Another Political Rant

Guns Not Welcome

2009-03-26T06:36:00.000-05:00

I am going to start a new section called "Guns Not Welcome". It is intended to highlight commercial locations that have chosen to exclude access to their stores for people with legally carried handguns. The Nebraska law allows them to do so and I would like to make a list available to CCW folks so we know where to avoid. If you want to add to list send me the Store name, Location(city, address, general area) and I will add it to the list. You might want to let the business know that they are going to be on the list, and might want to reconsider. Just post the address in the comments and I will gather them up. This is likely to be a short list unless I get many contributions so spread this around and encourage your friends to keep their eyes open and report.

With the Clarity of a Beauty Pagent Contestant

2009-03-01T15:39:00.002-06:00

In a reply to a question during a CBS interview about the stimulus package and how it will help small business the Vice-President said this:

JOE BIDEN: "Well, there's a number of ways. It depends on what your business is. I would recommend that woman call my office directly and I will be able to guide her as to what pieces of this package would be directly helpful to her. For example, it may very well be that she is in a circumstance where she is not able...her customers aren't able to get to her. There's no transit capability. The bridge going across the crick to get to her business needs repair. It may very well be that she is in a position where she is unable to access her energy costs are so high by providing smart meters by being able to bring down the cost of her work force through the cost of operating her business..." Youtube video here- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXFGLySXZhI

This is why he is Obama's life insurance policy.

Too Much Irony

2009-02-15T17:34:00.002-06:00

There is a new bill in congress that renews and extends the old "Assault Weapons Ban" It is HR 45. This bill has provisions that require registration of all handguns at the Federal level as well as the usual gun bans for semiautomatic long guns. During the election campaign Obama said he would respect the Supreme Court ruling that The 2nd Amendment is a declaration of individual right of ownership. The clearest declaration of his attitude was expressed during a campaign stop where he said: “If you’ve got a gun in your house, I’m not taking it, Even if I want to take them away, I don’t have the votes in Congress, This can’t be the reason not to vote for me. Can everyone hear me in the back? I see a couple of sportsmen back there. I’m not going to take away your guns.’’ "I don't have the votes" is the key comment here for me. His efforts in the Illinois Senate belie his lack of interest in gun control laws. The irony? HR 45 was introduced by Bobby Rush. For the young folks. Bobby Rush is the founder of the Black Panther Party in Illinois. From Wikipedia: "From the beginning the Black Panther Party's focus on militancy came with a reputation for violence. They often took advantage of a California law which permitted carrying a loaded rifle or shotgun as long as it was publicly displayed and pointed at no one. Carrying weapons openly and making threats against police officers, for example, chants like "The Revolution has come, it's time to pick up the gun. Off the pigs!" helped create the Panthers' reputation as a violent organization." So we have the ultimate radical from the 60's and 70's wanting to take away our gun rights. Sounds like it really is time to Ammo up.

Is this the Twilight Zone?

2009-02-01T16:01:00.002-06:00

Sometimes I think I must be living in some kind of Bizarro world. Here is just a short list of difficult to fathom events in no particular order.
1 A tax cheat (Timothy Geithner) is confirmed for Sec. of Treasury.
2 A tax cheat (Tom Daschle) is nominated for Sec of Health and Human Services.
3 A religious leader (Rev. Joseph Lowery) insults 80% of Americans during inaugural prayer.
4 The President of the United States (Barak Obama) tells the Republicans "I won" so they should get in line.
5 The rehabilitation of the founder of the 60's terrorist group Weather Underground (Bill Ayers) has begun.
6 Global Warmer in Chief (Al Gore) testifies before Congress, telling it that the very survival of life on earth is at risk.
7 The Democrats want to borrow and spend over $1,000,000,000,000.00 to help an economy suffering from a lack of consumer credit.
8 The President of the United States (Barak Obama) gives his first public interview to Dubai-based Al-Arabiya.
The scariest part of all this is that the national press either ignores the implications or actually seem to play cheerleaders and prime defenders. Where we go from here is becoming even more frightening.

A Little Obama Tale

2009-01-04T13:40:00.003-06:00

This is a made up story. Kind of like the morality tales of old.

It had been a long day. First the inaugural and then all of the attendant activities. The balls and parties seemed endless. Before going to bed the new President just had to go sit in the "Big chair". He knew the way. He had been there before but this time he was going not as a visitor but as the President. President Obama. What a cool title. It is easy to see how being President could get you into trouble. Everything you asked for was right here waiting for you. Special food or drink was no problem.
Sitting at the President's desk for the first time he did what everyone does when they sit at "their" desk for the first time. He started to open drawers. They contained all of the paper, pens and pads with his name that he could ever want. There was one thing he had not expected to see. A large manila envelope addressed to him. It was from the previous occupant of the chair George Bush. It had a handwritten note that said "Open this in private and by the way, good luck".
The new President opened the large envelope and it contained 3 smaller envelope. On one envelope was written the instruction: Open during the first national/international emergency. The next envelope read: Open during the second national/international emergency. The third and final envelope said open the day you face your third disaster. Not wishing to tempt fate he put the set of envelopes aside.
Ironically, VP Biden's election campaign speech about President Obama facing a serious challenge early in his presidency came to pass. What it was isn't really relevant. What matters is that when faced with with the first major challenge of his administration he remembered the envelopes he found the first day. Taking out the envelope labeled #1 he tore it open and read it. It said: "Tell them the problems were caused by the guy before you." He sat for couple seconds stunned. He thought about the possible implications. "It couldn't be that simple. You couldn't solve such gigantic problems with such a simple excuse could you?"
He turned to his aide and ordered a news conference. It took a couple of hours but in short order he had gathered reporters and was ready for the announcement. He walked to the podium and waited for everyone in the room to quiet down. He started to speak: "Ladies and gentlemen of the press, my fellow citizens and citizens of the world I am here to explain what is happening and what we are going to do. The long and short of it is that all of this is George Bush's fault. The solution is to ask what George Bush would do and do the opposite. So that is what we must do." He laid out his ant-WWGBD plan. The place went nuts. What insight, what courage. The press reported that we all had to get behind such bold leadership. Around the world he was hailed as the real thing. A leader for the ages.
Things calmed down for a while like they always do. And, like things always do another disaster reared it's ugly head. Some of the polish had worn off his image and he needed a bit of rehabilitation. He opened the second envelope. Time for another news conference. Time for another pronouncement: "This challenge comes to us because of choices I made when I was new to the Presidency. I thought my choices would work because they were not what George Bush would do if he were in power. Opps. It is obvious that I was wrong. We didn't know it then but we must have mistakenly done what George Bush would have done after all. Well that will change starting right now. I promise that in the future I will consult with the finest minds to help determine what George Bush would really have done. We can then be assured we are following the right route by doing the opposite." Once again the place went crazy. The shouts of "Courage", and "What leadership" rang through the briefing room. It wasn't long before world leaders proclaimed unity with the US in it's change of direction away from the new failed Bush policies. Once again the world had been restored to it's proper balance.
Somewhere in the world that balance once again started to tip. An evil was starting to rise. In the past, without the unity brought by President Obama's intelligence and leadership of change, this new challenge would have fractured us and caused such disruption that future generations would face the bleakest of choices. With the problems looming President Obama turned to the last envelope. He slid it out of the desk drawer. Opening it he prayed it would once again give him a solution. A way to save his Presidency from the trash bin of history. The world was waiting for the leader, "The One" to tell them what to do. He slowly unfolded the paper. The third message was simple and easy to follow. It said: "Take out 3 envelopes."

What an insult

2008-12-22T09:20:00.004-06:00

I vaguely remember a teacher talking about how punctuation in a sentence means everything. Take the title to this posting for example. If I had put an "!" at the end of the sentence It would have been an expression of outrage as in "What an insult for throwing that shoe!" On the other hand written as "What, an insult for throwing a shoe?" means something completely different. In the first case I would be granting the position of power to the shoe thrower. By granting that person any sense of outrage on my part would be to lower myself to a level of third world sewer walkers. I believe a more appropriate response would be to view the shoe as more like a brick. A brick thrown my way could easily be considered an insult but I would see it as more on an assault. That would mean the thrower would be subject to criminal penalties. Put them away. Enough said.

If you doubt that Obama is a racist ...

2008-05-11T10:18:00.002-05:00

From Rod Dreher:
Mr. Obama wrote in his 1995 autobiography, Dreams From My Father, about his attraction to the leftist pastor's church as a vehicle for social change. If black nationalism would uplift the race, he wrote, "then the hurt it might cause well-meaning whites, or the inner turmoil it caused people like me, would be of little consequence."
'nuff said

Hillary's Connection to Religious Power Brokers

2008-03-23T15:20:00.002-05:00

A story from the Christian Broadcasting Network originally told in Mother Jones about HRC's connection to "The Fellowship" or "The Family". Is this all a bunch of Woo- Woo? I don't know and I don't have the resources to find out for sure. Like the claims of the Bush' connection to The Skull and Bones Society at Yale it is at least intriguing to consider the possibility of connections of people who would otherwise appear to be at serious odds.

The Distorted News Reports

2008-03-23T09:47:00.002-05:00

I remember a story about a computer, I believe it was in England, that was being used to study artificial intelligence. They wanted to give it the ability to figure things out and draw it's own conclusions. They would commonly use newspaper reports as one of their sources of info. They would feed in the news accounts during the day and at night it would correlate the data. In the morning they would ask it for some insight. I don't remember all of the conclusion but one really stuck in my mind. It decided that "Everyone was famous". That is of course absurd but after a bit of reflection it is easy to see how that perspective could be developed and what that means to us. Descriptions in stories emphasize notoriety or extreme events. Everyone is famous, infamous, or in some way worthy of our attention. Floods are massive or fires are devastating. Over the top coverage seems to be the norm.

Newspapers, television and their extensions into cyberspace can only survive if the can pay the bills. To remain viable they have to make profits. Usually, they focus on the things that grab our attention quickly and draw us in and get us watching or reading advertisement. 26 years ago the lyrics from a song by Don Henly, Dirty Laundry. says it all:

We got the bubble-headed-bleach-blonde who comes on at five

She can tell you bout the plane crash with a gleam in her eye

Its interesting when people die- Give us dirty laundry

Can we film the operation? Is the head dead yet?

You know, the boys in the newsroom got a running bet

Get the widow on the set! We need dirty laundry

Well, that was then. This is now. Much of the broadcast and print media seems to be cheerleaders for the take down of America. The New York times has released secret information that has directly affected our ability to capture information about folks that wish to do us serious harm. It has almost become a joke that when a politician is snared in some scandal it is easy to identify the political party of the predator. If it is a Republican it will be noted in the first 2-3 sentences of the very first report. If it is a Democrat it might not be identified anywhere in the story for days. This has been evident in the last few weeks with 2 New York Governors and a Detroit Mayor, all Democrats facing scrutiny for personal and criminal offenses. When they don't have a recent Republican to beat on they dredge up Larry Craig, the poster boy for stupid politician. I think they minimize Democratic failings because they undermine the media mantra "Culture of Corruption". Straight out of the Democratic playbook. If you doubt that this bias is not noticed by the general population this is what was said by Dianne Sawyer:

"You know, I wanted to sit on a jury once and I was taken off the jury. And the judge said to me, 'Can, you know, can you tell the truth and be fair?' And I said, 'That's what journalists do.' And everybody in the courtroom laughed. It was the most hurtful moment I think I've ever had."

Maybe there is hope but only if we start to push back and reward, by increasing viewership of the news outlets that speak to truth. Let the manipulators of idea know why you object to their coverage.

The Pope is at it again

2008-03-23T08:08:00.003-05:00

Can you say "poke them with a sharp stick". The Pope baptized a prominent Italian Muslim during this years Easter service. Just this week Osama bin Laden was ranting at Europe in general and specifically the Pope warning them of all manners of doom. After seeing the response to the infamous Danish cartoons I ask: Will the rest of the Muslim world view this as the article says:

The Union of Islamic Communities in Italy—which Allam has frequently criticized as having links to Hamas—said the baptism was his own decision.

"He is an adult, free to make his personal choice," the Apcom news agency quoted the group's spokesman, Issedin El Zir, as saying.

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8VIR44G0&show_article=1

The Heart of 5 Year Old Soldier

2008-03-22T21:37:00.006-05:00

What can you say when an 5 year old understands the importance of a strong military better than Democrats. Gaven Cox is facing a battle for his very life. He is suffering a very uncertain future because he has acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Make-a-Wish was able to grant his wish to be a soldier for a day. And quite a day it was. I suspect he touched the heart of even the most battle hardened vet.
A 5 year old can't really understand the full meaning of war and for that we should be grateful but if he survives this illness his toughness in dealing with it should enable him to face the world with courage.

http://www.kdhnews.com/news/story.aspx?s=24001

Thank You John Kerry

2008-03-22T08:28:00.002-05:00

John Kerry on why Barack Obama can save America's damaged reputation with the American haters of the world: "Because he's African-American. Because he's a black man. Who has come from a place of oppression and repression through the years in our own country."
You know, losing a presidential election certainly seems to cause Democrats to lose there minds. Jimmy Carter turned into a dictator hugger extrordinaire. Al Gore became Chicken Little and now Kerry thinks Obama is the poster child for overcoming American oppression. Just how much more success could he have expected?

Apply Occam's Razor

2008-03-20T13:47:00.001-05:00

"One should not increase, beyond what is necessary, the number of entities required to explain anything." Occam's Razor

The above quote is relevant to consider when you read the following report published by NPR . It reports that since the study began in 2003, researchers have not been able to detect any increase on ocean water temps. This is after deploying 3000 sensor buoys. The report claims that "In fact, 80 percent to 90 percent of global warming involves heating up ocean waters." It goes on to state: "There has been a very slight cooling, but not anything really significant," How's that for convoluted logic. Any increase would have been presented as proof certain, but an actual decrease is "insignificant" They try to explain the failure to find what they expected as bad data or lack of understanding of the forces at work in the ocean. They don't seem to be able to recognize that the models they use to predict 20-30 or 40 years into the future might simply be wrong about global warming. I'd be happy if they could forecast next weekend correctly.
Update: The world has not gotten warmer for the last 10 years. See this.

Just what makes fear racism?

2008-03-20T11:04:00.000-05:00

In a US News and World Report in March 1996 Jesse made the following comment: "There is nothing more painful to me ... than to walk down the street and hear footsteps and start thinking about robbery, then look around and see somebody white and feel relieved." Story in US News and World Report

Now compare that to what Obama wrote in his book Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance. (Comments by By Steve Sailer)
A careful look at this incident as Obama described it on pp. 88-91 of Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance shows that Obama is slandering his elderly grandmother to make Rev. Dr. Wright look better. Obama's white grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, who was raising him and earning most of the money in the family while his own mother was off in Indonesia working on her 1067 page dissertation on peasant blacksmithing, rode the bus each morning to her job as a bank executive. One day, the 16-18 year old Obama wakes up to an argument between his grandmother and grandfather. She didn't want to ride the bus because she had been hassled by a bum at the bus stop. She tells him: "Her lips pursed with irritation. 'He was very aggressive, Barry. Very aggressive. I gave him a dollar and he kept asking. If the bus hadn't come, I think he might have hit me over the head."
http://isteve.blogspot.com

If you compare Jesse's comment to what Obama wrote about his Grandmother I ask you which attitude is most shocking? When does fear become racism? What does it say about the life experiences that lead to 2 similar reactions from 2 very different people. To use his Grandmother as an example of white racisim that he had to face was totally out of line. It provided proof of nothing but his own selfish desire to do whatever it take to be elected.

UPDATE: Here is what he said today. Can he dig any deeper? "The point I was making was not that my grandmother harbors any racial animosity. But she is a typical white person. If she sees somebody on the street that she doesn't know. . .there's a reaction in her that doesn't go away and it comes out in the wrong way."

The Big Con

2008-03-19T17:42:00.000-05:00

On Tuesday March 18, 2008 I took the time to hear the entire speech made by Barack Obama. I have never listened to an entire speech by him before yesterday. I have a few ideas after hearing him speak.

1. An effective con man convinces few unwilling victims. They use your own wishes, desires and beliefs to get you to buy into the con. The speech yesterday was just that kind of con. That is why I believe that the word "Icon" to describe him is so fitting. Except that it should be seen as a verb not a noun.

2. The messages that came from the church Obama has called his spiritual home is defended by many in the audience yesterday. Preachers that were interviewed after the speech said that there was much truth in the message that was the core of the churches beliefs'. If the hate filled preaching were done by
a conservative minister that John McCain called his "spiritual mentor" the Democrats could have won with Congressman Dennis Kucinich. Of course this kind of diatribe is apparently common in most churches according to Obama. Of course the only place of worship that I've ever seen where they Damn America
on a regular basis is a Mosque.

3. Others have pointed out that in spite of the strong distaste that Obama expressed yesterday for the divisive comments that he heard in the church he continued to bring his young daughters to the church as they formed the belief system that will be the foundation of there moral and spiritual lives.

4. He used several moral equivalency comments to defend his own beliefs. Wright damns America and Grandma was afraid of black men in Kansas. Ferraro
makes racist statements by saying Obama has benefited from the struggles of all that preceded him, giving him a historically unique opportunity. Wright says The US of KKK a has murdered blacks deliberately with AIDS and drugs. Somehow the comparisons fall short.

5. He totally ignored the greater ill that the core of the church he attends is it's Afrocenterist beliefs. These purely racist views have been cleansed from the church's web site just this week. They really are the elephant in the kitchen when it comes to his faith. No real MSM review of this has ever been shown as far as I know.

6. He portrays the struggle for equality has being rather one sided. The most monumental event in the process of bringing freedom to blacks not only in America but throughout the world was the Civil War. He mentions it but only in passing and in a group of other generic struggles. That war was the result of a growing recognition of the basic inhumanity of slavery. Abolitionist were whites that saw the injustice and pushed hard enough that eventual outcome was a terribly bloody war and the end of slavery. Since then slavery of blacks has all but disappeared for the planet except where it is practiced in Africa black on black. How ironic is that?

7. There was no direct mention of the TRILLIONS of dollars on the "War on Poverty", a plan designed by the guilt ridden white males of the early 60's to transfer tax money from productive taxpayers and companies to millions of people, disproportionately black, that resulted in generational poverty we still struggle with on a daily basis. What the government failed to see was that failure would only breed more failure. A wise man once told me. What gets rewarded gets done. Boy was he right.

8. Obama recognized white angst as a result of uncertainty. He mentioned jobs and health care. The blame he said lies at the feet of big business more concerned about profits than people. HMO's and insurance companies are the cause of ourmedical ills. It's not our fault. And let's not forget about the evil Ronald Reagan conservatives that have worked so hard to stifle progress on race relations.

9. There was no Bill Cosby moment. No call to blacks to get off your butt and start doing for yourself. I heard lots of victim talk but very little push for hard work and personal responsibility.

10. Bad education was portrayed as the root of many of the problem that needs to be addressed. This is the closest to something that I would agree with. I'm just not sure that the cause of the educational problems and the possible solutions he would support would be something I would find agreement with.

11. This is clearly being played as "final". I've answered that question and let's move on to more important problems. Taken directly from the Clinton playbook. If Hill or Big John have the audacity to bring this up again they will be made out to be racebaiters for sure.

I fear for our future. Not because a black man might become President. There are plenty of them that I would vote for, but because the strongest leader that has come out of the black community in maybe decades has no new vision. He is a victim of the past and his hope for the future is too colored by this vicitmhood. In a letter to Travis Smiley requesting that his wife be allowed to speak on his behalf at the 2008 State of the Black Union conference in New Orleans he said: "Tavis, this is our movement and our time. I look forward to working closely with you throughout this election. Thank you for your continued support". Full letter:http://blogs.suntimes.com/mitchell/2008/02/sen_barack_obamas_letter_to_ta_1.html

"Our movement and Our time". Not the quite the uniter from the news I've seen.

You Go Pope !!

2006-09-18T11:37:00.000-05:00

I have read a great deal about the context and purpose of the Pope's comments about Islam spreading at the point of a sword. In the end it really doesn't matter what he said or who he quoted. What matters is how it was taken and how people, especially in the Muslim community responded.

So, how did the Muslim community respond? With burnings of Christian churches and the possible murder of a Catholic nun. Is this reaction a fair representation of the feeling of the majority of Muslims? It is hard to tell for sure because the lens of the news camera is very narrow but carries widely and makes all things bigger than life. When news reports show thousand of screaming people burning an effigy of the Pope it certainly seems to indicate a broad sense of hatred. The same response was seen after the publication of the Danish editorial cartoons showing The Prophet.

Is western society portraying the Muslim community as 14^th century savages or are they simply reinforcing the idea with their intolerant reactions? I fear it is more the later than the former. A religion of peace that always seems to be at war with itself and all that surround it is an oxymoron.

Since the religion does not appear to tolerate a non-theocratic government to thrive in it should be a wake up call for all freedom loving people. Europe in particular should be very afraid of the consequences of the low birth rate of native populations as compared to the extremely high birth rate of the immigrant Muslim's. If you look at the problems a secular France has had to deal with in the last year, it is obvious that in just a generation the impact on the European culture could be irreversible. In many Muslim communities in the West there is a push to implement Sharia Law to replace civil courts. That alone should frighten the civil libertarian in most of us. The victory Muslim invaders could not accomplish in 200 years of war could be accomplished in a fews years because of indifference or worse, accommodation.

Regardless of our political or religious beliefs we need to deal with the world as it exists today not as it existed in the 14^th century. We have worldwide travel and nearly instantaneous communication. Those that wish us harm can communicate their hate and plans at the speed of light. We need to use the same tools to insure our own safety. We also need to expect that immigrants to our country to join in making this a better place for everyone to live. We became the most powerful country on the planet be accepting and integrating wave after wave of immigrants seeking the freedom and opportunity America had to offer. It was not always peaceful but in the end acceptance provided the opportunity. We asked that they contribute and most have. It's worked so far but I'm afraid we are losing our way with all of the hyphened identities but that's a post for another day.