Borrrnnn In The USA… September 30, 2011

If there is even one mention of “Al Alwaki and his unexpected demise with prejudice, there are a gazillion today. And everly last one of them — EVERY LAST ONE — has, “…American born…” in there somewhere.

Everybody has their own reasons for using this phrase when referring to the dead guy. Some people are ranting because if the guy was born in America, he’s a citizen, his “civil rights” were violated, and he was executed without a trial, etc., ad infinitum. Well, okay, if they say so.

Then, there are the guys who want to make him look good, and to illustrate their (erroneous) opinion that the corpus delicti was proof that not just Middle-Eastern men are terrorists, and that the U.S., evil as it is, can grow them, too, and we need to stop profiling.

But, the one I haven’t heard yet (it may still just be swimming toward the surface at this point) is that if HE is American born, that makes him a citizen, regardless of the nationality/passports of his parents, just like some other notable person whose birthplace/citizenship/nationality has been in question for some time. (I know. My mind has been making some bizarre jinks lately…)

What Are They Saying? September 30, 2011

Who was Rush talking about?

Who DID Rush have in mind when he talked like this on September 29? To paraphrase: In view of all the corruption, over the top spending, and all the housecleaning that will have to be done, we will need a fearless, experienced, courageous candidate who will take the fight to the other side and not back down, never mention “compromise,” and will make the hard decisions. (Inquiring minds want to know…)

And, this just occurred to me:

Is the MSM’s frantic coverage of the Solyndra scandal a “cover” to keep them from having to talk about Fast & Furious?

More HERE.

Still more HERE.

Sarah’s Strategy Seems To Be Working Dep’t:

“Sarah Palin’s political career will remain just the way it is, locked forever in the vagueness of political uncertainty. She commonly says she would make a strong candidate for president yet Palin won’t throw her name into the ring. Palin won’t get involved in debates and has been a bystander in American politics.” Nobody, but NOBODY, is more anxious/desperate/frantic to know what Sarah Palin’s next move will be than the lamestream media, who hate her to their bones. Interesting, no?

White Stuff September 29, 2011

Some days, just reading through the news is enough to make me want to retire from blogging and just go sit in my chair and practice my algebra. It’s either feast or famine.

There hasn’t been a paucity of news out there today, but it has been hashed over so thoroughly that there is nothing new I can add in the way of commentary, simply because I am not an expert/pundit.

So, on days like this, I get to resort to reporting the weather. Yep. Today’s forecast is for clouds and showers, low temps (in the 40′s in the daytime), and a possibility of snow tonight.

The Termination Dust is almost upon us. It’s not surprising, it’s not all that much “too early,” like it was this August, when it showed up on Pioneer Peak, and it won’t last too long because the ground isn’t frozen, but it’s still not what I hoped to find when I checked my Weather Underground for Wasilla this morning.

We almost always have snow by Halloween here. In Valdez, it wasn’t unusual for the kids to be t-or-t’ing in a foot or more. Finding snow in the forecast in September, or waking up to find it on the ground here is a fact of life. Like the cold weather that is inevitably headed our way, we don’t like it, but we like the thought of leaving Alaska because of it even less (except for some souls with more adventure in their hearts or money in their pockets who will hie themselves southward at the first mention of the white stuff). Some braver ones will stick it out until mid-winter, then hop a fast jet for Honolulu and burn off the icicles on the beach at Waikiki. For the rest of us lesser souls, hunkering down, bundling up, and waiting for spring is what we get to do. Time to go take inventory on the long underwear, wooly socks, gloves and mittens, and earmuffs. Candles for power outages? Check. Gas kitchen stove/pilot lights for the same situations? Check. Clear plastic for the windows? Oops. Time to stock up…

The Destroyers September 27, 2011

Deindustrialization, depopulation, a global return to a style of living not seen since the medieval period — with modern medicine, cybernetics, and alternate power for the lucky, of course. Conservatives simply don’t grasp this, any more than the Russian aristocracy grasped the truth of revolutionary socialism. They knew that the revolutionaries were a threat, that any society run by their like would be a disaster, but they could not get their minds around the fact that the fate planned for them and their entire class was annihilation, either in the cellars of the Lubyanka or in the snows of Siberia. –J.R. Dunn (see below)

This has been THE MOST DESTRUCTIVE administration in the history of the United States. And it isn’t even just America that suffers from his “tender mercies.” The middle east has been utterly destroyed by his meddling, and Israel teeters on the brink of extinction.

Not to mention the evil done in the United States to the economy, the middle class, and to the rule of law. Solyndra will prove to be just the tip of the iceberg. Even the Civil War didn’t destroy so much capital, wealth, and infrastructure. I hope and pray that things draw out long enough to give us time to vote in enough patriots to make some real changes, or we are truly LOST.

Wait, Sarah, Wait September 25, 2011

A friend on Free Republic has written a most insightful article about Sarah Palin’s apparent “delay” in officially entering the race. Brices Crossroads has graciously given me permission to repost his interesting piece here. If you would like to read it in its original context, as well as the comments and discussion it generated, you can find it Here. Enjoy! Thanks, BC!

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It is hard to argue that Sarah Palin’s delay in formally announcing her candidacy has been anything other than a smashing success. I have been among a minority who have contended from the outset that Governor Palin’s delay in announcing was prudent strategy both for financial as well as political reasons. She has been able to campaign both in Iowa and New Hampshire within the last month, garnering huge amounts of publicity and the largest crowds of the campaign season. Her crony capitalism speech in Indianola on September 3 has driven the debate (as well as the GOP debates) even in her absence from the stage. It exposed the first chink in the armor of James Richard Perry, who has continued to bumble his chances, as some of us predicted he would. Meanwhile, Michele Bachmann has virtually disappeared from the radar screen, and is rumored to be broke, having poured every resource she had into winning the meaningless Ames Straw poll and paying the likes of Ed Rollins. And Mitt Romney remains in the low twenties, unable to put any daylight between himself and the weak field he faces. Romney’s weakness–in the face of his opponents’ implosion–has led the Establishment to begin to trot out what must be its last reserves, to wit: Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey, a liberal Establishment Republican to the left even of Romney.

Sarah Palin has positioned herself beautifully, as events have unfolded in the last month, by not formally announcing. And she has spent not one dime doing it. On August 14, I argued here that the principal reason for her to delay is financial. The Establishment is already funding two major candidates, Romney and Perry. They are trying to launch a third, Chris Christie. Well heeled to be sure, the GOP Establishment does not have limitless funds, and the burn rate for Romney and Perry (plus Christie, if he gets in) will stretch its resources to the limit.

Sarah Palin will, I argue, have adequate funds, but she will not be able to match the Establishment dollar for dollar. By waiting, she spends nothing while the Establishment spear carriers flit from straw poll to straw poll to fundraiser, spending cash by the boatload, to so little effect that a third major Establishment candidate is now poised to enter.

Sarah Palin is husbanding her resources while the Establishment is spending hand over fist, while dividing its admittedly much larger warchest several ways. In effect, Palin–who will be the insurgent candidate–is evening the odds. She is learning from some of the mistakes of the 1976 and 1980 Reagan campaigns, which overspent early in both cycles and ran out of money both times, costing the Gipper the nomination in 1976 and very nearly derailing him in 1980. Her delaying game, coupled with the multiplication of Establishment candidacies (a divide and conquer strategy, so to speak), has put her in the catbird seat.

Moreover, her delay is forcing the Establishment to play its cards first…to put its candidates out front first for the public to scrutinize. Palin knows that her formal announcement would take the spotlight and scrutiny, as well as the pressure, off the Establishment candidates since all eyes would then turn to her. And she is not about to give her Establishment opponents such a break. The vetting process has been very hard on the new candidates so far, and Palin is wisely allowing it to continue.

Meanwhile, under the radar screen, she is better organized than any of the declared candidates, with her O4P legions in nearly every state, particularly Iowa, quietly assembling names of volunteers and positioning themselves to strike as soon as she gives the word.

A Civil War analogy comes to mind. At Second Manassas in August 1862, Robert E. Lee was confronted with two Union Armies, whose combined strength was far greater than his own. He realized that he had to prevent them from uniting in order to defeat them separately. Understanding that the first Army–commanded by the timid George B. McClellan—would move slowly, Lee turned his attention to the other, commanded by the impetuous John Pope. Lee sent half his Army under Stonewall Jackson, perhaps 25,000 men, to lure Pope into battle, while keeping the other half, under James Longstreet, with him. Jackson mounted a lightning strike on the federals at Cedar Mountain, driving Pope back to the Rappahanock River, and then old Stonewall vanished into the Bull Run Mountains. Jeb Stuart hit him next, raiding Pope’s headquarters and making off with $350,000 in cash and Pope’s dress coat. Pope, enraged, took off after Jackson. When he finally found him two weeks later, Jackson was dug in on the railroad cut at the old Bull Run Battlefield from a year earlier.

Pope hurled his army of 62,000 against Jackson, trying to dislodge the stubborn rebels. At the end of the first day, Jackson’s lines had wavered but held. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to Pope, Lee had brought up the second half of his Army under Longstreet and positioned it on the federal left, concealed by the dense foliage. The next day, Pope renewed his attack on a two mile front, stretching Jackson’s line to the breaking point. Civil War historian Bruce Catton sets the scene:

“The Yankees drove against Jackson on a two mile front stretching his line to the breaking point. His men threw rocks at the attackers when their ammunition ran out. Still Longstreet waited. Not until the last Yankee reserves had been thrown against Jackson did he take action. Then he launched his counterattack. An artillery barrage smashed the left side of the Union forces. Rebel infantry, ‘screaming like demons emerging from the earth’, fell upon the surprised Yankees as Longstreet’s five divisions rolled against the Union flank…. As Pope tried to halt Longstreet on his left, Jackson hit him on the right. The whole Union line bent like a horseshoe.”

Palin’s hit and run tactics of last summer in Iowa and New Hampshire are reminiscent of Jackson’s and Stuart’s tactics in August 1862. She continues to live rent free in the heads of the permanent political class, and her lightning strikes have forced them to react to HER, rather than forcing her to react to THEM. Just when the Establishment begins to hope it is rid of her, she pops up unexpectedly, and strikes it a blow that sends it reeling. At the same time, she manages to keep her intentions (and especially her timing) obscure enough to deny her enemies an easy fix on her as a target.

The huge vacuum in the current field, coupled with the many hints she has dropped over the last four months, suggest that Palin will enter the fray, but at the last possible moment, when the maximum amount of the Establishment’s reserves, both financial and political, have been exhausted, or at least committed. Her entry will generate a tidal wave of excitement and energy, a political feu d’enfer reminiscent of the artillery barrage at Second Manassas, through which her legions of supporters will pour to vanquish the tattered, dispirited Hessian hirelings of the Establishment.

To those who are pleading “Run, Sarah, run”, my rejoinder is “Wait, Sarah, wait.” Strike when the maximum advantage has been gained. Not before.

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Feel free to pass this around. Just make sure that Brice’s Crossroads gets the credit.

This REALLY Stinks September 23, 2011

It is very upsetting to realize just how much taxpayer money has gone to fund/bail out the crony capitalism that congress has been indulging in for the last fifty years or so. Is there anybody in the past fifty years of congressional history who HASN’T put their hand into the till?

This is much worse than just “a scandal,” like Watergate or Teapot Dome. It is a monstrous breach of faith with the taxpaying citizens of this country.

When we vote for a candidate, we are basically trusting them to be honest with us about what they plan to do with the money the government forces us to pay in taxes every year. We blindly believe we are allowing them to spend our hard-earned money honestly, on the things we think are helpful, profitable, and that will move our country forward to even more prosperity. When we ask why these things don’t work, get bloated, or lose their intent, we are given a great story about how the other party has highjacked/undermined/twisted their wonderful plans, and in order to rectify the problems, they will need more money from us.

We send them money for education and they line their pockets and invest it in crony companies, and our education system crumbles to a world laughingstock. I am sure I’m not the only one who remembers when American students tested higher across the board worldwide than students from other countries. Now we graduate students who can’t read their diplomas, let alone calculate the cost of a soft drink and a pretzel. We send money for emergency relief of disasters only to see it go to cheesy fly-by-night crony companies that make repeated visits to the white house for chummy chats and more special treatment.

The last thing we expect is that those presumed-honest candidates are fonching at the bit to get to Washington to get at all that money to fling around like a madwoman’s sh*t on crony companies who gave large sums in return for special treatment and tax breaks.

I’m really sickened to realize the trillions upon trillions of dollars congress has filched from the taxpayers over the last forty or fifty years. I know Solyndra is just the tip of the iceberg, and it makes me wonder if there is even a single member of either house who hasn’t participated in this grand ripoff. There must be a “legacy trust” in place that replaces one crony-lover with another as terms expire or officials die. They have made us pay for all their boondoggles, their stupid “investments,” and made us all pay taxes for the privilege of being poked. The mind simply boggles.

The REAL scandal in all of this is not just the pay-to-play cronyism of Solyndra, but the ongoing corruption of congress. We have been blinded by their smooth words, their carefully coiffed hair, their photogenic poses in front of the sycophantic media. We have allowed, even depended upon, a lying, buttkissing national and local media to shape our opinions and tell us what we should think about all these elected criminals we have stupidly, blindly, and ignorantly voted into office, time after time, year after year.

We, as taxpayers, should be ashamed that we have allowed this to continue since the days of FDR, at least. When people who can be corrupted are put into positions of high power, only corruption can result.

No wonder the establishment elitists in Washington are scared to death of people like Sarah Palin and Herman Cain.

Graveyard Whistling, Part 2 September 21, 2011

LOL! There are times when I read news articles online, and I think, “Man, I couldn’t make this stuff up on LSD!” Leftists are funny when they think they are cornered. They resort to name-calling, yelling, arm-waving, finger-pointing, and sometimes even slobbering (I’m sure this is unintentional, isn’t it?). At any rate, when we give them enough room, they generally show us their true colors.

They love to hate God, and show their hatred by acting out like spoiled kindergarteners. Now, God is big-hearted enough to love them in spite of their tantrums. I’m sure He’s heard worse from worse people down through the ages. Having a few Americans who have had wonderful lives in the Land of The Free and the Home of the Brave, blessed by the same God they are showering with hate, start ranting about how “insignificant” God is to them isn’t going to make Him zot them (although, I’m not going to rule it out…). One of the things they like to do is destroy Bibles, like that is going to hurt God physically, or force Him to retaliate, or something. I could never figure this one out.

As a Bible-believing Catholic, I am here to tell these misinformed people that although the Bible contains the Word of God, it remains just a book — one that we revere because of its contents, but it is still only paper, glue, and ink. Destroying the container in this case does not destroy the contents. But to make a big show of ripping it up is akin to teasing a bear. Just make sure that stick you are poking him with is a double-barreled 12-gauge loaded with rifled slugs, or you might find your destiny beside a forest gametrail in a pile of scat. (Obviously, this means, don’t declare war on God the Father unless you come fully armed.)

The point I am making is this: Threatening to offend God Almighty with one’s juvenile behavior only exposes that behavior. God is still loving these silly people, even while they moon Him and call Him names. God didn’t create anyone for perdition, and we only go there by our own deliberate choices. So, these people aren’t doing anything to God but making Him sad that they rejected His message and His unconditional love. But they aren’t the first to do these kinds of things, and they surely won’t be the last.

Say, isn’t it getting close to Halloween? Seems like all these characters start crawling out from behind the cupboards and from under the linoleum this time of year. If I were them, I’d be just a liiiitle bit nervous, and not want to be standing all alone, holding a 9-iron out on the fairway some Easter Sunday morning. If you get my drift…

Getting There Is Half The Fun September 19, 2011

Some months ago, I mentioned somewhere (I’m old. I can forget.) that it was time to start laughing at the administration. Little did I know that they would start the ball rolling themselves. First, they put up “Fight the Smears,” which was fired up to catch the bad names some people wanted to call the current resident. It was quickly pulled down after the huge majority of entries were of the comical kind, like, “My daughter called her little brother a “Poopy-head.” Is that a smear, even if it was the truth?”

But the administration, which has NO sense of humor, was not amused (a scientific impossibility), and took the page down from the white house website. Since then, most people have had to carry their comedy around in their pockets, stored on their androids and i-pads, with no place to post it to but each other, and where’s the fun in that?

Then, suddenly, last week, a great light dawned! Lo, and behold! The WH had put up another site for the same thing, called, get this: “Attack Watch!” It, too, was designed to catch people saying bad things about the thin-skinned current resident. But, they put it up on Twitter, with a hashtag (# for those of you in Rio Linda), which meant everbody with an account could post pretty much whatever they wished. Since then, the spigot has remained at full on, and the comments and “reports” are coming in at about one every two seconds or so. If there are any serious “reports,” I haven’t seen any.

If there is one thing a narcissist hates, it’s ridicule. Hard to guess what the fallout is going to be, but it looks like getting there will be most of the fun.

Unvarnished September 15, 2011

In 2011, Cost of Government Day falls on August 12. Working people must toil 224 days out of the year just to meet all costs imposed by government, a full 27 days longer than 2008.

In other words, in 2011 the cost of government consumes 61.42 percent of national income.

–National Taxpayers’ Union

Rush had a caller on recently who said something very interesting. The man was Cuban, and his father had been driven off the island by Castro and his Communist minions. The man was very proud of his conservative roots, and quoted his father as saying, “When the rich man is oppressed by the government, the poor man never recovers.”

The top 1% of income earners pay 38% of all federal tax revenue. The top 5% pay 59%. The top 10% pay 70%. The top 25% pay 86%. The top 50% pay 97.3%. Conversely, the bottom 50% pay merely 2.7% of all federal tax revenue.

Then there is THIS.

And this.

Giving Praise September 14, 2011

“Bulls don’t praise cows, let alone their Creator. Explaining the phenomenon of praise is a real challenge for the Darwinian; it doesn’t appear to confer any particular advantage in that ruthless struggle for survival we’re always hearing about. I can understand why atheists think religion does a lot of evil, because sometimes it surely does. But they never explain why man wastes so much time and energy in activities they insist are pointless and have no biological utility. If we found all the cattle in the pasture dancing and mooing in unison, wouldn’t we be curious about why they were behaving in this extraordinary fashion? I suppose killing your own children makes some sort of sense from an atheistic and Darwinian point of view. If survival is a ruthless competition, your kids are your competitors, right? No wonder Darwin’s legions are in favor of this ‘choice’.”
—Joseph Sobran

Sometimes, pundits can say more than preachers. I wish I could hear this kind of statement in a homily on Sunday morning.

My young-motherhood was a rocky, messed-up time for me. That situation has since been rectified, thank God, by time, insight, and experience; but it was a frightening time for all of us, and I’m sure that I’m not the only young mother who struggled through the early years without the companionship and good example of a husband and father. Divorce is no better for kids than it is for their parents, but sometimes, it’s the only option. Stress and anxiety are constant companions of young mothers in this situation.

But, not once, not one time, did I ever fail to praise my children for their attempts. I had a private set of rules regarding the raising of children, and Number One was this: “Never, ever tell your children they are bad, worthless, failures, naughty, or evil.” Rule Number Two was similar: “Never tell your children you wish they’d never been born.” There were a few subsequent rules, but these two were the ones I referred to most frequently.

If you are wondering how I disciplined my children without resorting to the breaking of these rules, it’s simple. I told them, as soon as they were old enough to understand, what the rules were, what the punishment would be, and did my level best to carry it out. Rule Number Three stated: “Never make a promise of any kind to your child that you cannot be sure you can keep.” So, when they were promised a spanking for the breaking of the rules, they got one. Broken promises are bad things for children, but lack of consistent discipline is worse.

But praise is often left for later, and “later” never comes. Children live to please their parents, and it’s a rare child who doesn’t love even an abusive parent. Praising children as they try to measure up to the rules grownups lay down only makes sense.

A lot of times, parents lose sight of the fact that those children in their care aren’t always going to be children. Every day of their lives brings them closer to adulthood and being in a position to make their own set of rules and responsibilities. Praising a child for the good attempts he makes at keeping the rules is much better for him (and the parent) than berating him for the failure to keep the full letter of the rule.

Telling a child he is bad, a failure, or stupid is a self-fulling prophecy, like branding him with a branding iron. Our children, as stated above, live to please us, believe it or not. They want desperately to receive our approval, and even though it might not look like it to us, they really are trying to measure up.

When a correction was necessary in the raising of my kids, it was immediate, sharp, and impressive, something I learned from my mother, who appeared to have a double dose of the “parenting gene.” It was much easier on all of us for her to not waste time and emotional energy yelling at a kid who was busy tuning her out. It was usually accompanied by the board of education being applied liberally to the child’s seat of learning. The lesson was usually well-learned, the child’s “heart” was spared, and life could proceed to the next lesson. Mothers are put on earth to civilize their families, which, nine times out of ten, is a thankless, never-ending task. Mr. Sobran is so right in his statement above that it struck me as astonishing that nobody had thought of it before.

Praise is a uniquely human attribute. As Sobran stated, animals don’t praise each other, their owners, or their Creator. But even animals appreciate being praised: “Good dog!” and “Nice kitty!” are music to a pet’s ears, because they understand the tone of the praise.

When we who believe discuss the praise of our Creator, we are talking about returning to Him the only thing we have that we can offer. He needs nothing, especially nothing that we as His creatures, can provide. We can only express our gratitude for life in general, and our individual lives in particular, by praising Him.

When we abort our children, we are silencing their future ability to offer that simple gift to their Creator; throwing away a gift given in good faith, and we are narrowing our own humanity, shrinking our own ability to love. “Life is for me, and not for you,” is what we are telling those destroyed children. It’s pretty safe to guess that the people who think killing a child in its mother’s womb is a “good” thing never praise anyone or anything except themselves, and they especially do not praise God.

Children are gifts to us on earth while we abide here, and they are created out of God’s love for us while we inhabit this mortal world. What we make of them as they approach adulthood is their heritage from us, and the hope is that we will mold them into the kind of adults who see praise as a natural and desirable expression of love and appreciation. The best way to assure this is to praise them as they grow, and to refrain from calling “evil” what God has pronounced as “good.”