Happy 30th Birthday, Internet! 9 Reasons Why I Love You

January 1, 2013 was the 30th birthday of the modern-day Internet.

The standard computer communication protocol, (TCP/IP), which is still the “common language” used to send and receive information between computers, was officially used for the first time across the United States Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency network on Jan. 1, 1983. It would pave the way for the World Wide Web, just six years later.

Our lives have changed rapidly since that time; can you imagine how different our lives today would be if we didn’t have the internet for shopping, banking, making vacation plans or even just staying in touch with friends?

In honor of this birthday, here are 9 reasons (in no particular order) why I love the internet:

1.  It’s a teacher’s favorite toy. Need to liven up your lesson on French art? Just go to the Louvre site, and show your students the real Mona Lisa and some of those Greek and Roman treasures. Want your World Language students to communicate in their target language with students from other countries? The internet will let you do that too, and if you want to save paper, your students can submit their papers via the internet.

2.  It’s free (basically). Really, how many things fall into that category these days?

3.  It has a magical quality about it. That may be because I’m old enough to remember well the days before the internet. As a freelance writer, I used to spend hours in libraries seeking out information about dyslexia, violence on television, English tea cups or whatever my current topic was. Now I sit at my desk, do an internet search and gather a multitude of information in nano-seconds.

4.  It’s more or less democratic. Anyone can post on the internet, and you have, at least theoretically, the same chances of success on the internet as the next person. The opportunities for everyone are waiting to be grabbed.

5.  It enables me to stay in touch with friends and family in other countries without paying a fortune. Twenty years ago, phoning home to the UK cost around a dollar a minute, and about fifty percent of the time, the call got cut off or I couldn’t make out what my mother was saying. I don’t miss those phone calls.

6.  Gifs. They are fun to look at and sometimes, instead of a lengthy reply to an email, you can send just the right gif, and that says it all.

7.  Thousands upon millions of pictures of cats. There may be more pictures of cats on the internet than people on the planet.

8.  Shopping. I loathe visiting malls, but with the internet, I can purchase items and some guy drops them off right at my door. Even better – if it’s an ebook, a movie, or a video game, I don’t even have to walk to the door. It just magically shows up on my computer.

9.  Care2 and Care2 online petitions!

Has the internet changed your life? (Assuming you are old enough to remember life before the internet.) If so, is it for the better?

By Judy Molland/Care2/January 23, 2013

Another Term Begins

Obama's Inaugural Swearing In Ceremony

35 States File Suit

This is something that is over due to be passed, So all American's are treated the same under the laws of the Country. And NO ONE is above the law.

Governors of 35 states have filed suit against the Federal Government for imposing unlawful burdens upon them. It only takes 38 (of the 50) States to convene a Constitutional Convention.
This will take less than thirty seconds to read. If you agree, please pass it on.

This is an idea that we should address.

For too long we have been too complacent about the workings of Congress. Many citizens had no idea that members of Congress could retire with the same pay after only one term, that they specifically exempted themselves from many of the laws they have passed (such as being exempt from any fear of prosecution for sexual harassment) while ordinary citizens must live under those laws. The latest is to exempt themselves from the Healthcare Reform that passed, in all of its forms. Somehow, that doesn't seem logical. We do not have an elite that is above the law. I truly don't care if they are Democrat, Republican, Independent or whatever . The self-serving must stop.

If each person that receives/reads this will forward it on to 20 people, in three days, most people in The United States of America will have the message. This is one proposal that really should be passed around.

Proposed 28th Amendment to the United States Constitution: "Congress shall make no law that applies to the citizens of the United States that does not apply equally to the Senators and/or Representatives; and, Congress shall make no law that applies to the Senators and/or Representatives that does not apply equally to the citizens of the United States ..." -Source/Author Unknown

Another Hero, Lance Armstrong Bits The Dust

Doping Is Cheating

Gun Ownership And People Power

At a Brady Center event, its Legal Action Project Director asked retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens whether having a right to a cell phone might be a more universal form of self-defense than gun ownership.

“Maybe you have some kind of constitutional right to have a cell phone with a pre-dialed 911 number at your bedside, and that might provide you with a little better protection than a gun, which you’re not used to using,” Justice Stevens mumbled.

Stevens, who often seemed unclear on the difference between a right and an entitlement, had a point. Why bother waiting for the laborious process of using a gun, when you can instantly dial 911 and wait twenty minutes while being murdered for the police to arrive?

There still is no constitutional right to a cell phone, but you’re already paying into a Universal Service Fund that does just that, providing cell phones to any and all, courtesy of Lebanese-Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim’s company, who, when he isn’t making high interest loans to the New York Times, shovels prepaid government cell phones into the ghetto.

Gun control advocates have been digging away at the 2nd Amendment because gun ownership is an individual right. And they don’t believe in individual rights. Their gospel is group rights. If the 2nd Amendment assigned the right to bear arms to each group by its degree of persecution, liberals would find it much more acceptable no matter what the annual death toll was. An LGBT 2nd Amendment would really float their boat.

Justice Stevens and the Legal Director of the Brady Project were pondering how to make an individual right fair by universalizing it and redistributing it to a group right. Some people have guns and others don’t. But everyone can have a government mandated right to a cell phone… except perhaps the Amish.

If you assume that rights belong to the group, rather than the individual, then pre-dialed cell phones are a better solution than guns. Just push 1 if you’re being murdered, 2 if you’re being raped, 3 if your house is being set on fire and 4 if you just realized that your health plan doesn’t provide abortion coverage on all major legal holidays.

The police may not get there in time, but they will get there to government specifications and will take action in line with municipal, state and federal policies in deference to group rights. Governments can issue a directive for how many arrests of how many people they want to see, based on type of crime and race. And that is the kind of enforcement you will get backed by federal grants to local communities and Department of Justice lawsuits. Whether or not the police officer will be there in ten minutes or twenty, whether he will even take your statement or just doodle something while you talk, depends on Washington D.C.

Group rights are the right to wait in a government line to find out whether your request will be filled or not based on your socioeconomic status, race, gender, transgender, sexual orientation and surfing abilities. And the line, in this case, happens to be the phone line to the 911 system, which will send someone to help you at a rate that depends on all the number juggling involving money, crime statistics and votes.

The 2nd Amendment is a very different creature. The controllers would like to turn it into a group right. Replace the home rifle with an IOU for a cell phone from Carlos Slim that will allow you to dial 911. And they would equally like to turn the 1st Amendment into a right to say the things that are socially beneficial, while outlawing speech that is not socially beneficial.

When rights serve the group, or the idealized arrangement of groups meant to provide the perfect statistical balance between skin colors, genders, lack of genders, and choice of partners, then the individual has no rights except as a member of Team White, Team Black, Team Gay or Team Badly Confused.

A gun is an individual thing. It’s hard for a group to own a gun. You can give Team Gay, Team Union or Team Korean Men in Wheelchairs a cell phone link to a central network of law enforcement support services, but a gun is a thing that an individual buys and learns to use. It is not a network, but an object, its power does not come from pushbutton access to a plea for government aid, but from the skill and courage of the individual. Gun power is merit based.

The left shouts “Power to the People,” but doesn’t truly mean it. It would like to replace Power to the People with Pre-dialed Cell Phones to the People and Lines at Government Offices to the People and Write to Your Local Congressman to the People.

The people aren’t supposed to have guns; they’re supposed to have government on speed dial. The people aren’t supposed to have power; they’re supposed to have a hand out to the government which will decide whether to help them or not based on its own priorities. And if the help doesn’t arrive, then they can shout “Power to the People” outside government offices and demand that the rich people give more money to the government so that it can help them faster.

The Director of the Brady Legal Project asked the retired Supreme Court Justice, “The Supreme Court held that the 2nd Amendment assures our right to have a handgun in the home for self-defense as you say. This question’s asked: ‘That protects only gun owners. What about those who don’t have guns? Surely they have a right of self-defense. Instead of relying on the 2nd Amendment and dealing with gun laws, wouldn’t it be more rational to rely directly on the right we all have to self-defense?”

Like all gun control proposals, it would be rational. Just as it was rational in the USSR to move all the farmers to collective farms in order to increase wheat production and just as it was rational to bail out the banks and then spend billions more stimulating the economy. Putting all your eggs in one centrally planned basket is rational. It’s also stupid. Rational is not the same thing as right and it’s certainly not the same thing as individual rights.

The Constitution holds to the irrational idea that power should be vested in the individual and that fairness comes from respecting individual rights, rather than relying on government to level all the playing fields and all the heads. It holds to the notion still that individual rights become universalized through individual power rather than through government power.

The Bill of Rights determines that the people shall have power, while the gun controllers determine that the people shall have a place on a government line.

The Constitution determines that the people shall be armed and the gun controllers determine that each man, woman and child shall have the right to spend the last 30 seconds of their life begging the government to save them. –By Daniel Greenfield/Front Page Mag/January 3, 2013

10 Reasons to Abolish the UN

African American History Month - To Be Or Not To Be?

The month of February is designated as Black History, or African-American History Month. However, it shares that spotlight with American Heart Month, An Affair to Remember Month, Canned Food Month, and National Cherry Month, among others.

Dedicating one month to Black American history has become increasingly controversia of late. One of the most notable critics is Morgan Freeman, the renowned African-American actor, who in an interview with Mike Wallace of 60 Minutes, expressed the opinion that the nation should not relegate the history of African-Americans to only one month a year.

While Freeman’s perception carries some validity, it may be important to gain some perspective on the foundations of Black History Month to appreciate its value within America’s history.

African-American History Month, or Black History Month, was established in 1976, but it was developed upon the foundation of Negro History Week, established fifty years earlier by Dr. Carter G. Woodson. The original intent in creating Negro History Week was to rectify what Dr. Woodson considered an injustice.

He recognized that the history of African Americans had been distorted, ignored, or was missing entirely from U.S. history texts.

As a historian, Dr. Carter G. Woodson perceived very real gaps in the complete story of America and responded to the need to correct inaccurate information by digging up the neglected history of African Americans that had been buried in the dust of the past.

However, before he took up the cause of developing the serious study of black history, there was a general indifference, and in some cases, deliberate neglect among historians with regard to black history.

Education was Dr. Woodson’s life. He pursued an education as the means of climbing out of poverty, dedicating himself to the mission of helping to educate  all Americans about the history of African Americans. Along his path to receiving a PhD from Harvard University, he took serious note of the distorted information and misrepresentations, or the lack of written information available to the general public regarding African Americans in U.S. history.

Carter Godwin Woodson, whose parents were former slaves, was born into a large, poor family in New Canton, Virginia where he was denied unrestricted access to education in Virginia, finding it difficult to regularly attend school.

However, through self-instruction, he was able to grasp the basics of a primary school education. His family moving to West Virginia he eventually entered high school at the age of 20. He obtained his diploma within two years, taught school locally after his graduation, and in 1900, became the principal of the high school from which he graduated.

Woodson eventually went on to earn a master's degree in European history from the University of Chicago, and ultimately completed his Ph.D. in history from Harvard University in 1912. He was the first student whose parents were former slaves and the second black American (W. E. B. DuBois was the first) to receive a doctorate from Harvard.

Upon completion of his education, Woodson took up the cause of filling the obvious void and correcting the misinformation prevalent in the history of African Americans in the U.S. Dr. Woodson explained that African American contributions "were overlooked, ignored, and even suppressed by the writers of history textbooks and the teachers who use them." His intent was to overcome this and encourage other academics and scholars to begin to earnestly study such history and to ensure that schools taught it.

He wrote several books on the subject and by 1915, Woodson co-founded the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History. A year later, he began the publication of the Journal of Negro History which was renamed the Journal of African American History in 2002. Ten years later, after lobbying schools and various organizations to participate, he created Negro History Week as a way of promoting the awareness of African American history to the general public. He selected the second week in February, to coincide with the birthdays of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass.

Because of his efforts, historians consider Carter G. Woodson the father of Black History. Over the years, his Negro History Week evolved into what is now Black History Month, celebrated each February since 1976. That is why today it is virtually impossible to find a U.S. History textbook that makes no reference to black history and why students across the country from the elementary school level to the college level study the history of African Americans as part of American history.

According to historian John H. Franklin, Dr. Woodson “continued to express hope that Negro History Week would outlive its usefulness.” In many respects, it is possible that Black History Month has fulfilled what Dr. Woodson set out to do and in that light, perhaps it has outlived its usefulness. Morgan Freeman may be right when he states that Black history is just one part of American history and Dr. Woodson probably would have agreed if he had lived into the twenty first century. –Dennis Jamison/Washington Times/February 2, 2012

What 'Straight-Acting' Really Means

"Straight-acting" and "gay-acting"—in the end, it's all just an act.
When I first came out of the closet, I would sometimes say things like: "I am gay, but I played football and I was a Marine!"— as if that would make things more acceptable and make me feel more manly. In other words, I considered myself a "straight-acting" gay.  Now I realize how sadly silly such a statement is, and obviously based on deep insecurities and ridiculous stereotypes. But such internalized homophobia is a common ailment among we gays brought up in a heterosexually-dominated society full of absurd myths and misconceptions about "masculinity" and "manhood."

In fact, I think "straight-acting" straights are just as insecure as "straight-acting" gays and, for that matter, "gay-acting" gays—"acting" being the key word here.

What the hell is "straight-acting?" I suppose, since I spent much of my life in various insecure stages of denial, suppression, hiding, self-judgment and self hatred—and acting out the stereotypes, myths and misconceptions of being "straight"—I was at one time indeed "straight-acting." Personally, I believe my performance was worthy of an Oscar.

Now, when I see gay men state that they are "straight-acting" on places like the "men seeking men" (m4m) posts on Craigslist, or on ManHunt, I sometimes write them and ask: "If you were 'straight-acting' wouldn't you be posting in the 'men seeking woman' (m4w) section or on WomanHunt?" When people tell me, or ask me if I am "straight-acting" I generally respond: "I am emotionally and physically attracted to men. I fall in love with men. I have sex with men. That seems pretty 'gay-acting' to me." (I saw a meme on Facebook with a photo of a guy saying: “My boyfriend said I should be more straight-acting, so I left him for a woman.”)

While recently chatting with a friend I told him about a date I was going on with an intelligent, cute, fun guy. He asked me if my date was a "straight-acting" guy or "effeminate." Considering that the guy was going on a romantic date with me, who also happens to be a guy, with the potential for it to lead to a possible relationship and sex, it seemed like a strange question. I explained to my friend why I think asking if a gay man is "straight-acting" seems strange and funny, to which he responded, "But what else would you call it?"

Good question. What would, or should, we call it? Perhaps we don't have to call it anything—perhaps we could just accept that we humans come in a wonderfully interesting and diverse array of personalities, traits, behaviors and ways in which we innately desire and crave to experience and express love and sex. The very word "effeminate," when applied to gay men, seems to suggest that they’re "not like a man" but "more like a female," and therefore plays right into myths, misconceptions and stereotypes of what is "masculine" and what is "feminine." I know plenty of gay guys who are strong athletes and I know plenty of straight guys who are pretty good at interior decorating. Some may say they are "straight-acting" gays and "gay-acting" straights—but the thing is, they're not acting!

It's time to drop the stereotypes, drop the labels, drop the myths and misconceptions of manhood, and start embracing and accepting people, all people, for who and what we are—starting with and including (and perhaps most importantly) ourselves!

I'm done acting straight, and I'm done acting gay. I just want to be me, a goofy guy who happens to be emotionally and physically attracted to men. Yes, I know, sounds pretty gay, hey?

And indeed it is!

By Dave Stalling/Advocate/January 4, 2013

Somebody Need To Pay For My 15 Kids

This Is A Great Test

If You Ever Wondered Which Side Of The Fence You Sit On?

If a Republican doesn't like guns, he doesn't buy one.
If a Democrat doesn't like guns, he wants all guns outlawed.

If a Republican is a vegetarian, he doesn't eat meat.
If a Democrat is a vegetarian, he wants all meat products banned for everyone.

If a Republican is homosexual, he quietly leads his life.
If a Democrat is homosexual, he demands legislated respect.

If a Republican is down-and-out, he thinks about how to better his situation.
A Democrat wonders who is going to take care of him.

If a Republican doesn't like a talk show host, he switches channels.
Democrats demand that those they don't like be shut down.

If a Republican is a non-believer, he doesn't go to church.
A Democrat non-believer wants any mention of God and religion silenced.

If a Republican decides he needs health care, he goes about shopping for it, or may choose a job that provides it.
A Democrat demands that the rest of us pay for his.

If a Republican reads this, he'll share it with his friends can have a good laugh.
A Democrat will delete it because he's "offended".

Author Unknown

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

Abbott And Costello Held A Discussion About The U.S. Unemployment Situation.

COSTELLO: I want to talk about the unemployment rate in America.

ABBOTT: Good subject. Terrible times. It's 9%.

COSTELLO: That many people are out of work?

ABBOTT: No, that's 16%.

COSTELLO: You just said 9%.

ABBOTT: 9% Unemployed.

COSTELLO: Right 9% out of work.

ABBOTT: No, that's 16%.

COSTELLO: OK, so it's 16% unemployed.

ABBOTT: No, that's 9%...

COSTELLO: Wait a minute...is it 9% or 16%?

ABBOTT: 9% are unemployed. 16% are out of work.

COSTELLO: If you are “out of work” you are “unemployed.”

ABBOTT: No, you can't count the "out of work" as the unemployed. You have to look for work to be unemployed.

COSTELLO: But they are out of work!

ABBOTT: No, you miss my point.

COSTELLO: What point?

ABBOTT: Someone who doesn't look for work, can't be counted with those who look for work. It wouldn't be fair.

COSTELLO: To whom?

ABBOTT: The unemployed.

COSTELLO: But they are ALL out of work!

ABBOTT: No, the unemployed are actively looking for work. Those who are out of work stopped looking. They gave up. And, if you give up, you are no longer in the ranks of the unemployed.

COSTELLO: So if you're off the unemployment roles, that would count as less unemployment?

ABBOTT: Absolutely! Unemployment would go down.

COSTELLO: The unemployment just goes down because you don't look for work?

ABBOTT: Absolutely! That's how you get to 9%. Otherwise, it would be 16%. You don't want to read about 16% unemployment, do ya?

COSTELLO: That would be frightening.

ABBOTT: Absolutely.

COSTELLO: Wait, I got a question for you. That means there are two ways to bring down the unemployment number?

ABBOTT: You are right. Two ways is correct.

COSTELLO: Unemployment can go down if someone gets a job?

ABBOTT: Correct.

COSTELLO: And unemployment can also go down if you stop looking for a job?

ABBOTT: Bingo!

COSTELLO: So, there are two ways to bring unemployment down, and the easier of the two is to just stop looking for work.

ABBOTT: Now you're talking like an economist.

COSTELLO: I don't even understand what I just said.

ABBOTT: Now you're talking like a politician.

Author Unknown

Obama’s Failed Second Term

Suck It, Mayans: I’m Still Here

I’ll be honest. A few years ago when I first heard about the Mayan prophecy thing, I was totally relieved.

The timing was kind of funny, actually. Not funny ha ha, but funny sad: It was three weeks after I had given birth to my first child: My breasts looked like Beyonce’s ass. I hadn’t slept in, oh fuck it who cares, I was wrist deep in baby shit, and eyeball deep in Postpartum depression. (Friends: Tom Cruise is a dangerous fool — because when you find yourself weeping through a pelvic exam, you seriously need a lot more than vitamins to pull you out of it, believe you me.)

The details are a bit droll: But let’s just say it was pretty rough going there for a while. (If you want to know more, you know where to find me.)

Anyway. Since I already felt my life was wasted in a wasteland of something that crept clear through to the other side of my worst nightmares, when my friend mentioned something about the world ending in 2012, I thought, sweet! Only a few more years of this living hell, and then we’ll all go together in some kind of cosmic orgasm.

And even after things got better a few years later – I still found myself thinking fondly of the time when the world would end — soon! — and I could stop going through the motions of a life spent counting down to each bedtime.

I was just so freaking tired. Of everything, really. And December 21, 2012 became my happy place – my “meh, who cares about paying my bills on time? The world’s going to end in T minus 3 years and 7 months and 23 days! Who cares if the highlight of my day is when there’s a good Friends rerun on tv? It’ll all be over soon!”

Reruns, people. I measured my life in reruns.

And then, shortly after moving to Israel two years ago, I had a horrible thought: What if the world isn’t going to end? What if life is going to continue for another 50 years?

And that scared me.

And then I got scared that it scared me.

And then…. And then… And then… I stopped sleeping. And eating. And I got on my purple bike and rode in circles around the fields night after night. Stars shattered around me, as I thought about these things. This is my life. My tiny little life where I have no more impact on the world than I do on myself.

And that really scared me.

I thought about my kids: My daughter, the fairy child with eyes that shine like river rocks. My son, half Spiderman half Smurf (he likes to go back and forth between the two.) And who am I? I am their mother who is waiting for the world to end.

And that was the real crisis. The turning point where I started blasting Eminem on my mp3 player:

    You better lose yourself in the music, the moment, you own it, you better never let it go. You only get one shot, do not miss your chance to blow: This opportunity comes once in a lifetime, yo.

And that’s when I started living this. Because we don’t know if we have the safety hatch of a Mayan apocalypse. Or a Heaven. Or reincarnation. Sorry, but we don’t know when the Messiah is going to show up. And I don’t care how strongly you believe in something else after this life, you will not convince me that whatever Afterlife there may or may not be is more important than this moment. Right here, right now,

Because  as far as I’m concerned, right now is our second or third or fourth or 100th chance to try to make it right.

So there you have it: Suck it, Mayans: I’m still here.

And I’m working on really being here. Even when it’s uphill in the rain. And as this new year begins T + however many days since the Mayan apocalypse didn’t happen, I am grateful. I am grateful that I am still alive to have a shot at seeing the good in others. I am grateful that I have such wonderful people in my life — from the people “back home”  in the US, to the people in this home in Israel, people I know in real life, and people I only know only by their status messages on Facebook, and their comments on mine.

I am grateful that I am here writing about all of this from my laptop on the kibbutz while my son counts the snail shells he collected from the garden and my daughter brushes my hair. I am grateful that I am still discovering how astonishing this world can be.

And I am grateful that when I am sooooo freaking tired, it’s for a good reason: I was too busy living to sleep.

It’s a new year, everyone. And I know this to be true: I really don’t want the world to end.

By Sarah Tuttle-Singer/Time of Israel/January 1, 2013

About the Author: Sarah Tuttle-Singer, the Times of Israel social media director, is an LA expat (reluctantly) growing roots in Israel. She is dangerous when bored. Visit Sarah’s blog by clicking here.

The Trillion Dollar Coin

It Is Legal For Men To Fire Women Because They’re Hot

Should a man be able to treat his female employees differently based on how sexy he thinks they are? Is it okay for him to give promotions and raises to a subordinate he is sleeping with instead of other, more deserving women? How about firing a woman because he finds her “irresistible?”

Federal courts think that all of this is just fine. The law has no problem with employment being a beauty contest for women.

The latest example comes from Iowa City, where a dentist fired a long-term employee because he  found her attractive. He was afraid he would start an affair with her and did not want to threaten his marriage, so she paid for his inability to control himself by losing her livelihood.

Ironically, there was no chance of an affair: the employee viewed the dentist as “a father figure,” the AP reports. She had no sexual interest in him. The entire thing was in his mind.

This is a crystal clear example of degrading and objectifying women: in the workplace, where people should be judged by merit, they are instead judged by how attractive they are to men. There might as well be wet t-shirt contests to allocate bonuses.

The logic judges apply to these cases is easy to follow. Take the case of the dentist: he had hired the woman and employed her for years, all his other employees were women, and after he fired Ms. Irresistible, he replaced her with another woman. So how could he be discriminating against women or based on gender? He was discriminating solely based on perceived hotness, and that is not illegal.

The same is true of the man who awards a promotion to the woman he is sleeping with. He may have overlooked other women and men who were better qualified, but it wasn’t because of their gender; it was because of his relationship with the worker he promoted.

Laws against sex discrimination aren’t the only ones that protect working women. There are also the more specific rules that prohibit sexual harassment. But they aren’t any help here.

Again, the judges apply those laws to these kinds of cases and find no legal violation. In the dentist’s case, the fired employee didn’t even bring a sexual harassment claim because the few “colorful” or potentially objectionable things the boss said to her didn’t happen to offend her. One example: he told her that if his pants were bulging, her clothing was too revealing. Classy.

Sexual harassment also doesn’t quite apply to the situation of a boss who is sleeping with a female subordinate and favors her over her colleagues. As long as the sexual relationship is consensual, is not tied to the subordinate’s employment (e.g., “sleep with me and I’ll promote you”), and the man is not sexually inappropriate with or around his other female subordinates, then legally there is no sexual harassment.

Still, it feels wrong. Something is off. Being fired for being too pretty is exactly the kind of objectification that feminism abhors. If the laws don’t cover this situation, maybe it is because the laws need some adjusting and not because the situation is acceptable.

Devising an alternative law is tricky. We don’t want to forbid employers from making personnel decisions based on appearance, because it is more reasonable for a boss to fire a salesperson of whatever gender who insists on dressing like a slob, or to ask a receptionist who dresses like she is at the beach to wear more professional-looking outfits. It isn’t focusing on appearance that rubs the wrong way, but focusing on sexual desirability.

Perhaps the solution is as simple as prohibiting bosses from making employment decisions based on their opinion of a worker’s sexiness. This would put the onus for the dentist’s lust on him, instead of punishing his innocent employee for it.

There is no good business argument against this rule. Legally, while it will be difficult to prove what was in someone’s mind when they made a promotion or firing decision, that is true in all discrimination cases and is not reason enough to make discrimination legal.

In addition to protecting the beautiful, adopting this rule might help give the more plain among us a leg up  – no more discriminating against them in order to hire a bombshell. –By Piper Hoffman/Care2/December 30, 2012

I remember when ...

PUSSY meant a CAT
SEX meant GENDER
BITCH was a FEMALE DOG
DICK was a NAME
BANG was a SOUND
RUBBER was an ERASER
ASS was an ANIMAL
SCREW was just a TOOL
HEAD meant a part of BODY
BALLS meant a round TOY
NUTS meant DRY FRUIT
69 was just a NUMBER

Then . . .

I Came Across All u Dirty Bastards & My Education Got Ruined...:P

-- Funny Jokes and Pictures

An Important History Lesson

Here is a history lesson which every American should have learned, but unfortunately obviously has not because the same mistakes have been repeated and are being repeating today.

Many people blindly believe the news media's reports without analyzing what they are being fed.

General Vo Nguyen Giap was a brilliant, highly respected leader of the North Vietnam Army. The following quote is from his memoirs (translated into English):

" ... What we don't understand is why Americans stopped the bombing of Hanoi. They had us on the ropes. If they had pressed us a little harder just for another day or two, we were ready to surrender! It was the same during the battle of Tet. The Americans had defeated us! We knew it, and we thought they knew it.

We were so elated to notice that the US mainstream media was helping us. They were causing more disruption in America than we could in the battlefields. We were ready to surrender (because) America had already won ... (but the US media evidently gave the wrong impression and news!) ..."
 

General Giap's memoirs confirmed what most Americans now know...but too late. The truth is: the Vietnam war was not lost in Vietnam -- it was lost at home and the news media had a lot to do with it. The same slippery slope sponsored by the US media is currently in use in America. A biased media has the enormous power to fool people, and cut out the heart and the will of the (American) public.

A truism worthy of note …

Do not fear the enemy for it can only score a victory or two. Fear the media for they can destroy your honor and your will!

"We can't give constitutional rights

to those who seek to destroy us!"

Cloud Computing And The Looming Global Privacy Battle

A grave threat is said to be stalking Europe. No, it isn’t the financial crisis and the potential demise of the euro. It’s the “rapacious” U.S. approach to privacy — which portends, for those engaged in the development of cloud architecture, a coming “clash” of privacy laws.

According to Viviane Reding, the European Union’s justice commissioner, cloud-based companies that collect personal data are violating fundamental human rights. “We . . . believe that companies who direct their services to European consumers should be subject to EU data protection laws. Otherwise, they should not be able to do business on our internal market,” Reding wrote in November. “This also applies to social networks with users in the EU. We have to make sure that they comply with EU law and that EU law is enforced, even if it is based in a third country and even if its data are stored in a ‘cloud.’ ”

Reding means what she says. Her plans are to back up E.U. data privacy requirements with rules that impose serious fines on businesses for violations. She noted in a December speech, “In a world of ever-increasing connectivity, our fundamental right to data protection is in this moment seriously tested. Although the basic principles and objectives of the 1995 [European data privacy law] remain valid, the rules need to be adapted to new technological challenges.”

Simply put, the fundamental question about international Internet governance over the next decade is going to be whose law dictates control — and the Europeans are making a bold play to say that the answer is “Europe’s.”

This raises a challenge for the private sector and for governments: When the user is a private-sector company, the transition to cloud storage and processing services will create difficult questions over jurisdiction. Imagine you are a company, seeking to do business in Europe. What if a country outside of Europe — say, the one(s) where your servers are maintained — contends that its law also governs, and that law is inconsistent with Europe’s? And what about the law of the home country (say, the United States), where the data-storage provider is headquartered? The conflict of applicable laws will create great uncertainty; uncertainty breeds hesitancy and the loss of entrepreneurial vibrancy. In other words, conflicting legal and technical requirements have the potential to crush innovation.

When the customer is a government, these legal issues are confounded by political concerns. If government data is stored overseas, it may be subject to legal control by another nation. The question is made more acute by Congress’s move in December to require some federal agencies, such as the Defense Department, to use commercial cloud services instead of in-house, or private, clouds. Now we will need to ask when European privacy laws may apply to Defense Department data held in the commercial cloud — hardly a question that U.S. policymakers are eager to answer.

Rather than confront such scenarios across multiple issues, another option should be developed. The globalized nature of the Internet and the distributed nature of cloud architecture suggest the need for a universal set of rules to protect privacy; rules that apply to cloud services everywhere on the network. But there is little reason to be sanguine about the prospects for a satisfactory global privacy regime.

A set of global rules will be difficult to achieve. International structures are notoriously cumbersome and slow-moving; this is a particular challenge in the context of quickly developing cloud technology. And international organizations’ governance structures are often universally inclusive, which means that countries with little interest in Internet freedom or accessibility may have a disproportionate influence on the rules adopted.

The alternative, however, is equally problematic. If development of privacy rules and regulations is left to individual countries, one of three scenarios is likely to result: Heralded by E.U. actions, more fragmented regulation may emerge as non-European countries try to impose their own privacy views on an unruly network. As a condition of access to a market, they will hold hostage providers who use cloud services — in effect, trying to balkanize the Internet. Another possibility is a rush to the bottom as countries compete to attract commercial cloud services by minimizing privacy protections.

The most likely result, however, is a privacy clash as the United States and the European Union compete to impose their will. This is the worst possible outcome, pitting natural allies against each other. U.S. diplomacy should urgently focus on dissuading Europe from unilateral action while developing a comprehensive “Western” approach to cloud privacy. That type of agreement on privacy principles would drive favorable policy development and set the stage for safe and effective expansion of cloud services. –By  Michael Chertoff/Washington Post/February 9, 2012

About the Author: Michael Chertoff was secretary of homeland security from 2005 to 2009. He is co-founder and managing principal of the Chertoff Group, a global security and risk-management firm that advises clients on cyber security, including cloud computing.

Wal-Mart vs. The Morons

1. Americans spend $36,000,000 at Wal-Mart Every hour of every day.

2. This works out to $20,928 profit every minute!

3. Wal-Mart will sell more from January 1 to St. Patrick's Day (March 17th) than Target sells all year.

4. Wal-Mart is bigger than Home Depot + Kroger + Target +Sears + Costco + K-Mart combined.

5. Wal-Mart employs 1.6 million people, is the world's largest private employer, and most speak English.

6. Wal-Mart is the largest company in the history of the world.

7. Wal-Mart now sells more food than Kroger and Safeway combined, and keep in mind they did this in only fifteen years.

8. During this same period, 31 big supermarket chains sought bankruptcy.

9. Wal-Mart now sells more food than any other store in the world.

10. Wal-Mart has approx 3,900 stores in the USA of which 1,906 are Super Centers; this is 1,000 more than it had five years ago.

11. This year 7.2 billion different purchasing experiences will occur at Wal-Mart stores. (Earth's population is approximately 6.5 Billion.)

12. 90% of all Americans live within fifteen miles of a Wal-Mart.

You may think that I am complaining, but I am really laying the ground work for suggesting that MAYBE we should hire the guys who run Wal-Mart to fix the economy.

This should be read and understood by all Americans… Democrats, Republicans, EVERYONE!!

To President Obama and all 535 voting members of the Legislature

It is now official that the majority of you are corrupt morons:

a.. The U.S. Postal Service was established in 1775. You have had 237 years to get it right and it is broke.

b.. Social Security was established in 1935. You have had 77 years to get it right and it is broke.

c.. Fannie Mae was established in 1938. You have had 74 years to get it right and it is broke.

d.. War on Poverty started in 1964. You have had 48 years to get it right; $1 trillion of our money is confiscated each year and transferred to "the poor" and they only want more.

e.. Medicare and Medicaid were established in 1965. You have had 47 years to get it right and they are broke.

f.. Freddie Mac was established in 1970. You have had 42 years to get it right and it is broke.

g.. The Department of Energy was created in 1977 to lessen our dependence on foreign oil. It has ballooned to 16,000 employees with a budget of $24 billion a year and we import more oil than ever before. You had 35 years to get it right and it is an abysmal failure.

You have FAILED in every "government service" you have shoved down our throats while overspending our tax dollars.

AND YOU WANT AMERICANS TO BELIEVE YOU CAN BE TRUSTED WITH A GOVERNMENT-RUN HEALTH CARE SYSTEM??

Folks, keep this circulating. It is very well stated. Maybe it will end up in the e-mails of some of our "duly elected' (they never read anything) and their staff will clue them in on how Americans feel.

AND

I know what's wrong. We have lost our minds to "Political Correctness" !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Someone please tell me what the HELL's wrong with all the people that run this country!!!!!!

We're "broke" & can't help our own Seniors, Veterans, Orphans, Homeless etc.,???????????

In the last months we have provided aid to Haiti , Chile , and Turkey ..And now Pakistan ........previous home of bin Laden. Literally, BILLIONS of DOLLARS!!!

Our retired seniors living on a 'fixed income' receive no aid nor do they get any breaks…

AMERICA: a country where we have homeless without shelter, children going to bed hungry, elderly going without 'needed' meds, and mentally ill without treatment -etc, etc.

Imagine if the *GOVERNMENT* gave 'US' the same support they give to other countries. Sad isn't it?

Author Unknown

 

A picture of the USA today,

according to a European cartoonist.

Know What It Is?

Is the photograph below familiar? Do you know what the various items in the wooden case are?

Pictured above is a medical instrument kit known as tobacco smoke enema which was used in the U.S.A. in the 1750s [until about 1810].

Tobacco smoke enema was a medical treatment introduced in America in the mid-1700s. Tobacco smoke was infused into a patient’s rectum using the tobacco smoke enema kit [pictured above] for various medical purposes, but it was primarily used in the resuscitation of a drowning [near-drowning] victim.

A rectal tube inserted into the anus was connected to a fumigator and a bellow [or pump] which forced tobacco smoke into the rectum. It was claimed that the warmth of the smoke stimulated respiration. However, the treatment's highly questionable effectiveness and reliability gave rise to the derogatory phrase “blowing smoke up one’s ass".

In 2011, the concept of "blowing smoke up one's ass" was literally enacted and signed into law commonly referred to as "ObamaCare" which is claimed to supposedly help improve the health care delivery system in the United States of America.

Justice Ginsburg Causes Storm Dissing The Constitution While Abroad

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has caused a storm of controversy by saying in a television interview that the people of Egypt should not look to the United States Constitution when drafting their own governing document because it’s too old and there are newer examples from which to draw inspiration.

“I would not look to the U.S. Constitution if I were drafting a constitution in the year 2012,” Ginsburg said in the interview, which aired on Jan. 30 on Al-Hayat TV.

Her comments have stunned writers across the conservative blogosphere, though many major media outlets have not given much attention to it.

In the interview, she argued that the United States has the “oldest written constitution still in force in the world,” so instead “you should certainly be aided by all the constitution-writing that has gone one since the end of World War II.”

“I might look at the constitution of South Africa,” Ginsburg said. “That was a deliberate attempt to have a fundamental instrument of government that embraced basic human rights, had an independent judiciary.”

Ginsburg, appointed to the Supreme Court by former President Bill Clinton, said South Africa’s constitution is “a great piece of work that was done” and cited other documents outside America’s constitution that Egyptians should read.

“Much more recent than the U.S. Constitution, Canada has a Charter of Rights and Freedoms,” Ginsburg said. “It dates from 1982. You would almost certainly look at the European Convention on Human Rights.”

“Yes,” she concluded, “why not take advantage of what there is elsewhere in the world?” -By Alex Pappas/The Daily Caller/February 6, 2012

Ragbag Headliners

Bikers Show Up To Protect Mourners From Westboro Baptist Protest

Bikers seem to have thwarted attempts by the Westboro Baptist Church to protest the funeral of Newtown, Conn., shooting victim Principal Dawn Hochsprung.

The vocal right-wing Christian group, whose website is godhatesfags.com, produced a video called "God Sent the Shooter," and has blamed the massacre on gay marriage. It put Hochsprung's funeral on its online "picket schedule."

But there was no sign of the church group, as local newspaper the Newtown Patch live-blogged throughout the day with updates, and reported that people had arrived from as far away as Massachusetts to protect the mourners -- just in case.

Bikers from New York formed a formidable-looking wall of motorcyles.

Late in the day the Patch wrote: "Applause erupted in the crowd ... as it was announced that members of the Westboro Baptist Church were not coming to protest at the wake."

As of Wednesday afternoon, nearly a quarter million people had signed a WhiteHouse.gov petition -- created Dec. 14, the day of the Sandy Hook shooting -- to "legally recognize Westboro Baptist Church as a hate group." -By QMI Agency/Cochrane/December 19, 2012

Walmart's New Health Care Policy Shifts Burden To Medicaid, Obamacare

Walmart, the nation’s largest private employer, plans to begin denying health insurance to newly hired employees who work fewer than 30 hours a week, according to a copy of the company’s policy obtained by The Huffington Post.

Under the policy, slated to take effect in January, Walmart also reserves the right to eliminate health care coverage for certain workers if their average workweek dips below 30 hours -- something that happens with regularity and at the direction of company managers.

Walmart declined to disclose how many of its roughly 1.4 million U.S. workers are vulnerable to losing medical insurance under its new policy. In an emailed statement, company spokesman David Tovar said Walmart had “made a business decision” not to respond to questions from The Huffington Post and accused the publication of unfair coverage.

Labor and health care experts portrayed Walmart’s decision to exclude workers from its medical plans as an attempt to limit costs while taking advantage of the national health care reform known as Obamacare. Among the key features of Obamacare is an expansion of Medicaid, the taxpayer-financed health insurance program for poor people. Many of the Walmart workers who might be dropped from the company’s health care plans earn so little that they would qualify for the expanded Medicaid program, these experts said.

“Walmart is effectively shifting the costs of paying for its employees onto the federal government with this new plan, which is one of the problems with the way the law is structured,” said Ken Jacobs, chairman of the Labor Research Center at the University of California, Berkeley.

For Walmart, this latest policy represents a step back in time. Almost seven years ago, as Walmart confronted public criticism that its employees couldn't afford its benefits, the company announced with much fanfare that it would expand health coverage for part-time workers.

But last year, the company eliminated coverage for some part-time workers -- those new hires working 24 hours a week or less. Now, Walmart is going further.

Have you worked at Walmart? The Huffington Post wants to know about your experience. Send us an email here.

“Walmart likely thought it didn’t need to offer this part-time coverage anymore with Obamacare,” said Nelson Lichtenstein, director of the Center for the Study of Work, Labor and Democracy at the University of California, Santa Barbara. “This is another example of a tremendous government subsidy to Walmart via its workers.”

In pursuing lower health care costs, Walmart is following the same course as many other large employers. But given its unrivaled scale, Walmart’s policies tend to influence American working conditions more broadly. Tom Billet, a senior consultant at Towers Watson, a professional services firm that works with large companies to develop benefit plans, said other companies are also crafting policies that will exclude some part-time workers from medical coverage.

Billet portrayed the growing corporate interest in separating out part-time workers as a reaction to another aspect of Obamacare -- the new rules that require companies with at least 50 full-time workers to offer health coverage to all employees who work 30 or more hours a week or pay penalties.

Several employers in recent months, including Darden Restaurants, owner of Olive Garden and Red Lobster, and a New York-area Applebee’s franchise owner, said they are considering cutting employee hours to push more workers below the 30-hour threshold.

“In the past, firms were less careful about monitoring whether someone was full- or part-time,” Billet said, noting that some of his clients were planning to track workers’ hours more carefully. “I expect health plans like Walmart’s won’t be uncommon as firms adjust to this law.”

For Walmart employees, the new system raises the risk that they could lose their health coverage in large part because they have little control over their schedules. Walmart uses an advanced scheduling system to constantly alter workers’ shifts according to store traffic and sales figures.

The company has said the scheduling system improves flexibility and efficiency. But in recent interviews with The Huffington Post, several workers described their oft-changing schedules as a source of fear that they might earn too little to pay their bills. Many said they have begged managers to assign them additional hours only to see their shifts cut further as new workers were hired.

The new plan detailed in the 2013 "Associate’s Benefits Book" adds another element to that fear: the risk of losing health coverage. According to the plan, part-time workers hired in or after 2011 are now subject to an “Annual Benefits Eligibility Check” each August, during which managers will review the average number of hours per week that workers have logged over the past year.

If part-time workers hired after Feb. 1, 2012, fail to reach the 30-hour threshold, they will lose benefits the following January, according to the book. Part-time workers hired after Jan. 15, 2011, but before Feb. 1, 2012, must work at least 24 hours a week to retain coverage and will also be subject to an eligibility check each year. Those hired before 2011 aren’t subject to the minimum hours requirements or eligibility checks.

As for full-time workers under the plan, those who lose hours and slip to part-time at any point during the year will see their spouses’ health coverage dropped immediately. Those workers will also lose their dental and life insurance policies in the following pay period, according to the plan.

Some Walmart workers who are excluded from the company’s health care plans are likely to become eligible for Medicaid under the Obamacare expansion, which aims to replace a patchwork of standards now set by individual states with one minimum federal threshold -- income below 133 percent of the federal poverty line, which for an individual currently comes to $14,856. However, the Supreme Court ruled earlier this year that the decision to expand the program is voluntary for the states. At least eight states, including Texas, have said they will not expand the program, which would leave Walmart workers there with one less option.

Part-time workers who lose their Walmart insurance but earn too much to qualify for Medicaid should be able to buy insurance through the health care exchanges to be established under Obamacare -- essentially, online marketplaces offering an array of health care plans.

For workers who do qualify for health coverage under Walmart's new policy, the latest package represents an upgrade over previous plans. Walmart’s health plans began covering 100 percent of spine and heart surgeries this year at select hospitals and medical centers. They also include a smattering of preventative care services required by Obamacare.

But the company’s plans still leave many workers facing significant financial distress in the event of major illness. Under the new policy, one major offering, the so-called Health Reimbursement Account Plan, costs nonsmoking workers $34.80 a month -- a seemingly affordable sum. Yet it comes with an annual deductible of $2,750, a hefty expense given that half of Walmart’s hourly workforce earns no more than $10 an hour.

While a shifting of Walmart employees to Medicaid rolls may increase the burden on American taxpayers, it is likely to be a better deal for the workers themselves.

“The packages Walmart is providing for low-income people aren’t offering very much coverage except for catastrophes,” said Linda Blumberg, a senior fellow at the Urban Institute, a left-leaning think tank. “It’s likely they’ll be better off going with a government-sponsored plan.” -Huffington Post/December 01, 20212

Dubai's modern skyscrapers and architectural wonders are very impressive.

However, the powers-that-be -- [the government authorities/planners: architects, engineers, various contractors, et al] responsible for the country's building boom forgot something VERY IMPORTANT!

^^^*^^^

The Poop snake

Christmas Is For Everyone

For weeks, my 4-year-old son has been admiring the presents (especially his own) under our Christmas tree. He’s also been wondering what’s in his stocking hung over the fireplace. That’s why my wife and I look forward to seeing the beaming smile on his face on Christmas as he opens his gifts and plays with his new toys.

This probably sounds like a typical Christmas story. Well, it’s not. For you see, I’m not Christian. I was born Jewish.

It’s a story I’ve written and discussed in the past. I’ve been an agnostic Jew for 30 years. I celebrate Christmas in a nonreligious fashion with my wife (who is Catholic). I don’t celebrate any of the Jewish holidays, including Hanukkah. My parents, sister and her family still do, and I’m glad they feel the desire to maintain some traditions in their households.

I strongly support freedom of religion, and strongly oppose religious persecution and bigotry against Jews, Christians and moderate Muslims. Just because I choose not to participate doesn’t mean that I feel others should follow my example. Far from it.

So, why would a nonreligious Jew want to celebrate a Christian holiday he didn’t grow up with? Actually, I did. I’m 42, and grew up in an era when most people enjoyed the festive spirit of Christmas — and weren’t afraid to say so. My mother and father took me to see Santa Claus, and I have various photos with him. We went to the annual Santa Claus Parade. We admired Christmas displays in the department stores. When people warmly wished us a “Merry Christmas,” we happily wished them the same.

Although my mother wasn’t comfortable with having a Christmas tree when I was young, she has grown to love the Christmas trees in my house. Every year, she asks to put up an ornament or two, and we happily oblige. My father, who always liked Christmas trees — I suppose that’s where I get it from — had a tiny fake one in his office. When Jewish clients came in and looked quizzically at this item, he would smile and call it a Hanukkah bush.

My parents didn’t teach me to fear or hate Christmas. They passed this important belief on to me, and I’m eternally grateful for it.

This particular position is remarkably similar to the positive feelings about Christmas held by early American Jews. One of my favorite passages in Penne L. Restad’s “Christmas in America: A History” comes from an 1877 article in the Philadelphia Times. As reported, the “Hebrew brethren did not keep aloof” from Christmas, and young Jewish children “were as happy … as Christian children” with the Christmas trees which “bloomed” in their homes.

In my view, Christmas is not just for Christians. It’s for everyone. We have the freedom to celebrate any holiday, custom and tradition we so choose. Placing restrictions on a person’s enjoyment of religious or cultural events helps create an unhealthy environment of ignorance and intolerance.

No wonder some non-Christian children are confused during Christmas. Their loved ones create imaginary barriers from participating in trimming a tree, singing carols and attending midnight mass with their friends. I always feel badly for them, because they’re missing out on the fun and pleasure that I — and many others — experienced at Christmas.

Fortunately, many Christian and non-Christian families, who are comfortable in their own personal and religious or nonreligious identities, are sick and tired of this perpetual war on Christmas. They reject political correctness as well as simple-minded attacks on Christianity and other world religions. They want their children to respect different religions, people and holidays.

Many children are therefore learning about different cultural events and holidays in our schools and places of worship. Together, they’re making paper Christmas trees, spinning dreidels, singing songs, eating different cuisines and so on. They’re laughing, playing and beginning to understand one another.

Yes, there will always be evil and hatred in the world. The tragic events in Newtown, Conn., proved this to be true. Yet, if we want to build a safer society for our children, it also has to start at home. Smashing religious barriers will help create a healthier environment and make our society stronger.

This isn’t a liberal fantasy, as some critics like to call it. It’s what all good and decent people — irrespective of politics, class and faith — should always aspire to. –By Michael Taube/Washington Times/December 24, 2012

About the Author: Michael Taube is a former speechwriter for Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and a columnist with The Washington Times.

A New Year’s Resolution For America

Restore prosperity and build a better future for our children
Not long ago, Americans were vibrant, full of hopes and dreams. We told our children that if they stayed in school and worked hard, the world could be their oyster. Today, there has been a shift in our attitude toward life and the future. We talk about the American dream as if it were a distant memory. The “pursuit of happiness” has been replaced by the pursuit of mere survival.

There is no doubt that this national transformation began early in 2010. The jubilation surrounding Barack Obama’s election and promise of “hope and change” disintegrated one year after his inauguration into disillusionment and fear. While there is no doubt that the country already was in a recession before Mr. Obama took office, the excitement he brought to the nation began to wane amid people’s inability to keep their homes or find work. People simply began to feel helpless.

Fear and depression are powerful emotions. They also are contagious. We all know folks who have lost their homes or have been unemployed for years. We also are aware of many who are working jobs well below their skill level or who simply have dropped out of the workforce, giving up on finding a job. Their struggles are our struggles, and even though the majority of us still work, too many Americans experience sleepless nights — fearing the loss of their job is imminent or their career has become a dead-end street. This is not a good way to live.

Shaping and fueling the negativity engulfing our nation is an out-of-touch media that refuses to expose harsh realities. The citizenry is bombarded by reports that everything is getting better. Unemployment is dwindling, and Judgment Day for the rich is fast approaching. Still, deep down we all know the truth, and denial only deepens our national depression.

Our nation’s “creative” method of combating unemployment is to create a smaller workforce. The result is millions of folks giving up on finding a job. Also not mentioned is that we are becoming a part-time workforce. Between economic uncertainties, looming tax hikes and the cost increase in health insurance from full implementation of Obamacare in 2014, good full-time jobs are few and far between. These new realities do not bode well for a happy and prosperous citizenry.

Driving this outrage is a troubling disdain for success. The left in this country — aided by the old-guard press — is peddling the fallacy that all our economic woes are the result of the wealthy not paying their fair share of taxes. Financially successful people are vilified as the new enemy of the middle class. We were a happier people when as a nation we admired success and emulated the successful. Striving for something better was an equal-opportunity aspiration. The political right can’t seem to overcome its crippling public relations deficiency and rekindle our national ethos. Merely surviving is not a way to live and certainly not the American way of life.

Those who disagree with my argument will ask why Mr. Obama was re-elected. The truth is that his re-election confirms this point: We are devolving into a nation dependent on government — dependent on food stamps, unemployment benefits and a buffet of freebies. The ambition for success, for greatness, for personal achievement, is no longer part of our culture. On Election Day, millions of Americans voted for the food-stamp card in their wallet, not for the dream of acquiring an American Express Gold Card.

It doesn’t have to be this way. For the sake of my children — our children — it had better change.

My family didn’t come to the United States, escaping the Holocaust, in order to provide a mediocre existence for their children. This country wasn’t founded on the ideals of government dependency, and the Civil War wasn’t fought because freedom — personal and economic — was an afterthought.

In the wake of tragedy we are reminded this holiday season how precious our children truly are. We hug them longer and tell them more often than usual how much we love them. We have been reminded that our children are everything to us. Securing their health, happiness and prosperity should govern our lives. When we give up striving for the exceptional, we are giving up on our children because we no longer demand a better way of life for the next generation.

In 2013, let’s renew our national commitment to a better life for our children. Let’s reject mediocrity and embrace prosperity. –By Paul Miller/Washington Times/December 28, 2012

About the Author: Paul Miller is a principal of Pauliegroup LLC, a Chicago-area new media and political consulting firm.