Pappys Ponderings

It's Bigger Than it Looks.

2012-01-19T08:07:00.000-06:00

This a photo of Wayne LaPierre, NRA Executive Vice President. In my most recent e-issue (January 2012) of the American Rifleman, I ran across an article by Chris W. Cox, NRA-ILA Executive Director, entitled "Fast and Furious, Right From the Source". It reminded me of the response of the NRA after the attempted service of a federal search warrant at the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, TX. I am an NRA member and I agree with a lot of what they try to do. However, they, like others who use their considerable resources to influence what goes on in Washington, sometimes use attacks on public servants to get at otherwise untouchable politicians. The photo that goes along with the article shows a beaming Chris W. Cox, (Career Lobbyist) flanked by U.S. Senator Charles Grassley (Career Politician) and U. S. Representative Darrell Issa (Wealthy businessman turned politician with a very interesting past - check them all out on Wikipedia). I did, and I'm convinced I wouldn't trust any of them to make a decision on what was or wasn't a legitimate law enforcement operation. I gave my take on "Fast and Furious" in a post during August of this past year.

http://www.pappysbalderdash.blogspot.com/2011_08_01_archive.html .

I was not going to post on this because it is so hard to lead readers through my maze of critical analysis without loosing them to their own staunch gut reactions. However, a fellow blogger (a former Chief of Police) sent me a blog entry calling for shooting more police officers and lauding the recent killing of a Deputy Sheriff in Phoenix Arizona. He was asking me what I thought we should do to counteract those who call for such action. Here is my response to his inquiry.

"I read it Brady. It is a sign of the times. Unfortunately, people who
dislike the laws we have passed, take out their angst on the people who
enforce it. Those who would have us enter a state of anarchy and
lawlessness have an agenda to destroy the public's confidence in those who
are guardians and enforcement officers (soldiers and law enforcement
officers). When they do this, the "Nanny State" can come in with their
hand picked cadre of enforcers and force people to do as they're told. The
process is aided by people who lack understanding, or those who have nothing
else to do in life but get paid to protest. Look at the "Occupy Wall
Street" crowd for example. Our current president came from the ranks of
those who can be paid to stir up unrest under the guise of furthering social
justice. "Community Organizers" are people paid by wealthy patrons to keep
the undereducated masses in a state of turmoil and herd them in mass to the
polls to vote for those candidates who "The Pseudo-Intellectual Elitists"
tell/pay them to vote for. Barack and Michelle Obama are getting rich and
living large doing exactly as they are told by people like George Soros.

The system is incremental and many people don't even realize they are
playing an active roll. We have passed so many laws that people rebel,
(even those we label as good folks) and quietly justify their selective
obedience/disobedience of the law in their own minds. How many people
speed? How many cheat on their income taxes? How many take liberties with
the gun laws? The list is endless. Those who have financial interests in
the process lash out at the enforcers of the law on both sides of the
political aisle. It is a society driven by short sided selfish interests
that ignore the future consequences for those who follow. Once the
representative republic implodes, then the masses are forced into
compliance/slavery by the Oligarchy.

Everyone loves the NRA right? After ATF's failed service of a search
warrant at the Branch Davidian compound, and the subsequent FBI directed 51
day standoff, Wayne LaPierre the head of the NRA suggested that his
followers shoot ATF agents in the head. He later apologized for the
statement, but what led him to do this? All the agents involved were acting
according to, and following the laws of our land. He had a platform to
attack political opponents of the gun laws and stir up his base to send more
money to the NRA. The target of vitriolic written accounts both before and
after the raid targeted law enforcement (even though many officers belonged
to the NRA). The ATF and FBI were enforcing laws passed by our
representatives in Washington, D.C. However, the political opponents of
the NRA were the democrats who occupied the White House and controlled the
congress under then president Bill Clinton. In our society, these elected
officials are virtually untouchable, and through the courts, the Attorney
General, powerful elected representatives, and a now complicit national media
they control much of what goes on in our country without consulting those
who put them there. So to get at this juggernaut, powerful players in both
political parties target the relatively defensless and hamstrung public
servants who enforce the laws of the land. They are repeating their actions
now by attacking, and inacurately portraying the actions of ATF agents in
Operation Fast and Furious. Agents and police officers are usually under
some level of gag order while the political infighting goes on. They cannot
defend their actions without facing punitive sanctions. The NRA and their
political supporters on the right are after Obama and Eric Holder (among
others) and the left uses their platform to further erode the public's
confidence in their public servants. The media piles on with their blather
which the underinformed, who can read, gobble up without any critical
analysis. Our soldiers are also covered in a manner designed to create
doubt and mistrust.

We are a society in decline and the problem is world wide. We were a
country, like no other country, founded by men who followed the Holy
Scriptures and the principles outlined by Creator God. Our God is a jealous
god, and will not be mocked. We are doomed to failure unless we return to
the selfless life his Son, Jesus Christ modeled for us in his short life
here on earth. God knew before he created us that by giving us the freedom
to choose, (a necessary component to make relationships mean something) he
had given us the program to choose selfishly. He knew man would make the
wrong choice, and he planned for his perfect Son to come and pay the penalty
required to make a way for us to return to a right relationship with Him. Man's
pride and continued insistence on following his own flawed human wisdom has
caused us to pick up speed in our slide toward perdition. We are oblivious
to the slavery that ultimately awaits us when we live our lives outside of
God's plan."

I hope you were able to follow the thread. At the least, I hope you will do your own critical thinking and research on the issues brought up. Thanks for reading, Pappy

A Life Long Battle

2012-01-16T08:08:00.001-06:00

DIETING

No, low, free, light;

words I often see

when browsing through my pantry

or refrigerator door.

Let us have some lettuce

with our sprouts and tofu.

One more glass of water if you please.

Measure out a steak

no bigger than my palm

and I shall chew it slowly

while moving Brussels sprouts around.

Adjust the bathroom scale.

Move it ‘round the floor.

Take an average weight for best results.

One more glass of water if you please.

Do you have a public restroom?

I ask every where I go.

One more glass of water if you please.

How many times should one get up at night?

I wonder how muchpressure

waistband closures cantake?

Isn’t there a pill outthat doesn’t make you shake?

One more glass of water if you please.

I’m fasting today.

I really think it’s water weight.

Dennis Price 2007

Walking isn't a lost art: one must, by some means, get to the garage. - Evan Esar

Optical Anomaly

2012-01-15T17:33:00.001-06:00

We are creations
of created hands
and stand in lifeless effigy
to mirror life.

We pose in never changing
form beneath an azure sea
and what appear as signs of life
an optical anomaly.

Link to the Mag for more poetic contributions.

A Political Ramble

2012-01-13T07:12:00.000-06:00

I have been in a creative slump lately. It is not an uncommon condition for anyone who creates things they hope will inform or entertain others. Periods of reflection and rumination are necessary steps in the creative process. A moonshiner must wait until the mash is ready before he starts the distillation process to insure an end product that is strong enough to be named, "Pop Skull".

You have probably been swamped by news from the Republican primaries that has left you confused and befuddled. I know I have. The response from the Democrats has been predictable, and in my brain, even less appealing. However, lets look back in history to the beginning of our representative republic. I went back and looked at some cartoons from the twenties and thirties and I offer the following as an example.

The cartoon above could have been published today and it would still be relevant. All of us, who are maturing adults, have witnessed the repetitive and cyclical nature of human behavior. If you were to draw a diagram to illustrate human behavior from the Garden of Eden to the present age, it would look like a huge coil with ever expanding rings. The expansion of the space between the successive coil segments would represent the increase in scientific knowledge and technology. But, the repetitive coil segments represent the repetitive nature of human behavior.

Representative republics and democracies fail because unrepentant man will always head toward a state of total selfishness and depravity unless there is spiritual intervention to offset the natural leanings of his carnal nature. Our nation is not, and never has been, a Christian nation. In fact there is no such thing as a Christian nation. Christianity is the body made up of individuals who have repented of their sins and asked God to forgive them based on the sacrifice of his son, Jesus Christ, on a Roman cross over two thousand years ago. Christ's sacrificial death and subsequent resurrection made it possible for man to have an indwelling presence that provides the antithesis to the selfish unrestrained child of his human nature. In the early years of our republic, there were a sufficient number of people who chose to be influenced by this indwelling force to make a constitution that would work based on the voluntary and unselfish compliance of the populace.

I know, I know, those of you who don't believe will say this is hogwash. Christianity goes against everything that seems to come naturally in our human nature. It is probably the only thing you must believe (by faith) before you can understand it. Even then, many things are hard to come to terms with because we are getting input from our carnal side that tells us the spiritual message "does not compute." It is the only thing that can save us both individually and as a republic. God's ultimate plan will come to pass on his time table regardless of what we or any other nation chooses to do. I have personally chosen to put my life in his hands and daily renew my dependence on him.

Christmas Poetry

2011-12-22T11:01:00.001-06:00

CHRISTMASPASSAGE

When I was young and all was fresh and new,

and Christmas trees were tall and covered up

with fancy balls and bubbling lights that shone

through glittering tinsel hung upon each bough,

I could not seem to tear myself away.

Colored wrappers topped with shiny bows

could hold me in their hypnotizing trance.

I could not sleep at all the night before

so tossed and turned until the morning broke.

With energy I’d never have again,

I peeped around the corner just to see

if Santa had put toys beneath our tree.

Then as I grew, my childhood feelings changed.

Replaced by facts, as notions were debunked.

But I still searched for presents just to see

if Santa had left one or two for me.

The years flew by and I was Santa Claus.

My kids were now where I could only dream.

And once again I shared with them the awe.

But, in that joy, was weariness it seemed.

Brought on by months of gaudy ads and things.

I sat amid the rubble of our fete

and thought on why we give the gifts we do.

And as I did a peace came over me,

Jesus was the reason for our mirth.

Born in the little town of Bethlehem

God’s gift to undeserving men on earth.

Dennis Price

Uncle "Santa" Sam robs children of Christmas future.

2011-12-10T07:05:00.001-06:00

I hope you don't think I'm against looking for fuel alternatives for the internal combustion engine, or other carbon fueled applications, because I'm not. What I am against is junk science and wasteful political paybacks, including laundering huge political contributions, by supporting alternative fuel source proclaimers who have no intention (or ever hoped to have) of succeeding. I am against ignoring the basic data that proves they are nothing more than clever shells to cover spending tax dollars, we don't have to spend, in the name of improving the environment. This article speaks clearly of another such company, in what I'm sure will be a long line, since the Solyndra failure was exposed.

Another Failed Energy Loan
Taxpayers are being stuck with the losses.

The biofuels bust continues. The latest failure: Range Fuels.

Last week, the company defaulted on a government-guaranteed $80 million loan that it had used to build an ethanol plant in Georgia. AgSouth Farm Credit, the servicer of the loan, will begin a foreclosure sale on the plant in January. The foreclosure provides yet another indictment of the Obama administration’s energy policies.
Twenty-one months ago, the Department of Agriculture trumpeted its $80 million loan guarantee to Range — which claimed it could produce millions of gallons of ethanol from wood chips — by saying it demonstrates the administration’s “goal to make the United States a leader in renewable energy production.” That loan guarantee followed a $76 million grant given to Range by the Department of Energy in 2007.
Last Thursday, David Aldous, the CEO of Range, responded to a request for comment with an e-mail that said the company “has no immediate plans to declare bankruptcy.” He also claimed that Range was “working towards a new business model which would spin off” the Georgia plant. But he refused to elaborate on how the company could spin off a plant that will soon belong to someone else.
Aldous said that Range has spent $38 million of the $80 million loan and “about half the grant” from the Department of Energy, but refused to be more specific. Fine. Using Aldous’s numbers, federal taxpayers are now on the hook for something like $76 million. How many employees are still on the company’s payroll? Aldous refused to say. In fact, he refused to answer any specific questions.
Spokesmen at the departments of Agriculture and Energy did not respond to e-mailed questions about Range.
The key financial backer and political mover behind Range: Vinod Khosla, a wealthy California venture capitalist who has been among America’s biggest biofuel boosters. In 2006, Khosla claimed that making ethanol from cellulosic material was “brain-dead simple to do” and that commercial production of cellulosic ethanol was “just around the corner.” A few months later, Kholsa was again hyping cellulosic ethanol, saying that biofuels could completely replace oil for transportation and that cellulosic ethanol would be cost-competitive with corn ethanol by 2009. Khosla — who says on his website that he is “passionate about alternative energy, petroleum independence, and the environment” — did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
There’s ample reason for outrage here. Range had claimed it could make ethanol at efficiencies far greater than those being achieved by corn-based ethanol producers. Tad Patzek, chair of the petroleum and geosystems engineering department at the University of Texas at Austin and a veteran critic of the biofuel craze, told me that Range’s failure “was easily predictable based on the thermodynamic inefficiencies of the refineries. But no one in the Department of Energy paid any attention.”
Instead, federal bureaucrats were once again gulled by extravagant claims from people like Khosla and a cadre of high-profile national-security types, who continue to claim that ethanol and other biofuels will somehow save America from the evils of foreign oil. And the federal bureaucrats were convinced even though a small dose of sixth-grade math would have shown that large-scale development of wood-based biofuels was little more than a pipe dream.
Proving that statement is simple. Let’s assume the U.S. wanted to replace just 10 percent of its oil needs with wood-based biofuels.
Here’s the math: The U.S. consumes now consumes about 19.1 million barrels — about 802 million gallons — of oil per day. Ten percent of that volume would be 80 million gallons. In 2007, Range was claiming that its new plant in Georgia would require 1,200 tons of wood per day while producing 40 million gallons of ethanol and 9 million gallons of methanol (which is more corrosive and has lower heat content than ethanol) per year, or about 134,000 gallons of fuel per day. But ethanol contains only about two-thirds of the heat energy of gasoline. Therefore, the plant’s output would equal about 88,000 gallons of gasoline.
Thus, to replace just 10 percent of America’s oil needs with wood-based biofuels would require about 900 ethanol plants like the one in Georgia that’s now in foreclosure. Those plants would require about 1 million tons of wood per day. That’s about 50 percent more wood than all of America currently consumes (about 236.4 million tons per year or 647,000 tons per day). Even if the U.S. were somehow able to more than double its wood production in order to feed all those new ethanol plants, the logistical challenge of moving that huge volume of material would be enormous and would undoubtedly require the burning of millions of gallons of diesel fuel. And yet, President Obama and his Nobel Prize–winning secretary of energy, Steve Chu, continue to claim that biofuels are the future.
Patzek says the Range fiasco is, in some ways, worse than Solyndra: “At least Solyndra was producing solar panels. Their panels were too expensive, but at least they had a product. Range never produced anything. The biofuels business was insane five years ago, and it’s still insane today.”
Alas, the insanity will continue. During his State of the Union speech in January, President Obama declared that “we can break our dependence on oil with biofuels.” Since then, the administration has committed hundreds of millions of dollars to new biofuel projects, including up to $510 million for the Defense Department. Just last month, the administration finalized a $50 million grant and a $54.5 million loan guarantee to a company that plans to produce biofuel from algae. The company building the plant, Sapphire Energy, is putting up just $30 million toward the $135 million project. Taxpayers are on the hook for the rest.
Like the failure of Solyndra, the collapse of Range Fuels shows that the Obama administration has let wishful thinking, not hard-nosed technical analysis — or even simple mathematics — determine its energy policies. And unfortunately, taxpayers are being stuck with the losses.
— Robert Bryce is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. His latest book is Power Hungry: The Myths of “Green” Energy and the Real Fuels of the Future.

Using a Democrat GPS

2011-11-06T04:09:00.001-06:00

"I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents...." --James Madison
Nineteenth-century historian Alexis de Tocqueville once observed, "Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word: equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude."
Tocqueville was commenting on liberty and free enterprise, American style, versus socialism as envisioned by emerging protagonists of centralized state governments. And he saw on the horizon a looming threat -- a threat that would challenge the freedoms writ in the blood and toil of our nation's Founders.
Less than a century after Tocqueville penned those words, elitist Democrat Franklin Delano Roosevelt tossed aside much of our nation's Constitution and unleashed an unprecedented assault on Essential Liberty. Though our Constitution's author, James Madison, noted in Federalist Paper No. 45 that "The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined [and] will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation and foreign commerce," FDR summarily redefined the role of the central government by way of myriad extra-constitutional decrees, and greatly expanded the central government far beyond the strict limits set by our Constitution. In effect, he substituted a fallacious "living constitution for our authentic Constitution.
He even went so far as to call for a new "Bill of Rights," which he proclaimed should include, "The right to a useful and remunerative job ... the right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation ... the right of every family to a decent home ... the right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health ... the right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age ... the right to a good education."
Of course, none of those "rights" would pass constitutional muster, so FDR attempted to enlarge the Supreme Court so he could pack it with judges who would rubber stamp his proposals. When that failed, FDR implemented his programs by executive and legislative diktat, and the legacy of that gross expansion of the central government has proven disastrous.
FDR used the Great Depression as cover to establish a solid foundation for Democratic Socialism in America, and defended his unconstitutional statism with this this dubious assertion of classism: "Here is my principle: Taxes shall be levied according to ability to pay. That is the only American principle."
If Roosevelt's "American principle" sounds somewhat familiar, then you're likely a student of history (or The Patriot). Not to be confused with the Biblical principle in the Gospel according to Luke, "From everyone who has been given much, much will be required...", which some Leftist do-gooders cite as justification for socialist policies, Roosevelt was essentially paraphrasing the gospel according to Karl Marx, whose maxim declared, "From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs."
Some have suggested that Socialism is a Biblical concept, but the Bible places the burden of responsibility for stewardship on the individual, while Marx, FDR and his Leftist successors advocate that the state should enforce redistribution of wealth. In failing to discern this distinction, FDR set the stage for the entrapment of future generations by the welfare state and the incremental shift from self-reliance to dependence upon the state -- ultimately the state of tyranny.
English writer, sociologist and historian H.G. Wells, whose last work, The Holy Terror, profiled the psychological development of a modern dictator based on the careers of Stalin, Mussolini and Hitler, said of Roosevelt's reign, "The great trouble with you Americans is that you are still under the influence of that second-rate -- shall I say third-rate? -- mind, Karl Marx."
More to the point, Soviet dictator Nikita Khrushchev said of Roosevelt's "New Deal" paradigm shift, "We can't expect the American people to jump from capitalism to communism, but we can assist their elected leaders in giving them small doses of socialism, until they awaken one day to find that they have communism."
Like Khrushchev, perennial Socialist Party presidential candidate Norman Thomas wrote: "The American people will never knowingly adopt socialism, but under the name of liberalism, they will adopt every fragment of the socialist program until one day America will be a socialist nation without ever knowing how it happened."
FDR never embraced self-reliance as the essential ingredient of a free society, nor have his Demo-successors Ted Kennedy, Bill Clinton, Albert Gore, John Kerry and Barack Obama.
Why?
Perhaps it's because most leftist protagonists and their benefactors come from tragically broken families (see Pathology of the Left) compounded by the fact that many of them inherited their wealth, their privilege and their political office.
The character of these "inheritance-welfare liberals" -- those who were raised dependent on inheritance rather than self-reliance -- is all but indistinguishable from the character and values of their constituencies who have been inculcated to depend on state welfare.
Today, eight decades after FDR seeded American socialism, the Soviet Union is but a memory. Former Soviet Block countries are thriving on low taxes and free enterprise. In addition, China and most other states with centralized economies (Cuba notwithstanding) are undergoing a dramatic shift toward free-enterprise -- as well as the political challenges that accompany such a shift. Yet despite the collapse of socialism around the world, wealthy liberals still dominate the Democrat Party and control their Leftmedia propaganda machine. They continue to advocate all manner of dependence upon the state (the poor man's trust fund), but have always been more dedicated to their country clubs than our country.
Western apologists for socialist political and economic agendas are nothing more than "useful idiots" advocating Marxist-Leninist-Maoist collectivism.
The great promise of socialism was to replace the alleged uncertainty of markets with the comforting certainty of a central economic plan. Socialized central planning has failed in every national application.
In 1916, a minister and outspoken advocate for liberty, William J. H. Boetcker, published a pamphlet entitled The Ten Cannots:
You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift. You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong. You cannot help the poor man by destroying the rich. You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred. You cannot build character and courage by taking away man's initiative and independence. You cannot help small men by tearing down big men. You cannot lift the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer. You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than your income. You cannot establish security on borrowed money. You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they will not do for themselves.
Fact is that government cannot give to anybody what it does not first take from somebody else. And as Thomas Jefferson noted, a government that is big enough to give you anything, is big enough to take it away.
However, now the once great Democrat Party is replete with western apologists for socialist political and economic agendas advocating, essentially, Marxist-Leninist-Maoist collectivism -- the antithesis of Boetcker's principles of free enterprise.
Indeed, as George Bernard Shaw wrote, "A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul."
Has America learned its lessons, or is our great nation still under the spell of its useful idiots? Perhaps one day an American majority will reject the propaganda of the Left and their inheritance-welfare benefactors, will restore our Constitution as the central authority of the land, and will reclaim self-reliance as the central character of our people.
If not, then tyranny will prevail and we will be a slave to the cycle of democracy:
From bondage to spiritual faith; From spiritual faith to great courage; From courage to liberty (rule of law); From liberty to abundance; From abundance to complacency; From complacency to apathy; From apathy to dependence; From dependence back into bondage (rule of men). (Attributed to Frasier Tytler)
The only economic philosophy congruent with individual liberty and limited government is free market capitalism. Individuals contribute to this system through personal industry and initiative; government contributes by confining its regulatory activity within constitutional limits and by employing a system of taxation that is uniform (Fair or Flat) and comprehensible for all citizens. Entitlements and welfare schemes destroy not only personal initiative and responsibility, but also liberty and prosperity. Political freedom is inseparable from economic freedom. Thus, when the government stays within its constitutional role, America prospers.

Underlines by David in this article entitled;

Useful Idiots on the Left

By Mark Alexander · Friday, September 24, 2004

An attempt to make sense of "it".

2011-11-03T07:50:00.000-05:00

What is "it"? It is the current situation in our National Economy. I am often overwhelmed with the explanations offered by economists. The blathering of most politicians who are reading from canned speeches never makes much sense to me either. So, I will once again attempt, with the aid of Monty Perelin's article from an October 31st edition of the American Thinker, to give some insight.

Gross domestic product (GDP) refers to the market value of all final goods and services produced within a country in a given period. GDP per capita is often considered an indicator of a country's standard of living.^[1]^{[2] Wikipedia.}

^{This is a simple explanation and is more than enough for me. If you are given to finding out the three methods of determining the GDP, then go to Wikipedia and read the entire piece. The following comments will be from the article I mentioned. The sections in quotes will be those of Monty Perelin and the others will be mine. Monty's entire piece is also worth reading.}

"We are headed for an event that history will record as worse than the Great Depression. It is unavoidable."

"The principal reason for the dire prediction is the level of debt outstanding. Current debt levels are simply not sustainable. Assets and cash flows cannot support or service this debt."

"As a percentage of GDP, debt is at an all-time high. Immediately prior to the Great Depression US debt was about 200% of GDP. It rose briefly to 300% as a result of massive government interventions to combat the Depression"

"From 1870 forward, debt levels are generally in the range of 150% of GDP. That appears to be the norm for the last 140 years. Only in the 1920s and recently did debt exceed 180% of GDP. Even funding World Wars I and II did not drive debt above 180%."

"To return to 150% requires a reduction of about $30 Trillion in debt. That represents about two full years worth of GDP."

What then was the government's response in the 1930's and what is the response of the current Democrat led response today?

"After the 1930s politicians convinced themselves and the public of two things:

Free markets need government interventions to produce a healthy economy.
Keynesian pseudo science provided the tools necessary to manage the economy.

Both beliefs were false, but both aided politicians' insatiable drive for power and control. Once the public came to believe these myths, government owned the economy. Any economic problem became a political one. Economic slowdowns were no longer politically acceptable.

"Don't just stand there, do something" drove economic policy. It was politically impossible to allow an economy to correct on its own. Political action was required, even if such activity was ultimately harmful. Politicians had to do something, anything! Their constituents demanded it.

The "government is responsible" attitude quickly spread. Today, virtually any perceived problem or inequity is assumed to be fixable by government. Government readily took on responsibility for virtually every aspect of our lives.

The madness is evident. It is assumed that government creates jobs, educates kids, designs toilets and light bulbs. It is necessary to provide mortgages, retirement benefits and healthcare. "Green energy" and other new technologies are assumed impossible without the assistance of government.
This litany of the presumed need for government could continue for pages. Virtually all these presumptions are false. Worse, many in the public still believe that these "services" are "free."

"Every swing in the business cycle, no matter how mild, became the responsibility of government. Government was to step in and "fix" economic problems. Seventy years of such "fixes" preceded our current problem.

Economic downturns are both normal and necessary. Individual and business mistakes are remedied via economic slowdowns. Misplaced capital and labor is freed up for more productive uses. When this cleansing does not occur, an economy becomes less efficient and grows at a slower rate. The mistakes remain in place and are perpetuated.

Government intervention is not corrective. It is a cover up of prior mistakes. The phrase "pretend and extend" describes what happens. Instead of allowing the economy to correct, government attempts to avoid the correction and the pain by covering up the mistakes. That has been the history of much of the last 80 years. Continued interventionism brought the economy to this crisis point.

The artificial boom that began decades ago is exhausted. Response to the dot-com stock market bubble was the last coverup that "worked." The system was flooded with credit and one bubble was replaced with another. Now the housing bubble has burst, marking the high point of "pretend and extend."

Credit expansion since 2008 has been impotent. The real economy has stopped responding. Economists who advocate more stimulus or credit are either ill-trained or have political motives. Governmental stimulus and credit expansion created the problem. Recommendations for more of the same qualify as insanity per Albert Einstein's definition."

"The current credit bubble is bigger than the one that preceded and caused The Great Depression. Consumer and government balance sheets are worse than they were eighty years ago. Income is incapable of supporting current debt levels.

Reducing debt to manageable levels will produce another Great Depression, likely greater and more painful than the original. Debt reduction requires lower spending and higher savings. Large amounts of debt will not be paid and will be liquidated via defaults.

Until now, governments have done everything to prevent this natural process from occurring. According to Dalio, governments have "no more tools in the tool kit."

Impossibility of Communication

2011-10-06T08:15:00.000-05:00

The painting above by Paulo Zerbato is entitled, "Impossibility of Communication". I feel it fits perfectly with how I feel on those days when I find the time and energy to post. I know many of you read and understand at least some of what I am trying to convey, but outside the realm of ordinary folks I think my pondering may be lost. I post some of my own creations, and when I find something that is well written, inspiring, and informative, I introduce it and give the author credit. I never hope for complete agreement and I'm always open for factual evidence of why you might disagree. Someone asked me if I ever write for the newspaper (Op/Ed) and I said no.

I read the local newspaper and I read selected articles in the electronic media. I can automatically discount most of the major network sources because of their obvious bias and lack of research. We are being led down a path of divisiveness in this country and it will eventually lead to anarchy. The forces of divisiveness have been at work for a long time in this world. Evil men with a desire for power and control realized long ago that if you can split loyalties and destroy confidence in the institutions of government designed to keep us functioning in relative harmony and agreement, you can profit from the confusion and stagnation that naturally results.

Our great country was miraculously formed and a unique system of governing was put into place despite a great deal of arguing as to how it was to be done. No where else in the world has a system like ours been implemented with such success. I believe that God created the universe, and that he intended for the United States of America to born out of impossible circumstances, and to succeed in spite of great trials and tribulations, to show the world His hand at work in this project. I also believe He intended for us to pass along this vision and to continue to give Him our undying gratitude. Our failings as a nation are the direct result of not doing what God intended for us to do. When the majority of the people are in tune with the Creator, then there is voluntary compliance with the law, a spirit of responsibility to do one's chosen task, and a spirit of selflessness in relation to our neighbors.

The slide into the abyss is orchestrated to be played in tiny incremental variations so the disharmony is not evident to the casual listener. The score looks fine to those unacquainted with music and the accidentals are cleverly hidden within measures of beautiful melody.

The beautiful symphony of a democratic republic dedicated to its Creator has now become nothing more than crashing cymbals. The noise is now recognized as music. Take God out of the equation and that's what you are left with.

Never express yourself more clearly than you are able to think. Niels Bohr

Less Government = More Help

2011-09-21T14:53:00.000-05:00

I am aware of numerous similar responses undertaken by people from many communities across the State of Texas to help their neighbors in a time of crisis. I don't know the name of the author of the account below, but it does point up what happens to a successful effort to help when the Federal Government arrives to "help." The Federal Government needs to get out of the helping business and let the good people of our various States take care of business. Pappy

What makes Texas Special?

"You would never see this on the news.......

Here are some stories you won’t hear about the Tricounty fire in Montgomery, Grimes, and Waller County Labor Day week, 2011. Although Kenna promises to write a book.

My neighbor across the road has a sister named Kenna. Labor Day, when she saw the huge column of smoke over our homes, she left a birthday party at my neighbor’s house to meet with her friend Tara at the Baseball complex in Magnolia. She called the owner of the complex and got permission to use the warehouse there as a staging area for donations for the fire fighting effort.

They put a notice out on facebook that they were going to be taking donations on their facebook pages. That night as they were setting up tables and organizing, News 2 Houston came by and saw the activity, investigated and left with the phone numbers and a list of suggested donations.

The facebook notice propagated faster than the fire. By dawn they had 20 volunteers, bins, forklifts, and donations were pouring in. I stopped by with my pitiful little bags of nasal wash and eye wash, and was amazed. There must have been 20 trucks in the lot, offloading cases of water, pallets of Gatorade , and people lined up out the door with sacks of beef jerky, baby wipes, underwear, socks, and you name it. School buses and trailers from many counties around were there offloading supplies, students froming living chains to pass stuff into the bins for transport to the command center and staging areas. If the firefighters had requested it, it was there. What do you give the guy out there fighting the fire that might engulf your home? Anything he or she wants. Including chewing tobacco and cigarettes.

Kenna moved on to the Unified Command Post at Magnolia West High school . She looked at what the fire fighters needed, and she made calls and set it up.

Mattress Mac donated 150 beds. Two class rooms turned into barracks kept quiet and dark for rest. The CEO of HEB donated 2 semi trailers full of supplies, and sent a mobile commercial kitchen at no charge to feed all the workers, but especially our firefighters, 3 hot meals a day. An impromptu commissary was set up, anything the firefighters had requested available at no charge.

As exhausted firefighters (most of them from local VFDs with no training or experience battling wildfires) and workers came into the school after long hours of hard labor, dehydrated, hungry, covered with soot and ash, they got what they needed. They were directed through the commissary, where they got soap, eye wash and nasal spray, candy, clean socks and underwear, and then were sent off to the school locker rooms for a shower. HEB then fed them a hot meal and they got 8 hours sleep in a barracks, then another hot meal, another pass through the commissary for supplies to carry with them out to lines, including gloves, safety glasses, dust masks and snacks, and back they went.

One of the imported crew from California came into Unified Command and asked where the FEMA Powerbars and water were. He was escorted to the commissary and started through the system. He was flabbergasted. He said FEMA never did it like this. Kenna replied, "Well, this is the way we do it in Texas.”

Fire fighting equipment needed repair? The auto shop at the High School ran 24/7 with local mechanics volunteering, students, and the firefighters fixing the equipment. Down one side of the school, the water tankers lined up at the fire hydrants and filled with water. Down the other side there was a steady parade of gasoline tankers filling trucks, bulldozers, tankers, cans, chain saws, and vehicles.

Mind you, all of this was set up by 2 Moms, Kenna and Tara, with a staff of 20 simple volunteers, most of them women who had sons, daughters, husbands, and friends on the fire lines. Someone always knew someone who could get what they needed- beds, mechanics, food, space. Local people using local connections to mobilize local resources made this happen. No government aid. No Trained Expert.

At one point the fire was less than a mile from the school, and everyone but hose volunteers were evacuated. The fire was turned.

The Red Cross came in, looked at what they were doing, and quietly went away to set up a fire victim relief center nearby. They said they couldn’t do it any better.

(Blogger's note: Enter FEMA stage right.)

FEMA came in and told those volunteers and Kenna that they had to leave, FEMA was here now. Kenna told them she worked for the firefighters, not them. They were obnoxious, bossy, got in the way, and criticized everything. The volunteers refused to back down and kept doing their job, and doing it well. Next FEMA said the HEB supplies and kitchen had to go, that was blatant commercialism. Kenna said they stayed. They stayed. FEMA threw a wall eyed fit about chewing tobacco and cigarettes being available in the commissary area. Kenna told them the firefighters had requested it, and it was staying. It stayed. FEMA got very nasty and kept asking what organization these volunteers belonged to- and all the volunteers told them “Our community”. FEMA didn’t like that and demanded they make up a name for themselves. One mother remarked “They got me at my boiling point!” and suddenly the group was “212 Degrees”. FEMA’s contribution? They came in the next day with red shirts embroidered with “212 Degrees”, insisting the volunteers had to be identified, never realizing it was a slap in their face. Your tax dollars at work- labeling volunteers with useless shirts and getting in the way.

The upshot? A fire that the experts from California (for whom we are so grateful there are no words) said would take 2-3 weeks to get under control was 100% contained in 8 days. There was so much equipment and supplies donated, 3 container trucks are loaded with the excess to go and set up a similar relief center for the fire fighters in Bastrop. The local relief agencies have asked people to stop bringing in donations of clothing, food, household items, and pretty much everything else because they only have 60 displaced households to care for, and there is enough to supply hundreds. Again, excess is going to be shipped to Bastrop , where there are 1500 displaced households. Wish we could send Kenna, too, but she has to go back to her regular job.

These are a few stories my neighbor shared poolside with me tonight, Tues Sept 13, 2011. "

Who creates jobs?

2011-09-15T14:30:00.001-05:00

To All My Valued Employees,

There have been some rumblings around the office about the future of
this company, and more specifically, your job. As you know, the
economy has changed for the worse and presents many challenges.
However, the good news is this: The economy doesn't pose a threat to
your job.

What does threaten your job however, is the changing political
landscape in this country. Of course, as your employer, I am forbidden
to tell you whom to vote for - it is against the law to discriminate
based on political affiliation, race, creed, religion, etc.

Please vote for who you think will serve your interests the best.
However, let me tell you some little tidbits of fact which might help
you decide what is in your best interest. First, while it is easy to
spew rhetoric that casts employers against employees, you have to
understand that for every business owner there is a back story.

This back story is often neglected and overshadowed by what you see
and hear. Sure, you see me park my Mercedes outside. You saw my big
home at last year's Christmas party. I'm sure all these flashy icons
of luxury conjure up some idealized thoughts about my life. However,
what you don't see is the back story.

I started this company 12 years ago. At that time, I lived in a 300
square foot studio apartment for 3 years. My entire living space was
converted into an office so I could put forth 100% effort into
building a company, which by the way, would eventually employ you.

My diet consisted of Ramen Pride noodles because every dollar I spent
went back into this company. I drove a rusty Toyota Corolla with a
defective transmission. I didn't have time to date. Often times, I
stayed home on weekends, while my friends went out drinking and
partying. In fact, I was married to my business -- hard work,
discipline, and sacrifice.

Meanwhile, my friends got jobs. They worked 40 hours a week and made a
modest $50K a year and spent every dime they earned. They drove flashy
cars and lived in expensive homes and wore fancy designer clothes.
Instead of hitting Nordstrom's for the latest hot fashion item, I was
trolling through the Goodwill store extracting any clothing item that
didn't look like it was birthed in the 70's.

My friends refinanced their mortgages and lived a life of luxury. I,
however, did not. I put my time, my money, and my life into a business
--- with a vision that eventually, some day, I too, will be able to
afford these luxuries my friends supposedly had.

So, while you physically arrive at the office at 9 am, mentally check
in at about noon, and then leave at 5 pm, I don't. There is no "off"
button for me. When you leave the office, you are done and you have a
weekend all to yourself. I unfortunately do not have the freedom. I
eat, ****, and breathe this company every minute of the day. There is
no rest. There is no weekend. There is no happy hour. Every day this
business is attached to me like a 1 day old baby.

You, of course, only see the fruits of that garden -- the nice house,
the Mercedes, the vacations... You never realize the back story and
the sacrifices I've made. Now, the economy is falling apart and I, the
guy that made all the right decisions and saved his money, have to
bail out all the people who didn't.

The people that overspent their paychecks suddenly feel entitled to
the same luxuries that I earned and sacrificed a decade of my life
for. Yes, business ownership has its benefits but the price I've paid
is steep and not without wounds. Unfortunately, the cost of running
this business, and employing you, is starting to eclipse the threshold
of marginal benefit and let me tell you why:

I am being taxed to death and the government thinks I don't pay
enough. I have state taxes. Federal taxes. Property taxes. Sales and
use taxes. Payroll taxes. Workers compensation taxes. Unemployment
taxes. Taxes on taxes. I have to hire a tax man to manage all these
taxes and then guess what? I have to pay taxes for employing him.
Government mandates and regulations and all the accounting that goes
with it, now occupy most of my time. On Oct 15th, I wrote a check to
the US Treasury for $288,000 for quarterly taxes. You know what my
"stimulus" check was? Zero. Nada. Zilch.

The question I have is this: Who is stimulating the economy? Me, the
guy who has provided 14 people good paying jobs and serves over
2,200,000 people per year with a flourishing business? Or, the single
mother sitting at home pregnant with her fourth child waiting for her
next welfare check?

Obviously, government feels the latter is the economic stimulus of
this country. The fact is, if I deducted (Read: Stole) 50% of your
paycheck you'd quit and you wouldn't work here. I mean, why should
you? That's nuts. Who wants to get rewarded only 50% of their hard
work? Well, I agree which is why your job is in jeopardy. Here is what
many of you don't understand ... to stimulate the economy you need to
stimulate what runs the economy. Had suddenly government mandated to
me that I didn't need to pay taxes, guess what? Instead of
depositing that $288,000 into the Washington black-hole, I would have
spent it, hired more employees, and generated substantial economic
growth. My employees would have enjoyed the wealth of that tax cut in
the form of promotions and better salaries. But you can forget it now.

When you have a comatose man on the verge of death, you don't
defibrillate and shock his thumb thinking that will bring him back to
life, do you? Or, do you defibrillate his heart? Business is at the
heart of America and always has been. To restart it, you must
stimulate it, not kill it. Suddenly, the power brokers in Washington
believe the mud of America are the essential drivers of the American
economic engine.

Nothing could be further from the truth and this is the type of change
you can keep. So where am I going with all this? It's quite simple. If
any new taxes are levied on me, or my company, my reaction will be
swift and simple. I fire you. I fire your co-workers. You can then
plead with the government to pay for your mortgage, your SUV, and your
child's future. Frankly, it isn't my problem anymore. Then, I will
close this company down, move to another country, and retire.

You see, I'm done. I'm done with a country that penalizes the
productive and gives to the unproductive. My motivation to work and to
provide jobs will be destroyed, and with it, will be my citizenship.

While tax cuts to 95% of America sounds great on paper, don't forget
the back story: If there is no job, there is no income to tax. A tax
cut on zero dollars is zero. So, when you make decision to vote, ask
yourself, who understands the economics of business ownership and who
doesn't? Whose policies will endanger your job? Answer those
questions and you should know who might be the one capable of saving
your job. While the media wants to tell you "It's the economy Stupid"
I'm telling you it isn't.

If you lose your job, it won't be at the hands of the economy; it will
be at the hands of a political hurricane that swept through this
country, steamrolled the Constitution, and will have changed its
landscape forever. If that happens, you can find me in the South
Caribbean sitting on a beach, retired, and with no employees to worry
about.

Signed, Your boss,

Michael A. Crowley, PE
Crowley, Crisp & Associates, Inc.
Professional Engineers
1906 South Main Street, Suite 122
Wake Forest, NC 27587
Phone: 919.562.8860 x22
Fax: 919.562.8872

This picture depicts Service Unions. These are people whose salaries and benefit packages are taken from tax revenues and not from for profit businesses.

Why won't anyone look?

2011-09-14T11:06:00.000-05:00

Have you ever wondered why no one, not even high ranking Republicans, will delve into Obama's past and credentials? Well I ask myself the question daily. Here is a piece by someone who tried to provide first hand accounts of Obama at Occidental College to all he thought might have an interest and was summarily rejected.

By John Drew

What would you do if you knew that the top Democrat running for president was lying about his past?
That is the question I was faced with in 2008. I had met the young Barack Obama while he was a sophomore at Occidental College, and I knew that his commitment to socialism was deep, genuine, and longstanding. See my earlier article on American Thinker.
I had been a leader of the Marxist students at Occidental College myself, starting in 1976 when I founded the precursor of the Democrat Socialist Alliance on campus. The young Obama I knew was a Marxist socialist who would have been quite comfortable with Communist party members like his Hawaii mentor Frank Marshall Davis, retired domestic terrorists like Bill Ayers, or active socialist politicians like Illinois State Senator Alice Palmer.
The Obama I knew was nothing like the lifelong pragmatic centrist that he was pretending to be in the 2008 presidential campaign. When I talked politics with the young Obama, he expressed a profound commitment to bringing about a socialist economic system in the U.S. -- completely divorced from the profit motive -- which would occur, in his lifetime, through a potentially violent, Communist-style revolution. In this context, I saw my report on young Obama as a key piece of evidence suggesting a profound continuity in his belief system.
Although I was surprised by Barack Obama's insistence on his mainstream ideological credentials, I was shocked that my attempts to spread the news about young Obama's Marxism failed to gain any media traction with reporters, activists, or campaign staffs during the 2008 presidential campaign.
Once I saw the significance of my face-to-face observations on the young Obama, I went out of my way to get my story on record with the Orange County Register. I tried to contact, among others, Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, the folks behind the Swiftboat ads, and the McCain campaign.
I thought I would get a phone call back from Fox News -- someone, somewhere -- and I still do not understand why no one seemed to catch on to the urgency of the situation. I understand that I did not have audio tape of young Obama. I did not have any photos or home movies. Nevertheless, I was extremely active in the leftist politics and counter-cultural milieu of Occidental College in the 1970s.
As a younger man, I had earned a Ph.D. in political science from Cornell, which, I would think, gave me some credibility in measuring young Obama's ideological convictions. I quickly saw that other people who had known the young Obama were featured in various news articles. It seemed to me that I should have been just another interview for any journalist, producer, or campaign consultant interested in checking out my story and testing my credibility against the facts.
In frustration, I was also posting what I knew on The Caucus Blog site at the New York Times. My expectation was that someone from the Times would call me and follow up on the leads I was sending out. Here is a sample of what I was doing in October 2008 to get the word out about Obama's Marxist ideology.
I even thought of scheduling my own press conference on the campus of Occidental College through their campus Republican club. Internally, I was conflicted by the urgency of what I knew and the sense that it was best for the story to break out in a manner supportive of the McCain campaign.
What shocked me about my experience in the summer of 2008 is that I thought my experience as a Williams College political science professor, my small business owner status, and my visibility in the Orange County community would allow my message to immediately go to the very top of the McCain campaign. I thought my story would be welcomed by Fox News.
Since then, things have slowly gotten better. My story on the young Marxist Obama has appeared in Michael Savage's Trickle-Up Poverty, Paul Kengor's Dupes, Stanley Kurtz's Radical-In-Chief, and Jack Cashill's Deconstructing Obama.
Nevertheless, I think there is something broken in our media and campaign system. I do not think most independents or conservatives understand, or fully appreciate, the tremendous advantages the left derives from having the mainstream media serve as the fully paid, completely sympathetic, Dan Rather-level opposition research team of the Democratic Party. It is a system that methodically ignores damaging information about flawed candidates like Sen. John Edwards and Rep. Anthony Weiner, while elevating minor errors among Republicans to the status of Watergate investigations.
If Republicans are going to win in 2012, I think they need to make some changes so that they are more friendly to the whistle-blowers bringing them bad news about the Obama administration. Personally, I would like to see Republicans create new ways to collect negative news stories on liberals by 1) including web pages requesting opposition research from leakers; 2) establishing guidelines for leakers that help them give campaign decision-makers the confidence to pursue appropriate leads; and 3) instituting feedback mechanisms so leakers have some minimal assurance that they have been heard by top campaign managers and that their information has been discarded for technical or strategic reasons and not simply because it was overlooked by a careless staff member.
I think recognition of this problem should be the first step in taking systematic action to prevent flawed Democrat candidates from winning office. In the meantime, I predict that we will see more examples of media failure as the left dominates the muckraking journalism profession while the right seems too dependent on a small handful of seemingly obscure, overworked journalists and -- as my case illustrates -- unconnected and often baffled citizen activists.
John C. Drew, Ph.D. is an award-winning political scientist and a blogger at David Horowitz's NewsReal Blog. Dr. Drew earned his Ph.D. from Cornell and has taught political science and economics at Williams College. Today, Dr. Drew makes his living as an author, trainer, and consultant in the field of non-profit grant writing, fundraising, and program evaluation. To book Dr. Drew for your event, please go here.

Was Rick Perry Wrong?

2011-09-13T07:57:00.000-05:00

Why not judge for yourselves with a little review of Social Security. It sounded so good in the beginning.

History Lesson on Your Social Security Card

Be sure and show it to your family and friends. They need a little history lesson on what's what and it doesn't matter whether you are Democrat or Republican.

Facts are Facts.

Social Security Cards up until the 1980s expressly stated the number and
Card were not to be used for identification purposes. Since nearly everyone in the
United States now has a number, it became convenient to use it anyway and the
Message, NOT FOR IDENTIFICATION, was removed.

An old Social Security card with the "NOT FOR IDENTIFICATION" message.

Franklin Roosevelt, a Democrat, introduced the Social
Security (FICA) Program. He promised:

1.) That participation in the Program would be
completely voluntary,

No longer voluntary

2.) That the participants would only have to pay
1% of the first $1,400 of their annual incomes into the Program,

Now it's 7.65%
on the first $90,000

3.) That the money the participants elected to put
into the program would be deductible from
their income for tax purposes each year,

No longer tax deductible

4.) That the money of the participants would put into the
independent 'Trust Fund' rather than into the general operating fund, and therefore, would only be used to fund the Social Security
Retirement Program, and no other government program.

Under Johnson the money was moved to
The General Fund and Spent

5.) That the annuity payments to the retirees would never be taxed
As income.

Under Clinton & Gore
Up to 85% of your Social Security can be Taxed

Since many of us have paid into FICA for years and are
now receiving a Social Security check every month --
We are now finding that we are getting taxed on 85% of
the money we paid to the Federal government to 'put into the trust fund.
------------ --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- ----

Q: Which Political Party took Social Security from the
independent 'Trust Fund' and put it into the
general fund so that Congress could spend it?

A: It was Lyndon Johnson and the democratically
Controlled House and Senate.

------------ --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- --

Q: Which Political Party eliminated the income tax
Deduction for Social Security (FICA) withholding?

A: The Democratic Party.

------------ --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- -----

Q: Which Political Party started taxing Social
Security annuities?

A: The Democratic Party, with Al Gorecasting the
'tie-breaking' deciding vote as President of the
Senate, while he was Vice President of the US

------------ --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- -

Q: Which Political Party decided to start
giving annuity payments to immigrants?

AND MY FAVORITE:

A: That's right!

Jimmy Carter and the Democratic Party.
Immigrants moved into this country, and at age 65,
began to receive Social Security payments
even though they never paid a dime into it!

------------ -- ------------ --------- ----- ------------ --------- ---------

Then, after violating the original contract (FICA),
The Democrats turn around and tell you that the Republicans want
To take your Social Security away!

Has Social Security become a Ponzi Scheme?

That you may retain your self-respect, it is better to displease the people by doing what you know is right, than to temporarily please them by doing what you know is wrong. - William J. H. Boetcker

The NEW jobs plan.

2011-09-12T16:09:00.000-05:00

"O.K. Congress, “No games, no politics, no delays.” Barack Hussein Obama

Let me interpret that for you. "I'm going to shove this down your throats just like all the other plans I've proposed. Take my health care bill, please, take my health care bill. Nancy told you not to read it and now you know why. It is filled with hidden billion dollar funding clauses and who knows what else. Well, this NEW jobs plan is just like all my other plans. Spend, spend, spend. Who cares if we are bankrupt and don't have the money, We'll just print more. So what if your job only lasts for a year. That'll be a year you wouldn't have otherwise and should carry me through the next election. Who will get these jobs you ask? Well, it is the people who put me in office and the people who blindly line up to cheer exciting things like 'Four more years' ad nauseum." Pappy's Paraphrase

"Surrounded by police officers, firefighters, teachers, construction workers and others he said would be helped by the $447 billion package, the president said the only thing that would block its passage would be lawmakers deciding it wasn’t good politics to work with him. “We can’t afford these same political games, not now,” Obama said." Chicago Sun Times

Who are these people who would follow the Pied Piper to Tophet? They are the people who helped bring this unknown into the White House. They are the people who were told how to vote and who to vote for. They are the largely under educated masses so prevalent in the Democrat Party. The Democrat Party has become the party of endowment. Therefore those who depend on the benevolence of the "Nanny" government for their sustenance are the largest supporters. Who are they? Here is a partial list. Those who live outside the accepted standards of civil and moral behavior, Labor Union leadership with their complicit members who regardless of their own moral convictions must vote as they are told or be sanctioned, Trial lawyers who don't want any limits on their ridiculous judgements and exorbitant fees, Academics whose tenured jobs are subsidized by government grants, Artists whose work could not and would not stand on its own without support, Politicians who couldn't survive in the real world, and of course those who have through generations of laying the blame for their failure to succeed at any door step but their own depend on the government to support them; These are the Democrats.

Every time the president needs a crowd, he goes to an area where there is a goodly number of union members who can be marshaled under a threat of job loss or physical injury and stands in front of chanting hundreds. The complicit media clones do whatever is necessary to spew their slanted messages about the events under the heading of "News".

Perry is right. Social Security cannot survive. He isn't making this up. Do the math. The program has been plundered by a variety of unscrupulous politicians and it cannot sustain itself. It is like a magicians act using smoke and mirrors to deflect your attention from what is really happening. I put money in, but I'll never get any money out. All the bull about payroll tax reductions are just political double talk. Tax the rich, spread the wealth around, tax the huge corporations, all great rhetoric for those who are deluded. Who pays those taxes? ALL CONSUMERS DO. Do you think for one minute that people who have become rich building businesses and corporations pay their taxes and don't pass the cost to those who buy their goods and services? They couldn't stay in business if they did. THOSE OF US WHO PAY TAXES PAY FOR ALL THE TAXES. Somewhere around 50% of our population pay no taxes. What does that mean? IT MEANS THAT YOUR SHARE THEN BECOMES DOUBLE. Wake up and smell the coffee. We must cut spending now and we must make the cuts sacrificial. Throwing more money into the mix will do exactly what the previous two attempts did; provide a huge war chest for Democrat politicians, and open the door for a continuation of the fraud and criminality in government.

The most common of all follies is to believe passionately in the palpably not true. It is the chief occupation of mankind. - H. L. Mencken

2011-09-11T07:07:00.002-05:00

AMERICA

Out of revolution,

the grip of monarch’s rule.

Driven by freedom.

Necessity.

Founded on values

from God’s holy book,

the glue that binds,

in trust,

its varied masses.

America

Through fire of war,

without,

within,

was forged in strength

a strong republic.

America

And though the vision dims

in her prosperity,

she rises to the challenge

when tyrants seek

to quell her voice.

America

Blessed by God,

we must hold those

values close

that bound

our loose knit colonies

in their infancy.

America

Dennis Price

Why is this so hard?

2011-09-10T07:57:00.000-05:00

I want you to look at something I just read in the Bloomberg Business Week.

"The White House says President Barack Obama's proposed Jobs Act could create 141,500 jobs in Texas.

The breakdown released Friday says the American Jobs Act would support 64,100 construction jobs, 39,500 teaching and first responder positions and provide job training for 37,900 people.

The president unveiled the plan Thursday night. It would also cut the payroll tax for 390,000 Texas companies and spend $8 billion on projects and workers within the state.

Obama said the costs would be covered by deficit reduction legislation that would be announced later.

The proposal met with immediate disdain from Gov. Rick Perry, who is also running for president. Perry said Obama's proposal "offers little hope for millions of Americans who have lost jobs." Perry said the answer was to cut spending, not spend more."

Does it bother anyone else but me that politicians who have control over our tax dollars can't seem to line up the funds they have (or don't have) with their proposed spending plans? They always present some convoluted figure from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) that is derived from a nebulous formula based on projected savings (that never happen), double reporting of income, and a waive of the magic government wand to explain how this is not going to put us further into the crapper. "...deficit reduction legislation that would be announced later." I would like to know in detail what happened to the billions already spent (line by line) in the previous efforts to spur the economy. Why won't our elected representatives get this information and shout it everyday from the highest mountains?

I don't care what the government does in force feeding funds into a dead horse's mouth, the horse is not going to get up and run. Get off that stinking carcass and mount up on a live one. How would you like to get one of those made up jobs financed for a year? After the funds are gone, so are the jobs. The so called boost lasts no longer than the funds. Oh, and in case you forgot, we don't have the funds to spend in the first place. Why is this so hard to understand? The government cannot create jobs that are self sustaining. Only private business can create the kinds of jobs that will spur and sustain our economy.

Essential Liberty

"Little by little, inch by inch, drop by drop, governments both in America and in Europe began taking more and more from people, diminishing the incentive of those on both sides of the transaction -- the taker and the giver. In America, nearly half of wage earners pay not one single dime in federal income taxes. Many of them trudge down to the local polling place or vote via absentee ballot -- and vote themselves a raise. The Founding Fathers conceived a brilliant document to restrain the federal government and allow maximum freedom for the people to make their own way. It leaves people the power to make their own decisions and to deal with the consequences. Almost before the ink dried, Congress tried to circumvent the Constitution. James Madison, the fourth U.S. president and the 'Father of the Constitution,' warned against using the document -- especially the 'general welfare' clause -- to dispense money, no matter how well-intended or deserved: 'With respect to the words general welfare, I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers (enumerated in the Constitution) connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators.' ... As governments take more away from their producing citizens and give it to their nonproducers, growth stagnates and opportunities dry up." --columnist Larry Elder

Essential Liberty

"Our Founders warned us that all republics have eventually fallen into tyranny -- the only difference being the relative timeline of each republic's descent. ... From the summer of 1787 when our Framers deliberated over their magnificent Constitution, we have recognized that the clear statement and equal application of the Law is among the most critical duties of any government. If we allow ourselves to lose this, we may as well be back in ancient Rome, subject to the whim of every petty tyrant in the taxing bureau or the zoning board. For it doesn't matter whether the regulator's foot is shod in a jack boot or a Roman sandal; if he can hold you down with that boot upon your neck, then we are no longer in the America that our Founding Fathers intended for us." --columnist John F. Di Leo

"Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm." --James Madison

What? That's your plan?

2011-09-09T12:16:00.001-05:00

I guess if you possess less than an average helping of intelligence, or you are a product of the "No Child Left Behind" education system, you might be able to see something positive in the president's speech to Congress.

If, however, you are capable of critical thinking, you can't possibly be impressed with what you saw and heard last night. I could elaborate, but I was sent a very succinct piece that does the job for me.

What's It Going To Take To Get You Into This Jobs Plan Today?
by Jim Geraghty

As Tim Williams put it, "Obama's schtick is so tired and recycled, it's hard to come up with fresh smart-aleck comments."

I didn't think this was the worst speech Obama gave. It's not even that all of the ideas in it are all that terrible. It's just that they're reheated leftovers, reruns, small-ball initiatives that are likely to be as effective as every other stimulus program that repaves sidewalks or funds research on exotic ants. We're a $14 trillion economy that makes everything from timber to jumbo jets to firearms to smart-phone apps to Hollywood movies to every food product under the sun. The notion that some grab bag of tax credits and federal grants is going to kick-start a hiring binge to put 14 million Americans back to work or that the economy is one tax credit for hiring veterans away from recovery is laughable.

The recession we've endured for the past three years is far from normal, and yet we keep getting the normal Keynesian responses. I realize I'm about to offer blasphemies and shockers on par with Rick Perry's Ponzi-scheme comparison, but what if Obama was wrong last night, and a big issue is that some of the people of this country do not, in fact, work hard to meet their responsibilities? What if decades of a lousy education system have left us with a workforce that has too many members with no really useful skills for a globalized economy? What if way too many college students majored in liberal arts and are entering the workforce looking for jobs that will never exist? What if the massive housing bubble got Americans to condition themselves to work in an economy that's never coming back? (How many realtors are unemployed right now?) What if we have good workers who can't move to take new jobs because they're underwater on their mortgages and can't sell their house?

Back in January, Chrystia Freeland wrote in The Atlantic:

I heard a similar sentiment from the Taiwanese-born, 30-something CFO of a U.S. Internet company. A gentle, unpretentious man who went from public school to Harvard, he's nonetheless not terribly sympathetic to the complaints of the American middle class. "We demand a higher paycheck than the rest of the world," he told me. "So if you're going to demand 10 times the paycheck, you need to deliver 10 times the value. It sounds harsh, but maybe people in the middle class need to decide to take a pay cut.

It does sound harsh. But there's an unnerving, honest question in there: How many Americans can argue that we indisputably provide the best value as an employee compared to any other group of workers in the world? Are we still the smartest? Are we still the hardest-working? Are we still the most innovative?

Instead, last night we were assured that "tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires" were preventing us from "put[ting] teachers back to work so our kids can graduate ready for college and good jobs." Sigh. As Michael Barone scored it, "Straw men took a terrible beating from the president."

A lot of people liked this succinct Yuval Levin assessment: "Spend $450 billion dollars now, it will create jobs, and I'll tell you how I'm going to pay for it a week from Monday. If you disagree, you want to expose kids to mercury. That about sums up the Obama years."

It sounds as if Obama hit John Tabin's last nerve:

"[T]he millions of Americans who are watching right now: they don't care about politics," said President Obama near the beginning of his speech before Congress tonight. Nice little delusion, but people who don't care about politics weren't watching. And the speech wasn't for them, anyway. This was a sop to the disillusioned liberals who complain in op-eds and blog posts that Obama just needs to get more aggressive in pushing for policies that they imagine will reinvigorate the economy. Politically, it was a move to rally a base that is rather depressed at the moment, and it might work somewhat. But the spectacle of demanding an audience from Congress for such a speech was utterly absurd.

The AP fact checker more or less stomped on one of Obama's key points:

Obama did not spell out exactly how he would pay for the measures contained in his nearly $450 billion American Jobs Act, but said he would send his proposed specifics in a week to the new congressional super-committee charged with finding budget savings. White House aides suggested that new deficit spending in the near-term to try to promote job creation would be paid for in the future -- the "out years," in legislative jargon -- but they did not specify what would be cut or what revenues they would use.

Essentially, the jobs plan is an IOU from a president and lawmakers who may not even be in office down the road when the bills come due. Today's Congress cannot bind a later one for future spending. A future Congress could simply reverse it. . . .

There is no guarantee that programs that clearly will increase annual deficits in the near term will be paid for in the long term.

Finally, note that Patrick Ruffini boasts that he skipped Obama's speech, deeming it "irrelevant."

A simple lesson for liberals.

2011-09-07T06:05:00.000-05:00

Hey Ahab! How about aiming for the Whale?

An Economics Lesson Even a Liberal Can Grasp

By Herbert E. Meyer

The more President Obama calls for a second stimulus spending spree to create those jobs the first spending spree failed to create, the more he sounds like the grocer in that old joke about the lady who wants her money back because the dietetic ice cream the grocer talked her into buying hasn't helped her lose weight. The grocer thinks for a moment and says, "Eat more of it."

Since the president and his advisers haven't got a clue about how our economy works -- which isn't surprising, since these people have less practical business experience than any kid with a lemonade stand -- here's an economics lesson so short and simple even a liberal can grasp it:

The key point to understand is that an economy is a kind of operating system. This means that if you want the economy to "do" something -- such as create more jobs -- you have to go about it the way the operating system is designed to work. Otherwise you cannot possibly succeed.

Think of it this way: our cell phones have operating systems built into them. There's no Republican way to make a phone call with your iPhone, and no Democratic way to do it. There's no conservative approach to checking your email with a BlackBerry or an Android, and no liberal approach to doing it. You just do it the way your cell phone's operating system requires.

It's the same with an economy. Broadly speaking, there are two kinds of economic operating systems: a free-market economy and a command economy. In a free-market economy, the government sets the rules and enforces them, but otherwise stays out of the way and allows individuals and businesses to call the shots. In a command economy, the government's role is so large that it not only sets and enforces the rules, but also calls the shots.

Because each country -- unlike each cell phone owner -- designs its own economic operating system, no two economies are precisely the same. So our country's free market is somewhat different from Canada's, which itself isn't quite the same as Germany's, Poland's, France's, Australia's, and so forth. Still, in all free-market economies, the government makes and enforces the rules, and then gets out of the way. Likewise with command economies: left-wing communist economies differ somewhat from right-wing fascist economies, but once again, the similarities are more important than the differences. In all command economies, you do what the government tells you to do, or you get your brains kicked in.

Entrepreneurs Create Jobs

In a free-market economy like ours, it's the entrepreneurs who create jobs. They do this by starting new businesses, and by expanding businesses that are already up and running. If you want to create more jobs, you create an environment in which entrepreneurs will thrive. They'll take it from there, because creating jobs by starting and expanding businesses is what thriving entrepreneurs do.

Think of it this way: if you want more milk, create an environment in which cows will thrive. And just as it makes no sense to say you want more milk but oppose cows because they're smelly, dirty, and leave their droppings all over the place -- it makes no sense to say you want more jobs but oppose entrepreneurs because when they succeed they often wind up with more money than the rest of us. You cannot have it both ways.

Entrepreneurs thrive when they are confident about the future. Every time an entrepreneur makes a decision to start a new business, or to expand his business by launching a new product or service, he or she is putting his own money -- and his employees' futures -- on the line. So an entrepreneur wants to know what taxes he's going to pay in the years ahead. He wants to know what his costs will be for high-priced expenses such as his employees' health care. He wants some certainty that the regulations in place when he launches that new product or service won't change six months later and destroy his investment overnight. And an entrepreneur wants some confidence that the overall economy will be sufficiently robust to provide customers who'll buy that new product or service and by doing so enable the entrepreneur to earn back his investment and make some profit besides.

Why did the world's largest and most powerful economy create zero jobs in August? It's because our country's entrepreneurs lack confidence in the future. They cannot calculate what taxes they'll pay, they cannot calculate their costs for health care, they have no idea what new regulations may suddenly appear that will cripple their investments, and they don't believe the customers they'll need to buy their products and services will be there.

Most of all -- and this is anecdotal rather than statistical -- many of our country's entrepreneurs have come to believe that the president and his liberal allies in Congress are out to get them -- that their ultimate objective is to turn our free-market economy into a command economy.

Our CEOs Have Had Enough

Let me give you one example to illustrate this point: in the course of my lecture business I meet a great many owners of small- and medium-sized companies -- precisely the men and women we depend upon to create jobs for all the rest of us. One evening, when my lecture to a group of these entrepreneurs had ended and we were all having a drink in the hotel bar, the CEO of a rock-solid manufacturing company said something that stopped the conversation cold: "I'll be damned before I start hiring people now, just in time to send the unemployment rate plunging so it re-elects the president next year. In a second term, this guy'll kill my business." There was a dead silence, and then every other business owner at the table nodded in agreement.

The point isn't whether these CEOs are right or wrong. The point is that this is what they've come to believe, and their actions will be based upon their perceptions. For all of us who depend on our country's entrepreneurs to create jobs -- which is to say, for all of us without safe government jobs -- this is more than depressing. It's terrifying.

Let's go back to the observation that an economy, like a cell phone, has an operating system built into it. Imagine that you have a new cell phone, and you ask me how to make a call. I tell you to punch in a phone number, then rub the phone against your leg and fling it against the wall. Did your call go through? No? Okay, I say, now try it again -- but this time fling your phone harder. Your call still didn't go through? Would you like to try it a third time? Or have you finally figured out that I have no idea what I'm talking about; that if you keep listening to me you're going to break your phone; that it's time to settle down, read the operator's manual, and do it the way your cell phone's operating system is designed to work?

The good news is that our economy is more resilient than our cell phones. It can take a lot of abuse and still be made to work if only we start doing things the right way. The bad news is that if we keep doing things to create jobs that make absolutely no sense and cannot possibly work, at some point even the world's most powerful and dynamic economy will be broken beyond repair.

And that's a lesson in economics even a liberal can understand.

Herbert E. Meyer served during the Reagan administration as special assistant to the director of Central Intelligence and vice chairman of the CIA's National Intelligence Council. He is the author of two eBooks, How to Analyze Information and The Cure for Poverty.

Operation Fast and Furious.

2011-08-31T07:35:00.000-05:00

I was in and around law enforcement for over thirty years during my working career. Almost twenty five of those years were spent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF). I have hesitated to write this piece because I know that, regardless of how well I am able to explain things, some people will not have the proper frame of reference to understand it.

I will make some disclaimers early in an attempt to decrease the size of the brush I use to paint this picture.

In every federal law enforcement entity, the working agents are as diverse as the areas of the country where they were raised, and the values taught to them by their families. They are also varied in both the experience and basic intellect they bring to the job.

These variations are also present in the various other levels of federal law enforcement management.

Elected representatives do not necessarily possess skills in investigation or tactical police operations.

We used to put it this way, "Big cases, big problems - Little cases, little problems - No cases - no problems."

The thought process behind the statement has nothing to do with a willingness to tackle the big stuff, but has everything to do with the various levels of management that get involved as the cases get bigger. When people who sit in offices, far removed from the actual work environment, are involved in making critical decisions, the case loses a significant essential factor. This factor is the "window of opportunity" that presents itself in every case to obtain and act on time sensitive information. At every juncture in the process, management insulates itself with some form of "plausible deniability". In other words, if things go to hell in a hand basket because of their (upper level management's) failure to act in a timely manner, or their incompetence, the blame will then fall directly on the field agent.

I have been out of the field for nearly ten years now and do not possess any knowledge of the case beyond what I read, hear, or see in the media. Therefore I am totally unqualified to make comment on the operation in Arizona. I can however give you some guidance in making up your own mind about what might have happened.

Pay no attention to what you read, hear, or see in the media.
Pay no attention to what you read, hear, or see from the NRA.
Pay no attention to what you read, hear, or see from the U. S. Congress.
Pay no attention to what you read, hear, or see from those in the Justice Department.
Pay no attention to what you read, hear, or see from the State of Arizona.
Pay no attention to what you read, hear, or see from the Country of Mexico.

This operation is being called a "Sting Operation." Based on my experience I cannot envision this being a sting operation. I believe it was an "Intelligence Gathering Operation." I believe the guns would have been sold and moved to Mexico regardless of what ATF did or didn't do. I believe that because they had to depend on a foreign entity (a corrupt and unreliable foreign entity) for a critical half of the information hoped for, they couldn't maintain control or depend on getting trustworthy final destination information. However, because ATF did know the sources of the guns, and some of the mules who got them to and across the border, they were put in the unenviable position of being blamed if bad things happened with those guns. I understand the frustration expressed by the field agents who report they were not allowed to act as their experience would have them act. Delays in critical field operations almost always occur when everything has to be filtered through the endless levels of management that are present in our current day bureaucracies.

Any time you engage in an operation where you do not have complete control, you run the risk of being embarrassed by the outcome. However, these operations are a necessary part of the enforcement picture if you ever hope to go beyond the street level bust. In drug cases, the "Controlled Delivery" is commonplace. The only word in the name that can be depended on is the "Delivery." When the product is out of your custody and control, the unforeseen circumstances ratio increases exponentially. If you are successful, you become a hero and your bosses get a lot of credit. If bad things happen, the blame rolls downhill and lands squarely on the heads of the street agents. The bosses above the field office level can deny any knowledge.

So, in summation, if you weren't there don't judge those who were. Like me, you don't know what happened. I am almost certain it didn't happen as reported. I am certain that a huge investigation at the highest levels (Congressional) will result in nothing worthwhile.

The Fighter, Part II

2011-08-21T07:50:00.001-05:00

Dallas "Blackjack" Price, my great uncle, was a boxer in the early days of the sport. He and his brother left Mississippi to work in the mines in Utah. This picture was taken circa 1917. He was a welterweight during this time period. The photo in the previous post was taken later in his life. His wife eventually talked him out of the ring. The short short story that follows is fiction. I used Dallas as inspiration, and I used his name because I liked it.

THE COMEBACK

Dallas “Blackjack” Bond, former world light heavyweight champ, returned to New York City. Here he once thrilled boxing fans in Madison Square Garden, and here he met and married Angela Minoni, a petite dark haired beauty he called Angie.

Born in poverty, he learned to make his way in life early. In the sweltering heat of the Mississippi lumber camps, he swung an axe and pulled on a cross-cut saw until he was lean and strong. When his parents died, he went to New Orleans and took a job as a longshoreman working on the docks. There were always rough men around looking for a fight. They soon learned the tall slender kid from Mississippi had a crushing left hook.

“It felt like someone hit me with a blackjack”, an opponent once commented after regaining his senses.

Angie was supportive, but the years took a physical toll, and she convinced him to leave the ring. They moved to Las Vegas, where he opened a gym and became a trainer. They had no children, but lived well and enjoyed each other.

Last September he lost her after a hard fought bout with cancer. Her death hit Dallas like a liver shot in the twelfth round of a fifteen rounder. He was sixty eight years old, conscious, but on the canvas and unable to get up. He sold the gym and moved back to New York in December, hoping he could find something of Angie. It was the old neighborhood, but everything had changed.

The coldness of the winter night seeped in through the wrinkles in the old building. Dallas stirred under the covers in his small bed. His six foot two inch frame took up the greater portion of its length. He slept in his gray sweats for added warmth. Throwing back the blankets, he arose and shuffled the short distance to his bathroom. The door frame barely accommodated the width of his shoulders.

Standing at the sink, he splashed icy tap water onto his face. He ran his wet fingers through his wavy graying hair, and then dried his face with a tattered green towel. He stared into the mirror and wondered what Angie ever saw in that mug. The reflection of his slate blue eyes looked back at him. The thick scar tissue drooped at the corner of each eyebrow and made him look sad. His nose was flat and slightly crooked. With age, his cauliflower ears had lengthened and now looked like unfinished candle wax sculptures. The line of his jaw didn’t exactly line up either.

He turned away and moved to the living room. A framed photograph of a youthful Angie stood beneath the lamp on the end table. Dallas glanced her way and forced a smile as he lowered himself to the hard floor for some push-ups and sit-ups, but his heart wasn’t in it. He held his huge calloused hands at arms length while working his fingers to loosen the stiffness in his knuckles. Even though his once-chiseled body had smoothed with age, it was still impressive. He stood and moved to the window. The sun shone brightly. It was time for a walk down memory lane.

He slipped out of his warm-ups and put on some heavy woolen trousers and a nice plaid dress shirt. He drank the last of his coffee, put on his coat and hat, and left the building. For a moment he stood on the sidewalk, basking in the contrast of warm sunshine and crisp air. Before him an ever-changing pallet of skin colors moved over the gray concrete, accompanied by a symphony of dialects. The city had its own atmosphere. He could smell smog, refuse, and people, mixed with the more pleasing and pungent odors of garlic and onion cooking.

“Let go of my purse!” A woman was screaming.

Dallas turned and saw a gang of young punks surrounding an elderly woman who was hanging on to the strap of her purse with amazing tenacity. He felt a surge of adrenaline as he ran toward her.

“Let go of her now!” he yelled as he waded into the group, shielding the lady who had now fallen to the sidewalk. “It’s not worth it guys, back off.”

A large young man sneered as he sauntered toward Dallas. The others watched and grinned.

“Looks like you need a lesson in respect old man.” The bully threw a looping right as he spoke.

Dallas ducked to the left and the punch found nothing but air over his right shoulder. Instinct brought his left fist in a short arc to the young man’s jaw. His assailant fell hard to the sidewalk. The others scattered.

“Are you alright ma’am?” Dallas asked, as he helped the frightened woman from the ground.

“Yes, I think so. Thank you so much. I didn’t know what I was going to do.”

“Do you want me to call the police?”

She looked down at the young man now lying at her feet. “No, I don’t think he’ll be bothering anyone for quite some time.” She brushed herself off, thanked Dallas again, and started home.

Dallas thought of Angie. She fought so hard, but he couldn’t help her. He knew she would be pleased with him today.

You know Angie, I’m thinking about making a comeback. The legs are gone, the reflexes aren’t so good, but I still have my left hook. The adrenaline was wearing off and the cold air chilled him. I think I may do it in Biloxi though.

He glanced heavenward and his blue eyes were smiling again.

The Fighter

2011-08-20T21:10:00.000-05:00

Dallas "Blackjack" Price

Sweat covers his body,

forms dark stains on

satin trunks,

a sheen on

red leather gloves.

Years of training

in stale smelling gyms

to fight.

He shuffles forward,

posing,

moving,

punching.

Sweat drips pink

over scarred eyelids

to taut canvas.

The beauty of his work

lost in its brutality.

Dennis Price

I think we get the picture...s.

2011-08-19T09:42:00.000-05:00

Hell hath no fury like a bureaucrat scorned. -Milton Friedman

Enough is enough.

2011-08-16T06:15:00.000-05:00

To the Moon

The tracks were laid

right to the Moon,

so Alice took the train.

She finally reached her limit

of hearing Ralph complain.

Dennis Price

While a picture is still worth $200.

2011-08-05T07:58:00.002-05:00

The president continues to amaze us with his "brilliant" speechifying. While offering not one hint of a plan of his own, this genius continues to blame anyone but himself or his party, for the ridiculous state of the economy. His only solution, as delivered through his "Opie Taylorish" press secretary, is more taxes, more government intervention, and more regulation to create jobs and stimulate the economy. Even though this has been tried on numerous occasions by other leaders of his ilk, it has never created one job or increased government revenues. However, we can count on the most of the others outside the executive branch for their spineless support of whatever seems to fill their pockets and keep them in favor of the ruling Oligarchy.

Even after being rebuffed on numerous occasions, the Supreme Court of the United States continues to do what politically appointed hacks do best, and that is go along with the people who appointed them. Thus our U. S. Constitution is minimized and rendered useless to protect us against the very kinds of tyranny it was designed to hold back. That leaves the 535 representatives in both houses to protect their pork at all costs. The limited roll of government has now become a huge governmental "nanny" that controls almost every aspect of our lives through endless laws, tomes of regulations, presidential edicts, burgeoning taxes, and bullying threats. The institution we call government doesn't create anything but a huge machine capable of taking our hard earned tax dollars and turning them into a pitiful and useless pittance.

And, while the fires of our demise are roaring, our president bleeds his rich sycophants for $38,000 dollars a plate so he can confuse enough deluded and ignorant people to get this position back for another term. Let's pray to almighty God for a leader with some principles, leadership skills, and a backbone of iron to stop this run away behemoth.

There are people who, instead of listening to what is being said to them, are already listening to what they are going to say themselves. - Albert Guinon

It's only 2.7 trillion....

2011-08-02T06:13:00.000-05:00

Hi folks. This is what one trillion dollars in one hundred dollar bills looks like. Many in our congress have joined our president in asking that we raise the debt ceiling to accommodate our federal government's "out of control" spending. These lunatics throw around the word "trillion" like you and I use "million." Look at the representative icons to get some idea of the actual size of those pallets of hundred dollar bills.

The photo above gives you more perspective. The smallest pack is 1000 dollars in one hundred dollar bills. The next packet is one million dollars, and each pallet is 100 million dollars. The ten pallet stack is one billion dollars in 100 dollar bills. Now let's see what 15 "trillion" looks like. That will be our national debt by December of this year.

Here are some of the programs the Republicans in the House of Representatives have proposed cutting.

Corporation for Public Broadcasting Subsidy. $445 million annual savings.Save America's Treasures Program. $25 million annual savings.International Fund for Ireland. $17 million annual savings.Legal Services Corporation. $420 million annual savings.National Endowment for the Arts. $167.5 million annual savings.National Endowment for the Humanities. $167.5 million annual savings.Hope VI Program. $250 million annual savings.Amtrak Subsidies. $1.565 billion annual savings.Eliminate duplicative education programs.. H.R. 2274 (in last Congress), authored by Rep. McKeon, eliminates 68 at a savings of $1.3 billion annually.U.S. Trade Development Agency. $55 million annual savings..Woodrow Wilson Center Subsidy. $20 million annual savings.Cut in half funding for congressional printing and binding. $47 million annual savings.John C. Stennis Center Subsidy. $430,000 annual savings.Community Development Fund. $4.5 billion annual savings.Heritage Area Grants and Statutory Aid. $24 million annual savings.Cut Federal Travel Budget in Half. $7.5 billion annual savings. DUH!!!
Trim Federal Vehicle Budget by 20%. $600 million annual savings.Essential Air Service. $150 million annual savings.Technology Innovation Program. $70 million annual savings.Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) Program. $125 million annual savings.Department of Energy Grants to States for Weatherization. $530 million annual savings.Beach Replenishment. $95 million annual savings.New Starts Transit. $2 billion annual savings. WHAT IS THIS???
Exchange Programs for Alaska Natives, Native Hawaiians, and Their Historical Trading Partners in Massachusetts .. $9 million annual savings. What the hell is this anyway…?Intercity and High Speed Rail Grants. $2.5 billion annual savings.Title X Family Planning. $318 million annual savings.Appalachian Regional Commission. $76 million annual savings.Economic Development Administration. $293 million annual savings.Programs under the National and Community Services Act. $1.15 billion annual savings.Applied Research at Department of Energy. $1.27 billion annual savings. Close Dept of Energy…FreedomCAR and Fuel Partnership. $200 million annual savings.Energy Star Program. $52 million annual savings.Economic Assistance to Egypt . $250 million annually.U.S. Agency for International Development.. $1.39 billion annual savings.General Assistance to District of Columbia . $210 million annual savings.Subsidy for Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority. $150 million annual savings.Presidential Campaign Fund. $775 million savings over ten years.No funding for federal office space acquisition. $864 million annual savings. Stop Growing Government…!
End prohibitions on competitive sourcing of government services. Repeal the Davis-Bacon Act. More than $1 billion annually.IRS Direct Deposit: Require the IRS to deposit fees for services it offers (such as processing payment plans for taxpayers) to the Treasury, instead of allowing payments to remain as part of its budget. $1.8 billion savings over ten years.Require collection of unpaid taxes by federal employees. $1 billion total savings. WHAT THE HELL…! FIRE THE BASTARDS…Prohibit taxpayer funded union activities by federal employees. $1.2 billion savings over ten years. TAXPAYER FUNDED UNIONS…. COME ON!!!
Sell excess federal properties the government does not make use of. $15 billion total savings.Eliminate Mohair Subsidies. $1 million annual savings.Eliminate taxpayer subsidies to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. $12.5 million annual savings.
Eliminate Market Access Program. $200 million annual savings.USDA Sugar Program. $14 million annual savings.Subsidy to Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).$93 million annual savings.Eliminate the National Organic Certification Cost-Share Program. $56.2 million annual savings.Eliminate fund for Obamacare administrative costs. $900 million savings.Ready to Learn TV Program. $27 million savings.Eliminate death gratuity for Members of Congress.
HUD Ph.D. Program.
Deficit Reduction Check-Off ActTOTAL SAVINGS: $2.5 Trillion over Ten Years
"My question is ", What THE HELL is all this crap doing in the budget in the first place?
Is there anything listed here you cannot do without?

What's Wrong?

2011-08-01T10:31:00.000-05:00

I can find no warrant for such an appropriation in the Constitution, and I do not believe that the power and duty of the General Government ought to be extended to the relief of individual suffering which is in no manner properly related to the public service or benefit. A prevalent tendency to disregard the limited mission of this power and duty should, I think, be steadfastly resisted, to the end that the lesson should be constantly enforced that though the people support the Government the Government should not support the people.

The friendliness and charity of our countrymen can always be relied upon to relieve their fellow-citizens in misfortune. This has been repeatedly and quite lately demonstrated. Federal aid in such cases encourages the expectation of paternal care on the part of the Government and weakens the sturdiness of our national character, while it prevents the indulgence among our people of that kindly sentiment and conduct which strengthens the bonds of a common brotherhood."

The author: President Grover Cleveland. The date: February 16, 1887, in a response to the House of Representatives.

Try to imagine Barack Obama or George Bush sending this out as a response to requests for funding for entitlement programs, and you'll have a good idea where and why we've failed -- and also get an idea why the Feds were never supposed to run as much as they do.

Countdown to the End

2011-07-29T11:10:00.000-05:00

Quote of the Obama Era

Whatever happens tonight and in the following days over the debt ceiling, this quote defines the years during which Barack Obama was President of the United States. It’s from Tuesday’s White House press briefing with Jay Carney. It’s around the 9 minute mark in the video at the link.

“[W]hen you put forward a position … on difficult issues … it becomes charged politically, and your chances of actually getting an agreement diminish significantly,” Carney said. “That’s how it works.”

Yes, that’s how it works. And that quote reflects a rank cowardice and adbication on the part of the White House to make tough calls and assume real leadership when circumstances call for it.

In 2008, millions of well-meaning Americans decided to give someone who struck them as a nice young man a shot at the most difficult job in the world. They did this mostly for good reasons, for many of the same reasons that we’re in the debt mess that we’re in. They gave Obama a chance a the presidency maybe because they agreed with him, maybe out of guilt, but mostly because they’re nice.

The signs were all there, though, that Barack Obama was not a real leader and would be a bad president, almost from the moment he declared his candidacy. Even before, actually — Obama himself reacted to the first questions about himself as a candidate by laughing and saying “Maybe I should actually do something first.” But a lot of smart, political people saw potential, not in the man but in the brand he could be. They created an iconography and a set of slogans. They raised money. They ran and they won and he is the president.

But the man who so often voted “present” in the Illinois Senate to keep from having to show his cards, and who was a backbencher liberal in the US Senate known for speaking well but doing little, the adjunct professor and community organizer with almost comically evil friends who wrote two autobiographies before having lived much of a life, is still the same man regardless of the office he occupies. Barack Obama is not a leader in the sense that a nation needs. He never will be. And his lack of capacity to perform in the most difficult job in the world has brought us to the brink of national ruin.

In the United States, doing good has come to be, like patriotism, a favorite device of persons with something to sell. - H. L. Mencken

Heat Wave.

2011-07-23T18:17:00.000-05:00

Adrift in South Texas.

I lie adrift in an azure pool

with arms out stretched

in weightlessness

and shut my eyes behind

my shades

and gaze through eyelids

red with blood at

changing patterns light and dark.

The sun bares down

from cloudless sky

gulf breezes slowly

turn me round

and I can feel

my skin turn brown

as afternoon slips into night

and with it every troubling thought

fades on the gentle swells.

Dennis Price

What is so hard about the term "Debt Limit"?

2011-07-20T10:51:00.000-05:00

Dear Mr. President,
Do you have trouble with the term "Speed Limit"? It means the top speed you can legally attain under optimal conditions. If you call something a "debt limit" but continue to raise it, it is no longer a limit. Let's look at a few of your comments on the matter from recent talks;

Obama repeated his warning that the country is "running out of time" to avert a financial “Armageddon.”
Obama said he is still pushing for a “big” deal to raise the debt ceiling by the Aug. 2 deadline despite the hardening of positions on Capitol Hill.
"I always have hope," Obama said. "Don't you remember my campaign?"

Yes, Mr. President we remember everything. Seems like you may have forgotten some of your own advice proffered before your election. Let me remind you:

“The fact that we are here today to debate raising America’s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the US Government can not pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government’s reckless fiscal policies.

…Increasing America’s debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that ‘the buck stops here'. Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and Grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better.”

Barack Obama March 2006

To the Republican Senators who are ready to cave at the slightest pressure from the liberal left I say get your retirement packages secured soon. We are tired of a lack of leadership at the top levels of government. Everyone I know is ready for huge cuts in social programs, and no one I know wants to increase the debt limit or taxes. It is time to take an ax to wasteful spending and balance our national budget.

"Socialism is a philosophy of failure,

the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy,

its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery..."

-- Winston Churchill

Can You Help?

2011-06-24T16:57:00.000-05:00

Since September 11, 2001, Americans have come together as never before in our generation. We have banded together to overcome adversity. We have weathered direct attacks on our own soil, wars overseas, corporate/government scandal, layoffs, unemployment, stock price plunges, droughts, fires, mad cow, SARS, high gasoline prices, and a myriad of economic and physical disasters both great and small. But now, we must come together once again to overcome our greatest challenge yet.

Hundreds of Professional Football players in our very own nation are going to be locked out, living at well below the seven-figure salary level. And as if that weren't bad enough they could be deprived of their life giving pay for several months, possibly longer, as a result of the upcoming lockout situation. But you can help!

For only $27,080 a month, about $902.75 a day (that's less than the cost of a large screen projection TV) you can help an NFL player remain economically viable during his time of need. This contribution by no means solves the problem as it barely covers the annual minimum salary, but it's a start, and every little bit will help!

Although $900 may not seem like a lot of money to you, to a football player it could mean the difference between spending the lockout golfing in Florida or on a Mediterranean cruise. For you, nine hundred dollars is nothing more than a month's rent, a mortgage payment, or a month of medical insurance, but to a football player, $900 will partially replace his daily salary.

Your commitment of less than $900 a day will enable a player to buy that home entertainment center, trade in the year-old Lexus for a new Ferrari, or enjoy a weekend in Rio.

HOW WILL I KNOW I'M HELPING?

Each month, you will receive a complete financial report on the player you sponsor. Detailed information about his stocks, bonds, 401(k), real estate, and other investment holdings will be mailed to your home. Plus, upon signing up for this program, you will receive an unsigned photo of the player lounging during the lockout on a beach somewhere in the Caribbean (for a signed photo, please include an additional $150). Put the photo on your refrigerator to remind you of other peoples' suffering.

HOW WILL HE KNOW I'M HELPING?

Your NFL player will be told that he has a SPECIAL FRIEND who just wants to help in a time of need. Although the player won't know your name, he will be able to make collect calls to your home via a special operator in case additional funds are needed for unforeseen expenses.

Remember, a lifestyle is a horrible thing to waste...
---------------------------------------------------------
YES, I WANT TO HELP!

I would like to sponsor a locked out NFL player. My preference is (check below):

[ ] Offense [ ] Defense [ ] Special Teams [ ] Entire team

Please charge the account listed below $902.75 per day for the duration of the lockout. Please send me a picture of the player and my very own Roger Goodell (NFL Commissioner) pin to wear proudly on my hat (include $80 for hat).

Your Name: ____________________Telephone Number: ___________________
Account Number: __________________Exp.Date:_______

[ ] MasterCard [ ] Visa [ ] American Express [ ] Other

Signature: _______________________

Alternate card (when the primary card exceeds its credit limit):
Account Number: _______________________ Exp.Date:_______
[ ] MasterCard [ ] Visa [ ] American Express [ ] Other

Signature: ______________________

p.s. If you have a little extra, please enclose for the cheerleaders. Contrary to public opinion, cheerleaders are people too.

Changes in Attitude

2011-06-08T19:00:00.000-05:00

An old man once said, "There comes a time in your life, when you walk away from all the drama and people who create it. You surround yourself with people who make you laugh. Forget the bad, and focus on the good. Love the people who treat you right, pray for the ones who don't.

Life is too short to be anything but happy. Falling down is a part of life, getting back up is living."

Memorial Day

2011-05-30T08:38:00.000-05:00

A day to remember all who have served us and are currently serving us in the armed forces of the United States of America. This day was instituted to honor and remember the participants in our own Civil War where over 600,000 lives were lost. Today we continue to find cause to send our young men and women into harms way to defend the freedoms we have come to appreciate here in the U. S.

I salute all who have volunteered to serve their country in the combined armed forces of the United States of America. I pray that we will return to a firm belief in the ultimate sacrifice of Jesus Christ to restore our relationship with God. I am convinced he brought the United States of America into existence through miraculous means and has blessed it mightily for a specific purpose. I pray that we will humbly bow and thank him for his bountiful blessings.

Out of revolution,

the grip of monarch’s rule.

Driven by freedom.

Necessity.

Founded on values

from God’s holy book,

the glue that binds,

in trust,

its varied masses.

America

Through fire of war,

without,

within,

was forged in strength

a strong republic.

America

And though the vision dims

in her prosperity,

she rises to the challenge

when tyrants seek

to quell her voice.

America

Blessed by God,

we must hold those

values close

that bound

our loose knit colonies

in their infancy.

America

Dennis Price

Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest. - Mark Twain

Awaiting God's Symphony

2011-05-12T07:20:00.000-05:00

The land is parched and dry

beneath the summer sun

and one might question,

why its been so long since rain

has spattered softly in the dust

until the droplets blend

in numbers large enough to

soak the crust and run in rivulets

steaming in the heat with

pitter, patter beat

backed up by lights

behind gray clouds

and roar of distant tympani?

First pianissimo, then forte

as the lightning cymbals crash

and drum roll thunder shakes

the core.

The howling wind joins in

for harmony and takes the

movement down to pianissimo

once more

then fades to blue.

Dennis Price

ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION

2011-05-11T13:09:00.001-05:00

Webster's New World College Dictionary - (For our president and others of his ilk)

We get it Mr. President - No law abiding citizen is against Legal Immigration.
No law abiding citizen is for ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION.

Perhaps you should re-read your oath.

Illegal: prohibited by law; against the law; unlawful; illicit.
Immigration: An act or instance of immigrating.

There is a legal process for immigration to the United States of America. It is involved, and designed to help us control the number and quality of people passing our borders. I don't know of any country, civilized or primitive, that has an open immigration policy.

The Border Patrol officers on the ground are not to blame for the inefficiency in the war to stop ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION.

IT IS THE POLICY OF THE CURRENT DEMOCRAT ADMINISTRATION THROUGH THE OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT, THE ATTORNEY GENERAL, AND THE ATTENDANT BUREAU CHIEFS DESIGNED TO IGNORE ENFORCEMENT, THAT CREATES THE PROBLEM. THEY ARE, IN EFFECT, GUILTY OF AIDING AND ABETTING FELONY IMMIGRATION VIOLATIONS AND SHOULD BE INDICTED. DURING MOST OF THE BUSH YEARS IT WAS THE DEMOCRAT CONTROLLED HOUSE AND SENATE PANDERING TO ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS.

This policy has created an atmosphere where state and local law enforcement are pitted against federal officers. The federal officers are put in the position of having to act against local officers who are doing what the law says to do. In border states, the local laws are exactly the same as the federal law and should be enforced vigorously by both entities.

Illegal Immigrants coming out of Mexico are not all poor Mexicans. Democrats please note: Here are some of the others;

MIDDLE EASTERN ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS
CHINESE ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS
DRUG DEALERS
WANTED CRIMINALS
VICIOUS STREET GANGS
AFRICAN ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS AND MORE.

When you allow illegal immigration here is what you get;

A huge population of ignorant, ungrateful welfare parasites who give back nothing. They fill our prisons, hospitals, jails, and schools. They drag down the entire country, and using their counterfeit documents they become a willing participants in voting ILLEGALLY for DEMOCRATS who promise to support their continued presence in the United States.

Obama gets Osama

2011-05-02T07:02:00.002-05:00

Across New York City, joy that 'Obama got Osama'

"Last August, after years of painstaking work by our intelligence community, I was briefed on a possible lead to bin Laden," Obama said. "It was far from certain. And it took many months to run this thread to ground. I met repeatedly with my national security team as we developed more information about the possibility that we could locate bin Laden hiding within a compound deep inside Pakistan."

Last week, Obama said, "I determined that we had enough intelligence to take action and authorized an operation to get Osama bin Laden and bring him to justice."

"Today, at my direction, the United States launched a targeted operation against that compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan," the president continued. "A small team of Americans carried out the operation with extraordinary courage and capability. No Americans were harmed. They took care to avoid civilian casualties. After a firefight they killed Osama Bin Laden and took custody of his body."

"I've made clear, just as President Bush did shortly after 9/11, that our war is not against Islam," Obama said. "Bin Laden was not a Muslim leader. He was a mass murderer of Muslims. Indeed, al Qaeda slaughtered scores of Muslims in many countries including our own."

By Tom Cohen, CNN

From Audacity of Hope:
"I will stand with the Muslims should the political winds shift in
an ugly direction." Barack Hussein Obama

Oppressive Government

2011-05-01T20:38:00.000-05:00

“The American Constitution is remarkable for its simplicity; but it can only suffice a people habitually correct in their actions, and would be utterly inadequate to the wants of a different nation. Change the domestic habits of the Americans, their religious devotion, and their high respect for morality, and it will not be necessary to change a single letter of the Constitution in order to vary the whole form of their government.”
19th-century observer of American life Francis Grund

Many find my questioning of the motives and methods of government tiring. Don't worry, I do too. However, I wonder why those entrusted with governing don't have the same questions. I wonder why those in the various media outlets don't question obvious inconsistencies between what is said and what is done. We cannot legislate all the wrongs of the world anymore than we can subsidize all the social ills. At some point people have to take personal responsibility and do something for themselves. Evidence is plentiful all around us of people who have abandoned their moral and civil responsibilities. I could rant all day about seemingly little things which people do and don't do that manifest their dependence on someone else to do what they should do for themselves. Many good people are overwhelmed by the thought of taking corrective action and immerse themselves in nature and doing meaningless things to take care of crises designed purposely to distract. It is like a magician directing your attention away from one hand in order to do something "magical" with the other. What really is happening in government?

The size of government threatens the American way of life as we know it. The solution is straightforward — cut government. A vibrant grassroots movement insists that it happen, and Washington is lousy with rival plans for how to go about it. Rich Lowry

I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government
from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of
them. Thomas Jefferson

As a final note of how much the U.S. government has increased its borrowing and spending, in February 2011 alone we borrowed and spent $222 billion. That’s almost 40 percent more than in ALL of 2007.
Robert Wiedemer

Hope 'n' Change: Improper Payments

Federal agencies reported making $125 billion in improper payments in 2010, 94 percent of which came from social spending programs. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) defines improper payments as outlays that are overpayments, underpayments, or insufficiently documented payments, including, but not always, fraudulent claims. The $125 billion was spread across 70 different programs in 20 federal agencies. The bulk of the problem showed up in areas such as -- surprise -- Medicare ($34 billion), Medicaid ($22 billion), and unemployment insurance ($17.5 billion).

To put the $125 billion worth of improper payments in perspective, according to the Treasury Department, the entire State Department spent just over $11 billion in 2010, the Justice Department spent $16 billion, and NASA spent $17 billion. In other words, last year it cost more for the government to absorb fraud and poor accounting practices than it did to implement our foreign policy (such as it is), administer justice at a federal level, and fund our entire space program. The GAO said that the high total of improper payments was a result of the government's spending more money. This makes the solution to this problem even more obvious -- cut spending.

From the Left: The Enemies List

The Obama administration, fearful of the Supreme Court's 2010 Citizens United ruling in favor of free speech, is looking to change the rules of the campaign game for 2012. The administration is demanding that potential federal contractors make known any political donations over $5,000 made by the contracting company or its executives. Government contractors are already required to disclose political contributions to candidates, but this order will expand that to include independent groups, a category in which conservatives outspent liberals in the last election cycle.

The implications are obvious: If a company wants to win a federal contract while Obama is in the White House, it had better have a campaign donation record that reflects greater support for Democrats. Leftists attempted to rig the corporate donation game in 2010 with the Disclose Act, but it failed to pass. Now the White House is again extra-constitutionally taking matters into its own hands with the same intent -- reduce the overall dollar amount received in donations by independent conservative groups. Federal labor unions don't have to worry, though. The SEIU, AFL-CIO and other groups that brought Obama some $200 million worth of support in 2008 are conveniently exempted from the new disclosure rules in the executive order. Perhaps they slipped the president's mind.

How does this work out in real life?

Obama's Silence on Boeing Is Unacceptable

The president's appointees have moved to block the company from building planes in my state. He owes us an explanation.

By NIKKI HALEY - The governor of South Carolina

In October 2009, Boeing, long one of the best corporations in America, made an announcement that changed the economic outlook of South Carolina forever: The company's second line of 787 Dreamliners would be produced in North Charleston.

In choosing to manufacture in my state, Boeing was exercising its right as a free enterprise in a free nation to conduct business wherever it believed would best serve both the bottom line and the employees of its company. This is not a novel or complicated idea. It's called capitalism.

Boeing has since poured billions of dollars into a new, state-of-the art facility in South Carolina's picturesque Low Country along the Atlantic coast. It has created thousands of good jobs and joined the long tradition of distinguished and employee-friendly corporations that have found a home, and a partner, in the Palmetto State.

This a win-win for South Carolina, for Boeing, and for the global clients who will see Dreamliners rolling off the North Charleston line at the rate of 10 a month, starting with the first one next year. But, as is often the case, a win for people and businesses is a loss for the labor unions, which rely on coercion, bullying and undue political influence to stay afloat.

South Carolina is a right-to-work state, and we're proud that within our borders workers cannot be required to join a labor union as a condition of employment. We don't need unions playing middlemen between our companies and our employees. We don't want them forcefully inserted into our promising business climate. And we will not stand for them intimidating South Carolinians.

That is apparently too much for President Obama and his union-beholden appointees at the National Labor Relations Board, who have asked the courts to intervene and force Boeing to stop production in South Carolina. The NLRB wants Boeing to produce the planes only in Washington state, where its workers must belong to the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers.

Let's be clear: Boeing is a great corporate citizen in Washington and in South Carolina. The company chose to come to our state because the cost of doing business is low, our job training and work force are strong, and our ports are tremendous. The fact that we are a right-to-work state is an added bonus.

The actions by the NLRB are nothing less than a direct assault on the 22 right-to-work states across America. They are also an unprecedented attack on an iconic American company that is being told by the federal government—which seems to regard its authority as endless—where and how to build airplanes.

The president has been silent since his hand-selected NLRB General Counsel Lafe Solomon, who has not yet been confirmed by the United States Senate as required by law, chose to engage in economic warfare on behalf of the unions last week.

While silence in this case can be assumed to mean consent, President Obama's silence is not acceptable—not to me, and certainly not to the millions of South Carolinians who are rightly aghast at the thought of the greatest economic development success our state has seen in decades being ripped away by federal bureaucrats who appear to be little more than union puppets.

This is not just a South Carolina issue, and President Obama owes the people of our country a response. If they get away with this government-dictated economic larceny, the unions won't stop in our state.

The nation deserves an explanation as to why the president's appointees are doing the machinist union's dirty work on the backs of the businesses and workers of South Carolina.

Do you feel safe?

Time flies....

2011-04-25T08:51:00.000-05:00

I know you think that it might be crazy to leave the cozy cabin at Pappy's Place and travel several hours through wind and sand to spend a weekend, but it proved to be a pleasant retreat. Bebe and I drove to the Texas Hill Country to stay at the "Bend o' the River Bed and Breakfast which is located just north of Utopia, Texas. Our hosts for the stay were Ron and Peggy Duvall. I met Ron while riding the big Goldwing through the area several months ago. I was stopping at properties along the Sabinal River looking for a nice place to stay and he directed me to his property.

My brother Steve and his wife Donna also joined us there. The Duvall's are not only great hosts, they are good cooks too. We had wonderful breakfasts both mornings. The hill country around Utopia is rugged and beautiful with all kinds of little surprises everywhere you look. Ron and Peggy directed us to some fine eating places. My mother came over from Uvalde, TX on Saturday to join us, and we visited the Lone Star Motorcycle Museum just south of Lost Maples State Park. The food in the cafe there was excellent. I highly recommend the hamburgers. The night before we drove to Tarpley, TX and ate at Mac and Ernies Roadside Eatery. Don't let the looks fool you. It has great food and lots of it.

We intend to make another trip to the area soon. We recommend you do the same. What more could you want than great folks, good food, and magnificent vistas? If you ride motorcycles you'll love it.

Think you know history?

2011-04-09T19:28:00.000-05:00

Paul Krugman’s 'Civil War' Fantasies

by Thomas J. DiLorenzo
by Thomas J. DiLorenzo Recently by Thomas DiLorenzo: The Political Economy of Government Employee Unions

When James M. Buchanan was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1986 the first thing he said at his George Mason University press conference was that the award "does not make me an instant expert in everything." Buchanan was well aware – and amused – at how previous recipients of the award had made fools of themselves by viewing the award as a license to pontificate about anything and everything, whether they knew anything about the subject or not.
No such modesty and sense of reality occupies the mind of a more recent Nobel laureate, Paul Krugman. As a New York Times columnist he has always done what all New York Times columnists do – pretend that he does in fact know everything about everything. A case in point is his March 29 New York Times blog entitled "Road to Appomattox Blogging." After mentioning how the Times has a special "Disunion" blog to commemorate the 150^th anniversary of the start of the war, Krugman gives a hilarious, elementary-schoolish rendition of his "take" on the "Civil War."
Krugman said he has always been infatuated by the "symbolism" of Lee’s surrender at Appomattox, with "Lee the patrician in his dress uniform," compared to General Grant, who was "still muddy and disheveled from hard riding." Krugman is apparently unaware that in 1860, on the eve of the war, Robert E. Lee was in his thirty-second year as an officer in the United States Army, performing mostly as a military engineer. He was hardly a "patrician" or member of a ruling class. Grant, by contrast, was the overseer of an 850-acre slave plantation owned by his wealthy father-in-law. The plantation, located near St. Louis, was known as "White Haven" (which sounds like it could have been named by the KKK) and is today a national park. (On the "White Haven" Web site the National Park Service euphemistically calls Grant the "manager" of the slave plantation rather than the more historically-accurate word "overseer").
In 1862 Lee freed the slaves that his wife had inherited, in compliance with his father-in-law’s will. Grant’s White Haven slaves were not freed until an 1865 Missouri emancipation law forced Grant and his father-in-law to do so. The fact that Lee changed clothes before formally surrendering did not instantly turn the 36-year army veteran into a "patrician," contrary to the "all-knowing" Krugman’s assertion.
Krugman goes on to assert that the North’s victory in the war was a victory in "manners" by a region that "excelled at the arts of peace." Well, not really. What the North "excelled" in was the waging of total war on the civilian population of the South. The Lincoln administration instituted the first federal military conscription law, and then ordered thousands of Northern men to their death in the savage and bloody Napoleonic charges that characterized the war. When tens of thousands of Northern men deserted, the Lincoln administration commenced the public execution of deserters on a daily basis. When New Yorkers rioted in protest of military conscription, Lincoln ordered 15,000 soldiers to the city where they murdered hundreds, and perhaps thousands of draft protesters (See Iver Bernstein, The New York City Draft Riots). It also recruited thousands of European mercenaries, many of whom did not even speak English, to arm themselves and march South to supposedly teach the descendants of James Madison, Patrick Henry, and Thomas Jefferson what it really meant to be an American. Lee Kennett, biographer of General William Tecumseh Sherman, wrote of how many of Lincoln’s recruits were specially suited for pillaging, plundering and raping: "the New York regiments were . . . filled with big city criminals and foreigners fresh from the jails of the Old World" (Lee Kennett, Marching Through Georgia, p. 279).
The North waged war on Southern civilians for four long years, murdering at least 50,000 of them according to historian Jeffrey Rogers Hummel. It bombed cities like Atlanta for days at a time when they were occupied by no one but civilians, and U.S. Army soldiers looted, ransacked, and raped their way all throughout the South. The "arts of peace" indeed.

As for the war being a victory of "manners," as Krugman says, consider this: When the women of New Orleans refused to genuflect to U.S. Army troops who were occupying their city and killing their husbands, sons and brothers, General Benjamin "Beast" Butler issued an order that all the women of that city were to henceforth be treated as prostitutes. "As the officers and soldiers of the United States have been subject to repeated insults from the women . . . of New Orleans," Butler wrote in his General Order Number 28 on May 15, 1862, "it is ordered that thereafter when any female shall, by word, gesture, or movement, insult or show contempt for any officer or soldier of the United States, she shall be regarded and held liable to be treated as a woman of the town plying her avocation." Butler’s order was widely construed as a license for rape, and he was condemned by the whole world. Ah, those Yankee "manners."
Krugman celebrates the victory of "a democratic nation" (the North) in his blog. But during the war the North was anything but "democratic": Lincoln illegally suspended the writ of Habeas Corpus and imprisoned tens of thousands of Northern political critics without any due process; shut down hundreds of opposition newspapers; deported Congressman Clement Vallandigham of Ohio for criticizing him; threatened to imprison Chief Justice Roger B. Taney for issuing the (correct) opinion that Lincoln’s suspension of Habeas Corpus was unconstitutional; censored all telegraphs; rigged elections; imprisoned duly elected members of the Maryland legislature along with Congressman Henry May of Baltimore and the mayor of Baltimore; illegally orchestrated the secession of West Virginia to give the Republican Party two more U.S. senators; confiscated firearms in the border states in violation of the Second Amendment; and committed a grand act of treason by invading the sovereign states of the South (Article 3, Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution defines treason as "only" levying war against the states, or giving aid and comfort to their enemies).
Krugman is right about democracy in a sense: Democracy is essentially one big organized act of bullying whereby a larger group bullies a smaller group in order to plunder it with taxes. The "Civil War" proved that whenever a smaller group has finally had enough, and attempts to leave the game, the larger group will resort to anything – even the mass murder of hundreds of thousands and the bombing and burning of entire cities – to get its way. After all, in his first inaugural address Lincoln literally threatened "force," "invasion" and "bloodshed" (his exact words) in any state that refused to pay the federal tariff, which had just been more than doubled two days earlier. He followed through with his threat. This is "the kind of nation I believe in," says Paul Krugman.

April 8, 2011

If you tell the truth you don't have to remember anything. - Mark Twain

Beyond the Dome

2011-04-08T08:19:00.000-05:00

Where Does Space End?

The thought

should be enough to give us pause.

A picture of eternity.

A tiring mind push.

So, we create reality.

A show to watch.

A triviality.

A gothic play

that lacks originality.

So much knowledge.

So little wisdom.

Perhaps if we had no food

we could focus.

We don’t leave the mirror

long enough to care.

Our lives are air.

It’s all about what’s fair.

Rights without responsibility.

It will not last.

It never has.

The cycle will repeat and

we’ll be forced to scratch

for scraps of bread.

And,

for a while we’ll understand

the beauty of a loaf.

Dennis Price

Dropping more bombs.

2011-04-05T16:59:00.000-05:00

He should change his name again to O'bomb-a. This administration keeps dropping one bomb after another. Jimmy Carter looks better every day this embarrassing circus stays in town. I can't believe he's even considering another run at the office.

Egotism is the anesthetic that dulls the pain of stupidity. - Frank Leahy

April Impressions

2011-04-02T12:23:00.000-05:00

Zephyrs stir miniature

soldiers of lavender

and salmon pink

standing at attention

on a carpet of pastel green.

Purple tendrils

surround a phone pole.

Splashes of white and pink

peak out from

Winter’s stark remnants.

An ice blue sky

domes the hillsides

carpeted in yellow and blue.

Songbird fugues

pierce the air

backed up by the

steady gurgle of a

crystal stream.

Subtle hints of perfume

carried on the breeze

refresh and revive

my wakening spirit.

Dennis Price

Going Green. I'm so with it.

2011-03-31T13:58:00.000-05:00

Just forgot one thing. We need a viable economy to give us time and energy to think of innovative new solutions to the world's energy problems. Destroying the greatest experiment in government ever tried, will relegate us to the level of those who depend on us for their sustenance. How will adopting the failed attempts at government of all other nations make us better?

What drives our nation at this time? Carbon energy sources. We have yet to find anything to replace these sources and won't as long as government interference and over regulation cripples our nation. This is truly a government of retribution led by small men with small ideas. Every new technology we have developed so far is dependent on carbon based energy to exist. Most of these sources, as they are currently configured, could not exist with out heavy dependence on oil, gas, and other carbon based fuels and by-products.

We must find the moral strength of character and courage to impeach this government of foreign interlopers and racist opportunists, and we must do it soon. Our government has been co-opted by financially rich despots who are pulling the purse strings to make their minions dance. We have overcome greater obstacles in the past when we have returned to our Christian roots and values, and we must do so again. If the judges are unjust get rid of them. If our representatives are self serving and spineless get rid of them. This charade must be unveiled and quashed.

[Abstract art is] a product of the untalented, sold by the unprincipled to the utterly bewildered - Al Capp

The same could be said of the "Abstract Theories" being proffered by the untalented politico puppets, and supported by the unprincipled elitists who suppose their educations are better than everyone else. They attempt to sell this unmitigated crap to a wide variety of utterly bewildered sycophants with help from the Zombies in the National media.

What Happened to Us?

2011-03-30T22:48:00.001-05:00

"I hate rude behavior in a man. I won't tolerate it." Capt. Woodrow Call, Lonesome Dove.

I am astounded at how low we've sunk as a society in such a relatively short period of time. People have lost their perspective. Instant gratification, no rules, anything goes, ghetto slang, booming speakers, filthy rap, no service, incessant cell phone use, slovenly hygiene, ridiculous wardrobes, and an entire host of other evidence causes me to take exception with the current trend toward the lowest common denominator.

When I was young and was being chided for some breech of approved social interaction, I would offer the excuse that I was not as bad as ___________. My parents countered with, "Don't compare yourself with the bottom of the barrel." I think the advice is still sound today. People seem to think anything and everything is O.K. Even churches tolerate almost everything in order to keep from offending anyone with rules and regulations that are too restrictive. Why have church if you are not going to be different from the world?

Go anywhere and ask for anything slightly out of the ordinary and you will be met with sullen stares and confusion. I went to the cleaners this week and took several sweaters in for my wife. I also took a linen shirt and asked that it be dry cleaned and placed on a hanger. I asked that the sweaters be dry cleaned, folded and individually wrapped. Today I went to pick up my clothes and guess what? The shirt was folded and placed in plastic and all of my wife's sweaters were on hangers. I could tell by looking at the clerk, it would do no good at all to try and find out why.

Tonight we went to the movies. The current television fare is so vile and chocked full of social re-engineering that I can't watch it. So, I recognized the title of a movie currently showing that matched a book I read, and enjoyed, some time ago and decided it might be one we'd like to see. Prior to the start of the feature we sat through the list of rules for ensuring that everyone had an equal chance to enjoy the main feature. One rule was to turn your cell phone off. This was followed by admonitions to refrain from loud talking and/or texting as the light from the phone might hamper someones viewing enjoyment, or your conversation might override the dialog. Dumb me. I turned mine off. When the lights were turned down almost everyone complied. Not ten minutes into the movie the guy directly in front of me, who had his feet propped up on the rail, flipped open his phone and started showing his wife some picture on e-bay. I broke the no talking rule right after I gave the back of his chair a swift kick with my size 13 boot. I told him to turn the phone off. He spun around and looked at the red glow coming from my eyes and decided turning the phone off was the best option he had. When the movie ended, but before the credits, the entire theater lit up when most of the folks decided to power up and text, talk, or twitter. This continued into the parking lot where few if any patrons didn't have a cell phone hiked up to their ear.

We decided on some fast food after the show and I gave my wife money and asked her to order me a sandwich and a medium drink. I went to the restroom (typical multiple stall commercial restroom) - the door was locked. I stepped back out of the hall so as not to impede other patrons wanting to use the facilities. I waited and wondered why the door was locked. Men rarely lock the door. After a considerable wait, one man exited the men's room and sidled into the eating area. I completed my short visit with the door unlocked and returned to the seating area. My wife was still at the cash register. I knew there must be a problem. She had been there the whole time trying to make the clerk understand that I didn't want a combo, just a sandwich and a drink. Finally the manager took over and with less than twenty-three key strokes was able to complete the order. Nothing in life should be this hard.

Exit, pursued by a bear - William Shakespeare

I knew it wasn't me.

2011-03-27T07:35:00.000-05:00

Just when liberal-leftists thought it was finally "their time" to lead center-right America, kicking and screaming, into a stifling socialist "utopia," a veteran psychiatrist is making a powerful case that the "hope-and-change" ideology motivating them is actually a mental disorder.

For more than 40 years, Rossiter has diagnosed and treated over 1,500 patients as a board-certified clinical psychiatrist and examined more than 2,700 civil and criminal cases, both state and federal, as a board-certified forensic psychiatrist retained by numerous public offices, courts and private attorneys. He received his medical and psychiatric training at the University of Chicago.

Rossiter explains with great clarity why the kind of liberalism being displayed by Barack Obama can only be understood as a psychological disorder.

"Based on strikingly irrational beliefs and emotions, modern liberals relentlessly undermine the most important principles on which our freedoms were founded," says Rossiter. "Like spoiled, angry children, they rebel against the normal responsibilities of adulthood and demand that a parental government meet their needs from cradle to grave."

"A social scientist who understands human nature will not dismiss the vital roles of free choice, voluntary cooperation and moral integrity – as liberals do," he says. "A political leader who understands human nature will not ignore individual differences in talent, drive, personal appeal and work ethic, and then try to impose economic and social equality on the population – as liberals do. And a legislator who understands human nature will not create an environment of rules which over regulates and overtaxes the nation's citizens, corrupts their character and reduces them to wards of the state – as liberals do."

Dr. Rossiter says the liberal agenda preys on weakness and feelings of inferiority in the population by:

creating and reinforcing perceptions of victimization;
satisfying infantile claims to entitlement, indulgence and compensation;
augmenting primitive feelings of envy;
rejecting the sovereignty of the individual, subordinating him to the will of the government.

"The roots of liberalism – and its associated madness – can be clearly identified by understanding how children develop from infancy to adulthood and how distorted development produces the irrational beliefs of the liberal mind," he says. "When the modern liberal mind whines about imaginary victims, rages against imaginary villains and seeks above all else to run the lives of persons competent to run their own lives, the neurosis of the liberal mind becomes painfully obvious."

Posted: March 25, 2011
7:00 pm Eastern
© 2011 WorldNetDaily

I wondered why the baseball kept getting bigger. Then it hit me.

Looking at the Immigration Policy

2011-03-25T14:25:00.000-05:00

Correct me if I'm wrong, but hasn't the fine line between sanity and madness gotten finer?
- George Price

A message in cartoons.

2011-03-22T07:03:00.000-05:00

Evening news is where they begin with "Good evening,"
and then proceed to tell you why it isn't.

I must be senile.

2011-03-21T10:45:00.000-05:00

I've said it before and I'll say it again. I can't for the life of me figure out how gasoline prices are determined.

I can't understand how a totally incompetent and constitutionally unqualified candidate can become president of the United States.

I can't understand how an administration can ignore the constitution and push forward as though nothing has happened when the federal courts have ruled their health care bill unconstitutional.

I can't understand how a congress can propose cuts in the already earned income of its constituents, who have paid into a system designed and subsequently plundered by congress, and at the same time continue to spend borrowed money on foreign projects, and aid to those who have not contributed anything to the building of this great nation.

I can't understand how an administration can totally abdicate its responsibility to serve and protect its citizenry and then join with foreign governments in suing a sovereign state who passes legislation to take up the slack.

I think my friend David has expressed his thoughts very well in the following missive:

"I was thinking the other day, which always gets me in trouble, about Obama refusing to enforce the Defense of Marriage Act. He has usurped Judicial authority and decided the law is unconstitutional.

The Constitution requires that the President "shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed”, but he demonstrates quite regularly what he thinks of the Constitution.

His Attorney General refuses to enforce Civil Rights laws against blacks. The most notable example was the blacks in paramilitary uniforms with clubs who were threatening whites trying to vote in, I believe, Philadelphia. The Attorney General's reason for his non action was that he did not want to "demean his people", which can only be interpreted as he considers "his people" to be blacks. To heck with the rest of the people in the U.S. They are apparently not "his people."

He and Obama are also refusing to enforce federal immigration laws; however, the total abdication of his constitutional authority aside, the most egregious thing he has done of late in that arena to my way of thinking was file the suit against the State of Arizona a few months ago.

Think about this a moment. The State of Arizona has passed its own immigration law because it has completely lost control of its southern border and the federal government doesn't seem at all interested in doing anything about it. At least two ranchers have been murdered on their own land, every rancher along the border has lost property and many have been threatened. Two of the sheriffs in the area have had contracts taken out on them by Mexican drug cartels. Slightly over one third of the inmates in Arizona penitentiaries are illegal aliens who committed felonies in Arizona. Thousands of students in Arizona schools are illegals being educated with the tax dollars of Arizona citizens. Several thousand acres of public land in southern Arizona have signs erected by the federal government around them advising citizens not to go there because it is too dangerous.

In other words, these acres, a part of the USA, have been effectively ceded to the human traffickers and drug cartels from Mexico.

All of this and much more, I haven't even gotten into health care provided to illegals, and the federal government does basically nothing.

U.S. federal law requires certain aliens to register with the U.S. government, and to have registration documents in their possession at all times. The Arizona Act makes it a state misdemeanor crime for an alien to be in Arizona without carrying the required documents, bars state or local officials or agencies from restricting enforcement of federal immigration laws, and cracks down on those sheltering, hiring and transporting illegal aliens.

Now the federal government becomes interested. Claiming that only the federal government can pass or enforce immigration laws, this administration has filed suit against the State of Arizona for an injunction prohibiting it from enforcing its own laws, laws which almost precisely mirror the federal laws and were passed out of desperation because the federal government is not doing its job.

Furthermore, this administration is ignoring long established federal law which allows and actually requests local law enforcement to assist in immigration enforcement. The law on this question is quite clear: arresting aliens who have violated either criminal provisions of the INA or civil provisions that render an alien deportable "is within the inherent authority of the states."

I guess that Obama has decided that law is unconstitutional, also.

Secondarily, Obama criticized the bill and called it "misguided" and said it would "undermine basic notions of fairness that we cherish as Americans, as well as the trust between police and our communities that is so crucial to keeping us safe."

What kind of gibberish is that? The bill was passed because of the well documented, daily threat to public safety in Arizona that already exists. Furthermore, federal law already allows the Border Patrol to set up roadblocks for no reason at all but to check the passengers of each vehicle on roads near the border to determine if they are legal or not. The state law doesn't go that far and only allows state peace officers to do the same subsequent to an arrest or legal traffic stop.

But it's not fair.

And here is the kicker in my view. Mexico has joined the suit against Arizona. So what we have is this administration siding with a foreign country against our own citizens. I am unaware of this ever happening before in our history.

The amazing thing to me is how little all of this has been publicized. Where is the outrage? The media ranted daily about their perception that Bush was centering too much power in the Executive, yet when Obama unilaterally decides certain laws he doesn't like are unconstitutional not a peep is heard.

The irony is that much of what he does every day is unconstitutional and all we get from our elected representatives in Congress is a big "Ho Hum."

If this is allowed to continue we will wake up one morning and find we are living in a dictatorship, just as the Romans did. Of course, the Roman reaction was, "Oh well, the economy is good. And what is going on at the Coliseum today?" If we don't get our noses out of the sports pages and start paying attention to what is happening to our country, we will end up precisely as they did....slaves to our government and ultimately dead at the hands of the barbarians."

David

If you haven't found something strange during the day, it hasn't been much of a day.
- John A. Wheeler

Budget Cuts.

2011-02-28T07:25:00.001-06:00

Only a blithering idiot would deny the need for immediate cuts in the Federal budget to save our economy and our nation from economic ruin. Our State governments are also dealing with the need to cut spending by trimming fat from their budgets too. However, a variety of idiots, from numerous organizations designed to bleed the profits to benefit a few, are showing themselves as mindless, selfish, whiners.

Let me make this perfectly clear. Cuts are going to happen whether we like them or not. If we don't take control of our finances voluntarily, the rules and pressures common to all financial homeostasis will kick in automatically with disastrous results for everyone in this generation and for many generations to come. The problem with allowing this to happen is the uncontrollable nature of the resulting consequences.

Here is the plan proposed by our president;

http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2011/02/visual-analogy-to-obamas-100-million.html

There's an old saying about those who forget history. I don't remember it, but it's good.
- Stephen Colbert

Unions

2011-02-26T09:09:00.000-06:00

I read an article in our paper recently written by someone who was well advanced in age and who came from a part of our country where, in the past, big industry took advantage of its workers. I could not argue with his point about the good that labor unions did in these instances. However, like many well intentioned movements, they can over time become corrupted and fail to serve the ones they originally served. Once the treasuries of these organizations are fat with union dues, the thieves among us target them for plundering. The rank and file member becomes a pawn in a game he or she can't get out of. You either go along with the crowd and continue to support and be a member of a union, or in some places, you don't work. Our labor unions today are breeding grounds for mediocrity. Public service unions are particularly heinous because the public is held hostage and refused basic services by those sworn to serve them. Why? Because these non- profits are being used by the union leadership to plunder the public treasury (tax dollars) to allegedly benefit the workers while using extortion techniques to force favorable action from State and Federal legislators. The legislators knuckle under because they take huge donations from the various public service unions. Our current president worked as a creator of havoc in this milieu before becoming the "Creator of Havoc in Chief." The oaths taken by public service employees to serve and protect are negated by the bullying tactics of their various unions. Industry has in recent years been crippled by the increasingly absurd demands made by the various trade unions, and our national production has dropped as a result. The worker who is allegedly being helped, is now without a job and must be supported by tax dollars while the union officials live off the never ending supply of money from dues and pension plan plundering.

"A nation can survive its fools, even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves against those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear." Marcus Tullius Cicero

"The president just weighed in on the Wisconsin budget deadlock, suggesting that Gov. Scott Walker was out to punish public-sector unions more than to figure out a way to close a $3 billion state deficit. But unlike the federal government, Walker cannot print money, and he cannot so easily raise taxes without losing residents who might flee to lower-tax states. That the president wants unions to know he is on their side is clear; that he cares how the people of Wisconsin are going to pay for sky-high public-employee wages, benefits and health care is not so evident." Victor Davis Hanson (Excerpt from "After Obama, The Deluge")

The voices in my head may not be real, but they have
some good ideas!

Free Health Care

2011-02-25T16:24:00.000-06:00

If you can't afford a doctor, go to an airport - you'll get a free x-ray and a breast exam, and; if you mention Al Qaeda, you'll get a free colonoscopy.

Without You.

2011-02-15T05:59:00.000-06:00

FINDING PURPLE SEA

On the road I do not sleep,

but rather nap in fitful blocks of time.

I stare through darkness at some plastic box

with glowing luminescence red, or green.

11:47, 1:29, 2:33, 3:08.

Times I would not see if you were here,

or I was home.

I miss my nightly kiss.

Your whispered, “I love you.”

My signal day is done and all is well.

I’m free to sail upon night’s purple sea.

Outward turn my inward mind,

shed reality.

Wake refreshed at break of day.

But on the road,

night goes on and on.

Till groggily I rise,

stumble into day,

yawn, and rub my puffy eyes.

Find the nearest vendor of a caffeinated brew.

Stimulate my fog filled mind,

to imitate the energy

that seems to come so naturally

when I wake next to you.

Dennis Price

Cupid's Aim

2011-02-14T06:36:00.000-06:00

Happy Valentines Day

Eros raised his little bow

and let an arrow fly.

It failed to drop as he had planned

so, hit me in the eye.

He notched another quickly,

but, this one too was high.

I’ve always heard that love is blind,

now, sadly, so am I.

Dennis Price

Winter Walk

2011-02-11T06:43:00.000-06:00

The horizon shines with a faint glint

of dawn.

Chilly winter wind

wrinkles the gray water.

A rhythmic shush matches

the advance of foamy parallel curls.

Marching bands of gulls

play in one-note, reed tone symphony.

Strange pink blocks of granite

hold firm to the base of the seawall.

Moist salty air seeps into every crevice,

condensing, drips from cool surfaces.

New construction on battered buildings

marks the passing of hurricane season.

More light colors this mural.

I turn to play the scene in reverse.

Dennis Price

Snow

2011-02-10T15:21:00.000-06:00

The snow fell

stacking silent flakes

one thin matrix on another

covering winter’s brown and dormant scene.

Fresh cold air,

white kaleidoscope,

changing pickets and tree branches.

Moving texture,

windborne criss-cross swirl.

Soft to touch,

bright to see

against a backdrop, gray.

Dennis Price

Let's call it what it is.

2011-02-07T11:41:00.001-06:00

For those of you who aren't professing Christians, this discourse might not make much sense. Christians are told in scripture not to forsake gathering together. To the non-Christian, it might appear we can't agree on much. We have many denominations and as many ways of "doing church" as there are churches. So, what do we agree on. Well, hopefully we all preach that the only way to re-establish a relationship with God is through the sacrifice made by Jesus Christ, God's son, on the Roman cross over 2000 years ago. We also include His subsequent resurrection from the tomb and ascension into heaven. After that is settled, the rest is subjective. There are tenets that most all Christians agree on that are considered to be basic and unarguable. Others that deal mostly with the method of worship vary depending on interpretation and tradition.

Is arguing, or thoughtful discussion good? Is all tradition bad? Should we go along to get along in spite of what we know or feel? In the book of Proverbs we are told that men sharpen men as iron sharpens iron. So, in order to stay sharp, we must try our beliefs by putting them to the test in discussions with others who are studying and trying to gain spiritual insight from the scriptures. Arguing with non-Christians is not productive because the Bible tells us that unless they believe and receive the guidance of the Holy Spirit, they find our explanations and beliefs nonsensical. So, we have to discourse with one another. In times past, the Pastor, or certain mature members known as elders, were good sources when questions arose. Paul told young Timothy to study the scriptures so that he could rightly divide the Word of Truth. Today, because of increasing apathy, these sources are harder to find.

Pastors are told to teach the congregation so that they can become better equipped to do the things that God requires of them. Unfortunately, some pastors are ill equipped to do this. I researched what others had to say on the subject of "Bad Preaching" and found some interesting quotes in a blog entitled, "Plodblog". The author, Steve Plodinec, has this to say in the post, "Trying to Fix Bad Preaching":

"Other speechifying offenses are committed regularly on Sunday mornings. Shallow preaching is dished up by those who have not had proper training in doctrine and biblical exposition, or they are lazy and don’t study. They dispense spiritual baby food. Their name is legion."

Underlines are mine. Plodinec further states,

"There are also those who should have never tried to preach in the first place, but they taught Sunday school once and that old lady in church who tells everyone how much their message touched her said that to this guy too. Unfortunately, he interpreted this to mean, “you are a gifted preacher” so he went to seminary, graduated and is now killing a church trying to be what God never called him to be."

I think we are seeing more of this ilk in today's modern pulpits.

I am of the opinion that not everything traditional should be thrown out to appeal to the masses. I am convinced that making churches appear like nightclubs or other casual secular venues in format and in music simply to lure in those who are non-believers, is not giving the seekers anything different. It is a difficult task to make them see the difference in the first place given our bent toward sinning. Church was always the place where things were different from the world and the atmosphere created inside helped to solidify our purpose for attending. Church was a place, both in group Bible study, and in sermons, where the word was opened and expounded on. This was for the scriptural purpose of equipping the saints. Those who were seeking were invited in every service to make a decision to accept Christ Jesus and become a part of the body of believers.

Most preachers, who fit the criteria in the quoted sections above, spend most of their time trying to blame others and avoid contact with those who study and participate. They appeal to those, who because of youth or lack of maturity, can't or aren't willing to confront bad preaching practices. These pretenders bend the scriptures and accuse those who challenge them of not being loving or spiritually in tune. They may speak of elephants in the congregation while ironically ignoring the one in the pulpit. It is the duty of the elders and mature believers in the congregation to confront these errant practices to prevent further damage to the witness and fellowship of the local congregation.

Nothing is more conducive to peace of mind than not having any opinions at all.

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
(1742 - 1799)

A Change of Direction.

2011-02-05T10:08:00.000-06:00

I am seriously considering a change in my blog. I know many of you enjoy the current format and usually the subject matter, but I know most of the time I am preaching to the choir. If you happen to be one of the brave from the other camp, I know you are probably not going to change your mind. So, I am considering some changes to format and content. I believe after two years, everything I could tell you about the current administration has been said and proven to be true. All they can do for the remaining two years is continue with more of the same.

I know Obama is now saying he is just like Reagan, but I don't feel any surge of confidence in his statements. McCain, the old northern tier, and some west coast Republicrats are acting predictably by folding like cheap pocket knives in the face of an astounding victory in November and proving why we still have a lot of work to do in ridding Washington, D.C. of their ilk.

My big concern now is for a great country in decline. I hope we elected some decent new representatives who will hold to their moral and common sense principles in the face of less than stirring support. Our problem in this country is not political, but moral. I'm not talking about the insipid excuse for morality foisted by the politically correct crowd, but a back to the Bible morality that guided the majority of our populace for many generations.

So, if you arrive one morning in the near future and see a change, don't fret. I'll try and post something worthwhile. There are a lot of great sources for political commentary on the net.

In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is stoned to death.

Joan D. Vinge, Catspaw