LIFE AT THE BEACH

2012-01-22T05:10:00.000-05:00

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2012-01-22T05:09:00.001-05:00

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2012-01-22T05:08:00.001-05:00

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Abortion, Immigration Changes Among New 2012 Laws

2012-01-22T05:07:00.002-05:00

Girls seeking abortions in New Hampshire must first tell their parents or a judge, some employers in Alabama must verify new workers' U.S. residency, and California students will be the first in the country to receive mandatory lessons about the contributions of gays and lesbians under state laws set to take effect at the start of 2012.

Many laws reflect the nation's concerns over immigration, the cost of government and the best way to protect and benefit young people, including regulations on sports concussions.

Alabama, with the country's toughest immigration law, is enacting a key provision requiring all employers who do business with any government entity to use a federal system known as E-Verify to check that all new employees are in the country legally.

Georgia is putting a similar law into effect requiring any business with 500 or more employees to use E-Verify to check the employment eligibility of new hires. The requirement is being phased in, with all employers with more than 10 employees to be included by July 2013.

Supporters said they wanted to deter illegal immigrants from coming to Georgia by making it tougher for them to work. Critics said that changes to immigration law should come at the federal level and that portions of the law already in effect are already hurting Georgia.

"It is destroying Georgia's economy and it is destroying the fabric of our social network in South Georgia," Paul Bridges, mayor of the onion-farming town of Uvalda, said in November. He is part of a lawsuit challenging the new law.

Tennessee will also require businesses to ensure employees are legally authorized to work in the U.S. but exempts employers with five or fewer workers and allows them to keep a copy of the new hire's driver's license instead of using E-Verify.

A South Carolina law would allow officials to yank the operating licenses of businesses that don't check new hires' legal status through E-verify. A federal judge last week blocked parts of the law that would have required police to check the immigration status of criminal suspects or people stopped for traffic violations they think might be in the country illegally, and that would have made it a crime for illegal immigrants to transport or house themselves.

California is also addressing illegal immigration, but with a bill that allows students who entered the country illegally to receive private financial aid at public colleges.

Many laws aim to protect young people. In Colorado, coaches will be required to bench players as young as 11 when they're believed to have suffered a head injury. The young athletes will also need medical clearance to return to play.

The law also requires coaches in public and private schools and even volunteer Little League and Pop Warner football coaches to take free annual online training to recognize the symptoms of a concussion. At least a dozen other states have enacted similar laws with the support of the National Football League.

People 18 and under in Illinois will have to wear seat belts while riding in taxis for school-related purposes, and Illinois school boards can now suspend or expel students who make explicit threats on websites against other students or school employees.

Florida will take control of lunch and other school food programs from the federal government, allowing the state to put more Florida-grown fresh fruit and vegetables on school menus. Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam says the change will help children eat healthier.

A California law will add gays and lesbians and people with disabilities to the list of social and ethnic groups whose contributions must be taught in history lessons in public schools. The law also bans teaching materials that reflect poorly on gays or particular religions.

Opponents have filed five potential initiatives to repeal the requirement outright or let parents remove their children while gays' contributions are being taught.

In New Hampshire, a law requiring girls seeking abortions to tell their parents or a judge first was reinstated by conservative Republicans over a gubernatorial veto. The state enacted a similar law eight years ago, but it was never enforced following a series of lawsuits.

In Arkansas, facilities that perform 10 or more nonsurgical abortions a month must be licensed by the state Health Department and be subject to inspections by the department, the same requirements faced by facilities that offer surgical abortions in the state.

It affects two Planned Parenthood facilities that offer the abortion pill, though they're not singled out in the statute.

Among federal laws, a measure Congress passed last week to extend Social Security tax cuts and federal unemployment benefit programs raises insurance fees on new mortgages and refinancings backed by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Housing Administration by 0.1 percent beginning Jan. 1.

That covers about 90 percent of them and effectively makes a borrower's monthly payment on a new $200,000 mortgage or refinancing about $17 a month more than it would have been if obtained before the first of the year.

Nevada's 3-month old ban on texting while driving will get tougher, with tickets replacing the warnings that police have issued since the ban took effect Oct. 1. In Pennsylvania, police are preparing to enforce that state's recently enacted ban on texting, scheduled to take effect by spring.

Election law changes in Rhode Island and Tennessee will require voters to present photo ID, a measure that supporters say prevents fraud and that opponents say will make it harder for minorities and the elderly to cast ballots.

In Ohio, a measure that creates one primary in March, instead of two that would have cost the state an extra $15 million, goes into effect later in January.

Ohio is also one of eight states with automatic increases in the minimum wage taking effect Jan. 1. The others, with increases between 28 and 37 cents, are Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Montana, Oregon, Vermont and Washington.

A few laws try to address budget woes. In Delaware, new state employees will have to contribute more to their pensions, while state workers hired after Jan. 1 in Nevada will have to pony up for their own health care costs in retirement.

Jan. 1 is the effective date in many states for laws passed during this year's legislative sessions. In others, laws take effect July 1, or 90 days after passage. –Yahoo News

2012-01-22T05:06:00.002-05:00

Smartphone Pictures Pose Privacy Risks

28 Signs That U.S. Public Schools Are Rapidly Being Turned Into Indoctrination Centers And Prison Camps

2012-01-22T05:05:00.005-05:00

It has been said that children are our future, and right now the vast majority of our children are being "educated" in public schools that are rapidly being turned into indoctrination centers and prison camps. Our children desperately need to focus on the basics such as reading, writing and math, but instead a whole host of politicians, "education officials" and teachers are constantly injecting as much propaganda as they possibly can into classroom instruction. Instead of learning how to think, our children are continually being told what to think. Not only that, our children are also being trained how to live as subservient slaves in a Big Brother police state. Today, nearly everything that children do in public schools is watched, monitored, recorded and tracked. Independent thought and free expression are greatly discouraged and are often cracked down upon harshly. If students get "out of line", instead of being sent to see the principal they are often handcuffed, arrested and taken to the police station. In addition, law enforcement authorities are using weapons such as pepper spray and tasers against young students in our public schools more than ever before. Children in U.S. public schools are not learning how to live as strong individuals in the "land of the free and the home of the brave". Rather, they are being trained how to serve a Big Brother police state where control freaks run their entire lives. If we continue to allow all of the liberty and freedom to be systematically drained out of our school children, then there is not going to be much hope for the future of this nation.

The following are 28 signs that U.S public schools are being turned into indoctrination centers and prison camps....

#1 All 50 U.S. states are now constructing federally-mandated databases that will track the behavior and performance of all public school students in America throughout their entire school careers. According to the New York Post, the Obama administration wants to use the information that is gathered for a wide array of purposes....

The administration wants this data to include much more than name, address and test scores. According to the National Data Collection Model, the government should collect information on health-care history, family income and family voting status. In its view, public schools offer a golden opportunity to mine reams of data from a captive audience.

#2 All over America, school children are being immersed in the radical green agenda. In fact, in many areas of the country children are actively trained to watch how their parents behave and to correct them when they are being "environmentally unfriendly". The following is from a recent New York Times article about this phenomenon....

“I have very, very environmentally conscious children — more so than me, I’m embarrassed to say,” said Ms. Ross, a social worker in Dobbs Ferry, N.Y. “They’re on my case about getting a hybrid car. They want me to replace all the light bulbs in the house with energy-saving bulbs.”

Ms. Ross’s children are part of what experts say is a growing army of “eco-kids” — steeped in environmentalism at school, in houses of worship, through scouting and even via popular culture — who try to hold their parents accountable at home. Amid their pride in their children’s zeal for all things green, the grown-ups sometimes end up feeling like scofflaws under the watchful eye of the pint-size eco-police, whose demands grow ever greater, and more expensive.
Later on in that same article, a district superintendent is quoted as saying that they try to inject the green agenda wherever they can into the curriculum....

“We’re trying to integrate it into anything where it naturally fits,” said Jackie Taylor, the district’s superintendent. “It might be in a math lesson. How much water are you really using? How can you tell? Teachers look for avenues in almost everything they teach.”
#3 One 13-year-old student down in New Mexico was recently handcuffed and forcibly removed from a classroom just because he burped in class. In all, over 200 students in Bernalillo County "have been handcuffed and arrested in the last three years for non-violent misdemeanors".

#4 All over America, students are being taught that the First Amendment does not apply in public schools. Expressions of free speech in school are often cracked down upon very hard. For example, one group of high school athletes was recently suspended for "Tebowing" in the hallways of their school.

#5 Many public school sex education classes have totally crossed the line. Instead of just "educating" children about sex, many sex ed courses are now "indoctrinating" children about sex. One recent example of this was detailed in the New York Times....

IMAGINE you have a 10- or 11-year-old child, just entering a public middle school. How would you feel if, as part of a class ostensibly about the risk of sexually transmitted diseases, he and his classmates were given “risk cards” that graphically named a variety of solitary and mutual sex acts? Or if, in another lesson, he was encouraged to disregard what you told him about sex, and to rely instead on teachers and health clinic staff members?

That prospect would horrify most parents. But such lessons are part of a middle-school curriculum that Dennis M. Walcott, the New York City schools chancellor, has recommended for his system’s newly mandated sex-education classes. There is a parental “opt out,” but it is very limited, covering classes on contraception and birth control.

#6 Sadly, this "sexual indoctrination" appears to be working. According to one recent study, sexual conduct between teen girls in the United States is now at the highest level ever recorded.

#7 Putting kids in jail has become standard operating procedure in the United States. Today, nearly one-third of all Americans are arrested by police by the time they reach the age of 23. At this point, the United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world and the largest total prison population on the entire globe, and yet our society just continues to become more unstable.

#8 In some U.S. schools, RFID chips are now being used to monitor the attendance and movements of children while they are at school. The following is how one article recently described a program that has just been instituted at a preschool in California....

Upon arriving in the morning, according to the Associated Press, each student at the CCC-George Miller preschool will don a jersey with a stitched in RFID chip. As the kids go about the business of learning, sensors in the school will record their movements, collecting attendance for both classes and meals. Officials from the school have claimed they're only recording information they're required to provide while receiving federal funds for their Headstart program.

#9 Increasingly, incidents of misbehavior at many U.S. schools are being treated as very serious crimes. For example, when a little girl kissed a little boy at one Florida elementary school recently, it was considered to be a "possible sex crime" and the police were called out.

#10 Even 5-year-old children are now being handcuffed and arrested by police in public schools. The following is from a recent article that described what happened to one very young student in Stockton, California earlier this year....

Earlier this year, a Stockton student was handcuffed with zip ties on his hands and feet, forced to go to the hospital for a psychiatric evaluation and was charged with battery on a police officer. That student was 5 years old.

#11 A teenager in suburban Dallas was recently forced to take on a part-time job after being ticketed for using bad language in one high school classroom. The original ticket was for $340, but additional fees have raised the total bill to $637.

#12 It is not just high school kids that are being ticketed by police. In Texas the crackdown extends all the way down to elementary school students. In fact, it has been reported that Texas police gave "1,000 tickets" to elementary school kids over a recent six year period.

#13 Our children are being programmed to accept the fact that they will be watched and monitored constantly. For example, the U.S. Department of Agriculture is spending large amounts of money to install surveillance cameras in the cafeterias of public schools all across the nation so that government control freaks can closely monitor what our children are eating.

#14 If you can believe it, a "certified TSA official" was recently brought in to oversee student searches at the Santa Fe High School prom.

#15 Last year, a 17 year-old honor student in North Carolina named Ashley Smithwick accidentally took her father's lunch with her to school. It contained a small paring knife which he would use to slice up apples. So what happened to this standout student when the school discovered this? The school suspended her for the rest of the year and the police charged her with a misdemeanor.

#16 According to blogger Alexander Higgins, students in kindergarten and the 1st grade in the state of New Jersey are now required by law to participate "in monthly anti-terrorism drills". The following is an excerpt from a letter that he recently received from the school where his child attends....

Each month a school must conduct one fire drill and one security drill which may be a lockdown, bomb threat, evacuation, active shooter, or shelter-in place drill. All schools are now required by law to implement this procedure.

So who in the world ever decided that it would be a good idea for 1st grade students to endure "lockdown" and "active shooter" drills? To get an idea of what these kinds of drills are like, just check out this video.

#17 In some U.S. schools, armed cops accompanied by police dogs actually conduct surprise raids with their guns drawn. In this video, you can actually see police officers aiming their guns at school children as the students are lined up facing the wall.

#18 The U.S. government is now encouraging children to spy on their parents as part of the "war on terror". If a school official hears that a parent has said the "wrong thing" at home, that parent could potentially get labeled as a "potential terrorist".

#19 The U.S. government has also been increasingly using "polls" and "surveys" as tools to gather information about all of us. In previous articles, I have noted how government authorities seems particularly interested in our children. According to Mike Adams of Natural News, the CDC is starting to call parents all over the U.S. to question them about the vaccination status of their children....

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control, which has been comprehensively exposed as a vaccine propaganda organization promoting the interests of drug companies, is now engaged in a household surveillance program that involves calling U.S. households and intimidating parents into producing child immunization records. As part of what it deems a National Immunization Survey(NIS), the CDC is sending letters to U.S. households, alerting them that they will be called by "NORC at the University of Chicago" and that households should "have your child's immunization records handy when answering our questions."

You can see a copy of the letter that the CDC has been sending out to selected parents right here.

#20 Last year, a high school student in Southern California was suspended for two days because he had private conversations with his classmates during which he discussed Christianity. He was also banned from bringing his Bible to school ever again.

#21 In early 2010, a 12 year old girl in New York was arrested by police and marched out of her school in handcuffs just because she doodled on her desk. "I love my friends Abby and Faith" was what she reportedly wrote on her desk.

#22 Back in 2009, one 8 year old boy in Massachusetts was sent home from school and was forced to undergo a psychological evaluation because he drew a picture of Jesus on the cross.

#23 A little over a year ago, a 6 year old girl in Florida was handcuffed and sent to a mental facility after throwing temper tantrums at her elementary school.

#24 Other students in Florida have actually been arrested for bringing a plastic butter knife to school, for throwing an eraser, and for drawing a picture of a gun.

#25 Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli has announced that school officials can search the cell phones and laptops of public school students if there are "reasonable grounds for suspecting that the search will turn up evidence that the student has violated or is violating either the law or the rules of the school."

#26 Increasingly, authorities are using "pre-crime" technology on our children in order to identify potential problem individuals. For example, the Florida State Department of Juvenile Justice has announced that it will begin using analysis software to predict crime by young delinquents and will place "potential offenders" in specific prevention and education programs.

#27 At one public high school in McAllen, Texas earlier this year, students were ordered to stand up and recite the Mexican national anthem and Mexican pledge of allegiance. School authorities have failed to explain how reciting a pledge of allegiance to a foreign nation has any educational value whatsoever.

#28 All over the United States, tasers are increasingly being used to "subdue" high school students. The following are two very shocking examples of this that were cited in a recent Alternet article....

On September 29, Keshana Wilson, 14, was shocked in the groin with a Taser while shoved against a parked car by Allentown, Pennsylvania police officer Jason Ammary, just outside her high school. The incident was captured on surveillance footage. Allentown police argue that the officer’s behavior was justified because “Wilson was cursing and inciting a group of people” as well as resisting arrest. While defending his fellow officer, Allentown Assistant Police Chief Joseph Hanna argued, “officers are trained to use the justified amount of force dictated by the actions of the resister, not their age or gender.”

Zahrod Jackson, a 17-year-old student, “was eligible to receive free lunch” at Middletown High School in Connecticut, according to a June report in the Middletown Press. Last September, Jackson exited the cafeteria line with a slice of pizza, but returned for a beef patty after spotting both pizza and a beef patty on the tray of a student who also receives free lunch. A screaming match ensued between Jackson and a cafeteria worker who accused the teen of stealing. The commotion quickly caught the eyes of SROs Kurt Scrivo, who “threw Jackson onto the cafeteria floor,” and Alex Rodriguez, who Tasered him five times.

So is all of this brutal repression helping our children get a better education?

Of course not.

The truth is that the American population is rapidly being "dumbed-down".

Today, American 15-year-olds do not even rank in the top half of all advanced nations when it comes to math or science literacy.

Not only that, our public schools are also producing kids that are woefully unprepared for college. The United States once had the highest proportion of young adults with post-secondary degrees in the world. Today, the U.S. has fallen to 12th.

Our public education system absolutely stinks and it is getting worse all the time.

I went to public schools all of my life, but I would never want to send my children to public schools now. They are going downhill really, really fast.

Just sending different politicians to Washington D.C. is not going to change the course of this nation. We need a complete political, economic, educational, moral, spiritual and philosophical renewal. Right now America is becoming a little more like North Korea every day. If we continue on this path there will be absolutely no future for our children and our grandchildren.

It is absolutely disgusting that our public schools are being transformed into indoctrination centers and prison camps. This is not what America is supposed to be about.

If we do not choose to stand up and fight for the future of this country, then we are going to get the future that we deserve. –The American Dream

Singapore Airlines

2012-01-22T05:04:00.004-05:00

There once lived in Singapore a happy couple named Mr. & Mrs. Ng, who had three pretty daughters -- triplets named Elaine, Ella, and Emma, whom the couple raised in the prim-and-proper way as the Chinese do. So, at age 20, the three daughters were still virgins. Finally, as the "proper age for marriage" approached, Mr. & Mrs. Ng hoped and prayed that all three would each marry not only the most suitable leng chais [handsome guy] but fellows who were also financially stable and intelligent, and who came from "good" families.

The couple's hopes and prayers were answered, when each daughter got engaged to her "handsome prince". After the triple wedding ceremony and reception, as the daughters and their respective mates were about to leave for their honeymoon, the concerned (more like 'kay poh') parents, Mr. & Mrs. Ng, wanted to be sure that each daughter got the "best" first night experience. So, before the daughters took-off for their respective honeymoon destinations, Mrs. Ng called all the three together and told each of them, "Your father and I would very much like to know about your first night encounter, and to make sure that you were fully and properly satisfied. So, please write us a letter. But so as to be proper about it and not to arouse any suspicion from your husband, you must be very discreet in describing your experience. . ."

The three new brides each promised that they would, and off they went.

After a week, Mr. & Mrs. Ng got the first letter. It was from Elaine. When they read the letter, it simply said in capital letters: "STANDARD CHARTER". The couple wondered what it meant. One day, for some odd reason, Mr. Ng, who never before bothered to subscribe to the newspaper got the strange urge to buy one. So, he walked to the nearest newsstand, bought a copy of the paper, came home, sat in his favorite chair, and thumbed through it. In the process, he saw an advertisement for Standard Charter. "Ah! This must be it!', exclaimed Mr. Ng excitedly. The Standard Charter motto in big, bold letters read: BIG, STRONG & FRIENDLY! Mr & Mrs. Ng were happy.

A week later, they got another letter. This time it was from Ella. The letter simply said, "NESCAFE". Once again, Mr. Ng decided to buy a copy of the newspaper. So, out he went to the nearest newsstand, bought a copy of the local newspaper, came home, sat in his favorite chair, and thumbed through it in search for the Nescafe advertisement. And sure enough, there it was in big, bold letters, the ad read: NESCAFE. . .GOOD TO THE LAST DROP! Mr. & Mrs. Ng winked at each other as they beamed with joy.

Another week passed, but there was no word from Emma -- no letter, not even a phone call! Mr. & Mrs, Ng became worried, after all it's been three weeks since she and her sisters left. However, at the end of the fourth week, at last, Emma's letter came. Alas! It was scribbled and could hardly be read. But it looked like it said: "SINGAPORE AIRLINES" For some strange reason, there was no ad in the newspaper about Singapore Airlines that particular week. In desperation and after racking their brains, Mr. Ng came up with the idea of looking at the phone company's Yellow Pages. Flipping through the pages frantically, he finally got to the "S" section. "Ah! Here it is!" Mr. Ng exclaimed. But before he could read the ad, Mrs. Ng snatched the phone book and looked at it. Before she could finish reading the ad, she fainted, and fell to the floor with a thud. The Singapore Airlines ad read:. 7 TIMES A WEEK, 4 TO 6 TIMES A DAY, NON-STOP!

Author Unknown

2012-01-22T05:03:00.003-05:00

Obama And Dictatorship

2012-01-22T05:02:00.002-05:00

Can a mundane defense authorization law create an Obama dictatorship? Many people on the political right and left have been alarmed by language in the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that they argue authorizes the president to use military force to capture, detain, torture and kill Americans at home and abroad. The furor centers on Sections 1021 and 1022 of the law, which deal with detaining terrorist suspects. Specifically at issue is to what extent the law allows the government to treat American citizens like enemies of the state.

This dust-up is thick with irony, given that the Obama White House has gone out of its way to extend full constitutional protections to terrorists who have never set foot on U.S. soil. At the same time, President Obama has claimed the right to target Americans with deadly force overseas, though his legal team refuses to explain the basis for this extraordinary and unconstitutional power. The NDAA itself states that nothing in it changes existing law, but because Americans are not allowed to know what powers the president already has, such guarantees ring hollow.

All dramatics aside, no matter what the murky NDAA says or means, it cannot strip Americans of their constitutional rights. Chief Justice John Marshall laid out this logical principle in the 1803 case of Marbury v. Madison, which established the standard of judicial review. He wrote that if a law conflicts with a rule or right under the Constitution, “the Constitution is superior to any ordinary act of the Legislature, [therefore] the Constitution, and not such ordinary act, must govern the case to which they both apply.” This is a bedrock principle of American politics. Even if the most expansive reading of the defense authorization is correct and it does represent some kind of White House power grab, it doesn’t matter, because any such provision negating rights held by citizens would be struck down as unconstitutional once it was adjudicated.

There also is the matter of the law’s political context. Those who argue that the NDAA is some kind of enabling act for an impending Obama imperium must also explain how such a bill was passed by a divided Congress, particularly the conservative Republican-controlled House. If control was Mr. Obama’s objective, it would have been more sensible to craft the legislation during the two years when San Francisco Rep. Nancy Pelosi was speaker of the House, Democrats enjoyed a supermajority in the Senate and Mr. Obama was not so unpopular. He could have used those purported extraordinary powers to head off the “shellacking” he took during the 2010 midterm elections, assuming he thought he could get away with it.

The true test of the NDAA would be if Mr. Obama attempted to do what some people fear he might do, namely, begin a vendetta against his political opponents or others he wants to deal with “Chicago style.” But should we honestly believe Mr. Obama will soon order mass arrests and detentions of peaceful American citizens? That members of the military would carry out such orders, which go against all other laws and customs and the Constitution? That such actions would not be met with a flood of court cases, mass demonstrations, civil disobedience and active resistance? And all this would happen in an election year? It will take more than a scrap of paper to end freedom in America. –The Washington Times

2012-01-22T05:01:00.002-05:00

Interesting Facts About Wal-Mart

2012-01-22T05:00:00.002-05:00

1. Americans spend approximately $36,000,000 at Wal-Mart every day. This works out to a profit of $20,928 every minute for Wal-Mart!

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

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

5. Wal-Mart the world's largest private employer with 1.6 million employees, and the vast majority of them 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, that Wal-Mart did this in only fifteen years, and during this same time period, 31 big supermarket chains filed bankruptcy.

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

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

10. In 2011, 7.2 billion different purchasing experiences occured at Wal-Mart stores compared to Earth's population of approximately 6.5 Billion.

11. 90% of all Americans live within fifteen miles of a Wal-Mart.

Why don't we fire everyone in the White House and the U.S. Congress, and instead hire the guys who run Wal-Mart to fix the badly ailing U.S. economy? They obviously would do a far superior job compared to the current bureaucrats & politicians in Washington, D.C., who are only good in running their mouths, playing dirty politics, and performing character assassination of one another and their political enemies.

As far as today's Washington D.C. bureaucrats and politicians are concerned, it is has become glaringly obvious that majority of them, if not all, are nothing but highly-paid worthless pieces of dead wood!

The present administration/government has terrible failed in practically every "government service" it is supposed to deliver.

Except for a token few, the only thing majority in the Government -- [from the federal all the way down to the local government] -- have really proven to be good at are: misappropriating public resources, wastefully spending taxpayers' money, and generously lining bureaucrats' and politicians' pockets while doing mainly nothing but running their mouths and making sure that they and their political party's candidates get elected/reelected in the next election!

Considering the following examples:

1) The U.S.Postal Service is going broke.

2) The Social Security System is going broke.

3) Fannie, Ginnie Mae and Freddie Mac are now broke.

4) The War on Poverty spends about $1 trillion of taxpayers' funds to supposedly combat poverty but there are now more Americans below the poverty line.

5) Medicare and Medicaid are going broke.

6) The Department of Energy, which was created to supposed lessen U.S. dependence on foreign oil, now has ballooned to 16,000 employees with a budget of $24 billion a year, but the U.S. imports more oil than ever.

Today's U.S. government/present administration's overall job performance if assigned a letter grade is a big, fat "F".

Obama is the first U.S. President whose overall job approval rating dropped to below 50% after only a few months in office, and has remained at below 50% up to the present, while Congress has fared even worse with a current dismal 21% job approval rating!

Source Unknown

This Weeks Sound Off

2012-01-15T05:08:00.002-05:00

Hurray For Florida

Florida's highways will be extra busy during the next month or so when the druggies and deadbeats start heading out of Florida. Florida is the first State to require drug testing in order to receive welfare benefits.

In signing the new law, Florida's Gov. Rick Scott said that Floridians on welfare better make sure they are drug-free. Applicants who test positive for illicit substances will not be eligible for the funds for a year and until they successfully undergo treatment. Those who fail a second time will be banned from receiving funds for three consecutive years.

Naturally, many people are crying that this is "unconstitutional". Really? How could this be unconstitutional when it's completely legal to expect [and require] every working person to pass a drug test in order to get a job which supports those on welfare?

It's high time to give welfare assistance only to those who truly deserve it, not the habitual social parasites, who abuse and misuse the welfare system by wasting taxpayers' funds on their illegal drug habits. –Author Unknown

Ragbag Headliners

2012-01-15T05:07:00.002-05:00

Texas Court Ruling Gives Pets Higher Legal Status

“Every dog has its day,” so they say. If a recent Texas court ruling is any indicator, we soon may say, “Every dog has his day . . . in court.”

The American Veterinary Medical Association reports,

A Texas appellate court recently ruled that state law entitles the owners of a wrongfully euthanized dog to recover “sentimental” or “intrinsic” damages from a defendant for the loss of the pet.

The decision by Fort Worth’s 2nd Court of Appeals overturning a lower court’s dismissal of the case is a novel interpretation of a 120-year-old precedent from the Texas Supreme Court holding that plaintiffs could recover only an animal’s market value.

“Dogs are unconditionally devoted to their owners. Today, we interpret timeworn supreme court law in light of subsequent court law to acknowledge that the special value of ‘man’s best friend’ should be protected,” according to the 2nd Court’s opinion, issued Nov. 3, 2011.

One dog enthusiast blog calls the decision a “bold move of effectively taking dogs out of the ‘property’ category and giving them increased legal status. It provides an updated reinterpretation of the law, which traditionally views pets as worth only their market value — like a table or a car.”

The decision specifically adds that in the case of such pets, “sentimental” or “intrinsic” value must be considered, and damages can be awarded on that basis.

The use of emotion as a judicial basis here creates a philosophical—if not legal—can of worms. On this same basis radical evolutionists and environmentalists decry “speciesism” and argue that human rights should be extended to animals, for example gorillas and chimpanzees.

Atheist Richard Dawkins is one such activist which I have written about in the past. His argument for gorilla rights says, “It’s very hard to make a purely scientific case for conserving any particular species. . . . The only case I can make is an emotional case; and what’s wrong with that? We are emotional beings. I feel emotional about it.”

Not only does the decision open up the speciesism angle, it also sets a precedent to make individual emotion or sentiment a factor in decisions about many other things, including crimes. This, of course, would be extremely dangerous.

And yet this court is using this very emotional basis for a legal precedent.

No surprisingly, the pet industry and veterinary groups are appealing since the strange ruling will increase liability costs and thus costs in general:

“If this becomes the law of the land, it will lead to higher costs to own a pet, disproportionally hurting middle-class and low-income pet owners. Who will pay for those higher damage awards? The rest of us pet owners, of course,” said Adrian Hochstadt, AVMA assistant director of state legislative and regulatory affairs. “The obvious consequences will include fewer people being able to own pets and, unfortunately, more animal abandonment.” . . .

In a brief petitioning the justices to reverse themselves, the American Kennel Club, The Cat Fanciers’ Association, Animal Health Institute, American Pet Products Association, and Pet Industry Joint Advisory Council say the verdict “isolates the Second Court of Texas in American jurisprudence and … violated Texas Supreme Court law.” -American Vision News

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Homeland Security Begins Random Armed Checkpoints

In Nazi Germany, “SS” was the abbreviation for the homeland protection squads. In the U.S. government, “SS” stands for “Social Security,” although some people visiting their local Social Security office may be beginning to wonder.

PrisonPlanet.com reports, ”Residents of Leesburg, Florida were shocked to see their local Social Security office turned into a random Homeland Security checkpoint Tuesday morning, as DHS officers armed with semiautomatic rifles and accompanied by sniffer dogs checked identifications of locals.”

“With their blue and white SUVs circled around the Main Street office, at least one official was posted on the door with a semiautomatic rifle, randomly checking identifications. And other officers, some with K-9s, sifted through the building,” reports the Daily Commercial.

The activity was part of Operation Shield, an unannounced drill conducted by the DHS’ Federal Protective Service centered around “detecting the presence of unauthorized persons and potentially disruptive or dangerous activities.”

Thomas Milligan, district manager for the Social Security Administration office, said staff were not informed their offices were about to be stormed by armed FPS officers. DHS officials refused to answer questions asked by local media and left with no explanation at noon. –American Vision News

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Homeland Security Expands Monitoring Power To All Journalism, Social Media

Freedom of speech might allow journalists to get away with a lot in America, but the Department of Homeland Security is on the ready to make sure that the government is keeping dibs on who is saying what.

Under the National Operations Center (NOC)’s Media Monitoring Initiative that came out of DHS headquarters in November, Washington has the written permission to retain data on users of social media and online networking platforms.

Specifically, the DHS announced the NCO and its Office of Operations Coordination and Planning (OPS) can collect personal information from news anchors, journalists, reporters or anyone who may use “traditional and/or social media in real time to keep their audience situationally aware and informed.”

According to the Department of Homeland Security’s own definition of personal identifiable information, or PII, such data could consist of any intellect “that permits the identity of an individual to be directly or indirectly inferred, including any information which is linked or linkable to that individual.” Previously established guidelines within the administration say that data could only be collected under authorization set forth by written code, but the new provisions in the NOC’s write-up means that any reporter, whether someone along the lines of Walter Cronkite or a budding blogger, can be victimized by the agency. –American Vision News

Terrorist Superhighway

2012-01-15T05:06:00.001-05:00

Iran's territory to terrorize, courtesy of USA

President Obama deserves credit for authorizing the execution of Osama bin Laden and for significantly intensifying the drone campaign against terrorists. He’s largely stopped romanticizing the Palestinians; has recognized that Putin made an ass of him; and has even hinted that he might stand up to China on some issues. But even if he turns into a combination of Ike, Reagan and Carl von Clausewitz in the coming months, his administration’s foreign-policy record will forever be defined by his disastrous rush to leave Iraq—then brag about it.

Does anybody at the White House look at a map? I realize that, thanks to the left’s death-grip on our education system, we’ve stopped teaching trivial subjects like geography in favor of gender studies, but you don’t have to be able to name all 17,000 islands belonging to Indonesia to recognize that simply quitting Iraq opens a terrorist superhighway straight from Iran, through Iraq and Syria, to Lebanon, Hezbollah, northern Israel and the eastern Mediterranean. We could not have given Tehran a greater gift at a worse time.

No, Iraq won’t become a mere vassal state of Iran. Given time, the current chummy relations between Tehran and the al-Maliki government (and Moqtada al-Sadr’s subversives) in Baghdad will sour. Persian vanity and racist condescension toward Arabs will revive the age-old hostility in the long term. Right now, though, we need to worry about the short term. And Iran’s current influence in Iraq is sufficient to insure that terrorists and arms will flow smoothly on their way west—along with Tehran’s support to its one staunch Arab ally, the murderous regime in Syria. No more need for the terrorist mullahs in Tehran to kick up an international fuss by sending cargo ships full of weapons through the Suez Canal. Just drive. On improved roads, courtesy of Uncle Sam.

Obama’s gift to the worst elements within Iraq and to the Islamist junta in Tehran is just stunning. It’s hard to believe that even this man, with his immeasurable vanity and genius for self-adoration, can have done such a foolish thing as to abandon Iraq. Even if we had not spent so much blood and treasure, the strategic importance of Iraq today, amid Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons, Arab revolutions, and a global economy that could not bear an oil shock, is so obvious that a stoner drop-out could see it. But all the president’s professors can’t.

The immediate “deal-breaker” issue was the status of our forces—which simply gave Obama an additional excuse to run away. We couldn’t allow our troops to be tried in Iraqi kangaroo courts, and, in the wake of Blackwater’s butchery of Iranian jaywalkers, Iran’s agents in Baghdad were easily able to stir up outrage over the thought of American “criminals” going free in the future. But that was just the superficial cause of our flight from Iraq and from strategic sanity.

At the heart of the problem is that Obama came to office impermeably convinced that toppling Saddam was bad (the inevitable logic must be that Saddam was good, right?) and that our involvement in Iraq was a crime against the Iraqis and the American people alike. No evidence was going to move him off this position. For that matter, I doubt he ever thought about it: This was dogma at its most rigid at work in an academic mind. So, even as Obama embraced one foreign thug after another, our president stiffed Iraq’s pro-American leaders, Kurds, secular Sunnis and rational Shia alike. He never made the least effort to build personal or professional relationships with our key allies within Iraq—the kind of relationships that could have defused the status-of-forces issue. Obama just wanted out.

And so we’ll be out. Congratulations, Mr. President.

I’ve maintained since 2003 that, had Bill Clinton deposed Saddam Hussein, the left would have celebrated him as the greatest liberator since Abraham Lincoln. The problem wasn’t really what we did, but who did it: George W. Bush. Bush-hatred was so rabid on the radical left—Obama’s left—that even ridding the world of a Hitler clone was a “war crime.”

And so Obama finally kept one campaign promise: He “got us out of Iraq.” What’s particularly stunning is that this Oval-Office Narcissus has been willing to betray his leftwing supporters over and over on other issues, from the environment to women’s rights to Guantanamo. But his party-line stance on Iraq permitted no compromise.

So now terrorists can flow in both directions (a threat to Iraq’s stability, as well), while Tehran is convinced that the US has lost its nerve and is in retreat. Obama can speechify all he wants, but Islamist extremists believe that we were driven out—and they’re encouraged. We’ve sacrificed a crucial buffer zone, should an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities result (as it would) in an asymmetrical response that targeted Arab oil infrastructure on the western side of the Persian Gulf. We threw away strategic bases, compromised global oil security, and left our Iraqi allies—such as the Kurds—to fend for themselves. And that terrorist superhighway to Israel’s border makes a mockery of Obama’s professions that we’ve never been so committed to Israel’s defense.

Obama committed a tragic act in Iraq. It will have grim strategic consequences. It’s further disheartening that his would-be challengers from the other party have yet to offer a serious approach to damage control: I hear a great deal of blather, but no practical strategies. Obama built this terrorist superhighway—his administration’s one shovel-ready project—and his challengers can’t think beyond adding rest stops.

Obama didn’t “lose” Iraq. He never even showed up for the game. And our B team’s all cheerleaders and no quarterbacks.

It’s a good day to be an enemy of America.

By Ralph Peters-Family Security Matters

Note: Ralph Peters is a retired Army intelligence officer and the author, most recently, of Lines of Fire, a collection of his most-enduring work on military affairs, security and strategy.

2012-01-15T05:05:00.001-05:00

How to Achieve Oil Independence

A Country In Denial About Its Fiscal Future

2012-01-15T05:04:00.001-05:00

There are moments when our political system, whose essential job is to mediate conflicts in broadly acceptable and desirable ways, is simply not up to the task. It fails. This may be one of those moments. What we learned in 2011 is that the frustrating and confusing budget debate may never reach a workable conclusion. It may continue indefinitely until it’s abruptly ended by a severe economic or financial crisis that wrenches control from elected leaders.

We are shifting from “giveaway politics” to “takeaway politics.” Since World War II, presidents and Congresses have been in the enviable position of distributing more benefits to more people without requiring ever-steeper taxes. Now this governing formula no longer works, and politicians face the opposite: taking away — reducing benefits or raising taxes significantly — to prevent government deficits from destabilizing the economy. It is not clear that either Democrats or Republicans can navigate the change.

Our political system has failed before. Conflicts that could not be resolved through debate, compromise and legislation were settled in more primitive and violent ways. The Civil War was the greatest and most tragic failure; leaders couldn’t end slavery peacefully. In our time, the social protests and disorders of the 1960s — the civil rights and antiwar movements and urban riots — almost overwhelmed the political process. So did double-digit inflation, peaking at 13 percent in 1979 and 1980, which for years defied efforts to control it.

The budget impasse raises comparable questions. Can we resolve it before some ill-defined crisis imposes its own terms? For years, there has been a “something for nothing” aspect to our politics. More people became dependent on government. From 1960 to 2010, the share of federal spending going for “payments to individuals” (Social Security, food stamps, Medicare and the like) climbed from 26 percent to 66 percent. Meanwhile, the tax burden barely budged. In 1960, federal taxes were 17.8 percent of national income (gross domestic product). In 2007, they were 18.5 percent of GDP.

This good fortune reflected falling military spending — from 52 percent of federal outlays in 1960 to 20 percent today — and solid economic growth that produced ample tax revenue. Generally modest budget deficits bridged any gap. But now this favorable arithmetic has collapsed under the weight of slower economic growth (even after a recovery from the recession), an aging population (increasing the number of recipients) and high health costs (already 26 percent of federal spending). Present and prospective deficits are gargantuan.

The trouble is that, while the economics of giveaway policies have changed, the politics haven’t. Liberals still want more spending, conservatives more tax cuts. (Although the tax burden has stayed steady, various “cuts” have offset projected increases and shifted the burden.) With a few exceptions, Democrats and Republicans haven’t embraced detailed takeaway policies to reconcile Americans’ appetite for government benefits with their distaste for taxes. President Obama has provided no leadership. Aside from Rep. Paul Ryan (Wis.), chairman of the House Budget Committee, few Republicans have.

No one wants to take away; it’s more fun to give. All of 2011’s budget feuds — over the debt ceiling, the supercommittee, the payroll tax cut — skirted the central issues. There’s a legitimate debate about how fast deficits should be reduced to avoid jeopardizing the economic recovery, notes Charles Blahous, a White House official in George W. Bush’s administration. But the long-term budget problem, as he says, stems from Social Security, Medicare and other health programs.

Any resolution of the budget impasse must repudiate, at least partially, the past half-century’s politics. Conservatives look at the required tax increases and say, “No way.” Liberals look at the required benefit cuts and say, “No way.”

Each reverts to scripted evasions. Liberals imply (wrongly) that taxing the rich will solve the long-term budget problem. It won’t. For example, the Forbes 400 richest Americans have a collective wealth of $1.5 trillion. If the government simply confiscated everything they own, and turned them into paupers, it would barely cover the one-time 2011 deficit of $1.3 trillion. Conservatives deplore “spending” in the abstract, ignoring the popularity of much spending, especially Social Security and Medicare.

So the political system is failing. It’s stuck in the past. It can’t make desirable choices about the future. It can’t resolve deep conflicts.

An alternative theory is that we’re muddling our way to a messy consensus. All the studies and failed negotiations lay the groundwork for ultimate accommodation. Perhaps. But it’s just as likely that this year’s partisan scapegoating implies more partisan scapegoating. Political leaders assume that financial markets won’t ever choke on U.S. debt and force higher interest rates, stiff spending cuts and tax increases.

At best, this is wishful thinking. At worst, it’s playing Russian roulette with the country’s future. –The Washington Post

A Cop And The Biker

2012-01-15T05:03:00.002-05:00

A cop stops a guy on a Harley for speeding, so he asks the biker his name.

'Fred,' he replies.

'Fred what?' the officer asks.

'Just Fred,' the man responds.

The officer is in a good mood and thinks he might just give the biker a break and, write him out a warning instead of a ticket. The officer then presses him for the last name.

The man tells him that he used to have a last name but lost it. The officer thinks that he has a nutcase on his hands but plays along with it. 'Tell me, Fred, how did you lose your last name?'

The biker replies, 'It's a long story, so stay with me.' I was born Fred Johnson. I studied hard and got good grades. When I got older, I realized that I wanted to be a doctor. I went through college, medical school, internship, residency, and finally got my degree, so I was Fred Johnson, MD. After a while I got bored being a doctor, so I decided to go back to school. Dentistry was my dream! Got all the way through school, got my degree, so then I was Fred Johnson, MD, DDS. Got bored doing dentistry, so I started fooling around with my assistant and she gave me VD, so now I was Fred Johnson, MD, DDS, with VD. Well, the ADA found out about the VD, so they took away my DDS. Then I was Fred Johnson, MD, with VD. Then the AMA found out about the ADA taking away my DDS because of the VD, so they took away my MD leaving me as Fred Johnson with VD. Then the VD took away my Johnson, so now I am just Fred.'

The officer walked away in tears, no ticket.

Author Unknown

A Young Conservative's Perspective On Welfare Fraud

2012-01-15T05:02:00.001-05:00

A conservative college student is telling how she witnessed multiple acts of welfare fraud while working for a major retailer.

Twenty-year-old Christine Rousselle of Maine recently wrote a column about her experiences with welfare recipients while working as a Walmart cashier (see earlier story). While she says she saw many people using the welfare system as it was intended, she was "really upset" by those who abused the privilege and did things incorrectly.

"I would see people using their food stamps to buy things like steak and lobster," she tells OneNewsNow. "I would see people using the EBT cash in the system -- it's like money from the state -- I would see people spend it on things like BB guns or a 'Slip and Slide' or Kit Kats.

"I even saw some people buying beer. I didn't even know you could do that -- my mouth literally dropped when the register went through."

Since writing about her experiences on the website "The College Conservative," Rousselle has received literally thousands of comments, good and bad. She even received a few marriage proposals.

"People at home, my co-workers especially, have been very, very enthusiastic about it," she says when asked about reaction to the column.

"I posted the column on my Facebook page at three in the morning. The first person to share it was one of my co-workers who said, 'Thank you, someone is finally talking about it.' One of my old managers told me, 'Christine, I wish you had talked to me before you wrote this -- I could have given you so many more examples of things I've seen.'"

Rousselle now attends Providence College in Rhode Island, where she is involved in journalism and currently serves as assistant editor of the news section for the school newspaper.

"I love it. I love seeing my work in print. It's a natural high for me," she shares with OneNewsNow. "As far as a career? Whoever hires me, hires me. I will work anywhere, but I would love to do this as a full-time job, just to write columns and commentate on things." -Chris Woodward-One News Now

2012-01-15T05:01:00.002-05:00

Carrier IQ: Your Phone's Secret Recording Device

2012-01-15T05:00:00.002-05:00

Carrier IQ is a piece of software installed on millions of mobile phones that logs everything their users do, from what websites they browse to what their text messages say.

No, it's not part of some great Orwellian plot; it's a diagnostic tool that carriers say plays a crucial role in helping them assess and troubleshoot their networks. But the recording app, which flew under the radar for years until security researchers drew attention to it recently, is setting off red-alert privacy and security alarms.

It's also spotlighting how little customers -- and, sometimes, the carriers and manufacturers themselves -- know about what goes on under the hood of their data-stuffed mobile devices.

Reports about Carrier IQ's hair-raisingly detailed tracking capabilities began swirling in the tech press several months ago and gained steam after Android developer Trevor Eckhart posted an analysis of the software's data logs.

But on Monday, Eckhart followed up with a 17-minute YouTube video showing how the software secretly runs on his HTC EVO 3D Android phone and logs every key press, every text, and the full URL of every website he visits. It recorded that data even from websites that use security encryption designed to prevent that kind of tracking.

Then word began spreading about just how ubiquitous Carrier IQ's software is. It's on an estimated 150 million mobile devices.

AT&T (T, Fortune 500) and Sprint (S, Fortune 500) confirmed to CNNMoney that handsets on their networks run Carrier IQ's software and transmit information from it back to them. T-Mobile, which was not immediately prepared to comment, also uses Carrier IQ to monitor devices on its network, researchers say.

Verizon Wireless (VZ, Fortune 500) says it doesn't use Carrier IQ's software. It also claims that it doesn't run anything similar, though Verizon's rivals all disputed that, insisting that modern networks can't operate without these kinds of diagnostic tools.

Researchers have found the software on multiple devices running Google's (GOOG, Fortune 500) Android operating system.

Apple (AAPL, Fortune 500) also confirmed Thursday to CNNMoney that the software is running on some of its mobile devices, but the company says it stopped supporting it in the latest version of iOS and will completely eliminate Carrier IQ from all iPhones and iPads in an upcoming software update.

What the logging tool does: Carrier IQ -- and several of its major customers -- say its software is being misunderstood.

Carrier IQ says the core purpose of its tool is to uncover broad trends across a network. Its software can help carriers find out where calls are dropping and why, and zero in on device glitches. If a specific handset line from HTC, say, has a battery life problem, Carrier IQ's software will help surface the problem.

Sprint, for example, said it uses Carrier IQ to root out network problems.

"We collect enough information to understand the customer experience with devices on our network and how to address any connection problems," Sprint said in a prepared statement. "We do not and cannot look at the contents of messages, photos, videos, etc., using this tool. The information collected is not sold and we don't provide a direct feed of this data to anyone outside of Sprint."

But as Eckhart's video and other security investigations have illustrated, Carrier IQ is logging a shockingly extensive cache of data.

In response, Carrier IQ issued a statement saying that it doesn't "record," meaning it doesn't actually transmit to the carriers or anyone else, most of the information it stores on phones.

It's a technical but meaningful distinction. Sprint and AT&T said that they do not and cannot collect the kinds of detailed information that the Carrier IQ software tracks on the phone.

Independent security analyst Dan Rosenberg has studied Carrier IQ's software and several wireless providers' user of it. As he puts it: "People need to recognize that there's a big difference between recording events like keystrokes ... and actually collecting, storing, and transmitting this data to carriers, which doesn't happen."

He added: "After reverse engineering Carrier IQ myself, I have seen no evidence that they are collecting anything more than what they've publicly claimed: anonymized metrics data."

Still, he didn't let Carrier IQ off the hook completely. There are significant privacy concerns -- which both Carrier IQ and its customers seem to have overlooked -- associated with having a big chunk of personal data stashed on your phone.

Rosenberg called that software design approach "pretty bad."

Christopher Soghoian, a cyberprivacy researcher and fellow at human rights organization Open Society, echoed that view.

"Carrier IQ doesn't seem as nefarious as incompetent, but that may not be enough to allay the legitimate concerns of the public," he said. "There would be huge issues if this data were transmitted to a carrier, but even if not, it presents huge concerns. This would be a gold mine for a hacker."

Soghoian thinks that Carrier IQ has far more access and stores much more information on phones than it should.

Yet users are essentially powerless to stop it. The software is so buried in the device's operating system that the average consumer can't possibly delete it, and doing so would void the phone's warranty.

"It's not reviewed by Google's security team, it's not audited, it may not get regular security updates, and you really don't want one app to have all that information," Soghoian noted.

Google insisted that Carrier IQ is installed at the manufacturer and carrier level. A company spokesman said it had no involvement with the software's appearance on its Android devices.

One thing is clear: This mess isn't over. What began as a wonky technical issue is becoming the subject of widespread public scrutiny.

Senator Al Franken, a Democrat from Minnesota, fired off a letter to Carrier IQ on Thursday demanding answers. Franken said he is "very concerned" by reports that the software "is logging and may be transmitting extraordinarily sensitive information."

He's far from the only one with those concerns. –CNN Money

Ragbag Headliners

2012-01-08T05:07:00.002-05:00

MSNBC Portrays Voter ID Laws as Racist ‘Voter Suppression’

Acting again as a video press release service for the Democratic National Committee (DNC), MSNBC today has repeatedly highlighted the DNC’s complaints about new voter ID laws on several programs today.

In the 10 a.m. hour, Jansing & Co. anchor Chris Jansing gave a platform to the DNC’s “director of voter protection” Will Crossley to plug he party’s new website, protectingthevote.com. The segment was entitled onscreen, “War on Voters?” Jansing failed to bring on either a Republican Party official for a rebuttal nor a state secretary of state to defend voter ID measures.

In the 11 a.m. Eastern hour, anchor Thomas Roberts gave colleague and “civil rights activist” Al Sharpton air time to blast voter ID laws. Anchor Alex Wagner also devoted a segment to bashing voter ID laws in her 12 p.m. Eastern Now with Alex Wagner program.

Roberts misleadingly described the voter ID laws as “tighten qualifications for voters” when in fact they do no such thing, merely requiring those who have the right to vote to establish their identity at the polling place. –Vision To America

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Time To Kill Congressional Pensions And Cut Pay

To demonstrate to the American people that we in Congress have skin in the game when it comes to reducing deficit spending and that we intend to lead by example on this matter, we must put an end to pensions for members of Congress. I served my country in both the U.S. Army and in the Marine Corps and I was taught from the beginning of my military career that a fundamental tenet of leadership is to lead by example. I learned that leaders should never ask others to do anything that they themselves would be unwilling to do.

Today, our nation is mired in debt and we in Congress have to make tough decisions to find a way out of this crisis. This will involve asking the American people to make sacrifices related to their reliance on a government that has grown much larger than our economy will ever be able to support. In these extremely difficult economic times, Congress needs to set an example for the country and I think that ending our pension plan would be a good start.

If members of Congress are to be servants of the people, they must not receive a benefit that is now generally unavailable to the average American citizen. It is my belief that our founding fathers envisioned Congress as a citizen legislature comprised of members who were successful on a career path outside their elected federal office and who would not be dependent upon their service in Congress to provide them with a retirement income for the rest of their lives once they leave office. –Vision To America

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Protect Yourself Against Health Insurance Reversal

In 2008, Joan Gagliardi was diagnosed with a rare autoimmune disease that caused scarring on internal organs, including her windpipe. It began to choke off her ability to breathe, but doctors at the University of Miami Hospital kept the damage in check with a treatment known as IVIG: Infusions of immunoglobulin.

The bad news came in 2010, when Gagliardi learned that her insurance company, Highmark Blue Shield of Pennsylvania, which had previously approved the expensive treatments, had reversed itself. The denial was retroactive, leaving Gagliardi liable for $1.2 million or approximately $50,000 for each infusion.

Fortunately for Gagliardi, the hospital didn’t press its claim, choosing instead to negotiate with Highmark. This year they settled up, with Highmark agreeing to pay $382,229. Gagliardi was off the hook.

Surprisingly, it’s not uncommon for an insurer to reverse itself, even after a claim is paid. State laws vary, but companies often take up to a year to perform “utilization reviews,” in which they re-examine claims that they’ve already processed.

In some cases, decisions can be reversed – leaving patients holding the bag – even years later. –Big Health Report

R.I.P. Bill of Rights 1789 - 2011

2012-01-08T05:06:00.002-05:00

One of the most extraordinary documents in human history -- the Bill of Rights -- has come to an end under President Barack Obama. Derived from sacred principles of natural law, the Bill of Rights has come to a sudden and catastrophic end with the President's signing of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), a law that grants the U.S. military the "legal" right to conduct secret kidnappings of U.S. citizens, followed by indefinite detention, interrogation, torture and even murder. This is all conducted completely outside the protection of law, with no jury, no trial, no legal representation and not even any requirement that the government produce evidence against the accused. It is a system of outright government tyranny against the American people, and it effectively nullifies the Bill of Rights.

In what will be remembered as the most traitorous executive signing ever committed against the American people, President Obama signed the bill on New Year's Eve, a time when most Americans were engaged in the consumption of alcohol. It seems appropriate, of course, since no intelligent American could accept the tyranny of this bill if they were sober.

This is the law that will cement Obama's legacy in the history books as the traitor who nullified the Bill of Rights and paved America's pathway down a road of tyranny that will make Nazi Germany's war crimes look like child's play. If Bush had signed a law like this, liberals would have been screaming "impeachment!"

Why the Bill of Rights matters

While the U.S. Constitution already limits the power of federal government, the Bill of Rights is the document that enumerates even more limits of federal government power. In its inception, many argued that a Bill of Rights was completely unnecessary because, they explained, the federal government only has the powers specifically enumerated to it under the U.S. Constitution. There was no need to have a "First Amendment" to protect Free Speech, for example, because there was no power granted to government to diminish Free Speech.

This seems silly today, of course, given the natural tendency of all governments to concentrate power in the hands of the few while destroying the rights and freedoms of their own people. But in the 1780's, whether government could ever become a threat to future freedoms was hotly debated. By 1789, enough revolutionary leaders had agreed on the fundamental principles of a Bill of Rights to sign it into law. Its purpose was to provide additional clarifications on the limitation of government power so that there could be absolutely no question that government could NEVER, under any circumstances, violate these key principles of freedom: Freedom of speech, the right to bear arms, freedom from illegal searches, the right to remain silent, the right to due process under law, and so on.

Of course, today's runaway federal government utterly ignores the limitations placed on it by the founding fathers. It aggressively and criminally seeks to expand its power at all costs, completely ignoring the Bill of Rights and openly violating the limitations of power placed upon it by the United States Constitution. The TSA's illegal searching of air travelers, for example, is a blatant violation of Fourth Amendment rights. The government's hijacking of websites it claims are linking to "copyright infringement" hubs is a blatant violation of First Amendment rights. The government's demand that all Americans be forced to buy private health insurance is a blatant violation of Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution -- the "commerce clause."

Now, with the passage of the NDAA, the federal government has torpedoed the entire Bill of Rights, dismissing it completely and effectively promising to violate those rights at will. As of January 1, 2012, we have all been designated enemies of the state. America is the new battleground, and your "right" to due process is null and void.

Remember, this was all done by the very President who promised to close Guantanamo Bay and end secret military prisons. Not only did Obama break that campaign promise (as he has done with nearly ALL his campaign promises), he did exactly the opposite and has now subjected all Americans to the possibility of government-sponsored kidnapping, detainment and torture, all under the very system of secret military prisons he claimed he would close!

"President Obama’s action today is a blight on his legacy because he will forever be known as the president who signed indefinite detention without charge or trial into law," said Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union.

Obama's signing statement means nothing

Even while committing an act of pure treason in signing the bill, the unindicted criminal President Obama issued a signing statement that reads, in part, "Moving forward, my administration will interpret and implement the provisions described below in a manner that best preserves the flexibility on which our safety depends and upholds the values on which this country was founded..."

Anyone who reads between the lines here realizes the "the flexibility on which our safety depends" means they can interpret the law in any way they want if there is a sufficient amount of fear being created through false flag terror attacks. Astute readers will also notice that Obama's signing statement has no legal binding whatsoever and only refers to Obama's momentary intentions on how he "wishes" to interpret the law. It does not place any limits whatsoever on how a future President might use the law as written.

"The statute is particularly dangerous because it has no temporal or geographic limitations, and can be used by this and future presidents to militarily detain people captured far from any battlefield," says the ACLU (http://www.aclu.org/blog/national-s...).

What this means is that the next President could use this law to engage in the most horrific holocaust-scale mass round-up of people the world has ever seen. The NDAA legalizes the crimes of Nazi Germany in America, setting the stage for the mass murder of citizens by a rogue government.

United States of America becomes a rogue nation, operating in violation of international law

Furthermore, the NDAA law as written and signed, is a violation of international law as it does not even adhere to the fundamental agreements of how nations treat prisoners of war:

"...the breadth of the NDAA’s detention authority violates international law because it is not limited to people captured in the context of an actual armed conflict as required by the laws of war" says the ACLU (http://www.aclu.org/blog/national-s...).

In 1789, today's NDAA law would have been called "treasonous," and those who voted for it would have been shot dead as traitors. This is not a call for violence, but rather an attempt to provide historical context of just how destructive this law really is. Men and women fought and died for the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights. People sacrificed their lives, their safety and risked everything to achieve the freedoms that made America such a great nation. For one President to so callously throw away 222 years of liberty, betraying those great Americans who painstakingly created an extraordinary document limiting the power of government, is equivalent to driving a stake through the heart of the Republic.

In signing this, Obama has proven himself to be the most criminal of all U.S. Presidents, far worse than George W. Bush and a total traitor to the nation and its People. Remember, Obama swore upon a Bible that he would "protect and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic," and yet he himself has become the enemy of the Constitution by signing a law that overtly and callously nullifies the Bill of Rights.

This is nothing less than an act of war declared on the American people by the executive and legislative branches of government. It remains to be seen whether the judicial branch will go along with it (US Supreme Court).

Origins of the Bill of Rights

The Bill of Rights, signed in 1789 by many of the founding fathers of our nation, was based on the Virginia Declaration of Rights, drafted in 1776 and authored largely by George Mason, one of the least-recognized revolutionaries who gave rise to a nation of freedom and liberty.

Mason was a strong advocate of not just states' rights, but of individual rights, and without his influence in 1789, we might not even have a Bill of Rights today (and our nation would have slipped into total government tyranny all the sooner). In fact, he openly opposed ratification of the U.S. Constitution unless it contained a series of amendments now known as the Bill of Rights (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George...)

SECTION ONE of this Virginia declaration of rights states:

"That all men are by nature equally free and independent and have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society, they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety." (http://www.constitution.org/bcp/vir...)

Section Three of the declaration speaks to the duty of the Citizens to abolish abusive government:

"That government is, or ought to be, instituted for the common benefit, protection, and security of the people, nation, or community; of all the various modes and forms of government, that is best which is capable of producing the greatest degree of happiness and safety and is most effectually secured against the danger of maladministration; and that, when any government shall be found inadequate or contrary to these purposes, a majority of the community hath an indubitable, inalienable, and indefeasible right to reform, alter, or abolish it, in such manner as shall be judged most conducive to the public weal."

By any honest measure, today's U.S. government, of course, has overstepped the bounds of its original intent. As Mason wrote over 200 years ago, the People of America now have not merely a right but a duty to "reform, alter or abolish it," to bring government back into alignment with its original purpose -- to protect the rights of the People.

Obama violates his Presidential Oath, sworn before God

Article II, Section I of the United States Constitution spells out the oath of office that every President must take during their swearing in:

"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

In signing the NDAA law into office, Obama has blatantly and unambiguously violated this sacred oath, meaning that his betrayal is not merely against the American people, but also against the Divine Creator.

Given that the Bill of Rights is an extension of Natural Law which establishes a direct heritage of sovereign power from the Creator to the People, a blatant attack upon the Bill of Rights is, by any account, an attack against the Creator and a violation of universal spiritual principles. Those who attempt to undermine the Bill of Rights are attempting to invalidate the relationship between God and Man, and in doing so, they are identifying themselves as enemies of God and agents of Evil.

Today, as 2012 begins, we are now a nation led by evil, and threatened with total destruction by those who would seek to rule as tyrants. This is America's final hour. We either defend the Republic starting right now, or we lose it forever.

Read the language analysis of WHY and HOW the NDAA applies to American citizens

Many people have been fooled by the obfuscated language of the bill, and they wrongfully believe the NDAA does not apply to American citizens. They have been hoodwinked!

In this follow-up article, I parse the language of the NDAA and explain, in plain language, how and why the NDAA does apply to American citizens:
http://www.naturalnews.com/034538_N...

Also, read this explanation by Rep. Justin Amash, who voted against the bill:
http://www.facebook.com/note.php?no...

Make no mistake, folks: The U.S. government has just declared all Americans to be "enemy combatants," and that the USA is now a "battleground" over which the military has total control. We are now a nation living under military dictatorship, whether you realize it or not. –Natural News

2012-01-08T05:05:00.002-05:00

Land of The Freebies, Home of the Enslaved

Recently, we have all heard on the news that 47% of all Americans do not pay federal income taxes. But as a nation do we really understand what that is doing to current and future generations? More and more people are becoming dependent on government and the shocking part is our very own Congress may be doing it…by design!

The information and data in this video is sure to infuriate. You may need to watch this video twice in order to fully understand the depth and scope of the problem. Also, we believe this video answers the question “How did America get to this point?” by analyzing the percentage of non-payers of federal income taxes from Ronald Reagan to the Barack Obama. One may argue that over the past few decades our elected officials have slowly and methodically enslaved this nation by engineering the electorate by making them more dependent on government. –GGW

Architect Of Democratic Message Wants Government To Be God

2012-01-08T05:04:00.002-05:00

Sunday’s Meet the Press was supposedly blessed with the appearance of Senator Chuck Schumer, a Democrat from New York. An article reporting on Schumer’s appearance described him as being the ‘primary architect of the Democratic message.’

When I read this description of Schumer, I reflected on some of the things I’ve heard Schumer say on various occasions and it all fit together.

During all of the proceedings leading up to the passage of Obamacare, I was watching a news conference where Schumer said that it was up to the government to decide what our inalienable rights will be.

In that interview, Schumer was referring to the Declaration of Independence that says,

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

If you look up inalienable rights in a variety of dictionaries, you will discover that they are rights that cannot be interchanged with others, transferred to other or repudiated by anyone except the party who extended the inalienable rights in the first place. In the Declaration of Independence, it clearly states that those inalienable rights were given to us by our Creator.

Anyone who claims that they will determine what our inalienable rights will be is placing themselves in the role of God, since the Declaration of Independence says that they were endowed upon us by our Creator. So according to Senator Schumer, the government is to take the role of God in determining what our inalienable rights will be

If you have been following the Democratic Party for the past few years, it becomes clearly evident that they are playing the role of God in everything they do. They’ve been taking away the rights of American citizens, especially Christian citizens, in virtually every area of life. Under the Democratic theocracy, we are no longer free to speak out for our religious beliefs and we are no longer allowed the rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness as originally given to us by our creator.

And this all ties in with the long term plan of the Democratic Party to make itself God in establishing a Marxist government of the elite, for the elite and by elite. –Godfather Politics

2012-01-08T05:03:00.005-05:00

Christmas lights are like politicians!
They all hang together,
but half the suckers don't work,
and the ones that do aren't that bright!

~Author Unknown ~

10 Resume ‘Buzzwords’ Can Sink Prospects

2012-01-08T05:02:00.002-05:00

For job seekers, 10 popular words could be making their resumes “invisible.”

LinkedIn, a social network for professionals, released a study this month that shows the most overused buzzwords that tend to make your resume “blend in,” rather than stand out.

Stay away from such overused terms as “creative,” “extensive experience,” “motivated,” “innovative,” “problem-solving” and “dynamic,” the site warned.

“There is nothing wrong with these key words,” said Jeff Kagan, a wireless and telecommunications industry analyst based in Atlanta. “The only problem is, everyone uses them.”

Many of these qualities are already expected from professionals; therefore, they go without saying, LinkedIn spokeswoman Krista Canfield said.

“It’s really not helping you stand out,” she said. “If there are things that are typically going to be a given for a professional, then it’s really not helping you. It’s probably not doing you any favors.”

LinkedIn started measuring buzzwords in 2010. The social network reviewed more than 135 million professional profiles from its members in 2011. The top three words — and four of the top 10 — on this year’s list are new.

“Creative” is the most popular word used on resumes in the U.S., U.K., Canada, Germany, the Netherlands and Australia. So while people think that being “creative” sounds good, it more likely will push a resume to the bottom of the pile.

In some cases, it can even make a positively bad impression.

“I don’t think there’s too many people looking for creative accountants out there,” Ms. Canfield said.

Other new buzzwords on LinkedIn’s list include “organizational,” “effective” and “communication skills.”

“Organizational” is the second most popular word used on U.S. resumes, while “effective” ranks third in the U.S. and also is the top word on Indian resumes.

“What’s going to be more useful for you rather than saying, ‘I’m effective,’ is to actually spell that out,” Ms. Canfield explained. “Talk about the projects you’ve worked on that actually demonstrate you’ve been effective. As a salesperson, have you met your quota six months in a row, or have you brought new clients in? They’re probably going to go with the person that’s being more specific.”

Many job seekers aren’t getting the message. Six of the top 10 buzzwords in the U.S. remained from last year’s list, although last year’s top five all dropped spots in the rankings.

“Extensive experience,” last year’s most popular buzzword, came in fourth. “Motivated” and “innovative,” last year’s third and second most popular buzzwords, dropped to sixth and seventh, respectively. “Dynamic” fell to 10th from the fifth spot last year.

Meanwhile, “track record” jumped up one spot to fifth from sixth last year. “Problem-solving” also jumped up one spot to eighth from ninth last year.

LinkedIn found that favorite resume buzzwords, as do cuisines and sports, tend to differ in countries around the world.

“Multinational” is the most popular buzzword in Brazil; “dynamic” leads the way in France; Italians most want to make known their “problem-solving” skills; and Irish job hunters are “motivated.”

Meanwhile, workers in Spain like to highlight their “managerial” experience, and Singapore workers claim to have the best “track record.” -The Washington Times

2012-01-08T05:01:00.009-05:00

Today’s Electronic Gadgets

2012-01-08T05:00:00.001-05:00

Be very careful with your electronic gadgets!

GPS

A friend's friends had their car broken into while they were at a football game. Their car was parked adjacent to the football stadium on an area specially designated for football fans. Things stolen from the car included a garage door remote control, some money, and a GPS which had been prominently mounted on the dashboard.

When the victims got home, they found that their house had been ransacked and just about everything worth anything had been stolen. The thieves had obviously used the GPS to guide them to the house. They then used the garage remote control to open the garage door and gain entry into the house. The thieves knew the owners were at the football game, so they knew what time the game was scheduled to finish, and so they knew how much time they had to clean out the house. The thieves had most probably brought a truck to load the looted household goods.

If you have a GPS: Do NOT put your home address in your GPS so that thieves would not know where you live if your GPS gets stolen.

MOBILE PHONES

A certain lady friend has changed how she lists names on her mobile phone after her handbag containing her cell phone, credit cards, wallet, etc. was stolen.

Minutes after her handbag was stolen, she called her husband from a pay phone telling him what had happened. The husband then told her that he received a text message [from her phone] just minutes earlier asking about the PIN number to their credit/debit card account, and the husband just replied via text and gave the PIN number. When they went to the bank, the bank staff told them that all the money in their account had been withdrawn. The thief had actually used the stolen cell phone to text the 'hubby' in the contact list, to get the pin number, and within a matter of minutes, the thief had completely drained the couple's bank account.

Important lessons:

1) NEVER use "identifying tags", such as, "home", "honey", "hubby", "sweetheart", "dad", "mom", etc. in your cell phone's contact list.

2) NEVER give any important information [PIN #, credit card info, etc.] if/when someone asks via a text message, UNLESS you have first made sure to personally TALK & CONFIRM with the text sender -- [do NOT text back] -- and ask WHY he/she wants the information. And if the voice on the line sounds unfamiliar, the more you should NOT give any confidential information; instead, call your bank and/or credit card company to inform them that something "questionable" is going on, and they should immediately BLOCK any access to your account(s).

3) CALL & CONFIRM and be sure that a text message requesting to "meet some family member or friend somewhere" actually came from some family member or friend . If you are unable to personally TALK & CONFIRM with any of them, do NOT comply with the text's request. -Source/Author Unknown

Locally Speaking

2012-01-01T05:07:00.001-05:00

Feds Reject South Carolina Voter ID Law

South Carolina’s attorney general says he will fight the Justice Department in federal court over South Carolina’s voter ID law.

The federal agency on Friday rejected the law, saying it makes it harder for minorities to vote. It was the first voter ID law to be refused by the Obama administration.

Assistant Attorney General Thomas E. Perez says South Carolina’s law didn’t meet the burden under the Voting Rights Act and may have prevented thousands of minorities from voting because they don’t have the right identification.

The Justice Department must approve changes to South Carolina’s election laws because of the state’s failure in the past to protect the voting rights of blacks.

Republican South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley says the rejection is more proof President Barack Obama is fighting conservative ideas. –Washington Times

Ragbag Headliners

2012-01-01T05:06:00.002-05:00

50 Facts About The U.S. Economy That Will Shock You

“Even though most Americans have become very frustrated with this economy, the reality is that the vast majority of them still have no idea just how bad our economic decline has been or how much trouble we are going to be in if we don’t make dramatic changes immediately,” writes The Economic Collapse (TEC).

For those unfamiliar with this site, TEC is an economic blog that regularly compiles a comprehensive list of the most startling and unsettling facts about the U.S. economy.

Why? Because Americans need to understand that America’s economy is precariously balanced on the edge of full-blown collapse.

“If we do not educate the American people about how deathly ill the U.S. economy has become, then they will just keep falling for the same old lies that our politicians keep telling them. Just ‘tweaking’ things here and there is not going to fix this economy,” the site explains.

Indeed, America’s economic situation has become increasingly unstable. However, what’s arguably more disconcerting than the state of the U.S. economy is the fact many Americans are largely–if not completely–unaware of just how serious things have become. –Vision To America

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Senior Cleric Calls On US To Apologize To Iran

The US should apologize for spying on Iran instead of asking for the return of its drone, Tehran’s provisional Friday Prayers Leader Ayatollah Mohammad Emami Kashani said on Friday.

“According to the international rules, this has been an aggression against our country’s territorial integrity”, therefore, if Americans claim that the plane has come to Iran by mistake, “they should extend their apology” to Iran, Emami Kashani said during his second sermon on Tehran University Campus here today.

He said the aircraft is a spy drone and its flight in Iranian sky was an obvious crime.

“The demand on Iran to return this spy plane to the US is rooted in their (Americans’) arrogant nature and is a shameless and rude demand,” he said, and added, “They should apologize to the Islamic Republic of Iran and ask for the Iranian nation’s pardon.” -Vision To America

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Census: U.S. Population Nears 313M

The United States will have 312.8 million people celebrating the start of 2012, according to a population projection released Thursday.

The total projected Jan. 1, 2012, population of the U.S. is 312,780,968, the U.S. Census Bureau estimates. That marks a .7 percent increase, or 2,250,129, from New Year’s Day 2011, and a 1.3 percent increase since Census Day, April 1, 2010.

And in January, one birth is expected every eight seconds in the U.S., while the census estimates one death will occur every 12 seconds. Net international migration, the census noted, will likely add one person to the U.S. population every 46 seconds in the coming month.

With births, deaths and migration, one person is expected to be added to the U.S. population every 17 seconds. –Politico

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Sharia Law Deciding American Court Cases

“Shariah Law and American Courts: An Assessment of State Appellate Court Cases,” published by the Center for Security Policy, is one of the most comprehensive studies I have ever seen. It covers more than 600 pages of material. The following summary statement is shocking:

“Our findings suggest that Shariah law has entered into state court decisions, in conflict with the Constitution and state public policy. Some commentators have said there are no more than one or two cases of Shariah law in U.S. state court cases; yet we found 50 significant cases just from the small sample of appellate published cases. Others state with certainty that state court judges will always reject any foreign law, including Shariah law, when it conflicts with the Constitution or state public policy; yet we found 15 Trial Court cases, and 12 Appellate Court cases, where Shariah was found to be applicable in the case at bar. The facts are the facts: some judges are making decisions deferring to Shariah law even when those decisions conflict with Constitutional protections. This is a serious issue and should be a subject of public debate and engagement by policymakers.

Once these types of decisions made in American courts become part of published law they can be used as precedent law for future cases. Anyone entering an American court will be bound by decisions made by courts that appeal to these cases. –Vision To America

90,000 New Holiday Wreaths Spark Reflection On War

2012-01-01T05:05:00.005-05:00

Joanne Gutcher sits on the cold ground at Arlington National Cemetery Saturday. For the first time, she is seeing her son's headstone.

Around her, family and friends hold each other, touch the headstone. Among the visitors is Gena Hernandez, who served with Gutcher's son in Iraq. Hernandez believes she wouldn't have made it back without him. He was an excellent gunner.

It's been almost five years since William Joshua Rechenmacher's life ended. The Army specialist was on his second tour of duty with the 1st Cavalry Division in Baghdad when a bomb blew up near his Humvee.

Wreaths Across America flew Gutcher from Jacksonville, Florida, to Arlington. It's the first time Gutcher has been at the cemetery since her son's burial.

On this day, as 90,000 new holiday wreaths are laid at Arlington, Gutcher cannot fathom that U.S. troops are pulling out of Iraq; that the war, at least for America, is at an end.

"I don't know. It just doesn't seem right," she says, pausing to gather her thoughts.

She thinks the government could have ended the war earlier. "It's the price we paid. He knew the costs."

For the 20th year, Wreaths Across America is laying holiday wreaths on headstones at Arlington and in 500 other cemeteries throughout the United States and overseas.

Semitrailers loaded with wreaths pull up around the cemetery as a man shouts wreath-laying instructions to a throng of volunteers, all in coats and gloves. His voice echoes across Section 60, the area of the cemetery dedicated to the those who died in Iraq and Afghanistan.

There are Cub Scouts, families, service members and veterans reaching into cardboard boxes, platooning the wreaths across grave sites and onto headstones.

Marine Corps veteran Bill Volk watches a nearby color guard and talks about his grandson, a captain in the Army.

"He was in Iraq for a year," he says. "He's back now. He won't be going to Iraq, but he could possibly be going to Afghanistan. We're hoping and praying he doesn't."

There was reflection on war across America as fresh wreaths adorned cold graves.

Dave Mihalic and 40 other volunteers endured frigid temperatures in the shadows of the Bitterroot Mountains in Missoula, Montana, to lay wreaths in patchy snow covering the local veteran's cemeteries.

"I think we've got one or two from Iraq," he says.

He thinks not so much about war's end but the consequence of service. He has 585 graves to cover at the Fort Missoula Post Cemetery and Western Montana State Veterans Cemetery.

He talks about Medal of Honor winners from the "Indian Wars." He talks about parents who met in North Africa during World War II and the father he buried earlier this year in one of the memorial sites. He talks about the cold.

At the Natchez National Cemetery in Natchez, Mississippi, Oscar Seyfarth says he rode his motorcycle to the ceremony.

"They had this place packed," he says.

On his mind is the Gulf War of 1991. His daughter died of a stroke after serving in the Navy during that war.

"It is what it is," he says. "My youngest son, who is 13, places a wreath on his sister's head stone every year."

Back at Arlington, Matt Bamford brings his own wreath to the cemetery. It's decorated with Snoopy.

"I lost my partner in the war. I lost him in 2010," he says.

He arrives at the grave to find a wreath already laid by his partner's family.

"Amazing," he says. And smiles.

CNN U.S.

2012-01-01T05:04:00.002-05:00

Housing Market Worse Off Than Estimated

The Good Old Days Of 'White Christmas'

2012-01-01T05:03:00.007-05:00

Christmastime—at least for the politically incorrect—is lurking just around the corner. In some ways, it’s easy to overlook that simple fact in the mad post “Black Friday” scramble to spend and leverage ourselves into oblivion.

But there was a day not so long ago when Christmas was less about costly presents and other bribes for the kids than it was a time for families to get together, sometimes traveling considerable distances to do so. And it was also time for families, however rich or poor, to count their blessings.

This was particularly true back in America’s Jurassic Age, circa 1945-1955. The oft-maligned postwar Baby Boom was well underway. The lucky heroes who managed to survive America’s effort to make the world safe for democracy headed home from far-off shores, seeking a swell girl that they could marry (no cohabitation in those days), and then settle down and raise a family with.

The overwhelming desire to achieve some kind of normalcy was not particularly surprising. This was a generation that was snakebit from the start, humbled and thwarted by a Great Depression that arose roughly as many of these kids of the Greatest Generation were just starting high school. And then, as if poverty and failure weren’t enough, our friends in Japan and Europe decided to reprise the First World War, so off went the young guys—and some young gals—to bail the entire world out once again. How easy we forget.

In any event, that Great Depression generation of Americans—at least those who made it to 1945 in one piece—were more than ready for home and hearth, not to mention getting an actual job that didn’t require a military uniform. Starting marriage and parenthood relatively late in life, they were all ready to have, at last, a calm, tranquil domestic life.

They’d already been battered enough throughout most of their lives by Wall Street robber barons, utility monopolies, and international criminals and kleptocrats who still hadn’t heard that mass murder, plunder, and world domination had fallen out of fashion. They’d had enough adventures. It was time to settle down, lie low, and savor life a bit. We Boomers thought they were incredibly boring and unimaginative as parents, not to mention more than a bit oppressive and didactic. Little did we appreciate the twin economic and military hells they’d survived.

All of which starts inching us toward a discussion of that classic Christmas song, Irving Berlin’s “White Christmas.

Up close and personal

As a former choirboy, sometime pianist, stalwart (but un-degreed) former music director of a large church choir and a handbell choir—not to mention my 15-year stint as music critic for the Washington Times print newspaper—it’s clear that music has held a central position throughout much of my life. Unfortunately, however, one generally can’t make a living by entertaining people. So, like countless others, I’ve earned most of my living in other precincts, most of which aren’t nearly so enjoyable as making music.

Chalk the music thing up to my post-WWII upbringing in good old Cleveland, Ohio, variously the Mistake-on-the-Lake or The Best Location in the Nation, once briefly America’s Second City before sinking into permanent oblivion in the 1960s and beyond, largely due to political and public employee union corruption that still makes Chicago seem like a bunch of amateurs and poseurs.

Back in the day, though, Cleveland was also a city that launched tens of thousands of postwar Boomers into the known universe. Fiancés and husbands alike returned from the Second War to End All Wars ready to get to work building the American economy by making stuff from steel and by cranking out more kids than the Social Security system would ultimately be prepared to handle. How quaint this all seems today, when we’ve outsourced the bulk of this work to a country that would love to bury us.

Highly ethnic, Catholic, and religious, the average Clevelander’s yearly high point was the area’s annual celebration of Christmas, a holiday you could actually proclaim in public without fearing public humiliation, Federal charges, civil lawsuits, or arrest.

Christmas lights were mounted outside houses with a vengeance. The Christmas light frenzy was particularly vehement on Cleveland’s near West Side, extending to the far-flung suburbs lining Lake Erie on this, the unfashionable working class part of the city.

For us, the lights were most impressive along Clifton and Lake in the near-western suburb of Lakewood, whose light displays dazzled all who drifted by in one flavor or another of Buick, Pontiac, or Chevrolet, all of which shamelessly guzzled leaded gasoline. But at less than 29 cents per gallon, cruising the Christmas lights was still a cheap date or an enjoyable family outing.

In addition to all those lights, the holiday music was everywhere. As befitted Cleveland’s onetime status as a major entertainment venue—currently “in transition” Euclid Avenue was once America’s second “Great White Way”—big and little bands were still in vogue, and Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra were still the Greatest Generation’s musical gods, even though that irritating and vaguely immoral spectre of rock-‘n-roll was lurking ever more boldly in the alleyways and inside cigarette smoke-filled neighborhood clubs, dives, and bars.

All this, of course, would eventually be immortalized in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. But that was still in the future.

My own mother was a big band—correction, a territory band—singer before she was married. She traveled the middle-America circuit with the George Duffy band and one or two others, wandering like a gang of gifted pop minstrels (original definition) from city to city, with their Western and Eastern territory parameters vaguely defined by Milwaukee and Washington, DC.

Oddly, perhaps as a result of a 1947 gig at Washington’s old Statler Hilton (now the Capitol Hilton) where the Duffy band played when in town, the parental units got hitched at St. Matthew’s Cathedral, although they never actually lived here as a couple. A little over a year later, yours truly first graced the world with his presence, on Christmas Eve, wouldn’t ya know.

May all your Christmases be white…

With all this big band overhead hanging around the house, it ultimately turned out that, instead of rock, I grew up on 1930s and 1940s classics performed live in the family kitchen or on the turntable of our unstable 45 RPM record player. And without a doubt, no Christmas song was more ubiquitous at that time than Bing Crosby’s rendition (probably his second recorded one) of Irving Berlin’s immortal “White Christmas.” Every family, it seemed, had their own copy, not just ours.

Composed by Berlin in the 1930s, the song began to catch on when it was featured in the 1942 film “Holiday Inn” starring Der Bingle and the fleet-of-foot Fred Astaire. (And yes, Virginia, the film gave birth to the name of the eponymous hotel chain that remains with us still.)

Crosby’s later single of the song helped blast it to the top of the charts in those halcyon, pre-Elvis days. Except in those days there weren’t any charts to speak of.

At any rate, to capitalize on the song’s continuing popularity, Hollywood trotted out and revised the script of “Holiday Inn,” giving this film retread a military backstory and setting the bulk of the action in a small inn-resort-B&B in rural Vermont circa 1954.

For this updated remake, Bing was coaxed back to reprise his previous starring role. Astaire turned down the new offer, however. His replacement, song and dance man Donald O’Connor managed to sustain an injury. So Crosby’s sidekick ended up being the quirky but very capable Danny Kaye instead. And of course, the film’s key song remained the eponymous “White Christmas,” that never-ending, sentimental Christmas smash that was gifted to Christians everywhere by a popular Jewish songsmith. What a country!

“White Christmas” remains a favorite even today, defying current popular tastes with its hushed, sentimental reverence for those wondrous family Christmases from the distant past—the Christmases we all remember with fondness even though most of them ended up being not really quite so wonderful if the truth were told. In any event, this song helped us believe what we fervently wanted to believe, and none of us ever saw much that was wrong with that.

In “White Christmas,” both Berlin’s tune and lyrics drip with a wonderful, warm, idyllic kind of nostalgia, making listeners long for an almost impossible ideal of holiday camaraderie, family closeness, and peace on earth, whether they’re Democrats, Republicans, or Wal-Mart patrons. Irving sure knew how to press all the right buttons, that’s for sure.

Personally, “White Christmas” remains one of my favorites. And happily, unlike most stuff I favor in life, I’m not alone on this one. The Guinness Book of World Records has declared “White Christmas” the best-selling single of all time, with sales estimated to be north of 50 million copies throughout the world. Yeah, okay, some Elton John fans pooh-pooh this number, claiming Elton’s “Candle in the Wind” has sold more copies.

But in sheer, verifiable numbers, including sales logged before formal pop record records were kept, Der Bingle’s Christmas single still rules. Sorry rock fans, go figure. Crosby’s 1949 Christmas album, which includes the song, has never been out of print, an astounding achievement. I’ve got one on my shelf. Bet a lot of you do, too. Radiohead and the ghost of Nirvana should be so lucky.

Here’s a link to Crosby’s performance of Berlin’s song that occurs the early going of the 1954 film “White Christmas.” It occurs at the outset of the film, with Crosby navigating a cheap, makeshift GI stage on the edge of an anonymous European battlefield. Stage left, a soldier cranks out a pathetic, patched-together accompaniment on some kind of hurdy-gurdy, music box contraption.

Listen carefully. You’ll hear the sound of shells faintly exploding in the far distance as Bing’s soldier-audience falls somber and silent, chilled to the bone and thinking only about home and how much they long to be there. The video is a little blurry, but you’ll quickly get the picture. I would think that returning Iraq and Afghanistan War vets will seriously relate even if they’ve never seen the movie or have somehow never heard the song.

Both the film and the song bring back those thrilling days of yesteryear when most Americans actually professed to have most of their values in common with one another and fervently believed that the United States had been blessed by God and good fortune no matter what anyone else in the world said. What a concept. We might want to consider finding our way back to this America in 2012.

Meanwhile, Merry Christmas to all!

Washington Times

2012-01-01T05:02:00.003-05:00

Author Unknown

Cell Phones Are Tracking Devices

2012-01-01T05:01:00.002-05:00

Governments, Police, Big Corporations And Stalkers Can Use To Easily Track Your Movements

If you regularly carry a cell phone around with you, you might as well say goodbye to your privacy. The truth is that any cell phone you buy is going to track you wherever you go 24 hours a day. Just as you leave "footprints" wherever you go on the Internet, so also your cell phone is constantly recording wherever you go in the physical world. Most people do not realize this, but the reality is that cell phones are tracking devices that governments, law enforcement authorities, big corporations and even stalkers can use to easily track your movements. If you do not know about this yet, then you are going to be absolutely amazed by what you are about to read. Not only do cell phones track you wherever you go, they can also be used to listen to your private conversations even when they are turned off. We live in a brave new world, and there are a lot of control freaks out there that love to monitor where we go and what we do. Unfortunately, it seems like every time technology advances, we lose a little bit more privacy. Eventually, we may wake up someday in a world where there is absolutely no privacy left.

On Black Friday, two U.S. shopping malls started actively using the FootPath Technology tracking system to monitor their customers.

This system captures the unique identification number that is assigned to each phone, and thus it enables the malls to constantly monitor what stores their customers enter.

The malls are putting up signs that warn customers about this system and that instruct them that they can "opt out" by turning off their cell phones.

But should we really have to "opt out" in order to maintain our privacy?

A new article posted on CNN described the "test" that will be running for the rest of the year at these malls.…

Starting on Black Friday and running through New Year's Day, two U.S. malls -- Promenade Temecula in southern California and Short Pump Town Center in Richmond, Va. -- will track guests' movements by monitoring the signals from their cell phones.

While the data that's collected is anonymous, it can follow shoppers' paths from store to store.

The goal is for stores to answer questions like: How many Nordstrom shoppers also stop at Starbucks? How long do most customers linger in Victoria's Secret? Are there unpopular spots in the mall that aren't being visited?

It is being argued that since our movements on the Internet are tracked, we should not object when our movements in the physical world are tracked.

But if we say this is okay, where will it all end?

Will we eventually live in a world that makes the movie "Minority Report" look tame by comparison?

So exactly how intrusive is the FootPath Technology tracking system?

A Time magazine article recently explained how the system functions.…

It works like this: A network of monitoring units are set up across a mall to track shoppers’ cellphone signals, locating them within a couple of meters. The data is then fed to a central processing center. Afterwards, management can gain insight into their customers’ shopping habits, letting them know which stores complement each other or which pathways have the most foot traffic so they can allocate their maintenance crews and ad posters accordingly.

It is not as intrusive as it could be. But the thing is, once you give these control freaks an inch, eventually they will take a mile.

In fact, governments all over the world are already using cell phones to track down "enemies of the state".

For example, a recent Bloomberg article described how the government of Iran is aggressively using cell phones to crack down on dissidents....

The Iranian officers who knocked out Saeid Pourheydar’s four front teeth also enlightened the opposition journalist. Held in Evin Prison for weeks following his arrest early last year for protesting, he says, he learned that he was not only fighting the regime, but also companies that armed Tehran with technology to monitor dissidents like him.

Pourheydar, 30, says the power of this enemy became clear as intelligence officers brandished transcripts of his mobile phone calls, e-mails and text messages during his detention. About half the political prisoners he met in jail told him police had tracked their communications and movements through their cell phones, he says.
Christians in Iran have learned that they must take the batteries entirely out of their cell phones before they gather at their secret meeting places. Otherwise, the secret police are likely to show up and drag them off to prison.

Eventually, most of the governments on earth will be utilizing these kinds of capabilities.

In the United States, cell phone companies are actually required by law to be able to pinpoint the locations of their customers to within 100 meters. Of course most cell phone providers are able to track their customers much more accurately than that.

Law enforcement authorities all over the U.S. are already using cell phones to track the locations of criminal suspects and to listen to their conversations.

Even if a cell phone is completely turned off, law enforcement authorities can still listen in on the conversations that a suspect is having. All that is necessary is for the battery to still be in the cell phone.

According to CNET News, the FBI can remotely activate the microphone on your cell phone and listen to whatever you are saying.…

The FBI appears to have begun using a novel form of electronic surveillance in criminal investigations: remotely activating a mobile phone's microphone and using it to eavesdrop on nearby conversations.

The technique is called a "roving bug," and was approved by top U.S. Department of Justice officials for use against members of a New York organized crime family who were wary of conventional surveillance techniques such as tailing a suspect or wiretapping him.

When you make a telephone call, it is never private. The reality is that the NSA has been monitoring all phone calls for years and years. According to USA Today, the NSA intends "to create a database of every call ever made"....

The National Security Agency has been secretly collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans, using data provided by AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth, people with direct knowledge of the arrangement told USA TODAY.

Isn't that a bit sobering?

But it isn't just the federal government that is using cell phone information for law enforcement purposes.

In some areas of the United States, law enforcement authorities are pulling data out of cell phones for no apparent reason whatsoever. According to the ACLU, state police in Michigan are now using "extraction devices" to download data from the cell phones of motorists that they pull over. This is happening even if the motorists that are pulled over are not accused of doing anything wrong.

The following is how an article on CNET News described the capabilities of these "extraction devices"....

The devices, sold by a company called Cellebrite, can download text messages, photos, video, and even GPS data from most brands of cell phones. The handheld machines have various interfaces to work with different models and can even bypass security passwords and access some information.

Would you want the police doing that to you?

Sadly, it is even incredibly easy for hackers and stalkers to tap into your cell phone these days.

The following short excerpt comes from a news story posted by WTHR....

Spyware marketers claim you can tap into someone's calls, read their text messages and track their movements "anywhere, anytime." They say you can "catch a cheating spouse", protect your children from an evil babysitter and "hear what your boss is saying about you." And while you're spying on others, the Spyware companies say "no one will ever know" because it's supposed to be "completely invisible" with "absolutely no trace."

Security experts say it's no internet hoax.

"It's real, and it is pretty creepy," said Rick Mislan, a former military intelligence officer who now teaches cyber forensics at Purdue University's Department of Computer and Information Technology.

Mislan has examined thousands of cell phones inside Purdue's Cyber Forensics Lab, and he says spy software can now make even the most high-tech cell phone vulnerable.
For even more on what hackers and stalkers can do to your cell phone, just check out this amazing video.

This is just another sign that we are rapidly becoming a "Big Brother" society where virtually everything that we do is watched, listened to, tracked or monitored.

For much more on this dramatic transformation of our society, check out this article: "Every Breath You Take, Every Move You Make – 14 New Ways That The Government Is Watching You".

But even with the advanced capabilities that they now have, the control freaks that run things are going to want to push things even further in the future.

For example, not all of us carry a cell phone with us wherever we go.

So how will they track the rest of us?

Implanting a microchip in all of us would make identification and tracking of the population so much easier.

How soon will it be before that idea starts getting pushed to the forefront?

We can all see where all of this is headed.

When George Orwell wrote "1984", a lot of people believed that it was impossible for our world to end up like that.

Well, the technology for a world that is far more repressive than "1984" is being put into place. Every single day, we lose a little bit more privacy. We are constantly being told that we need to sacrifice just a "little bit" of liberty and freedom for the good of national security.

The world is changing. All of us better wake up.

For most of human history, the vast majority of people have lived under repressive governments.

Today, liberty and freedom are being pushed back in every corner of the globe.

Unless this trend is reversed, most of humanity will once again end up living under deep tyranny. Only this time, the "authorities" will be equipped with "Big Brother technology" unlike anything that the world has ever seen before.

Do not take liberty and freedom for granted.

Once they are gone, they will be incredibly difficult to get back.

The American Dream

2012-01-01T05:00:00.008-05:00

A Beaching Christmas

2011-12-26T05:00:00.001-05:00

Auld Lang Syne by Sissel (Live).wmv

Happy New Year!

2011-12-18T05:00:00.017-05:00

All I Want For Christmas

HMS OCEAN

Mission Accomplished in Iraq

Our Brave Warriors Are Coming Home

Now That’s One Hell Of A Merry Christmas

Thank You For Your Service

And

Welcome Home!

This Weeks Sound Off

2011-12-11T05:09:00.003-05:00

Family: Illegal-Immigrant Student Martyred Himself For Dream Act

An illegal-immigrant student in Texas who committed suicide the day after Thanksgiving left letters saying he felt trapped by his lack of opportunities and, according to his family, he “decided to sacrifice himself for the cause.”

High school senior Joaquin Luna, 18, put on a suit, kissed family members, went into the bathroom and shot himself Friday, according to his brother, Diyer Mendoza. In the letters he left, his brother said, Luna expressed despair at the chances for the federal Dream Act, which would legalize illegal-immigrant students and young adults.

Congress blocked the legislation last year.

“He was actually doing this for the cause, mainly the Dream Act,” Mr. Mendoza said. “He was doing this to show politicians, to show that something had to be done because there are a lot of kids out there in the same situation.”

The case casts a dramatic spotlight on the hundreds of thousands of illegal-immigrant students who are caught between a decision their parents made when they were young and the realities of U.S. immigration law.

Immigrant rights advocates said politicians in Washington should take notice of Luna’s act.

“His death is an indictment on the failure of this administration to move an inch forward on fixing a broken immigration system,” said Jorge-Mario Cabrera, communications director for the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, which has planned a commemoration on Friday for Luna.

“I certainly don’t want to give you the impression that we’re going to use his death as a football or anything like that. We need to honor his memory, and we need to remind other Americans what this young man was about - because that’s the kind of people we’re talking about,” Mr. Cabrera said.

A local news report said the letters were turned over to the Hidalgo County Sheriff's Department.

That office did not return a message Monday seeking information.

Luna was a student at Benito Juarez-Abraham Lincoln High School in Mission, Texas, where he earned A and B grades, and was a regular worshipper at a Baptist church, his brother said.

Mr. Mendoza said the rest of the family has legal status but not all are citizens. His mother went into labor while she was in Reynosa, Mexico, which meant her Luna was not a U.S. citizen.

Luna applied to colleges. Although some showed interest, Mr. Mendoza said, his brother’s legal status made him ineligible for some scholarships and meant he wouldn’t be able to work legally once his schooling was finished.

“His world just closed,” Mr. Mendoza said. “He saw that there was everything he was doing was just for nothing. He was never going to be able to succeed.”

Students in Luna’s position are among the most difficult of immigration cases. In most instances, they were brought to the U.S. by parents when they were young and have grown up in the U.S. without ties to any other country.

Congressional Democrats tried to push through the Dream Act during the lame-duck session last year. Although the legislation was approved in the House, it was blocked in the Senate after falling five votes shy of the 60 needed to break a filibuster. President Obama backed the legislation.

Opponents said the legislation was too broad, applying to illegal immigrants well past their days as students, and argued that the requirements on those who were eligible weren’t strict enough.

Under a Supreme Court ruling, illegal immigrants are entitled to public education at the primary and secondary levels.

Alabama this year enacted a law that requires public school students and their parents to disclose their legal status, though the law doesn’t bar those students from attending school. A federal court has blocked that provision from being implemented.

Decisions on public higher education, however, are left to the states, which have differed on whether to charge illegal immigrant students in-state or out-of-state tuition. Many states argue that illegal immigrants can’t be legal state residents and must pay out-of-state rates, but Texas and California have gone the other direction.

With Texas Gov. Rick Perry running for the GOP’s presidential nomination, his state’s stance has drawn national attention.

“In the state of Texas where Mexico has a clear and a long relationship with this state, we decided it was in the best interest of those young people to give them the opportunity to go on to college and to have the opportunity,” Mr. Perry said at a debate in September. “They’re pursuing citizenship in this country rather than saying, ‘You know, we’re going to put you over here and put you on the government dole for the rest of your life.’”

In a comment that infuriated some conservative groups, Mr. Perry said critics of the Texas law did not “have a heart,” although he later tempered his criticism.

Other candidates said the favorable treatment in Texas and other states effectively rewards illegal behavior.

“The American way is not to give taxpayer-subsidized benefits to people who have broken our laws or who are here in the United States illegally,” said Rep. Michele Bachmann, Minnesota Republican.

In the absence of the Dream Act, Mr. Obama has tried to take administrative action. The Homeland Security Department has issued a memo to its immigration services saying those who would have qualified for the Dream Act should be low on the priority list for deportation. It also listed other factors, such as caring for a family, that would lower the risk of deportation.

Immigrant rights groups say the administration could go further and issue a blanket stay of deportations for illegal immigrant students. Mr. Obama said he does not have the authority to take such action. –Washington Times

Though it’s sad that Joaquin Luna felt it necessary to take his own life in order to make a statement, still the truth remains, he was here in the U.S. illegally.

I am not about giving amnesty to those who came to this country illegally … family or not, if you didn’t come here legally you have no rights to be here, let alone take advantage of our country and all it has to offer. Furthermore, those who are illegally here should not be afforded constitutional rights … these rights belongs solely to American citizens. And those who are found to be here in this country illegally should be deported as soon as they are picked up.

I believe in immigration … my parents immigrated to this country, but did so legally. Yes, they had to jump through hoops and from start to finish it took about six years to complete the process, but they did so legally. The same MUST be expected from all who wish to be a part of our country.

America is a melting pot and we welcome just about everyone, but don’t take advantage of our welcome mat by coming here and remaining here illegally. Do the right thing … get in line just like any other immigrant and the American dream will become a reality.

<><><>*<><><>

China Prepares For Big Entry Into Vaccine Market

The world should get ready for a new “Made in China” product — vaccines.

China‘s vaccine makers are gearing up over the next few years to push exports in a move that should lower costs of lifesaving immunizations for the world’s poor and provide major new competition for the big Western pharmaceutical companies.

However, it may take some time before some parts of the world are ready to embrace Chinese products when safety is as sensitive an issue as it is with vaccines — especially given the food, drug and other scandals the country has seen.

Still, China‘s entry into this market will be a “game changer,” said Nina Schwalbe, head of policy at the GAVI Alliance, which buys vaccines for 50 million children a year worldwide.

“We are really enthusiastic about the potential entry of Chinese vaccine manufacturers,” she said.

China‘s vaccine-making prowess captured world attention in 2009 when one of its companies developed the first effective vaccine against swine flu — in just 87 days — as the new virus swept the globe. In the past, new vaccine developments had usually been won by the U.S. and Europe.

Then, this past March the World Health Organization announced that China‘s drug safety authority meets international standards for vaccine regulation. It opened the doors for Chinese vaccines to be submitted for WHO approval so they can be bought by U.N. agencies and the GAVI Alliance.

“China is a vaccine-producing power” with more than 30 companies that have an annual production capacity of nearly 1 billion doses — the largest in the world, the country’s State Food and Drug Administration told the Associated Press.

But more needs to be done to build confidence in Chinese vaccines overseas, said Helen Yang of Sinovac, the NASDAQ-listed Chinese biotech firm that rapidly developed the H1N1 swine flu vaccine. “We think the main obstacle is that we have the name of ‘Made in China‘ still. That is an issue.”

China‘s food and drug safety record in recent years hardly inspires confidence: In 2007, Chinese cough syrup killed 93 people in Central America; one year later, contaminated blood thinner led to dozens of deaths in the United States while tainted milk powder poisoned hundreds of thousands of Chinese babies and killed six.

The government has since imposed more regulations, stricter inspections and heavier punishments for violators. Perhaps because of that, regulators routinely crack down on counterfeit and substandard drugmaking.

While welcoming WHO’s approval of China‘s drug safety authority, one expert said it takes more than a regulatory agency to keep drugmakers from cutting corners or producing fakes.

“In the U.S., we have supporting institutions such as the market economy, democracy, media monitoring, civil society, as well as a well-developed business ethics code, but these are all still pretty much absent in China,” said Yanzhong Huang, a China health expert at the Council on Foreign Relations. “For China, the challenge is much greater in building a strong, robust regulative capacity.”

Last year, a Chinese newspaper report linked improperly stored vaccines to four children’s deaths in northern Shanxi province, raising nationwide concern. The Health Ministry said the vaccines did not cause the deaths, but some remained skeptical.

Meanwhile, Chinese researchers reported in the New England Journal of Medicine earlier this year that a pandemic flu vaccine given to 90 million people in 2009 was safe. –Washington Times

Yes, we buy and enjoy products made in China because it’s cheep. However, being injected with a vaccine made in China? Not so fast!

Products made in China don’t last and in years past we have found that China has produced products that did not meet U.S. safety standards. Therefore, do you think that their vaccine will be any different?

Before made in China vaccines are distributed here in the U.S. it is hoped that our government will test their vaccine thoroughly before releasing it to the general population.

Personally, I prefer and feel safer if the vaccine I get annually was made here in the America.

Ragbag Headliners

2011-12-11T05:08:00.001-05:00

The Smokers’ Surcharge
More and more employers are demanding that workers who smoke, are overweight or have high cholesterol shoulder a greater share of their health care costs, a shift toward penalizing employees with unhealthy lifestyles rather than rewarding good habits.

Policies that impose financial penalties on employees have doubled in the last two years to 19 percent of 248 major American employers recently surveyed. Next year, Towers Watson, the benefits consultant that conducted the survey, said the practice — among employers with at least 1,000 workers — was expected to double again.

In addition, another survey released on Wednesday by Mercer, which advises companies, showed that about a third of employers with 500 or more workers were trying to coax them into wellness programs by offering financial incentives, like discounts on their insurance. So far, companies including Home Depot, PepsiCo, Safeway, Lowe’s and General Mills have defended decisions to seek higher premiums from some workers, like Wal-Mart’s recent addition of a $2,000-a-year surcharge for some smokers. Many point to the higher health care costs associated with smoking or obesity. Some even describe the charges and discounts as a “more stick, less carrot” approach to get workers to take more responsibility for their well-being. No matter the characterizations, it means that smokers and others pay more than co-workers who meet a company’s health goals. –Big Health Report

Giffords’ Office Urges Supercommittee To Give Congress A Pay Cut

2011-12-11T05:07:00.006-05:00

Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) may not be back to work on Capitol Hill yet, but her influence is still felt in Washington.

In a letter to the debt-reduction supercommittee organized by Giffords’ Washington office, 25 lawmakers urged the supercommittee to cut lawmakers’ salaries to reduce the federal deficit.

The letter, sent Thursday and signed by 11 Republicans and 14 Democrats, said a paycut would be a “commonsense” way to cut the required $1.5 trillion from the federal budget, as well as “a powerful message to the American people that Congress should not be exempt from the sacrifices it will take to balance the budget.”

Slashing lawmaker salaries was one of the last major issues Giffords advocated before she was shot in the head at a January 2011 constituent event. Only days before the shooting, Giffords had proposed legislation to cut the salaries of senators and representatives by five percent.

“Members of Congress can’t ask any American to cut back before we are willing to make some sacrifices of our own,” Giffords said at the time.

The five percent pay cut that Giffords advocated would add up to $50 million in savings over ten years, according to Thursday’s letter, which also notes that U.S. lawmakesr receive salaries that are 3.4 times higher than the average full-time wage for an American worker.

Reps. Dave Schweikert (R-Ariz.), Jason Altmire (D-Pa.), Mike Coffman (R-Colo.) and Chellie Pingree (D-Maine) joined Giffords office in leading the effort to write and gather signatures for the letter, Politico reported.

Giffords gave her first public interview since the shooting to ABC’s Diane Sawyer Monday night, just before teh release of the couple’s new book, “Gabby: A Story of Courage and Hope.” -Washington Post

^^^*^^^

Read Giffords Letter Here

2011-12-11T05:06:00.004-05:00

Israel IQ at UCLA - With Mark Schiff

This is REALLY Sad!

UCLA Students Are Really Stupid or totally Naïve

Personally, I Boarder On Stupid!

25 "Worst Passwords" Of 2011 Revealed

2011-12-11T05:05:00.003-05:00

If you see your password below, STOP!

Do not finish reading this post and immediately go change your password -- before you forget. You will probably make changes in several places since passwords tend to be reused for multiple accounts.

Here are two lists, the first compiled by SplashData:

1. password

2. 123456

3.12345678

4. qwerty

5. abc123

6. monkey

7. 1234567

8. letmein

9. trustno1

10. dragon

11. baseball

12. 111111

13. iloveyou

14. master

15. sunshine

16. ashley

17. bailey

18. passwOrd

19. shadow

20. 123123

21. 654321

22. superman

23. qazwsx

24. michael

25. football

Last year, Imperva looked at 32 million passwords stolen from RockYou, a hacked website, and released its own Top 10 "worst" list:

1. 123456

2. 12345

3. 123456789

4. Password

5. iloveyou

6. princess

7. rockyou

8. 1234567

9. 12345678

10. abc123

If you've gotten this far and don't see any of your passwords, that's good news. But, note that complex passwords combining letters and numbers, such as passw0rd (with the "o" replaced by a zero) are starting to get onto the 2011 list. abc123 is a mixed password that showed up on both lists.

Last year, Imperva provided a list of password best practices, created by NASA to help its users protect their rocket science, they include:

It should contain at least eight characters

It should contain a mix of four different types of characters - upper case letters, lower case letters, numbers, and special characters such as !@#$%^&*,;" If there is only one letter or special character, it should not be either the first or last character in the password.

It should not be a name, a slang word, or any word in the dictionary. It should not include any part of your name or your e-mail address.

Following that advice, of course, means you'll create a password that will be impossible, unless you try a trick credited to security guru Bruce Schneir: Turn a sentence into a password.

For example, "Now I lay me down to sleep" might become nilmDOWN2s, a 10-character password that won't be found in any dictionary.

Can't remember that password? Schneir says it's OK to write it down and put it in your wallet, or better yet keep a hint in your wallet. Just don't also include a list of the sites and services that password works with. Try to use a different password on every service, but if you can't do that, at least develop a set of passwords that you use at different sites.

Someday, we will use authentication schemes, perhaps biometrics, that don't require so much jumping through hoops to protect our data. But, in the meantime, passwords are all most of us have, so they ought to be strong enough to do the job. –Yahoo Finance

Matrimonial Tails

2011-12-11T05:04:00.002-05:00

Love Your Enemy

· From his death bed, the husband told his wife, "After I die, I want you to marry Sammy."

· "Sammy? But he is your enemy!"

· "Yes, I know. . .but after my having suffered all these years, so let him suffer now."

The Wedding Ring

· At a cocktail party, one woman asked another, "Aren't you wearing your wedding ring on the wrong finger?"

· The other replied, "Yes I am. . .I married the wrong man."

Same Service

· A husband told the marriage counselor, "When we were first married, as soon as I come home from the office, my wife would bring my slippers and our cute little dog would run around barking. Now, after 10 years of marriage, it's all different; when I come home, the dog brings my slippers and my wife runs around barking."

· "You're still getting the same service, aren't you!" replied the counselor.

Speak No Ill

One woman told another: "My neighbor is always speaking ill of her husband, but look at me, my husband is foolish, lazy and a coward. . .but have I ever said anything bad about him?"

Kiss And Love

· One day, a wife drew her husband's attention to the couple next door and said, "Do you see that couple? How devoted they are? He kisses her every time they meet. Why don't you do that, too?"

· "I would love to, but I don't know her well enough," replied the husband

Coming Home Late

· A woman complained to a neighbor that her husband always came home late, no matter how she tried to stop him.

The neighbor responded, "Do what I did. Once my husband came home at 3 o'clock in the morning, and I called out from my bed: 'Is that you, Jim?' And that cured him."

· "Interesting. . .but how did that cure him?"

· "You see, his name is Bill."

Problem Fatherhood

· "You looked troubled. . .what's seems to be the problem?" a fellow asked his pal.

· "I'm going to be a father," the pal replied.

· "But that's wonderful. . .there's nothing wrong with it, is there?"

· "Oh yes there is. . . my wife doesn't know anything about it!"

Author Unknown

A Journey Called Life

2011-12-11T05:03:00.031-05:00

A mouse looked through the crack in the wall to see the farmer and his wife open a package. "What food might this contain?", the mouse wondered. He was devastated to discover it was a mousetrap.

Retreating to the farmyard, the mouse proclaimed this warning: "There is a mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap in the house!"

The chicken clucked and scratched, raised her head and said, "Mr. Mouse, I can tell this is a grave concern to you, but it is of no consequence to me. I cannot be bothered by it." The mouse turned to the pig and told him, "There is a mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap in the house!"

The pig sympathized, but said, "I am so very sorry, Mr. Mouse, but there is nothing I can do about it but pray. Be assured you are in my prayers." The mouse turned to the cow and said, "There is a mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap in the house!"

The cow said, "Wow, Mr. Mouse. I'm sorry for you, but it's no skin off my nose."

So, the mouse returned to the house, head down and dejected, to face the farmer's mousetrap . . . Alone.

That very night a sound was heard throughout the house -- the sound of a mousetrap catching its prey. The farmer's wife rushed to see what was caught. In the darkness, she did not see it. It was a venomous snake whose tail was caught in the trap. The snake bit the farmer's wife.

The farmer rushed her to the hospital. When she returned home she still had a fever.
Everyone knows you treat a fever with fresh chicken soup. So the farmer took his hatchet to the farmyard for the soup's main ingredient:

But his wife's sickness continued. Friends and neighbors came to sit with her around the clock. To feed them, the farmer butchered the pig.

But, alas, the farmer's wife did not get well ... She died.

So many people came for her funeral that the farmer had the cow slaughtered to provide enough meat for all of them for the funeral luncheon.

And the mouse looked upon it all from his crack in the wall with great sadness. So, the next time you hear someone is facing a problem and you think it doesn't concern you, remember ---

When one of us is threatened, we are all at risk. We are all involved in this journey called life. We must keep an eye out for one another and make an extra effort to encourage one another.

YOU MAY WANT TO SEND THIS TO EVERYONE WHO HAS EVER HELPED YOU OUT ... AND LET THEM KNOW HOW IMPORTANT THEY ARE.

- REMEMBER -

EACH OF US IS A VITAL THREAD IN ANOTHER PERSON'S TAPESTRY. OUR LIVES ARE WOVEN TOGETHER FOR A REASON.

One of the best things to hold onto In this world is a FRIEND.

~ Author Unknown ~

A Writing By Ben Stein

2011-12-11T05:02:00.003-05:00

Apparently the White House referred to Christmas Trees as Holiday Trees for the first time this year which prompted CBS presenter, Ben Stein, to present this piece which I would like to share with you. I think it applies just as much to many countries as it does to America .

The following was written by Ben Stein and recited by him on CBS Sunday Morning Commentary.

My confession:

I am a Jew, and every single one of my ancestors was Jewish. And it does not bother me even a little bit when people call those beautiful lit up, bejeweled trees, Christmas trees. I don't feel threatened. I don't feel discriminated against. That's what they are, Christmas trees.

It doesn't bother me a bit when people say, 'Merry Christmas' to me. I don't think they are slighting me or getting ready to put me in a ghetto. In fact, I kind of like it. It shows that we are all brothers and sisters celebrating this happy time of year. It doesn't bother me at all that there is a manger scene on display at a key intersection near my beach house in Malibu . If people want a creche, it's just as fine with me as is the Menorah a few hundred yards away.

I don't like getting pushed around for being a Jew, and I don't think Christians like getting pushed around for being Christians. I think people who believe in God are sick and tired of getting pushed around, period. I have no idea where the concept came from, that America is an explicitly atheist country. I can't find it in the Constitution and I don't like it being shoved down my throat.

Or maybe I can put it another way: where did the idea come from that we should worship celebrities and we aren't allowed to worship God ? I guess that's a sign that I'm getting old, too. But there are a lot of us who are wondering where these celebrities came from and where the America we knew went to.

In light of the many jokes we send to one another for a laugh, this is a little different: This is not intended to be a joke; it's not funny, it's intended to get you thinking.

Billy Graham's daughter was interviewed on the Early Show and Jane Clayson asked her 'How could God let something like this happen?' (regarding Hurricane Katrina).. Anne Graham gave an extremely profound and insightful response. She said, 'I believe God is deeply saddened by this, just as we are, but for years we've been telling God to get out of our schools, to get out of our government and to get out of our lives. And being the gentleman He is, I believe He has calmly backed out. How can we expect God to give us His blessing and His protection if we demand He leave us alone?'

In light of recent events... terrorists attack, school shootings, etc. I think it started when Madeleine Murray O'Hare (she was murdered, her body found a few years ago) complained she didn't want prayer in our schools, and we said OK. Then someone said you better not read the Bible in school. The Bible says thou shalt not kill; thou shalt not steal, and love your neighbor as yourself. And we said OK.

Then Dr. Benjamin Spock said we shouldn't spank our children when they misbehave, because their little personalities would be warped and we might damage their self-esteem (Dr. Spock's son committed suicide). We said an expert should know what he's talking about. And we said okay.

Now we're asking ourselves why our children have no conscience, why they don't know right from wrong, and why it doesn't bother them to kill strangers, their classmates, and themselves.

Probably, if we think about it long and hard enough, we can figure it out. I think it has a great deal to do with 'WE REAP WHAT WE SOW.'

Funny how simple it is for people to trash God and then wonder why the world's going to hell. Funny how we believe what the newspapers say, but question what the Bible says. Funny how you can send 'jokes' through e-mail and they spread like wildfire, but when you start sending messages regarding the Lord, people think twice about sharing. Funny how lewd, crude, vulgar and obscene articles pass freely through cyberspace, but public discussion of God is suppressed in the school and workplace.

Are you laughing yet?

Funny how when you forward this message, you will not send it to many on your address list because you're not sure what they believe, or what they will think of you for sending it.

Funny how we can be more worried about what other people think of us than what God thinks of us.

Pass it on if you think it has merit.

If not, then just discard it.... no one will know you did. But, if you discard this thought process, don't sit back and complain about what bad shape the world is in.

My Best Regards, Honestly and respectfully,

Ben Stein

2011-12-11T05:01:00.003-05:00

Americans Preparing For Possible Collapse

2011-12-11T05:00:00.004-05:00

Voter confidence in the government to recover from our current woes is at an all-time low. The Party ideologies are so far apart that Washington is as useful as snow blower in the desert. Congressional approval is at single digits and the president’s approval ratings are not much higher. The stock market’s record of late looks like one of the roller coasters at a major amusement park. The situation in Europe is not any better and many experts over there are conducting a ‘Euro death watch’.

National elections are a year away and while most of the Republican candidates claim they have solutions to help the nation climb out of the slough of despair, most Americans are skeptical of it happening. Talk is cheap and the proof is in the pubbing, however, these days the pudding has a bitter taste to it.

With all of the gloom and doom in the news, there seems to be one industry that is thriving and that’s the survival industry. Stores that sell survival gear and meals are finding their business picking up. One survival company which operates three stores in Missouri said that they normally sell about 20-30 cases of ready to eat survival meals in a year, but have just had to order an additional 50 cases in the past few months to keep up with demand.

The owner of the survival stores reports that he has had families come in and purchase a backpack for each member of the family and then purchase enough essential survival gear to fill each backpack. His clients have been telling him that with all of the uprisings in the Middle East, the state of the American economy and the growing social unrest here with the Occupy movements, that they are preparing for the eventual collapse of American society and they want to be ready for when it happens.

Families are buying large quantities of freeze dried meals and other supplies and then stashing in locations away from the city. Some families are even joining forces with several other families in stocking up on property they’ve purchased. One group reported that they’ve even built a small watchtower on their property where they can see trouble coming from a distance and be prepared for when it arrives.

I’ve seen other reports of people reviving old bomb shelters that were built back in the 1950s and 60’s against the threat of a nuclear attack. They’re filling them up with containers of water, food, clothing and weapons.

In some areas of the country, gun and ammunition sales have been skyrocketing as well. Americans are arming themselves so that they can protect what they have from looters and against any insurgent forces that come their way. Families are taking shooting and self-defense lessons so they can protect themselves and each other.

Many of them are also converting large portions of their savings into gold and silver. They believe that the economy will soon collapse resulting in the complete devaluation of the dollar. The values of precious metals like gold, silver and platinum may be the only stable currency left at the time.

All of these signs do not bode well for the confidence in our current leaders or in those wanting to be the leaders. Americans are losing hope for the future and are preparing for the end of America as we know it.

How well are you prepared if our nation’s government and economy collapses and anarchy takes its place? Where is your money stored? Do you have a place to go where you will be safer than in your own home? Do you have supplies stored up to help you survive the day store shelves go bare?

Or do you believe that everything will be okay and that thousands of Americans are over reacting and that there is nothing to fear? Are you willing to take that chance with your family? -Godfather Politics

This Weeks Sound Off

2011-12-04T05:08:00.003-05:00

Herman Cain on Saturday announced he is suspending his bid for the Republican presidential nomination.

“One of the first declarations that I want to make to you today is that I am at peace with my God. I am at peace with my wife, and she is at peace with me,” he said prior to making the announcement.

Cain said the decision was a result of the "cloud of doubt" that had been cast over his family in light of what he called false allegations.

Cain's once-surging bid for the nomination began to falter in recent weeks after allegations of sexual harassment surfaced.

Most recently, Ginger White of Atlanta claimed that she and Cain, who is married, had carried on a 13-year affair.

Cain this week told a newspaper he had repeatedly given White money to help her with "month-to-month bills and expenses." But he denied the relationship was sexual, as White contends. He said the two were friends.

Cain earlier told staffers he was reassessing his campaign in the wake of the allegation of the affair, and he acknowledged to reporters that her account had led to a drop in contributions to his campaign.

"Suspending” a campaign allows a candidate to continue raising and spending campaign funds. –CNN Reports

From the get go and of all the Republican candidates for President, Herman Cain was just to good to be true. When the first allegations of sexual harassment surfaced I knew there was more to come.

Though Cain tried to talk his way out of the sexual harassment allegations, his handling of the situation reminded me of former President Clinton and his affair with Monica Lewinsky, and from that point forward I just waited for the other foot to fall, which it has, thus causing Cain to walk away from his bid for the White House. A thirteen year affair is pretty hard to lie about, specially since the woman had enough proof to seal Cain’s fate … so sad, but good reddens!!

Ragbag Headliners

2011-12-04T05:07:00.002-05:00

Vt. artist: I'll Fight Chick-Fil-A For My Kale

Vt. folk artist says he'll fight Chick-fil-A giant for rights to phrase 'eat more kale'

A folk artist expanding his home business built around the words "eat more kale" says he's ready to fight root-to-feather to protect his phrase from what he sees as an assault by Chick-fil-A, which holds the trademark to the phrase "eat mor chikin."

Bo Muller-Moore uses a hand silkscreen machine to apply his phrase, which he calls an expression of the benefits of local agriculture, on T-shirts and sweatshirts. But his effort to protect his business from copycats drew the attention of Chick-fil-A, the Atlanta-based fast-food chain that uses ads with images of cows that can't spell displaying their own phrase on message boards.

In a letter, a lawyer for Chick-fil-A said Muller-Moore's effort to expand the use of his "eat more kale" message "is likely to cause confusion of the public and dilutes the distinctiveness of Chick-fil-A's intellectual property and diminishes its value."

Chick-fil-A, which trails only Louisville, Ky.-based KFC in market share in the chicken restaurant chain industry, has a long history of guarding its trademark, and the letter listed 30 examples of attempts by others to co-opt the use of the "eat more" phrase that were withdrawn after Chick-fil-A protested. The Oct. 4 letter ordered Muller-Moore to stop using the phrase and turn over his website, eatmorekale.com, to Chick-fil-A.

Muller-Moore, 38, of Montpelier, says he won't do that.

"Our plan is to not back down. This feels like David versus Goliath. I know what it's like to protect what's yours in business," he said.

So he has enlisted the help of Montpelier lawyer Daniel Richardson and the intellectual property clinic at the University of New Hampshire School of Law's Intellectual Property and Transaction Clinic.

"Bo's is a very different statement. It's more of a philosophical statement about local agriculture and community-supported farmers markets," Richardson said. "At the end of the day, I don't think anyone will step forward and say they bought an 'eat more kale' shirt thinking it was a Chick-fil-A product."

Chick-fil-A spokesman Don Perry said the company does not comment on pending legal matters.

Muller-Moore, who describes himself as a folk artist who earns a living working as a foster parent for an adult with special needs, said he started using the phrase "eat more kale" in 2000. A farmer friend who grows kale, a leafy vegetable that grows well in Vermont and is known for its nutritional value, asked Muller-Moore to make three T-shirts containing the phrase for his family for $10 each.

A few weeks later, the friend told Muller-Moore that people kept asking for the shirts. The phrase helped him get his silkscreen business going, which he later expanded through the Internet. Now, he prints "eat more kale" on hooded sweatshirts too. And he has the words printed on bumper stickers that are common throughout central Vermont.

Five years ago, Muller-Moore said, he received a similar cease-and-desist letter from Chick-fil-A, telling him to stop using the phase. A pro bono lawyer traded a handful of letters with Chick-fil-A on his behalf. After the letters stopped, Muller-Moore assumed the issue had been decided in his favor and kept making the products.

But as his business grew, Muller-Moore decided to protect the phrase that became his unofficial trademark. He filed an application last summer with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to protect "eat more kale." The application is pending.

Vermont Law School professor Oliver Goodenough, who specializes in intellectual and property law, said the kale versus "chikin" fight reminded him of a case two years ago, when a Morrisville microbrewer that makes a beer called "Vermonster" ran afoul of the Monster energy drink company. That case was settled when the makers of Vermonster agreed never to go into the energy drink business.

Goodenough said there was little likelihood consumers would confuse kale with chicken.

"This looks a bit like an example of over-enthusiasm for brand protection," he said. "There are (law) firms in the United States that take this over-enthusiasm for brand protection seriously and believe the more they can scare away the better. If folks aren't deeply committed to this and it's a funny byproduct, maybe they won't fight it." -Yahoo Finance

<><><>*<><><>

Obama Administration Bans Knowledge Of Islam

The Obama administration’s censoring of photographs of the late Osama bin Laden, lest they “offend” Muslims, is one thing; but what about censoring words, especially those pivotal to U.S. security?

Weeks earlier, the Daily Caller revealed that “the Obama administration was pulling back all training materials used for the law enforcement and national security communities, in order to eliminate all references to Islam that some Muslim groups have claimed are offensive.”

The move comes after complaints from advocacy organizations including the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) and others identified as Muslim Brotherhood front groups in the 2004 Holy Land Foundation terror fundraising trial. In a Wednesday Los Angeles Times op-ed, Muslim PublicAffairs Council (MPAC) president Salam al-Marayati threatened the FBI with a total cutoff of cooperation between American Muslims and law enforcement if the agency failed to revise its law enforcement training materials. Maintaining the training materials in their current state “will undermine the relationship between law enforcement and the Muslim American community,” al-Marayati wrote. Multiple online sources detail MPAC’s close alignment with CAIR. In his op-ed, Al-Marayati demanded that the Justice Department and the FBI “issue a clear and unequivocal apology to the Muslim American community” and “establish a thorough and transparent vetting process in selecting its trainers and materials.”

Accordingly, after discussing the matter with Attorney General Eric Holder, Dwight C. Holton said “I want to be perfectly clear about this: training materials that portray Islam as a religion of violence or with a tendency towards violence are wrong, they are offensive, and they are contrary to everything that this president, this attorney general and Department of Justice stands for. They will not be tolerated.”

Even before these Muslim complaints and threats, President Obama alluded to censoring words when he said soon after taking office: “Words matter … because one of the ways we’re going to win this struggle [“war on terror”] is through the battle of [Muslims’] hearts and minds” (followed by oddities like commissioning NASA to make Muslims “feel good” about themselves).

As if there were not already a lamentable lack of study concerning Muslim war doctrine in the curriculum of American military studies—including in the Pentagon and U.S. Army War College—the administration’s more aggressive censorship program will only exacerbate matters. Last year’s QDR, a strategic document, does not mention anything remotely related to Islam—even as it stresses climate change, which it sees as an “accelerant of instability and conflict” around the world.

This attempt to whitewash Islam certainly has precedents, such as a 2008 government memo that not only warned against “offending,” “insulting,” or being “confrontational” to Muslims, but tried to justify such censorship as follows:

Never use the terms “jihadist” or “mujahideen” in conversation to describe the terrorists. A mujahed, a holy warrior, is a positive characterization in the context of a just war. In Arabic, jihad means “striving in the path of God” and is used in many contexts beyond warfare. Calling our enemies jihadis and their movement a global jihad unintentionally legitimizes their actions [emphasis added].

Aside from the fact that the above definitions are highly misleading, the notion that the words we use can ever have an impact on what is and is not legitimate for Muslims is ludicrous: Muslims are not waiting around for Americans or their government—that is, the misguided, the deluded, in a word, the infidel—to define Islam for them. For Muslims, only Sharia determines right and wrong.

The U.S. government needs to worry less about which words appease Muslims and worry more about providing its intelligence community—not to mention its own citizenry—with accurate knowledge concerning the nature of the threat.

Without words related to Islam, how are analysts to make sense of the current conflict? What are the goals and motivations of the “jihadists”? What are their methods? Who might be “radicalizing” them? Whom are they affiliated to? Who supports them? These and a host of other questions are unintelligible without free use of words related to Islam.

Knowledge is inextricably linked to language. The more generic the language, the less precise the knowledge; conversely, the more precise the language, the more precise the knowledge. In the current conflict, to acquire accurate knowledge, which is essential to victory, we need to begin with accurate language.

This means U.S. intelligence analysts and policymakers need to be able to use, and fully appreciate the significance of, words related to Islam—starting with the word “Islam” itself, i.e., submission to a worldview based on Sharia, a code of law antithetical to Western common law. It means the U.S. military needs to begin expounding and studying Islamic war doctrine—without fear of reprisal, such as when counter-terrorism strategist Stephen Coughlin was fired by the Pentagon for focusing on Islamic doctrine and therefore being politically incorrect. In short, it means America’s leadership needs to take that ancient dictum—“Know thy enemy”—seriously. –Front Page Mag

Lawyer Myra’s Advice For Holidays Without Headaches For Divorced Parents

2011-12-04T05:06:00.005-05:00

For divorced or separated parents, the holidays aren’t always like a Hallmark card, not all warm and fuzzy. Instead, phones start ringing off the hook in family law offices all over the country as families start squabbling over custody and visitation schedules, winter vacations and even gift-giving.

Serious fears about non-custodial parent abductions and unsupervised visits can arise.

Most attorneys would rather enjoy the holidays with their own families than rush into court to file emergency legal documents during the season. Think ahead and consider these tips so you can enjoy your holiday season with minimum stress for you and your children. Bonus: you’ll also avoid the added financial expense of legal bills.

Get out your most recent court order. Is there a holiday schedule included in it? It may be a while since you looked it over. Get familiar with specific dates and times your children are with you, and when they are supposed to be with the other parent. Holiday visitation might supercede the regular routine.

Be proactive and send a friendly confirmation of the holiday schedule to the other parent so that expectations are clear. It is better to find out early if there is going to be a battle. See if there are any areas of disagreement you can solve through reasonable discussion now.

Attorneys are usually happy to review your holiday schedules for minimum or no cost. Whatever the cost, it will save time, money, and stress in the long run if you end up hiring an attorney to work out a schedule at the last minute.

Draw up a holiday schedule for your kids and post it. Make sure everyone is familiar with it so transitions are smooth. No one needs any surprises other than the ones from Santa.

Be flexible and adapt to unusual circumstances. If family members are making a special visit from out of town, do not punish your children by prohibiting visitation even if it’s your regular time. It might be the only time of the year seeing them is possible. Encouraging ongoing relationships with all of your children’s family members is always in their best interest.

Do your kids have to travel to visit a parent who lives far away? Each parent should have a copy of the specific holiday schedule, contact numbers and addresses so the non-visiting parent can stay in touch during the visitation period. If there are any gray areas, get your custody order clarified and get consent from the other parent in writing so there are no misunderstandings.

If your concerns about out-of-town visitation rise to the level of fear for a child’s safety or suspicions about child abduction, you may want to discuss your concerns with a family law attorney and decide whether you need to ask a court for a modification of visitation. You must normally show that a change of circumstances has occurred and that modifying visitation is in the best interests of a child.

As a general rule, you cannot take minor children out of your state without the other parent’s express written consent. The other parent should be informed right away if you plan to leave town. Don’t forget and then expect him or her to agree to your prearranged holiday the day before the trip. Provide an itinerary and contact telephone numbers.

Stay positive and assure your kids they will enjoy happy holidays with both of you, even if you are personally disappointed your kids may not be with you on a particular day. Your anxiety will create anxiety in your children. Don’t make them take sides and don’t make them feel guilty for enjoying time with the other parent’s side of the family.

It may be a good time for new traditions. If you feel sadness about familyactivities that remind you of a time your family was together, forget about struggling to keep everything the same. Accept change as positive and introduce some new, fun activities into your holiday. But don’t upset your kids by making changes all at once.

If your divorce is fresh, sitting down with your ex and his or her family at the dinner table might be beyond your capacity right now. Once the wounds start to heal, see if you can be the bigger person and invite grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins – and yes, the ex - to dinner. While your relationship with them has changed, your child’s relationships with them have not. See if you can’t manage to be polite for a few hours to allow your children to enjoy a family meal or event.

A minimum effort on your part could save you and your family from an emotional or financial disaster. Having to hire a family law attorney during the holidays can be a nightmare and a distraction at an already busy time of year. This is supposed to be a special time of the year for everyone, most of all your children.

By Myra Fleischer-The Washington Times

Note: Myra Chack Fleischer founded Fleischer & Associates in 2001 and serves as Lead Counsel with a focus on divorce, property, custody and support, settlement agreements, mediation, asset division and family law appeals. Read more Legally Speaking in the Communities at The Washington Times. Follow Fleischer & Associates on Facebook and on Twitter @LawyerMyra

2011-12-04T05:05:00.003-05:00

Below is a video of the GOP presidential debate in New Hampshire. Among the panel of commentators and journalists, who asked the GOP aspirants questions about current major issues affecting the nation, is PBS' Charlie Rose.

While Newt Gingrich was not the front runner of the GOP presidential aspirants, the video is a Gingrich masterpiece. The "gotchas" ran into a wall of Gingrich history, who knows very well what he's talking about. The video is about seven minutes long; it bares/exposes some plain realities and truths about the US government, which the mainstream news media has never talked [or is afraid to talk] about.

Take off your "political party blinders & ear plugs", and, for a change, listen to the eye-opening comments on the video with an open mind.

^^^*^^^

Presidential Candidate Newt Gingrich in GOP Debate

US Employees Deserve What They Paid Towards Social Security!

2011-12-04T05:04:00.002-05:00

Remember that, if you worked for a legitimate US company or organization, not only did you contribute to Social Security but also your employer did. It totaled about 15% of your income before taxes. If you averaged only $30K over your working life, that would have been close to $220,500.00.

If you calculate the [future] value of $4,500 per year -- i.e., your & your employer's contributions -- at a simple 5%, which is less than what the government pays on the money that it has borrowed to satisfy its careless, mindless, and profligate spending, after 49 years of working, you'd have $892,919.98 in retirement money!

And if you took out only 3% per year of that total contribution to Social Security for your retirement, you'd receive $26,787.60 per year, and it would last more than 30 years (if you retire at age 65); and that's with no interest paid on that final amount on deposit! If you bought an annuity which paid 4% per year, you'd have a lifetime income of $2,976.40 per month.

And now Washington D.C. talks of your and my Social Security which we paid for all the years that we worked as "entitlement"? My ass! You and I paid cash for our Social Security benefits! Just because they borrowed and wasted the money and have no decency to pay it back, does it make our SS benefits some kind of government charity or handout!
The feds are fooling the American public and pulling a Ponzi scheme bigger than Bernie Madoff's!

Members of Congress receive benefits which consist of free healthcare, outrageous retirement packages, 67 paid holidays, three weeks paid vacation, unlimited paid sick days -- now that's welfare, and yet they have the nerve to call my Social Security retirement benefit which I paid for in advance as "entitlement"?

And while Washington reports that the country is "broke" and can't help our own senior citizens, veterans, orphans, homeless, yet billions of US taxpayers' dollars have been sent as foreign aid to Chile, Haiti, Turkey, and now even Pakistan aside from millions of voluntary contributions by US citizens to various American charitable (church) organizations! And the administration has the unmitigated gall to call one's pre-paid Social Security benefits as "entitlement"?

Most importantly, it is about time that the general American public know the truth that while US health authorities have claimed that the "average U.S. life expectancy" is now up to almost 80 years, the truth is: the biggest number of recorded deaths in the USA is between the ages of 45 and 65 years---that is BEFORE a big segment of population even collect any of the Social Security benefits which they have contributed to the Social Security Fund.

So, the BIG QUESTION is: WHAT has the US government done with all those billions of dollars of US workers' contributions --- payroll tax deductions --- to the Social Security Fund, which have been left UNPAID to contributors who have DIED before they could collect even a single cent of Social Security benefit?

And the feds now have the gall to call those contributions as mere "entitlements"?

Author Unknown

Happy Winter

2011-12-04T05:03:00.001-05:00

Ya got to love this bird!

THE BLUE BIRD OF HAPPINESS? MY ASS!

It's friggin' freezing, the snow's up my ass,
all the food is covered with three feet of this white shit,
and you want me to sing? What? Anne Murray's Snowbird?
Forget it!
Next winter, I'm flyin' to Jamaica and smokin' dope!

~ Author Unknown ~

20 Signs That America Is Going Crazy

2011-12-04T05:02:00.002-05:00

Has anyone else noticed that America seems to be going crazy? I'm not talking about the "woo hoo - let go out and have some fun" kind of crazy. I'm talking about the "lock them up in the looney bin" kind of crazy. Our society is rapidly coming apart at the seams and people are seriously starting to lose it. Criminals are going crazy, young people are going crazy, children are going crazy, law enforcement authorities are going crazy and the federal government is most certainly going crazy. Way too many Americans seem to be losing all sense of what is right and what is wrong. Way too many Americans seem to be losing all sense of what it means to treat others with dignity and respect. Yes, the economy is falling apart and people are feeling the stress of hard times, but it goes much deeper than that. It is almost as if some sort of mental illness is spreading throughout our society that is expressing itself in thousands of different ways. We are seeing anger, rage, malice and brutality rise to very dangerous levels. Our population has become way too greedy, proud, selfish and hateful. America is on a very dangerous road and we need to wake up.

The following list could contain thousands of examples, but hopefully the 20 signs listed below will be enough to convince you that America is rapidly going crazy.…

#1 We are continuing to see mobs of criminals looting retail stores all over the United States. For example, last Saturday night a "flash mob" of approximately 50 young people looted a 7-11 in Silver Spring, Maryland. You can see video of this crime in progress right here.

#2 Respect for the elderly has totally gone out the window in America. For example, down in Georgia two "caregivers" were recently charged with waterboarding an 89-year-old woman that they were supposed to be taking care of....

Police charge two caregivers at a Jonesboro facility with waterboarding an 89-year-old woman.

Clayton County police said Jermeller Steed and Cicely Reed held down Anna Foley after an argument that started over ice cream.

#3 When the federal government first began putting naked body scanners into airports and began implementing "enhanced pat-downs" of travelers, many warned that hordes of sicko perverts would start applying for jobs with the TSA. Well, it turns out that one TSA employee is now being charged with a nightmarish sexual assault. The following is how WJLA in Washington D.C. describes what he is being charged with.…

The suspect, Harold Glen Rodman, 52, allegedly was wearing his uniform and displayed a badge to the victim, a 37-year-old woman.

Police arrested Rodman on Nov. 20. He is charged with aggravated sexual battery, object sexual penetration, forcible sodomy and abduction with intent to defile.

#4 We have been seeing some really bizarre sexual crimes all over the country lately. The following examples comes from a town where I once lived.…

Multiple male victims have reported being sexually assaulted by a male suspect in a series of nighttime incidents at residences near the University of Virginia, according to police and university officials.

Larceny is not a motive, and in each case victims reported awakening to find themselves being groped, officials said.

#5 Sadly, our society has become so "sexualized" that now even little children are raping each other. Just check out the following recent example from Ohio....

Authorities in southwest Ohio have charged a 13-year-old boy with raping a 5-year-old girl at a McDonald’s play area.

The Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office said Monday that the alleged assault occurred Oct. 29 at a McDonald’s in the Cincinnati suburb of Anderson Township. Sheriff’s spokesman Steve Barnett says the girl’s grandmother was nearby in the restaurant at the time.

#6 Today, there are millions of Americans with STDs that are running around thoughtlessly passing them on to others. According to the CDC, there are 19 million new cases of STD infection in the United States every single year.

#7 As I wrote about the other day, all over the United States law enforcement authorities are spraying pepper spray directly into the faces of unarmed protesters. Pepper spray can kill you. According to Wikipedia, the use of pepper spray by police has been associated with dozens of deaths in the United States....

For those with asthma, taking other drugs, or subject to restraining techniques which restrict the breathing passages, there is a risk of death. The Los Angeles Times has reported at least 61 deaths associated with police use of pepper spray since 1990 in the USA.

#8 Predators are increasingly using websites such as Craigslist to find victims for their next crimes. The following comes from a recent article in the Columbus Dispatch.…

Lost, covered in his own blood and unsure if the men who hunted him were still nearby, a man from South Carolina hid in the forested hills outside Caldwell until after dark on Nov. 6. Deciding it was safe, he then made a painful 2-mile journey to the nearest farmhouse to call for help.

Investigators say he was the lucky one.

On Tuesday, they found the body of a man buried in a shallow grave near the site where the other man was attacked.

By surviving his ordeal two weeks ago in Noble County, the victim, whose name authorities haven’t released, helped uncover an elaborate scheme by at least two men to lure people with the promise of work from across the country to Ohio. Authorities say the real plan was to rob and kill them.

#9 With all of the other problems we are having all over the nation, you would think that authorities would not be too concerned about little kids that are trying to sell cups of lemonade. But sadly, over the past year police have been sent in to shut down lemonade stands run by children all over the nation.

#10 The family unit continues to crumble in America. According to a study by the Pew Research Center, 68% of all twenty-somethings were married in 1960. By 2008, that number had fallen to 26%.

#11 Many Americans would rather not deal with all of the problems in society and would rather "check out" instead. For example, a recent Gallup poll found that alcohol consumption in the United States is now at a 25 year high.

#12 The federal government has become so paranoid that they have been putting GPS tracking devices on the vehicles of thousands of people that have not even been charged with committing any crimes. The following is a short excerpt from a recent Wired magazine article about this issue.…

The 25-year-old resident of San Jose, California, says he found the first one about three weeks ago on his Volvo SUV while visiting his mother in Modesto, about 80 miles northeast of San Jose. After contacting Wired and allowing a photographer to snap pictures of the device, it was swapped out and replaced with a second tracking device. A witness also reported seeing a strange man looking beneath the vehicle of the young man’s girlfriend while her car was parked at work, suggesting that a tracking device may have been retrieved from her car.

Then things got really weird when police showed up during a Wired interview with the man.

The young man, who asked to be identified only as Greg, is one among an increasing number of U.S. citizens who are finding themselves tracked with the high-tech devices.

The Justice Department has said that law enforcement agents employ GPS as a crime-fighting tool with “great frequency,” and GPS retailers have told Wired that they’ve sold thousands of the devices to the feds.

#13 Many Americans are so frustrated right now that even the smallest things will make them go crazy. For example, one man down in Georgia recently firebombed a Taco Bell because they did not put enough meat in his Chalupa.

#14 All over the state of California, copper thieves are ripping the wire right out of thousands of streetlights and are leaving huge areas completely dark at night. For example, just check out what is happening in the Sacramento area.…

Sacramento County officials said 1,000 street lights have been affected by wire theft in recent weeks, and the county has already spent $160,000 repairing street lights this year.

#15 The way that our government has treated those that have served in the military has been absolutely shameful. For example, according to the Washington Post between 2003 and 2008 the remains of large numbers of our war dead were actually dumped into a Virginia landfill.…

The Dover Air Force Base mortuary for years disposed of portions of troops’ remains by cremating them and dumping the ashes in a Virginia landfill, a practice that officials have since abandoned in favor of burial at sea.

#16 Nothing is too big for thieves to steal these days. In the San Francisco area, thieves recently took off with a copper bell that weighs 2.7 tons.

#17 Some thieves have become so bold that they will literally steal thousands of animals at a time from ranchers. All over the United States, livestock is being stolen from ranchers in unprecedented numbers. The following is from a recent Associated Press article.…

While the brazenness may be unusual, the theft isn't. High beef prices have made cattle attractive as a quick score for people struggling in the sluggish economy, and other livestock are being taken too. Six thousand lambs were stolen from a feedlot in Texas, and nearly 1,000 hogs have been stolen in recent weeks from farms in Iowa and Minnesota. The thefts add up to millions of dollars in losses for U.S. ranches.

Authorities say today's thieves are sophisticated compared to the horseback bandits of the rugged Old West. They pull up livestock trailers in the middle of the night and know how to coax the animals inside. Investigators suspect it's then a quick trip across state lines to sell the animals at auction barns.
#18 The federal government is way too large and is interfering way too much in our lives. All of us should be horrified that the feds are spending a significant amount of time and energy on raiding organic farms. The following example comes from Natural News.…

It is the latest case of extreme government food tyranny, and one that is sure to have you reeling in anger and disgust. Health department officials recently conducted a raid of Quail Hollow Farm, an organic community supported agriculture (CSA) farm in southern Nevada, during its special "farm to fork" picnic dinner put on for guests -- and the agent who arrived on the scene ordered that all the fresh, local produce and pasture-based meat that was intended for the meal be destroyed with bleach.

#19 Most of the big regulatory agencies of the federal government have totally gone crazy. For example, the EPA is now specifically targeting Americans that use traditional wood-burning stoves.

#20 Large numbers of Americans simply do not seem to care what happens to those around them any longer. As I discussed in another recent article, some of the things that we are now seeing young people do are almost unbelievable. For example, just check out this video of a young punk walking up to a defenseless elderly man in a Chicago subway station and knocking him out cold. What makes this incident far worse is that the friends of the young thug are cheering him on and laughing at how easy it was to knock the old man out cold.

It is so very sad to watch what is happening to this country.

Things could have been so much different. But now we are watching the consequences of decades of really bad decisions unfold right in front of our eyes.

So what do you all think?

Do you believe that America is going crazy?

The America Dream

2011-12-04T05:01:00.002-05:00

Americans With No Abilities Act (AWNAA)

2011-12-04T05:00:00.001-05:00

The US Senate is set to pass sweeping legislation that will provide new benefits for many Americans: The Americans With No Abilities Act (AWNAA). President Obama said he will sign it as soon as it hits his desk. The AWNAA is being hailed as a major legislative goal by advocates of the millions of Americans who lack any real skills or ambition.

"Roughly 50 percent of Americans do not possess the competence and drive necessary to carve out a meaningful role for themselves in society," said California Senator Barbara Boxer. "We can no longer stand by and allow people of Inability to be ridiculed and passed over. With this legislation, employers will no longer be able to grant special favors to a small group of workers, simply because they have some idea of what they are doing. We are legalizing another protected class of Americans."

In a Capitol Hill press conference, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-California) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada) pointed to the success of TSA which has a longstanding policy of providing opportunity without regard to performance. Approximately 74 percent of employees lack any job skills, making this agency the single largest U.S. employer of persons of inability. Private-sector industries with good records of non-discrimination against the inept include retail sales (72%), the airline industry (68%), and home improvement "warehouse" stores (65%). At the state government level, the Department of Motor Vehicles also has an excellent record of hiring persons of inability (a whopping 83%).

Under The Americans With No Abilities Act, more than 25 million "middleman" positions will be created, with important-sounding titles but little real responsibility, thus providing an illusory sense of purpose and performance. Mandatory non-performance-based raises and promotions will be given so as to guarantee upward mobility for even the most inept employees. The legislation provides substantial tax breaks to corporations that promote a significant number of persons of inability into middle-management positions, and gives a tax credit to small and medium-sized businesses that agree to hire one clueless worker for every two talented hires. Finally, the AWNAA contains tough new measures to make it more difficult to discriminate against the non-abled, banning, for example, discriminatory interview questions such as, "Do you have any skills or experience that relate to this job?"

"As a non-abled person,I can't be expected to keep up with people who have something going for them," said Ken Cox, who lost his position as a lug-nut twister at the GM plant in Flint, Michigan due to his inability to remember 'righty tightey, lefty loosey'. This new law should be real good for people like me," Cox added.

With the passage of this bill, Cox and millions of other untalented citizens will finally see a light at the end of the tunnel.

Said Senator Dick Durbin (D-Illinois): "As a senator with no abilities, I believe the same privileges that elected officials enjoy ought to be extended to every American with no abilities. It is our duty as lawmakers to provide each and every American citizen, regardless of his or her inadequacy, with some sort of space to take up in this great nation and a good salary for doing so."

Source/Author Unknown

Ragbag Headlines

2011-11-27T05:05:00.003-05:00

Over 200,000 Sign Socialist Petition Against Black Friday

Target Employee Anthony Hardwick and Best Buy employee Rick Melaragni have unwittingly fueled the growing socialist movement in America. They’ve just launched online petitions against their store’s extended Black Friday hours, claiming that the retail giants are asking them to miss the Thanksgiving holiday. The petitions have more than 200,000 signatures and growing. Other copycats are now starting online petitions against their employers as well.

At first glance, it reads like something from a Charles Dickens novel. (Incidentally, Dickens was a Christian socialist). These poor workers are made to work ungodly hours just so Target and Best Buy can make an extra buck this holiday season.

What Mr. Hardwick and Mr. Melaragni have failed to understand, however, is that the Friday after Thanksgiving is called “Black Friday” for a very important reason. It’s because this is the day where retail stores sell enough to dig out from being in the red (running a loss) to being in the black (turning a profit). Hence the name “Black Friday.” In our difficult economic times, stores must work harder than ever before to encourage customers to buy their products. This year, it means opening their doors even earlier.

The free market is demanding these hours. And if stores don’t comply, they may lose money. They may lose market share to their competitors. They may go out of business entirely. And where will Mr. Hardwick and Mr. Melaragni find themselves? Unemployed.

In a time when unemployment is at a record high in America, one would think these two young socialists would be thankful to have a job.

Lots of people have to work on Thanksgiving—Firemen, Police Officers, Doctors, Military personnel, etc.. I’m sure glad they’re working to protect me and my family. I own several small businesses. I will have to check my email, launch advertising campaigns, and make sure my web sites are running smoothly. I am not complaining because this is how I make money. And I use that money to put a Thanksgiving Turkey on the table.

I am afraid that young Americans have lost sight of the American Dream. They don’t understand how the free market works. They don’t appreciate what they have. They expect everything to be handed to them without hard work.

Wanting to spend Thanksgiving with your family is a good thing. But nobody owes them a Thanksgiving holiday. Like everyone else, they need to earn it. And if they aren’t thankful on Thanksgiving for their cushy job, I know tens of thousands of unemployed workers who would gladly take them! -Godfather Politics

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Taxing White People And Christmas

You might be asking, when have whites and Christmas been taxed? Tanning booths and freshly cut Christmas trees. Buried deep in ObamaCare is a 10 percent tax on tanning salons that went into effect July 1, 2010 to help fund the $940 billion health care overhaul bill. The targeted tax is expected to generate $2.7 billion over ten years. This means that customers are paying the tax four years before they will get any healthcare.

Only so-called white people go to tanning booths. Can you imagine what would happen if a certain hair product or procedure used only by blacks was taxed? Al and Jesse would be marching on Washington.

I know the tanning-white-people is a stretch, but it’s a stretch for a reason. Liberals want our money any way they can get it, and they will tax anything and everything they can to get it. They don’t care one wit about the consequences of a seemingly minimal tax (and most of the time we don’t either as long as they don’t tax us). “It’s only ten percent,” we say. There are some companies where ten percent can make a difference between success and failure. The assumption is that customers won’t notice the difference. Think again:

“This is going to close tanning salons,” said Joseph Levy, vice president of the International Smart Tan Network, which has 3,000 member salons. “You can’t just pass on a tax like this to customers and not have it hurt your bottom line.”

Levy estimates that about 9,000 jobs are in jeopardy and more than 1,000 salons are at risk of being forced to close their doors. The tax also targets middle-class and female business owners, with about two-thirds of tanning salons in the U.S. owned by women, he said.

In addition to putting thousands of employees out of work, Levy predicts the tax will ultimately generate 40% to 50% less than the projected $2.7 billion.

If government officials can tax one industry, they can tax any industry. We should be screaming as loud as we can, NO NEW TAXES FOR ANYBODY and CUT WHAT TAXES WE DO PAY!

In March of this year, “advisers to the Food and Drug Administration recommended tighter controls on artificial tanning, ranging from requiring parental consent forms to banning use by younger teens.” That’s interesting. It’s OK for a teenager to get an abortion without parental permission, but it’s not OK to get a tan. Are these people messed up, or what?

What about taxing a particular Christmas? It’s about a Christmas tree tax that became public today. The story got so much attention that “the U.S. Department of Agriculture is going to delay implementation and revisit a proposed new 15 cent fee on fresh-cut Christmas trees.” This is the brainchild of the National Christmas Tree Association to promote their industry. The Association says that it’s not a tax. Then why is the United States Department of Agriculture involved? No one is opposed to a business raising money through sales for advertising to promote their products. It’s part of doing business.

Here’s the Heritage Foundation’s take on the issue:

In the Federal Register of November 8, 2011, Acting Administrator of Agricultural Marketing David R. Shipman announced that the Secretary of Agriculture will appoint a Christmas Tree Promotion Board. The purpose of the Board is to run a “program of promotion, research, evaluation, and information designed to strengthen the Christmas tree industry’s position in the marketplace; maintain and expend existing markets for Christmas trees; and to carry out programs, plans, and projects designed to provide maximum benefits to the Christmas tree industry” (7 CFR 1214.46(n)). And the program of “information” is to include efforts to “enhance the image of Christmas trees and the Christmas tree industry in the United States” (7 CFR 1214.10).

To pay for the new Federal Christmas tree image improvement and marketing program, the Department of Agriculture imposed a 15-cent fee on all sales of fresh Christmas trees by sellers of more than 500 trees per year (7 CFR 1214.52). And, of course, the Christmas tree sellers are free to pass along the 15-cent Federal fee to consumers who buy their Christmas trees.

These two stories remind me of George Harrison’s song “Taxman,” the opening track on The Beatles’ 1966 album Revolver:

Let me tell you how it will be
There’s one for you, nineteen for me
‘Cause I’m the taxman
Yeah, I’m the taxman

Should five percent appear too small
Be thankful I don’t take it all
‘Cause I’m the taxman
Yeah, I’m the taxman

(If you drive a car car) I’ll tax the street
(If you try to sit sit) I’ll tax your seat
(If you get too cold cold) I’ll tax the heat
(If you take a walk walk) I’ll tax your feet

Taxman!

‘Cause I’m the taxman
Yeah, I’m the taxman

If you get a head head, I’ll tax your hat
If you get a pet pet, I’ll tax your cat
If you wipe your feet feet, I’ll tax your mat
If you’re overwieght, I’ll tax your fat

Now my advise to those who die
(Taxman!)
Declare the pennies on your eyes
(Taxman!)
‘Cause I’m the taxman
Yeah, I’m the taxman.

And you’re working for no one, but me
(Taxman!)

Yes, I’m the taxman
Yeah, I’m the taxman

Godfather Politics

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Most Honey Sold In US Grocery Stores Not Worthy Of Name

Most of the honey sold in chain stores across the country doesn’t meet international quality standards for the sweet stuff, according to a Food Safety News analysis released this week.

One of the nation’s leading melissopalynologists analyzed more than 60 jugs, jars and plastic bears of honey in 10 states and the District of Columbia for pollen content, Food Safety News said. He found that pollen was frequently filtered out of products labeled “honey.”

“The removal of these microscopic particles from deep within a flower would make the nectar flunk the quality standards set by most of the world’s food safety agencies,” the report says. “Without pollen there is no way to determine whether the honey came from legitimate and safe sources.”

Among the findings:

• No pollen was found in 76 percent of samples from grocery stores including TOP Food, Safeway, Giant Eagle, QFC, Kroger, Metro Market, Harris Teeter, A&P, Stop & Shop and King Soopers.

• No pollen was found in 100 percent of samples from drugstores including Walgreens, Rite-Aid and CVS Pharmacy.

• The anticipated amount of pollen was found in samples bought at farmers markets, co-ops and stores like PCC and Trader Joe’s. –Big Health Report

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Breakthrough: Israel Develops Cancer Vaccine

Vaxil’s groundbreaking therapeutic vaccine, developed in Israel, could keep about 90 percent of cancers from coming back.

As the world’s population lives longer than ever, if we don’t succumb to heart disease, strokes or accidents, it is more likely that cancer will get us one way or another. Cancer is tough to fight, as the body learns how to outsmart medical approaches that often kill normal cells while targeting the malignant ones.

In a breakthrough development, the Israeli company Vaxil BioTherapeutics has formulated a therapeutic cancer vaccine, now in clinical trials at Hadassah University Medical Center in Jerusalem. If all goes well, the vaccine could be available about six years down the road, to administer on a regular basis not only to help treat cancer but in order to keep the disease from recurring.

The vaccine is being tested against a type of blood cancer called multiple myeloma. If the substance works as hoped — and it looks like all arrows are pointing that way — its platform technology VaxHit could be applied to 90 percent of all known cancers, including prostate and breast cancer, solid and non-solid tumors. –Big Health Report

Uncle Sam’s Watching You!

2011-11-27T05:04:00.002-05:00

Every Breath You Take, Every Move You Make – 14 New Ways That the Government Is Watching You.

If you live in the United States today, you need to understand that your privacy is being constantly eroded. Our world is going crazy, government paranoia is off the charts and law enforcement authorities have become absolutely obsessed with watching us, listening to us, tracking us, recording us, compiling information on all of us and getting us all to spy on one another. If you doubt that we are rapidly getting to the point where the government will monitor every breath you take and every move you make, just read the rest of this article. The truth is that the government is watching you more closely than ever, and they are spending billions upon billions of dollars to enhance their surveillance capabilities even further. If our society stays on this current path, we will eventually have zero privacy left. At this point, it is not too hard to imagine a society where we will not be able to say anything, buy anything, sell anything, assemble with others or even leave our homes without government permission. We truly are descending into a dystopian nightmare and the American people had better wake up.

Sadly, most people living in the United States and in Europe do not realize what is happening. Most of them think that everything is just fine. The "Big Brother control grid" that is being constructed all over the western world squeezes all of us just a little bit tighter every single day, and most people don't even feel it.

But when you step back and take a look at the big picture, it truly is horrifying.

The following are 14 new ways that the government is watching you....

#1 In many areas of the United States today, you will be arrested if you do not produce proper identification for the police. In the old days, "your papers please" was a phrase that we used to use to mock the tyranny of Nazi Germany. But now all of us are being required to be able to produce "our papers" for law enforcement authorities at any time. For example, a 21-year-old college student named Samantha Zucker was recently arrested and put in a New York City jail for 36 hours just because she could not produce any identification for police.

#2 The federal government has decided that what you and I share with one another on Facebook and on Twitter could be a threat to national security. According to a recent Associated Press article, the Department of Homeland Security will soon be "gleaning information from sites such as Twitter and Facebook for law enforcement purposes".

Other law enforcement agencies are getting into the act as well. For example, the NYPD recently created a special "social media" unit dedicated to looking for criminals on social media networks such as Facebook and Twitter.

#3 New high-tech street lights that are being funded by the federal government and that are being installed all over the nation can also be used as surveillance cameras, can be used by the DHS to make "security announcements" and can even be used to record personal conversations. The following is from a recent article by Paul Joseph Watson for Infowars.com....

Federally-funded high-tech street lights now being installed in American cities are not only set to aid the DHS in making “security announcements” and acting as talking surveillance cameras, they are also capable of “recording conversations,” bringing the potential privacy threat posed by ‘Intellistreets’ to a whole new level.

#4 More than a million hotel television sets all over America are now broadcasting propaganda messages from the Department of Homeland Security promoting the "See Something, Say Something" campaign. In essence, the federal government wants all of us to become "informants" and to start spying on one another constantly. The following comes from an article posted by USA Today....

Starting today, the welcome screens on 1.2 million hotel television sets in Marriott, Hilton, Sheraton, Holiday Inn and other hotels in the USA will show a short public service announcement from DHS. The 15-second spot encourages viewers to be vigilant and call law enforcement if they witness something suspicious during their travels.

#5 The FBI is now admittedly recording Internet talk radio programs all over the United States. The following comes from a recent article by Mark Weaver of WMAL.com....

If you call a radio talk show and get on the air, you might be recorded by the FBI.

The FBI has awarded a $524,927 contract to a Virginia company to record as much radio news and talk programming as it can find on the Internet.

The FBI says it is not playing big brother by policing the airwaves, but rather seeking access to what airs as potential evidence.

Potential evidence of what?

This is very creepy. Why is the FBI so interested in what is being said during Internet talk radio programs?

#6 TSA VIPR teams are now conducting random inspections at bus stations and on interstate highways all over the United States. For example, the following comes from a local news report down in Tennessee....

You're probably used to seeing TSA's signature blue uniforms at the airport, but now agents are hitting the interstates to fight terrorism with Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response (VIPR).

"Where is a terrorist more apt to be found? Not these days on an airplane more likely on the interstate," said Tennessee Department of Safety & Homeland Security Commissioner Bill Gibbons.

Tuesday Tennessee was first to deploy VIPR simultaneously at five weigh stations and two bus stations across the state.

#7 Thermal imaging face scanners are becoming much more sophisticated. Law enforcement authorities in the western world are getting very excited about "pre-crime" tools such as this that will enable them to "prevent crimes" before they happen. The following is from a recent BBC News article....

A sophisticated new camera system can detect lies just by watching our faces as we talk, experts say.

The computerised system uses a simple video camera, a high-resolution thermal imaging sensor and a suite of algorithms.

Researchers say the system could be a powerful aid to security services.

But face scanners are not just a tool that will be used in the future. The truth is that face scanners are being used all over the United States right now. The following comes from an article posted on Singularity Hub....

Law enforcement continues to adopt new technologies in an effort to make their jobs easier and keep us safer. The latest gizmo attaches to officers’ iPhones and turns them into biometric face scanners. The scanners have already been street tested in Massachusetts. Pretty soon cops all across the US will be using them to ID suspects.

Before long, technology like this will be all over America. In fact, the FBI has announced that it will be activating a "nationwide facial recognition service" in January.

#8 Another "pre-crime" technology currently being tested by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security is The Future Attribute Screening Technology (FAST) program. The following description of this new program comes from an article in the London Telegraph....

Using cameras and sensors the "pre-crime" system measures and tracks changes in a person's body movements, the pitch of their voice and the rhythm of their speech.

It also monitors breathing patterns, eye movements, blink rate and alterations in body heat, which are used to assess an individual's likelihood to commit a crime.

The Future Attribute Screening Technology (FAST) programme is already being tested on a group of government employees who volunteered to act as guinea pigs.

Do you want government officials to pull you aside and interrogate you just because you are feeling a little bit nervous one particular day?

#9 Sadly, "pre-crime" technology is even being used on our children. The Florida State Department of Juvenile Justice has announced that it will begin using analysis software to predict crime by young delinquents and will place "potential offenders" in specific prevention and education programs.

How soon will it be before this type of things is applied to adults?

#10 Our children are being programmed to accept the fact that they will be watched and monitored constantly. For example, the U.S. Department of Agriculture is spending large amounts of money to install surveillance cameras in the cafeterias of public schools all across the nation so that government control freaks can closely monitor what our children are eating.

#11 The U.S. government is also increasingly using "polls" and "surveys" as tools to gather information about all of us. In previous articles, I have noted how government authorities seems particularly interested in our children. According to Mike Adams of Natural News, the CDC is starting to call parents all over the U.S. to question them about the vaccination status of their children....

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control, which has been comprehensively exposed as a vaccine propaganda organization promoting the interests of drug companies, is now engaged in a household surveillance program that involves calling U.S. households and intimidating parents into producing child immunization records. As part of what it deems a National Immunization Survey (NIS), the CDC is sending letters to U.S. households, alerting them that they will be called by "NORC at the University of Chicago" and that households should "have your child's immunization records handy when answering our questions."

You can see a copy of the letter that the CDC has been sending out to selected parents right here.

#12 As I have written about previously, a very disturbing document that Oath Keepers has obtained shows that the FBI is now instructing store owners to report many new forms of "suspicious activity" to them. According to the document, "suspicious activity" now includes the following....

*paying with cash

*missing a hand or fingers

*"strange odors"

*making "extreme religious statements"

*"radical theology"

*purchasing weatherproofed ammunition or match containers

*purchasing meals ready to eat

*purchasing night vision devices, night flashlights or gas masks

Do any of those "signs of suspicious activity" apply to you?

According to a report on WorldNetDaily, this document is part of a "series of brochures" that will be distributed "to farm supply stores, gun shops, military surplus stores and even hotels and motels."

#13 In some areas of the country, law enforcement authorities are pulling data out of cell phones for no reason whatsoever. According to the ACLU, state police in Michigan are now using "extraction devices" to download data from the cell phones of motorists that they pull over. This is taking happening even if the motorists that are pulled over are not accused of doing anything wrong.

The following is how a recent article on CNET News described the capabilities of these "extraction devices"....

The devices, sold by a company called Cellebrite, can download text messages, photos, video, and even GPS data from most brands of cell phones. The handheld machines have various interfaces to work with different models and can even bypass security passwords and access some information.

#14 The government can spy on us and record our conversations seemingly without any limitation, but in many areas of the country it has become illegal to watch them or record them in public. For example, one 21-year-old man down in Florida was recently arrested for trying to document a confrontation that he was having with police on his iPhone. But if we can't record them, how can we prove our side of the story in court?

America is becoming a much different place.

Our privacy is being eroded in thousands of different ways.

National governments and big corporations know far more about you than you probably ever would imagine.

Yes, there will always be "security threats", but we should not have to throw away any of our rights in order to be "safe".

America is supposed to be about liberty and freedom.

America is supposed to be the land of the free and the home of the brave.

If given the choice between living in "1984" and living in "1776", I know what my choice would be.

I would choose 1776.

I would choose liberty and freedom even if it meant that the world around me was a little bit less "safe".

What about you?

What would you choose?

The American Dream

Computer Skills

2011-11-27T05:03:00.003-05:00

How do your computer skills compare with the ones below?

=====================

Tech support: What kind of computer do you have?

Customer: A white one...

===============

Customer: Hi, this is Celine. I can't get my diskette out.

Tech support: Have you tried pushing the button?

Customer: Yes, sure, it's really stuck.

Tech support: That doesn't sound good; I'll make a note.

Customer: No, wait a minute. I hadn't inserted it yet...it's still on my desk...Sorry...

===============

Tech support: ; Click on the 'my computer' icon on the left of the screen.

Customer: Your left or my left?

===============

Tech support: Good day! How may I help you?

Male customer: Hello...I can't print.

Tech support: Would you click on 'start' for me and...

Customer: Listen, Pal, don't start getting technical on me! I'm not Bill Gates..

===============

Customer: Hi, good afternoon, this is Martha, I can't print.

Every time I try, it says 'Can't find printer'.

I've even lifted the printer and placed it in front of the monitor,

but the computer still says he can't find it.

==============

Customer: I have problems printing in red..

Tech support: Do you have a color printer?

Customer: Aaaaaaaah....thank you.

===============

Tech support: What's on your monitor now, Ma'am?

Customer: A teddy bear my boyfriend bought for me from the 7-11.

===============

Customer: My keyboard is not working anymore.

Tech support: Are you sure it's plugged into the computer?

Customer: No. I can't get behind the computer.

Tech support: Pick up your keyboard and walk 10 paces back.

Customer: OK.

Tech support: Did the keyboard come with you?

Customer: Yes

Tech support: That means the keyboard is not plugged in. Is there another keyboard?

Customer: Yes, there's another one here. Ah, that one does work..

=============

Tech support: Your password is the small letter 'a' as in apple,

a capital letter V as in Victor, the number 7.

Customer: Is that 7 in capital letters ?

===============

Customer: I can't get on the Internet.

Tech support: Are you sure you used the right password?

Customer: Yes, I'm sure. I saw my colleague do it.

Tech support: Can you tell me what the password was?

Customer: Five dots.

===============

Tech support: What anti-virus program do you use?

Customer: Netscape.

Tech support: That's not an anti-virus program.

Customer: Oh, sorry...Internet Explorer.

===============

Customer: I have a huge problem. A friend has placed a screen saver on my computer,

but every time I move the mouse, it disappears.

===============

Tech support: How may I help you?

Customer: I'm writing my first email.

Tech support: OK, and what seems to be the problem?

Customer: Well, I have the letter 'a' in the address, but how do I get the little circle around it?

===============

A woman customer called the Canon help desk with a problem with her printer.

Tech support: Are you running it under Windows?

Customer: 'No, my desk is next to the door, but that is a good point.

The man sitting in the cubicle next to me is under a window, and his printer is working fine.'

===============

And last but not least ...

Tech support: 'Okay Bob, let's press the control and escape keys at the same time. That brings up a task list in the middle of the screen. Now type the letter 'P' to bring up the Program Manager.'

Customer: I don't have a P.

Tech support: On your keyboard, Bob.

Customer: What do you mean?

Tech support: 'P'.....on your keyboard, Bob.
Customer: I'M NOT GOING TO DO THAT!

Author Unknown

Adultery Web-Site Nominated for National Business Award in Britain

2011-11-27T05:02:00.002-05:00

Global Personals, a company that set two websites for online dating, has been nominated for the National Business Awards in Britain. There’s nothing wrong with online dating sites when dating has the goal of creating families; in fact, in the modern world where the pace of life and career growth have killed the traditional ways of meeting prospective spouses, online matching services can remedy the situation to a certain extent. But Global Personals has cornered a specific niche on the market: It offers dating services for married persons who are searching for illicit affairs. To put it bluntly, it is a company specialized in encouraging and promoting adultery; it makes money by helping men and women cheat on their spouses.

For over 1,200 years adultery in England was considered a felony, a very serious crime according to the English Common Law; philandering could lead to a death sentence for both men and women. The traditional family was considered the backbone of the English society and any open assault against it was regarded as worse than treason. Kings like Henry VIII may have had their mistresses but they were careful to not make it public; the English society has always been very sensitive to infidelity, and a King who would not honor his oath to his Queen could expect his subjects to treat him with just as much loyalty as he would show her. The Seventh Commandment, “Though shalt not commit adultery,” was interpreted by the church to apply to all kinds of oaths, not only the marriage vow, and therefore a man who was cheating on his wife was expected to violate his other vows too.

The family as an institution was elevated to a lofty position of having its own legal status within the kingdom which made kings and feudal lords forced to acknowledge its place, even for the lowest classes in the society. Families were expected to be the backbone of the economy – the dissolution of the family would mean starvation for the whole country, especially in the centuries after 1300 when the climate was brutal and the technologies hadn’t yet reached the level of producing enough to feed many people. The family also trained the military; the English and Welsh longbowmen transferred the skill from father to son, of both making the bows and using them. It took many years to train a bowman; and only a family had the time and the resources to train one. The family also had a judicial function; local communities judged their own matters, and a community given to debauchery and adultery couldn’t have the self-discipline and the mutual respect of its members to produce a solid foundation of justice. Nothing could replace the family in its economic, military, and judicial functions; therefore the Common Law dealt severely with everything that would go against that most important institution.

As a result, England grew strong, much stronger than the other nations on the Continent who had better climate, greater availability of resources, and greater populations. By the 19th century it emerged as an economic giant and powerful military force. It was not the English politicians who achieved it; in fact, kings and nobles were often weak-minded or immoral or depraved. It was the English common folk, with their commitment to the Christian family who produced the strong nation that would conquer the world in the 1800s. Without the family at the foundation of the English society, Britain would never become what it was in the culmination of its empire.

And just as the rise of Britain can be traced to the strength of its families, it decline can be traced to the demise of the traditional Christian family. Nothing else can explain the rapid decline of an Empire but the lack of people who were trained from an early age to make the right moral decisions, men who were taught by their fathers to work and sacrifice, to honor their vows, to giver their lives for their wives and their children. The empire conquered not because any exceptional quality of its leaders but by the tenacity and loyalty of its soldiers and workers, and by the uncompromising devotion of men to their families. But when that devotion disappeared, there were no men worthy of the name. When families quit meaning anything, all meaning was lost. And when all meaning is lost, a society is lost.

And Global Personals is offering more of it. As if the British society has not disintegrated enough, burdened by loneliness, depression, hopelessness, socialism, and growing Muslim presence. As if the British society has discovered another solution for the ills that have been plaguing it for a generation now. Just when the British society needs to return to the social institution that made it great in the past, a company offers services that encourage the demise of that same institution. And it gets nominated for the National Business Awards.

Europe is in a deep hole, but she keeps digging. Instead of issuing a public reprimand against Global Personals for the unethical nature of their business, National Business Awards encourages them by listing them together with other companies. What is the message to the public, and what is the example that they give to Britain’s younger generation? That disloyalty and dishonesty pays. That family means nothing. That when Dad leaves the family and Mom is left to struggle economically to care for the children, this is OK.

And eventually the children grow disillusioned and confused. The result is the riots Britain had. And will have. –Godfather Politics

2011-11-27T05:01:00.003-05:00

U.S. District Court: School can ban American flag t-shirts on … Cinco de Mayo?

Why Your Tax Bill Might Surge Next Year

2011-11-27T05:00:00.003-05:00

In a recent tax planning meeting with one of our clients, we shocked them with what their income tax future looked like for 2013 if -- on the off-chance -- Congress continues to do nothing to provide a long-term permanent set of tax laws.

They had no idea what tax breaks were expiring this year and next year, and how much it would cost them personally in extra income tax. But they aren't alone, many Americans and even tax professionals aren't aware that their tax bill could rise dramatically next year.

These clients are your average American family and their situation is a good example of the law changes that will affect all of us. Here's their tax situation with a table summarizing the expiring tax laws that are scheduled to occur in 2011 and 2012.

Meet the Smiths: 26-year-olds Bill and Joan have been married for five years and have two young children. Bill earns about $65,000 a year in sales and Joan has gone back to work and earns about $35,000 annually. Bill owes quite a bit on his college student loans and will pay about $3,000 in interest on them in 2013. With Joan working again, they are paying $3,000 for year-round child care. Joan inherited some AT&T stock from her grandmother, which pays her $1,000 in dividends every year. Finally, counting home mortgage interest, they have about $20,000 in itemized deductions.

The first big change affecting the Smiths will be a combined increase in income tax rates, and a tightening of tax brackets as a result of the expiration of the Bush tax cuts. We estimate this will cost them $960 in 2013.

Bill will lose the complete deduction of his student loan interest in 2013, costing about $840. The pair's allowable deduction for child care will drop to $2,400 from $3,000, and they will also see their credit for children drop in half, costing another $1,000.

The marriage tax penalty will come roaring back to hit the Smiths in 2013, costing an estimated $500. The tax on their dividend income will go increase to $280 from $150, adding another $130. Finally, although we did not calculate the effect, without Congressional action to once again "fix" the alternative minimum tax, the Smiths could owe this ugly tax as well!

Luckily for the Smiths — but not for many Americans — other major changes for 2013, which do not personally affect them, include a phase out of itemized deductions and personal exemptions if their income starts to climb.

In summary, because of tax laws expiring this year and next, we estimate that the Smiths will owe $3,598 more in income tax in 2013 than in 2011 with no change in their income.

Major Individual Income Tax Benefits Expiring 12/31/2011:

• Personal tax credits applied against income tax no longer apply

• Higher alternative minimum tax exemptions revert back to extraordinarily-low thresholds

• $250 school teacher expense deduction ends

• Mortgage insurance premium deduction expires

• State and local sales tax deductions expire

• Tuition and related fees deduction end

• IRA to charity tax-free transfers stop

• 2% Social Security tax reduction ends

Major Individual Income Tax Benefits Expiring 12/31/2012:

• Marriage penalty equalization ends

• Dividends taxed at capital gains rates removed, taxed at regular rates now

• Capital gains low tax rates expires

• Removal of itemized deduction phase out for higher income Americans

• Removal of personal exemption phase out for higher income Americans

• Child care deduction limit of $3,000 reverts to $2,400

• Child credit reduces from $1,000 per child to $500 per child

• Low 10% tax bracket for low income Americans is eliminated

• Lower income tax rates and smaller brackets expires

• Refundable adoption credit and reduced deduction

• American Opportunity college education credit expires

• Major reduction in earned income credits and refunds

• Income tax exemption for debt forgiven on home foreclosures and repossessions

• Deduction for student loan interest ends

• Education IRA limit drops from $2,000 to $500

By Bob Jennings-Yahoo Financial News

Note: Bob Jennings is a CPA, EA and CFP and author of "Understanding Social Security & Medicare."

2011-11-27T04:59:00.002-05:00

The Washington Post

2011-11-27T04:58:00.002-05:00

“You can get a tummy tuck,
you can get a face lift,
you can get penile implants,
but you can’t fix stupid.”
- Author Unknown -

2011-11-20T05:00:00.006-05:00

Turkey Day

^^^*^^^

May your stuffing be tasty

May your turkey plump,

May your potatoes and gravy

Have never a lump.

May your yams be delicious

And your pies take the prize,

And may your Thanksgiving dinner

Stay off your thighs!

Author Unknown

Locally Speaking

2011-11-13T05:06:00.002-05:00

What South Carolina Can Do For The GOP Candidates

Can Mitt Romney be dislodged as the fragile but disciplined front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination? If he can, South Carolina is the best bet for the role of spoiler.

Republican primary voters here have historically ratified establishment choices, but the old establishment has been displaced by new forms of conservative political activism, the Tea Party being only the latest band of rebels.

South Carolina conservatives also seem representative of their peers around the country in being uncertain and more than a trifle confused about the choices they have been handed. They are skeptical of Romney, were disappointed by Rick Perry’s early performance, were enchanted by Herman Cain — a spell that may soon be broken — and are not sure what to make of the rest of the field.

All this, paradoxically, gives hope to the non-Romneys in the contest, including Perry but also former Utah governor Jon Huntsman, who was campaigning in the state this week. Huntsman, given his low standing in the national polls, has a surprising number of high-powered supporters here. His strategy is to startle with a strong showing in the New Hampshire primary on Jan. 10 and then pivot to South Carolina, which votes on Jan. 21. This seems unlikely, but not crazy.

“I have never seen a Republican primary as wide open at this stage as this primary is,” said Bob McAlister, a Huntsman supporter who served as chief of staff to former South Carolina governor Carroll Campbell. “That gives plenty of room to an unknown candidate, so that gives hope to Huntsman and, to be honest, to some of the other lesser-knowns.”

The candidate who absolutely needs to win here is Perry. It’s no accident that he announced his candidacy in Charleston. Brad Warthen, a popular South Carolina blogger (and a friend of mine from his days as editorial page editor of the State newspaper), thought at the time that Perry’s August announcement speech was pitch-perfect for the state’s conservatives in its passionately anti-government and anti-Washington tone, delivered in the city where the Civil War began. The primary and indeed, the nomination, seemed within Perry’s grasp.

And then he did a remarkable job of kicking it away. Rep. Mick Mulvaney, a rising conservative star in Congress and a staunch Perry supporter who helped craft his flat-tax proposal, was frank in describing Perry’s early debate performances as “extraordinarily poor.” But given Perry’s underlying conservative strength, Mulvaney sees him as having ample time to rebuild and win back supporters who parked themselves with Cain.

It is a sign of how much Cain has been hurt by his handling of sexual-harassment allegations that supporters of rival candidates were carefully silent about the news of the past few days. Cain is undermining himself and needs no help from anyone else.

Mulvaney thinks Cain’s 9-9-9 tax plan was key to his emergence because voters liked “the fact that he’s at least made an attempt of offering specifics.” But Warthen notes that there is no “emotional attachment” to Cain, which makes him especially vulnerable to a quick bursting of his bubble.

In the meantime, Romney looms over the race, still unable to manage a surge despite the missteps of his opponents. “He seems capped out at 20-something,” said former South Carolina governor Mark Sanford, referring to Romney’s standing in the polls. “There’s been a philosophical angst within the Republican Party electorate about Romney, for whatever reason.” Romney’s health-care plan in Massachusetts remains a major obstacle, and charges of flip-flopping have taken hold.

The front-runner path is less promising than it used to be for another reason. Will Folks, the sometimes controversial former Sanford aide who writes the state’s most popular political blog, argues that “the old structure of South Carolina Republican politics has been overturned,” putting new forces into play. Religious conservatives, who are central to Perry’s strategy, are still important, but Folks sees another group as potentially pivotal: voters who are relative social moderates but hold conservative views on taxing and spending issues. They will be Huntsman’s targets, and Perry and Romney need them, too.

And just to complicate things further, Sanford detects “a little bit of a . . . bump” here for former House speaker Newt Gingrich.

Warthen still believes South Carolina could revert to form and support Romney as the most plausible nominee. But in perhaps no other state do the many conflicting and frequently obstreperous strains of conservatism come together — and collide. For Romney, the skilled management consultant, this will be his toughest assignment. –The Washington Post

Ragbag Headliners

2011-11-13T05:05:00.002-05:00

‘Pox Parties’: Coming To A Mailbox Near You?

This week, press reports emerged that some parents, hoping to avoid giving their kids the chickenpox vaccine, were arranging through Facebook to pay strangers to send them “[licked] lollipops, spit or other items” from kids with the illness.

The idea is to expose the kids to the virus to build immunity without having to get a shot.

It’s a lousy strategy, doctors say.

Dr. Wilbert Mason, a professor of clinical pediatrics at USC’s Keck School of Medicine and an infectious disease expert at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, said he was “dumbfounded” by the news. “I’m speechless, which will make for a very bad interview,” he told Booster Shots. “How could people be so stupid?”

For starters, he said, sending chicken poxthrough the mail probably won’t work, because the varicella virus needs cells to live in, and there probably would be very few cells in spit or on a used lollipop. “It’s unlikely the virus would survive long enough,” he said.

But more resilient types of infections — dangerous ones — could make it, including hepatitis B, group A strep, and staph germs. –Big Health Report

<><><>*<><><>

Porn Is Ruining The Sex Lives Of An Entire Generation

Young men in their 20s apparently have no groove in bed — and it’s all because they’re addicted to pornography, according to a report in Psychology Today.

But the problem is much more serious than simply either being good or bad in the sack, it’s a physiological issue causing a new generation of men to lose their libidos 30 years sooner than expected.

How did this happen?

According to the report, overexposure to sexually explicit images and video have caused men to lose interest in ordinary sexual encounters — including experiences with a real woman:

Today’s users can force [their] release by watching porn in multiple windows, searching endlessly, fast-forwarding to the bits they find hottest, switching to live sex chat, viewing constant novelty, firing up their mirror neurons with video action and cam-2-cam, or escalating to extreme genres and anxiety-producing material. It’s all free, easy to access, available within seconds, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. –Big Health Report

<><><>*<><><>

Most Expensive Thanksgiving Ever? Super-savers Guide To Sky-high Turkey Prices

Can you afford to give thanks this year? The American Farm Bureau Federation is predicting the average 10 person turkey dinner will cost 13 percent more than it did last year. Expect to shell out at least $50 bucks for the average 10 person turkey dinner. That's the highest price for the holiday meal on record.

Blame the centerpiece. The price of a turkey spiked this year. The side dishes aren't helping either. Just about the only thing that hasn't gotten more expensive is relish, according to the AFBF. Before you crack out the hot dogs for the holidays, there's still something to be thankful for: the year's best deals on groceries are actually happening now. Extreme couponers will tell you pre-Thanksgiving is the prime time to stock up on food for the year. "Don't settle for anything less than half off, and expect even better," advises Teri Gault, C.E.O. of The Grocery Game, a money-saving supermarket sweep site. "Sales change every week. So by gathering over the course of weeks, you'll save more money, and you'll be ahead of the game, and have less shopping and hauling to do at the last minute."

More ways to save on Thanksgiving dinner here!

With that in mind, before you plan your recipes for the holiday, scan major coupon websites like coupons.com and smartsource.com to print out the best clippings and plan your menu around what's cheapest. Here's a head start...

For the turkey:

Last year, a 16-pound turkey cost about $17.50. This year it's around four bucks more. To battle bird costs, turn to rebates, says coupon guru Chrystie Corns. "This year Butterball is offering a $5 rebate when you Buy 1 Butterball Frozen or Fresh Whole Turkey," she says. That means you can turn back the clock on your turkey cost.

Another trade secret? Stack the deals. Your local supermarket may be offering discounts on turkey, but so are manufacturers. First scour local supermarket clippings for "store coupons", and then check out websites for Hormel, Butterball and other major turkey brands (here's a list) to find discounts you can double up on at the register.

For the sides:

Stuffing, sweet potatoes, fresh cranberries and peas have all gotten pricier this year, according to the AFBF. So this year, let deals dictate your side-dish menu. Check for freebies at websites like Red Plum, where a list of giveaways at national chains are posted weekly. Another tech-smart trick: download the Red Laser app to your phone and use it to scan sides you really want to make. The app will pull up the price of your dish and then roll out a list of similar products by other brands that are less expensive.

Remember you've still got time before the holidays, so you don't have to buy all your groceries in one trip. "Be open to purchasing items at different stores," suggests Corns. "For example, this week Target has the best deal on Stove Top Stuffing priced at $.89 cents."

For dessert:

Since milk's gone up 42 cents this year, check out recipes that use powdered milk which can be cheaper and lasts longer. Butter and brown sugar are also heavily discounted for the holiday season, says Gault, so factor that into your dessert decisions. The AFBF says pie shells and whipped cream have added a few cents to their price point overall, but Gault says the biggest discounts for those two baking items are available now, so you may not actually feel the pinch.

If you've got the time, consider doing your baking from scratch. Making pie crusts and dinner rolls with a little flour and yeast may require extra work, but it'll knock down your grocery bill significantly. Because biscuits and pie shells freeze well, you can actually make these ahead of time so they're good to go the big day. –Shine from Yahoo

Postal Service Rescue Plan Offered By Senators

2011-11-13T05:04:00.008-05:00

A small bipartisan group of lawmakers announced a proposal to save the U.S. Postal Service that would make it possible to cut Saturday service in two years, close post offices and buy out 100,000 workers.

The bill would allow the cash-strapped U.S. Postal Service tap a $6.9 billion overpayment to the Federal Employment Retirement System, a move that several House Republicans have opposed, dubbing it a bailout.

The bill would direct $1.7 billion of that overpayment to offer up to $25,000 cash buyouts or up to two years of service credits toward retirement for experienced employees near retirement. If 100,000 workers take the buyout, the move could save $8 billion, according to the U.S. Postal Service.

The rest of that money could be used to pay down debt that the U.S. Postal Service has taken on to pay bills, said Sen. Susan Collins, a Maine Republican, who was among those who helped craft the deal.

"Without taking controversial steps like these, the Postal Service just isn't going to make it, and that would be terrible. said Sen. Joseph Lieberman, a Connecticut independent who caucuses with Democrats. "We must act quickly to prevent a postal service collapse."

Other lawmakers in on the proposal include Sen. Tom Carper, a Delaware Democrat, who runs the panel that oversees the U.S. Postal Service and Sen. Scott Brown, a Massachusetts Republican.

Congress would need to pass the proposal, which has yet to be reviewed by House Republicans or the White House.

Postal unions had not yet reacted to the proposal, but they've been opposed to past recommendations that included employee layoffs.

The Postal Service is in a bind. Mail volume is down more than 20% over the past four years and losses have topped $20 billion.

The more pressing deadline: The Postal Service has until Nov. 18 to make a $5.5 billion payment that's due to its retiree health care fund. It's poised to default.

The bill would also make it so the Postal service wouldn't have to worry about such pressing health care deadlines. Under a 2006 law, the U.S. Postal Service has to prepay its retiree health care benefits within a decade. The bill would give the agency 40 years to pay for retirees' health care benefits, which would lower the required payments.

The bill also gives the agency and its unions until September 2012 to negotiate a separate health insurance plan for U.S. Postal Service retirees that cuts health care liabilities. But the bill doesn't appear to say what happens if they don't reach a deal.

The Postal Service's potential default has spurred the White House and lawmakers of both parties to offer competing bills that run the gamut from ending Saturday service to hiking stamp prices and even laying off or buying out postal workers.

The proposals have spawned a big public reaction -- neighbors packing public hearings to oppose closure of local post offices and union rallies of lawmakers' offices to protest layoffs.

For its part, the U.S. Postal Service last month announced a hike in the price of a first class stamp by one cent starting Jan. 22 to 45 cents, its latest move to help raise revenue.

Also, postcard postage will increase 3 cents to 32 cents. Letters to Canada and Mexico will jump 5 cents to 85 cents, while letters to other international destinations will spike 7 cents to $1.05.

House Republicans have been working on a bill offered by Rep. Darrell Issa of California. The bill would end Saturday service, ban the post office from promising no layoffs to new employees, and create panels -- resembling the ones convened to close military bases -- to study and recommend which post offices should be closed.

Issa said through a spokesman that he'd review the Senate bill and applauded "Senators' recognition that the Postal Service requires a fundamental restructuring and not a taxpayer funded bailout." -CNN Money

An Italian Tail

2011-11-13T05:03:00.004-05:00

An 18-year-old told her mother that her monthly period was overdue for several weeks already. Very worried, the mother went to the drugstore and bought one of those over-the-counter urine pregnancy test kits. The test turned out positive.

After shouting, cursing, and crying, the mother demanded, 'Who is the pig that did this to you? I want to know!'

The girl picked up the phone and made a call.

About half an hour later, a car stopped in front of the house. A distinguished-looking man and impeccably dressed in an Armani suit stepped out of a Ferrari.

After he was invited in, he sat in the living room with the father, mother, and the girl and told them, "Good morning, your daughter has informed me of the problem. I can't marry her because of personal reasons, but I'll pay not only for all prenatal and hospitalization costs but also provide financial support for your daughter and the child for the rest of their life. Additionally, if the child is a girl, I will provide a Ferrari, two retail stores, a townhouse, a beachfront villa, and a $2,000,000 bank account.

If it is a boy, aside from the above, there will be a couple of factories and instead of a $2,000,000 bank account, it will be $4,000,000.

However, if there is a miscarriage, I'll pay for all necessary medical and hospitalization costs only."

At this point, the father, who had remained silent while holding a shotgun, stood up, approached the man, placed a hand firmly on the man's shoulder, looked him directly in the eye, and told him, "Oh no you don't. If there is a miscarriage, you're gonna try again!"

Author Unknown

2011-11-13T05:02:00.005-05:00

Energy Efficient Light Bulbs Are Killing Us!

I'm Now 76, And I'm Tired!

2011-11-13T05:01:00.002-05:00

I'm now 76. I have worked hard since I was 17. And in spite of some serious health challenges, I put in many 50-hour work weeks, and very rarely called-in sick. I have made a reasonably good salary, but I did not just inherit my job or my income. I worked hard to get to where I am today. Given the current terrible state of the economy, it looks as though retirement is a bad idea but I am tired, very tired.

I'm tired of being told that I have to spread the wealth to people who don't have my work ethic. I'm tired of being told that the government will take the money which I earn, by force if necessary, and give it to people too lazy to earn their own.

I'm tired of being told that Islam is a "religion of peace," when every day I read dozens of stories of Muslim men killing their sisters, wives, and daughters for the sake of their family's "honor"; of Muslims rioting over some slight offense; of Muslims murdering Christian, Jews and other non-Muslims because they are "infidels"; of Muslims burning schools for girls; of Muslims stoning to death teenage rape victims for "adultery"; of Muslims mutilating little girls' genitals all "in the name of Allah" because the Qur'an and the Shari'a law tells them to.

I'm tired of being told that out of "tolerance for other cultures", we must let Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries use oil money to fund mosques and madrassas [Islamic schools] which preach hate and death to non-Muslims in Australia, New Zealand, the UK, America and Canada, while no one is allowed to fund a church, synagogue or religious school in Saudi Arabia or any other Arab country to teach about Christian love and tolerance.

I'm tired of being told that I must lower my living standard to fight global warming, which no one is allowed to debate.

I'm tired of being told that drug addicts have a disease, and I must help support and treat them, and pay for the damage they do. Did a giant germ rush out of a dark alley, grab them, and stuff white powder up their noses or stick a needle in their arm while they tried to fight it off?

I'm tired of hearing highly paid professional athletes, entertainers and politicians of all parties talking about their innocent mistakes, stupid mistakes or youthful mistakes, when we all know that their only mistake was getting caught.

I'm tired of people with a sense of entitlement, be they rich or poor.

I'm really tired of people who don't take responsibility for their lives and actions but instead merely blame the government, discrimination or whatever cause for their self-created problems.

I'm tired and fed up of young people in their teens and early 20s who bedeck themselves in tattoos, body piercings, and face studs which make them unemployable and then only expect money from the government.

Yes, I'm damn tired. But I'm also glad to be 76 because I know that I have only a few years left in this world, and then, I no longer have to further see how this world is rapidly deteriorating at the rate people are messing it up. Thank God, I am on my way out instead of on my way in.

However, I really pity the children and youth who have yet to face the ugliness in this world.

Note: The article above reportedly written by Bill Cosby, the well-known TV star, says it very well. It should be read by every man, woman, and child in the world who is able to read and can comprehend what he/she reads.

Is Democracy the Killer Of Liberty?

2011-11-13T05:00:00.002-05:00

I repeat: Is democracy the killer of liberty? The dictionary defines democracy as the rule of the people. Even at its best, "democracy is the worst form of government except for all the rest," according to Winston Churchill.

Is democracy a very bad form of government? Does it hold the threat of destroying humanity's most precious right - liberty? Here are some things to think about.

In the so-called democratic societies, a semblance of democracy hobbles along with fits and starts, always on the verge of complete subversion and collapse. For instance, the Western democracies are representative democracies where the ordinary citizens do not rule. A representative democracy is, in effect, a plutocracy where moneyed people and powerful interest groups rule.

A society's rulers form a pyramid. At the base of the pyramid, we have the closest thing to democracy. The individual citizen has some sway on the locally elected officials such as the sheriff, the mayor, the city councilman, and the like. As we go up the pyramid, the voice of the individual citizen diminishes while the influence of money and power groups expands.

It is a fact that, without funds, one cannot even run for the city's dogcatcher. At the very least, the aspiring candidate needs money for posters or some handbills to make himself known to the electorate and argue why they should elect him and not his opponent.

Never mind the post of the city's dogcatcher. How about seeking to be the mayor of New York City? Michael Bloomberg is presently serving his third term as the mayor of the city. This man is reportedly the 13th-wealthiest person in the world. He spent $73 million of his own money on his first term campaign ad and apparently he has spent at least $18.5 million of his own funds again for a third mayoral term in his 2009 campaign.

Is Bloomberg, one of the greatest contemporary titans of business, a fool to spend that kind of money for a post that doesn't pay even a fraction of what he is spending? No. He is not a fool. He may indeed be a great person running for a public office. That's beside the point. The point is that it takes huge amounts of money to become a part of the pyramid. And not everyone is a Michael Bloomberg with a very deep pocket and the willingness to tap it.

Bottom line: If you aspire to become a part of the ruling pyramid, you require funds commensurate with the position you seek. Unless you are a Michael Bloomberg, you need others to pony up the dough. And people don't part with their money unless they get something for it in return.

It is here that big money and interest groups come forward and deal-making takes place. In the process, the ordinary independent citizen is basically left out. The voter is presented with a choice between two equally purchased candidates or not voting at all. And you can see why so many people refuse to exercise their precious right of voting in elections.

This is bad enough. But, there is more danger in the wings. Equal to the corruptive role of money is block voting. A combination of money and block voting is the certain death knell of liberty. In a democracy, when a large number of people, motivated by an ideology or a common goal, marry their wallets with their votes, then liberty can be subverted and eventually completely wiped out. And that's exactly what Islam is doing in much of the world.

Reinvigorated fundamentalist Islam, flush with trillions of oil money, mostly from the pockets of the oblivious and uncaring "infidel" nations, is extinguishing the flames of liberty as it moves toward imposing the monolithic Islamic Sharia on lands near and far. The stone-age rule of Sharia is not limited to the ranks of the ever-swelling faithful, but encompasses all others.

The very word "Islam" is derived from the root word of "taslim," which means submission, submission to the will and dictates of Allah as stipulated by Muhammad and elucidated by the medieval Islamic clerics.

Free people withstood the assaults of tyrannies such as fascism and communism and paid dearly in preserving liberty. Now, liberty is once again in mortal danger. This time, it's from Islam. And democracy is indeed a great potential friend of the enemy.

As I mentioned earlier, money and powerful interest groups play the critical role in a representative democracy. Islam has them both and is using them both. In the traditionally democratic societies such as those of Europe, Canada, and the United States, wave after wave of Muslim immigrants are forming powerful blocks of voters. With virtually unlimited funds, these immigrant communities are running deep roots in towns and cities of the host countries and influencing the staffing of the governance pyramid.

In a democracy, a politician's first and foremost priority is to get elected. Once elected, his highest priority is to get reelected. The imperative of getting elected makes, per force, the politician a representative of the forces that bring and keep him in office.

Unfortunately, there are about one and a half billion people deeply entrenched in many democracies, including the United States, who are enemies of democracy and devotees of Ummahism -- the Islamic theocracy, theocracy of the kind that rules in places such as Saudi Arabia -- a Sunni version -- and Iran -- a Shi'a' version. It is a fact that in Islamic societies liberty is dead. The individual is a vessel of the state and the state is the executor of the suffocating Sharia law.

Lest my warning be seen as the unwarranted rants of an alarmist, all one needs is to observe what is already happening in these newly Muslim-invaded lands. Sharia law is already in effect in many places in Europe. Significant numbers of indigenous Europeans are either fleeing to other lands or are so hopeless regarding their way of life that they refrain from having children. Even in the United States and Canada, the bulging Muslim populations are more and more aggressively pressing for adoption of the Sharia law.

Demographic changes in a democracy play a critical role in shaping the society. For example, only a couple of hundred thousand Muslims lived in the U.S. only two decades ago. By 2008, the number has swelled to a claimed seven to nine million. Once the numbers are wedded to the deep pockets of the Wahhabi and Shi'a paymaster, the fate of freedom is in serious jeopardy.

Beginning with the Constitution's adoption, America has been a Republic. But the dominant trend over the last two centuries has been to make it into a democracy as well, a representative democracy, also known as a democratic republic. A woman asked Benjamin Franklin what type of government the Constitution was bringing into existence. Franklin replied, “A republic, if you can keep it.” Democracy is the guardian of our liberty. Imbedded in democracy are provisions that can make it implode from within. Democracy also has its own guardian: A resolutely vigilant, proactive and ethical citizenry.

What can be done? Is there a way of resisting and reversing the imminent coming Islamic assault on our most cherished right of liberty? Here are some suggestions.

* Become an active worker of liberty; instead of a passive non-caring devil-may care nihilists. Many Europeans are already paying the price of non-caring complacency as Islam is rapidly gaining greater and greater power and casting its suffocating pall on their lives.

* Interact with Muslims in your locality and try to wean them away from Islam by pointing out how the Quran and the clergy are enslaving them in a defunct ideology of intolerance, backwardness and death.

* Use the political process, while it is still responsive to the demands and wishes of freedom-loving people, by supporting laws that guard freedom and reject those that infringe on liberty.

*Actively support political candidates who are deeply committed to the tenets of freedom.

* Run for office, any office. Encourage your friends and other liberty advocates to pitch in and help in any way they can.

* Hold to account those politicians who sell themselves to the Islamists and promote Islam. These for-hire politicians will do anything they can to keep their position and benefit from the generous financial backing of the Islamists.

* Be an active educator by informing others about the creeping danger of Islamism. Islamism is seriously eroding the very foundation of liberty by a variety of means. Powerful moneyed Islamic organizations threaten anyone who dares to criticize Islam with ruinous lawsuits and even death.

* Contribute money, small or large amounts, to causes and individuals who are fighting to preserve liberty. As the old saying goes, freedom is not free.

In short, liberty is your most prized possession and democracy is the shield that protects it. Yet, this shield of democracy is vulnerable and needs to be repaired and strengthened on a regular basis. I am calling on you, the individual freedom-loving person, to play your part in the defense of freedom; not only for your sake, but also for mine and all others who cherish this precious blessing of life.

By Amil Imani

Note: FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor Amil Imani is an Iranian-American writer, poet, satirist, novelist, essayist, literary translator, public speaker and political analyst who has been writing and speaking out about the danger of radical Islam both in America and internationally. He has become a formidable voice in the United States against the danger of global jihad and Islamization of America. He maintains a website at www.amilimani.com. Imani is the author of the riveting book Obama Meets Ahmadinejad and the thriller Operation Persian Gulf.