Neither do I!

Coyote Blog asks:

Do you remember back in the late 70′s, when the economy sucked, and no private entity would fund new technologies like computer startups Apple and Microsoft, so the government had to step in to provide the needed investment? Yeah, neither do I.

Link: http://www.coyoteblog.com/

Key feature of Obamacare eliminated

President Obama has "pulled the plug" on a key feature of Obamacare: long term insurance for nursing home care and home health care for disabled people. Read the whole story here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/14/obama-health-care-law-class-program-cut_n_1011451.html

Getting in bed with "The man"

"Occupy protesters? Don’t look now, but you just got in bed with The Man!" The California Teachers Association has joined the California Occupiers. So what? Here's what:

"It’s spent over $210 million in the course of the last decade to influence California state government — more than “big oil”, “big tobacco”, and “big pharma” combined. The results? Defeats for school voucher propositions, teacher accountability measures, and paycheck protection for educators. Not to mention that California — formerly a national leader in the classroom — now ranks among the bottom five American states in most education metrics."

Read more here: http://cfif.org/v/freedom_line_blog/11665/occupy-protests-so-anti-establishment-theyre-now-joined-by-one-of-the-nations-most-powerful-special-interests/

Obama's reelection strategy

Charles Krauthammer is out with a column on Obama's scapegoating efforts.

This is about scapegoating, a failed administration trying to save itself by blaming our troubles -- and its failures -- on class enemies, turning general discontent into rage against a malign few.

Read the whole thing here: http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=46856

The Occupiers have their marching orders.

A Proposed Separation Agreement

A blogger at i Own the World proposes that leftists agree to a Separation Agreement. They get to keep and fund the United Nations, the ACLU, liberal judges, wind, solar, and biodiesel energy. We get to keep smelly oil and gas, capitalism, the Bible, and hot Alaska hockey moms.
Read the whole thing here: http://iowntheworld.com/blog/?p=99184

A devastating critique of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

A new book has been published. It is entitled The Delinquent Teenager Who was Mistaken For the World's Top Climate Expert. The delinquent teenager is the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. You can read an extensive excerpt here: http://www.amazon.com/Delinquent-Teenager-Mistaken-Climate-ebook/dp/B005UEVB8Q/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid;=1318551567&sr;=8-4#reader_B005UEVB8Q

Is Hillary Implicated in Fast and Furious?

Is Hillary Clinton implicated in Fast and Furious? That is the question being asked today after Clinton attorney Lannie Davis has entered the fray with a post at The Huffington Post. Two blogs that are doing a great job analyzing this scandal are linked to here: http://confederateyankee.mu.nu/archives/322542.php
and here: http://sipseystreetirregulars.blogspot.com/2011/10/here-he-comes-to-save-day-mighty-mouth.html

I had not thought about the fact that since this involves another country, the Department of State may have had some involvement.

"Plastics"

Is this not among one of the best one-worders in movie history? And, is Dustin Hoffman not one of the best actors in movie history?
found in the comments section of this blog: http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/archives/018085.html#comments

Rumsfeld and 9-11-2001 Part two

The plane that had hit the Pentagon had taken off from Dulles, and was flying west to L.A., when it was hijacked.

Rumsfeld advised President Bush that this was now about self-defense, not retribution, and we needed to teach the terrorists by our actions that such attacks would not lead them to accomplish their insane goals. Actions and inactions by previous administrations had given Islamic terrorists the impression that we were vulnerable. President Bush spoke to his top officials from SAC near Omaha. Bush insisted that the government rebound quickly and take the battle to the terrorists.

The leaders of Iran and Saudia Arabia expressed condolences. Only one regime, Saddaam Hussein's in Iraq, spoke out in favor of the attacks. President Bush gave a speech from the White House, announcing that the cost of state support of terrorists had just gone up.

At the end of "the longest day of my life," Rumsfeld called his top Pentagon people together for an assessment meeting about eleven p.m. His public information officer asked him if he had talked with Joyce, his wife of 47 years. He knew that Joyce had been taken to an Air Force Base for a briefing, but no, he had not talked to her at all. "You Son of a Bitch!" replied the female information officer. Rumsfeld admitted, "She had a point."
from Known and Unknown.

Rumsfeld and 9-11-2001 Part one: the attack

In 2001 Rumsfeld gave a speech about the nation's number one adversary: the Pentagon! He wanted to transform our nation's defense to enable us to be more agile, more able to deal with unpredictable threats, but the bureaucracy was entrenched. He warned in 2001 that a shocking event may soon remind the people of America of the importance of a strong and effective national defense.

On September 11, 2001, Rumsfeld says, "the world passed from one period of history to another." He was in his office in the Pentagon, watching televison reports of the planes flying into the World Trade Center, when a "tremor" shook his building. He left his office and soon found himself in heavy smoke. The chaos intensified. He headed down the stairs out into the fresh air, which soon filled with smoke. He got to the scene before the official first responders. He turned back to his office to see what information was available. On the way he picked up a piece of metal from "whatever hit the Pentagon." He spoke briefly with the President, who was in the air. The smoke in his office became heavy. He went down to a communications hub in the basement. General Dick Myers joined Rumsfeld in the Command Center, and they discussed raising the threat level. Later they moved again to a room that had less smoke. Combat jet fighters were in the air over Washington D.C. The Secret Service recommended President Bush stay away until they could get a clearer picture of the threat. Rumsfeld got on the phone with Dick Cheney, who told him Bush had given orders that jet pilots were to take down planes that appeared to be ignoring warnings not to descend into the D.C. area, if necessary.

from Known and Unknown

Condi Rice's emphasis on consensus did not serve President Bush well.

When George W. Bush's close confidant Condi Rice was National Security Advisor, Donald Rumsfeld made a number of constructive suggestions to her as to how she could conduct meetings more efficiently and effectively. She favored a "bridging approach," and consensus, that ironically led to disharmony among the Defense and State Departments. Rumsfeld thinks it reflected her academic background, where, as Provost of Stanford, she learned techniques that worked in the academic arena, but did not serve the best interests of President Bush or our country.

Bye, bye whiners!

"Occupy Denver" protesters, vocal supporters of Obama's class warfare campaign, were removed from the park near the state capitol early this morning. A Colorado blogger took her camera to the area, and was not allowed in the press conference with the Colorado State Patrol, but was able to record the 99 percenters who shouted "Shame!" and the ever-original "Power to the People!" 23 of the loudest and most obnoxious Occupiers were arrested, and the park has not been reopened.
As usual,the COMPLETE COLORADO blog is on top of the story: http://completecolorado.com/

Update: The blogger's name is Kelly Maher.

Update two: Here is a link to a blogger who points out the costs associated with getting the park cleaned up after the Occupiers, deployment of cops, property damage, and theft. He believes a better name for them is Narcissist Invaders.
http://www.peoplespresscollective.org/2011/10/occupy-denver-steals-services-destroys-property/

Inventor, or exploiter?

The blogger at Market Ticker says that there is another technology giant who deserves much more praise than Steve Jobs. Dennis Ritchie died recently at the age of 70. Who was he? He was the man who invented the C programming language and spearheaded the development of Unix. He is the reason why virtually every website on the planet exists!
The blogger, on the other hand, characterizes Jobs as an exploiter:

Steve Jobs? Oh sure, he "gave you what you wanted." But he did it, and turned Apple into a household name with massive profits, by exploiting child and near-slave labor to the point that their contract factories in China have had to put nets up so you can't commit suicide by jumping off the buildings!

Read the whole thing here: http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=195912

Willpower: Do you have enough of it?

Blogger John Hawkins is very impressed with a book entitled Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength." In the blogpost he lists what he thinks are the best quotes from the book. The link is here: http://rightwingnews.com/quotes/the-best-quotes-from-willpower-rediscovering-the-greatest-human-strength/

Curiouser and curiouser!

This video features a March 2011 interview with Obama saying he heard on "the news" about Fast and Furious, then a Congressional Hearing in May 2011 in which Attorney General Holder says he just heard about it in "the last few weeks." Well, I guess from March to May qualifies as a "few weeks," but who knew first, Obama or Holder? Or, did they both know at the same time, because they agreed on the plan before it was initiated? How did Obama know in March that Holder knew nothing about the plan? Doesn't that indicate that he had talked with Holder about it before his March interview?

Pass it on!

Dear Democratic Party Contributor:

Our records show that you have not yet made your contribution to President Obama's Reelection Campaign Fund. The good news is, it's not too late for you to do so. It is very important that you send your contribution in as soon as possible, and forward this to everyone in your e-mail address book. If you break the chain, bad luck will befall you in less than a week.

To find out what happens to those who did or did not break the email chain, go here:

He knows best.

An audio has surfaced in which Obama the campaigner tells a group in San Francisco that his plan is that anyone who wishes to build a coal plant will be bankrupted. A graph on this You Tube video says we get 49% of our electricity from coal plants. And what do you think is going to happen to our electricity bills?
video found here

"He didn't discover anything!"

With my three youngest children now living for most of each month in New Mexico, I have been having long conversations with each of them, trying to understand what they are learning in school, and what experiences they are having. Yesterday Sara told me she learned all about Christopher Columbus in her second grade class.

"Christopher Columbus thought it was America, but it was the Indies. He found some gold, so he chopped off the Indians' hands and gave the gold to the King and Queen. Then he went back a second time and again he chopped off the Indians' hands and this time he put them in prison, too! He found a piece of wood and floated to land, then he and his brother ran a map shop together. He didn't discover anything. Everybody already knew the Earth is round!"

You can rest assured that our children are being taught all the politically correct versions of history. Tonight Jon told me that last year at his school here in Colorado he learned all about Muslims but was not taught anything about Islam or jihad. Not one word about Islamists wanting to kill Jews or persecute Christians!

You asked for it!

Blogger Joshua Topolsky says the "intelligent assistant" in the new iPhone 4S says some weird things. For example, the blogger typed in "I need to hide a body," and here is what happened next:
Found here: http://thisismynext.com/2011/10/12/siri-weird-things-iphone-4s/

"What could go wrong?"

Oh, great! Scientists have gone into an ancient burial plot in London and extracted bacterium from the teeth of the skeletons buried there in medieval times when 50 million people were killed by the Black Plague. The scientists have reconstructed the genetic code of the bacterium. As the blogger at Neatorama writes, "What could go wrong?"
Story here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-15278366

Missing the mark

Two extremes dominate our political parties today: mindless budget-cutting, and politically motivated redistribution. Neither is what we need. Joel Kotkin writes here that what we need is "a tax and policy regime that stops favoring financial insiders and instead focuses incentives on the grass-roots hard work and ingenuity that have long been America’s greatest economic asset."

Swing-state benefits

One feature of being a swing-state is that you get lots of visits from politicians. Obama, for instance, will be making his second visit to Colorado in less than one month on October 25. He is going to host two fundraisers at the Pepsi Center. According to today's Denver Post, for the thirty minutes in which Obama will actually be in the restaurant, you can choose to spend $5,000 per person for dinner, or $10,000 for dinner and a photo. Then the President goes to another restaurant in the Pepsi Center, while you are being served your 5 or 10 thousand dollar dinner. For $35,800 dollars you can be part of a "small clutch" and get a more "candid" photo with the President. Does that mean Candid Camera will be there?

Meanwhile, outside the Pepsi Center I wonder if the usual cadre of homeless people will be there sleeping on the ground or on benches. Somehow, I believe they will be magically removed from the scene, don't you? Then, as soon as Obama gets his money, he will return to bashing the rich for not paying their fair share. Is this a great country, or what?

Are we making Afghanistan safe for Sharia Law?

This post in The American Thinker points out that more than half of Afghan girls are married before the age of fifteen. It tells the story of an 8-year-old Afghan girl who was married off to a local policeman for cash. The post also cites from the Islamic scriptures the accounts of the Prophet Muhammad marrying a six-or-seven-year-old girl named Aisha.

"I am reading the Bible, and it says that whoever denies God in public, God will also deny him, so what can I do?"

What is it like to be a Christian family in Iraq? What happens to the children? Read the article at this link: http://www.aina.org/news/20111011184125.htm

September 2011 persecution of Christians by Islamists: a partial list

"Hudson New York" is a website that compiles and provides details in a monthly list of Islamic persecution of Christians around the Muslim-dominated areas of the world. In September, 2011, for example, the site lists persecution of Christians in Egypt, Pakistan, Indonesia, Tunisia, Iran, Somalia, Sudan, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Philippines, Nigeria, and Syria. The blog endeavors:

1. To document that which the mainstream media does not: habitual, if not chronic, Muslim persecution of Christians.
2. To show that such persecution is not "random," but systematic and interrelated—that it is ultimately rooted in a worldview inspired by Sharia Law.

Accordingly, whatever the anecdote of persecution, it typically fits under a specific theme, including hatred for churches and other Christian symbols; sexual abuse of Christian women; forced conversions to Islam; apostasy and blasphemy laws; theft and plunder in lieu of jizya; overall expectations for Christians to behave like cowed dhimmis [second-class citizens]; and simple violence and murder. Often it is a combination thereof.

Because these accounts of persecution span different ethnicities, languages, and locales—from Morocco in the west, to India in the east, and even throughout the West, wherever there are Muslims—it should be clear that one thing alone binds them: Islam—whether the strict application of Sharia, or the supremacist culture born of it.

To read about the September persecutions, go to this link: http://www.hudson-ny.org/2491/muslim-persecution-of-christians-september

"Weakness is provocative."

The news of the day is that Iran has been caught (job well done, to those who caught them!) in a plot to assassinate the Saudi Ambassador by bombing a restaurant in Washington, DC along with bombs at the embassies of Israel and Saudi Arabia. In his book Known and Unknown Donald Rumsfeld over and over again warns that "weakness is provocative" and that "even the perception of weakness is provocative."http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif

Mike's America outlines what he believes are the reasons why Iran felt embolden to try to pull off such an attack at this time: http://mikesamerica.blogspot.com/2011/10/obamas-weakness-invites-iranian-acts-of.html

What signal are we giving to Iran?

Image found here

Reconciliation, or Division?

Before I took my current job three years ago, I had Sundays free. I attended Colorado Community Church in Aurora, Colorado. I loved it. It is interracial, led by a wonderful pastor named Robert Gelinas. Robert is an adoption advocate and an advocate of reconciliation. He has a blog in which he refers to himself as a Jazz Theologian. You can read his blog here: http://blog.beliefnet.com/jazztheologian/. As you can imagine, the music at his church is outstanding, but so is his preaching, and many other things about the church.

However, Robert currently is linking to a post written by someone named Lisa Sharon-Harper entitled Why Do African-Americans Vote for Democrats? The article is snarky and sarcastic, as well as misleading and incomplete historically. She is answering Herman Cain. You can read it here: http://blog.beliefnet.com/jazztheologian/2011/09/why-do-african-americans-vote-for-democrats.html

As an old guy, I remember history differently than the above author. The first President I remember who sought to do something about civil rights in my lifetime was Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower. In fact, he mobilized troops to integrate a high school in Little Rock, Arkansas, despite the opposition from Arkansas's Democrat Governor, Orville Faubus. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 would have never passed without the leadership of Republican Senator Everett Dirkson of Illinois, who made sure members of his party supported it with their votes, while many Democrats voted against it. Of course, there would never had been the civil rights progress without leaders such as Martin Luther King, who mobilized so many people to protest discrimination peacefully, that politicians of both parties could no longer ignore the issue. All King wanted was for his children to be judged by the content of their character, not the color of their skin.

In this present century I watched President George W. Bush appoint the first African-American Secretary of State, Colin Powell, and then Bush appointed the second, Condi Rice, to succeed Powell. I saw Bush decry "the soft bigotry of low expectations," and push for No Child Left Behind, education reforms opposed by teachers unions, who are a key element of the Democrat Party. The Democrat Party tries to appeal to us as members of hyphenated groups or unions. The Republican Party appeals to individuals to follow the American Dream of equal opportunity, and if people follow that dream, they realize the dignity that comes from individual effort and character content, not the dependency that comes from government handouts to favored groups.

True, the Democrats nominated for President a man whose father was black and mother was white, and he campaigned successfully for the Presidency using the catchy slogan of "Hope and Change." Unfortunately, he has turned out not to be a reconciler, but a divider, presently campaigning for re-election by pitting Americans against one another, using tactics he learned as a community organizer in Chicago, while sitting 20 years in a church led by the America-hating preacher "Reverend" Wright.

Holder has been issued a subpeona

Representative Issa has issued subpeonas to Eric Holder and other top justice department officials. They can be found here: http://michellemalkin.com/2011/10/12/fast-and-furious-update-cranking-up-the-pressure-plus-doj-gets-the-misfit-politics-treatment/

Gore and McCain thumbs down; Cheney thumbs up

If Donald Rumsfeld doesn't think much of a person, he usually confines his remarks about that person to one sentence or less in his memoir Known and Unknown. For example, Al Gore: "lecturing and wooden." John McCain: "a man with a hair-trigger temper and a propensity to fashion and shift his positions to appeal to the media."

It seems clear so far in the book that his favorite person in public life was Dick Cheney.

Torture is okay now?

I know, this report comes from the New York Times, and it quotes the UN, so it is doubly suspect for bias, but if true, it is disturbing. How can we turn people over to people who will torture them, if Obama is against torture?

"Suspects are hung by their hands, beaten with cables and in some cases their genitals are twisted until they lose consciousness in detention facilities run by the Afghan intelligence service and the Afghan national police, according to a study released Monday by the United Nations here.[...]

The report found evidence of “a compelling pattern and practice of systematic torture and ill-treatment” during interrogation in the accounts of nearly half of the detainees of the intelligence service, known as the National Directorate of Intelligence, who were interviewed by United Nations researchers. The national police treatment of detainees was somewhat less severe and widespread, the report found. Its research covered 47 facilities sites in 22 provinces. “Use of interrogation methods, including suspension, beatings, electric shock, stress positions and threatened sexual assault is unacceptable by any standard of international human rights law,” the report said."


The link: http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/10/10/un_report_afghan_security_forces_routinely_abuse_detainees

When Christians protest...

"At least 25 people were killed in Cairo when government troops crushed a demonstration of Coptic Christians over an attack on a church. It was the worst violence Egypt has seen since the fall of Hosni Mubarak.

The protest was aimed at Egypt's new military leaders, blaming them for failing to protect the Christian community from attacks by radical Islamists, such as the partial demolishing of a church in Aswan province last week.

The military drove armored personnel carriers into the crowd to disrupt the protests, reportedly crushing some demonstrators in the process. Demonstrators accused the military of working in tandem with Muslim counterprotesters. Hundreds were injured.

In addition to decrying violence against the Christian community, the demonstrators were also demanding a swifter transition to democracy. The ruling military council has set Nov. 28 as the date for the start of parliamentary elections, but has not yet set a date for new presidential elections."

The link: http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/node/1012682

Women's Liberation in Pakistan

RAWALPINDI:

In a first for the garrison city, sixty masked men carrying iron rods barged into a girls’ school in Rawalpindi and thrashed students and female teachers on Friday.

The gang of miscreants also warned the inmates at the MC Model Girls High School in Satellite Town to “dress modestly and wear hijabs” or face the music, eyewitnesses said.

Fear gripped the area following the attack and only 25 of the 400 students studying in the college were present on Saturday. The school employs 30 female teachers.

A police official of the New Town Police Station, asking for anonymity, told The Express Tribune, “We were under strict instructions to do nothing

Link to the story here: http://tribune.com.pk/story/269918/dress-modestly-masked-men-enter-girls-school-thrash-students/

This blog reminds us that Rawalpindi is the headquarters of the Pakistani Armed Forces, and makes a guess as to what the security forces were doing during the attacks: http://www.neptunuslex.com/2011/10/10/police-is-investigating-the-matter/

Making us human?

Since reading Jill Bolte Taylor's My Stroke of Insight, I have been writing and thinking about the 100 trillion cells that are housed in the human body. Guess what? They are not all human! Only about one in ten are human; the rest are "microbes, primarily bacteria, but also viruses, fungi, and a panoply of other microorganisms."

"Equipped with super-fast new DNA decoders, scientists are accelerating the exploration of this realm at a molecular level, yielding provocative insights into how these microbial stowaways might wield far greater powers than previously appreciated in, paradoxically, making us human."

"Some equate these microbial inhabitants to a newly recognized organ. Acquired beginning at birth, this mass of fellow travelers might help steer normal development, molding immune systems and calibrating fundamental metabolic functions such as energy storage and consumption. There are tantalizing clues they might help shape brain development, influencing behavior."

"Doctors have even begun microbiota "transplants" to treat a host of illnesses, including a sometimes-devastating gastrointestinal infection called C. difficile, digestive system ailments such as Crohn's disease, colitis and irritable bowel disorder, and even in a handful of cases obesity and other afflictions, such as multiple sclerosis.

Advocates of the research urge caution, noting that most of the work so far has involved laboratory animals or small numbers of patients, many hypotheses remain far from proven and nothing has zero risk."

Source for this story here: http://www.denverpost.com/nationworld/ci_19078292

A liberal bully

Did you remember that for a time Nelson Rockefeller was the Vice President of the United States? Yep, Ford appointed him and Congress approved, after the resignation of Nixon. Rumsfeld describes him as a liberal bully in Rumsfeld's book Known and Unknown.

Known and Unknown

Donald Rumsfeld doesn't dwell too long on any subject in his book Known and Unknown. The narrative moves forward quickly. The reader has to pay attention, or Rumsfeld will move on to another subject before you know it.

Billy Graham has been mentioned a couple times so far in the book. He was one of a small circle of people Nixon gathered together on the eve of one of Nixon's primary victories to discuss who should be the Vice President running mate. Graham recommended a Christian U.S. Senator from Oregon, Mark Hatfield, but Nixon went with Spiro T. Agnew, Governor of Maryland, though Agnew had not been adequately vetted. It soon turned out that Agnew had been involved in some crooked deals in Maryland, and had to resign the Vice Presidency. When Nixon died, Graham gave a eulogy at his funeral.

That reminds me. Have you seen videos of Westboro Baptist Church preacher Fred Phelps angrily telling Billy Graham that he is going to Hell and that the Westboro people will picket his funeral when he dies? They are available on You Tube, but I did not want to display them here on this blog, because they are vile. Ann Althouse also has recent footage taken by her husband, Meade, of the Westboro people picketing in Wisconsin. Phelps and his congregants seem particularly angry that Graham preaches that God loves us. They happily sing God hates America, to the tune of God Bless America. I am sure they do not see the irony in their freedom to sing their hateful songs in America.

I guess I just have to admit I am a political junkie, because I find Rumsfeld's book riveting. He has been a pivotal figure to many of the significant events of the last half of the 20th century and the first decade of the 21st, and he write with candor and clarity. He writes about all the major events, but also gives us tidbits of interesting information never before written about. For example, when Nixon appointed him Ambassador to NATO, before leaving for Brussels, his sixteen-year-old daughter wanted to get her driver's license. Guess who taught her to parallel park? A man named Richard Cheney, who was Rumsfeld's assistant in many of the jobs Rumsfeld took on!

Early in his career, Rumsfeld learned to be wary of the media. Columnist Jack Anderson, syndicated in practically every newspaper in America, wrote a column about Rumsfeld in which the only two words that were accurate were the spelling of Rumsfeld's name! When Rumsfeld confronted Anderson, Anderson did not write a column correcting his errors, because he was afraid some newspapers would drop his column, which he had inherited from his predecessor, Drew Pearson.

Go for it, Democrats!

I wholeheartedly encourage Obama and the Democrats to embrace the "Occupy" movements taking place in cities across America. George Soros' MoveOn.org and some unions have done so. Rich Lowry opines that this movement is the "Left's Pathetic Tea Party." He contrasts the Right's Tea Party with the Left's:

The Right’s tea party had its signature event at a rally at the Lincoln Memorial where everyone listened politely to patriotic exhortations and picked up their trash and went home. The Left’s tea party closed down a major thoroughfare in New York City — the Brooklyn Bridge — and saw its members arrested in the hundreds.

Read Lowry's piece here: http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/279057/left-s-pathetic-tea-party-rich-lowry

Tom Maguire writes that the "Occupy" movement is the perfect metaphor for Obama:

With no goals the protestors become the perfect metaphor for Obama, a Progressive Adrift. But can they get behind just one sensible goal and rally themselves and the nation to their cause? No way. If they pick one hobbyhorse to ride, the protestors are implicitly rejecting twenty others. For example, if they limit themselves to calling for more taxes on the rich, they are implicitly turning their back on gay marriage. Can't have that! But calling for taxes on the rich and a push for gay marriage risks abandonment of everyone on death row. Can't have that! But a push for taxes, gays, and death row inmates means that Gaia will be left to choke on greenhouse gasses. Can't have that!

The link to Maguire is here: http://justoneminute.typepad.com/main/2011/10/occupy-this-blog.html

Read Romney's book, and quit repeating what you have heard other conservatives say, as though they have bothered to read his book!

Mitt Romney is getting good reviews on his speech to the Citadel on foreign policy. I am not surprised. He took strong positions in his book, which I reviewed here on this blog several times. Jonathan Tobin at Commentary applauds Romney's "welcome clarity." He wrote a book, Jonathan, and repeated in this recent speech what is in his book! Honestly, I think few pundits in the blogosphere have read Romney's book. It is called No Apology: The Case for American Greatness

Jennifer Rubin at the Washington Post writes:

As he did on his jobs plan, Romney’s foreign policy rollout is detailed, organized, professional and aided by very smart people. The logistics of assembling a big team of top advisors, crafting a short but bold speech and coming up with a detailed written document are daunting and impressive. The level of detail is unlike anything any other candidate has attempted, and far exceeds what we usually get in campaigns. This is Romney the executive, Romney the smart guy and Romney the polished professional. His message is clear: I’m prepared and I know what I am doing.

But what is surprising about his foreign policy effort is that unlike his economic plans and what has come to be seen as a character defect (e.g. lack of strong convictions) his foreign policy statements are bold, unqualified, and not couched for political advantage.

Actually, Jennifer, I am beginning to believe that those who see him as lacking in strong convictions have not bothered to read his book. They are just repeating what they have heard other conservatives say.

The link to Jennifer's post is here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/post/romney-as-the-anti-obama-commander-in-chief/2011/03/29/gIQARWpuSL_blog.html#pagebreak

The link to Jonathan Tobin's post is here: http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2011/10/07/romney-foreign-policy-speech/#more-770338

A virus that kills all grades of breast cancer

"Scientists at the Penn State College of Medicine said this week they have discovered a virus that is capable of killing all grades of breast cancer “within seven days” of first introduction in a laboratory setting."
For more information, go to this blog: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/09/23/scientists-discover-virus-that-kills-all-types-of-breast-cancer-within-seven-days/

"Feeding the insatiable crocodile"

"Better a bad press than a good eulogy, and better still would be a fair press whose sense of history extends beyond breakfast, and which recognizes Israel's legitimate security concerns."
I just read the transcript of Benjamin Netanyahu's recent speech to the United Nations. It is well worth taking the time to read the whole thing here: http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/full-transcript-of-netanyahu-speech-at-un-general-assembly-1.386464

One paragraph:
"Since 9/11, militant Islamists slaughtered countless other innocents -- in London and Madrid, in Baghdad and Mumbai, in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, in every part of Israel. I believe that the greatest danger facing our world is that this fanaticism will arm itself with nuclear weapons. And this is precisely what Iran is trying to do."

Another:
"That malignancy is militant Islam. It cloaks itself in the mantle of a great faith, yet it murders Jews, Christians and Muslims alike with unforgiving impartiality. On September 11th it killed thousands of Americans, and it left the twin towers in smoldering ruins. Last night I laid a wreath on the 9/11 memorial. It was deeply moving. But as I was going there, one thing echoed in my mind: the outrageous words of the president of Iran on this podium yesterday. He implied that 9/11 was an American conspiracy. Some of you left this hall. All of you should have." (Applause.)

One more:
Well, this is an unfortunate part of the UN institution. It's the -- the theater of the absurd. It doesn't only cast Israel as the villain; it often casts real villains in leading roles: Gadhafi's Libya chaired the UN Commission on Human Rights; Saddam's Iraq headed the UN Committee on Disarmament.

Obama: "This is a pretty big government!"

My favorite protester and my favorite poster of protesters

So far this is my favorite photo from the lefty protests going on in cities across the USA.

Autumn

James Lileks writes about autumn: "To sit in the sun in shorts in October is as rare around here as flip-flops in March. I took some photos, of course, but photos never capture the entire experience of autumn. You can look at a picture of the house in summer and remember it well, but autumn has so many intangibles. Spring has its early heralds – the flowers that pop up when everything else is still dead – but it tends to rise in unison like a great C major chord that takes a month to complete. Autumn disintegrates on an individual basis. There’s a tree in the yard that’s almost completely bare. There’s another that’s almost completely green. The yard is lush. The sprinklers go. But they spatter golden leaves. The sun is hot and strong; the night breeze waves a knife around. In the spring every day leads to the next. In the autumn every day stands alone. It’s like a defeated army that drifts away one man at a time. But I do love it. There are crickets outside right now."
His blog is here: http://lileks.com/bleat/?p=10124

A recommendation to President Obama

President Obama said he just learned about Fast and Furious "in the last few weeks." Wow! I've known about it longer than that! President Obama, I recommend the blogosphere to you. You should be among the first to learn about things being done by your own government agencies.

Priorities

North Korea led a journalist and photographer from extreme left media outlet MSNBC on a tour of orphanages, showing children dying of malnutrition. North Korea depends on food aid from the US and South Korea and other UN agencies, so they can primarily spend money on their military, and make threats against South Korea and the US.
The MSNBC story is here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44808274/ns/world_news-asia_pacific/#.To9sknJDPz4

Cain now ahead by 20 percentage points among Republicans who say they are likely to vote in the primaries

The latest Zogby poll has Herman Cain leading his rivals by at least 20 percent! This post compares him to Romney, with Romney being the tortoise and Cain being the hare: http://img.ibtimes.com/www/articles/20111007/227265_herman-cain-leads-mitt-romney-zogby-poll-republican-presidential-race.htm

Virus infects our drones

Drudge is reporting that a virus has infected our Predator and Reaper Drones. A fascinating story about it and our use of drones is here: http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/10/virus-hits-drone-fleet/
The other day I waited on a customer who had some initials on his shirt. I asked him what they stood for. He said, "Department of Defense Security Operations." He said they were working night and day combating hackers. I asked, "Mostly from China?" He answered, "Yes!"

Could you turn down the President of the United States?

Can you imagine being asked not once, but twice by the President of the United States to be the head of an agency whose mission you did not believe in? That was what happened in Don Rumsfield's case. First, he was asked by President Nixon to head the Office of Economic Opportunity, the funding of which agency Rumsfeld had voted against when he was a Congressman from Illinois. Then he was asked to head the Cost of Living Council, which Congress had give authority to set wage and price controls. He is proud that, unlike the shameful record of the Obama administration in blatantly using tax dollars to shore up union thugs, there was not one incident of corruption during his administration of the Cost of Living Council.

Rumsfeld writes in his memoir Known and Unknown that he was able to say no to two posts Nixon asked him to head: HUD, and the Committee to Reelect the President, known infamously later as CREEP. Fortunately for Rumsfeld, he was in Europe as Ambassador to NATO when the Watergate Hearings took place.

Speaking of Watergate, Rumsfeld was impressed with Bob Haldeman, but not John Erlichman. Although, he faults Haldeman for not blocking Nixon on his Watergate escapades. Rumsfeld was not a fan of Spiro Agnew, and the portrait he paints of Henry Kissinger, at least as far as I have read, is mixed, at best.

Worshipping God with Richard Nixon

Did you know that Richard Nixon held worship services in the White House on Sundays? Administration officials and their families were invited to worship with him. That posed a problem for some of the families, since the prevailing styles for young people in the late sixties included beads and long hair.

Donald Rumsfeld makes these points in his book Known and Unknown, which I am reading, and I am sharing with my blog readers information from his book that I did not previously know, or had forgotten.

Anti-poverty warriors

Did you remember that Don Rumsfeld was an anti-poverty warrior? He was appointed head of the Office of Economic Opportunity by President Nixon. His assistant? Dick Cheney!

Now I don't feel like such a lonely conservative! I also worked for OEO in 1968. I was Director of the Northeast Neighborhood Counseling Center, an OEO agency in Kansas City, Kansas, when Sargent Shriver was still the national director.

It was an exciting time. I soon learned, though, that, as Herman Cain is saying in 2011, in the final analysis, each of us must look within ourselves for the effort needed to avoid the poverty trap.

Trust, faith...in Whom?

Here is a video that You Tube says has already been viewed over 9 million times. It is a commencement speech by Steve Jobs, whose life is being celebrated by people across the globe. Listening closely, I had some questions I would have wanted to ask him.

"You have to trust in something...your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever!" What about trusting God?

"Sometimes life hits you like a ton of bricks. Don't lose faith." Faith in whom? Faith in yourself, or faith in God?

Never having to refuel your car again?

Do you know about thorium? It is a rare earth mineral. Charles Stevens is an inventor and CEO of Laser Systems.

"Stevens has worked out you’d require a 227kg, 250MW thorium engine in order to power a typical road car. Within that system 1 gram of thorium produces the equivalent of 7,500 gallons of gasoline. So if you fit the Thorium engine with 8 grams of Thorium, it will run the vehicle for its entire lifetime without needing to be refueled while all the time not producing any emissions. The engine lasts so long in fact, that it could be taken from one vehicle and used in another as and when they wear out.

The issues to overcome are the radioactivity and the mining of thorium to make this engine possible. Stevens says the radioactivity can easily be contained with aluminium foil. As for the mining, the reserves are there, with 440,000 tons alone in the U.S., we just need the mining facilities to extract it in large enough quantities. With the potential benefits that is sure to happen.

Stevens admits that his biggest hurdle isn’t the thorium and laser aspects of the system, but the mini turbines which have to be made small enough to fit inside a vehicle while generating enough electricity. Even so, Stevens believes he’ll have a working prototype by 2014 and the potential to not only replace, but improve upon the gasoline-powered engines we rely on today."

Read the whole post here: http://www.geek.com/articles/geek-cetera/8-grams-of-thorium-could-replace-gasoline-in-cars-20110812/
Link provided by Tiger Hawk: http://tigerhawk.blogspot.com/

Faith, Steve Jobs, and glory

Richard Fernandez writes about faith, Steve Jobs' impact on the world, and glory here: http://pajamasmedia.com/richardfernandez/2011/10/05/its-a-wonderful-life/2/. An excerpt about Jobs:

It is hardly possible to take a train or go to the mall without witnessing a world that Steve Jobs has mightily reshaped. On every corner are people jabbing at their phones, making appointments, laughing, receiving bad news, finding a store via GPS, and doing things they might otherwise never have done without that long ago California garage.

Obama by the numbers: a one-term President

Has there ever been a more devastating video?

Has the White House and CBS News silenced Fast and Furious investigative reporter Sharyl Attkisson?

Mark Hemingway asks the questions here: http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/cbs-news-silencing-fast-and-furious-reporter-due-white-house-pressure_595068.html

Sunshine

This man is out in the fresh air after spending 25 years in prison after being wrongly convicted of murdering his wife. neo-neocon gives us the information at http://neoneocon.com/2011/10/05/man-released-from-prison-after-25-years-the-morton-case/. Her summary paragraph: The state has a duty not just to the defendant to get it right and to come as close as it can to meting out justice. It has a duty to the general public, the family of the victim, and even to the jurors, who bear the solemn responsibility and burden of either executing or putting another human being away for life.

If only!

Found here: http://www.imao.us/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/LMAO-shout.jpg

Deja vu all over again

Today's history lesson from the 1980 GOP debates. Bush mumbles something about "Let them have the same thing (welfare) that their neighbors are getting." Reagan eschews a border fence. Sound familiar?
Found at Ace of Spades

No Democrat co-sponsors!

Here is a fact that the media is conveniently ignoring. Not one Democrat in either the Senate or House of Representatives of the United States has yet signed on as a co-sponsor of Obama's new jobs/stimulus bill. Not one! Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell tried to call the bill up for a vote, but was blocked by Senator Reid from Nevada, who said Obama's use of the phrase "right away" is a relative term.

Update: Betsy Newmark suggests Obama should add Nevada to his campaign stops and campaign against Harry Reid, because Reid blocked the vote! I like it when Republicans get mischievous and use a little humor to respond to the constant attacks from Obama.
Here is the link to Betsy: http://betsyspage.blogspot.com/2011/10/why-isnt-obama-campaigning-in-nevada.html

Devastating!

Ace of Spades has a comprehensive, easy-to-read "infographic" on the Obama presidency: what he said in 2008, or, where we were in 2008, and where we stand now. It covers the poverty rate, unemployment rate, average weeks unemployed, median income, health insurance premiums, number of jobs, inflation rate, food stamp usage, average price of a gallon of gas, average single family home value, national debt, and the deficit.
the link is here: http://minx.cc/?post=322086

No right to consume milk from your own cow?

At The Corner Jonah Goldberg linked to an article in which a Wisconsin judge ruled that:
(1) Plaintiffs do not have a fundamental right to own and use a dairy cow or a dairy herd;

(2) Plaintiffs do not have a fundamental right to consume the milk from their own cow;

(3) Plaintiffs do not have a fundamental right to board their cow at the farm of a farmer;

(4) The Zinniker Plaintiffs’ private contract does not fall outside the scope of the States’ police power;

(5) Plaintiffs do not have a fundamental right to produce and consume the foods of their choice;

(6) DATCP [Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection] . . . had jurisdiction to regulate the Zinniker Plaintiffs’ conduct.

With this sweeping denial of basic rights, the judge refused to recognize any distinction between public and private activity; moreover, he was holding that the government had the power to regulate people’s efforts to grow and raise their own food.
The link to the post is here: http://foodfreedom.wordpress.com/2011/10/03/wisconsin-judge-rules-no-right-to-own-a-cow-or-drink-its-milk/

The link to The corner is here: http://www.nationalreview.com/corner

Making your husband the butt of jokes

Dr. Helen Smith is always on top of anti-men biases. She links to this portion of a article by Katrina Fernandez: "Like reverse sexism, this belittling of men seems to be 100 percent acceptable. It's even used as the tie that binds in building female relationships—commiserating over the "miserableness" of the male species. I understand it can be hard to make friends when meeting people for the first time, but making your husband the butt of jokes is not the way to endear yourself to me. It's not just insulting to your husband but to me as well, a single woman who would love to have a spouse to promise to honor and respect. It's like waving a steak in front of a starving person and proclaiming it tastes like garbage and tossing it to the floor."
Dr. Helen's blog is here: http://www.drhelen.blogspot.com/
Ms. Fernandez's post is here: http://www.patheos.com/Resources/Additional-Resources/Shrews-Katrina-Fernandez-09-30-2011.html

To assist the Marines

Here is a video of the F35B making its first vertical landing at sea. "The F-35B is the variant of the Joint Strike Fighter for the U.S. Marine Corps, capable of short take-offs and vertical landings for use on amphibious ships or expeditionary airfields to provide air power to the Marine Air-Ground Task Force."
Found here: http://www.blackfive.net/main/2011/10/the-first-f-35b-landing-at-sea-on-the-uss-wasp-1.html

(link provided by Instapundit)

Will Obama appoint a Special Counsel to investigate Holder?

The House Judiciary committee plans to ask Obama to appoint a Special Counsel to investigate Eric Holder regarding his role in the Gunwalker or Fast and Furious scandals.
the story is here: http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/gunwalker-house-wants-special-counsel-to-investigate-eric-holder/

Cells to produce their own anti-cancer medication?

Instapundit links to a story about a new way to fight cancer. It was done at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore. I wonder if they used Henrietta Lacks' cells (Johns Hopkins is where her cells were first put in a petrie dish). Anyway, researchers there say they have devised a protein “switch” that instructs cancer cells to produce their own anti-cancer medication.
Read about it here: http://www.kurzweilai.net/protein-switches-could-turn-cancer-cells-into-tiny-chemotherapy-factories
Here is the link to Instapundit: http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/

Humility, Prayer, and Goodness

Dr. Bob at One Cosmos writes the following today: "There is a paradox in spiritual learning. The further you advance on the path, the more you realize how far you are from the goal. This has been the most humbling realization for me, the knowledge that I can never graduate and get my sheepskin from the 'U. of the Most Holy.'" A little later he writes

"Begin with humility -- pray for it -- empty yourself of pride, for this is the spiritual method at its core. Only then will there be space for the spirit to begin working within you. This is the first step, and the second, and the third, until the day you die, and beyond..."

Here is the link to One Cosmos: http://onecosmos.blogspot.com/

One Cosmos then links to a related post by Dennis Prager, who expands on thirteen reasons why we have a hard time becoming better persons. Here are the thirteen reasons Prager expounds on in his post:
1. Most people don’t particularly want to be good.
2. Confusion about what it means to be good.
3. Goodness is not about intentions (It is not the thought that counts. It is the action.)
4. We don’t learn how to be good.
5. We think too highly of ourselves.
6. We think we will be taken advantage of.
7. Few personal models.
8. We don’t believe that there are rewards for being good.
9. We have to battle our nature.
10. I’m a victim.
11. Few people were raised to be good people.
12. In our formative years, the least impressive are rewarded.
13. Psychological blocks.
Here is wishing to Dennis Prager a wonderful Rosh Hashana. Thank you, Dennis, for sharing with us your thinking on this important subject, and for doing so in plain, easy-to-understand clear concepts.
You can read his whole post here: http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/279055/why-it-so-hard-become-better-person-dennis-prager?page=1

Don Rumsfeld's Memoir

Not many Americans have a record of service to their country as distinguished as Don Rumsfeld. I was delighted when I saw his memoir Known and Unknown on the shelf at the local library. I am finding it absolutely riveting.

One of the first things he writes about is Lebanon. I have always thought of that period of 1983 and 1984 as a time when we let down the people in the Middle East, however few they may be, who want to live in peace. Rumsfeld reminds us that it was our Congress that pushed for the withdrawal of our troops after the Marines were slaughtered there. Defense Secretary Weinberger also wanted out, because he did not think he could keep our troops secure from this new phenomena of suicidal terrorism.

At the age of 29, Rumsfeld successfully ran for Congress from his district in suburban Chicago, and was elected when he was just 30. Before that, he flew jets in the Navy. His dad had also been in the Navy, serving in World War II. Just after graduating from Princeton, and just before serving in the Navy, Don married his high school sweetheart, to whom he is still married.

Rumsfeld is candid in this memoir, as I knew he would be. His self-deprecating sense of humor is always near the surface, too. He was a high school and college wrestler.

I just finished reading a vignette about Viet Nam, in which as a new Congressman, he was briefed by LBJ and his Vice President, Hubert Humphrey. He did not seem too impressed with LBJ. (I never was, either).

Death of an American Eagle

Webutante draws our attention to articles that point out the absurdity of federal regulations that favor one industry over another in penalties, or lack thereof, for killing wildlife.
Follow her links here: http://webutante07.blogspot.com/2011/09/extreme-legal-double-standard-shown-in.html

Blue sky on the horizon

Victor Davis Hanson has written a very optimistic post about America after Obama entitled The Coming Post-Obama Renaissance. "Now three years of Obama have slapped voters out of their collective trance.

The spell has now passed; and we are stronger for its passing. There is going to be soon a sense of relief that we have not experienced in decades. In short, sadder but wiser Americans will soon be turned loose with a vigor unseen in decades."

Read the whole thing here: http://pajamasmedia.com/victordavishanson/the-post-obama-renaissance/3/

Ain't it the truth?

found here: http://www.theospark.net/

A strong solar flare

"Sunspot 1283 erupted with another flare yesterday that peaked at 6:20 PM ET. This was an X2.1 class flare, some four times stronger than the earlier flare. Flares can affect Earth's ionosphere, through which high frequency radio waves travel, and cause radio blackouts. This strength flare can cause a "strong" radio blackout, categorized as R3, which has the potential to cause about an hour-long blackout.

This flare, too, had a coronal mass ejection (CME) – an eruption of a giant cloud of solar material -- associated with it. Early models suggest that both CMEs will not travel directly toward Earth, but perhaps just graze our atmosphere in the North, potentially causing auroras in the northern latitudes."


Found here: http://spacestation-shuttle.blogspot.com/2011/09/x21-solar-flare-and-cme.html

"Accomplices to murder"

Good for this Arizona sheriff. God bless him for speaking the truth.

Next, please!

Since our military is on a roll, killing top terrorists, I nominate this creep to move to the top of the kill list. Read all about him here: http://www.maggiesnotebook.com/2011/09/siraj-haqqani-haqqani-network-rapists-murderers-vilest-of-the-vile-supported-by-u-s-aid/

Will it be Cain versus Unable?

Found this image here: http://www.thelookingspoon.com/index.php/2753-proof-this-election-is-going-to-be-one-of-biblical-proportions

Another Jihadist foiled!

This Jihadist terrorist has been arrested after developing a plot to to blow up the Pentagon and the U.S. Capitol using remote-controlled airplanes filled with explosives.

Rezwan Ferdaus, 26, was arrested in Framingham after undercover federal agents delivered materials he had allegedly requested, including grenades, six machine guns and what he believed was 24 pounds of C-4 explosive.

Read much more here: http://www.brutallyhonest.org/brutally_honest/2011/09/jihadist-with-physics-degree-plots-to-bomb-pentagon-capitol.html

Losing approval among many, but not Muslim-Americans

Investor Business Daily points out that since inauguration day 2009 Obama has lost the approval of eight (percentage) points among blacks, 27 points among Hispanics and 25 points among whites. However, he enjoys an approval rating of 76% among Muslim-Americans, according to Pew Research. IBD points out that

He's appointed a record number of Muslims to his administration — including at least three radical Muslim Brotherhood agents to White House jobs, according to Muslim reformer Tarek Fatah. And he's killed Justice Department probes of Muslim Brotherhood front groups at home, while paving the way for Brotherhood-run theocracies abroad.

Read the whole thing here: http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article/586459/201109291833/A-Muslim-President-After-All.aspx?src=IBDDAE

29-year-old woman born deaf hears for the first time

"Never let the ugly truth get in the way of a good political narrative."

In a blog post entitled Not Exactly Shovel Ready the blogger at In From the Cold points out some more embarrassing gaffes and misleading claims by Obama. The first has to do with a bridge that will not be built for 48 months. The second has to do with the Intercontinental Railroad" Obama says America built. From Obama's speech at the bridge:

"Now, we used to have the best infrastructure in the world here in America. We’re the country that built the Intercontinental Railroad, the Interstate Highway System. (Applause.) We built the Hoover Dam. We built the Grand Central Station. (Applause.)

So how can we now sit back and let China build the best railroads? And let Europe build the best highways? And have Singapore build a nicer airport? At a time when we've got millions of unemployed construction workers out there just ready to get on the job, ready to do the work to rebuilding America."

The blogger notes:

"The Intercontinental Railroad? Is that the one that connects San Francisco and Tokyo, or New York and London? Obviously, they don't exist. We assume President Obama was referring to the transcontinental railroad, completed in 1869. It remains a marvel of engineering and speed, largely because immigrant work crews didn't have an OSHA inspector demanding hearing protection for everyone, or the EPA trying to protect every bug, bird and snake that lived along the railroad's right-of-way."

Read the Whole thing at http://formerspook.blogspot.com/

Why Herman Cain is resonating with voters

The Daily Caller features a post explaining why Herman Cain is resonating with voters. He is now leading the field of Republican challengers to Obama, according to the latest Zogby poll.

"I have had the honor of speaking with Herman Cain in person and interviewed him recently. I was impressed on both occasions by his refusal to tell me what he thought I wanted to hear, and to instead simply tell me what he thought. There is a refreshing honesty with which he delivers his message, one that is void of the arrogance and elitist condescension that characterize our current commander-in-chief."

Read the whole thing at http://dailycaller.com/2011/09/27/why-herman-cain-resonates-with-voters/#ixzz1ZTIxFjGk

Update: Also, there is this excellent post on the sad realities of race in America.

"That Herman Cain can only predict garnering one third of the the black vote in next year’s election speaks to the sad state of race in America. That there is even one black family in this country who would not want a son or daughter to emulate this man’s work ethic, level of self-made success, and amazing courage is not only a travesty; it’s a stark reminder of how deluded the majority of blacks in America have become.

That two thirds of black Americans would dutifully vote for a different black man – not simply because he is black, but because he preaches the politics of deceit and division; because he tells them what they want to hear, (and have heard from liberal politicians for more than 50 years); because desperately seeks to maintain their support through fear and deception – that too, speaks to the sad reality of race in America."

Read the whole thing at http://constitutionclub.org/2011/09/29/herman-cain-says-blacks-have-been-brainwashed-conservatives/

Killing al-Awlaki

Obama has announced the killing of Anwar al-Awlaki, the New Mexico born al-Qaida terrorist. al-Awlaki had inspired other terrorist murderers, like Major Hasan, the killer of thirteen Americans in Texas. I applaud this action by our military and civilian leaders.

However, a commenter at The Hill blog reminds us: "So now we have the Obama double standard. Bush lost his moral compass because he waterboarded Zawahiri and didn't give him constitutional protection, an attorney and a civilian trial. But Obama can assasinate Alawki without so much as a writ of habeus corpus or an ACLU attorney within a thousand miles?"

Here is a link to a discussion of the legality of killing a U.S. citizen without due process.

Cells, vaccines, and immortality

Cells. Fifty trillion of them in my body and yours! They are in the news, because of the Republican debates. Texas Governor Rick Perry tried to vaccinate sixth grade girls to prevent them from getting HPV, a sexually transmitted virus that causes cervical cancer. There are more than 100 strains of HPV in existence; thirteen of which cause cervical, anal, penile, and oral cancer. Over 90 percent of sexually active adults become infected with at least one strain during their lifetimes!

This month I have written a couple of brief posts about Rebecca Skloot's book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. Ms. Lacks died in 1951 because she was infected with particularly virulent strains of HPV. But, her cells lived on, after her surgeon scraped some off one of her tumors without her consent. Using her cells and others, scientists discovered how her cancer started and why her cells never died. HPV inserts its DNA into the DNA of the host cell, where it produces proteins that lead to cancer. A German scientist earned the Nobel Prize because of his discoveries about HPV and the development of the vaccine, using Ms. Lacks' cells. When HPV inserted its DNA into Ms. Lacks' Chromosome 11, it essentially turned off the genes that suppress tumors, according to Ms. Skloots.

Normal cells are preprogrammed to live only so long. Cells that have been infected by a virus or cancer have the potential to divide indefinitely in cultures.

Remember how I used to write about Jill Bolte Taylor's book My Stroke of Insight? That is where I learned that we have 50 trillion cells in our bodies. Dr. Taylor writes about how she thanks her cells many times daily for their healing powers.

But, it is God who created us and all other life. It is God Whom we should be thanking for the miraculous bodies we live in. It is God Who makes available to us the opportunity to live eternally.

Why not?

Daniel Henninger wonders in the Wall Street Journal if maybe it is time to take seriously the candidacy of Herman Cain.

"Put it this way: The GOP nominee is running against the incumbent president. Unlike the incumbent, Herman Cain has at least twice identified the causes of a large failing enterprise, designed goals, achieved them, and by all accounts inspired the people he was supposed to lead. Not least, Mr. Cain's life experience suggests that, unlike the incumbent, he will adjust his ideas to reality."

What do you think? Is there any valid reason not to take a serious look at the Cain candidacy?

When the border is not secure...

Did you know that 2,900 illegal immigrants with prior criminal records were arrested in the U.S. in the last week? This blog post gives more details: "More than 1,600 of those arrested had felony convictions including manslaughter, attempted murder, kidnapping, armed robbery, drug trafficking, child abuse, sexual crimes against minors, aggravated assault. Of the total 2,901 criminal illegal immigrants arrested, 42 were gang members and 151 were convicted sex offenders.

In addition to being convicted criminals, 681 of those arrested were also immigration fugitives who had previously been ordered to leave the country but failed to depart. Additionally, 386 were illegal re-entrants who had been previously removed from the country multiple times."

What was he thinking?

Anyone want to speculate what Obama was thinking about when he said "Jew" when speaking to the Congressional Black Caucus? All of us misspeak from time to time, but this guy seems to do it quite often.

Update: In the White House map distributed to reporters on Obama's trip out west this week, Colorado was misidentified as being in Wyoming. Michelle Malkin summarizes the gaffes from the guy who campaigned in 57 states.

The U.S. Justice Department used our (taxpayer) money to sell guns to criminals!

Ramirez cartoon found here, which is the blog that broke the original story..
"Not only did U.S. officials approve, allow and assist in the sale of more than 2,000 guns to the Sinaloa cartel — the federal government used taxpayer money to buy semi-automatic weapons, sold them to criminals and then watched as the guns disappeared." So begins a post at this blog.

Is this the Watergate of 2011? No one died in Watergate.

You did not hear about this case from Obama or the U.N.

An Iranian pastor faces execution because he refuses to renounce his Christian faith.

Because the border is not secure...

From Patrick Poole at Pajamas Media:

Two Bangladeshis who were caught by Customs and Border Protection illegally crossing the border in June 2010 admitted under questioning that they were members of a designated terrorist organization that signed on to a fatwa by Osama bin Laden pledging to wage war against Americans.

But amazingly, after one of the men requested asylum, he was released on bond. And now one Homeland Security official tells me, concerning the released terror operative, “We don’t have the slightest idea where he is now.”

The two men, Muhammad Nazmul Hasan and Mirza Muhammad Saifuddin, were intercepted near Naco, Arizona, not long after they had crossed the border on June 25, 2010. During their interrogation, one of the men admitted that they were members of Harakat-ul-Jihad-i-Islami Bangladesh (HuJI-B), which was designated a terrorist organization by the United States in February 2008. Earlier this month the group claimed responsibility for a bombing a courthouse in New Delhi. That attack killed 11 and wounded at least 45 others.

Then there is this commentary at the Sister Toldjah blog:

More than ten years after 9/11, it’s way past the time that our laws were updated to reflect a time of war and potentially catastrophic terrorism. At a minimum, people who admit to belonging to organizations allied to our deadly enemy should be held without bail; more properly, since we’re dealing with terrorist operatives, they should be transferred to military custody and their cases decided by a military commission. We’re not talking about people sneaking into America looking for a better life; these are people sneaking into America to take lives.

As Poole points out, the southern border is the preferred route for people seeking illegal entry into the United States, and, regardless of what President Obama claims, that border is not secure. It’s clear Obama and the Democrats won’t do a thing to genuinely control it, in spite of the obvious threat to national security (1), so it will be up to the next, hopefully adult, administration.

Meanwhile, don’t worry. I’m sure we’ll find the missing Bangladeshi jihadi… right after the car-bomb goes off.

$23 million per job!

This post tells us that the U.S. Energy Department is expected to announce this week its final decision on loan guarantees amounting to $6.5 billion to green energy companies. The number of full-time, permanent jobs they would create? 283, according to the Dept of Energy's own figures. That is nearly $23 million per job!

Let's see now, where is there a federal agency whose budget we could cut?

Stay on that plantation, or else!

Found here

Only the Truth will set us free

Here is a blog post asserting that the media killed the truth in its coverage of the Troy Davis execution in Georgia.

A winning strategy

I am not one to listen to long speeches, but I did listen to this one by Chris Christie, who spoke last night at the Reagan Library. I liked what he said. I think he could give Obama a real run for his money. He asks Obama what changed him from the 2004 speech he gave at the Democrat convention. When did he decide to become a divider?

Like Ronald Reagan, Christie has earned a reputation as a man who says what he means, and means what he says. He has achieved bi-partisan support in New Jersey to right that ship financially. How?
1. We identified the problems.
2. We proposed solutions.
3. We educated the public.
4. We took action, including compromising with the opposition.

The speech included much praise for the best of Ronald Reagan, a leader we sorely miss today. It is a winning strategy.

"If you're a Tea Partyer, I'm a ballet dancer!"

Jennifer Rubin is a columnist who has captured my attention more and more. In this column she imagines Chris Christie at home with his wife and four kids watching a Republican debate and yelling at the t.v.

Would you recognize mussel beds?

Lucy is a blogger in France, who has wonderful photography on her blog. I bet you've never seen photos from the air of mussels growing in shallow waters. Lucy writes: "This went a stage further on looking down at the mussel beds from the air. We must have been quite lucky with the state of the tide, so that their serried rows hovered visible just below the surface in the aqua- and ultramarine of the bay, their graphic, human-ordered geometry offsetting the random figuring and curves of the rocks and shoreline." There are many more photos at her blog.

No excuses

I found this image here.

Some cheered; most didn't.

We have four interstate highways here in the Denver metro area. Barack Obama managed to tie up three of them today, in the morning, then again in the afternoon! He was here to tout Son of Stimulus to a predominantly Hispanic high school in an area of high unemployment. His audience cheered his plan for the federal government to confiscate money from people earning higher than average incomes, and give it to bureaucrats to dispense to people earning less than average incomes. After all, he said, "You didn't do it (make a good living) by yourself!"

Meanwhile, back on the interstate highways the audience was far larger, and no one was heard to be cheering.

Wound around tightly?

Found it here

Where the Klan got their idea of white sheets

In her book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, author Rebecca Skloot tells us how the Ku Klux Klan got the idea of hooded white sheets. African oral history believed that ghosts caused disease. To discourage slaves from leaving plantations, some plantation owners, aware of these beliefs, conjured up tales of gruesome research done on black bodies by night doctors who kidnapped blacks found outside at night. These night doctors supposedly covered themselves in white sheets and crept around at night, posing as spirits come to infect black people with disease or steal them for research.

In fact, there was some truth to the oral history. Many doctors and researchers did conduct experiments on blacks without their consent. One victim of these practices was Henrietta Lacks, whose cells have been dividing since surgery was performed on her in 1951. Her cells have been bought and sold thousands of times, with her impoverished family receiving not one penny.

Proposed new regulations for our kids' school lunches

Have you heard of the latest proposed regulations from the USDA for our kids' school lunches? No more than one cup per week of "starchy vegetables." That includes peas, lima beans, corn, and potatoes!

Let's see now...which federal agency's budget can we cut?

Immortal cells

Do you know the name Henrietta Lacks? Rebecca Skloot has written a wonderful book entitled The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. After a surgeon at Johns Hopkins Hospital operated on Ms. Lacks in the "colored" ward in 1951, without her consent he scraped one of her cancer tumors and put her cells in a petrie dish. The cells have never stopped dividing, becoming the first known immortal cells. Ms. Skloot does a meticulous job of exploring every possible facet of the life of this woman, her cells, her extended family, and the medical, scientific, and journalism communities. It is a fabulous book!