler<br />"We are the joyous Hitler youth,<br />We do not need any Christian virtue<br />Our leader is our savior<br />The Pope and Rabbi shall be gone<br />We want to be pagans once again." - Song sung by Hitler youth (UUU, UUU, UUUMM!)<br /><strong>On Public Information:</strong><br />"By the skilful and sustained use of propaganda, one can make a people see even heaven as hell or an extremely wretched life as paradise." Adolph Hitler<br /><strong>On Public Opinion:</strong><br />"What good fortune for governments that the people do not think." Adolph Hitler<br />What good does it do to make such an outrageous comparison? No reasonable person expects the new government to sign and break pacts or to instigate a "blitzkrieg" or absorb our neighbors. What a reasonable person can expect is the new central government to obtain and hold onto all government power just as happened in 1930's Germany. Whether it is good economically (as it was in Germany) is really immaterial. Whether it is good in some small way for you or me is irrelevant. Whether it is misused as it always comes to be in every dictatorship (which is what emerged in 1930's Germany) by either the current or future governments (as it ALWAYS is) is of no moment to Americans consumed with comfort and self-interest. The fact is that once a moderately responsive government is lost (in Germany just as in the 13 Colonies) you can't just remake it without a lot of blood, sweat, and tears. Also there is no guarantee that you could ever restore this great Republic or anything close to it. Once you lose it, it is lost as millions of Germans would attest. <br />Just recognizing historical symptoms is something. Knowing what they have led to may be enough to bring us together before it becomes too late. Such has been the lesson of history down through the ages.<br />"Forewarned forearmed". (From Don Quixote by Miguel De Cervantes [1547-1616]).Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0